Just doodling around

Having read that quite a lot of Cam23ers like Doodle for organising events and meetings I have to say I'm very disapointed by its functionality and capability.  Maybe I tried to do too much at once, but the concept of putting different options and then different dates for those options were too much for Doodle to cope with.

Eventually I ended up with a single event with multiple dates, which is fine, but meant I had to create 6 different events to achieve the desired result.

I'm finding that Doodle is all well and good if people respond to the email and enter their answer on the Doodle poll.  In reality people have emailed me with the answers after looking at the poll, so I think the concept has been lost on some people! 

In previous positions I've found it easy to set up meetings as some calendars, ie. Outlook, have meeting invite options, although that does only work within the particular organisation. So, I can see that Doodle does have a use for organising meetings across the Cambridge Libraries system.  However, I'm having difficulty seeing how it could usefully be used in libraries, interacting with students.  It make be useful to see when your library reps are free for Library Committee Meetings.  This example would not work for me however, as my Library Committee Meetings are pre-scheduled in the College calendar.

You can't judge a blog by its title

Having just read the news that Cam23 now has 100 bloggers, now is perhaps not the best time to get to Thing 4 where perusing other people's blogs is the order of the day! Oh well as Shakespeare wrote "Once more unto the breach, dear friends".

I'm particularly drawn to read the blogs of those with unusal names which pull me in to see what they've got to say, for example Girl in the Moon, Whispers in the wilderness, or On silent white wings.

 

Similiarly the posts with interesting titles in Google Reader also do the same thing, for example How I learned to stop worrying and embrace Gaga, Batgirl and me or the disorder of multiple personalities and How google calendar is just a little bit like a trip to Lakeland

I think commenting on people's blog posts gives us an oportunity to discuss ideas, be reflective and think about how someone's else opinion affects your own, even if it can be a bit scary sending your views out into the wilderness of cyberspace.  One of the main advantages of having an anonymous blog, is it gives you a voice without exposing your identity in public.

Trying to make my own blog more exciting has been proving difficult. I couldn't seem to manipulate blogger into allowing more individuality in its layout, for example moving my picture next to the header. It could just be of course that my html skills need refreshing! Maybe Wordpress users are finding that easier to use.  Images that only seemed to want to appear "Centre Stage" as it were, with no variation after being uploaded. Having just said that and been playing around in Dashboard I've just found an updated editor which does exactly what I want!  Shame I didn't know about this before, its a steep uphill curve, this learning web 2.0 lark.

 

As for capturing screenshots, I must admit I always use Irfan View, (affectionately called "splat" by computer colleagues in another job, due to its squashed against a window look! ). Its excellent at capturing screen images and cropping them down to a specific area. Although I notice its not in the top 10 list of free software.

To conclude the more I blog, the more I enjoy it.  I am now thinking that as well as having a library Facebook page, a blog could be a fun thing to do as a method of interacting with students, and advertising library services.  Who knows "Librarians do Gaga" on You tube could be the makings of a blog post to advertise training sessions.

The trials and tribulations of blog creation

Create your own blog - that instruction for Thing 3 seemed pretty straight forward until the trepidation set in!


How many would be Cam23 bloggers sat there and did the following I wonder?:
a. panicked
b. questioned whether your writings be good enough and if anyone would read them
c. spent ages trying to think of a good blog name
d. stressed about the look and design
e. all of the above


Would I become "Marvin the Paranoid Anroid", or Lance Corporal Jones from "Dad's Army" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6wok7g7do&NR=1. If so then welcome to my world three weeks ago!

I think the hardest part for me was trying to think of a good blog name, as I find I pay more attention to the blogs with interesting names that draw me in to look at what their saying.

Eventually I decided on the name of Seshat Scribe, as I'm a keen egyptian fan. Seshat was the Ancient Egyptian goddess of wisdom, knowledge, record keeping and writing. She was also known as "Mistress of the House of Books" because she looked after the library of the gods and was the patron of all earthly libraries. I thought the name would therefore be apt for a librarian setting out on her first blogging journey.

Over the last 3 weeks, I've found I quite like blogging, but it does seem to take alot of time. I like to think about what I'm going to write and try to put it into context for any subsequent readers. I do agree with Larry Brauner's reason no. 23 http://online-social-networking.com/top-reasons-why-i-blog it does help me reflect on information and how it can be used. Evaluation and reflectivity are key tools in learning, and something we must do in order to improve services and not become too stale.

RSS feeds: is too much information bad for your health?

Really Simple Syndication or Rich Site Summary? This is apparently what RSS stands for, the first definition means absolutely nothing to me, whereas Rich Site Summary makes more sense. While I know what RSS feeds do and the main reasons why they are are used, I'm convinced that most people sign up to feeds but then never actually look at them! For example most libraries have RSS feeds for new books, but do our customers use them and find them useful. From personal experience I would say they are mainly used by academics, to see when a book they ordered has come in, not by the students themselves.

Its very possible to get overloaded with news and information that comes our way on a daily basis, whether its listening to the news, reading a newspaper, magazine or blog, receiving email, to having news items retweeted. To me RSS feeds seem to be an attempt to channel the masses of information produced by organisations and websites each day into manageable digestable chunks for the reader.

Therefore, I can see a use for Google reader, if you subscribe to lots of blogs and RSS feeds, keeping all the information in one place. This reduces the information flow from a raging torrent to a more manageable drip.

iGoogle! or Internet channel hopping

My first thought when I saw iGoogle was "what's the point?" Why do you need an aggregator when you can just go to the web site you want first? Normally I have facebook, twitter, hotmail and any other website I'm using, open on different tabs in Internet Explorer - hopping between each tab, a bit like Channel hopping on TV. I felt seeing all the different things on one page may be a bit too much all at once. The best part for me was the customization ability to have an "Indiana Jones" themed banner!

However after a couple of weeks of having an iGoogle page, I'm starting to change my mind. I find I use it a lot for catching up, rather than as a launch point for the different library resources I have on a separate tab.

I still think it has limitations in its functionality. Similar to using a general search across different databases, there's more functionality when using each site on its own. However that said, I do quite like being able to see what's happening at one time.

In terms of students, I can see this may be useful for MA and PhD students, as a good current awareness tool, when they need to keep up to date. Being able to have all the RSS feeds and information on one screen, aids information retrieval and saves time searching for information when set up correctly. I'm certainly going to think about adding this into skills training for Masters students as a means of keeping up to date along with zetoc and other alerting services.

The first writings of Seshat Scribe

The creation of a blog and blogging for Cam23 things seems a very daunting prospect when you have no idea of what you’re doing and it’s a totally new technology. However the aim of participating in Cam23 things is to learn about Web 2.0 technologies and how they can best be used in a library environment.

Normally I have to say that I’m the first person to trial the use of new technologies, especially when it comes to user education and information literacy. In 2002, I created an online library information skills course via WebCT for geography and anthropology students, which involved evaluating existing training materials and adapting them for use online. In another job I used smart board technology in user education sessions to point out relevant icons on websites, explain the use of Boolean operators and how brackets work when searching, and to get feedback during training.



I have also trialled Optivote (Personal Response Voting Systems) to gain an understanding of student knowledge before and after library and information skills sessions. I also used Camtasia to produce information skills videos for distance learning students, for example, “how to use journals” and created quizzes via our own in house VLE to test student knowledge.

I have always felt it’s extremely important for Librarians to continually evaluate their services and the way in which we provide them, especially if that can help and encourage students in their learning. New technologies can help us engage more with our students and be a part of their learning, whilst allowing them to learn at their own pace.

Given this how can Web 2.0 technologies be utilised in the same way?

Strolling around various libraries over the last couple of years has allowed me discover what students actually do while using the computers we provide. Most I have to say seem to be chatting to friends via Facebook Chat, others are logged onto MySpace or Bebo, and some are viewing videos via You Tube. Not many actually seem to be working or using library resources, but sorting out their social lives. Or is that not actually the case?

I am a true believer that people learn in different ways and we should at least be aware of that fact. Is the person using Facebook Chat whilst in a library training session not paying you any attention? Or are they helping another friend in the room who is struggling to understanding what your saying and too shy to ask?

Students no longer seem to use the same methods of studying or communicating that I did; they seem to multi-task with various technologies and have lots of open windows. I have seen students frantically typing up assignments, researching for music and class division articles on Jstor and checking their email, whilst still arranging that night’s party on Facebook at the same time. I have also realised that watching You Tube videos were part of their studies, and in some cases lecturers had used podcasts to keep their classes fresh and interesting. Others had set up Facebook discussion groups for class assignments, again trying to integrate and engage students.

I have always wanted to use some Web 2.0 technologies as I feel they have a valuable role to play in passing on library information. Eventually in April this year, I set up a Facebook page for our library and have to say was surprised to find that within two days of its promotion we had 73 friends, despite having a small student population!



While this use of Web 2.0 has been successful, I’m not quite as convinced by Twitter, even though the training provided by the UL was good. Maybe this is because I use Facebook a lot myself and am more familiar with using it. I seem to be very slow at grasping what Twitter is all about. The wording even confuses me, i.e. “tweet”, what’s it all about? In the same way as Facebook status updates, tweeting seems to involve people telling you what their doing with their day. At the moment I’m finding it hard to see whether students would follow my library tweetings, but then surely its just another method of communication.

If students are changing the ways in which they learn and communicate, then Librarians perhaps need to evaluate and update the way in which we communicate with our students and be more open to providing services using these new technologies. Having said that I don’t believe we should use every single Web 2.0 technology if its not useful and we don’t really see how it can work in our library environment. Selectivity seems the best policy.

So with all that in mind, I shall try to be open to Web 2.0 technologies for the time being and work through the 23 things, whilst evaluating whether they can help improve library services to students.