Category: Conferences Notes

The 24th Thing: What’s Next?

Helene Blowers was unable to be at this session, so a panel will be taking her place.

Sean Robinson (Allen County Public Library)

43 Things — Stephen Abrams idea originally

23 Things — Helene Blowers idea originally

What is your vision with these tools that have been learned in 23 Things programs?

  • engage
  • enrich
  • empower

Enrichment: message to resonate. Blogging, want people to read it that isn’t your relatives.

Empower: fight for what you love.

What is your strategy, then, to use all of these tools? Why are blogging? Using social media?

3 Questions

  1. How are people finding us? Crack dealers go out and find customers; where are people coming to your library’s website? Looking at Google Analytics statistics. Piggyback on other events or situations. Other way to connect? Visitors Center; Schools/Media Centers; City Government; Convention Bureau;
  2. What are their interests?
  3. What are they saying?
  1. you have to be useful to people in new and interesting ways.
    1. Columbus Public Library collaborating with convention bureau.
    2. Chattanooga collaborating with the City on Facebook.
    3. Look at what other libraries are doing and make the connection; don’t reinvent the wheel.
  2. Engagement is not an idea it is a practice.
  3. Grow some bigger ears. Twitter Search; Google Alerts.

Slides on Slideshare (link coming later)

Michael Sauers & Christa Burns

Learning 2.0 @ the nebraska library commission

Nebraska learns 2.0 (statewide program)

50 % completion rate (due to 15 ce credits at the state level, they think)

What’s next for Nebraska? Participants asked for more learning after the program ended.

Nebraska is now doing an ongoing 23 Things program. New thing posted every month. Been doing this for a year now.

What not to do…

  • Didn’t promote the program, except for when they first started the “next thing”
  • Must continue to promote the program
  • Don’t drop the ball.
  • The participants want to continue to learn, but need continual reminders.
  • Leaders have to also participate AND weren’t participating.

Sidenote: Google Wave dropped the ball initially — no reminders.

Lori Reed

23 Things program originally was going to be 43 Things.

How are libraries supposed to innovate in a time of “change”, of budget cuts? Charlotte’s situation and many other libraries’ budgets situations.

Charlotte’s closings & budget cuts & staff layoffs. Horrible to watch it happen. Go through the stages of grief. Anger. Denial. Acceptance.

“In calm weather, all ships have good captains.” –Swedish proverb, often attributed to Adam Smith.

Personally, to get through this, SaveLibraries.org created the next day.

  1. Innovation is more than technology. Are meetings necessary? “Death by Meeting” book recommended. Business model. Services reviewed.
  2. Be willing to do what’s right for the organization and profession, even if it means losing your job. Can’t have libraries for just libraries’ sake. Be what our users need and want. We can’t fight for services that people don’t want.
  3. You can’t communicate too much. Twitter has become the new communication tool for staff during meetings, posting to online news sites. Staff have projector with live twitter stream during board meetings.
  4. Accept the fact that libraries are going to look very different in the future. The medium of a paper book is on its way out. Kids want to be a part of the story — have a computer, an iPod, an iPhone, an iPad.
  5. This is an opportunity. To learn. To grow. To adapt. To improve. Let go of what’s not working. We must do so to show why we’re relevant. We should never have to say why libraries are important.

Rebecca Jones — what are other libraries doing/further conversation…

  • Comment: Many people think that they aren’t going to close. But it happens.
  • Comment: CiL & Internet Librarian are only conferences where libraries of all types get together and learn from one another.
  • Nebraska’s program, were the new things a review of those covered in 23 Things? Right now, all the things have been new. But there has been discussion to revisit the old things.

Instructional Technology: It’s a Team Thing Session

Beth Filar Williams, Lynda Kellam, Amy Harris, Hannah Winkler
University of North Carolina-Greensboro (I think)

Will be presenting a story of their situation in technology tech planning.

Beth perspective

Meeting about instructional technology, developed goals, brainstormed what they wanted to do (games, JIT instruction, clickers, podcasts, blogs, and more). But what would be priorities? Used High Impact/Low Impact/High Effort/Low Effort matrix to prioritize. Considered the skills already present in the library.

High Impact/Low Effort best: wikis, clickers, pod/vodcasting/BB content/NetOpSchool.

What would work would vary at various institutions.

High Impact/High Effort: JIT instruction; Outcome-based assessment; tutorial toolbox; pre/post in BB

Low Impact/High Effort: Virtual Worlds; other games

Low Impact/Low Effort: BIZ game; subject specific content in info lit game.

Also decided who would serve on the committee about instructional technology on a regular basis.

Meet in collaboratories in the library. Have monitor mounted on the wall; different laptops can be plugged into it; different laptops can be shared.

Lynda

Team organization:

Beth was the one with the tech experience; good leader (organized); she also found all the new tools and shared them with the staff.

Hannah is the digital designer for the library; also enjoys podcasting & videowork

Amy: information literacy & instruction librarian.

Lynda: is the data librarian; screencasts & tutorials interest.

Group started to fit together like a puzzle. “Teamwork is how stuff gets done.”

Amy

Group had a lot of great ideas in the pipeline going. Then, the great budget freeze of 2009. Everything came to a stopping point, and had to be re-prioritized. The group had to decide what they could do without any money.

  • University Teaching & Learning Center had video cameras; the library borrowed those cameras to create tutorials; also used Jing from screencasting.

Now, the library has some extra money available. Because they have priorities already identified, they were able to buy clickers, buy software (Camtasia), buy a fancy video camera, and buy a boom microphone.

Hannah

After the halt of spending and no time, suddenly the flood gates opened, and the staff had a mad scramble to use their resources in a certain amount of time. Staff created plagiarism tutorial/podcast. Team used their skills to get these projects going.

Process for Plagiarism Tutorial:

Step 1: Amy — resources & experience what professors were looking for, what students were looking for & knew, and what they still needed to learn. Her previous knowledge & experience helped in knowing how to creating each step of the storyboard.

Step 2: Lynda — idea person. Great resource for putting together large projects. Good at coordinating the details, the scripts, and the coordination efforts.

Step 3: Beth — she had the mad skills (digital ones, esp). She also went above and beyond in learning how to use the tools (learning how to use audacity, camtasia, storyboard editing, using video equipment, etc.)

Step 4: Hannah — pick up the pieces left over — converting SWF files; trial versions of software; last-minute editing; last-second grab actors; little details of the technical process.

UNCG Libraries Plagiarism Tutorial

Team capitalized on each individual’s strengths & skills to build the tutorials. They were not required to be on this team, volunteer basis. Other barriers and time constraints come into play — come from different departments, and have other jobs, too. Team used blog for communication, for archival purposes (staff-turnover), furthers the community around their content.

What did the team learn?

Requirements to be successful:

  • Flexibility — KEY
  • Creativity
  • Innovation

Decided to NOT do everything. Not enough people, time, or money. Taught them to prioritize stuff and users.

Jing videos can’t be redone, aren’t as polished, but do still work and work well.

Have learned to share. MCLITE (Multi-Campus Library Instructional Technology) — share with Duke, UNC, etc., and learn from one another

Followup/Future Plans

MCLITE, inviting smaller colleges in the area, that don’t have instructional technology teams or librarians, who might be interested in using the resources that other libraries have, or the tools that they use.

Assignment Calculators…

Demo tools virtually or in the library, to do both internal training for librarians, for faculty at the campus, etc.

Tutorials page at UNCG

Working to build 10 total modules for research skills with games, screencasts, information. Hope to add capability to allow for work to be saved, so students can go back

Instructional Tech Portal built in the future: tools available, ways to use those tools, how it works, and who has the expertise with the tool on staff. Looking to get a grant to get student help to help with the information.

Podcast that the team works on and releases. Its schedule is intermittent, as the team has time.

“Other tutorials UNCG has created and embedded into CMS and course guides http://bit.ly/b9Bz41 #cil2010″ –@kmdevoe

Discussion

Computer students at a small university had to create tutorials as part of their class; some came to the library and helped the librarians create some new tutorials for the library. Both groups win — the students learn new skills in tutorial creation & the library gets great tutorials, without much effort on the library’s part.

Does UNCG use LibGuides? Not really right now. Just getting LibGuides use off the ground. Doing some usability testing on what students want and what the students want to see.

Training in the Cloud Session

I went on a DC exploration adventure this morning with Jodi and Earl, instead of attending the morning sessions. We saw the monuments and went through the Library of Congress. We all ended up requesting and getting reader room cards. We used the library’s computers and tried to request a few books before discovering how long it would take to get the books, so we gave up and came back.

As a result of those adventures, I missed the Training in the Cloud Session, but am grateful to Bobbi & Maurice for posting a link to a web site for their session. I will definitely be checking it out!

Virtual Learning and Training

Teaching and Learning with Drupal
Meredith Farkas, Norwich University

Transferring face-to-face classes straight to online classes doesn’t work. They are boring. Something is lost in translation?

What gets lost is the before- & after-class interaction; the in-class interaction; this hasn’t always been transferred to online learning.

Web 2.0 ideas for the classroom.

  • age of participation
  • the wisdom of crowds
  • social constructivism
  • instructor is facilitator; everyone learns, even the instructor

Meredith used Drupal, an OS CMS, in her instruction, instead of the school’s current learning management system.

  • multiple blogs
  • wikis
  • forums
  • static html
  • lots of options available in Drupal

She has taught three semesters of classes online so far. The important part has been the class participation, and the commenting that has gone on in the class.

Why blogs?

  • faculty communication with students — “housekeeping” category posts
  • familiar medium
  • builds student sense of ownership over the medium (with forums, you don’t own the space; you just post there; with own blog, it’s your space)
  • community-building: students interacted and connected online, much more human medium where they be themselves, informal.
    • “this was probably the most engaging class i’ve taken because were were required to interact with each other every week…” –comment from student
  • Reflective learning: reflect on the experience of reading, process it, and write about how it affects you. Reflect on other discussions.
  • Discussion and debate: when you have to critique or justify your ideas, you are able to start to clarify your own ideas better and own them.
  • Writing in public: gain experience writing for an outside audience, while in school, not just your class reading your stuff; professional blogging beginning already
  • Everyone is teacher and learner: reading and teaching not as important as the conversations that went on in the class, so everyone learns and teaches.

Blogs can:

  • promote critical and reflective thinking
  • enable collaboration and knowledge-saharing
  • create an informal environment for student discussion and community-building
  • encourage dialogue and debate
  • encourage students to teach as well as learn and co-construct their learning experience

Using blogs for teaching brings in much more real-world experience.

Blogging at the American University in Cairo
Joan Petit, Portland State University

Worked at the American University in Cairo for two years.

It’s a US-accredited institution; has a required info lit class; mostly Egyptians; English as 2nd or 3rd language; no libraries there; no critical thinking taught in high school; no research papers in class before college. This situation presents challenges for the information literacy course that’s required.

OLD LALT 101 class

  • research project
  • Quizzes — graded automatically
  • WebCT
  • PowerPoints — instructor would read through the slides
  • 20% increase from pre- to post-test
  • Light workload for librarians; not much prepwork

New LALT 101: class wiki

  • Strict attendence — if you came to class & did the assignments, you’d pass.
  • Easier to pass
  • All students had to blog
    • weekly posts
    • assigned topics
    • political blogging in Egypt
    • Final project in blog — just a blog entry
    • Student Blog #1
    • Student Blog #2
      • Students could have public or private blogs

WordPress blogs resulted in for staff:

  • near-disaster
  • platform is not-so-simple
  • technology issues
  • instructors thought the students hated it

Student feedback

  • they loved the blogging.
  • the instructors couldn’t back off the blogging approach because the students hated taking the rest of the class. Since they bought into the blogging portion of the class, it had to remain.

The Lessons

  • Looking good on paper isn’t enough
  • Take advantage of key moments
  • Own your disasters
  • Define success
  • The most exciting technology isn’t always the best for users
  • Ill-considered hastily implemented can be a great success: if this had gone before a committee, it wouldn’t have happened.

Comments at the End

Meredith: students felt ownership of their classroom through the online structure of the class.

Joan: you find the technology that works for the students, play around with it, even with engineering students.

Meredith: so many different ways to engage your students in learning; you just have to find ways to engage the students so that they learn.

Joan: hear what the students are saying in response to what’s being used.

Meredith: how to get students to comment on each other’s stuff? not sure if an environment caused this or if it was the students themselves.

Digital Managers Sound Off

Bobbi Newman, David King, Sarah Houghton-Jan, Matt Hamilton

#dbsoundoff — session hashtag on Twitter

Panel Job Titles

David King: Digital Branch Manager, Topeka-Shawnee County Public Library

Sarah Houghton-Jan: Digital Futures Manager, San Jose Public Library. IT at Sarah’s library doesn’t want to support software on the machines, so she’s started doing that and making the decisions.

Bobbi Newman: Digital Branch Manager, Chatahoochee Valley Libraries. No staff, no funding. Liaison between IT and the rest of the library staff. Translates between tech & non-techie. Does the technical training for the staff.

Matt Hamilton: missed his title, Boulder Public Library.

The panel arranged itself in gadget order: iPad–> Full-size laptop.

What do you really do in your job daily (not job title/description) ?

Matt Hamilton: lots of meetings; tries not to get too hands-on, tries to avoid micro-managing, but spends lots of time on server administration.

Bobbi Newman: library looking for ILS — asks hard questions about how system will look to patrons — what she care about; staff & patron training; OverDrive; goes to manager meetings; teen service & children services meetings — what they need in the digital branch; web site redesign moving forward. Bobbi spends a lot of time explaining things.

Sarah Houghton-Jan: Spends more than half her time in meetings. Group wants a tech expert on hand, but isn’t doing much. Serves on 16 teams/formal committees & chairs 4 of those. As a result, doesn’t do a good job managing her own staff. Balancing needs of public library uses vs. merged entity. Wishes she could do more project management.

David King: goes to a bunch of meetings; types & talks a lot. Managers meetings, department meetings. Lots of emails, since he works in the basement. Project management — starts out heavily involved with it, and then hands it off (like Facebook page). Techs good at the tech stuff, not the people stuff. David deals with much of the people stuff as a result.

Educational background

David King: started touching computers in high school; college — found out you could get 10% extra credit by typing papers on computers. Went to library school. First job as electronic services librarian (involved putting ProQuest CDs in every month). Put in charge of that library’s website. And everything just developed and took off from there. No formal IT background, except for not being afraid to tinker & break things.

Sarah Houghton-Jan: English/math background. Got interested in libraries. Took HTML class, Dialog class during MLS studying. Nothing else available at the time. Got told one day that she was the webmaster because she took an HTML class & “good luck!”.

Bobbi Newman: wouldn’t take no for an answer. Has history degree, then got MLS. Worked with engineers for awhile. Then switched to public library sector. Saw something on a listserv about newer technologies. Fought with IT staff to implement some of those things, and implemented it anyway. No formal training. Always been technogeek.

Matt Hamilton: Interest in computers for a long time. He went into it backwards from the others. Technology wasn’t interesting to him; wanted to help people. Libraries were a good fit. Tendency to ask for forgiveness, rather than permission on doing technology tasks at his library.

“r u designing virtual or digital spaces for service delivery using the same approach that physical spaces have been designed?” —rebeccajones

Sarah: library wanted digital branch to match the physical space. Fonts, colors, spaces.

David: keep 3 things in mind: we have two libraries: physical & digital ones; some stuff we can do digitally different from physical (and some stuff we can’t or can only do digitally); for some the digital branch will be our only library. Physical collections being divided into neighborhoods, zones. Example: Travel physical neighborhood. Digital branch has a travel blog. Customers are still customers regardless of the branch they enter.

Bobbi: 4-county library. some areas are the poorest, old buildings. but very new buildings also exist in her library system. How to make an approachable website for that drastic of a different community/library?

Matt: current websites of the library don’t necessarily reflect, refer back to the library itself. Spending current time, getting the sites under the Boulder Library banner. Currently moving library’s web presence into Drupal.

Do you let others post content to the websites?

Matt: allows others to post, tries to find those with expertise in certain areas to post. Lots spend time encouraging people to post. Helping people realize they can add content to the site.

Bobbi: Old site still up since she arrived a year ago. Marketing department only one that posts content to the site. Teens/Children/Senior Citizens/New Materials/Genealogy areas would have sections on the section. Bobbi’s job is to facilitate the content, not create it.

Sarah: marketing department of 1 and that person had most of the control of the site at the time; that control has mostly been taken away. She thought she could moderate social media presence and comments. Sarah tries to encourage people to post and create. About 70 people are content creators are on the site.

David: marketing person didn’t want to manage all the content after all. Also, inherited a job where a lot of stuff was locked down on staff and patron computers throughout the library. Took awhile to get rid of that locked down stuff. Content creation? He doesn’t do much of this. He encourages, mentors people on their own content creation. He does write a bit for the site, and creates videos weekly for the site about technology. Staff then say “that if he’s doing that, I can write a blog post.”

Archiving Issues

David: doesn’t have to do this at his library.

Sarah: state law requires archiving — including Facebook. Utter waste of staff time.

Matt: discussion has gone on, but city record manager so far has said the library doesn’t need to.

Question: lots of time spent on building communities. How much time do you spend on looking at technology trends and how to leverage those?

Matt: attends local community tech groups, Drupal groups. Brings people from the community into some of the libraries’ discussion.

Bobbi: her library is moving slow — part of a school district. Wishes she’d be able to do more community engagement and content creation.

Sarah: does all of that on her own time. Research & trend-spotting has to be done at home. Gets into trouble looking at her PDA at work. Wishes she had more time.

David: doesn’t have a lot of time to do it. Keeps up shallowly (email, twitter running in the background at all time). Takes a look at RSS feeds at home. It’s a hobby, looks at it at home. Enjoys looking at this stuff at all times.