Did You Know?

New Student Orientation is in full swing at the University of Arizona, and I’m coordinating the library conference sessions that take place during lunch, across from a number of other sessions. We don’t always have the biggest crowds turn out, but it’s still worth it to reach those few students & parents.

To help draw them in, and give them something to watch while they’re waiting for the session to start, I play this video, “Did You Know?”:

 

It’s a great illustration of information overload. Once the video ends, I explain that it seems appropriate since libraries are all about information, and helping you navigate through the incredibly vast world of information…

LOEX Presentation: Developing an Online Credit-bearing Information Fluency Course: Lessons Learned

Last Friday, I presented at the LOEX Annual Conference with colleagues Leslie Sult and Yvonne Mery. The title of our talk was, “Developing an Online Credit-bearing Information Fluency Course: Lessons Learned.” We reviewed how we developed, implemented, and evaluated the undergraduate Skillful Researcher (UNVR195a) course. To get some backgound, you can take a look at my post from last April when the class was first approved.

We had a good turnout, and the audience actively participated by asking questions and sharing their own experiences. It seemed like a very timely topic, as many other instruction librarians are going towards both online teaching and credit-bearing courses.

Here is our powerpoint to give you an idea of what we talked about, I hope others find this helpful and share any comments:

We also had a handout with a list of things to Try and to Avoid in online instruction, which I’ll share here:

Try It	Avoid It
Establishing and following course objectives	Designing as you go
Keeping tutorials short	Trying to put everything in one tutorial
Keeping text to a minimum	Overusing text
Using smart graphics	Using images that are purely decorative
Including audio	Overusing PowerPoint
Using provocative discussion questions	Making assignments the discussion questions
Including self-assessments	Depending only on quizzes for students’ assessment
Participating in discussions	Assuming students will participate in  discussions on their own
Grading discussions	Having optional discussions
Writing clear directions	Assuming students will know what to do
Paying close attention to course navigation	Over-depending on the navigation in the CMS
Responding to students promptly	Assuming that students do not need immediate feedback
Listening to feedback	Ever thinking you’re “done”
Preparing for a significant time commitment	Assuming teaching will be less work because it’s online

What Librarians Can Learn from E-Learning Professionals

Last week I attended the E-Learning Guild Annual Conference in Orlando, FL. It was something a colleague had run across a couple of months ago and thought would be appropriate to attend, as we are in the process of creating another online course.

It was absolutely enlightening! There is a whole world of E-Learning professionals out there that I didn’t even know existed. Primarily those that attended the conference were instructional designers (IDs) that either work for a corporation or non-profit or are consultants. They receive content from subject matter experts (SMEs) that they are then to make into an online learning object, and distributed across the country (or world) to the company’s employees. It’s for training purposes, mostly.

These E-Learning professionals have been doing this sort of thing for years, becoming experts in the fields of displaying online content, designing for online learners, and assessment through online mechanisms.

I can’t possibly share everything that I learned, but I will share some key points that are important to us as librarians.

1. Rapid e-learning tools are fantastic, and there are plenty of them out there. You don’t need to learn Flash or XML. At my library we already have Articulate, which is a big one, but I learned about other options such as Adobe Presenter, FlyPaper, Raptivity, and Lectora. There’ s also programs like CodeBaby where you can create animated characters who speak to each other. Very cool. They can be expensive, but these companies often offer academic discounts, and you can usually get a trial to test it out and see if it’s worth the money. Why is this a big deal? By taking advantage of these tools, librarians will no longer have to go to their software programmers or try to learn programming skills to create this stuff. These tools can usually be self-taught and require little technology-savviness. And they have great help forums.
2. Designing instruction for online learning is far different than designing it for face-to-face sessions. But fortunately, there is a lot of research and a ton of books out there on how to design effective online instruction. Check out Empowering Online Learning, Making Sense of Online Learning, the Online Learning Idea Book, and the E-Learning Handbook (which are all now on my Goodreads “to read” list). Here are some tips I picked up:

• Don’t make them read. Construct your use of text very carefully. Use tables and graphics and images where appropriate. Always set a context for the learner. Always make the experience a conversation between teacher (or computer) and learner. Read Letting Go of the Words (the author, Ginny Redish, was a conference speaker on this topic and was fantastic).
• Take a lesson or two from infomercials. Find ways to draw your student in by telling them what this will do for them, and why it’s worth their time. Keep it simple, but incorporate stories, and use testimonials and quotes from experts to further convince them that this instructional tutorial is worth their time.
• Aesthetics matter, so remember a few simple rules. Use just one font type in one section, reserving any alternate font for important messages you want to get the students attention. Use different font sizes to distinguish headers from main points from supporting points. Don’t use decorative fonts, ever. And be consistent. Use good color schemes – Adobe Kuler is a great resource for selecting attractive color schemes.

I believe as instructional librarians are getting more pressure to produce online tutorials, classes, and other content – we should reach out to those that are experts in exactly that.

If you are involved in building online instruction or tutorials, I highly recommend attending a conference geared towards e-learning professionals. In addition to the E-Learning Guild conference, there is DevCon and DevLearn both happening this year. I have to say it’s possibly the most worthwhile and practical conference I’ve been to since becoming a librarian!

Follow Up to Last Year’s Resolutions

A year ago, I wrote a post listing some New Year’s Resolutions for libraries and librarians. Reflecting on the past year, 2008, let me give some updates…

1. Continuous learning and sharing of knowledge. Somewhat successful. I like to think that this year I’ve strived to learn more and share with others, although learning one new thing a day turned out to be a little too ambitious. As the learning environments scanner I have learned a lot about ways libraries (particularly our library) can improve our spaces to encourage learning and discovery, and I’ve shared this. What’s now actually done with this knowledge is still up in the air, though…

Webcasts are a good way to connect librarians & their ideas with each other, and I’ve participated in a great number of these this year, inviting the rest of the library to join me. These have been pretty successful and started up some good conversations. With some encouragement from my team leader, I’m also now creating summaries of them and sending them out through e-mail for those who miss them.

Conferences are a great way to share knowledge. Interestingly, this is my first year as a “real” librarian but my first year since entering the field that I haven’t gone to ALA Annual. I was in New Orleans and in D.C., but didn’t make it to Anaheim. That said, I am for the first time submitting ideas for presentations and poster sessions – so hopefully this will progress and I can play a more active role in conferences in the future.

2. Marketing, library-style. The library’s still working on this, but making good progress. This year we hired our very first Director of Marketing. She was in library school (and the library student organization) with me and will be fantastic at this job. Starting in the new year I get to participate in the library-wide Strategic Marketing Group, which will bring a marketing plan forefront and hopefully increase our popularity among our users as well as our visibility on campus.

3. Emerging technologies. This is still a big one, and boy have I learned a lot over the past year in this area. I’ve learned content authoring and screen capturing software such as Camtasia, Captivate, Articulate, and SoftChalk. Having to create an online class really helped with this, and over the next year online courses are a big priority for the library so more of us will be learning and utilizing these technologies to reach more students.

4. Usability. Well, not surprisingly, our users still don’t think we’re doing very well in this area. The good news is we have a website redesign team currently working diligently to improve its usability. We’re also getting WorldCat Local, which could make big improvements to our catalog interface. So stay tuned.

I don’t think any of these resolutions should go away in 2009, but be reconsidered and perhaps reinvigorated. What are the challenges in accomplishing these? Is this where we should focus our attention, especially given the dreaded budget cuts? Time may tell…

Coffee, Snacks, and Other Fun Things

Once again, at the end of the semester the library hosted a Finals Study Break for all students to come take a break, relax, and have some free coffee & snacks.

Students Take a Break

Last semester we did this for the first time, and used money donated from team event funds. This time we did things a little bit differently. I had approached Starbucks and Sunflower Market for donations to no avail – then I thought how about just asking for library staff to pitch in? We have a hundred or so people working here – if everyone just gave a little bit we’d be all set. So that’s what happened.

28 librarians and library staff donated everything from coffee grounds to cookies to napkins to fresh fruit to homemade pumpkin bread. One fantastic administrative assistant brought in a huge igloo cooler full of hot chocolate. We got three huge coffee urns, a hot water heater, tea bags, juice bottles, and bottled water.

The event was held on Sunday night from 7:30-9:30pm. This is arguably the busiest night in the semester, and it was packed. Over the course of two hours, we served 365 students.

Students Waiting in Line

We ramped it up a little this round to make it more of an experience. We played classical guitar music and had a gorgeous poinsettia as well as lit candles to set the mood. I had a massage pad I brought in so students could get a quick massage before dashing back to their study rooms. We had comfy chairs and tables set up so there was space for students to sit down for a few minutes and relax. We had a yoga teacher lined up who was going to host a couple of sessions that taught breathing & relaxation, but unfortunately she got a migraine headache at the last minute and had to cancel.

A student enjoys the massage chair

Overall? Huge success. With very minimal work and staff time, and a budget of zero dollars, we reached 365 students. What is the outcome of this, you ask? Why would we want to just give away free food and drinks? Here’s why:

• The library is often seen as an unwelcoming place, and we really want to work on this image. What’s more welcoming than free snacks when you walk in the door?
• We want the students to know that we understand this stressful time of the semester, and we appreciate all the work that they do.
• Students get really stressed out this time of year, and they deserve a break. They will become more productive and more academically successful if they take a break from their papers or projects and get some nourishment.
• Libraries can be places of leisure and relaxation, not just work work work. This event encourages this idea.
• Libraries can also be places of community. This is a good way to bring both students and librarians together.

As long as the genorosity of library staff stays strong, we can sustain this event each semester, and reach our students in new, fun ways.

With an economy in a downward spiral…

Citizens all over the United States are turning to their public libraries for books, computers, and children’s programming.

Take a look at this MSNBC story here.

As a land grant institution, the UA Libraries also serves our local Tucson community. In these tough times it’s more important than ever that we remember our land grant mission. We provide our community users with access to computers, books, cultural events & exhibits, and electronic information resources that can not only enrich their lives, but can get them the information they need to be successful even in these tough economic times…

Outreach: The Potential of Collaboration

Yesterday I attended the second meeting of the new UA Outreach Collaborative, a group formed with the intention of bringing together outreach forces campus-wide to form partnerships, communicate our activities, share best practices, and avoid the all-too-common re-inventing of the wheel.  

It’s exciting for me to meet faculty and staff from across campus that are involved in all different levels of outreach – from the Department of Education to the College of Science to the Lunar and Planetary Labratory to the Arizona State Museum to BIO5… all working on community outreach activities. Reaching out to K-12, teachers, families, and underrepresented populations. At first it was a little daunting – we all have such different missions, what do we all have in common? What can we achieve by communicating with each other? 

After a “speed dating” networking session I came away with a few ideas of where this collaborative group might lead:

1. The Arizona State Museum has a number of educational programs going on throughout the year; part of their mission is to promote literacy. They partner with the Pima County Public Library but not with us. Could the campus library play a role here?
2. Junior Scientist’s Day, a family event coordinated by the Library and held at the Science-Engineering Library, is coming up this weekend. We have over a dozen tables and participants from the university and beyond. We could hold more educational events like this, and having contacts around campus could really facilitate the creation of such events.
3. At the library we have space for exhibits, both at Main and Science-Engineering, space that goes empty to often. We also have big meeting rooms and an electronic classroom perfect for workshops and trainings. Let’s take advantage of these, and invite others to use our resources for outreach purposes. When we bring together our assets we increase the possiblities of what we can do.

I’m hopeful that continuing to have these monthly meetings and bringing the outreach community together will open up doors and encourage creative new projects. As someone new to the “outreach” world of librarianship, this is an exciting concept…

Captivate vs. Camtasia: Captivate Wins

I wrote a post awhile back attempting to compare these two software products that can be used for creating interactive screencapturing videos. I spent months learning the ins and outs of Camtasia, creating a number of videos that are now being used in the library. Now we have Captivate keyserved, so I finally have it on my computer and have had a chance to spend time with it and get to know it a little better. Conclusion? Captivate is much easier, cleaner, dynamic, and creates a nicer final product than Camtasia.

We had a training open to all library staff earlier this week on Captivate. Here is what we have determined:

• Captivate projects are easier to edit: you can copy and paste slides, delete and add sections, & extend time frames in a much easier manner than in Camtasia. In Camtasia you can screen draw and select mouse options before and during the recording phase, but cannot change this in editing mode. You have to start over. Captivate lets you play with these options afterward. So if you mess up during recording, you don’t have to start all over again.
• Captivate saves you time: this is a smart software, and can actually add captions for you based on what you’re doing on the screen (like “click X,” “you are now on X page”). These are easy to alter or delete if you like, but if you want them this will save you a lot of time.
• Captivate quizzes are pretty: well, prettier than Camtasia’s. And you can actually preview them without publishing the project.
• Captivate allows interactivity: this is a big one, and one I mentioned in my previous post. You can select an area on the screen and the user has to click it to continue, or take them somewhere. Allows a lot more customization than Camtasia’s “hot spots.” There’s also a new feature in Captivate 3 called “branching,” where you can make your product even more dynamic as users go to different places and discover different things.

This doesn’t mean to say I’m writing Camtasia off completely. I do like it’s easy ability to record audio with powerpoints, and I like it’s preview screen which Captivate is lacking (have to select “preview” to see what the project looks like in motion and any changes you’ve made). That said, an intern at the library this summer spent 2 months messing with Camtasia trying to make a tutorial on searching for newspapers using Access World News. She was very frustrated, particularly with the screen drawing and audio quality. She spend less than a week with Captivate and made a nice, clean, professional product: http://www.library.arizona.edu/help/tutorials/courses/jour/accessworldnews/Tutorial.htm. That’s enough to convince me in the Captivate vs. Camtasia debate: Captivate Wins.

Focus? Me?

So my library recently went through a restructuring, and on the Undergraduate Services Team where I work we’re gaining two former science-engineering librarians, and losing one of our outreach librarians as well as our graphic designer. I am one of two new permanent librarians on the team, just hired a month ago. To help facilitate the transition, we had two days of teambuilding where we broke down all the work our team does and organized it into categories – outreach, instruction, training, reference & information commons, and the website. We were each placed in one or more of these categories based on our experience; I was put in outreach, reference & information commons, and training. Surprisingly I wasn’t put in instruction even though my job description is very heavy on instruction (I actually was put in there then removed because we had too many people there as it was & I was in too many groups). Then we went off in our groups to discuss that work and come up with a plan for how it’s going to get done.

So now I find myself being pulled in all different directions. Officially, just because you’re in the planning group for a certain category of work doesn’t mean you’ll actually be doing that work. But it’s hard to avoid it. And outreach is huge. There are 3 of us in this group and it looks like the 3 of us will be doing a lot with outreach. (Not to mention the fact that we’re changing seating arrangements in the office based on our work and I’m in the “outreach” group). Which I don’t mind because I really enjoy it, and actually even asked in my interview about if I would get to participate in outreach and was told “probably not.” Ironic, since this appears to be turning into my primary function. And while I’m not in the instruction group, I am teaching two sections of the Skillful Researcher this fall and have heard rumors my name is being proposed for a number of instructional types of work that needs to get done. I’m definitely big on the educational technology and have worked a lot with this in the past 8 months which I’d like to continue to do; I also love being in a classroom. And I am also interested in taking on a new role of looking closely at learning spaces and ways we can improve them. Not to mention reference & information commons & training.

Pretty soon our team leader will be sending out what all the groups have come up with for their categories of work, and team members get to share which ones they are interested in. The ultimate decision for who is doing what is being coordinated by the team leader. I realize I need to focus my energies, especially as a new librarian. And I want to avoid getting overwhelmed and losing quality in my work. At first I thought outreach was what I would most enjoy. Then I got into instruction and really liked it, and applied for this position believing instruction is what I was going to do. Reference and training is a place where I have a lot of experience and the background to do pretty well, and I can see how these can be improved which is really exciting to me. So now it’s time to do some soul searching and figure out how I want to focus, and I need to do it fast… yikes!

The Amazing Library Race 2008

This past Friday we held the 3rd annual Amazing Library Race: Desert Edition at the UA’s Main Library. We broke previous numbers and had 210 participants show up, including students, staff, faculty, and community members. To learn more about this event and how it all works, see my post from last year.

Amazing Library Race - Public Library Station

As an organizer this year, I spent all morning helping with setup and coordinating volunteers, then was a floater during the actual event, and helped with take down. By the time the Amazing Happy Hour started at 5:00 I was completely exhausted. But it was well worth it, and here’s why:

• Participants really learned a lot about library resources and services. They also learned about how to navigate the 5 story building, which is often intimidating – not to mention confusing – for newbies.
• It is the only event held in the library where we have this substantial number of participants who are our primary audience. Exhibits, lectures, and other events don’t even come close. The energy that’s present up and down the library stacks is something you really only get to see this one time a year.
• Marketing a lot this year has made the event known to the campus community. Even those that didn’t make it to the event itself very likely heard about it. We had hundreds of table toppers in the student union that week, and posters around University Blvd. where students are constantly passing by. While we only reached a small percentage of our audience during the actual 2 hour event, we reached many more in other ways.
• This event promotes an image that the library isn’t usually known for. Libraries and the people that work in libraries are fun. And approachable. And we want to help.
• Those that work in the library get to all come together to make this event possible. I coordinated over 60 volunteers to staff the stations & help with set-up and take-down. It’s a great opportunity to work with people you don’t see every day and don’t otherwise get to work with.
• Word of mouth is powerful. I think this event is extremely important, and hope those that joined us that day share some of what they learned with friends, classmates, and colleagues. The actual impact of this event is difficult to measure, but I truly think it has the potential to educate library users far and wide about the many services we offer.

Amazing Library Race - Presentation Practice Room

A few things were organized differently this year:

• Rather than having a raffle at the end of the event where we later contacted prize winners, we gave away all of our prizes during the actual event (with the exception of the grand prize – an IPod). To win prizes, students completed an activity or played a game. 4 prize stations could be found along the trail, but they weren’t advertised to avoid those stations getting backed up. Those that were successful could pick from a list of prizes. As time went on, obviously, the list got smaller. All prizes were gone soon after 2:00. The prize activities were:

Media Station: Play “Scene It?“. This could be answering a question about a movie clip, placing films in the order in which they were released, or guessing what movie an image is from.

Middle Eastern Studies Collection Station: Capitals of the Middle East. Pick a slip from a hat, where there would be the name of a Middle Eastern country’s capital. Correctly state the country’s name and you win. (We had a map displayed of the Middle East to help out a bit).

Reference Desk Station: Knock Down a Librarian. My wonderful colleague Forrest let us borrow his librarian action figure which we set up on a table with a backdrop of reference materials. You stand behind the line, are given a ball, and get one shot to knock her down.

Amazing Library Race - Knock Down a Librarian Game

Express Check-Out: Find a Bookmark. You select a book from a cart of books about desert survival. If the book you pick has an Amazing Race bookmark in it, you win.

• We also had some new stations this go around:

• University College. This is located in the Integrated Learning Center (ILC) right off the courtyard where we have our final station of free pizza, soda, & eegees. Undecided students, which is much of our audience, are a part of this college and receive advising here. Keith Rocci – who is also our partner in crime for the Skillful Researcher course – staffed this station and had students answer riddles to win a ton of prizes that they had purchased.
• Reference Desk. This was a station before but it was combined with the Presentation Practice Rooms; this time it stood alone so it could focus more on the reference services provided at this site.
• Maps. We added this to the microforms station, which is in the same section on the first floor, so students could pick between answering a maps question (based on maps on display) or a microforms question (based on microforms on display where they had to use the machine to find a certain news story). We also displayed a number of globes, including globes of the moon and astronomical globes, which many library users don’t even know that we have.

Amazing Library Race - Maps Station

• We invited students from SIRLS to volunteer for the event. Two did, and after helping handout flyers around campus they got to staff the stations, promote library services, interact with librarians, and have some fun participating a large scale orientation event.

• And we’re working harder to get feedback, so we can prove to the library that this event is worth the time, effort, and money that goes into it. We took CatCard numbers at the opening station so we can gather details on who participated. We are also going to send out a Survey Monkey to gather better feedback from both participants and volunteers. This is all in addition to the feedback form all the participants were asked to fill out during the race. My hope is that once we collect this data, we will have a stronger argument for why this event is important, why it should continue to be supported in the future.

NOTE: video from the event coming soon…