Author: dwakimoto

IL2008 Day 2 Wrap-up

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Another day done at IL 2008. Here are a few final thoughts for the day:

Best Presentation of the Day: 2.0 Learning and 1.8 Users–fabulous presentation, great LOL cats images, wonderful energy! This presentation was so energizing and makes you want to get out there and teach more! The presenters were so engaging and just lovely to hear speaking about what they are obviously passionate about.

Most Improved: Wireless only dropped 3 times during a presentation today in the DeAnza room. Way to go with progress, but still so ironic to have wifi problems at Internet Librarian.

Meta Take Home Message for the Day:
Make online resources for your patrons (we need to be where they are) and figure out what application is best for each task. (Not everything needs to be in Flash!) And remember to market your resources! Oh, and always, always, always make your resources accessible!

Blending Technologies for Library Promotion & Instruction: IL2008

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Blending Technologies for Library Promotion & Instruction

by May Chang, Margot Hanson, and Kevin Roddy

May Chang:
Video project started because students said they loved working at the library
All of this was volunteer, unpaid
Didn’t want a talking head, students are the best to show on the video
Story-based, brainstormed, storyboarded
Always takes longer than you think to make
Project took 4 months to do 5 minutes video

Hardware used:
Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T1000 camera

Applications:
Vegas Movie Studio
Camstasia Studio
SnagIt

Checklist:
Talent Release Form
Location
Camera-friendly clothing
Interview questions
Shooting schedule–hard to coordinate schedules
Script–don’t tell everything, don’t make it long

Assessing Information Literacy Online:
by: Margot Hanson & Kevin Roddy

IL (information literacy) tutorial-creation

Tutorial Includes:
Tutorial
Research Journal–guide to research process
IM chat help
Email access to librarians adn instructors
videos
links to other interactive content

Incorporates local interests, Hawaii research because indexing terms are not good for Hawaii research in some databases

Tutorial at www.hawaii.edu/lilo

Tutorial follows IL framework, starts simple and defines IL, builds from there

Assessment Challenges:
WASC–drives accreditation
Faculty Buy-in–show tests (ETS iSkills test, etc), standards, etc.
Analysis of data–data from student journals, give response rate to instructors, all about improvement

Take Home Message:
Involving students in video creation is the best way to get engagement and buy-in from students. You don’t need expensive equipment, you just need to be willing to learn and find people who are passionate about teaching and tech.

Streaming Media & Re-Tooling Library Services for Online Learners: IL2008

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by Dale David, Anthony Bernier, Barbara Stillwell and Robin Lockerby

First part of the presentation: Barbara Stillwell and Robin Lockerby from National University Library

Because of increase in online education they created:
Centralized services
Added Multimedia Department

New Collaborative Spaces:
Email, IM service didn’t work for them, also VoIP

Library Instruction to Multimedia
Already had in-class instruction, added VoIP, recorded VoIP sessions so students could use them as National University has 1 month intensive classes

What’s next: want to increase quality of audio/video, increase production quality
What’s it great for: outreach, reaching more students

National University’s Multimedia Department
has graphic designer, multimedia designer and one librarian (QA librarian)
learned that it takes much longer to create products than most think, because of learning curve
Uses Adobe flash–takes a long time
Always see something more that could be done after you create a new module
Sometimes, it is better to have smaller videos, serialize information so the videos aren’t super-long

Be choosy about what format you use, not one format is the best for all uses (I would add, also always ask about accessibility before starting to use a new product. There is no point making something that isn’t accessible, IMHO)

SWOT:
Strength: professional design team (who can actually afford this, though?)
Weakness: professional design team has limited library exposure, different jargon
Opportunities: refining production workflows–have a sytle guide
Threats: conflicting goals and objectives

Take Home Message:
Online instruction through tutorials/modules are great, especially if you have a dedicated design team. But definitely remember that simpler is better if you are like most who don’t have a design team.

Streaming Media nad Distance Education: The SJSU SLIS Model
by: Dale David and Anthony Bernier from SJSU’s SLIS

Colloquial Series (extra-curricular) aka CS
Produced through a team
began in fall 2006
between 40-60minutes
available in many different accessible formats

Vision of CS
Broaden exposure to LIS world and community, outreach and marketing
Expose others to the cutting edge technology
Offers opportunity for continuing education

Speakers
Filmed on-campus at SJ and at Fullerton
Include: faculty presenting research, part-time faculty, librarians, etc.

Marketing
All is online, including listserv
Also through SJSU website

Audience
Can come in if you are in the area
Get undergrads come to the presentation
Usually between 12-25 people in physical audience
Online audience is quite large: around 275 unique hits on presentations

Technology used:
Digital Camera and mic set-up
Record in classroom on campus

Video editing
Incorporate any PowerPoint slides used, screencaps of websites go to during the presentation

Encoding
Disseminate in different formats on the web
Including closed captioning (using SMILE)
Using RealPlayer because it was the legacy format
Offered in podcast, RSS feed, iTunes, Blip.tv (no time limits unlike YouTube)

Have an archive–everything is indexed, it is searchable, very nice

Take Home Message:
Great idea to have a colloquial series and even better idea to encode into many different formats. Many props for also making these accessible. I am so checking these out.

2.0 Learning & 1.8 Users: Bridging the Gap: IL2008

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2.0 Learning and 1.8 Users

by Rudy Leon, and Colleen Harris

Google generation aka Digital Generation

Myths about the Google Generation:
Skilled online searchers
Ease with new gadgets
Always connected
Effective multi-taskers
Require constant stimulation
Must be entertained
Learn by doing

Mythbusting
The do use the stuff, but not generating content, don’t understand the backend of the technology
Don’t have a mental map of the technology, little transferable skills, ramifications for new services, they don’t fit into student’s understandings of what they already know
We need to build the map that allows the students to transfer skills
We can’t build services and resources built on the myths

Digital Divide
Still very real
only about 62% of US homes have a computer in the home
99% of US schools have computers and Internet, but it varies widely in hardware and access
Differential training and use of the technology, very different skill sets

Fault lines:
Number 1 line is still race: 65% white, 45% African American, 30% Latino households have computers
Also fault line via class

Persistent effects:
Students get their information and do groupwork online, students do not get training in universities and therefore self-select out of certain majors that use a lot of technology, creates a divide in education

Challenges:
Students put a lot of weight on what their faculty say

Challenges: Faculty
What Faculty Know or Don’t: learn how to do research from their instructors through Ph.d, have informal networks
Expect students to figure it out on their own, but students need context and help
Equipment: need to think of technology as part of a skill set
Faculty not highly trained in teaching: learn to teach through sitting through classes, how can we help professors with their teaching?

Think of technology as Education Technology and do training to show how to use technology to make the teaching better. How do you integrate technology into teaching? Have library step in and help with the training.

Getting faculty on Board:
Owning our own expertise–help faculty use the content effectively, because hey, librarians rock! We need to own our librarianship.
Competitive processes for course development–give faculty stipends and workshops
Make connections–get out there and network and make connections, “let’s have coffee,” need to have relationships in order to then get people to use the library
Classroom instruction–have faculty attend the session with their students, the faculty will learn stuff too
Leveraging reaccreditation process–include technology outcomes as part of this process

Campus IT
Scarce resources–go if something is not working
IT can’t implement everything–librarians have to do it
Lots of open source software–free, but requires a lot of time to implement and maintain, so consider what you do
What is the model for teaching and training–librarians are great and are a link among students, faculty and technology

Learning Spaces
Library is a safe learning space–students can fail without consequence of grades
How to strategies for engaging students/faculty
Workshops–great to have face to face contact
Making equipment available–can check out laptops, cameras, etc. from the library
Actionable assignments–use technology in an assignment, eg. make a documentary, photojournalism, etc.
Partnerships–again, network!

Moving Forward–Learning Spaces
Libraries are a unique spaces on campus, safe learning spaces
Technology is fun and libraries are for learning, technology should help or enable learning
Critical thinking and metal maps–learning should be fun and technology should support learning

Building the Bridge
Build the workshops that help build skills
Gadgets support learning
We are the adults and students need to have a voice, but what they want is not always what they need, we don’t need to entertain the students 24/7
Have space and structure to play
Be skeptical about what the media says about the Digital Generation

Great presentation, love the LOL cats photos, wonderful energy!

Take Home Message: It’s all about community. Technology supports learning and is the means to the end, which is having faculty and students understand how technology helps.

LOL @ Your Library: Live Online Learning: IL 2008

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LOL @ Your Library: Live Online Learning
Paul DeVillo, Tom Cole and Dale Musselman
(all from PLCMC–Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenbury County)

Tool to meet changing needs of staff and customers

Demands of training and costs of training increasing. Always something new for technology, but patrons want us to show them everything and it is becoming impossible to keep up. New channel of communication needed. Librarians have to wear many hats and have many skills–reference, instruction, access, systems, etc.

If you have to go to different venues to train, it takes a lot of time and money. So if you learn online then less driving and we help the environment.

Videoconferencing and the library
Easy to see benefits
Reduced travel time, fuel use, and emissions, could reach out to people who didn’t use the library or couldn’t come to training that was far away
Costs: telepresence was out of their league, IT staff time, and bandwidth

Online conferencing was the solution for their library: space to share ideas, best for informing, little additional hardware needed. They bought software, but remember you can use free open source that Connie Crosby talked about yesterday. Got to love open source. 🙂

How you can use online conferencing:
Staff training, then meetings, then roll out to public offerings

Requirements:
Need high bandwidth
Need headsets with headphones and mic
Need a space that is fairly quiet for presenters
Recommended: VoIP enabled telephones

Always need to consider the needs of your audience! If you are pushing this to the public, do the patrons have the bandwidth to use the service? Do you make different presentations for different bandwidths? There will always be issues with any service, no matter how well you test and plan.

Consider the needs of your trainers and presenters
Hardware and software needs–sometimes different than for the audience
Needed versus actual skills–how do you overcome the skills gap
Producer role–handles technology, helps attendees, frees up trainer/presenter: aka the troubleshooter

Audio
VoIP: for webinars, large audience and low interaction
Phone Conference: meetings, small group, high interaction
VoIP & phone: flexible for webinars or training, beware of expense for large groups

Have people check out technology configuration before the session

Yes! Finally someone mentioned Section 508 compliance! Everyone should try to be 508 compliant–it is horrible to have library services and resources that are not accessible to everyone. (I am stepping off my soapbox now)

Remember to market your new online training services.

Take Home Message:
Online training can save travel time and cost, plus get to people that can’t physically get to a training site. But you need people (trainers, presenters and producers) that understand and have the skills to be training in the online environment.

Keynote: Search Engine Land: What's Happening Out There?: IL2008

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Keynote: Search Engine Land: What’s Happening Out There?
by Danny Sullivan
Editor-in-Chief of Search Engine Land, former journalist for LA Times

Themes:
There ain’t no Google Killer: Google is going to remain dominant search engine for at least 5 years. Very difficult for anyone to challenge them.

Cuil.com said would have largest index of the web earlier this year in order to get media coverage. But bigger isn’t always better in search engine land. Internet lifetime= 5 years. But it came out and it was horrible. Not the challenger that would knock Google off its perch. Relevancy was horrible especially compared to Google. You didn’t get stuff you expected–could tell there was no relevancy to search results.

Other Google Killers?
Powerset: proved natural language isn’t a natural killer, proved not to be a great search engine, Microsoft acquired it for not much money. Interesting because reading pages and understanding the ideas, which is cool–more like how humans read a page (get aboutness of the page) but not great for searching

Microsoft: announced search engine in 1998, gone nowhere

Pax Googlecana
the benevolent dictatorship
60-70% of the share of searches in the US
80-90% of website owners get traffic from Google
Some countries Google has 90% share, but not in China, Russia, Japan

Google Killerettes
Not quite death by 1,000 cuts and more like let 1,000 flowers bloom
Other search engines, niche and vertical search engines might be more attention
Google doesn’t dominate in all areas

Example: Twitter
Microblogging, hyper real-time tool to see the buzz
http://search.twitter.com
can get news before major news networks (China earthquake, etc.)
Google doesn’t do this

Urbanspoon
iPhone application–knows where you are and finds you a random restaurant or can input limiters (like type of food, price, etc.)
Can use it online too: http://www.urbanspoon.com
Also, Chowhound http://www.chowhound.com
Fun tools, very customer-centric, for mobile devices

Eventful (iPhone event and also on web)
http://eventful.com
What’s going on, from music to events
Upcoming another tool that does the same kind of thing
Google doesn’t have event searching

Yelp
local reviews of all types
http://yelp.com
Note: I love this site, great reviews and definitely get your library in there!
Lots of people are using Yelp
Google is growing its map community that can also host reviews

Trulia/Zillow
both offer homes for sale, local real estate values, etc.
Great for everyone finding real estate information
Google doesn’t have this service, maybe acquire one of these?

Kayak, multisite search
http://kayak.com
Farecast is similar, Microsoft acquired it
Google doesn’t have this feature

Craiglist
http://craiglist.org
buy, sell related to local areas
Lots of poeple use this
Google Base is attempt to challenge Craiglist
And Craiglist is doing well even though looks so Web 1.0

Jobs: Indeed.com
People: Pipl.com, Spock.com
News: Digg.com
Video: Blinkx.com, VideoSurf.com (note: I love VideoSurf, I got in on beta and it is fabulous, so interesting and great interface)
Gas Prices: GasBuddy.com

Killerette Challenges
Hard to remember all the ones out there: hard to remember to go back to the applications/service instead of Google, hard to change habits

Bigger Challengers: Yahoo!
Innovation, mobile
BOSS: build your own search service
Search Monkey: search results, way for publishers to blend information of their own into their listings (enhanced listings)
Biggest problem: Yahoo! continues to face uncertainty, investors don’t have faith in Yahoo! and Uncertainty leads to brain drain

Microsoft
Bailed out of “non-consumer” search, act like they are the heir-apparent, focused on ads first for ad money, search is second. Google started as a search engine, then looked into ads. Microsoft has major branding problems, trying out SearchPerks latest in giveaway attempt to get people to search on Microsoft’s Live Search

Google Master Plan?
Some planning: Chrome, Google Checkout, Google Shopping
BUT: lots of Google’s progress comes naturally, through a “hive mind” mentality
http://searchengineland.com/the-google-hive-mind-14832.php for article on hive mind
Hard to predict what Google will do. Increase advertising on Google applications

Googlettes
Google video is now video metasearch, been that way for about a year
Universal search mixing continues: blend results from many vertical search engines
Google Trends: continues to grow, data about website traffic
Community editing on maps growing, has spam problems
Google Blog Search: get top stories too, blog search clustering

Big Trends for Google
Personalized results: reshaping results based on where you are, what you are searching for, where you’ve been on the web
Search Customization: tailoring results based on geographic location, previous query, web history, start ramping up this customization
Now telling you that it is happening, explicit when changing query for you

Conclusion:
Google will continue to dominate, but mobile searching offers new opportunities

Take Home Message: Google is here to stay but is not the best service/application for everything. Branch out and try some of the Google Killerettes. Have fun.

Day 1 Wrap-up:IL 2008

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Overall, great presentations and great ideas for using Web 2.0 widgets on library website

Most ironic part of the day: horrible wireless access and we are at Internet Librarian! Wireless connection kept dropping, would not work in some places and basically was incredibly disappointing as I wanted to blog live from the conference sessions.

Best presentation: Tie: Search Widgets & Gadgets for Libraries–great ideas for making Google gadgets for the library in order to get library resources out into the environments that our users are comfortable in. Audio & Video for Libraryes–great presentation, awesome slides and examples, plus the wireless was finally working and I was able to upload all my notes to the blog! Yahoo!

Worst Presentation: I’m not a negative person and props to everyone to presenting. But please, please, please test your PowerPoint Slides before the presentation because it is so annoying to not be able to see the writing or images on the slides. Oh, and try to be dynamic when you are speaking or at least sound like you are confident ’cause you know your stuff! 🙂

Can’t wait for Day 2! And I have so much stuff to do when I get back to work!

Instant Audio & Video: IL2008

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Instant Audio & Video: Tools Igniting the Digital World

Connie Crosby

Barrier has dropped for creating audio and video on the web

“there is no better time to create a community of friends who can come together and execute on your brilliant idea” co-founder of 12seconds.tv (oct 2008)

Lots of these technologies are available on the web, open source

Not a lot of libraries are using these technologies yet

Need to build communities with these tools, be part of a group

Audio creates intimacy, creates connection–voice in your head through the headphones

Video connects to humanity, seeing a face is powerful

Important part of the technology is how you will talk to your community and engage to your community

Who are you going to engage with these tools?

Talkshoe www.talkshoe.com create, manage and host your own audio, like radio talkshow, several people call in at once, can record for downloading and pod casting, free recording, storage and bandwidth hosting, creating a show is easy, all you need is a computer and headphones with mic, give you widgets and badges to add to your blog (very cool) and other platforms

Ideally, you want to host stuff yourself, you will own the content

However, these tools allow you to do this stuff for free, low cost to entry and a way around dealing with IT

Uncontrolled Vocabulary–show on Talkshoe on library industry (http://uncontrolled vocabulary.com)

Utterli (www.utterli.com) a little Twitter-like, can use text, photos, video and audio, can call in from your cellphone, formerly known as Utterz, cross-post to many other platforms
Ex. Andycaster

Seesmic (www.seesmic.com) almost exclusive video, video conversation as of September 30,000 users, talking back and forth through video, has ability to see all video discussion in the stream
12seconds: Twitter for video, be succinct, watch on web or via mobile, only get 12 seconds to tell your story

ooVoo (www.loovoo.com) made for business video conferencing, up to 6 people on the screen at once, high resolution, records video chats, proprietary software, now has paid levels with more features

Tokbox (www.toxbox.com): opensource, web-based, large numbers of video chatting, confusion because so many people are talking at once, 6 is a nice number, 18 is too many

Ustream (ustream.tv): live interactive broadcasting, stream from events, chat, recorded for viewing later, camera and Internet access needed

Qik (qik.com): mobile live video, broadcast events, spontaneous, check for supported phones, chaotic

Phreadz (phreadz.com): in alpha right now, social multimedia conversation network, video audio and photo blogging, create via desktop or mobile, keep your eye out for this

These are tools for building community, information communication, unscripted, let your clients/patrons participate (getting students involved)

Creating content=engagement

We can support each other through these communities

Take home message: Build communities, get comfortable with using audio and video, and figure out how people are using these tools.

www.crosbygroup.ca/blog (she will be posting the slides–great slides and presentation)

Mashing Up and Remixing the Library Website

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Mashing up and Remixing the Library Website

Karen Coombs

Theory and demo system from University of Houston

Problems with traditional content management systems:
Different skill levels which leads to problems
Many different systems
Problems of repetition of information
Patrons just want to get into information quickly
Need to integrate into classroom CMS/curriculum

Traditional Solutions:
Used database system
Install CMS (proprietary or open source)
Distribute content creation throughout the library= shared responsibility

New Solution:
Build your own system or use mash-ups
Need easy to use system
Have remixable site
Incorporate other systems

Inspirations:
Drupal: can be complicated with tons of modules
iGoogle: customize with gadgets, widgets
Wordpress: blogging software

Web 2.0 Pillars
Radical decentralized control of information
Modularity
Perpetual beta: some people have a problem with this, but I love it!
Remixable
User as Contributer
Rich user experience (interactivity)

Systems that University of Houston is using:
LibraryFind
Archon
WorldCat
SerialsSolution
Wordpress
flickr
All systems working together

Microformat: way to encode part of a webpage as an event
Make content portable
Embedable code to put on different sites

API: interface that is programmable, use object metadata into other places, using OpenSearch, outputs different formats

Take Home Message:
You want to give power to more than a small group of people for creating content and editing the website. It is important to have remixable content and modules. Web 2.0 rocks!

Cool Tools for Library Webmasters: IL2008

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Cool Tools for Library Webmasters

Frank Cervone and Darlene Fichter

Tools for everyone: free tools

VisCheck: simulation of human vision, shows what things look like to someone who is color blind, online services and downloadable version (very similar to Vizu)

Links to presentation up on ITI website, on slideshare.net too

Thumbalizer: takes an image and makes a thumbnail for you

ImageFlow: can imbed in website, very like Cooliris, same look, but one stream and not a moving wall of images

DeGraeve.com: color palette generator, takes an image and suggests colors to use for design

Widgenie: creates widgets, connect to data, charts created, creates online charts

Call graph: records skype calls

Freemind: mind-mapping software, export in a number of formats

Firefox tools:
SafeCache– defends cache-based techniques, protects your privacy, safe browsing
SafeHistory– protects your browsing history, can’t have different sites looking at each other’s data
FoxMarks–automatically synchronizes bookmarks, access my.foxmarks.com (use this if you still insist on using Firefox’s bookmark function instead of just bookmarking everything to del.icio.us)
FEBE– Firefox Environment Backup Extension, backups your Firefox extension, synchs your office and home browsers, may specify user defined items, can backup other parts of your browser and browser history

LinkBunch: put multiple links into one small link, good for Twitter, Firefox extension creates a bunch from your open tabs

DocSyncer (don’t need if Google docs) automatically finds and syncs your documents to Google Docs, automatically backup everything

TrueCrypt– can encrypt your flash drive, part of your hard drive

File Hamster: real-time backup and archiving of your files while you work, monitors files or directories

Synchback Freeware: backup all files, good for server-level, open source product

FreeUndelete: puts directory entry back in so you can recover the file you deleted

Usability:
Browsershots: creates screenshots in different browsers, sends requests to machine running that browser, online tool, lots of browser platforms

Feng GUI: automatic alternative to eye-tracking, creates heat maps based on an algorithm that predicts what a real human would be most likely to look at
www.feng-gui.com

FavIcon from Pics: icon for the URL box, creates it from your logo, picture, etc.

SuggestionBox: link to your site, manage your suggestions

DamnIT: JavaScript, put on your webpage, captures errors and sends you an email about what happened

.htaccess password generator: cut and paste code

Cropper in C#: crops images, screenshots and captures screenshots

Steal from the best:
For best web design: web design, free layouts, open source web design, open web design, themesbase (all free sources of layouts, CSS, templates)

ZUG: missing page fun/404 error page, create funny error pages

Take Home Message: Tons of great open source stuff that you can use in the library and for your own personal use.