ZoHo

I heard about Zoho a while back. Where? I seem to have forgotten. However, I did come across it while I was signing up for my del.icio.us account. So many wonderful new things. For those who are not sure what it is, it is a online word processor/database creator/spreadsheet/presentation tool. I haven’t even begun to scratch the surface of what this baby can do, but I am really excited to do so. Now, I would imagine there are quite a few people using this. I am actually surprised I have not seen this product being used on our OPACS. Note, the OPACS in our reference area specifically have no Office suite products. However, I do notice a lot of students actually using wordpad. Go figure.

Starting a wiki.

Still not drinking the wiki kool-aid, however, I have started work on a wiki for internal use within the library.  I am including some of the usual stuff: mission statement, staff, policies, troubleshooting, etc…  One of our tech services guys already had one set up using the pbwiki editor, but he has been so busy, he has not been able to do anything with it yet. So, he just gave it over to me to experiment with.  I have also thought about trying a wiki for one of my research guides to see how students react to it.  However, I would imagine that one will be put on hold until the summer, especially if the information literacy class I am to teach with a colleague takes off in the Spring.

As for PBwiki??  We are using the free model, which is pretty stripped down, but really…perfect for what we intend to use it for. Will discuss this more when I finally get stumped on something.  

Happy Thanksgiving..and now into the final stretch

A couple days off from the library for Thanksgiving is always a nice way to have that mid-semester recharge.  With 3 1/2 weeks left in the semester I just have a few things to keep on top of: database trials, collection development meetings with my department, some reading. 

Currently reading a few books on Historiography and also picked up one on instructional design.  The nice thing about working with our Grad Ed department, is that it allows me some insight into the world of learning  and teaching theories.  And for someone who never received formal teaching training, it is always refreshing to hear advice/complements from the students and professors I do instruction for.  It also gets me to thinking about redesigning my instruction to be more collaborative and less “instruction”.  

And part of the reason for this is….  a colleague and I did get approved for an information literacy class specifically for our Grad Ed student.  We had a few people register for our fall class, however, we fell short of the needed required amount.  I guess this is not too surprising for first time classes and especially in the fall.  Hopefully we will get a few more this time around.

Tutorials

Thought I would just post a few of the web tutorials I have created for the library.  The primary/general audience for these tutorials are students in our graduate school of education. The distance learners and online students in GSE are the more specific audience.  I have used Captivate to create these.  Some had previous incarnations through RoboDemo.  Over the course next 6 months I am probably going to add audio to most of them.  I am also thinking about splitting up some of the longer ones.  Below is just a sample.

CLICnet (catalog) basics 

Communication & Mass Media Complete(EBSCO)

Linguistics & Language Behavior Abstracts(CSA)

 I will link to some of my screencasting examples later.

Strategic planning

Hamline University is in the process of creating a new Strategic plan for the University, taking inventory of where we are, who we compare with, what will make us better and who, in terms of other comparable universities, would we like to “aspire” to be.  I am currently serving on one of our framework groups.  As a matter of fact, ALL of the refrence librarians are in one of the framework groups. And though I will not comment on the content of our meetings I would like to say, that even though the time investment is huge I do think it is important that, librarians, due to our ubiquitous nature on a campus, “get out there” and participate.  For me it has been a great way to understand better various facets of our university and how the library plays a big role.