“It’s my library!” “No, it’s mine!”

Library battles for the ages: Teens and oldsters both want their space.

Suburbs are designing libraries with an eye to serving two age groups who make up 70 percent of patrons, but have different agendas.

All I will say is “Oldsters”?????

Finally!

I finally received my copy of the latest Captivate.  I did get to test it out this last summer when Adobe was beta-testing it.  See beta review here.  After director approval and waiting for the IT department to get it, it is finally on my computer and just waiting….. Of course, I am currently too busy to do any projects at the moment. .

Blogging about blog*

As I have mentioned before, I am a part of Blogpeople, a group of bloggers from Hamline University that were approved for a grant, to study various aspects of blogging in higher education. Whether it be in the classroom, for personal use/growth, for promotion/advertising, or resource sharing with other colleagues. We have already had a few meetings and are currently in the process of getting a survey ready for the Hamline community. I will discuss more about what we have discussed at these meetings for a later date. I will note that we are also looking for books as a text for us to discuss. This has been interesting because trying to find good books and even articles that move beyond what blogging is and more into how it is being used in the classroom…..and with data to back it up, has not been easy. Now, there are materials out there, but I was hoping for a bit more. The “research” almost seems “anecdotal”.

In terms of libraries, I am more interested in seeing how librarians use blogs to enhance information literacy skills and behavior, as opposed to how the library has replaced it’s “What’s New” page with a blog. As one who works with Grad Ed students, I am not sure there is a place yet to introduce a blog to enhance my instruction yet. Let me preface this by saying that I get more than the usual 1 hour instructions that seems to be very common with librarians in places of higher learning. I usually meet with our students for two hours and a few times over the course of their program. When they get to their capstone class, I meet with them, as a group, for about 4 hours spread out over a couple sessions. Would a blog be helpful for them? Maybe as a way of talking about resources and the process? I think…no wait, I know the instructor would also have to be a part of this: helping to design the assignments. I have had conversations with several professors in breaking a part some of the sessions and really focusing on certain concepts of the research process. Now, not every class needs this, but there are some classes that this would be really appropriate, and not just the research intensive capstone class. Hopefully, this is where my “instruction” will evolve into and I can see a blog as part of that. I would be interested in seeing how people converse about their research experiences.

I recently read

Coulter, P., & Draper, L. (May-June 2006). Blogging it into them: Weblogs in information literacy instruction. Journal of Library Administration. , 45, 1-2. p.101(15).

The authors used a blog to supplement the face to face instruction and as a means to communicate with their distance learners. Their summary goes with a widely accepted assumption, i.e., that online learning can have an “effect of alienating students who crave interaction.”

Given the growing popularity of blogs and their potential to encourage student reflection and interaction, we chose to investigate the efficacy of blogs as teaching and learning tools in IL instruction. Our goals were (1) to more consistently communicate with, and continue to teach IL skills to, both traditional and distance education students and (2) to engage students in an open dialogue of research-related questions, encouraging reflective, collaborative learning

I agree that blogs could have an impact in being a creative way of explaining Information Literacy (IL) skills. But, I am not sure a blog is going to replace a a variety of other tools, such as screencasting, or other informative static library pages. Now, using the blog to inform individuals of what is going on elsewhere or about tools is not a bad idea, but for using it to teach IL skills I think the blog needs something a bit more behind it, such as not only being integrated into a class, requiring students to use and react to.

According to the survey they used, the blog did get some use and some “buy in”. I was struck buy one of the survey comments that suggested that the blog was somewhat “too late” in being beneficial. Like most things with academic libraries and information literacy…timing is everything. I do applaud the efforts of the authors, as they are getting their blog out there and it would be interesting to see how they fine tune their blog’s purpose over time. For me, a good way is finding the right class to attach it to. Possibly a core class that requires more in depth research skills. With my clientèle, grad ed students, I am not sure this would work with the students who are already working on their capstone class, but maybe the ones who are just starting out, getting them familiar with resources and small assignments. Of course this would require not only buy in by the faculty, but also their active participation.

New WilsonWeb

WilsonWeb has announced that will be releasing WilsonWeb 3.0 in January 2008. Here is a list of some of the new features:

A Frameless Interface–for even faster loading, and better integration with your institution’s website.

Enhanced Layout & Graphics: Clearer screens and more accessible tools, for quicker, more intuitive searching.

Navigational Improvements: New Full Text, Page Image, and Peer Reviewed tabs in results let you isolate those records at a click. In Full Display mode, you can now also! choose between scrolling through results or clicking from record to record–navigating the way you find most comfortable.

Simplified Print, Email & Save functions: New buttons–Save This, Email This, and Print This–capture not just the citation, but also any available full text, saving a step. You can also use the Print Email Save button in the banner for simplified and complete functionality as well.

Simplified Search History screen allows you to more handily review, update, combine and organize saved searches, and receive new information on any search in email alerts. !

 Full text translations: Electronic conversion of articles into Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Korean.

Database Enhancements: New looks for Biography Reference Bank, Art Museum Image Gallery, Current Issues: Reference Shelf Plus, and Current Issues in Health offer more immediate access to essential information, better navigation, and suggestions for related searches.

Click here to see some screenshots.

To be a Beta-tester

Looking back on my summer, I am glad I did not work on a lot of screencasting as along with WilsonWeb, the catalog, as I have reported recently, will be getting a new look and I will be having to upgrade quite a few of my Captivate tutorials. With the merger of CSA and ProQuest, I would imagine an interface refresh from them soon as well. Yeahhhhh (please note sarcasm dripping from my lips).