Phil Bradley's weblog

Twitter for Librarians course

CILIP | Twitter for Librarians. You may possibly remember that back in the early part of the summer there was a discussion on Twitter around the fact that I was going to be running a course for CILIP on the use of Twitter for librarians. As that course has now taken place I'm just scribbling down my thoughts on it, as promised at the time.

The course was a half day course, with a maximum of 10 people on each (one per computer). Most of the people who came on the course had not set up an account, though a few had, but these had lain dormant. The delegates (we had full numbers for both courses) had a variety of reasons for attending - the practicalities, how to use the system to promote their library/organisation/themselves, curiosity, incorporating Twitter into other resources such as their websites and the usual catch all of 'everything'. Many of the delegates also said that while they could have set up something for themselves they were hoping that a quick half day introduction would let them hit the ground running, get the 'how to' out of the way quickly and ensure they could get into the more interesting elements of the service.

One thing that particularly struck me about both courses was that people had a very specific idea about what they thought Twitter was - and for most of them it was as a communication medium. There was much interest shown in the search options provided by Twitter itself, but also in the third party search resources that allowed for easy biography searching, creation of lists and so on. The trending topics element of Twitter was a bit of a disaster on the day since fully half of them were related to what you should say before/during/after sex, but this in turn led to interesting discussions on how appropriate the use of the service would be in certain types of organisation.

In my opinion as the trainer the courses worked well. Everyone was able to create accounts, follow people, post tweets and get the basics. They all had a chance to search and use Twitter as a real time news medium (for several people this was an unexpected top use), and one or two also linked their account to their website during the day. Two things were lacking - more time, and the ability to have a person in front of them who could provide a case study of how they/their library used Twitter.

A course isn't for everyone. Some people do prefer to spend time picking things up themselves, playing around, trial by error, or by reading about the subject. Others like to have illustrations, demonstrations and a guiding hand. We're not all the same when it comes to teaching/learning but given that all the delegates enjoyed the session and everyone went away happy and confident about using the service I think the course was justified.

AEG News: Web 2.0 - What It's all About - an Aslib Engineering workshop held at at Brunel University

I spent a very nice day last week at Brunel University running a  Web 2.0 - What It's all About course for the ASLIB Engineering group. We did an overview of the subject, and then looked in detail at start pages, custom search engines, creating weblogs and websites using the resources on the net. A good time was had by all.

Meebo rooms

Meebo rooms. Meebo is well known for offering funky little gadgets that allow you to chat via IM without having to install anything. They've now gone to the next level and created chat rooms that you can embed onto a page. They're getting a lot of buzz, although I'm not sure why, since plenty of other people are embedding chat rooms such as Gabbly chat for example, though to be fair, Meebo does give you the opportunity of embedding video and so on.

Library information Show 2007 - Library 2.0 Forum

Library  information Show 2007 - Library 2.0 Forum. I'll be co-running a session with Karen Blakeman on 'Web 2.0 for libraries - de-mystifying the technologies' at the show, 11.20-12.20, 18th April.

Training tools - reference resources.

Training tools - reference
Originally uploaded by Philipbradley.

People obviously want handouts when they come on courses, but these are always going to get filed away, and the value of them is pretty much lost. So I came up with an idea to make life a little bit easier, which is to create a series of reference cards for people to use.

The larger cards provide quick reference access to Google syntax and lists of other search engines, and the colourful one is a list of Web 2.0 resources, front and back. They can also be turned into magnets for going on fridges or filing cabinets for example. The idea is simple - just produce these in large numbers (stationary websites often offer freebies that you can use for this purpose) and then give each course delegate half a dozen of the things. They can then use them, keep them by their computer, give to colleagues, put up on noticeboards and so on.  Obviously I can't put everything onto a card, so there are always links to other resources on my site for them to visit as well.

The smaller card in the middle is business sized and it lists some key Google syntax (I've managed to get 13 onto one card and still make sure it's readable), with half a dozen search engines listed below. The idea here is that you can prop it next to a terminal, stick it to the side of a monitor, keep in a wallet or just use as scattercards and leave them lying around the library for other people to pick up and use. They're not expensive, and stationary sites will do these by the 100 or 500 for example, and they're great fun to give out. Delegates really do seem to like them, and I think that, as long as you're thoughtful in what you put on, they're really helpful.

Training tools - rewards

Training tools - rewards
Originally uploaded by Philipbradley.

Just providing handouts for courses is a little old hat these days I think. It's about time to introduce some fun into the proceedings, so I'm showing you some of the things that I give away on my courses. I've got sticky notes with appropriate comments about librarians and larger notepads, again with something appropriate 'A note from your helpful librarian'. These can work out quite pricey, but you can get free samples from lots of stationary companies. I tend to give these out as an incentive to ask questions 'First person to ask me a question I can't answer gets a sticky notes pad'.

The images are actually small (business sized) fridge magnets with appropriate library quotations on them. Again, you can get freebies from different sources, and I generally give them out so that everyone gets one.

The calendar is also a fridge magnet, though it's also got my business card details on it. Never a bad idea to remind someone as to how they can get hold of me!

Fake websites and spoof websites; evaluating internet resources using false websites

Link: Fake websites and spoof websites; evaluating internet resources using false websites. I've been asked several times recently if I can suggest some fake websites that librarians or educators can show their students in order to prove that not everything is, well shall we say 'factually accurate' on the net. I was using a few fairly old and quite frankly tired examples - the Luther King site, or one of the White House sites, so I have been doing some digging around and have come up with over 50 sites that seem to me to be pretty good at demonstrating you can't believe what you find on the net.

I've arranged the examples into two pages; the first link above goes to scientific and commercial examples, with pages covering things such as male pregnancy, dihydrogen monoxide and Microsoft Firefox Professional for example. The second page provides examples in the area of social sites, historical, religious, political and travel and tourism. Examples include black market babies, absolution online, and the World Trade Organisation.

I've provided a brief line or two of commentary and given my opinion on how credible the content is, and how safe it is to use with children. There are some fantastic examples here, and even better, some of them are really funny. I hope that you find them useful - if so please feel free to mention them, and if you have a page on your own site that talks about evaluating internet resources, you're encouraged to link to it.

Splashr

  Splashr 
This is a very nice little tool. Splashr lets you take some tagged Flickr pics and make them into various types of slide show. You can see the one that I made of a visit to Groombridge Place in Kent to give you an idea of just one of the 25+ ways that you can create slideshows. This is a great way of putting together a presentation if you're doing training for example. It also provides you with the code to put the presentation directly onto your own site or into a weblog.
 

SlideShare

 

SlideShare lets you share your slides, and how I've wanted something like this. I've tried out a few other share presentation sites, but this is by far and away the easiest. Upload your .ppt/.pps or .odp presentations, wait a few minutes and bingo.. it's there waiting to be used, either in the browser window or there is an option to use it full screen.

It can be a little slow to move from slide to slide, particularly if the slide is graphics heavy, but once it's sorted it the once it's pretty much fine from then on.

As you'd expect with a 2.0 application you can add comments to the slide show, tag it, describe it and search for slide shows. The search function wasn't great and retrieved 0 results for Web 2.0 and variants until I tried web2 at which point it came back with 60 results.

Slideshare IS open space, so it's not suitable for any private/confidential material.

You can embed slides, or just provide the link, either to a presentation itself, or to an individual's collection. I have to say that I really like the look of this, and I'm going to be adding a lot of my presentations up onto this system - not always necessarily to use, but to keep in one place.

CILIP | Weblogs and wikis: an advanced guide - 16 November 2006, London

Link: CILIP | Weblogs and wikis: an advanced guide - 16 November 2006, London. I'm running this course at CILIP if anyone is interested in coming along. I'll be covering subjects such as improving weblogs, using storage and filing services, using bookmarking systems, group search engines, and wikis in a practical environment.