Goggle vision : using electronic resources

Goggle Vision - using electronic resources from University of Liverpool is a really useful little video for introducing the concept of going beyond Google! Here's the accompanyiong blurb :
Are search engines giving you a headache? The University of Liverpool has a great collection of e-resources. This film from 1925 was eerily accurate in its description of life in the future. Visuals by Clare Dooley, Peter Robinson and Jeff Woods. Music by Nick Botfield

Demonstrates that there is material out there can be shared and used! That's one of the things that this blog is about!

Next Gen Libraries

Next Gen Libraries is a brilliant presentation which Elyssa Kroski gave at Online Conference in London 2 December. Unfortunately I was only able to attend the first and last days and had to be back at base for a QAA visitation panel, but have been able to see and hear the presentation as below. It only takes about 18 minutes and I thoroughly recommend it for an overview of what makes a Library next-gen.Here are the divisions of the presentation :
• Innovative
• Forward‐thinking
• Embracing new technology
• Engaging patrons “where they live”
• Librarians are agents of change
• Part of a global community

Next-Gen Libraries

View more documents from Ellyssa Kroski.

Bad news for Librarians?

How College students seek information in the Digital Age ; the latest progress report from Project Informatin Literacy by Alison Head and Michael Eisenberg has been released.
It contains the findings from a survey of 2318 students across 6 campuses in the USA in spring 2009. It's well worth skimming through as they have found a deal of consistency across campuses in their findings. I am just pulling out a few findings :

"Librarians were tremendously underutilized by students" 80% reported rarely or ever turning to librarians for help with assignments. I believe that previous research has shown similar lack of contact with librarians. Do we overvalue our importance? I still believe that we should be pushing our service as personal. This is where Web 2.0 can help us to communicate and brand more easily. There is no mention of Web 2.0 in this report : perhaps this will figure in later sections.
Later on in the recommendations attention is drawn to the narrow view students showed of librarian services and "for the most part, librarians were left out of the student workflow, despite librarins' vast trainingt and expertise in finding information". Again depressing but I expect we have all read similar before!

They used a Library guide to conducting course-related research from Cornell, which is widely used elsewhere as a framework for how students may research. They found that there was wide divergence between this approach and that used by students. The propensity of using Google early on as opposed to later for example. I was surprised that they did not refer to this disconnect in their recommendations and suggest that it is better for librarians to be more laid back and inclusive about Google ; encourage efficient searching (as far as possible!), Google Scholar ; use search techniques learnt and the need to search the hidden web that Google doesnt cover ; then perhaps even appreciate the extra search capabilities of some databases.

They recommend librarians ask how and why services and resources are used rather than how often. Then we might find out why they are not being used. Reminds me of when I asked 200 plus students in a lecture theatre whether they had used Business Source Premier yet and if not why not! The answers were not comforting.

Picture is of me helping students in our Business PODs in University of Bedfordshire.

Implications of Web 2.0 for academic libraries

Brian McManus from Washington State University has written about the implications of Web 2.0 for academic libraries in the Electronic Journal of Academic and Special Libraries.
Here is the abstract :

"New technologies are impacting the daily work of academic libraries and librarians more and more, with Web 2.0 services at the forefront. Many academic libraries in the United States are beginning to leverage the power of these services to provide better and more relevant services to their patrons. They are doing so by integrating Web 2.0 services into their web presence, library instruction programs, and reference services. The implementation of these services have huge implications for how libraries now and in the future will stay relevant to their communities and how they will face the next generation of new information technology."

Contains details of initiatives at Wake Forest University Z. Smith Reynolds Library in use of Web 2.0 for IL instruction.

From Library 2.0 to Library 3D – Participatory Libraries of Today

Event in the virtual world, Second Life.
When: Monday 14 December 2009, 8am-9am SL time (for times elsewhere see http://tinyurl.com/yff6e96 )
Where: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Infolit%20iSchool/127/244/21/
You need a SL avatar and the SL browser to participate

Kim Zwiers (Kim Holmberg in RL) "Researcher, lecturer, entrepreneur" from Abo Akademi, Finland will give a presentation (in voice) and lead a discussion (in text chat).
See http://kimholmberg.fi/tag/library-2-0/
http://www.slideshare.net/kholmber/library-20-199312
and: Holmberg, K. (2009) "What is Library 2.0?" Journal of Documentation, 65 (4),
668-681.

The picture is from the event held on December 7th Information services for learners in Second Life (featuring the IS Cream van): see the chatlog of this 7 Dec event at http://sleeds.org/chatlog/?c=2119