The Globetrotting Librarian

Keep your eye out!

2008-06-06T16:22:00.003-04:00

I've taken a bit of a hiatus with postings to focus on a few other projects, but I'll be back posting again on a more regular basis. I came across a cool new evidence based medicine tool that I plan on experimenting with here shortly. Our friends at Dartmouth and Yale have created EBM Page Generator which allows you to make your own EBM page. Granted, I have not had a chance to experiment with this yet, but expect to see some posts soon on page development progress!

Cool New Currency Tool

2008-05-12T08:50:00.006-04:00

One of my favorite travel blogs is About Eastern Europe Travel and Kerry Kubilius has a quick post on XE Universal Currency Converter. This tool provides up to date currency information (Universal Coordinated Time) and is extremely easy to use. Simply type in your desired amount, select the currency that amount is in (the top 10 currencies are listed first, the rest are listed in alphabetic order), then choose the currency you want to exchange it to and click Go. You will then see what the current rate is based on the amount you typed in. As of now, $100 US dollars is worth roughly $65 euros. A great feature of this converter is the number of currencies you can check (as many as 85 in the quick version and 180 in the full version). The currencies are also based on live, mid-market rates.

New Ways of Searching and Finding

2008-04-28T16:53:00.008-04:00

Through the online Web2.0 course I'm taking, I came across an excellent travel resource: TripTouch. We are exploring mashups in the course and I have to say I'm impressed with what I've seen so far. TripTouch is a one stop shop for traveling. Not only can you find hotels and restaurants, but information on the current exchange rate, weather, is all available right on the homepage. By creating a profile, you can also share your travels with others - like an online, interactive travel journal. The coolest feature has to be the maps: you type in your travel destinations and a map is provided with flags of where you've been. Bryan and I meet many people during our travels and this could be a great way to stay in touch with new friends. The pages do not provide as detailed information as I would like (for example the restaurant information is not as detailed for some cities), but the merging of the different technologies (rss feeds, Google Maps, and so on) makes for a great resource!

Also part of our task was to give Rollyo a try. To say the least, I'm not impressed. Granted, the idea of picking your top web places to search and rolling them into your own search engine is an interesting concept; its was Rollyo itself I found annoying. Following along with the search instructions I came across a few pages related to privacy that I found interesting (such as Printers and Patron Privacy from the Librarian In Black - spooky what your printer remembers - and Big Brother Hits the Books from the Shifted Librarian, which struck me as an aggressive yet poignant take on the FBI's invasion of patron records); however, having sponsored links randomly thrown throughout the search list was irritating. I'm also a bit confused on how the results are put in order (relevance? date?) and that you are limited to seeing 10 results at a time. This may be a search tool I use for myself, but not something I'd encourage patron's to use.

Evolution of Library Tutorials?

2008-04-22T11:36:00.007-04:00

Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of YouTube and podcasting.

Overall, the concept is great: generate a video or audio file that either promotes a new service at the library or instructs someone on how to use a library resource, then make it freely available to anyone with an internet connection. This is an excellent, innovative way to reach users that find reading pages of instructional information (such as our help sheets) cumbersome or provide instruction to users who are not able to come to the library but still need help using our plethora of online resources.

This form of virtual communication offers a new and fun way of reaching not only members of our institution but others in the community as well. Though we are able to have our online tutorials freely available on the web, YouTube and iTunes are user friendly and may be less intimidating to use than our formal tutorials. They are resources that many are comfortable with and having our materials available in these formats may increase their use. This capablity alone inspires me to look into YouTube as our next tutorial medium.

What gives me a little pause is having to search for these materials. The thought of our patients trying to find reliable medical information on YouTube (or at podcast.net and Podcast Alley) is frightening. If someone knows exactly what they are looking for (or if a library posted the direct link to their video), YouTube can be helpful. Perhaps what we really need to do is better eduate our users about YouTube if we decide to create these and similar resources. With anyone being able to post anything and with the lack of search features (pointed out by my colleague Janice), YouTube is a resource that should be used with caution.

Globetrotting Librarian's Spring Football Adventure

2008-04-21T16:02:00.008-04:00

This past weekend your Globetrotting Librarian made the first trip of the spring: South Bend Indiana and Chicago. Arguably one of my favorite travel spots is the University of Notre Dame and this weekend was the annual spring football game. The concept of a spring college football game new to you? Here's a few resources to get you caught up to speed:

Sayewich, N. (April 12, 2008)Spring ball provides a tradition like no other Sun Journal

2008 Notre Dame Football

In addition to watching the offense barely secure the win, we also strolled campus taking in a few of my favorite spots: the library (of course!) and the basilica.

After taking in Notre Dame we made the train trip to Chicago - no libraries here, just excellent susi and time spent with friends.

Impact of the Visual Library

2008-04-14T15:56:00.006-04:00

Many times, pictures convey what words cannot. Johann Wolfgan von Goethe stated “a man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.” Whether this image is of our favorite place and brings us feelings of inner peace, or of our first conference poster presentation bringing us a feeling of pride and satisfaction, pictures have a way of helping us to better understand ourselves (and allow others to better understand us).

There are a variety of ways that photo sharing can have a positive impact on libraries. Through photo sharing, we can highlight recent library renovation projects and show our users ways that we have improved and changed. We can provide better directions on how to find the library (beneficial for those of us who do better with landmarks than we do with street names). Not only does this technology allow us to show off what we’ve done and communicate with our patrons, it also humanizes our profession. By having our photos on our staff pages, patrons can put a name with a face and see that it is a person (not a search engine!!) that is helping them.

Photo sharing also benefits our colleagues by showing them what we have done well and how our success may help them reach their goals. Pictures also make it easier to find colleagues at conferences!

Pictures also have the power to:
~ Visually convey to administrators what we provide our patrons and our patron’s responses to those services

~ Alleviate library anxiety by demonstrating to future undergraduates the differences between their high school library and a university library before they even step foot in our buildings

Norman Vincent Peale once said “if you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conductive to your goal.” By having an image of what we want can help us achieve our goals. If we vision it, it becomes possible. If we share it, the vision continues to live.

We Were There Too...

2008-04-09T16:16:00.007-04:00

Sometimes, I forget how I felt being a graduate student and posed with an assignment that I did not understand. Memories of being in tears, confused, and not knowing who to talk to, afraid that my instructors would think I was lazy or not capable were all buried away. These flashbacks to grad school were prompted by a conversation I had with a fellow faculty member after a meeting yesterday. One of our students had come to her in tears because she was not able to find an article for her class assignment. She searched for hours and tried to remember the different training sessions she had attended, but just could not come up with relevant results. My first reaction was why didn’t she call and ask for help? There is so much I could have shown her. It then dawned on me that maybe there was a lot I could have shown her – but would it have been too much?

Our library offers a wealth of resources, tips, and tricks for finding information. The challenge is recognizing when we are offering so much that we throw someone (especially a new researcher or graduate student) into information overload and feed their library anxiety. CINAHL searching may be a breeze for me and I can list about half a dozen resources where to find more help, but this is not the case for many of our library users.

Library anxiety is not a new concept (a search for "Library Anxiety" in Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text returns results dating back to the late 1980's). I cannot image a librarian who’s goal is to scare library users away. We are here help and alleviate anxiety. In my attempts to combat this issue, I’m exploring the use of a wiki to consolidate the 50+ help pages we have and allow for easier use. Also, in conjunction to the lectures I conduct, I’m also going to continue offering group lab times and individualized consultations. And speaking of lectures, I’m going to start slowing things down and analyzing the content: what do my students need to know compared to what I want them to know?

There is always more to learn about library anxiety and student’s research behaviors and patterns. In addition to reading the literature and incorporating what we ourselves have learned, perhaps what we all need to do is remember back to our grad school days and how we felt as students. What helped us get through those times may better enable us to change our current practices.

Exploring New Ways to Share

2008-04-09T15:43:00.002-04:00

One of the challenges of being a librarian and teacher (really an employee of any organization) is what happens while you are out of the office – whether on vacation or out sick. How many emails are being pumped into my mail box? Am I missing any important calls? Who (if any one) is taking care of the commitments I am not able to keep?

What’s most troublesome for me is that many of my lesson plans are housed in My Documents: if I am out unexpectedly and am to teach that day, no one is able to get to my lesson plans and PowerPoint presentations. The result? Someone is not prepared to teach on my behalf and the session may need to be canceled.

Google Docs, as well as similar programs, may help to alleviate this teaching crisis. Now, I can post my session outlines and slides on the web and allow my colleagues access to these materials: if I’m home sick, I can log on to my home computer, grant permission to my colleagues, and instantly they have access to the documents they need. Not only would others be able to use my slides and notes, but they could also add content and ideas (creativity has a way of flourishing when ideas and concepts are shared).

About two weeks ago I was called to jury duty (yes, I actually had to serve and was the jury foreman). Unfortunately, that was also a day that I had a class scheduled and without having a back up instructor, the class had to be canceled. With a program such as Google Docs, perhaps the class could have still been conducted.

But, do I feel that this is the future of office documentation? Not necessarily. Privacy is always a concern when using the web and, all too frequently, problems happen with web pages and servers. And, online documentation programs are not quite perfect. When importing PowerPoint slides to Google Docs, font sizes are not necessarily scaled correctly and URLs run off the pages. Also, Microsoft’s Office Live requires users to agree to many terms and conditions, which can be very intimidating.

Though this technology has not changed how I generate and maintain my documents, it has changed the way I am able to share my work with colleagues (which is worth its weight in kilobytes of space taken up in our email accounts).

Not Quite Lost in the Clouds

2008-04-03T11:11:00.002-04:00

I have to admit, initially, I was beyond resistant to social bookmarking. To me, it was cataloging meets the apocalypse: disorder, chaos, clouds of locusts disguised as words… I just didn’t get the concept of different people contributing to what librarians did best – categorizing and organizing information. And the clouds – what is with the tag clouds?

After going through the Web2.0 course blog and reading over the selected materials, the concept of tagging and bookmarking started to become clearer. Then I started my del.icio.us account.

After experimenting with my new webpage organizational system, I see what all the talk is about. Granted, I still find the tag clouds useless (maybe its just me and my poor vision, but I have a hard time judging text and determining its level of significance based on size), but the concept of organizing webpages with appropriate labels and then being able to search by those labels is immensely valuable. With this new-to-me tool, I can actually find the pages I want most and can access them whether I am at home or the office. Del.icio.us has done for my webpages what Bloglines has done for my favorite posts (or EndNote for citations).

Though social bookmarking has made a difference in how I better organize webpages, I can see some of its limitations, such as making sure you are using appropriate labels. How I define blood clotting, resources, and research may be different compared to how some of our patrons define these terms. For social bookmarking to work for everyone, common terms (dare I saw authority control) need to be utilized: if our users don’t know what we are talking about or can’t find what they are looking for, social tagging is only going to frustrate them.

Perhaps the concept of social bookmarking may give us incentive to better understand our users, their needs, and how they look at library services and resources…

Disc-ing? A Librarian's Perspective

2008-04-02T16:42:00.007-04:00

Finally, after what has been a never ending winter, spring is making an appearance, bringing with it my two favorite spring outdoor activities: baseball and disc-ing.

Disc-ing (one of my favorite sports that no one generally has a clue what I am talking about) is basically golf with Frisbees. You take a specially designed Frisbee (dense and a bit heaver then a standard Frisbee), and a specially designed course with giant metal “pins” above the ground and you’ve got the very basic components of disc golf. Toss in a special toss (not just a simple fling, but more of an upper body and coordinated wrist movement) and you’re on your way!

Not only does disc golfing allow you to get some fresh air and develop muscles that you had no clue you had before starting, it provides a great outlet for frustration (especially after a long work week, trying to find an answer for that “special” reference question, or after a Notre Dame football loss).

There are a wide range of resources about disc golfing and its benefits (as I said, it's excellent exercise and is being incorporated in various school athlectic programs). Below are some highlights, including websites, books, and articles:

Now, what is Frisbee golf?
From our friends at Wikipedia
Learning the basics from Disc Life
Most everything disc at DiscGolf

Books
Disc golf : all you need to know about the game you want to play, by Michael Stevens Gregory

Articles
Kennedy, C. (2007). Making Space for the DISC Jockey. Parks & Recreation, 42(1), 34-37.

Siniscalchi, J., & Pierskalla, D. (2005). FLYING SAUCERS: Disc golf can bring personal and community benefits to rural America. Parks & Recreation, 40(1), 42-47.

Burnham, J. (2003). A new spin on an old game: disc golf. Active Woman Canada, 1(4), 40-42.

But what does this cost me?
The Disc Golf Store
But, to be honest, you can really find discs any where (ebay and second hand shops are good resources). Also, many courses are in parks, making it free once you get there.

I’m hooked – where can I try this out?
Ohio Courses
Michigan Courses
Indiana Courses

Courses I've played are Burnett Woods (University of Cincinnati), Mt. Airy Forest in Cincinnati, and Ottawa Park in Toledo. The Cincinnati courses are awesome - even if disc-ing isn't your thing, they're still great places to take a walk. Do be careful, though if you go to the Bowling Green Course (high winds make this a challenging course, great for once you've honned in your disc skills).

Lending a Hand

2008-03-25T13:12:00.007-04:00

I'm all about new resources and one from the CDC was just posted to the MEDLIB-L listserv I'm on: an online course on proper hand washing (CDC Hand Hygiene Resource Web Page). Features of note are the "Quick Questions" (which allow you to test yourself and your hand washing practices) and the ability to go forward and back through the course. Though the course is based on slides, there is some video and audio which helps to demonstrate proper hand washing (and you can view the transcript of the video as well - which works great if you have to keep your speakers off when working at your desk!). It also did not take long to go through and was extremely informative.

Why does this online course interest me so much? In a previous life, I was the coordinator for staff training at an assisted living center for the disabled in a small, rural community. One of the sections we taught was proper hand washing and PPE (personal protective equipment). It was a non-profit organization and we had a large number of staff members. Not only did they recieve training when they were first hired, they also had training refreshers. Accomplishing their daily tasks let alone in class training was a lot to ask. Freely available online courses such as this would have been an asset.

Materials such as this are a blessing, but the problem is how to best share these resources with organizations that many libraries do not reach on a consistent basis. How do you connect with those who need you most but know you least?

Who's Space is it?!

2008-03-25T11:16:00.006-04:00

After work Friday night, you have a few friends over for dinner to play cards, order take out, and to just unwind after a long work week. As everyone is arriving, your one friend brings along a buddy of his. You’ve never met this person before and he’s a decent enough guy, but he just doesn’t fit in. No one wants to talk or play cards anymore. There are long gaps of silence and your friends who had been laughing and joking before don’t have anything to say.

Now, enter social networking and libraries.

Though I can’t speak for all libraries or librarians, I find Myspace and Facebook to be places where librarians need to tread carefully. Many go to these social networking sites to get away from work and school – to have a fun, relaxed place to go to and connect with friends and family. Though many like their jobs, enjoy their academic experiences, patrons may not be too thrilled with librarians trying to be their friends. At this time, I do not see our library starting a Myspace page: though many of our students may have pages, our other target audiences (clinicians, faculty, administrators) may not. As for if larger organizations such as MLA had a Myspace page, I would be hesitant to join. Myspace is just that: my space. Its not a place where I network professionally. Now, a LinkedIn page, that would be different…

For the class I’m taking I had to make set up a Facebook account. After trying out the different features and exploring the page, I definitely prefer Myspace. I like the organization and personalization of Myspace – it’s a lot more fun as well as easier to use. And what’s scary about Facebook is that there is a page within your profile where you can put your credit card information (Why would you have this page on there?! Does this freak anyone else out?). There are so many privacy issues using social networking sites (especially for minors), then you throw in credit card numbers... Myspace and similar pages are fun, but use with care! For about a day, my Myspace page was open for anyone to view. After my 10th risque message from some most definitly not my friend, I set my page to private had have not turned back. If our library made the move to start a Myspace or similar page, we would need to be aware of the different privacy (and the spam issues) it could cause.

With Myspace as my fun and social page, I also have a LinkedIn account which is amazing. I had no idea this social networking site existed. It’s professional, easy to use, and has so many features (finding and posting job ads, asking and answering professional questions, etc). For anyone looking to change or expand their careers, LinkedIn is a fantastic resource. I would interested to know too, if others have any other professional social networking sites they are interested in…

How would you like your information today - Blog or Wiki?

2008-03-19T15:26:00.002-04:00

Last week I started my first blog and this week my first wiki. I’ve had a pretty good grasp of blogs for a while now, but wiki’s were a bit new. I’ve found blogs useful for providing information about current events – informational articles on blogs can be very interesting (depending on the topic… not everyone loves copyright or Notre Dame like your's truly!); however, having a medium to post current happenings and up to the moment information strike me as the greater purposes for blogs.

Though wiki’s are kept current and up to date (updates can be made immediately), I view wikis as more of encyclopedia/reference resources. Where a blog may tell me how my favorite baseball or football player performed over the weekend, a wiki entry would provide me with information on the rules of baseball and football (or biographical information about the players). Speaking of wikis – feel free to give my wiki, Teach the Teacher, a look and let me know what you think!

In the library world I live in, both blogs and wikis are of value to both library staff and patrons. Though I wonder how many patrons read our library’s blog, with the blog our users are kept up to speed on new classes we are offering, changes in our database subscriptions, and the cool new books we’ve purchased. We don’t have a wiki yet, but I’m venturing a guess that it would be of major value as well: our library’s webpags are full of great resources and help information and having all of those materials on a wiki may aid in finding (and better using) our help information.

Santa Claus and Copyright

2008-03-19T10:27:00.004-04:00

An instructor calls the library wanting to donate their copy of a particular text book. This book was given to the instructor by the publisher. Can the library accept this item?

Book donations are what keep many libraries afloat – if it was not for donations, many library’s collections would be lacking considerably. But the question is what really can the library take? Are there limitations on what gifts a library can accept?

Like any other business, there are limitations on gifts. Many companies are no longer able to accept free dinners or golf outings from sales reps and even individuals who work with patients (such as assisted living centers) are not able to accept gifts from residents. So, what is a library’s gift cap?

The First Sale Doctrine (section 109) may help provide an answer. According to the Copyright Clearance Center’s Copyright Basics page, just because someone has purchased a book or was given a book does not make that individual the copyright owner. Though a library may own a copy of a book (or the book was donated to them), the library does not have full copyright of that book - the original owner still does. Even if a library is not the owner of the copyright, the library is still allowed to lend the book – or throw the book away.

What I found interesting with the First Sale Doctrine is section b-1-A, which list strict guidelines in what you can (and cannot) do with a computer program.

By this, if Santa gave me TurboFLOORPLAN for Christmas, can I throw it way?

What do you think?

What Works with Keeping Up - Post for Course

2008-03-11T13:30:00.010-04:00

For a long time, whenever I'd find a page or blog of interest, I would bookmark the page in my browser's favorites. At first, I would check my favorites daily, then it became cumbersome, very cumbersome.

Almost a year ago, I started up a Bloglines account and began taking advantage of RSS feeds. Using Bloglines has saved me a lot of valuable time: everything is sent to me in one spot and I don't feel that I am missing out on information most important to me. I now use the beta version of Bloglines and subscribe to 36 feeds (and growing!). My feeds range from blogs from other libraries and librarians (Paper Cuts, the Krafty Librarian, A Library Writer's Blog) to copyright (Copyright Advisory Network, Tarlton Law Library). Having a PubMed search feed on copyright as well as having the table of contents to Library and Information Science Research are additional ways RSS helps me to keep up to date. And how can I forget my Notre Dame and Travel blogs?

Bloglines has had a major impact in how I keep up on information and I see it having a similar impact on our library's patrons: busy physicians and students who need to find information quickly and efficiently. To spread the good word of RSS and aggregators such as Bloglines, I conduct a 2 hour session on the benefits of and how to use RSS feeds. We just started the sessions this spring and the session is still in its trial phase, but having the opportunity to teach others different tips and tricks to help them save time is the highlight of the sessions.

The adventure begins... day one of the blog

2008-03-10T16:27:00.002-04:00

Welcome to the Globetrotting Librarian blog! Today is the inaugural day of the blog and I hope you enjoy reading my posts! I'm still getting out of vacation mode - we just made the trek back from Las Vegas Wednesday - I'm rested and ready for the week's teaching! Most memorable Vegas experience... Bellagio fountains and my first taxi cab ride.