library website

The Library is Open

For the past couple of years I’ve been wearing two main hats at my job: one as an information literacy librarian and the other as a lead on a collegewide pedagogical grant. I’ve had several opportunities to connect the two, which I think strengthens both my library and my grant work. This year the connection I’m working on most actively is between the library and a new digital platform that’s been developed via the grant: the City Tech OpenLab.

The OpenLab is a website that faculty and students can use in their work on courses, but it’s much more than a learning management system. The website also provides spaces for projects and clubs to collaborate and promote their work; it hosts our student eportfolios, too. As a commuter college we’re hopeful that the OpenLab will help strengthen the City Tech community by providing our students, faculty, and staff with a virtual space to connect and collaborate.

We built the OpenLab using the open source applications WordPress (blogging/sitebuilding software) and BuddyPress (social networking software), much like successful efforts at our university and others, including the CUNY Academic Commons and Blogs@Baruch, as well as the University of Mary Washington’s UMWBlogs. All of these platforms share a commitment to openness that’s missing in most conventional learning management systems (like Blackboard) and even open source systems like Moodle and Sakai: the ability for users to make their work publicly visible and to share it with the entire university and beyond.

Academic librarians have been successfully working with learning management systems for years now, and there are lots of articles, blog posts, and other sources to consult for ideas and strategies about how best to collaborate with faculty and connect with students as embedded librarians in these platforms. At City Tech our librarians do a bit of embedding in Blackboard, the LMS that our university uses, too. But the OpenLab is different: it’s not just for coursework, and the tools available on the platform — discussion boards, blogs, collaborative documents, and file storage — are available to any member, project, or club.

It definitely makes sense for the library to be involved in the OpenLab, and my colleagues and I have been grappling with the question of how our presence on the platform can complement and augment the other ways the library uses to reach students and faculty. It would be great to use an OpenLab space to answer questions from library users, to point them to resources and services, to share news, and to highlight librarian profiles. But we already have a library website, which includes one page for each of our library faculty, as well as a library news blog.

We might need to be careful about duplicating our efforts excessively in the two spaces. Will patrons be confused if some library content is available on the OpenLab and other just on the library website? We can presumably use RSS feeds to bring content over to the OpenLab from our blog, so we won’t need to reproduce that content in two places. And we don’t have an interactive area for patrons to ask questions on our website, just a suggestion form and email address, so it’ll be interesting to see if we can attract Q&A in a more synchronous way from students and faculty on the OpenLab.

We’re actively brainstorming other ways to take advantage of the opportunities that the OpenLab offers, and I’m eager to begin experimenting in this new pedagogical space. Have other academic libraries worked with students or faculty on open educational platforms? I’d be interested to hear about your experiences if so!

Faculty Connections with Website Flair

ACRLog welcomes a guest post from Marcia Dority Baker, the Access Services Librarian at the University of Nebraska College of Law, Schmid Law Library.

One of the great things about being an academic librarian at a law college is the ability to interact with a variety of departments. One such opportunity is a work in progress; this past spring our Associate Dean for Academic Affairs approached the library for assistance in promoting SSRN (the Social Science Research Network) and the UNL Digital Commons to faculty. Simultaneously, the law college Communication department was reviewing how to better promote the law college after a faculty member asked for help managing an email signature line. This allowed us to work with both departments in a new way.

After a few brainstorming sessions, we decided to better promote faculty scholarship and the law college in two ways: first by adding buttons to individual faculty pages that linked to a variety of resources and secondly, if interested faculty could add “flair” to their email signature line with the same buttons.

The university’s content management system recently migrated to Drupal, allowing individuals within departments better access to the law college website. The people who know the information best can update website pages more frequently. I’m now responsible for the law library web pages since I was already handling our social media presence.

Our faculty webpages are fairly static most of the year, typically updated when after annual reports are due or before the academic year begins. Most people search the internet for faculty members to find contact information, publications, areas of expertise or research, and/or courses taught; current content on these pages should be a priority. Since we don’t have a dedicated web person, the best option for our law college is to use buttons that link users to the most current information available. We decided on the following buttons: the UNL Digital Commons, SSRN, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Slideshare–a good mix of scholarly links, professional networking and social media.

The UNL Digital Commons is a hidden gem to most people outside the library, but an uncomplicated way to get faculty publications online. The only requirement from faculty is an email with their CV publication list, this doubles as permission to add their scholarship to the UNL Digital Commons. The Digital Commons staff then locates the publications, handles copyright, and scans and uploads the material into the repository. This process is user-friendly for our faculty, making it easy for them to say “yes” to having their scholarship in the Digital Commons–a great selling point for the librarians when promoting the service. A monthly report on material downloads is generated for all authors; this has increased conversation about the UNL Digital Commons as most people like seeing how many times their work has been accessed.

SSRN was initially utilized by approximately half of the law college faculty; the current number of participants is in flux as we talk to individuals about adding their scholarship. The big difference between the UNL Digital Commons and SSRN is that faculty members are responsible for uploading their publications to SSRN. The how-to instructions are clear, but asking professors to add material during the semester is a challenge. We work on the assumption that more articles will be uploaded during the academic year downtime. To help the process, the law librarians are promoting the SSRN FAQ section which is very helpful and can assist faculty with tech questions if need be.

The law librarians met individually or as a small group with the law college faculty to explain the SSRN & UNL Digital Commons buttons. During this time we also mentioned other options for faculty pages: the buttons for LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. There was some confusion as to which Facebook page a professor’s faculty page would link to–not their personal page but the law college’s or law library’s Facebook page. A number of the faculty expressed concern about professional versus personal information online, wanting to keep both sides separate. After meeting with faculty to determine their preferences, a student worker in the communications department adds the appropriate buttons to their page. The quicker we update their websites, the better success our endeavor has.

Our project timeframe is the current academic year; we anticipate talking with the entire law faculty this Fall. If we can’t connect due to various reasons, then we’ll meet this Spring semester. The current priority is adding buttons to faculty pages as we talk to law college faculty members, especially since the student worker helping with webpages is graduating in December.

So far, this has been an engaging project. It’s great to talk to faculty about their scholarship and how the University at large can promote their work through the UNL Digital Commons. It has also opened new conversations on social media such as managing the law college and law library’s online presence, and learning how faculty want to connect with colleagues and students or that gray line between personal versus professional information online.

Smartphones in the Library

ACRLog welcomes a guest post from Jane-Rebecca Cannarella, a student at Arcadia University in Philadelphia who completing is her Masters with a focus in School Library Media Specialty.

Finding the right technology to use in the library, particularly the kind of devices that will best suit the largest number of patrons, can be an arduous task when considering the wealth of new advancements that are available. Many of these items can be costly or not intuitive to the user. But two new tools have proven themselves useful and user friendly in all varieties of libraries.

QR codes, or Quick Response codes, were first introduced for use in the auto industry in the mid-nineties. Since then QR codes, which are a two dimensional matrix barcode, have become increasingly popular in libraries. They store URLs and text data that can be pulled from the physical world onto mobile phones. This is done by using the camera feature to take a picture of the code which will be translated through software into text, web addresses, contact or location information, or other pertinent information.

The prevalence of smart phones and mobile devices with internet capabilities is hard to ignore. More and more of the population have access to smart phones, which makes the use of QR codes that incorporate information access and smart phone technology an appealing option for education and libraries. They are low cost options that are user friendly and easy to employ. There are many free QR code generator sites such as Kaywa QR code generator, qrstuff.com, and Deliver.com. Codes exist in a number of spots such as in the virtual world of blogs, online catalogs, and webpages, as well as in the physical world of book shelves and checkout desks.

They can be implemented in a number of ways within libraries. Codes can be used in library stacks to direct the user to supplement online electronic resources, they can be accessed for catalog records to inform the user of location information, or they can link to audio tours. Many libraries are utilizing them to create a more unique user experience. For example, Lafayette College Library used QR codes to create an interactive mystery game to better acquaint incoming freshman to their college library, the students were able to access the scavenger hunt information through the website. Librarians were stationed throughout the library and would hand the students the QR codes upon successful completion of a clue. At UC Irvine the libraries use QR codes within the stacks: the arts section points the user to further browsing within the physical collection, and the math QR codes directs the user to the best ebook collection for their query. Contra Costa County Library uses the QR codes for directing patrons interested in popular books to further reading as well as to market downloadable audio books for those that want to listen while using public transportation. And Sacramento Public Library allows patrons to access reference service information through QR codes.

Through these codes libraries can reach the user in non-traditional locations, this increases library usage frequency creating a stronger sense of community. With increasing patron activity and easy access to the library, even remotely, in mind another free resource that has been successfully implemented in libraries is the use of Conduit.com. Conduit.com allows users to create a library specific application that be accessed on a smart phone, as well as a community toolbar in order to drive traffic and increase patronage for the library. The community tool bar provides continuous access to library resources and services addressing the need for students to use peer reviewed resources available to them without their knowledge.

Since patrons, particularly students, are more comfortable accessing information online in order to conduct research, a toolbar that showcases the what is available at the library will result in accessed data that is valid and reliable. Librarians can provide a visible link to the databases, Twitter, blogs, and ebooks that are available through the library. This increases the use of existing, and paid for, library research and self-service tools that might be ignored by the patrons in lieu of Google searches.

At Arizona State University the web services librarian put Conduits on all the public computers in order to highlight library services to patrons that might not know of the availability of those resources. The Colorado Statue University Libraries use Conduit in order for patrons to have access to multiple library resources simultaneously. The Bush Memorial Library at Hamline University uses them as a way for users to search the catalog and databases without having to go through the library website each time. It also gives the user the opportunity to get customized toolbars for their educational specialty.

The application works in a similar manner: it allows the user easy and immediate access to the library’s Twitter, Facebook, RSS feeds, wiki sites, and blogs. It directs the patron to sites and resources that the library offers in a remote setting. Both the application and toolbar claim to be easy enough to create for even the least tech savvy person.

While both QR codes and Conduits rely heavily on smart phone usage, it is in the best interest of librarians to understand how advancing technology can best benefit the library. Free technology that focuses on enabling patrons to have better access to library sources will provide them with more well-rounded and peer-reviewed research, while those patrons that do have access to smart phone technology can reach their library services even when it is not physically available to them. Having this technology at their disposal allows patrons to become a more independent and empowered learners as well as bringing overlooked library resources to the forefront of the users’ search. Most importantly, these technologies create a sense of community while broadening the uses of the library.

Searching the Library Website and Beyond: A Graduate Student Perspective

This month’s post in our series of guest academic librarian bloggers is by Julia Skinner, a first year Information Studies doctoral student at Florida State University. She blogs at Julia’s Library Research.

I just finished my MLS, and one of the issues raised frequently both in and out of the classroom was how to get college students and researchers to use the library website. Academic librarians I’ve talked with have spent hefty amounts of time (and money) designing sites that meet the self-described needs of patrons, but still find most of the searches that guide students to library resources to be coming from Google. I decided to take a look at my own search habits to get a sense of how, from the graduate student perspective, these tools might be employed, and hopefully generate some discussion about searching on the library website and beyond.

Like many other people, I usually do a quick Google search on my topic early on in the research process. This isn’t necessarily to track down every resource I would be using, but it does give me a general sense of what’s out there on my topic beyond the realm of scholarly materials. Since my own work relies heavily on the journal articles, scholarly monographs, primary sources, and other reliable sources, I feel like seeing what people have said outside the ivory tower can be a good way to give myself some perspective about how my topic is thought of and applied elsewhere. Most of the time, like for my research on Iowa libraries during WWI, there’s not much. But sometimes this search helps me find something useful (for example, in my recent work writing chapters for an encyclopedia on immigration, I was able to find information about nonprofits serving the immigrant community and some news stories.)

Obviously, the university library is still my go-to source. Journal articles, ebooks, not to mention circulating and special collections, are all where the meat and potatoes of my bibliography can be found. I love that many libraries are putting these collections online and purchasing more digital subscriptions (especially in the winter when I have a serious sinus infection and am locked in my house trying to work!) Sometimes, I find these resources through Google Scholar, but most of the time, it’s through searches within the library’s resources. This is especially true for journal articles, which I’ve found Google hasn’t really nailed yet when it comes to bringing desired results from a simple keyword search (I know, it’s a lot to ask, and hence why I love the library site!)

One tool I use heavily is Google Books. Not everything is on there, and most of the things that are have a limited availability (i.e. a preview where only some pages are available) but I have saved countless hours by doing a keyword search in GBooks to get a sense of what’s out there that mentions or is relevant to my topic, but maybe isn’t something I would have grabbed while browsing the shelves. I can then go track down the physical book for a more thorough read, or if I am able to access all the information I need from the preview I can just use it as a digital resource. Some other useful documents are in full view as well: many public domain items, including some ALA documents, can be found there.

Of course I don’t just use Google Books and assume that’s all there is. I also track down public domain titles on sites like Open Library and Project Gutenberg, and approach them in the same way. It’s a great way to get that one tidbit that really pulls an article together, and I usually find that some of those works don’t overlap with the offerings I find in the databases the library subscribes to. I will sometimes use different search engines, search a variety of fields, do Boolean search, etc. all of which helps me extract more little nuggets of information from the vast world of material related to any given topic. Even though I’m an avid Googler, I use library resources just as frequently. I remember speaking with a student a few years ago who could not find anything on her topic through a keyword search, and assumed there was nothing out there on that topic. I was amazed that she hadn’t even considered the university library’s website or physical collections before throwing in the towel! It makes me wonder how many students feel this way, and how we as LIS professionals and instructors can help effectively remove those blinders.

One thing I think will be interesting in the coming years (and which is a great thing to get input about from academic librarians!) is learning more about search habits among undergraduates. I’ll be TAing for our MLIS program this semester, so I’ll be working with students who are my age, getting the degree I just recently obtained, who are tech savvy and knowledgeable about search. What happens when I TA for an undergraduate course? Is sharing my search strategies helpful for papers that only require a handful of sources, and don’t require you to look at a topic from every imaginable angle? I argue that teaching search as something done in as many outlets as possible has the potential to make students better researchers, BUT only if that goes hand in hand with instruction on critically evaluating resources.

Without that, one runs the risk of putting students in information overload or having students work with sources that are irrelevant/untrustworthy. I’m a big fan of helping students recognize that the knowledge they have and the ideas they create are valuable, and it makes me wonder if building on their current search habits in such a way that encourages them to speak about the value of those sources, the flaws in their arguments, etc. will help promote that. I remember having a few (but not many) undergrad courses that encouraged me to draw upon my own knowledge and experience for papers, and to critically analyze works rather than just write papers filled with other peoples arguments followed by I agree/disagree. I feel like teaching is moving more in the direction of critical analysis, and I’m excited to see the role that librarians and library websites play!