Top 10 Technologies and 10 Ideas for Improving Library Productivity

Speaker: Michael Stephens

Most of his points are obvious in the presentation, so all I am adding here are some additional notes that came up during the talk.

There are sites that create “trading cards” for staff. I wonder how or if we could use these.

We could use delicious (social bookmarking) site as a way to provide information literacy links, etc. I am thinking of using this as a way of setting up links we use for the Tech Team.

Meebo for virtual reference … I understand it now has “voice mail.”

Dropbox is an interesting service. For free you can have 2G of space. Set up their application on any computer you want and any files placed into the dropbox are synced across all of those PCs (or Macs). And, you can access the files via their Web interface too.

Some institutions are starting Twitter reference service.

[See presentation here: http://tametheweb.com/talks09/TexasTenTechTenIdeas.pdf]

Hyperlinked Library

Speaker: Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor, GSLIS, Dominican University

Here are some notes I took from this presentation:

Michael asked if your library has a Wikipedia entry.

Signage:

• (For a reference desk) Welcome // Ask Here // Information Concierge
• Michael agrees that we need signage. He suggests signs that promote: “Respect yourself; respect others; respect the space”
  

This site from North Carolina State University (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/learningcommons/index.php) shows available PCs and Macs and has a streaming video of the commons area. Also, not the items they check out.

Georgia Tech has a CeLIBration for new students.

Tablet PCs for roving reference.

Check Google for reviews of your library. (I did and found none.)

Set up a blog where students can comment. “14 Days to Have Your Say!”

One library uses sound panels to help cut down the noise. They are stylish and look more like modern art / design. (See page 254 of the presentation.)

Have a “Creation Station” where students can use a microphone, Captivate, etc. to create projects.

If a catalog search returns no results, have IM reference or information on obtaining help.

Some libraries are starting Twitter Reference.

One library (in the Netherlands, I believe) senses a bluetooth enabled phone and sends a greeting.

[see href="http://tametheweb.com/hyperlinkedlibrary/StephensHyperlinkedMasterSpring2009.pdf"]

Web 2.0: Balance Issues for Museums and Libraries

Speaker: Holly Witchey, Director of New Media, Cleveland Museum of Art

A nice presentation, but not exactly what I was expecting. (She warned us of that at the beginning.) Here is what I wrote down from it:

A study showed that the time reference service was most needed by students was 2:00am. To whom did students most go for reference service? Their parents. So, University of Rochester (I believe) started giving parents some information to help their kids when reference questions came up.

Texas Library Association #1

Last week I attended the Texas Library Association annual convention. There are always many great presentations and exhibits to see. In the next few posts I will summarize some of the sessions I attended.

The first session was the opening assembly. This year it was only tangentially library-related. Paula Poundstone was the speaker ... comic. It was a fun way to start off the convention.

Welcome

Welcome to Library Tech Talk. I read a lot of blogs, articles, etc. and would like to have a place where I can summarize some of those postings and refer people back to the original blog or article. So, this is it. I hope you like it.