Twitter - One Tweet at A Time - Session B

Twitter bird logo icon illustration
Originally uploaded by Matt Hamm

One Tweet at a Time: developing critical thinking, library connections & information skills with Twitter. Rudy Leon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.


The presenter has only been at her current location for 1.5 years, and is most proud of the work that she has done with Twitter. Because Twitter is open and multi-directional, your circle can be expanded and your networking challenged, Leon said. As a libarian at one of the largest university libraries in the country, Leon works with her graduate students to update Twitter. There are now over 700 followers. Leon recommended to start small and grow. A participant pointed out that most Twitter users are in their 30's and 40's. Some of the graduate students who do the updates, do not use Twitter outside of their work activity.

I liked the "Pride and Joy" of Leon's student tweets - This Day in History. Students do the research and have the tweets ready ahead of when they are displayed. There is also one tweet each day on services. A challenge has been getting students to talk back to build a two-way conversation. Twitter is right on the homepage with 5 tweets showing. A link shortener, cli.gs, has been helpful for assessment data. The experience at the University of Illinois was that on a big campus, it is not easy to find what is going on.

Benefits since using Twitter have been an increased community presence, especially with the local newspaper. Rudy Leon also said that the development folks "love them." The addition of Twitter has been a growing voice on campus, but the library has not yet been able to investigate the critical thinking impact.

After being on Twitter for over a year, I enjoyed Rudy Leon's presentation. At our two-year school, I think that our students use Facebook much more even though Twitter is on the college homepage. If we were to use Twitter on our library page, I could see using This Day in History, and linking to other topics like the University of Illinois does. Because tweeting is a component of graduate school, the time to do it is not a major part of the work of librarians.

Vogel Library - Wartburg College, Sesson A

Vogel Library
Originally uploaded by knights98

Wartburg College at Waverly, Iowa


Getting Your Library Users Involved In Your Website Redesign Process, Kimberly Babcock Mashek, Wartburg College

http://library.wartburg.edu/

I was familiar with the Wartburg Library website, and liked the design, so was eager to attend the session on how library users were involved in the redesign process. In the 5 years that Kimberly has been at Wartburg, this was her 3rd website. She asked participants what makes a great website, and stressed the importance of deciding on a purpose or mission statement. Having that helps determine what is put on the website. Too much content can be a problem. Who is it for, and how will it be used? The website is a vehicle for students, community members, to find content that is relevant and readily available. Decide on a timeline. (A good launch date of June or July is good for an academic library.)

HOW TO GET USERS INVOLVED?

Create a User List
Involve Users Who Have Specific Needs
Wesite Will Look Different in Different Browsers
Make a Detailed List of the Redesign Process
Seek Out the Computer Science Department as a Resource
Community Members Have Great Skills to Help

ACTIVITIES
Surveys (online and in person) SurveyMonkey
Focus Groups (students, faculty, librarians, staff)
Design Process
Mock-up Testing
Jargon Eliminators (Best to have students for this!)

FINDINGS
Librarians assume that students use website in a way that they don't
Staff and librarians use website differently
Student Senate was helpful to recruit students for focus groups
Incentives such as food work!
Having a computer science student to research designs, recruit testers and lead card sorting activities was helpful
The IT Department and Communication and Marketing Departments were helpful collaborators
Students usually go to discipline guide before journals

RECOMMENDATIONS
Link to documents without creating another webpage
Have a second person look at all content before posting
Use Dream Weaver
Meet with writing center people
Change library website every 2-3 years to keep fresh

The session was very helpful to anyone undergoing web redesign. At Wartburg, the library had no choice of colors to use, but by agreeing to go with the college design, was able to keep the prominent location of the library on the home page.

Midwest Technology Conference 2010 Keynote Intro Slide

Midwest Technology Conference 2010 Keynote Intro Slide
Originally uploaded by libraryman

The keynote presentation at the 2010 Library Technology Conference was by Michael Porter of WebJunction.


"LIBRARIES, TECHNOLOGY, EVOLUTION, CHANGE AND SUCCESS"

Michael Porter spoke of the speed of evolution - He understands what we do, and wants the good that we do for communities to still be here in 20 years. When he worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the impact of libraries became clear to him. He said that libraries need to become more rather than less relevant. He is hopeful, but concerned for libraries. Porter stressed that LIBRARIES = CONTENT + COMMUNITY, and urged us to think about the changes in 5-10 years. There is politics involved with how technology is integrated with communication. As an industry, we are not prepared to deal with the changes. He asked those attending how many use NETFLIX even though DVDs are circulated by libraries, and said that shows a gap. Even though we control our mission, libraries function differently than businesses who now provide what libraries previously did. He gave many examples,(iTunes will make electonic journals available when they realize that they can make enough money from them) and asked us to consider what we think our libraries will be like in 50 years.

Porter said that all library website traffic in this country does not equal that of the top 50 websites. To survive and thrive, libraries need the infrastructure to provide CONTENT. Without it, libraries will not be able to survive. Because the COMMUNITY says, "Give me what I want, when I want, how I want it," libraries need to learn how to better circulate eletronic content than anyone else. The majority of content in the next 10-20 years will not be in books. Libraries need a digital strategy for electronic content access. If we could do that as well as we do library cards, that would be great, but electronic content distribution is a very difficult issue. For success, we need to work together to provide new electronic content access.

Porter encouraged us to follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He is libraryman on Twitter.

DeWitt Library

DeWitt Library
Originally uploaded by cogdogblog

Library Technology Conference 2010 Held at Macalester College on March 17th & 18th.


I enjoyed attending the first day of the annual Library Technology Conference. The day was great at the lovely Macalester College campus.

Minnesota Winters

Minnesota Winters
Originally uploaded by Ethan G. Knuti

Thanks to Ethan G for adding this to Flickr!
Minnesota winters have beauty even though we sometimes do not appreciate it. This is the second day this winter that I have not made it home when the college was closed. I had not added to my blog for months, so thought that I would work on it tonight while stranded.

How to Read a Library of Congress Call Number

Our college library is in the process of converting the collection from the Dewey to the Library of Congress system. It was a big project this summer. The YouTube video will be a good training tool to use for our student workers.

Al Franken

Al Franken
Originally uploaded by Aaron Landry

Minnesota's Long Senate Race Has Finally Ended!