I've been thinking about how useful a podcast might be for the Education Library, especially for the detailed Online Research Skills sessions we run. Would students find an audio visual demonstration much more appealing than a slideshow? Our powerpoint presentations are uploaded onto the Library CamTools site for students to look at, and going from the site stats detailing the number of times they were downloaded, this has been fairly successful.
The Library tour podcasts at Goldsmiths Library and the audio pods from the University of Aberdeen are useful for new readers who use large libraries I had a quick look to see if the UL has one but wasn't able to find anything on the web pages. Education isn't a particularly huge Library so we wouldn't do a podcast for orientation purposes.
It was fun to look at some of the YouTube links that Andy listed - I loved the L-Team! Goggle vision from the University of Liverpool does a nice view on Google v. databases - might be looking at this again when we come to do our sessions. And as for the Lady Ga Ga video - well, there's not much to say really...
As has been demonstrated by some of the above examples, podcasts and YouTube can be used to market library service to readers as it's another way of communicating to students, and is potentially useful for those who study on distance courses. We have 2 online courses running at the moment and students only attend sessions in the Faculty once or twice a term, so perhaps a Library podcast highlighting the wealth of electronic resources available at a distance would be helpful. As mentioned in the Podcasting in academic libraries article:
"Many libraries produce podcasts as an outreach method for distance education students, who are often unaware of available library services and unable to take instruction classes."
This is something I would like to pursue further, but as the new academic year is fast approaching, this will sadly have to wait until next year...
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Wednesday, 25 August 2010
Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Twitter, Tweets & Twuffers
I have had a Twitter account since becoming a member of the Cam23 Project Team and I now have a grand total of 18 followers! I'm also following 21 Tweeters, most of whom are participants of Cam23.
We have had a Twitter account at the Education Library since Michaelmas 2009. We use it to update our readers on changes in opening hours, or letting them know a new Library newsletter is available to read.
However, we use the announcement facility on CamTools to send information to our readers as they are all members of the Library CamTools site. We know then that we are reaching everyone, whereas Twitter is voluntary and relies on the reader to follow us.
I found out this week that you're able to send Tweets whilst you are away from your usual channels of communication - these are called Twuffers. Interesting...I'm not sure why people would feel the need to do this. Perhaps if you have lots of followers this would be useful so that they don't think you've completely disappeared and then stop following you - disaster!
I read an article in the latest Library + Information Gazette by Laura Woods about Tweeting whilst attending conferences and the assumption that people who do this are not paying attention to the speaker. Laura blogged about this later and raised an interesting point:
"I don’t expect everyone to be on Twitter, but as information professionals I really think we should have an understanding of how different people process information, and how some people like to use technology to facilitate that."
It started me thinking about how our students may 'process information' at Library inductions and online research skills sessions. When we speak to groups of readers, I assume that if they are looking at you whilst you are explaining how to locate books or journal articles, they are listening to you. Would I feel the same if they had their head down and were busy tapping away on their lap tops or phones..?
We have had a Twitter account at the Education Library since Michaelmas 2009. We use it to update our readers on changes in opening hours, or letting them know a new Library newsletter is available to read.
However, we use the announcement facility on CamTools to send information to our readers as they are all members of the Library CamTools site. We know then that we are reaching everyone, whereas Twitter is voluntary and relies on the reader to follow us.
I found out this week that you're able to send Tweets whilst you are away from your usual channels of communication - these are called Twuffers. Interesting...I'm not sure why people would feel the need to do this. Perhaps if you have lots of followers this would be useful so that they don't think you've completely disappeared and then stop following you - disaster!
I read an article in the latest Library + Information Gazette by Laura Woods about Tweeting whilst attending conferences and the assumption that people who do this are not paying attention to the speaker. Laura blogged about this later and raised an interesting point:
"I don’t expect everyone to be on Twitter, but as information professionals I really think we should have an understanding of how different people process information, and how some people like to use technology to facilitate that."
It started me thinking about how our students may 'process information' at Library inductions and online research skills sessions. When we speak to groups of readers, I assume that if they are looking at you whilst you are explaining how to locate books or journal articles, they are listening to you. Would I feel the same if they had their head down and were busy tapping away on their lap tops or phones..?
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