Among the Enemy Book Trailer

We're experimenting with QR Codes at the library. I created this book trailer for one of our new titles: Among the Enemy by Margaret Peterson Haddix. We will place a QR code on the book so that students can view the trailer when they scan it with their Smartphones.

Personal Learning Update

I have really enjoyed this course, though at times keeping track of all of the different social media venues was overwhelming. I have to say that one of the most beneficial tools I learned to use was a wiki. I had, of course, viewed wikis before, but had never tried my hand at actually creating and collaborating through one. It made organizing our final project a breeze and really helped me to visualize our progress. Breaking the work into small chunks by using separate pages for each element also made the task more manageable. When it came time to put our wiki into report format, it was surprising (and relieving) how much we had already written as whole. I even elected to use a wiki for collaboration for a group project in one of my other course after having such success with our final project for LSC597.

The course and my classmates introduced me to so many new, creative tools and ideas. I am very excited about the potential of Google+ because I already use so many Google products, including this blog! As they continue to integrate their services, it is hard to imagine being able to use anything else. I also think that it will offer some exciting tools for libraries once it launches its business-oriented version. I am additionally interested in experimenting with presentation tools like Glogster and Voki in the future, as demonstrated by my innovative and resourceful classmates. 

After having the chance to work with a real library to implement a Facebook page, I hope to have the confidence to continue to encourage and guide my future library in adopting whatever novel 2.0 (or 3.0) tools are on the horizon!

The Case for Video Games in Libraries

Suellen Adams authored a passionate and persuasive article about including a variety of games within the library experience. In her article, Adams brought up some points that I had not previously considered. Not only do games support reading literacy, but they also mimic and strengthen information literacy, as well. They can be a great tool for both the library media specialist and the teacher. I recently included a Civil War shooter game in a pathfinder on the subject in the hopes of encouraging reluctant readers.

I thought the suggestions for how gaming can aid seniors were quite valid and the ideas for gaming events creative. Games do not just have to serve an educational purpose in the library, however. Adams' analogy equating recreational games to reading for pleasure was a convincing one! Now I don't have to feel guilty whenever I want to take the time to play Age of Empires or Football Manager.

Personal Learning Update

As the semester draws to a close I am excited by how much I have covered in all of my classes so far, but scared by how much work is yet to come. Four classes provide fodder for a lot of final projects and papers! Luckily some of the tools I have learned about through this course have provided me with a means of tackling my work. I have found the tagging sites to be especially useful in organizing resources for each class and project and have enjoyed the support and knowledge shared by peers through the social networking aspect of the class. Thanks to these resources, I hope to be able to, at the very least, finish all of my assignments on time, though they may not be as thorough as they would have been had I not been silly enough to think I could handle so many classes!

Facebook and Privacy

There are a lot of privacy issues surrounding Facebook. These concerns become even more complicated when libraries, typically models of confidentiality, start joining in order to reap the outreach benefits. Peter Fernandez drove this point home in his extremely redundant article entitled "Online Social Networking Sites and Privacy: Revisiting Ethical Considerations for a New Generation of Technology." It offered little insight not already covered in more comprehensive pieces. The only thing I got out of it was a few fun facts, one of which inspired me to post a privacy settings tutorial on the library Facebook page that I help to administer. 

I found his two other articles to be much more informative and practical. In Fernandez's article "Balancing Outreach and Privacy in Facebook: Five Guiding Decision Points," he outlines some key considerations libraries should ponder before jumping on the Facebook bandwagon. I thought his warnings about inviting users to interact on Facebook were especially prudent. Not that libraries should disallow comments and the like, but they should go into the venture with clear ideas about how they want to moderate any controversial discussions that might arise. I also liked his point about including library apps on a Facebook page. Improving the functionality of a page by adding a catalog search, etc. could actually demand further privacy sacrifices of patrons who wish to utilize the service. We must be careful before adding any seemingly helpful gadgets to our library pages. 

I was especially impressed with Fernandez's report on "Privacy and Generation Y: Applying Library Values to Social Networking Sites." I thought it provided a very insightful discussion of the various shades of privacy and its relevance to social networking and libraries that hearkened back to Danah Boyd's modern take on the topic. Fernandez also offered several sensible suggestions for how academic libraries can take advantage of social networking sites like Facebook in a responsible manner. I thought his advice on updating policies was especially pertinent. Additionally, I found this article to be valuable beyond its intended scope, as well. I appreciated his commentary on the weaknesses of certain types of studies and on the inherent biases withing even academic research. 

Free Culture and LibraryLaw Blog

I just viewed Elizabeth Stark's speech on Free Culture presented at Quinnipiac University. I wish I had watched this video (appropriately licensed under Creative Commons) earlier in the semester. It would have given me a lot of perspective as I created a LibGuide for another class regarding copyright information. (Check out "A Fair(y) Use Tale" which demonstrates, as well as teaches, the concept of Fair Use.) I found the ideals of Free Culture appealing. This is very much in line with the principles of TED, an open access knowledge sharing venue from which I have personally learned a lot

I also checked out the LibraryLaw Blog from Mary Minow, J.D., A.M.L.S. and Peter Hirtle, M.A., M.L.S.which I found to be an incredibly useful resource. It is interesting to note that the most common terms in the blog's tag cloud were "copyright" and "privacy," two issues that are very pertinent to this weeks' discussion. I was happy to see that there most recent post concerned e-books because this is certainly an issue that many librarians should be educated about. I was disappointed to note that they did not update all that frequently, but perhaps this is because libraries do not have a lot of fresh concerns dealing with legal issues. (I wish.)

Facebook and Academic Libraries

I thought that Connell's study, entitled "Academic Libraries, Facebook, and MySpace, and Student Outreach: A Survey of Student Opinion," was a bit outdated. It was based upon a premise that is now no longer an issue: The best way to reach students with library info via Facebook is through status updates, but you can only do so if the library is friends with the student. This is, of course, no longer a problem because "fans" of a library page can receive status updates without the need to fear for their privacy by friending the library. I found the results of their survey of students to be expected. Many students like to keep their social spheres separate. This is one of the reasons why I think Google+ is going to be very popular. With this SNS, libraries will be able to send information to patrons without friend them (having them add the library to their circle). If patrons want to receive the information, they can choose to put the library in a special group that will not be able to see any private information about the user. This is similar to the idea of Facebook Pages, but more intuitive to use and it will be easier for libraries to encourage users to follow the library's updates.

Hendrix, et al. conducted a similar study, but focused on librarians, instead of students. I was shocked at how few academic health science libraries actually have a Facebook front, but I was very interested in some of the creative ways that these 12.5% did use their pages. I had not heard of librarian created applications that can be used to incorporate services into a library page, such as chat reference, catalog searching, and online multimedia access. I would think that libraries with these types of tools on their pages provide a lot more value to their users than those who just use Facebook for marketing events. I also thought that some of the ways that these libraries gained access to the students were pretty creative. I really liked the idea that one library had of looking through open group discussions about the college/university and answering questions that arose. This gave the library a positive image without the "creepy" side effect of actually seeking out students to friend!