Great Library Games

Does this ever happen to you? You think you have this great idea and then you work up a little mock-up of the idea or a quick text layout of something- anything and then you forget completely about and the idea and it gets filed in your "ideas" folder in which you stumble upon much later (and then ofcourse think it is fabulous again!).

I was e-mailed about this site: The University of Sydney iResearch Games

I played the games, which were excellent and thought it was the greatest thing (then I found a poster I had made today from a year ago about the same resources)...oh well.

Here are some screen shots. I highly recommend checking out the site for ideas, they did a great job.
Find that cheese:

Book shoot games:

Practice game on creating citations:

Prezi for presentations

Have you heard of prezi? I am using it with a colleague to create a presentation for our annual Love Your Library event. We are going to do user testing on our Library Channel (where we keep our tutorials on how to use the library) for our station. You can create a presentation in a much more visual way than powerpoint with prezi. You can place text and images and when you click next the software zooms out of the current slide and into the next slide, which can be flipped, turned side ways, or past another slide. It is sort of like mapping a presentation out in all different angles and then zooming in and out to keep students awake! Our library does an incredible job making everything accessible. Prezi is not accessible so it isn't something we would ever likely use. It has been fun to explore with it and after time fooling around with it, I feel pretty comfortable. There was a very bizarre limbo stage where I noticed that the help guides on the (free) program are extremely limited. Lots of trial and error...

Once our finished presentation is done, I will link to it. What do you use besides powerpoint and prezi for presentations?

Hurray!

My grandfather broke his hip in March (wrestling with some vegetation). He had a successful surgery and on his first driving trip, guess where he went!? The public library!! Way to go Pops! Those Scottsdale libraries have it all...


WARNING WARNING!! GRAPHIC IMAGE BELOW
WARNING WARNING!!

Is someone really interested in that?

Do you ever find things in your library collection where you think 1) who bought that? 2) who would write it? and 3)who on earth would read it?

I have that feeling regularly in bookstores and libraries (including mine). I was recently at Walmart and I had a moment of- oh my gosh, people must be sooo lazy to purchase that product. I was in the plastic bag aisle buying sandwich bags and I saw a box with throw-away crock pot liners. You are supposed to put them in the crock-pot, cook your dish like normal, then throw them away with no clean-up! Atleast that was the pitch. I'm sorry, but really? Someone would spend 50 cents to not wash a crock-pot (4 for $2). It started me thinking about all the books I would never read. Here are a few of mine:
Beyond Leaf Raking
Salt: A World History
Facebook for Dummies
Laguna Beach: Life Inside the Bubble

What about you? Are there books you either wouldn't read, or books that are in your collection that you think who bought it, who would write it or who would read it?

Still Worried about the Budget

Yes, my thoughts are still on the budget and the California economic situation. We have been getting a lot of e-mails about furloughs and different options for the CSU system. I really hope that if furloughs prevent layoffs then they start furloughs next month so we can start saving jobs immediately. I just keep waiting for the ball to drop...

Worried about the budget

I am so consumed with the California budget. We don't officially know the impact that the budget will yet have on our campus and specifically in the library. I have heard numbers of a CSU budget deficit of 400 to 700 million. The deficit would be the equivalent of shutting down two large campuses in the system. I have no idea what is going to happen and if this means that 40,000 students will be denied admission system wide, or if it means that thousands of staff will be laid off or cuts in pay or furloughs. I keep trying to check the CSU budget central information, but there is no new information.

I am also waiting to find out what this means for our public libraries. Is their funding going to be short if the governor borrows money from the CA cities? In a way, I just sort of want to know how bad it will get so I can brace myself (in a perfect world), and I really will be upset if layoffs start....

Public Library Changes

My public library has changed two things recently which I have been waiting to weigh in on until I got used to both and could assess based on patterns and problems/benefits I encountered.

1) The switch to automated check out stations. When this was first done it meant longer crankier lines of patrons unable to check out their materials and figure out the system. I have to say that I love it. There is one huge glitch though. I few weeks ago, me and the hubby went to check out audio books (the main reason we use the public library) and checked out four items. When Zach went to renew the items a few weeks later they were not on his account. So I looked up the books online in the catalog and all four books said they were "claims returned". So we went in to the library to find out what was going on, and it turns out that the person in front of us never checked out of their account. So even though we scanned Zach's library card, the system still registered all 4 of our books on that patrons account, who then called the library wondering why the heck 4 audio books were on his account. This scenario made me a little paranoid and now I keep checking to make sure my account is cleared every time I go to the library.

What I also don't like about this is the human factor. I think it is one more way to give less service to patrons. If patrons want to self check out, then fine, but the option to have a circ staff there should also be available- after all, a lot of the patrons I get at the circ desk are happy to talk, laugh and share information about the resources they are checking out or just about their day. The more positive human interactions we have in our spaces the better.

2) The switch to making everything you check out due on the same check out date (with a few exceptions like the 7 day new fiction books). This means the books, cds and movies are all due at the same time: 3 weeks away. I found this very surprising and was not pleased by the thought of people having movies for three weeks, because I thought it would dwindle down the constantly small amount of available movies. However, I have found that I love this new switch to having the same due dates. It makes a lot more sense in conjunction with the self check out machines; you just have to get everything listed on your account!

OUCH outreach

I was driving towards the public library the other day and I saw this big sign that said "OUCH". It caught my attention immediately and I kept reading. The full sign said "OUCH $1000 fine for fireworks" (they are illegal in our city). I thought this was an awesome marketing tool created by the city police. It really caught my attention and made me curious (and that really is an ouch).

What could we do? "OOPS, your library books are due" or "Yikes, you already paid for the library services" (Not nearly as good as OUCH).

Captivate Breakthrough

I had two breakthroughs at work today, both Adobe Captivate related (the software we use to make our online tutorials). I can't get enough of the Captivate program, there are so many options and so many visual opportunities to brand our library and our "library channel". We were having trouble with the new quiz that we are making to test students. We have built tutorials around all of the fundamentals we teach in the drop in "Articles, Books & Beyond" workshop. When we are done with the quiz we will have a nice package: students can watch all the tutorials and take the quiz and get a certificate saying they passed the quiz to take to their instructors. The quiz was causing some problems, I messed around with countless options so that the students can move forward (they get two attempts until they get no credit for the question and then the quiz continues). The second breakthrough had to do with the certificate at the end of the quiz. In Captivate 4 there is a feature to add in a certificate. The generic certificate was in there, but today I learned how to import a customized certificate and use the object variable feature with a text box to put the students name in the certificate (they enter their name on the first slide). It is just too cool.

Good-bye Info Career Trends

I am really disappointed that Info Career Trends is on an indefinite hiatus, but it is completely understandable. I don't know how Rachel was able to keep that baby going for so many years without making any money for all the time spent. That is serious dedication!

This month's issue was good as usual, check it out here.

Reference Desk Humor (and woes)

I am always humored by some of the limits that the students come to the reference desk with. Last week I was told that a professor had said her students needed to find articles that were longer than 20 pages. I asked if the professor had wanted the students to find scholarly articles and discussed the difference between scholarly and non-scholarly articles. The student said "I don't know, I just have to have articles that are 20 pages or longer". So the hunt began. We found a lot of really good articles on her topic that were 13 to 17 pages which we did not select. We were on a time crunch, it was before the class it was needed and what ended up happening was that we found one 20 page article and passed over quite a few good scholarly articles to settle on a 5 page article right before the deadline. Arrghh.

Promotion at work

I got a promotion at work last week and am very excited about the new responsibilities. I am now the student outreach coordinator. While this is a big shift from what I have been doing, I am looking forward to the challenge and looking at this as a growth opportunity. As with any shift in an organization, it will take time for me and everyone to adjust to the change. I look forward to working with the different departments to achieve our goal of outreach to students. I am also really appreciating the side comments of encouragement and support by my co-workers in a time of extreme budgetary and staffing concerns for the Cal State system and the state as a whole.

I had my first official meeting on Friday in regards to the new outreach position. It was extremely enlightening in hearing the suggestions and comments from the rest of the group. I am really appreciating the range of ideas that came from the group and the topic is so large, I am looking forward to the continued opportunities for discussion.

Progess on 2009 Book List

I have been doing very well on my reading list so far. I am up to 10 books since the start of 2009. The goal this year is 50 (!). I was snooping at my parents house the other day and ran into an old stash of my children's books. I absolutely loved Roald Dahl as a kid and found the book The Witches. I immediately sat down and read it. What a read! I have added a section of the 2009 booklist titles Roald Dahl, and I can't wait to get started. I loved the children's lit class I took in grad school, I forgot the huge variety in children's literature and all the different genres. (I just opened up The BFG and saw a hand written note ;) How cute, she got me The BFG for Valentine's Day when I was ten, what a mom!)

Life Long Learning class

Several weeks ago, I got the opportunity to teach a class to an Osher Life Long Learning group. It is a program at the school that is for continuing education students. I think there is an age requirement, I think it is for 55+ years only. They were fantastic. It was so fun to work with them. I don't know if it is something the library will do in the future, it was a trial and it was in three parts. There were three of us that taught the classes, the first was on campus e-mail, the second was on the open web and the third was on library resources. I got to teach the third class and designed this flyer for them to take with them (I think they were excited by the flyer). I wanted to highlight some of the things we would cover and some of the things they could explore on their own, with the home base of the library homepage. We did a book search, looked in a few databases and set everyone up with their pins. They all had laptops and could follow along, or watch each little demo and have time to work and search on their own. A librarian and myself went around and helped trouble shoot and answer questions between demos. It was fun; if I get the opportunity to work with this group again I will definitely take it.

Article Published

I meant to post this last month when it came out. My article Determining Your Niche through Continuing Education, from the March issue of Info Career Trends.