2007

Poster Sessions

LITA 2007 offers ten poster sessions covering a wide variety of topics. I will try to give you a glimpse of each of the offerings present. While ten were listed not all were present.

Take your online services to the next level: audio, video and more! By Michelle Jeske (Denver Public Library) really showed how you could add visual and audio interest to your library’s virtual presence. Virtual storytime with a children’s librarian reading the book while the illustrations are shown was especially interesting, as was the ability to put audio instructions for using the web site in either English or Spanish.

SFX usability testing at ASU by Tammy Allgood and Jenna Amani (Arizona
State University) showed immediate applications to improving their pages. They observed users going through set tasks and began making changes immediately based on what they learned, cleaning up the pages and converting to more natural language.

Converting technophobes into technophiles: empowering reluctant library staff by Nina McHale (Auraria Library, Denver, Colorado)

Adventures in digitization: a new librarian shares five hard-earned tips to avoid project management pitfalls by Cory Lampert (University of Nevada Libraries, Las Vegas). This really was a good presentation for someone in their first position from library school. Points stressed include planning, collaboration, metadata, using the system you have, completing the project and marketing the final result. And this digitization project focused on the costumes for Las Vegas showgirls. They have already been used by fashion designers, even a follow up call from Paris.

Bright ideas or squeaky wheels: defining a model for R&D resource allocation by Jennifer S. Jutzik and Don Albrecht (Colorado State University Libraries) took a very proactive stance in showing their need for more resources. Being a land grant institution, they surveyed other land grant institutions regarding their IT support. Then they could show where they were in comparison.

Using the access grid videoconferencing system for collaboration and training: an experiment with distributed personal interface grids (PIGs) by Sharon Dennis (Midcontinental Region of the National Library of Networks of Medicine) is certainly an improvement over some clunky delivery methods where there are delays which slow the discussions. While eventually it is hoped to use this with instruction, right now they are using it primarily for conferencing and collaboration among sites at a distance from each other.

Managing library IT projects with agility and innovation by Janetta Waterhouse (University of Kansas) was one I really was interested in seeing, but unfortunately was not there.

MySpace or Facebook – the social networking faceoff: what’s right for your library by Beth Evans (Brooklyn College Library) and Shannon Kealey (New York University’s Bobst Library). And the battle begins, not really. There are good points for both and either social networking tool will get you more in touch with your younger users. One difference to note is that MySpace allows an institution entity whereas Facebook now only allows individual entities. However, in Facebook, if people join your group, you can do mass emails to them.

Advanced optical character regognitions using a cheap point & shoot digital camera by Dimitar Poposki (Department for Translation and Interpretation, Republic of Macedonia) also seemed to be not present.

Reaching students outside of traditional library instruction: creating online tutorials to reach a new generation of information users by Cindy Craig and Curt Friehs (Wichita State University Libraries) use tools like Camtasia, a tool I recommend, to improve online instruction. They have created tutorials for individual online databases to help show how to navigate through using them. Camtasia allows the viewer of the tutorial to see the screen and watch the action of the searching take place.

2 comments

  1. Jenny Reiswig

    I thought the Converting Technophobes poster was really timely and has some challenging recommendations for library technologists in helping break down the barriers to more staff getting technical knowledge. Empowering was really the key word for me – do we give staff permission to download software? To have a sandbox? To see the servers? I was thinking back to this poster when Frumkin was doing his closing keynote, bemoaning the dearth of women at Code4Lib. Well, why would I go to a hackfest if I’m not allowed to code?

  2. Genny

    Advice from Genny to Jenny: Don’t ask for permission. Code first. Ask for forgiveness later.

    Added notes on the poster sessions:

    SFX usability:
    Used Morae to capture video and audio of people using the system, along with their mouse clicks and screen display. Morae combines an inset display of the user video in a display of the screen they’re using. To change the SFX interface they had to change the actual Perl code in-house.

    Access Grid videoconferencing:
    The Library funds the single $50,000 Access Grid that requires highly specialized onsite technical maintenance and support. Extending the videoconferencing network, they used PIGs funded by NLM – $1500 each and no onsite technical expertise required beyond basic IT support. Visit accessgrid.org for more info on the Access Grids.

    Bright Ideas or Squeaky Wheels:
    lib.colostate.edu/lts/survey.html

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