Week 8 – Time to Chat, part 1

Well, we’ve made it to week 8, having been through a lot of different tools and ideas so far, so here is another weekly post. Chat programs have been around for years now, and there are different tools and different interfaces that we can choose from. The one that we’re going to work with is, not surprisingly GTalk from Google. I chose this one for two primary reasons. First, we all have Google addresses from the Blogger/Gmail trials we have already done. Second, and probably more important, we’re probably going to be moving the Chat Reference service over to GTalk in the near future, so if we’re going to take a look at one of these tools, and spend some time getting used to it, it’s probably the best solution.

There are two primary uses for a chat program in our Library. One of them is for external communication, like the Chat Reference that we’re already doing. The main benefit of GTalk in this area is that we can create a direct chat function on the web page that doesn’t require the student to have to download software or even a Google account in order to chat with us. That’s a project that we’ve been looking into.

The other primary use is for internal communications. I’ve been in libraries where everyone was logged into a chat program for most of the day, just marking themselves away when they left their desk, or turning the program off when they needed to really concentrate on something without any interruption. While we already have a lot of possible tools for internal communication, from phones to email to walking, chat is another possible tool, and so we’ll take a shot to see how useful it might be for us. If you think of it as a sort of email lite, you may get an idea of how it might be useful.

If all else fails, it will give us a chance to practice with the idea of using a tool to chat, among ourselves, and will also allow us to prepare for using GTalk as a tool to talk to the outside world. That does bring up one of the downfalls of chat-based program use in a work setting, though, and that probably should be mentioned here. It’s pretty easy to find yourself in a situation where chat extends beyond the work place, and begins to consume more time than any of us would want. I hope that we can avoid that particular issue, but we do have to be aware of it.

More follows on Friday, about how we’ll want to proceed with this test, and the different ways that we can move forward with the Week 8 trials!
jjs

Week 7 – myEBSCO and alerts, RSS feeds, etc.

Is it really week 7 already?
That seems impossible!

Last week, we looked at MyEBSCO, and this week, we’ll take it one step further. Within the customization settings, there are a few interesting things that you can do to automate your searching. If you have a favorite author, perhaps, and would like to be automatically reminded whenever something by or about them shows up in an EBSCO database, you can create an RSS feed that automatically shows up in either Google Reader or Bloglines [remember those? Week 3.] You can also use this process to create an automatic piece of email as a reminder, too.
To do this relatively simple operation, perform a search in a EBSCO database that actually retrieves results. I did a simple keyword search for: Ondaatje, Michael

Once the results come up, look for Search History/Alerts, immediately below the search fields. Click on that to expand it and you’ll get a series of options. The options will vary depending on the search you performed. In my case, I was given a choice of a straight keyword search, a SU or subject search or an AU or author search. I’m going to choose the straight keyword search [mostly because the last name is odd enough it’s not going to give me a bunch of false positives…]
To actually create a link for my search, I’m going to choose the little orange icon [which is the standard icon for an RSS feed]. When I do that, a window pops up giving me some options. I can enable an email alert by choosing “Edit Alert” and adjust the settings there, if I wish. Since I am a regular user of Google Reader, though, I prefer to incorporate my EBSCO feeds into that platform. To do this, all I have to do is to copy the “Syndication Feed” link by right clicking on it and choosing “copy link location”. Then I can go to Google Reader and paste it in as a new feed. Alternatively, you can just click on the “Syndication Feed” link, and it’ll take you to a page that gives you directions on how to do this simply.

Once you get a feel for this, you can begin to be pretty creative with it. If you have a favorite magazine or journal that is in EBSCO, you can set up an alert that let’s you know whenever a new issue has been published – you can set up an alert that gives you tables of contents [for many publications], and all sorts of other ideas. Want to get really creative? Set up a search that looks for recipes containing an unusual ingredient and every time one is indexed in an EBSCO title… you get the idea, right?

So, this week, give this a try, and see what you think about it. If you choose your alerts carefully, they’ll be very interesting. If you build them too broadly, you’ll get 50 chocolate cake recipes every day [which may, or may not, be a bad thing…]

Use your blog to give us an idea of how this process went for you, and if you find it to be interesting or useful. Did you decide on an email alert, or an RSS feed? Also, if you come up with a creative use for this, by all means let us know about it!

Next Week – It’s time to Chat.
Happy Halloween,

jjs

Week 6 - MyEBSCOhost

Hi all,
And welcome to Week 6 – Today, we’ll begin a two part look at one of our primary tools, the EBSCO databases. Academic Search Premier is our largest and most diversified database, and is the default starting point for nearly everything we do, the database automatically selected from the library home page, so it’s a good idea to take a look at it. I know that we’re all familiar with the basics of EBSCO, so thought we’d take a look at some of the more hidden things.

In our first part, let’s look at customization. There is an interesting tool called My EBSCOhost that allows for some interesting alternatives. My EBSCOhost allows a valid user to create a personal log in, which offers some interesting possibilities. First, once you’ve created a login of your own, using the top ribbon and choosing the link “Sign in to My EBSCOhost” it will ask you to log in, or to create your own account… do that now, please, we’ll wait……………………………………

OK, welcome back. Once you’ve created your account and logged into it, you’ll see, right under the search boxes, the word preferences. This allows you to make some changes that persist over time, so they don’t have to be adjusted every time. Things like automatically putting in your email address, changing the citation type, APA, MLA, etc. and adjusting the results per page. It also allows you to set up an automatic export to EndNote, a citation management tool available on campus, which we’ll talk about later.

These are pretty simple changes, but they’re a beginning for the more interesting parts. Once you’re logged in, if you add articles or citations to your own folder, they stay in the folder over multiple sessions. That means that you can easily add things to come back to later. Students particularly like this feature, as it means that they can print when it’s convenient, or add to research when time allows.

It also means that a faculty member or students working in groups can create a folder that can be shared [as long as they share the email address + password]. That makes group work and class readings a lot easier to manage, but you have to know it’s there!
For this week, let’s get individual accounts set up, and write a quick blog entry about the differences in the preferences, and if there are any interesting things you observe, or ideas that you have about how we could use this.

Also, if you liked the concept map in Credo Reference, take a minute or two to look at the Visual Search interface in Ebsco – it’s quite different, but does offer some interesting ways to look at your results, and some interesting ways to limit them.

Next Week - My EBSCOhost part two, the cool stuff: automatic searches and RSS feeds

trivia time: what does EBSCO stand for?

Week 5 – The E-Book

Hi all,
and welcome to Week 5. This week, we’re going to try a library specific activity, and we’ll take a quick look at two collections of electronic books. While I’ll admit that few people like eBooks per se - they’re not particularly comfortable to read, nor can they be transported very easily [unless you’re using a laptop] they do have some interesting advantages. The major advantage is that they are immediately accessible, from wherever the student happens to be. That makes them particularly useful as a last minute sort of tool. Additionally, they’re easily searchable – not just the bibliographic information, but the entire text of the eBook. They also have some interesting features, one of which we’ll look at a bit later.

For this week, what I hope you’ll all do is take a look at a NetLibrary eBook that interests you, record the bibliographic information on your blog, and talk a bit about how useful you think it might be for our users. Also, take a peek at the Concept map in Credo Reference, and give us some indication about whether you think that would be useful.

Oesterle eBooks are available from: http://library.noctrl.edu/books/ - netLibrary is the larger collection of eBooks, and contains the full text of a large portion of the Project Gutenberg free e-text collection as well. Searching is easy, and most subjects are covered, though our collection is limited.

Credo Reference is a collection of 100 reference titles, dictionaries, subject encyclopedias and etc. Take a look around, but by all means, make sure that you give the Concept Map a try. If nothing else, it can serve as a good overview of a subject area, and can give you some additional ideas for search terms. If nothing else, the Concept Map is a fun piece of technology to play with, and make sure that you use the slider for the Link Levels, to add more nodes to the map. I think you may find it to be fun.
We have a few other collections of eBooks as well, and they’re all located on that same page. If you’re interested, give those a quick look, too.
jjs

My Gmail experience –

I’ve been using Gmail from very nearly the beginning, and have gotten so used to it, that I don’t always think about why I like it, and why it works so well for me. Part of it has to do with a level of comfort with the interface and tools, of course, but I think there is more to it than that. One of the things that I really like is the way Gmail files email as conversations, as opposed to a bunch of discrete pieces of email. With my daughters, I have email conversations that range up to about 50 pieces of email, and they’re all automatically kept filed together.
One other thing I like very much is that the search facility is a standard Google search within the email itself. Since I don’t even have to think about the process of formulating a search, it’s easier to find what I’m looking for, and there is no time spent building indexes or opening another search interface, it’s just all right there. The last strength is that my mobile connects directly and happily to Gmail, so that I have fairly constant access to my email account. Not a vital selling point, but a nice one.

jjs