I’ve been out of the office a lot recently, crossing the length and breadth of Wales, hence the lack of new posts here. To justify my silence I’ll give an update on where I’ve been. I should also say that when there are no new learning resources posts here, it is worth looking at the Chrissie’s Muses blog – Chrissie Turkington is a Learning Resources E-learning Adviser for RSC North West, so writes great posts on a lot of relevant topics, e.g. her recent post on using the Nintendo DSi to read e-books.

Another reason for my lack of time for blogs is that I only work for RSC Wales on Mondays and Tuesdays (for the rest of the week I work as a librarian for Aberystwyth University), normally job-sharing with Sam who covers the RSC role Wednesdays to Fridays. Sam is on maternity leave (and is doing really well!), so I’ve been on my own for a while, but now there is now extra learning resources support because Owen Phillips is providing maternity cover until Sam returns. LRC staff will no doubt be hearing from him soon!

Newport, Tuesday 13th – Wednesday 14th October

Ironically (considering I hadn’t had time to blog here for a while), I was in Newport on these days, teaching librarians how to blog! I ran a number of workshops which gave the background on Web 2.0, Library 2.0, and blogging, before looking at examples of library blogs from Wales. The librarians who came to the sessions were all great, and we had some thought-provoking discussions about how and why blogs can be used, as well as a hands-on where many trial blogs were created.

Getting to the fun part of the workshop...

Cardiff, Thursday 15th October

I was in Cardiff to visit Coleg Glan-Hafren with other RSC Wales staff. We discussed a range of e-learning topics, including technologies like voting systems, and ways of assessing the use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. Then I got to do my favourite thing – have a tour of the LRC! Carolyn Howe, the LRC Manager, showed me round. I enjoyed their Online Book Club displays, and took samples of the colourful leaflets and bookmarks that go with them. Students are encouraged to read the books, post reviews, read other students’ reviews and discuss them online via Moodle. This is a good way of encouraging reader development even when a group is unable to meet at regular times. Students can even write short reviews on the bookmark, and the data will be uploaded by LRC staff – a good example of making things easier for students! Another example of LRC staff going out of their way to be helpful is that some of the most relevant journal articles are indexed and records are added to the OPAC. This increases the use of the valuable print journals and aids resource discovery for students.

Coleg Glan-Hafren uses a PC booking system to ensure fair use of the PCs (which had the pleasant side-effect of  improving LRC staff and student relationships!). The LRC takes the innovative (and successful) line of not having fines for overdue books – instead they use the PC booking system to block the offending student’s access to the workstations until the items are returned, which ensures that the books do get returned – quickly! The system is also used for room bookings. There is a kiosk for students to book things themselves which frees up staff time for more valuable work, as well as encouraging student independence in the allocation of their own time.

Coleg Glan-Hafren is promoting the E-books for FE project, and even has a search box on every PC desktop that takes users straight through to relevant books. Currently Coleg Glan-Hafren uses OpenAthens and IP to provide students with access, but the college is considering moving to Federated Access Management in the future.

Aberystwyth, Friday 16th October

I made one of my rare appearances at CyMAL on that date, for a Libraries for Life meeting. I made suggestions concerning improving information dissemination about regional courses in Wales, and the importance of documenting library refurbishments funded by CyMAL in order to benefit other libraries. The truth is that the notion of new build as a cure-all is flawed, partly due to: the expense; the all or nothing nature and dangers when things go wrong (see here, here, here and here); and the environment/resource issues. However renovation and innovation are much more interesting, and there are a huge number of libraries in the position of being based in a building that they consider to be unsuitable, and looking for ideas. So what is needed is more imaginative focus on what can be done with existing estate. Refurbishments can have a stepped approach e.g. lower level funding for furniture, wi-fi, flexible learning and teaching spaces; but with more ambitious plans for if funding is available (restucturing, replace walls, moving entrances and staircases etc.) which avoids the ‘all or nothing’ danger inherent in new build projects. Fully documenting and promoting this kind of work is important for making people aware of the options.

Deeside, Tuesday 20th October

A visit to Deeside College with other RSC Wales staff (Owen Phillips, Helen Hodges, and Christine Davies). Deeside College has now merged with the Welsh College of Horticulture, so it was interesting to discuss the ways in which the best practices of both institutions can be combined. We also discussed a topic dear to many librarians’ hearts – the blocking of Web 2.0 resources. YouTube and other video sites have now been unblocked at Deeside College, since they are relevant to teaching (e.g. the catering courses use lots of clips from professional chefs). However some social networking sites such as FaceBook remain blocked. The debate about the educational utility of Web 2.0 continues! Where do you stand? Frivolous use of resources and time, or invaluable tools for education? I imagine most people fall between the two extremes, which is why the debate is so important so that policies can achieve the best balance.

The Learning Zone (LRC) is a two-floor open space which acts as a one-stop shop for many services. Patrick Cox (the LRC and E-learning Manager) told us that the Learning Zone is wi-fi enabled and students can bring their own laptops, or borrow a laptop from LRC bank of laptops. LRCs lead the way in providing flexible options like this, catering for different student learning styles and needs.

Wrexham, Wednesday 21st October

While in the North we visited Yale College, as the final leg of our tour! Owen and I spent time with Joanne Stewart and Maria Lewis, finding out more about the LRC.  The multi-floor LRC is heavily used, spacious and welcoming, with great use of exhibition space and displays of student art. There was also an interactive whiteboard in an open teaching area of the library, used during induction and information skills sessions – a great way of taking information out of closed rooms and into the relevant spaces and showing the teaching that LRC staff do.

There is also wi-fi in the Yale College LRC – users register their MAC addresses and can then use laptops, iPod Touches etc. There are more access points being added around the college, and also a trolley of rechargeable laptops for flexible access.

The LRC promotes reader development in many ways, from displays expanding on topics near the relevant book stock, to an ‘LRC Book of the Week’ on the staff intranet. The LRC is also hoping to embed resources within the relevant course areas on the VLE, which can be a great way to increase the visibility of quality resources and weaken the grip of Google! The LRC is keen on using Web 2.0 tools to communicate with users – there ia a blog and accounts for Twitter, Flickr and Netvibes (I’ll add links here once I have them).

Visiting all three college LRCs (Glan-Hafren Deeside, Yale) was great, you can see how popular and central to the college they all are by the buzz of use. If I was an FE student again I’d love to use any of them for my research.

Swansea, Friday 23rd – Monday 26th October

Across Wales again – but not for work this time! A long weekend in Swansea to enjoy one of my favourite eating places, my new hobby of kayaking, and a chance to do a bit of creative writing.

Windblown sand on Swansea beach

Morning view on holiday

There is a new RSC Wales blog service, and as a result the Learning Resources blog edited by Sam and myself has moved here. I’m afraid that means updating your bookmarks and/or RSS feeds!

New LR blog URL to bookmark
http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/lr/
(Note that from here you can click on the tabs to view other team blogs.)

New RSS feed to subscribe to (if you use RSS)
http://blogs.rsc-wales.ac.uk/lr/feed/
(The new RSS has been added to our netvibes feeds at http://www.netvibes.com/lrwales.)
All posts from the old blog have been imported to the new one, so any information you referred to in the past will still be available here.

As you can see from the tabs at the top, RSC Wales has a number of different blogs, targetting different sectors and roles, from those dealing specifically with higher education, adult and community learning, and work based learning issues, to those focussing on technical infrastructure and technology, or the use of technology for teaching and learning, as well as our learning resources blog. You can see summaries of the last few entries from each blog on our website at http://www.rsc-wales.ac.uk/blogs.asp – it is worth scanning other blogs, because some technologies will be relevant to more than one area.

This is a developing service, and we would welcome your views as to how we can make it better suited to your needs. Please feel free to contact Sam or myself with any comments or suggestions.

Andrew Eynon’s Library 2.0 blog is already added to our blogroll, but it is worth giving it a bit of extra publicity. It is part of a CyMAL-funded project, and covers how libraries can use Web 2.0 to become Library 2.0 institutions. So if you are interested in this area, follow that blog, or subscribe to its RSS http://andrewey.wordpress.com/feed/

There is an article on blogging in a Further Education LRC context in the latest issue of CILIP Cymru’s Y Ddolen (issue 48, Spring 2008). So if you haven’t considered blogging before then it could be a good starting point.

You can see the text of the article here, hosted on the Coleg Llandrillo LibeRaCe Blog.

It was co-written by Mark Ludlam of Gorseinon College, Siona Murray of Coleg Llandrillo, and RSC Wales.

Yesterday I attended the North Wales Libraries Training Group’s “Web 2.0 event”, hosted by Deeside College. My third visit to Deeside College! The attendees included librarians from Deeside College; Coleg Llandrillo Cymru; Ysbyty Glan Clwyd; Conwy libraries; Flintshire libraries; Bangor University; NEWI.

The event proper began with a welcome and introduction from Dr Andrew Eynon, Chair of the NWLTG, and LRC manager at Coleg Llandrillo Cymru. I then gave an overview of Web 2.0 technologies before Paul Jeorrett from NEWI spoke about Web 2.0 in Higher Education – the NEWI experience. It was good to see that the three of us were in agreement on many of the uses and implications of Web 2.0 for libraries.

After coffee Siona Murray, Coleg Llandrillo Cymru, spoke about LibeRaCe – the Coleg Llandrillo library service blog, covered in a previous post by me. Siona is co-writing an article on blogging at the moment with myself and Mark Ludlam (Gorseinon College LRC Manager).

Pam Wilson then told us about the Deeside College experiences of text message overdue notices, which were all positive. Deeside College uses Txttools.

Lunch arrived and then there were two workshops before the day closed. The first was chaired by Andrew and looked at how can we use web 2.0 to improve our library services. Then I ran an hour’s workshop where participants got to create a blog or wiki to play with, to understand how they worked; get experience of new tools; and if already familiar with them, to try different hosts and compare services.

It was an enjoyable day and a good chance to meet library staff from different sectors, so the journey was worth it!

[LibeRaCe - Llandrillo LRC's new blog]

Following on from an earlier post about Gorseinon College’s library blog, I have just found out about another library blog – this time at Coleg Llandrillo Cymru – http://liberace.wordpress.com/.

Coleg Llandrillo’s library blog was only recently set up. It is still being developed and content is mainly for students only, linked to from the college VLE. The LRC staff are trying to link local and national news, events and subject areas back to library and how the students can use it to find out more about certain topics, which is a useful strategy to emulate.In all colleges there may be some students with quite low information literacy skills, and a blog like this can be an excellent informal way to get them used to searching for information from trusted sites.

Apparently this site has already been a featured site on Wordpress.com and has been linked to by other bloggers, which is good going for only a few weeks of live service, showing how quickly these Web 2.0 tools can penetrate.

Llandrillo Library staff added: “We’re having great fun finding ideas to publish and have already had good feedback from college staff.” If it is enjoyable too then you get the best of both worlds!

Staff also said the blog idea is partly based on the different Reader Development Initiatives that they have been trying to implement. “It actually turned out to be a great way of bringing everything that we were doing together and its free which is a BIG bonus. … The students seem to like using it as there is no obvious college logo and it doesn’t seem to be associated with horrible course work.”

Personally I like the cheery and colourful look, and I have already found a few new links myself by reading through it!

I would like to draw attention to an informative Welsh FE library blog – since it covers current awareness with a Welsh angle, I thought it might be useful to other LRC staff. Mark Ludlam of Gorseinon College went to an RSC Wales event last February and it got him interested in blogging. After experimenting with personal blogs, he decided to take the LRC’s current awareness newsletter into the 21st century by turning it into a blog (view it here). Originally it was aimed at managers within Gorseinon College to keep up with events in further education, but it gets a lot of hits from outside the college too.

As well as being a useful site in itself, it is also an example of what libraries can do with blogs. As a tool libraries can use them in many ways: current awareness; promoting the college library service; for quick updates to opening hours and termly announcements etc.

Take it further

If you are interested in the relevance of blogs in a library setting then I recommend something Mark put into his personal blog, which includes relevant links – see here.

The online library toolkit, mentioned in an email to the FE-LRC-WALES mailing list last week (from Alyson Tyler, CyMAL, 9 Aug) includes a section on blogging with lots of useful links, and is worth viewing as well. The toolkit provides marketing support to libraries e.g.: a guide to public relations; an events calendar; online promotional material creator; a beginners guide to blogging and podcasting. PIN number = the postcode of your FE library/site library (no gaps).

Of course, if you already think of a blogroll as part of a Web 2.0 technology (rather than something found in the library toilets), then this may all be redundant. But if you have never played with blogging and want to have a go, then it is as easy as going to a blogging site and creating an account – it really is possible to have a blog up on the Web within minutes!

Two of the big names are Wordpress and Blogger, but there are lots of other sites.

If you do want to set up a library blog, then it is worth bearing in mind these tips:

• In terms of making it look interesting, add pictures: maybe things to dowith the LRC (to raise awareness of the library), or pictures of new bookcovers linked to a mini review (which could be written by students then uploaded?).
• Add local flavour e.g. what is going on around the college, new staff etc. This helps promote use as an information hub within the college.
• If you are not sure where to start, maybe gather a small focus group of readers (or non-readers) for a coffee session and find out what they would like. Maybe it would open up other discussions too, about Web 2.0, blogs, or library services generally.

On a personal note, when I started on this secondment I created this work blog and it has helped me settle into my role and be more reflective, which is another use of blogs.

So are you inspired to get blogging? It is not for everyone, or for every institution – but since it is both free and simple to set one up and play around, nothing is lost in having a go. And if you already have one for your library then please let me know so that I can add it to the FE Colleges section of the RSC Wales Del.icio.us account.

Yesterday I visited Barry College with my RSC Wales colleague Hannah Dovey. Hannah was running some staff development sessions, and I helped out a bit. Doing joint sessions like this has a number of advantages: there is more opportunity during the hands-on sections for us to help people one-to-one; there is extra support in terms of making points or giving examples; one person can get away for a bit when somethign is required (e.g. PC speakers); but the main advantage for me was learning things from Hannah’s presentations.

We did two sessions on Web 2.0, including descriptions of various tools and their implications for teaching (I covered social bookmarking); then there was a hands-on session using Blogger, where the teaching staff got to create a blog. There was a lot of thought-provoking discussion, since the lecturers wanted to come up with ways that the tools could be used specifically in their curriculum areas, and many good ideas came out of it – for example one lecturer intended to video various technical aspects to do with his subject area, then make them available to students as examples.

The other two sessions were on mind mapping using VUE – a free mind mapping package. After Hannah’s initial talk we helped the teaching staff to use VUE to create mind maps, and staff seemed to enjoy playing with it. Some very impressive mind maps were created in a short space of time, and there was some good discussion of potential uses. One lecturer, Tony Crothers, created carpentry tool types, then had nodes for individual tools. He was going to bring it up on the interactive whiteboard, and get the students to drag things into the correct category, then vote on if it was placed correctly or not, and discuss why. They could then drag it back if necessary, or to another category. It was an interesting way of combining different technologies to be both interesting and useful for the learners. I learnt a lot from the lecturers we were showing things to!

I was able to visit the Learning Resource centre as well, and spoke to one of the managers, Rupert James, about their services to students.

I can’t resist a section on my adventures with public transport – this time specifically the joys of buses. Since I have been working for RSC Wales I have seen arguments; physical fights; drunks; people being told off for making lewd comments; and many other sights. I am not talking about the conferences, but about the Arriva X40 service. Don’t get me wrong, I love the principle of public transport; I love getting to my destination without being stressed from driving; I enjoy being able to work while I travel. It is just the implementation of public transport by some companies that takes away a bit of the fun. Using that bus to travel to Swansea or Cardiff has its own challenges. Arriva stopped using proper coaches a long time ago. It is now just a normal hard-seated bus, so a 4 hour journey to Cardiff is a torture for your bottom. And your bladder, since there are no toilets – so you dare not drink any water on the bus or for a few hours before, therefore dehydration can be added to discomfort. Thanks, Arriva!