Last week the Welsh Libraries and Web 2.0 Report was released, offering an overview of the views of librarians in Wales to the use of Web 2.0 and inclusive of all library sectors. What were libraries doing? What did they want to do? The report is available from the CyMAL website or the Library Staff Toolkit.

I think this report is important for a number of reasons. It acts as an informal benchmark for Welsh libraries; it summarises reasons for expanding into Library 2.0; and it illustrates some of the concerns, especially in the appendix which includes all of the free text comments. Although it was a survey of librarians much of the content applies to any organisation that is grappling with Web 2.0. Finally, 50% of the FE colleges in Wales responded – along with HEIs, public and health libraries – so we get a cross-sector of opinion. The whole report is well worth reading but I will pull out my favourite sections and some of the FE comments below as a taster.

‘Social’ uses versus ‘learning’ uses of Web 2.0 sites in LRCs

This is a topic I have looked at in the past on this blog, and continues to recur. There is a tension between demand for PCs and the number of PCs available, so educational institutions obviously want to prioritise academic use. Universities generally have the resources to sidestep that issue and their users are seen as mature enough to manage their own time. However in many FEIs there is scarcity, combined with an onus to act in a safeguarding role. This leads to a variety of approaches, from outright blocking, to monitoring, to time restrictions. Those mentioned in the report ranged from:

“doing nothing, a softly-softly approach (posters, in acceptable-use policies, booking systems, time restrictions, specially allocated computers) to more direct intervention (using monitoring software, asking users to log-off). There was an interesting difference between the public libraries and those in the academic sector, with the former frequently being non-interventionist, and FE often being the ones most likely to need to impose some restrictions on usage.”

Some of the specific FE procedures given by survey respondents were:

“[Blocked] for all users at specific times, eg between 9.00 & 1.00 and from 2.00 – 4.00pm”

“Staff have limited access to Facebook during certain times (e.g. lunchtimes). Students have no access to social networking sites but often find a way in using proxy sites.”

“Facebook is blocked for staff and students 9am – 12pm and 12.45pm – 3pm”

“All staff and students are blocked from some network sites such as bebo but not facebook, all instant messaging sites and some collaboration sites are blocked.”

“Where sites are blocked it is for content only, not interactivity. Certain web 2.0 sites, e.g. Youtube and Facebook are available on a quota system: total of 1 hr per day.”

“If students are on facebook they are asked to either do some work or leave during heavy congestion periods – we have social areas with computers for students not working on coursework”

“We ask users to vacate machines in favour of the users who are producing college work”

“User agreements specify that PCs are only to be used for work purposes (these can be backed up by the college’s disciplinary procedures, if necessary). During busy periods staff will ask students to leave if they are not working. Remote monitoring systems are in use, students who ignore requests to leave can be logged off by staff. During quiet periods, students using PCs for leisure purposes will be allowed to continue but will be reminded by staff that they will need to give up the PC if it is needed by another user”

“I believe that blocking access to social networking sites is tantamount to blocking personal e-mail. I think it’s important for students to keep up with advancements in technology to avoid being at a disadvantage later in life… Web 2.0 in particular requires quite a broad skill set to fully understand. It’s all well and good having a Facebook page, for example, but do students fully understand the implications of having so much personal information online? Also, considerations should be made regarding cyber-bullying and its impact on students if colleges decide upon a more open policy with regard to social networking sites.”

In some cases blocks for Web 2.0 sites applied to staff too. Reasons given in the report for restrictions on Web 2.0 (apart from the aforementioned PC scarcity and safeguarding) included concerns about “bandwidth, misuse/abuse of work computers during work hours, concerns of inappropriate content (e.g. blogs written by staff) and distractions from academic work”.

Use of Web 2.0 for marketing purposes: what are FEIs currently doing?

The ways in which FEIs are taking advantage of Web 2.0 (for marketing and information-to-customers uses) are varied:

“We have a blog and a Facebook page for marketing purposes and use social bookmarking to create subject or course specific collections of websites”

“We currently use twitter for updating on events, new resources and other goings on. We also run a pageflake which supports our HE students and acts as a repository for interesting articles, web links, videos and more. We’re working on creating a blog and creating a Facebook group for the student association”

“The library already has its own blog, we have started some reading groups on-line through Moodle and we also use Delicious for tagging on-line resources (such as e-books). The college also has a youtube channel and twitter accounts which the library can use.”

“Delicious; RSS feeds; flickr; YouTube; textwall”

“Twitter (for promotion), blogs (for promotion), wikis (sharing information), Facebook”

“We have a blog and a Facebook page for marketing purposes and use social bookmarking to create subject or course specific collections of websites”

Some LRCs in FEIs had autonomy to utilise Web 2.0: others didn’t. As the report says, it is:

“clear that staff have the enthusiasm and desire to get started, or to do more with what they already do. Blocking access is therefore a barrier to them achieving professional goals and could be hindering the library service. [...] Several respondents link being able to operate in a Web 2.0 environment to the overall image and reputation of a library service, with obvious negative connotations if there isn’t a presence. However, that presence must be relevant and up to date, or is may be worse than no presence at all.”

“Library staff [...] fear restrictions on access will undo years of positive image creation and promotion and will also leave library services behind as society and culture surges forward.”

The report gives some good tips on making a business case for access to Web 2.0 technologies for those institutions that do not have access to these tools.

“it is hoped that the report will be useful for library staff at all levels, including heads of service, and can be used to support cases for lifting restrictions to the interactive Internet so that librarians in Wales can engage with their users in different ways, and keep library services moving forward.”

Conclusions

I feel that when something is problematic then it needs to be tackled, debated and explained: that is part of education. Learners should be told about the skeleton (or zombie) in the closet, so they can understand the dangers it represents and then overcome them, rather than just locking the door. I was pleased to see that this report gives a positive way forward for dealing with the ‘safeguarding agenda’:

“Such knowledge includes the importance of teaching ‘safe use’ of the Internet to customers. For example, on social networking sites it’s very easy to tell the world a huge amount about yourself which can have a variety of dangers including identity theft, stalking and bullying. It is better in the long run to teach safe use rather than just blocking access – if users can’t access sites in the library they’ll just goes elsewhere, but won’t have that improved understanding of being information literate and Internet savvy.”

“With growing UK-wide momentum in reducing the digital divide (see Digital Britain report, Race Online manifesto) and a variety of campaigns targeted at getting more people online, it is essential that librarians and libraries are able to also be online and reaching out to such people. [...] It is therefore important that librarians in Wales are able to take advantage of the Web 2.0 applications, for their professional development, the enhancement of library services, and for the benefit of users.”

This is backed up by the report’s foreward by the RSC Wales Manager, Peter Scott. I delight in oxymoronic juxtapositions, so will go backwards and end with the foreward:

“RSC Wales supports learning providers’ use of technologies to enhance and expand learning. Aspects of Web 2.0 offer significant opportunities to engage library users in a way that increasingly reflects the growing expectations, and user demands, of the 21st Century. Interactivity, engagement, and most importantly, ownership, provide some of the key elements to successfully giving users the freedom to express themselves in the Web 2.0 world. Moving this agenda forward is not without risk, but so long as we understand the potential pitfalls we can leap over them. When we ban, rather than manage, access to Web 2.0 we lose a valuable opportunity to teach learners about the increasingly important topics of managing digital identities, cyber-bullying, and e-safety. These are lifeskills, and lifeskills cannot be taught in a vacuum.”

The report is available from the CyMAL website or the Library Staff Toolkit.

Hubba hubba yum yum

Delicious is an excellent free tool for storing and organising your web links in one place online, rather than having them tied to browsers on various PCs. Going further, it can let you share links with others: colleagues, learners, friends. A speaker can easily group links that they can point people to after giving a talk; librarians can use it to bring various electronic resources together in one place; some students use Delicious to keep track of resources viewed during research, to be referred back to when creating a bibliography. Some tutors take it further with their teaching, beyond just having accounts of recommended links for particular courses, modules, or assignments. For example they can give the students permission to annotate and update and add to the links, or maybe include links with no descriptions and ask the students to explore them and add descriptions explaining why they are relevant, and how they relate to the subject.

It can also be used as a tool for finding websites which have an element of human selection/quality assurance, as opposed to the automatically-generated (and frequently spammed) results listed by a search engine. You can search the whole of Delicious ‘the biggest collection of bookmarks in the universe’, or an individual account.

Sam has discussed the pros and cons of Delicious, plus some alternatives, previously in this blog. One of the things I like is that Delicious does not have prominent adverts (you only see them when you do a search) -therefore I would have no qualms using it as a tool with learners or fellow professionals.

Today I want to promote the RSC Wales Delicious account, since it includes so many useful links – often to free resources – and they have been organised so that you can search or browse as you wish. But what if you have never used Delicious before?

Getting started

When you visit an account, the bulk of the screen is reserved for the actual links. By default they are sorted by date (though you can change this) so you will see something like the screenshot below, which I have labelled.

A. The date that the link was added to the account. Generally as you browse through the lists you get to older links.

B. The name of the site (which acts as a link to it), plus in many cases a description to help you decide if it is useful. If it is not your account then there is a save option, inviting you to create or sign in to your own account so you can save the link there.

C. This number next to each link is how many other Delicious users have saved it in their own accounts. If ten thousand different people have saved a link then it acts as a vote of confidence that it is genuine!

D. One or more tags categorising the link. You can click on a tag to see all the other links in the account with the same tag.

On the right is the navigation element. In some accounts this is just a list of tags. In the RSC Wales account we have taken the opportunity to ‘bundle’ the tags into  broader categories – a way of organising accounts which contain a lot of links. The screenshot below shows the main elements.

The circled arrows on the left let you either expand or close a particular heading. In this image I have expanded the Information Literacy tag bundle in order to see what is below it. To the right of the Information Literacy heading is the number 14 – that means there are 14 tags below it.

You can then see what those tags are, and how many links there are categorised with each tag. So in this image we can see that there are 14 links connected with media literacy, and 20 related to screencasting. Clicking on either tag will then display those links on the left.

Simple! But the best way to get to grips with it is to play around and explore. The ‘Resource Types’ bundle includes links to various e-resources and teaching resources; ‘Subject Areas’ includes useful websites that could be relevant to those subjects; but it is worth exploring everywhere.

Help

Contact us if you want further guidance or advice, or if you spot broken links in our account, or if you have your own to suggest! Our Delicious accoutn includes some links related to Social Bookmarking. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed for our account in order to be kept up to date as new links are added: http://feeds.delicious.com/v2/rss/rscwales

Photo by finchlake2000 on Flickr

I was lucky enough to attend yesterday’s South and Mid Wales Partnership Staff Conference 2010 (Twitter hashtag #swamp) which brought together all varieties of librarians from the region to the distinctly swampy-green Hotel Metropole in Llandrindod Wells. Days out like this are great for networking and staff development but the real value is the ideas and nuggets you can take back and incorporate into your own work. I came away with my head buzzing. A day’s reflection later and my thoughts had simmered down as follows…

Much of what we heard and discussed comes back to librarians feeling threatened, both by financial cuts and by a lack of understanding of the value we bring. Rather than being a negative, this generated a huge amount of positive and innovative ways of tackling this. The following is a high-speed, subjective round-up of the highlights for me:

Keep doing things better = often means do things differently.

1. 

   Image by Waka Jawaka on Flickr

   Balls! Recent years have seen the growing use of the “clicker” (or Voting System) to take rough-and-ready surveys and to increase participation in a teaching session. This was all swept aside yesterday by the triumphant return of the plastic balls in a bucket system: Powerpoint slides with a 30 second timer to give you the questions, colour-coded answers, grab a ball and put it in the corresponding bucket. Lots of movement, fast-paced, thought-provoking questions and lots of fun! Courtesy of the Swansea Public Libraries team.

2. Embrace Web 2.0 = “web pages you can do things with”. Key tips from Swansea Public Libraries: “Do it anyway and apologise later!”, find libraries that are already doing it well and learn from them, crowd-source so constant updating does not fall on one person. Not sure about the relevance of Web 2.0? It’s our job! Mark Hughes pointed out this CILIP statement: “As a library and information professional you will develop the ability to design, create, identify, locate, retrieve and exploit information in all formats.”

Information Literacy has never been more needed!

• New Information Literacy Officer for Wales, Joy Head, re-iterated the timely comparison that giving Wales 21st Century broadband without supporting digital literacy training is like being given a Porsche without having a driving licence. She put it much better than that but you get the gist!
• A quote from Martin Bean, the Vice Chancellor of the OU: “In my mind now the digital divide is much more about those that actually understand how to use and apply technology in their lives and their work as a necessity, rather than simply getting access to the technology per se,” (another one from Mark Hughes’ presentation)
• Discussion amongst the sectors present showed so much of what librarians do meets these needs but we are not good at pointing it out. This moves swiftly on to….

Making External Partnerships is Essential

This came out of both the Information Literacy strategy and Christine Clarke’s “Libraries Changing Lives” document. It was also fresh in my mind from the trending “Escaping the Echo Chamber” Prezi presentation by WoodsieGirl and theWikiMan which has been stirring up librarians all over the place.

Christine Clarke had a great set of “lessons learned” on how to do this effectively which could be applied to so many scenarios:

1. Talk the language of your partner: tailoring material to suit the audience is essential to get attention.
2. Put the impact on people first, not the library perspective.
3. External information adds value: quote non-library sources to support your case.
4. Try and quantify what you do in appropriate ways (e.g. generic social outcomes).
5. Use numbers people can visualise.
6. Get a fresh pair of eyes to look something over.
7. Use “for you this means….” and always bear in mind the “So what?” test.

Unfortunately I only have one link to share from the day so far but hopefully more will follow! Mark Hughes’ presentation on Twitter can be found on Slideshare.

Some modern library management systems come with enrichment services that provide useful extra features for the catalogue/OPAC – book cover images, tables of contents, links to reviews etc. They can be also be part of a whole revamp with a new resource discovery front-end such as Aquabrowser or Vufind, or they could be part of an OPAC enrichment service such as the subscription services offered by Syndetic Solutions.

Even LibraryThing is in on the act. As well as being a hugely popular social networking site for book lovers, it now sells a ‘LibraryThing for Libraries‘ package which works with most LMS/OPACs. Details here, and lists of libraries using it (so you can play with their OPACs) here.

However if you have some technical knowledge and support it is often possible for institutions to add some of these features for free. I’ll just stick to book cover images for now, but that is only one of many enhancements. Going back to LibraryThing, if you only want a basic service then some book covers are available from them for free. Another free source of covers is Open Library. In the past some OPACs have used Amazon for book cover images but Amazon doesn’t seem to support that any more so I won’t cover that. However I will cover Google’s service.

Google Books API

Google is always impossible to ignore, and Google Books is no different. The Google Books API can be used to embed Google Books in your site (see their blog post here and support pages here), or to just give you cover images from their huge database. I got in touch with Google support to discuss the latter use and got the following tips. Basically there are two main ways to go about implementing book covers, and in each case you will need the support of your technical staff.

One option is to use their Embedded Viewer, in which you can change the viewer interactions so that only the jacket covers show. You can find the steps for this option by visiting their API developers’ guide here.

The second option you have is a bit more technically involved, but it does allow you to show the search results within your own application. To do so, you can use the Book Search Data API, which allows your server to obtain results from Book Search and show them within your application. You can also use feeds to show the jacket covers. Examples of these feeds can be found here.

Lastly, you can find more developer documentation for the Data API here and here. There is lots of help available in the API Forum.

Have you implemented any features yourself to pimp up your OPAC? Vote here.

image by sqback

Instant messaging is a great means of communication. It gets around the delays of email and allows lots of debate, all in one place; and by being primarily text based it avoids issues that can occur with shared video and audio (lag, operating system settings, hardware requirements). The other good thing is that once you are logged into a system you can see a list of your contacts and know when they are available to chat, unlike with email.

The main problem with the system is that over the years different mutually-incompatible protocols have been released. So unlike email where there is just… email, with instant messaging there is IRC, AIM, Windows Live, Yahoo etc. Although you can use software such as Trillian, or a website such as Meebo to manage separate accounts, they still are separate systems.

So how can you gain most of the best features of instant messaging for collaboration, whilst avoiding the problem that contact A uses IRC, but contact B uses AIM?

That is where sites like Chatzy and Twiddla come in. You can create a chat room for free, then just send the URL to people along with a time when you want to have a discussion, and they can join without needing to create an account. They can even leave messages and ideas at any point, so it becomes a form of asynchronous communication too, like email, allowing conversations to take place over time.

We needed to discuss what the FE sector might do with CyMAL’s information literacy grant this year so asked interested librarians to join Sam and I for a discussion at 2pm on Friday 11th June, using the Chatzy tool. I supplied a URL (http://www.chatzy.com/935748212850). On the day librarians joined in. All they had to do was enter a screenname so it was clear who it was (e.g. Lynne NPTC, KarlD RSC etc) and pick a colour. I chose to trial Chatzy as an experiment for this because of the simple interface, the fact that you don’t need any special software or an account, and it shouldn’t be well-known enough to be blacklisted. We asked people to think about the issues in advance so that the discussion would be focussed. If people couldn’t make the Friday they were encouraged to go to the URL and enter thoughts that we would discuss and incorporate on the day.

In the end it worked really well for brainstorming. At one point we set a limit of 60 seconds to think of ideas, then when I typed ‘Go!’ we had a further 60 seconds to type out as many ideas as possible, with no thought as to how practical they were – just to give free reign to creativity. And that was how our final proposal started to form and take shape. So overall it worked brilliantly, one of the rare cases where collaboration leads to synergy and generates both enthusiasm and ideas.

The main problems were that Chatzy had to be unblocked at some colleges; there was no way to share attachments or files; and the chat contents need saving regularly. Chatzy seemed to lead to a lot more discussion than we get in some video conferences, maybe because it leads to everyone chatting at once: at some points there were ideas coming faster than I could read and think about or reply to! Or maybe because people feel less inhibited with text chat. Either way it was informal yet focussed and effective.

Sam thought that something that allowed us to share documents too may be better for future use, in which case we could try Twiddla next time. This works in a similar way for live chat but also lets you share documents and draw and collaborate in a whiteboard area. Another experiment for the future!

Bookmark - Courtesy of SecretLondon123 on Flickr

I’m often finding I need to collect some good web resources on a topic to share. Whilst we have been using delicious to collect and share our bookmarks, sometimes that doesn’t quite seem to do them justice. Delicious has the following great “pros”:

• Quick and simple to bookmark, particularly with the integrated browser toolbars and buttons
• Tags are powerful and flexible
• RSS feed of tags allows you to embed your bookmarks in the VLE or anywhere else you need to display them
• Graphical display of tag cloud can be a good visual aid
• Others can subscribe to your RSS feed (or any combination of tags) to keep up with what you are bookmarking

It also has a few “cons”, mostly on the display side:

• Not much space to add your own comments to a link (1000 characters) and no formatting e.g. you cannot include another URL in a comment. (This is something I feel quite strongly about as a user/student – don’t just give me a list of resources, tell me why they are important!)
• It’s not pretty: very basic display with no images or graphics to make it look nicer.
• Limited control with RSS feed or delicious to order how your links are displayed e.g. you cannot choose how to prioritize them

So I have been investigating a few social bookmarking tools which add a bit more functionality. This may be of use to LRC staff or teachers who need to show their students a collection of web resources with some added guidance notes. Some of the resources below can also be embedded in a VLE or website quite easily. They provide a more controlled and graphical way to peruse a collection of web resources without having to repeatedly open new windows or tabs. Some of this could be accomplished by the Intute Informs tool. This resource is currently limited to UK HE and FE but is soon moving to a subscription model. Here I have limited my search to free, open tools. I only had a fairly quick chance to look through some of these but here are some I tried earlier:

1) Diigo has social bookmarking and more. You can bookmark a site, tag it, add it to a list, highlight areas of a webpage, add sticky notes to the web page, collaborate on it, share your collection, display it as a “webslide”. All rich, good functionality with a pleasing interface plus a powerful Firefox Toolbar (presumably other browsers too). I like the Webslides (Short example: http://slides.diigo.com/list/rscsam/Using-Maps-in-Education) but am struggling to get any notes to appear. The one at the beginning is dominated by adverts. You can only add public notes once you are a “trusted user” to avoid spam. Requires more homework for me! It is still in beta.

2) LiveBinders – a way to collect things in web “binders”. This not only includes bookmarking websites but you can also add other content such as documents/images. There is a good blog post on how it could be used in education, even as a free portfolio tool if privacy and reliability (it’s a 3^rd party tool after all) aren’t too much of an issue. I have to say I find the interface very clunky indeed and it displays like an old-school Powerpoint, but the basic functionality is good. You can see a short example here: http://livebinders.com/play/present?id=18332.  There is the option to embed the Binder in another website too.

3) JogtheWeb is another site in beta but it has a very good, clean interface. I had a few teething troubles getting my account going and also it didn’t seem to like my Netvibes page so I had to take that out, but otherwise it seems to work very well. Here’s a very short example: http://www.jogtheweb.com/run/BWbNivxOG8Xn/RSC-Wales-Learning-Resources.

4) Back to Delicious which now has a beta option to “Browse these Bookmarks”.

Screenshot from Delicious

This means you can stepthrough the websites one by one. However you do not get to see any added description or text and there is no control of the sequence other than the order in which they were added (most recent first) so it is really quite limited. You can save a link to a presentation but it is not obvious. You do have the option to save to your own delicious quite easily if browsing someone else’s bookmarks so this is more of an enhancement to using Delicious for resource discovery. A useful option but not so much a tool in its own right. Try it here with RSC Wales’ Media Literacy Resources: http://delicious.com/browsebar/user/rscwales/media_literacy#id=5802f3c4a627d1da9c9dc30035139efe-0

These are just a handful of sites that I have tried and there are plenty more out there. The fact that several of them are in beta means it is probably not a good idea to put all your resource eggs in one basket until they have become truly established players in the social bookmarking world. Even so, it is good to experiment with new methods of displaying useful resources which may entice more students to take notice.

I’ve been playing a bit of Top Trumps in my afternoon off. Anyone who knows me won’t be surprised that my favourite decks in the past were Horror Top Trumps. However this afternoon I’ve been playing Twitter Top Trumps – or rather, TweetTrumps.

Below are some cards I have been playing with, based on my Twitter friends.

I am disappointed that I was only given a grammar score of 95. Sam beats me with her perfect 100. Sharon Crossan (funkylibrarian, Mid-Wales Regional Development Officer) also beat me. Grrr. I must have missed out a verb somewhere in my tweets.

I do 0.28 tweets per day, this time just beating Sharon. Whereas Christine Davies does around 1 a day; Helen Hodges does one and a half.

I follow 44 people. Almost everyone beats me there. But I like to think that I am selective. Only Lis Parcell is more selective than me.

My average word length in a tweet is 4.8 characters. Paul Jeorrett of Glyndwr University manages 5.02, which is impressive.

I have 79 followers, which seems to be an average score. RSCWales has 168, which is expected; Vashti from Bangor University is extremely popular with 219 (recognition of her Web 2.0 knowledge – she will be speaking at Gregynog 2010 about Web 2.0).

Yes, it is all silly and pointless, but it is Friday afternoon… And is a good example of how Web 2.0 services allow their data to be remixed in new and original ways. The JISC MOSAIC competition looked at what could be done to reuse library data. One example is Aberystwyth University’s entry, which – among many other things – returns library lending data for any course along with the value of those loans (i.e. if the library hadn’t existed and students had been forced to buy the books or do without access). It also draws in links to related articles from the Guardian and New York Times websites. Have a play with it here.

What else could be done with library data? Could we combine a list of the subjects a student studies with the classmarks of new additions to library stock to create personal recommendations when they log into the VLE? Or scan the subject keywords of books borrowed by students, mix it with headings from an online news resource, and list the results when the students click on a ‘News’ link in the library portal? Not particularly great examples, but the age of mashup is becoming a reality.

Too much noise in the LRC? [Image by jorivando]

Social software is something of a mixed blessing for librarians. On the one hand it offers a potential way to reach out to and communicate with our users; but on the other hand many librarians bemoan the fact that some students seem to be sat at our library PCs just using sites like FaceBook instead of doing their assignments. This means that students needing to use the PCs for work may be losing out; sometimes this social use leads to disruption and noise; and there may be further concerns about related topics such as academic standards, e-safety, network security etc. It is no wonder that it is a topic that occurs often, usually as a survey:

• A recent survey on the CoFHE list about managing behaviour in the LRC [March 2010], and another about FaceBook usage in FE [April 2010]
• Alyson Tyler mentioned a potential new Web 2.0 survey of libraries in Wales on the FE-LRC-WALES list. The survey would include finding out if libraries/institutions block access to social software sites. They’re hoping to run the survey in March or April. [February 2010]
• A survey on LIS-LINK asking whether libraries ban FaceBook, some responses can be read here and here. The conclusion was that “the overwhelming majority do not, and have no plans to, ban facebook use” The anonymised results can be downloaded here. [November 2010]
• One of my colleagues in the JISC Regional Support Centre West Midlands asked LIS-LINKers whether they banned YouTube access; out of 41 replies only three institutions blocked YouTube outright [October 2009]

Three main aspects

The whole issue of managing access to (and use of) social software in education is something that is continually being debated, not just by librarians. There are three aspects.

1. E-safety / student safeguarding: managing access to social software in order to protect students (concerns like cyberbullying). There can be an element of giving students the skills to navigate the web safely, and obviously information literacy is an important driver here. If this area is of interest then tools like this online safety planner can be useful. RSC London has a Moodle area on e-safety (‘Login as a Guest’) as does RSC East Midlands.
2. IT security: managing access in order to protect data, networks and equipment, rather than people (concerns such as computer virus transmission, bandwidth usage). Obviously this is the domain of the IT department and the rest of the college may not have any involvement at all here.
3. Management of student behaviour in a learning environment: in terms of making sure people are not disruptive to other learners, and are not using scarce resources (e.g. high-demand PCs) for social purposes at the expense of students who need them for educational purposes. This is the aspect I will look at in more detail below.

[Image by kilikilo]

Options for managing user behaviour

Last week I gave a talk to some library undergraduates at Aberystwyth University’s Department of Information Studies. The talk was about the FE and HE library sectors, as well as some current themes such as e-books, information literacy, library 2.0, access management, and resource discovery tools. As part of it I wanted to give them a brief example of a realistic scenario an LRC manager in FE might come across, in order to give context to the other things I had been saying (and to make sure that the students were still awake!) The scenario I set was as follows:

• Each person in your group is an LRC Manager for a different campus of Coleg Dysguda, but facing the same issue.
• In each LRC is a block of computers. However there are frequent complaints from students that can’t get on a PC to do work – because other students are using them for FaceBook or other social purposes.
• Firstly, decide if you want to do anything about this issue or not.
• If you do, what interventions could you propose to deal with this?
• Finally, the group can discuss as many ideas as you want, but you can only take ONE proposal to the senior management in the college. So you have to agree on what you will do, if anything.

I was impressed that the students came up with realistic options and managed to think of most of the ways an LRC might deal with this issue. I have included the options they thought up below, along with some others I think should be included. Many institutions could combine a number of these.

Block access to the web sites

Obviously some insitutions just ban access to these technologies outright, either for students and staff, or just students. Or ban access to individual sites like FaceBook. In the past this was more likely to be done in FE libraries than HE. But are we then missing out? It is worth considering these points:

• In some cases there may be legitimate uses for social software, sometimes tied to courses. For example the ‘Study on the Effective Use of Social Software by UK FE & HE to Support Student Learning & Engagement‘ found that “social software tools support a variety of ways of learning”.
• Increasingly institutions have entries on sites like FaceBook, so the institution has to be careful about seeming inconsistent if it then implements an outright ban on such websites. As an exemplar of what can usefully be done with social software, it is worth looking at Gloucester College. Their usage of FaceBook was highlighted in the BBC site last Autumn. Also the FaceBook in Education site has some examples of the positive use of FaceBook in education.
• Caroline Rhys of Deeside College pointed me to the new Ofsted report ‘The safe use of new technologies‘ (February 2010) giving recommendations for managing social software rather than locking it down.
• Blocking sites is certainly an easy option, but we need to be aware of what we may be losing in terms of the above, as well as an opportunity to educate students. In ‘Harnessing Technology, Safeguarding Further Education and Skills learners in a digital world‘, published by Becta, it says:

“Organisations are finding that a blocking and banning approach, which merely limits exposure to risk, is not sustainable. Organisations need to focus on a model of empowerment; equipping learners with the skills and knowledge they need to use technology safely and responsibly and managing the risks, whenever and wherever they go online; and to promote safe and responsible behaviours in using technology at college, in the workplace, in the home and beyond.”

• RSC London have summarised the issue in one of their blog posts.
• Can Social Networking help with retaining students? There is an Excellence Gateway case study “Warwickshire College: Social networking improves student retention“. Also see this BBC News article.

So, what other options are there?

Separate area or PCs for social use

There could be separate PCs that allow certain social uses (possibly placed in an area that can be monitored, but safely away from quiet study areas). Once these short stay PCs are established other areas could become ‘FaceBook-free’ zones for quiet study.

Get more PCs

The downsides of this option are that it depends on budgets, and it doesn’t prevent disruption and noise (unless combined with other solutions). Space is often an issue in LRCs and there may not be room for more desktop PCs, but this is where laptops available for loan to students can take the pressure off. This solution deals with the scarcity of PCs, and increases facilities for all students.

Booking system

Having a system whereby students can only use the PCs (or a selection of them) for limited times e.g. 1 hour slots. This answers the issue of scarcity to a degree, shares access more equally and prevents individuals from hogging PCs for social use. It doesn’t solve the issue of disruption though. These systems don’t need technology to work, but I will discuss automated booking systems as an option later.

Separate times or quotas for social use

Here the LRC would only allow social use at certain times (such as lunch times), but with restrictions in place during the rest of the day. As examples from Wales:

• In Coleg Morgannwg students are only allowed access to Facebook in the morning until 9am; then from 12pm to 1pm; and then again after 3pm [March 2010].
• In Swansea College social networking is allowed on a range of sites but on a one hour quota (whether the  one hour is spent on one site or a mix) [May 2010].
• Yale College allows limited use of Facebook (and other social networking sites) for four 5 minute slots per day, for both staff and students. Staff can request additional access for themselves or groups of students via their manager. [May 2010]

Acceptable Use Policies (AUP)

Simply having a clear Acceptable Use Policy can make a difference – letting the users know what they can and can’t do. At the most basic level it could just be a policy of priority so that students working on a PC get priority over those ‘socialising/playing’. Whatever the content, there is a clear element of user education required in establishing any AUP.

As well as being an option in itself, an AUP would work best in conjunction with one or more of the other solutions mentioned here.

Developing an AUP is a good process to go through anyway, and as part of it the LRC could adopt a risk management approach, touching on issues of e-safety as well as behaviour management. As part of the development you would obviously need to consider how it will be enforced and monitored. Library patrollers? The duty of staff based near PC areas? Or the use of technology solutions? I will discuss some of those below.

For those considering an AUP there is some schools’ guidance here, which has some points relevant to FE. It is also a topic to discuss with other library managers, possibly sharing policies that have been developed. See also this discussion about library policies from LIS-WEB2 (here and here).

Ask the users

If there are no acceptable use policies in place at present it may be worth considering them, possibly preceded by a debate within the college involving students and staff. It would be useful for giving everyone a voice, and to make sure that nothing too draconian is applied. Survey them, have focus groups over coffee, find out what they think, decide what you could and would allow as a compromise. The advantage here is that they become stakeholders.

PC booking and monitoring systems

Software and technology solutions can be useful. There are systems that allow monitoring of what is being done on each PC, enabling remote enforcement of policies (many allow you to pop a message up on a user’s screen, and lock their access if required). There are also booking systems to share out usage, so that everyone gets a chance to use a PC. Most commercial systems combine these two functions. Some systems have other uses for directed teaching.

Note that having a system doesn’t necessarily mean monitoring students’ screens all the time – once students get used to a policy and realise that it is enforced they tend to be more aware of the LRC policies and realise that there is no point trying to circumvent them. So the systems can be a deterrent to abuse.

RSC Wales has some information on PC booking systems on our Information Area, and links to actual systems that can be used in our Delicious account.

Conclusion

There are many other management options, this list is not comprehensive. Some may work in one circumstance but not another. That is where raising it as an issue for discussion with other managers is the best option – only when you speak to people that have tried a particular approach can you find out what worked and what didn’t! There are no easy answers to this subject, but by sharing experiences we can get a better idea of what works best.

It seems that every day we hear about new technologies, tools and websites. The question is always: does this enable us to do something new, or perhaps to do something in a better way? Learning technologists focus on how the tool can enhance learning. My focus is a more specific sub-question: how can this tool improve the library service for users, enabling them to find, evaluate and use the LRC resources more effectively in order to enhance their learning?

I thought I would bring together a few tools or sites that I had played with over the last year:

• QR codes
• Cartoons
• Animoto
  
• Crosswords
• Quizzes

QR codes

The basics of these have already been covered by Sam. I have been following examples of use, from US studies of their potential, to commercial uses such as Google’s ‘Favorite Places’. I also tried things out using my work mobile phone, and was impressed at how easy it was. You just have to download some software to your phone if it isn’t already on there (I used QuickMark software but I have also heard good things about the Kaywa Reader). Then you can point your phone camera at QR codes and in a fraction of a second the code is deciphered and displayed on the screen. You can make your own (e.g. try here or here), or point at the code below.

How might libraries use QR codes? Below are a few ideas:

• QR code on textbooks in the library – scan to get a subject guide to resources that area (e.g. catering), including classmarks to look at, core texts, useful magazines, websites etc.
• Fiction collections – scan the code to get the e-book version, e.g. from
  Project Gutenberg if it is a classic text.
• Reference collection book – scan the code to go through to a reference
  website on that subject (e.g. online dictionary or style guide), or the library’s own virtual reference collection.
• Posters linking to the relevant web pages. Or notice boards could have
  QR codes next to headlines, which when scanned take the user through to a blog entry on that subject.
• Used as part of induction, for an innovative quiz where there are blocks of QR code information around the library, with a sort of treasure hunt following QR code clues on signs and hidden in some books. Students would be lent a phone if they don’t have their own. The hunt would involve using library resources such as the OPAC, and only if things are done in the correct order will they get the correct final code (which might open a safe; be a classmark for a book with a voucher in; it could be a map reference; or something more imaginative).
• Library cards could have QR codes with user information on, or to take the user to their library account on their phone so they can renew books etc (after some other form of authentication too, of course).
• Other uses for QR codes on a physical item, enabling users to see the
  catalogue record, reviews, similar items etc.
• On the OPAC so users can get locations, classmarks and item details onto their phone for finding item on shelves, or adding to bibliographies. This was done at Aberystwyth University as one of the mobile phone enhancements (the OPAC also has the ability to send an SMS with item details to a mobile phone). To view the QR code function, search the OPAC then click on the “QR code” link in the “Availability” section when viewing a record.
• To provide context specific help and information in the library, as
  at Huddersfield University.

Will any of this be commonplace in LRCs in 5 years? Let me know if you are
using them yourself!

Update 27 April 2010: I have just become aware of this article by Andrew Walsh, ‘Quick response codes and libraries’ (2009).

Cartoons

Librarians are always looking for ways to get information across to users. Pictorial methods are attractive, but not many of us have any artistic talent. That is where sites like Bitstrips come in, since with Bitstrips it is easy and quick to create a cartoon. You can design your own characters to appear in it, or use the hundreds that are provided on the site already. The system is easy to use – pose the figure, choose a facial expression, stick some props in the background, and add a text or speech bubble; then tweak until you are happy with it. The end result is that you can link to the cartoon on Bitstrips, or download it as an image to use in newsletters and on notice boards. Bitstrips are obviously aware of educational uses, since they have recently launched ‘Bitstrips for Schools‘.

I created a few for my RSC Wales job, see the RSC Wales LR Netvibes account. Also in my other role at Aberystwyth University, to promote our federated search tool. The fact that it is so easy to edit the cartoons means it is simple to go back in and create a Welsh version.

Animoto

I have always been a fan of Animoto. It is a site that lets you upload images and select music, and they get mixed together into a video slideshow which can then be viewed online, embedded on a webpage, or downloaded. In the early days you had to add words to an image yourself if you wanted text, but nowadays there are options to include titles and subtitles, and even to incorporate video clips. The basic version which creates short 60 second clips is free to use; however I took out a subscription so that I can create videos of any length.

I have used Animoto in various ways.

• Sometimes when I am doing a teaching session I like to have looped music and video playing as people come in and settle down: to help create an informal atmosphere, act as a border between the ‘outside world’ and the session proper, and possibly to raise some questions in advance of the session. This is an example I used in a session I ran on using multimedia resources.
• An attractive way of getting a simple message across.
• To promote a new service (ac yn Saesneg)
• As an ‘attract mode’ running on a laptop when you are on a stall e.g. a recent stall I ran demonstrating e-book readers had this animation playing to pull people over.
• A fun way of introducing people with photos and names.
• For your own projects outside of work e.g. presenting a poem, holiday snapshots.

Crosswords

LRCs often like to offer quizzes as ways of summarising information or reinforcing it later. Crosswords are an easy way to do this, something some users might enjoy (though they shouldn’t be over-used, and many students will hate them – it is just an alternative way of giving information). Creating a crossword by hand is a daunting task, and thankfully unnecessary! Lots of software is available. My favourite is Eclipse Crossword, which is free and simple to use, yet powerful and fast. If you haven’t tried it before, why not incorporate a quick crossword into one of your information literacy sessions, leaflets, inductions or competitions, or use one as part of a promotion of resources and services?

Quizzes

At the end of a teaching session it is good to include some way of reviewing the content. Institutions with voting systems or interactive whiteboards can use those, but there are many other options for running a quiz. One of my favourites at the moment is ‘Multiple Choice Quiz Creator‘, which resembles ‘Who Want To Be A Millionaire?’ in format and sounds. I like the fact that you only need a laptop/PC, speakers, and (ideally) a projector. Sometimes I get a student to take part, helped by the rest of the people at the session; sometimes I get people to call out answers; other times I put the lecturer on the hotspot (depending on the vibe of the session and how relaxed people are!) It has proven to be a fun way to finish off with a laugh, with a prize of some sort for the winner (e.g. a USB memory stick or some pens). The quizzes are free to play (since the display software has no limits), but the quiz creator programme itself is only free for thirty days. You can download sample quizzes here if you want to try it out.

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