Submitted by Patrick Hogan on July 12, 2012 - 3:33pm
Aaron Schmidt and Amanda Etches, authors of User Experience (UX) Design for Libraries speak frequently on UX design. If you've heard them, you know they are passionate and emphatic about putting the user first. In the interview, they each describe their favorite project from the book.
For Amanda, it's developing personas. "Peronas are one of those things where people have a vague sense of what they are and why they matter, but they don't really know how they can use them or how they can go about developing them for the library," she says. Personas are useful not only in the web development process, but also for other library service planning. In detailed, step-by-step fashion, the book explains how to develop personas, what to include, how to format your documents, what you can use them for, and, most importantly, how to know if they're working for you.
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Submitted by Patrick Hogan on July 6, 2012 - 11:36am
I attended LITA's Mobile Computing Interest Group meeting at ALA Annual Conference and heard two presentations about library projects with mobile technologies.
Anne Burke presented on North Carolina State University's use of iPod Touches for a scavenger hunt to orient new students to the library, its staff, and resources. The creative, relatively inexpensive project makes a game of orientation, with group interaction and casual competition. The success of the program is evident in survey results as well as photographs of participating students, which you can view the slides on Mobile Computing Interest Group ALA Connect page. Read More »
Submitted by Patrick Hogan on July 5, 2012 - 12:21pm
Joe Murphy author of Location-Aware Services and QR Codes for Libraries is passionate in his conviction that location awareness is a gateway to future innovation. "The ability to associate activities, whether social or institutional, with a layer of location has really proved to be a foundation for all the major mobile and social technology initiatives of the past year," he says.
Library spaces will continue to be important, Murphy says. The technologies covered in the book will help libraries make their physical spaces relevant and meet the expectations of patrons with smartphones.
Joe had fun jumping into this topic early and looking at the practical applications for libraries. He describes specifics for a few of the book's projects, using: Read More »
Submitted by Patrick Hogan on June 29, 2012 - 9:25am
In this interview with Ellyssa Kroski, Michael Lascarides, author Next-Gen Library Redesign, notes that next-generation isn’t a checklist. “It’s about positioning yourself to exist in a world where the information landscape is constantly changing,” he says.
Lascarides describes a couple projects from the book. First, starting with the broad, is a methodological approach to looking at your library’s digital presence by taking a full inventory of your Web activities. Moving to the specific, the book describes how to set up and oversee a crowdsourcing project. Examples from the New York Public Library are digitizing maps and transcribing dishes of old restaurant menus into a foods database. "A small set of guidelines can make the difference between a successful and unsuccessful project," says Lascarides.
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Submitted by Patrick Hogan on June 14, 2012 - 9:08am
Series Editor Ellyssa Kroski interviewed Marshall Breeding, author of Cloud Computing for Libraries (11) and noted speaker, writer, and consultant on library technology and the library automation industry.
Note that since the recording of this interview, Marshall resigned his position at Vanderbilt University in order to free up time for what he calls "outside activities" in the interview.
Below the SoundCloud embed are a few highlights from the interview.
2:15 Marshall believes cloud computing is a major transition with "massive implications for libraries."
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Submitted by Patrick Hogan on June 8, 2012 - 10:53am
Amanda Bielskas and Kathleen Dreyer are reference librarians at Columbia University and authors of IM and SMS Reference Services for Libraries, #19 in The TECH SET. They believe that reference through IM and text messaging is not only a service librarians can offer, it's a necessary one. In this brief interview with Ellyssa Kroski, they discuss their inspiration for the book and a few how-to projects covered in the implementation chapter.
Submitted by Patrick Hogan on May 31, 2012 - 4:08pm
Editors Note: The TECH SET Series Editor Ellyssa Kroski has interviewed authors about their books. We will post the interviews to the companion pages for the The TECH SET. Starting today, and on Thursdays during the next 9 weeks, we will feature an interview on the ALA TechSource blog.
Yesterday, one of the participants in Sean Fitzpatrick's Drupal Basics workshop asked if we could suggest a concise guide on using Drupal to develop a library website. Yes we can!
Among the 10 new titles to The TECH SET series is Drupal in Libraries (14) , by Kenneth J. Varnum. Series Editor Ellyssa Kroski spoke to Ken about the book. Below the SoundCloud embed are a few notes from the interview.
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Submitted by Patrick Hogan on May 29, 2012 - 11:33am
Library of Congress (LC) announced last week that it has contracted with Zepheira to help accelerate the launch of the Bibliographic Framework Initiative.
LC’s plan for the new bibliographic framework stated, released in October 2011, stated: Read More »
Submitted by Patrick Hogan on May 11, 2012 - 7:03am
I’m
delighted to welcome Sarah Ludwig to the ALA TechSource blog team. She
will join bloggers Jason Griffey and Kate Sheehan and new Code Words
columnist Jason Clark.
A 2010 ALA Emerging Leader, Sarah is academic technology coordinator at
Hamden Hall, a preK-12 school in Connecticut. She previously worked at
Darien Library, where in various positions she managed reference,
technology, and teen services. She is author of Starting from Scratch:
Building a Teen Library Program (Libraries Unlimited, 2011) and is one
of VOYA’s “Tag Team Tech” columnists.
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