Antelope of Information

Visualizing Keywords

2010-01-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

Coming up with keywords and search terms can be one of the toughest parts of research. Figuring out which words will get you the results you need can be tricky. While we have traditionally told students to use the thesaurus, subject headings, or the works cited page of an article they found useful, there are some websites that can assist with generating keywords in a visual manner. These sites allow students to get a visual representation of how different search terms relate to their topic. While some are better than others, I think these programs can be very useful in helping students (and librarians) discover new keywords and phrases for their research.

Visuwords (www.visuwords.com) Type in your topic word and this program will give you definitions, keywords, and related topics. This is my favorite because it generates a color-coded visual chart that helps the user see how each term is related.
Check out this video I made of it in action: Visuwords Search Example
KwMap (www.kwmap.net) As you can see from the example, unlike other visual maps it's not entirely clear how the keywords relate to the main topic. According to the website's information, the closer words to the topic are the most relevant, but that doesn't really seem to be the case. KwMap also gives a more traditional list of suggested keywords and a list of related websites. While visually it's not as impressive as some of the other options here, it does a good job giving many different keywords and phrases.
Google Wonder Wheel Type in your search term and the wonder wheel will generate related terms. Here's a video I made of how it works: Google Wonder Wheel Search Example

Community support and problem based learning

2010-01-04T11:24:00.000-08:00

This LA Times article, The Science of Science Education, about encouraging more minority students in the sciences made me think about my interest in Problem Based Learning (PBL), which places an emphasis on teamwork and learning from others.

From the article:

"Treisman demonstrated that several widely held assumptions -- that black students were less motivated or less prepared or had less family support -- could not explain their lower grades. His conclusion was that 'the black students typically worked alone' while 'the Chinese students learned from each other.'

Using this insight, he constructed 'an anti-remedial program,' open to all but populated primarily by minority students, which emphasized 'group learning and a community life.' The results were dramatic, with participants in the program not only outperforming their minority peers but their white and Asian American classmates as well."

Emphasis mine. While this is just one example, and therefore can not be taken as a comprehensive study, it is another example of how group learning can benefit the individual. Individuals are not only able to draw from the knowledge and experience of others to increase their own learning, but are also able to get the emotional support that comes from being a part of a community. It would be interesting to see if PBL used in information literacy instruction could have some of the same benefits described in the article.

Winter Crafts

2009-12-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

1. The Creature Comfort Blog has a great list of DIY projects. It also features fun holiday cards and labels. I especially like this newspaper Christmas tree, it's cute, festive, and good for the environment! The blogger even made this one out of an old New England Journal of Medicine, so that's what libraries can do with their extra copies of print journals!

2. A cute sleighing Santa from Pepakura. I love his expression.

3. A cute birdcage ornament from Zakka Life. They also have a lot more, including the cute little girl above.

4. Handmade a nd Homebaked has a good list of fun projects like these easy to make snowglobes.

5. The Purl Bee has a bunch of great crafts for kids and adults. Check out these Hanukkah coasters and this felted garland!

Teen Podcasting Program for Public Libraries

2009-11-04T01:19:00.001-08:00

The Challenge:
Choose either an adult services program or a children’s services program in a public library and describe the specific steps that you would take to update the service program to respond to changing societal and community needs.

My Idea:
While essay contests and book reviews from librarians are wonderful ways to provide outreach to teens, librarians can take advantage of new media technologies to appeal to a wider audience of teenagers and allow a forum for teens to actively get involved in the library. Podcasting is a new media and is a great way to reach a large number of people inexpensively. Creating a teen podcasting program will provide a forum for teens to share their ideas and views with their community, as well as gaining leadership skills and experience in audio production.

A podcast is a digital audio or video recording that users can subscribe to using an aggregator or podcatcher such as iTunes. What makes podcasts different from streaming or downloading digital media files is that podcasts use RSS feeds allow users to automatically download a new podcast episode to your aggregator when it is available, like a newspaper or magazine that is automactially delivered to your door. While this subscription feature is what differentiates a podcast, many podcasters (people who create podcasts) offer their shows through streaming and individually downloadable file options as well.

Many public libraries have found success creating teen podcast shows. The Seattle Public Library has teens podcast library events such as performances for Banned Books Week and teen writers reading their work. The Library Loft podcast from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg in North Carolina features interviews with young adult authors. The Cheshire Public Library uses podcasts as kind of cultural magazine that features teen writers, musicians, reviewers, commentators, and more. There are also non-library teen podcast programs such as Smashcast, a program run by the non-profit Level Playing Field Institute which features video podcasts by bay area teens on technology equal access issues.

My idea is to create a regular podcasting program created by teens through the public library. The teens will meet twice a month in one to two hour meetings. The first meeting at the beginning of the month will be to plan the podcast and the second will be to record and edit the podcast. Creating an "editorial board" of high school students will help ensure that the podcasts will become a regular feature as well as give students an opportunity to take a leadership role in project management.

1. Work with technology department to figure out best way to record podcasts and provide hosting.
a. Can record using laptop with microphone (external or internal)
b. Use free editing software like GarageBand (on Mac OS systems) or Audacity.
c. Should be hosted on the library website
d. Stream through iTunes, provide RSS feed.

2. Market to local high schools, tutoring centers, and in the library
a. Contact high school principles and teachers
b. Contact tutoring centers
c. Create fliers and posters (emphasize usefulness in college apps, fun, leadership, creativity, etc.)
d. Need at least two to three volunteers, can use more depending on interest

3. Teen Podcast Committee Meeting 1
a. Interested students email librarian to participate
b. Set up time to have first meeting at library
i. Create Teen Editorial Board (like Seattle Public Library, Cheshire Public Library in Connecticut) core group to edit and decide on topics.
ii. Brainstorm ideas and choose ideas for show
- examples include reviews, current events, and teens reading from their own work.
iii. Create outline for show

4. Teen Podcast Committee Meeting 2
a. Record podcast show
b. Teens edit audio file
c. Publish show and put it up on the website!

5. Promote Podcast
a. Create business cards and posters, have teens pass out business cards to other students
b. Contact teachers, principals, etc. to let them know the podcast is available
b. Market to local media, newspapers, television, etc.

6. Repeat steps 1-5!

Halloween Paper Crafts

2009-10-23T09:37:00.000-07:00

Toys, Halloween, and Paper!

Check out this fun websites for making Halloween-themed paper toys:
CastleForte: Pumpkin Candy Dish (as pictured on the top)

Free Paper Toys: Skeleton, Werewolf, and more

Goobeetsa: John Carpenter themed paper toys includes Dead Sailor (The Fog) and Mike Myers (Halloween)

Cubee Craft: Ghostbusters, X-Files, Jack-O-Lanterns, and a ton more!

All you need to do is print them out and fold! I've made a few of these, and it helps to have an exacto knife for precision cutting.Thicker paper is recommended, but I've used normal everyday paper and it was fine, though I usually do add some tape to keep them together. They are all sorts of fun though, and look really good as decorations!

Errol Morris, Photography, and Media Literacy

2009-10-22T20:51:00.000-07:00

Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris has a regular feature in the New York Times looking at historical documentation. He often looks at how photography and other forms of media can be manipulated to serve political and personal ends. His latest article "The Case of the Inappropriate Alarm Clock" is about photographs of the 1936 drought in North Dakota accused of being fakes. As part of the information department of the Farm Security Administration, a product of the New Deal, a small photography division took photographs of the great depression, including the drought in North Dakota.

Here's a quote from the article, "What makes these accusations of photo-fakery utterly perverse is the claim that they unfairly portrayed a drought. The photographs led the viewer to infer that the Dakotas were experiencing a drought. But the Dakotas were experiencing a drought. One of the worst droughts in American history."

For any librarian or archivist interested in introducing media literacy Morris' series of articles is a great resource. He brings up issues of how we evaluate sources (in this case photography) for accuracy. If someone moves a cow skull into a picture, does that compromise truth of what the picture is showing? Or is the message of the picture still intact? What are the photographers motivations, and what are the motivations of the critics?
Morris' insight and his curiosity about the nature of documentation makes for thought provoking series, and I really can't recommend it enough.

Paper crafts, graphics, and more

2009-10-18T11:59:00.000-07:00

Living Locurto is a wonderful site for free graphics, arts and crafts projects, and recipes. There are a lot of great arts and craft projects that childrens' librarians can use. Who could resist making some of these awesome pinwheels?

It's geared more towards parents with kids, though if you're interested in web design you can find some great graphics for your website. For example, can't you just see this Halloween themed card as a website background?

There is also a section for very cute Blogs, Buttons, and Backgrounds. If using any of these graphics for a website you'll want to check the rights for each graphic, some are free for any use and others only for personal use.

Great Fonts for Free (everyone wins!)

2009-10-16T23:45:00.002-07:00

When I was Co-President of the ALA Student Chapter at UCLA we created a lot of fliers and posters advertising events. Eventually I found that the fonts provided through different editing programs were too limited, and frankly most were either over-used or boring. Don't get me wrong, "boring" fonts like Times New Roman and Ariel are pleasant enough and great for readability, but for things like headers on websites and fliers, we need something that's a bit more unique and eye catching. One of my favorite websites for free and fun fonts is http://www.dafont.com/. It has some amazing and unique fonts that can give you website or flier that extra zing that makes it stand out from the sea of paper out there. The fonts are very readable too, as long as you don't try to use them for an entire paragraph!

Digital Collections in the New York Times

2009-10-16T21:59:00.000-07:00

The New York Times has an interesting article about libraries providing digital book collections to patrons. While e-books are still a small portion of library collections, this is an area that will continue to see growth while print collections in many libraries will shrink. I'm saying this because, like cell phones, digital books that patrons can check out without going to the library and always be available are simply more convenient than print books. We have all worked with students who want a book that is either checked out or at another library. Sometimes they have enough time to wait for ILL or are able to place a hold on the book, but more often than not they need it right away. Digital books allow us to provide materials more effectually.

There are many issues surrounding e-books; finding a business model and subscription service that works for authors, publishers, and libraries, getting old print editions of books digitized, legal issues surrounding authors rights, letting patrons know that digital books are available, etc. I am confident that some of these issues, finding a business model and resolving legal issues, will be solved with time. While these issues won't go away entirely, there is just too much incentive to provide digital copies of books for publishers, authors, and libraries.

UC Berkeley Students Protest Saturday Closing of Campus Libraries

2009-10-11T21:03:00.001-07:00

Today I came across an article from SFGate.com about 300 UC Berkeley students holding a sit in to protest the closing of the smaller campus libraries on campus. It's wonderful having students show such support for the library and hopefully this will show administrators how important libraries are to students, especially during a time when some believe that "brick and motor" libraries are obsolete in the age of Google. While most of the comments have been positive, one struck me:

"5 shifts a day
4 hours per shift
2 students per shift
7 days a week
20 per hour
52 weeks

=291200

Toss in 1 UCB full time employee spending 4 hours per week for administration

15000

insurance

4000

=310000

How many students use that library? Say 3000.

That's $100 per student assuming no capital expenditures or money for janitorial maintence."

Student workers to open shop and check out books, with one "administrator" coming in four hours a week? I know of no libraries, or any other institution really, that could run on that sort of model.

It's no surprise to librarians that the general public has very little idea about what we do. When one thinks about it, this isn't actually that surprising. Much of what we do, program planning, collection development, cataloging, goes on behind the scenes and most patron only interact with the library staff person behind the circulation desk. So what can librarians do about this? I don't pretend that there are easy answers, but things like this remind me that we need to speak up and set the record straight about what we do. Libraries can also publicize library programs and services to people outside of the library, do outreach to different parts of the community we serve, and make the library more accessable. We are a profession built on providing access, but instead of using everyday words that actually tell people what we do, we use "library speak". We don't need a "reference desk", we need a "research help and information desk". Librarians work hard to provide services and programs to the community we serve, sometimes it helps to remember that many don't know what we do, and that has and effect on public support for libraries.

Learning Styles

2008-11-11T10:33:00.000-08:00

David Kolb's Experimental Learning Model and IL Instruction

Kolb's learning model emphasises learning from experience and building on experience to guide new learning. There are four parts in the learning method.

Concrete Experience: students are first introduced to concrete examples through actively interacting with material in order to provide context for more abstract concepts.

Example:
Giving students a scholarly journal and a popular magazine and having them identify the differences between the two. This uses concrete examples (the publications), allows users to interact with material (physically looking at the publications), and provides context for more abstract concepts (how to identify popular and scholarly publications and why it's important to use one over the other).

Reflective Observation: Students observe their experiences from different viewpoints, reflect on their experiences, and then interpret their experiences. The goal is to integrate observations into a theoretical explanation of experiences.

Abstract Conceptualization: Students build theories and/or solve problems by testing ideas developed during reflective observation.

Example:
By observing the difference between scholarly and popular publications, students must identify why it's important to use scholarly articles and when it's appropriate to use popular articles. Students will also draw on their own personal experience doing both academic and personal research and share their reflections with others in a group or class setting.

Active experimentation: Practical application of theories. Students use the theories they developed to real problems.

Example:
Looking for and identifying scholarly articles in a database and using those articles to write a research paper.

Library Picture of the Week

2008-10-15T10:00:00.000-07:00

Library history in pictures!

WPA Poster created in 1941 from The Library of Congress' American Memory online archive. Click the picture to be taken to the website. Promoting the use of libraries as a learning and research tool. I like the images used. The globe shows the amount of information availible and reflects the idea of the libraries role in providing access to the worlds knowledge. The graduation cap associates libraries with learning. The glasses, of course, are the best part. We all know that smart people wear glasses!

Welcome to the world of blogging

2008-10-15T08:07:00.000-07:00

I'm planning on blogging about my experience as a second year student in a MLIS program and about different issues in librarianship. Hopefully this will be a record of what I have learn and serve as a future resource for research topics.

This week I've been reading about the use of problem-based learning in information literacy instruction. Problem based learning (PBL) is designed to encourage student's independent and active learning. The instructor serves as a more of a guide than a lecturer. PBL is group based. Students are divied up into pairs or small groups and given a problem to work on. For example, students may have to find a scholarly article about symbolism in Paradise Lost by John Milton. The instructor can show them where to access the databases, or may not initially even guide them that far. The instructor walks around answering students questions and helping with any problems they might encounter. The students then report back how they found their article.

This approach encourages critical thinking because students have to examine how they find information and why they picked certain articles or information avenues. Though, I think that the time limit is a significant factor in why they would pick a certain article. Given more time some students would probably dig deeper, or look at other databases.

PBL seems like a very good teaching technique. Having sat through a few one shot literacy instruction sessions as an undergraduate student myself, I know that it can be hard to pay attention and see the relevancy in what I was being shown. By keeping the students active it's much easier to concentrate on the material at hand and understand how they can use it for their own research.

I think one of the pontential problems with using PBL is that you have to have a trade off between the students participation in their learning, and the amount of information you are giving students. Librarians know a lot, and they like to share what they know about using the libraries resources. We're a helpful profession in general! Since most one shot classes only last about an hour, there is not a lot of time to give the students the information they need, especailly if you're spending a significant amount of time on group work. However, PBL can at least be used to give students enough information to complete their assignment and give them a base in how to do research and think critically.

Finally, it would be interesting to try and integrate PBL techniques in a distance education environment. where there is no physical space for the students to interact with each other. This makes the group learning aspect much more diffifcult to acheive. One could use chat rooms, instant messaging, or video chat to simulate the classroom enviroment. Or you could give students an assignment and allow them a few days to finish it. I'm not sure how successful these techniques would be, and perhaps we'll have to wait for the right technology in order to do real time group work.