In response to my post about IM widgets at dead ends, Brian Herzog offers a great example of using a greasemonkey script to provide an email door out of the “no search results” page of his catalog. Since his library doesn’t offer IM reference, this is the next best thing to inserting a librarian back into the search process.
Because greasemonkey only works with Firefox, users of other browsers won’t see the form, but that’s why there’s an email address at the top. Could this be used with databases, as well? Probably only if the vendor lets you customize the code on that page.
Hardy programmer types with full access to the backend of their catalog could add an HTML form to level the playing field in that respect.
Or, vendors could provide this type of functionality as part of the default system and the library could just specify where the email should go on a settings screen. There could also be a box to embed code for instant messaging widgets for libraries that offer IM help.
“Librarians want students to effectively identify and evaluate information and make decisions based upon what they discover. These are just some of the skills that an information literate student successfully applies. These are the same skills that more than 19 million people use on a daily or weekly basis playing fantasy sports.1 As the NFL football season comes to a close, millions of Americans, some as young as 12 years old, have spent the past few months connected to information literacy. They just don’t know it. The challenge for librarians is to connect fantasy sports skills to information literacy and create building blocks for academic applications of the same concepts. One library, University of Dubuque, did just this by teaching fantasy football research to incoming student athletes. Through the lesson, students engaged in discussions of creditability, validity, timeliness, and search strategies to find and evaluate fantasy football information…. The high level of player investment creates educational opportunities for librarians. According to a 2006 study by the Fantasy Sports Association, a large number of college students play fantasy sports. Librarians can build upon the information literacy skills that students are already unconsciously using through fantasy sports play. The successful fantasy sport player consistently applies four of the five ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards (2000)…. At the end of the sessions, the students completed a short evaluation that assessed both criteria for evaluating sources and library perceptions. More than 80 percent of students were able to describe two of three appropriate source evaluation criteria and more than 60 percent provided all three. The students were asked to describe what research meant to them before the session and responses included, ‘headaches,’ ‘work I didn’t want to do,’ and ‘school work.’ The responses to the same question after the sessions showed a dramatic change in perspective and included, ‘making sure one is getting accurate information,’ ‘comparing and knowing where I’m getting my information,†and “fun work.†While the ‘fun work’ might be a stretch when homework is involved, it does show a change in perspective and awareness about research. One student first said that before the session, research meant ‘school,’ but afterwards he responded, ‘everything.’ In addition to the change in perception of research, the student athletes were asked about their perception of librarians. Prior to the fantasy football orientation session, the students had a 66 percent ‘very positive’ impression of librarians. After the session, the students “very positive†perception was more than 90 percent. While these results are not scientific and large enough to generalize, they show a distinct change in students’ impressions of libraries and their own abilities. One student stated, ‘I made the fantasy football connection to looking up school stuff quick, it worked well.’ “
One of my favorite things about going to conferences is getting to meet and talk with people I normally wouldn’t get to know. I had another such experience at Midwinter when I met Leslie Morgan, First Year Experience/Education Librarian with the University of Notre Dame’s Libraries. Last year, she received the Outstanding New Librarian Award for the State of Indiana because she is an avid supporter of information literacy and diversity programs issues in academic librarianship. She is also very active promoting literacy in the community where she lives. I met her at Midwinter because Leslie is the chair of the Research to Practice Literacy Discussion Group that hosted a panel presentation about gaming and literacy by Scott Nicholson, Julie Scordato, and myself, along with discussion from the standing room only participants. I was unfamiliar with Notre Dame’s efforts around gaming, so my ears perked up when she began talking about what the librarians there have been doing around gaming. My favorite initiative is a program they created for first year students. Called Caching in at the Libraries, this program played on the popular hobby geocaching in an attempt to help incoming students learn more about the various libraries and services on campus.
“225 First Year Students signed up to play the game which consisted of finding 17 hidden ‘caches’ throughout Hesburgh and the branch libraries. 40 students ended up finding at least some of the caches, and 26 students were able to find all of the hidden caches. 10 of these students won iPod Shuffles, and the others won the ND ‘Shirt’. Though the turnout for the game was not as large as we had hoped, the students who participated were very enthusiastic about it. Many of them have commented on how fun it was, and how much they enjoyed visiting all the libraries. One participant volunteered this comment: ‘I know I’ve been on campus for only 3 weeks but I probably would’ve never found out about those libraries. They are very valuable and interesting. If I had to give any evaluation of the program, I’d say continue it. Very rewarding.’ Plans are in the works to survey participants to find out ways to improve the program for next year.” [IRIS Department Newsletter
I think 225 participants is a darn good turnout for a first attempt, but their efforts didn’t stop there. In addition, the librarians hosted their first gaming night last December as an outreach activity for students.
“This year IRIS, with financial support from User Services and The First Year of Studies, hosted their first ever Game Night on December 12th and 13th – the official “reading days†before finals begin. The events took place in the library lounge and featured coffee, cocoa, hot tea, a host of snacks, and several lo-tech games. Game Night is our effort to help relieve some of the stress of studying for finals, and it is loosely modeled on a program that has been hosted at St. Mary’s for the last few years. No official count was taken, but somewhere between 300 and 600 students flocked to the library lounge to graze and game their troubles away. Games included Twister, Clue, Monopoly, Connect 4, Operation, Play-doh, various card games, and several coloring books and crayons. What games do students like to play? Operation and coloring were by far the most popular activities. Perhaps we had an abundance of pre-med and art students on hand! Student’s reactions to Game Night were overwhelmingly positive. Roughly 60 students completed comment cards, and according to their responses they truly appreciated the food. Many suggested that we try to provide healthier snack alternatives such as fruit and milk. Many students liked coloring best, and one student suggested that we provide more hot guys! We’re not sure if that is in our budget, but we do hope to host Game Night during future finals weeks, and we welcome suggestions for easy and fun activities.” [IRIS Department Newsletter]
Now I’m very interested to track ND’s efforts, as it’s great to have more data from successful gaming initiatives, especially when they’re creative ideas.
If you can help with the following request, please contact Sarah directly. Thanks!
“I am curious if anyone knows of research (informal and formal) going on with undergraduates and media literacy. I’d like to hear about projects that look at usability and interface design and also any projects that measure visual or media literacy competencies. If you know of any relevant projects, contact Sarah Bordac, Instruction & Outreach Librarian @ Brown University and LIS doctoral student at Simmons College.”
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“Library users with unpaid fines had a chance to redeem themselves Thursday during the annual Patron Appreciation Day at the Wadleigh Memorial Library. Instead of a scolding when they arrived, delinquent patrons were received like party guests. Patrons were invited to make good on unpaid fines by donating canned and packaged foods for the local soup kitchen or by entering a dance competition, ‘Dance Dance Revolution.’ To sweeten the pot, during most of the day the library served coffee, bagels, pastries and ice cream, donated by area businesses…. The teen and preteen girls who showed up to play Dance Dance included 18-year-old Missy Hutchins, who owed $5 in fines, and Elicia Vallier, 12, and Maria Romanenko, 11, who had no debts to pay. Hutchins, who has been playing the video dance game for four years, including several as part of DDR club at Milford High School, won her round against Spofford and happily reported to the front desk with a coupon she used to pay off her $5 obligation. The other girls took second turns competing against the librarian, just for fun. ‘Video games are things kids like to do, and we thought this would bring them in to the library,’ Spofford said before the dance contest began. ‘If they have fines, they don’t come in. We don’t want them to be afraid to come in.’ ” [Nashua Telegraph, via joystiq, thanks James!]
Primary Game: Candidates as Consoles “As pundits ponder the resurgence of Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire, here’s a handy high-tech guide to the three Democratic frontrunners. Because as it happens, they’re best understood in relation to the top three video game consoles.” Click through to find out why Barack Obama is the Nintendo Wii, Hillary Clinton is the Microsoft Xbox 360, and John Edwards is the Playstation 3. [GigaOM, via Game Politics]
We know that enterprising libraries such as The University of Calgary, McMaster University, Topeka Shawnee County Public Library, and Baylor University have implemented MeeboMe widgets at the dead ends of their catalogs. I’m wondering if any libraries have gone further to add this type of functionality to the “sorry, no search results” pages in the databases they pay for or on the 404 error pages on their websites, blogs, etc.? The latter could be under our control (for many libraries, not all), but is there even a vendor out there that lets libraries customize the dead end messages? If you know of one, please let me know in the comments!
At various times during the last year, I’ve heard a librarian here and there say that tags and tag clouds are a passing fad, something our patrons don’t even know about let alone use, and useless compared to structured search. However, thinking that tags are only about classification (good or bad) is missing the forest for the trees. Tag clouds can also be useful as navigation tools and for pattern recognition. Which is the name of Jason Griffey’s blog and must be why Jason helps prove this point. 2008 State of the Union as Tag Cloud
“Last year’s 2007 State of the Union Tag Cloud was such a hit, I decided to follow up again this year. A few major differences: Congress is mentioned a lot more this year, while health and oil don’t show up at all. This year’s address looks more active…instead of ‘fight’ we get ‘fighting.’ ” [Pattern Recognition]
Personally, I’d prefer to go straight to the catalog record when I click on a cover, but this is a great way to translate some of the warm fuzzies surrounding physical books in our buildings to our online catalogs. As someone who never goes to my home library for new books because they are embargoed from checkout for a week (even when I am holding them in my hand), this would be a far easier way for me to browse new books remotely without having to strain my eyes reading through three hundred lines of text. As a user (not a librarian), I’d also love to see the summary of the book appear in a mouseover and have this list broken out by genre. If my library offered these things and threw in NetFlix-style delivery, they’d have a devoted follower for life.
