Librarian X

For a couple of years now my friend Beth Gallaway has been asking me to submit a proposal with her for a Simmons College LIS continuing education class. We finally did it this year, and I’m pleased to say we’re co-teaching an online workshop together this spring:

They’re Googling You: Online Identity for LIS Professionals

May 1 – 31, 2010

Should you separate your professional online identity from the personal, and if so, how? Self-promotion and branding is becoming increasingly important as library professionals face dwindling traditional employment opportunities, due to layoffs, downsizing, budget cuts, and library closings. On a more positive note, library staff wishing to contribute back to the profession may want to hone a professional identity that makes one marketable for teaching and training purposes, conference speaking or consulting. Developing a professional online identity for either purpose may be a challenging and rewarding endeavor.

More info on the Simmons site, and you can register here. If you’ve never set up a blog or personal website, you’ll learn how — if you have, we’ll talk about how to use it and how to augment it. Topics will include privacy, professional development, personal branding, and technology how-to.

I’m teaching a webcast for ACRL: “Superpower Your Browser: Open Source Research Tools.” I’ll cover the search and discovery tool LibX and the citation and bibliography tool Zotero. Learn the essentials of both programs, ideas for supporting them at your library, and a little about how open source is good for libraries and library users.

The session is March 23 at 11am Pacific/2pm Eastern. More details and registration info on the ACRL site.

Hi!

So what have I been doing since Internet Librarian a month ago? Anna rightly called me out for not blogging much this fall.

Well, we did another episode of Adventures in Library Instruction a couple of weeks ago, but you knew that.

I’ve been writing a lot for the last month. I wrote an article about LibX and Zotero for College and Research Libraries News, which I’ll link here once it’s up. It’s also sort of a tie-in for a webcast I’ll be doing for them early next year.

I also did an article for Georgia Library Quarterly, which I’ll post here after it goes to print. It’s for a column called “My Own Private Library,” about librarians’ personal libraries. I wrote about free audio books and fiction podcasts.

I’m trying to finish an article on DRM before I go out of town for the holidays, and I hope that’s it for this year. (If I mention it in public maybe I’ll shame myself into finishing it.)

Coming up next year, I’m doing a presentation on LibGuides and Zotero for the staff of GALILEO, a Georgia virtual library initiative. I’m also been asked to give an online Zotero workshop for librarians and staff of a New Jersey library system, and there’s that ACRL webcast in March. In April, I’m giving a podcasting presentation at Computers in Libraries.

Plus, you know, doing my actual job too. In some ways my first fall back at GSU Library has blasted by like a jet-powered monkey-navigated rocket car across the alkali flats, and in some ways this has seemed like the endless semester. Lots of changes, and I’m looking forward to my new role as a subject liaison. I’m really enjoying learning my way around collection development and I’m looking forward to working on outreach next semester and getting to know the Comm department.

This is a quickie post — I’m just back from Internet Librarian 2009, and several people at my podcasting cybertour asked me to post my slides. So, here!

I’m never really convinced that my slideshows are much use on their own (otherwise why bother presenting? You could just look at the slides).

I had a good time slot and a lot of people turned up for this session — I’m just sorry I only had 15 minutes!

Tomorrow (Thursday October 8th) I’ll be giving a presentation at the Georgia Council of Media Organizations (COMO) in Columbus, Georgia. My friend and colleague Sarah Steiner and I are presenting a session called “Finding Your Voice: Creative Ideas for Beginning a Pod- or Vidcast Series.” Say hi if you have a chance to attend.

We’re postponing my October 1 webcast “Podcasting for Libraries.” Whether due to fall craziness or low professional development budgets, there just weren’t enough people registered to do it next week. I’m starting to wonder if podcasting just isn’t news to most people any more. I’m also talking to ACRL about other topics I might present on in the near future.  Anyway, we’ll reschedule it for later in the school year and give it another go and I’ll post the new date here when I know it.

The August episode of ALI is up — we talked (mostly) about Powerpoint and presentations, and were joined for the latter half of the show by Maurice Coleman of the terrific T is for Training podcast. I hope you enjoy it, and let me know if you’ve got topics or people you’d like to hear on future episodes.

I guess I got busy and forgot to mention this, or something. ACRL has very kindly invited me back for an encore presentation of my webcast “Podcasting for Libraries” on October 1. I’ll try to include as many other words as I can think of that include the suffix “-cast.”

Webcast description:
Podcasting is like an Internet radio show, or a blog with audio.  It uses the power of RSS syndication to automatically deliver new episodes to listeners.  There are millions of podcasts available, covering nearly any topic imaginable.  Any library can produce a podcast using free software and inexpensive hardware.  If you can post to a blog and talk into a microphone, you can create a podcast.  How can your library use podcasting as a tool for teaching, promotion, outreach and programming?

This session will explore:
• What a podcast is and isn’t
• How RSS makes a podcast work
• Free and cheap hardware and software for podcasting
• Recording and production
• Publishing and sustaining a podcast
• How libraries can use podcasting
• Finding the right voice to reach your audience

Registration is open now. I’m sure I’ll mention it again here closer to the event.

This is the class “handout” for my webcast presentation “Podcasting for Libraries,” June 2 at 2pm Eastern. If I’ve left off anything you’d find useful, leave a comment and I’ll update this post.

Overviews and definitions

Podcasting in Plain English video

Wikipedia: Podcast

Puckett, J. (2008, February 10). Podcasting in Academic Libraries. Jason Puckett.net. Retrieved May 19, 2009, from http://jasonpuckett.net/projects/podcasting-in-academic-libraries/

Wikipedia: Web feeds

RSS in Plain English video

What Everybody Ought To Know About Podcasting: Part I

Software: recording and podcatching

Audacity (free, Mac/Windows/Linux, audio recording/editing)

Camtasia ($299, Mac/Windows, audio/video recording/editing)

Garageband (part of iLife suite, $79 [cheaper at Amazon], Mac only, audio recording/editing)

iTunes (free, Mac/Windows, podcatcher)

Juice (free, Mac/Windows/Linux, podcatcher)

PodNova (free, Mac/Windows/Linux, podcatcher)

Hardware

I’m not an audiophile by any means, but these are microphones that have worked well for my podcast recording. If your institution has a media production expert, they can probably give you better advice on alternatives than I could!

Blue Snowball microphone

Logitech USB headset

Software: publishing

Wordpress
But just about any blog platform will work. I’m presently publishing a podcast on Blogspot, and I’ve briefly tested podcasting from Typepad as well.

Podpress
This free Wordpress plugin allows you to easily add podcast media files to your blog, and adds a nice playback button to the page when published.

iTunes U
Information on the ITU program from Apple.

Feedburner
For analyzing traffic to your podcast’s RSS feed.

Podsafe music

Internet Archive
Much of their audio collection is copyright-free or Creative Commons licensed.

Podsafe Audio

Podsafe Music Network

Magnatune
This online music label licenses all their music for free use in noncommercial podcasts.

Library Podcasts

“Podcasting” at Library Success Wiki

Emory Library Survival Guide podcast

Tisch Talks

Arizona State U Library Channel

Worthington Libraries programming podcasts

U of Toronto iSchool podcast

Dekalb County Public Library

Hopkinton School booktalks

Ohio U Library Tours

Recommended Reading

Braun, L. (2007). Listen up!: podcasting for schools and libraries. Medford N.J.: Information Today.

Colombo, G., & Franklin, C. (2005). Absolute Beginner’s Guide to Podcasting. Que.

Deal, A. (2007, June 4). Podcasting: A Teaching with Technology White Paper. Retrieved May 19, 2009, from http://connect.educause.edu/blog/jklittle/podcastingateachingw/44653.

Griffey, J. (2007). Podcast 1 2 3. Library Journal, 132(11), 32-34.

Mizrachi, D., & Bedoya, J. (2007). LITE Bites: broadcasting bite-sized library instruction. Reference Services Review, 35(2), 249-256. doi: 10.1108/00907320710749164.

Stephens, M. (2005). Libraries Get Podcasting. Library Journal, 130, 24.

Williams, B. (2007). Educator’s Podcast Guide. Eugene, OR: International Society for Technology in Education.

Worcester, L., & Barker, E. (2006). Podcasting: Exploring the Possibilities for Academic Libraries. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 13(3), 87-91.

I’d like to share my number one tip for giving presentations:

The F5 key starts the slide show. Don’t bother poking through the menus.

Have a great weekend, everyone.