I didn't get to go to LILIC12 but I did follow some of the sessions using Twitter. It was a good thing really because there were a number of interesting mobile / tablet related sessions that inspired me.
Firstly was the Roving Librarian piece from Alison Sharman at the University of Huddersfield. With it''s HE focus I did find some of what she talked about depressing - having the luxury of subject librarians for starters. That said, with our ipads due to arrive any day, it was useful to hear from someone who has already started integrating them into a service. Certainly it opened my eyes to taking our 'roving enquiry service' out of the libraries and into the wider college.
The Roving Librarian: Keep Taking the Tablets - http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/13312/
The next link is quite old in terms of looking at mobile technology in libraries (2010) and focuses more on the services available than the technology. Although we are a long way off developing our own mobile sites or apps at college it is interesting to see what students are using the mobile web for. However with smartphones becoming more and more sophisticated I can't help but wonder if, should this study be repeated now, we would find students using them in a more interactive way than the passive functions, such as checking opening ours and location, found to be most popular in 2010.
Universities and Libraries Move to the Mobile Web-
http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/EDUCAUSEQuarterlyMagazineVolum/UniversitiesandLibrariesMoveto/206531
Lastly, there was a lot of talk on Twitter about Layars, a open source service that allows developers to integrate augmented reality into real world objects. I was going to download it from the app store and have a play but I can't seem to find it so I'm going to try again another time. I think it's similar to QR codes in that it adds online content to items or print - just much more sophisticated and unobstrusive.
Augmented Reality experiences on your mobile phone -http://www.layar.com/
Friday, 13 April 2012
Sunday, 8 April 2012
CILIP North West Members Day - Chester, 15th March 2012
http://www.cilip.org.uk/get-involved/regional-branches/north-west/events/pages/pastevents.aspx
The 15th March found me sticking my hand up and agreeing to write up the day the CILIP NW newsletter. I'll link to that article when it is published.
The offical version aside I did enjoy the day even if it was all a bit cosy for my liking. I also felt in a strange way that I'd heard a lot of it before. We know we need to talk to people outside our own sectors, that gets reiterated time and time again at conferences, the first time for me was at a gathering at Ridgmont Street (Sorry CILIP HQ) years ago shortly after I had started working at Trafford. We also know that we want more value for our CILIP membership although I'll admit that this time more progress seems to be being made in streamlining the organisation and creating a tangible offer. Certainly Annie Mauger has been very visible over the last year, not least fighting battles at the CMS Select Comittee into the future of public libraries. (http://www.cilip.org.uk/news-media/pages/news120213.aspx)
The thing is although I enjoyed the event I've struggled to bring anything tangible from it, unless finding some work experience at a health library counts. Whenever I go to events such as these I try and make myself a promise that I will use one thing I have learnt to bring about change to my own service or personal development. This time I haven't been able to do that, although I found the presentations interesting nothing really clicked, or at least nothing that I could apply in a FE setting. Certainly Nikki Heath's determination was an inspiration but I'm already working on building better links with tutors within the college and doing my best to encourage reading for pleasure. Maybe I need to be more innovative in this area and try out something really radical but what this might be I don't knwo at this point. Updates to follow I suppose...
The 15th March found me sticking my hand up and agreeing to write up the day the CILIP NW newsletter. I'll link to that article when it is published.
The offical version aside I did enjoy the day even if it was all a bit cosy for my liking. I also felt in a strange way that I'd heard a lot of it before. We know we need to talk to people outside our own sectors, that gets reiterated time and time again at conferences, the first time for me was at a gathering at Ridgmont Street (Sorry CILIP HQ) years ago shortly after I had started working at Trafford. We also know that we want more value for our CILIP membership although I'll admit that this time more progress seems to be being made in streamlining the organisation and creating a tangible offer. Certainly Annie Mauger has been very visible over the last year, not least fighting battles at the CMS Select Comittee into the future of public libraries. (http://www.cilip.org.uk/news-media/pages/news120213.aspx)
The thing is although I enjoyed the event I've struggled to bring anything tangible from it, unless finding some work experience at a health library counts. Whenever I go to events such as these I try and make myself a promise that I will use one thing I have learnt to bring about change to my own service or personal development. This time I haven't been able to do that, although I found the presentations interesting nothing really clicked, or at least nothing that I could apply in a FE setting. Certainly Nikki Heath's determination was an inspiration but I'm already working on building better links with tutors within the college and doing my best to encourage reading for pleasure. Maybe I need to be more innovative in this area and try out something really radical but what this might be I don't knwo at this point. Updates to follow I suppose...
Friday, 23 March 2012
Some More Musings on E-Books.
Should Libraries Get Out of the E-Book Business?
This article (and the one it links to) addresses some of the problems arising for those libraries that are following the model of lending E-Books and looks at whether libraries should be investing large sums into a product that is very much in a state of flux. I'm not sure which side I agree with but I do think that until UK libraries can lend ebooks compatible with Kindles they are going to be fighting an uphill battle.
I seem to be spending a lot of time thinking or talking about e-books at the moment, not least because they are cropping up a lot in both the regular and publishing news.
I love the fact that I have several different views on the subject and experience from a number of different perspectives. I'm an academic librarian working with the JISC FE e-books and currently building our own collection purchased off our regular supplier. As an ex-public librarian I know the pitfalls and expense of systems like Overdrive and have been following the recent developments regarding publishers and books rights with interest. I also use Overdrive to borrow books for my Sony E-reader and my husband has a Kindle for which we obviously use Amazon. At work we've just got some Kindles for use with the book club and I'm currently figuring out how to administer them and loan them to students.
I always struggle to find something that I want to read when I go to download books from my public library. As a borrower I want as many books as possible to be available through my library but I also understand why the it's less and less likely I'll be able to get the popular best sellers this way. Public libraries lending e-books represent a huge threat to publishers (or at least the publishers seem to think so!) so more and more of them are refusing to come out to play with us. I'd like to think that eventually their mothers will give them a clip round the ear and boot them out to get some fresh air but my instinct is that this might be a while off. In the mean time the academic libraries have the option of purchasing those books that they can afford (so mostly not the mainstream textbooks) and the public libraries (and their borrowers) will have take what they can get.
This article (and the one it links to) addresses some of the problems arising for those libraries that are following the model of lending E-Books and looks at whether libraries should be investing large sums into a product that is very much in a state of flux. I'm not sure which side I agree with but I do think that until UK libraries can lend ebooks compatible with Kindles they are going to be fighting an uphill battle.
I seem to be spending a lot of time thinking or talking about e-books at the moment, not least because they are cropping up a lot in both the regular and publishing news.
I love the fact that I have several different views on the subject and experience from a number of different perspectives. I'm an academic librarian working with the JISC FE e-books and currently building our own collection purchased off our regular supplier. As an ex-public librarian I know the pitfalls and expense of systems like Overdrive and have been following the recent developments regarding publishers and books rights with interest. I also use Overdrive to borrow books for my Sony E-reader and my husband has a Kindle for which we obviously use Amazon. At work we've just got some Kindles for use with the book club and I'm currently figuring out how to administer them and loan them to students.
I always struggle to find something that I want to read when I go to download books from my public library. As a borrower I want as many books as possible to be available through my library but I also understand why the it's less and less likely I'll be able to get the popular best sellers this way. Public libraries lending e-books represent a huge threat to publishers (or at least the publishers seem to think so!) so more and more of them are refusing to come out to play with us. I'd like to think that eventually their mothers will give them a clip round the ear and boot them out to get some fresh air but my instinct is that this might be a while off. In the mean time the academic libraries have the option of purchasing those books that they can afford (so mostly not the mainstream textbooks) and the public libraries (and their borrowers) will have take what they can get.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
Info Graphic from OnlineEducation.net
How we wish digital text books worked.......
http://images.onlineeducation.net.s3.amazonaws.com/digital-textbooks.jpg
Although considering how much they charge for some of the standard e-textbooks at the moment I have to wonder how much a textbook of the future would cost?
http://images.onlineeducation.net.s3.amazonaws.com/digital-textbooks.jpg
Although considering how much they charge for some of the standard e-textbooks at the moment I have to wonder how much a textbook of the future would cost?
Monday, 27 February 2012
23 Things
23 Things have been around for a while, in fact I think I looked at it the first time I investigated Chartership a couple of years ago. However it cropped up recently on another Blog I was reading and I thought I would have another look at it.
Although I've started using Twitter I'm struggling to really get going with it and I'm well aware that I'm not as up to date with new web technologies as I might be. I thought working my way through 23 Things might give me some direction and give me something to Tweet.
Here's hoping....
http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/05/cpd23-things.html
Although I've started using Twitter I'm struggling to really get going with it and I'm well aware that I'm not as up to date with new web technologies as I might be. I thought working my way through 23 Things might give me some direction and give me something to Tweet.
Here's hoping....
http://cpd23.blogspot.com/2011/05/cpd23-things.html
Thursday, 9 February 2012
Interactive E-Book Content - From Future Book Blog
A song of ice and fire: Enhanced Editions
I'm a massive fan of the genre that Ice and Fire falls into and I've always enjoyed those little maps you get at the beginning of books that introduce you to the fantasy world you are about to enter- it always makes it seem a little bit more real.
The enhance Song of Ice and Fire is one of a series of enhanced editions from Harper Collins and this version is from iBook. While the character glossary and audio snippets are interesting its the embedded maps showing where each charater is at the start of the chapter that fascinates me. Simple idea but really useful in a type of book that could be sprawled over a whole world with alien sounding place and person names.
It's just a pity I don't have an ipad to read it on as I really want to see how good it is myself.
I'm a massive fan of the genre that Ice and Fire falls into and I've always enjoyed those little maps you get at the beginning of books that introduce you to the fantasy world you are about to enter- it always makes it seem a little bit more real.
The enhance Song of Ice and Fire is one of a series of enhanced editions from Harper Collins and this version is from iBook. While the character glossary and audio snippets are interesting its the embedded maps showing where each charater is at the start of the chapter that fascinates me. Simple idea but really useful in a type of book that could be sprawled over a whole world with alien sounding place and person names.
It's just a pity I don't have an ipad to read it on as I really want to see how good it is myself.
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