Thing Eight, Communication

BigHugeLabs
The idea of creating a mosaic of some of the books our book club had read seemed like a good idea, but I was a bit disappointed in the results. I probably did not spend enough time tweaking, but I do know how I would improve such a project. If our club were intentional, we could photograph ourselves holding the book and create a running photo journal of the books. What would be even more fun is the capability of adding textual comments along with the photos. A photo journal of public library book clubs would be a fun professional use for this BigHugeLabs application; a great way to not only advertise but to create a sense of community amongst the regular atendees.

Zoho Show
Rather than create a slide show of my own I chose to watch the short informational video on the program and decided that this is the way to go if I were to carry out the book club montage I mentioned above. What a fun and easy way to create an interesting Web feature for the library.

This would also be a great tool to use to create "re-caps" of library programs. For example, we had a poetry reading in the library where student read works in languages other than English and then translated them. It was a hit, but what fun if we could have (copyright considered) shared video highlights for the rest of the month on our library's web page. I think students, faculty and staff would have been entertained AND interest in our next program heightened.

If it isn't already obvious, I think the growth and continued improvement in quality of these web tools is a great advantage to the responsibility we have as librarians to market our services. WE know that we offer A TON of great services, resources, and people, but do they? If we can share that FACT with others in an interesting way I think we are making some serious and noteworthy headway.

Thing Four, Photosharing

Photo sharing was a wonderful discovery. I live a great distance from my family so we have been using Flickr for almost a year now to share vacation photos and slice of life pictures. We appreciate the privacy settings Flickr allows and have found this photo sharing technique keeps us closer and prompts some fun discussion, both real time and virtual.

I had not, however, thought of using this tool in the library setting, but the Clemens Library proves there are some fun ways to share visually with their patrons. Their "bookshelves" actually remind me of two things our library does on site.

One, we have a "new books” shelf that we keep at the entrance of our library in a reading nook. It may be fun to translate that into the digital realm so that distance students (and busy professors) who don't regularly visit our library can keep an "eye" on the new acquisitions. Two, the photos also remind me of elements of our monthly display. Our library briefly expounds on a topic and then highlights resources that viewers can use to learn more. This month's topic is fair trade: digital tools would be a great way to get the information out to a larger population! I even found a wonderful photo of a Ghanaian Primary School that I was able to post in this blog as an example of images that could augment our displays.

I will definitely be more aware of how photo sharing can help visually augment our library's displays and activities. As I sit here I am even reminded of our library social events and how Flickr could be a great way to advertise, organize and, document these programs.