Archive | CIL2017

CIL 2017 has ended.  It was a good conference and had lots of practical information on topics of current interest.  Be sure and mark your calendars now with the dates of CIL 2018:

April 17-19, 2018

at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City. The Call For Papers will be available in January if you are interested in presenting a talk.

The dates are later than this year, so spring should be in full swing!

(L-R) David Lee King, Ustadza Ely, James Rider

David Lee King, Digital Services Director, Topeka & Shawnee County Public Library, led off this session by noting that he has been working with videos for more than 10 years. Video on the web is now easy to make and watch; it drives people to your website. People watch videos and like them. 78% of US internet users watch videos online every week; 55% watch them every day. Only 4% of the population prefers to read manuals to learn about a new product; 5% prefer to call the manufacturer, but 44% prefer to watch a video. Videos are everywhere on social media. According to Tubular Insights (a tracking website), the most popular video channel in the world is on Facebook. 10 billion videos are watched on Snapchat every day–a huge number!

Types of video that libraries might like to make:

• Promotional to show off a new database or service,
• Trainer and explainer videos,
• News (interviews, reporting news of the library),
• Story time,
• Fun videos,
• Book series,
• Unique things (with 340,000 views, this is the most popular video in King’s library),
• Short videos to post on social media, and
• Live videos of reference interviews, book reviews etc.

What to consider:

• The first 15 seconds tend to get watched, and if they do not attract the viewer’s interest, they will just click away. So just jump right in to the subject and put your most compelling content first.
• Upload to Facebook separately because those videos will get favored more than ones taken from YouTube.
• Share to Twitter or LinkedIn.
• Think about who will make your video.  If your organization is large enough, consider having a video team and figure out how much video you want to make.
• Start simple with equipment; smartphones take remarkably good quality videos.

Ustadza Ely discussed how to harness the power of video in libraries. You can engage during library instruction to talk about library services by using Adobe Animate, Photoshop, or TurningPoint/Kahoot.

Videos are very useful for distance learners and for marketing the library’s physical collections. They are used to entice students to come and see the collections.

Questions to ask yourself: What is the audience, the goal. branding and connections, trends, staff time and professional development. Can you get others to sell your video for you? You might create a video about a faculty member’s class and mention the library material that is incorporated into the class.

Storyboarding is very important in video creation. Use a storyboard as a guide and ensure that the video has a natural flow.

Videos can be complicated; you need to communicate with other people when you are developing the story. Have a script and sync it with what will be shown.

Here are some tools for editing, filming, music, etc.

YouTube has a free music library.  Be careful when uploading video to Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.  It is fine to upload links to the video, but do not upload the whole video or else you will get into copyright trouble. There have been incidents where Facebook accounts have been deleted because of copyright violations.

As an example of the use of video, James Rider created a video for CIL that can also be used on its own or in conjunction with a library instruction. See it on the library’s YouTube channel.

(L-R) Colleen Dearborn, Sussan Navabi, Erin Walker, Dominique China

This session addressed two projects in which makerspaces were created. Dominiique China and Erin Walker began by describing Makerspace Brampton in Brampton, Ontario, which launched in November 2014. The project now extends over all of the Brampton library’s 6 branches. They noted that invention literacy is the ability to read and write human-made stuff: understanding how something is made, how it works, and then applying that knowledge to bring one’s own ideas to life. Inventions are simply the human-made part of the world that we live in (see the article by Jay Silver, “Invention Literacy”, Medium.com, May 2016). They are not magic; if something can be created, we can improve it.

Makerspace Brampton is empowering people in three ways: zero to maker, maker to maker, and maker to market.

• Zero to Maker targets children and families and novice makers of all ages. It is designed to foster invention and innovation through hands-on and play-to-learn activities that demystify fundamental concepts.
• Maker to Maker (learn and collaborate) are more advanced programs that target teens and adults and promote collaboration and access to expertise and advanced application of skills.
• Maker to Market (entrepreneurial imagination and commercialization) targets teens and adults, demystifies entrepreneurship, and encourages networking and mentorship. It is presented by the Brampton Economic Office and teaches practical skills for turning an idea into a viable startup, such as business basics and idea generation.

The next steps for the program are to formalize the partnership and expand program offerings. An additional 32 physical makerspaces are in development. Plans are also underway to continue to build the community of makers and supplement programming with a self-service model. Makerspace Brampton has been well received; over 8,000 people visited the makerspace in 2016.

Colleen Dearborn and Sussan Navabi have created a mobile memory lab at the Alsip-Marionette Park Library (near Chicago). The Alsip library director suggested creating a mobile makerspace, so Dearborn did a survey of what other libraries were doing. She drew on case studies mentioned in last year’s CIL talk (click here for the presentations from that conference) that Jamie Mears at the DC Public Library and I gave. Mears created a memory lab at her library, and Danielle Conklin wrote a chapter in Personal Archiving: Preserving Our Digital Heritage (Donald T. Hawkins, Information Today, 2013), in which she described relevant several case studies. (The Library of Congress maintains an excellent website with lots of helpful information on digital preservation).  Based on her research, some recommended hardware was purchased for the makerspace.

Sussan Navabi was hired to set up the lab. Her advice is to set aside ample time for development; test a variety of materials, and include the library staff in the project to generate interest. For example, Navabi asked staff members to lend her their analog materials to test on the equipment, which generated interest and buy-in.

Some issues and problems that arose:

• The hardware might work but the software bundled with it is not compatible with the devices your patrons will be using. Don’t try to patch the software–just return it and get something else.
• Even if everything does work, patrons might want other features, so look for free apps and test them (be sure to check the rating). Navabi’s list of suggested software is here on the conference website.
• Be sure you have adequate space for the makerspace and space for training the staff.
• Visit other libraries to see what they are doing. Here are some questions to ask them:
  • Where to put the lab? Who staffs it? How to do training? When will it be available? Who will be accountable?
• Instructions that typically come in the manuals for the equipment tend to be complicated and too long. So they created their own instruction pages. Be succinct, include as many screenshots as possible, and use bold keywords.

Experiment with all equipment, make the necessary adjustments to accommodate all skill levels, promote skill building.

Rebecca Stavick

Rebecca Stavick, Executive Director of Do Space, introduced Do Space and said it has been in operation for a little over a year. It is a community technology library in Omaha, Nebraska. Its mission is to empower our community through access to technology and innovative learning experiences. It is privately funded but has partnerships with public libraries. The digital divide is still a problem in our communities; Do Space is located in the middle of Omaha at the busiest intersection in Nebraska; 100,000 cars pass the intersection every day. Do Space is the beginning of a movement to tackle the digital divide, boost digital skills, and drive innovation, creativity, and invention in the region.

Do Space provides access to basic and advanced hardware ad software, such as PCs, Macs, industrial-quality 3D printers, laser cutters, robotics, as well as AutoCAD, the Adobe Creative Suite, and about 200 other types of software.  It offers a diverse array of free technology learning programs and events for all ages: Littles Lab for preschoolers, Cyber Seniors for older adults (seniors learning and teaching each other in weekly workshops), workshops in the 3-D lab, community-led technology meetups, and other fun things.

Just like public libraries, Do Space serves everyone: families with small children, teenagers, working adults, senior citizens; job seekers, entrepreneurs, students, etc. Membership is free; anyone can join, regardless of where they live (bug they must physically visit the site to obtain their membership card). It has been very well received; 4,000 people came on opening weekend.

Do Space’s 28,000 square foot building

• They have industrial quality 3-D printers, 56 laptops–both PCs and Macs, a variety of games with learning aspects. The second floor of the building is leased to a non-profit community college that provides access to higher-level experiences.
• A volunteer program manages a lot of the activities. There are about 150 volunteers and a coordinator. A mentorship program–a network of volunteers who sign up to help people individually with technology questions–is in place.
• Hack Omaha is a new program to engage people to work together and solve technology problems of the community.
• I Heart Do Space allows people to put what they are doing into a system, and the postings are displayed on a video wall. These generate considerable interest.
• A fellowship program to bring in 3 Fellows for the summer was recently announced.  They get a $10,000 stipend to create innovative projects in 3-D printing, robotics, and software development.

Community response last year was 223,834 visits, 44,480 members, 12,325 people attended 1,010 programs, 89,692 hours of computer use, 12.035 volunteer hours, 100% awesomeness achieved.

Lessons learned

• Membership cards do flush down the toilet;
• You can never have enough sanitizing wipes;
• A bean bag can be used as a weapon!
• Community spaces are powerful;
• Stationary workstations are cool again; people don’t need high-powered machines at home any more;
• People don’t ask them reference questions, but if somebody asks one, they will connect them with a librarian (users mostly ask questions about the technology);
• Empower people to lead their own learning experience.

Trends for libraries

• Community lab spaces which defy categorization
• People want experiences; facilities are everything
• Offering something people can’t get anywhere else
• Harmonious mixture of old-school and new-school.

Advice

• Technology moves faster than you think
• Strongly enforce your mission (one thing that is hurting libraries right now is that they don’t know what their mission is)
• You live and die by your user; they are the only ones that matter
• Constantly strive for a diversity of thought. Diverse teams challenge each other.

Further information is available at www.dospace.org.