[OPLINLIST] Computers in Libraries: Anticipation!

[SWON Info]

Whisper the word, “Anticipation!” What are you looking forward to with excitement right now? Are you thinking about shel ving? At the Computers in Libraries conference in Washington D.C. this week, Dr. David Weinberger’s keynote pointed out that libraries are the result of anticipation. 

Anticipation invites us to predict the future, both what will take place and what the result will be. A Swiss Army Knife is an embodiment of anticipation. Its combination of tools--a corkscrew, a wood saw, a can opener--predicts what people will do. Past a certain point, adding more tools to a Swiss Army Knife decreases its utility. It gets too big to carry around, and it does you no good if you don’t have it with you. 

Your library’s physical space represents one of the ways you anticipate patrons will use your services. This includes the arrangement of your space, your shelves, the collections that sit on them and the arrangement of those collections. What do you think about that anticipation? What do these tools facilitate? What goals does your library have that aren’t anticipated by your space? 


Sometimes we’re (wisely) wary of our anticipation. We often provide general instructions on how to use databases or collections because we don’t know what specific use people will need. But we’re sure what people need when they ask us questions . 

In yesterday’s, “Stop Being Generic: On Demand & On Target,” Chad Boeninger shared the blog he created for his library where he posts short videos that answer questions from his business students at Ohio University. 

Chad is the head of Reference and he’s the Business Librarian, so he fields lots of specific questions about sources and databases. Instead of responding to those emails one at a time, he looks for trends–often just two or three similar requests–and creates a short video to answer the question. As more requests come in, he can simply direct students to the video; other students find his videos before sending in a request. 

With Google Analytics, he could see that over half of the visitors to his blog came from outside the university, but with the hits to his blog climbing past 25,000 a month, he wasn’t worried that he was missing his student audience. A clear lesson to learn from this: People need specific answers to specific questions, and they’ll find what you share. Chad shares instructions on how to create your own library instructional videos here: http://libraryvoice.com/videos . 

    * Nathan Swartzendruber, SWON Technology Educator 

Level-Up Lab: Introducing Cloud Services 


What is “the cloud”? Really, it can include everything from webmail to Dropbox and beyond. There are cloud services that can help you do things like backup files, sync or share files, or work collaboratively online. You might find some of them to be really useful–if you found them. 

In this Level-Up Lab, Nathan will introduce you to a range of cloud services, describing what they do and briefly showing how they work. With lots of room for questions, we’ll discuss ways you can put the cloud to work for you. 

Join us on April 29th, from 2 to 4 p.m. at SWON’s meeting room in Blue Ash for this down-to-earth walk through “the cloud.” Register today: http://bit.ly/cloud-lab 
Connect to SWON online: Website : Calendar : Facebook : Twitter 

Calendar excerpts from the next two weeks. ( Please register for online classes at least two days before they take place.) 

    * Weeding: The Plan - (4/10/2014) - Online 
    * CLEAR Book Review (SIG) Meeting - (4/10/2014) - Kenton County PL, Covington Branch 
    * CLEAR Book Review (SIG) Meeting - (4/10/2014) - SWON Meeting Room 
    * STEM, STEAM, & Everything In Between - (4/15/2014) - Online 
    * The Revival of Spontaneous Customer Service - (4/17/2014) - Online 
    * OLC Technical Services Retreat - (4/21–4/22/2014) - Lewis Center, OH 
    * New Trends in Reader’s Advisory - (4/22/2014) - Online 
    * Technical Services (SIG) Meeting - (4/23/2014) - Klau Library at Hebrew Union College 
    * Academic Librarian (SIG) Meeting - (4/24/2014) - Art Institute of Ohio 

SWON Libraries - http://www.swonlibraries.org 
10250 Alliance Road, Suite 225 
Blue Ash, OH 45242 
phone (513) 751-4422 - fax (513) 751-0463 
To subscribe or be removed from SWON's Events list, click here: http://lists.swonlibraries.org/mailman/listinfo/events 
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