Today was a great day and the last 'offical' day of prac. I spent the morning fine tuning the Camtasia script and then the first shift on the reference desk. I had few brief directional questions and then met a student who was looking for a German art book - in German (of course). I could not locate it in ECU nad she had tried a few options over the past few days as well - even visitn g UWA library. So I opted for worldcat.org and there it was - the closest copy in Adelaide plus a few other books. We sat down and picked through the list and decided to extend the ECU search to include the influcene of the Bauhaus on design and found several videos and books that would help in further studies next semester. The student promised to look out for me again as we kind of connected.
Before lunch was spent fine tuning the Camtasia script to identify some good examples that would apply to a range of students. After lunch I produced 3 minutes of Camtasia script after converting my main points into powerpoint. Unfortunatly the power point import function was not working so I had to record the screen for each slide. It as lots of fun, very easy to use and I included a nice scene transition effect between slides and search examples. It was a good start and I hope to continue with the project to see it completed.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Week 6 and 7 - May 22nd and 23rd
Well the cold season certainly took its toll and I have had to transfer my prac time to a Thursday and Friday to make up the hours spent at home feeling miserable. My current project is a Camtasia presentation of how students are to approach an online database search. I am continuing work on the script and have a fairly good idea as to how to go about explaining a rather tricky thought process. I believe that everyone thinks about things differently and therefore has a different approach in finding out what they do and don't know. I only hope that it make sense to a majority of the students and that I can produce a finished product. My personal motto is to' know that you don't know' and is probably why I am taking up study again.
I had some concerns with the lateness of my prac and associated assignments but was comfortably reassured by Judy C that so long as all the assessment are submitted I'd be ok. Judy knows that I 'know that I don't know' and is always tempting me with the carrot of knowledge - just a few more units and then you will have this degree, or, have you thought about going for the big one? There is the tempt of small paper presentations, the tempt of informal conferences and workshops, the tempt of degrees by course work and all those amazing jobs that seem to be in the marketplace at the moment. Some time in the future I'd love to be in a position where my skill set, experience and knowledge does qualify me to be in a trendy library 2.0 career with job security, personal growth incentives, with rewards of great pay, great work colleagues and a creative mind.
Friday started with an early desk shift and then I spent the remainder of the day on the Camtasia script. I am trying to piece out exactly the best way to define how students can understand what is required in an assigment and how to search for journals using the ECU catalogue and online databases. It seems simple but is proving to be an interesting thought process for me.
I had some concerns with the lateness of my prac and associated assignments but was comfortably reassured by Judy C that so long as all the assessment are submitted I'd be ok. Judy knows that I 'know that I don't know' and is always tempting me with the carrot of knowledge - just a few more units and then you will have this degree, or, have you thought about going for the big one? There is the tempt of small paper presentations, the tempt of informal conferences and workshops, the tempt of degrees by course work and all those amazing jobs that seem to be in the marketplace at the moment. Some time in the future I'd love to be in a position where my skill set, experience and knowledge does qualify me to be in a trendy library 2.0 career with job security, personal growth incentives, with rewards of great pay, great work colleagues and a creative mind.
Friday started with an early desk shift and then I spent the remainder of the day on the Camtasia script. I am trying to piece out exactly the best way to define how students can understand what is required in an assigment and how to search for journals using the ECU catalogue and online databases. It seems simple but is proving to be an interesting thought process for me.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Week 5 - 5th May Visit to LCA
It is quite a drive to LCA and required a bit of early morning preparation to get Harry up and leaving for daycare a 7:30am. Joondalup is a wonderfully relaxed campus and I always appreciate natural bush landscaping.
LCA is on Level 4 of the Joondalup library building. I was welcomed by Lynette who introduced me to each individual staff member - at last a chance to meet people in person rather than communication via phone or email.
Session One - Acquisitions with Lynette. We discussed the workflow of acquisitions, online orders through DA Direct and Blackwell’s, examined faculty codes, budgets, ordering process and how the Edifact file hooks between the Millennium and book vendor databases. My first question was what is the costing difference between an ebook versus a print version. Interesting that they were generally the same price however the ebook needed to be re-purchased each year. Is this a cheaper option than the actual cost of managing and storing the printed version which can only be accessed by one patron at a time?
Session Two - Cataloguing with Deb. We both agreed that you are either 'into or 'not into' cataloguing and data management. Fortunately for both of us I am very 'into' it so we had a wonderful session that extended into morning tea break about our experiences. Deb has an excellent power point 'Cataloguing 101 by Deb' which I hope that all library staff can view as it gives a good breakdown and appreciation of cataloguing, marc codes and authority files. Our discussion continued into AACR2, MARC, Subject Headings (Main and added entry), realtime exchange and weekly uploads of bibliographic data, Libraries Australia as an authority, Millennium reports, authority checks and the most important of all - data management.
I directed a few questions about the Create Lists function in Millenniumm, what marc tag to locate various parts of information and learnt some vital 'hot' keys which I knew existed but did not know where to find them. Deb concluded the session with a demonstration of copy versus original cataloguing.
Session Three - the very juicy area of Metaquest (MetaLib) with Lisa. This session was wonderful in establishing an understanding of the 280 databases that ECU has access to and its relevance to my Camtasia project. I only hope that the finished project can be included on the Metaquest page and that it can help students find what they are looking for. Lisa covered an explanation of the AARLIN consortium (11 libraries) the development of Metalib/Metaquest as a 5 year pilot project with an annual subscription renewal and a proposed service review later in the year. We worked through using the search interface and looked at various entry points into the 280 databases, user statistics and the various levels of information literacy amongst students. We discussed the Camtasia project and I will keep Lisa informed of its development.
Session Four - Information session with David and James. We had a great discussion on my practicum experience, future plans and our collective experience together covering so many different industries and workplaces. My areas of concern were mostly work based issues on RSS feeds, email traffic (management of bounced emails), proposed ECU mail portal with email auditing and the new ECU catalogue. David and James were interested in my Flickr and Camtasia projects and past work experiences and skills at InfoVision. We joked about the discussion being on par with a job interview! We also covered the importance of workflow, using software functionality, Information Literacy and online tutorial resources. I hope that there will be future opportunities for work in creating online resources.
On the drive home I thought about the collective experience and skills that each staff member has in their particular area of expertise, the advanced use of Millennium software and how I need to better use and understand the software and its functionality, and the tranquillity of the LCA office with wide windows and a view - so different to the hustle and bustle of working in a library.
LCA is on Level 4 of the Joondalup library building. I was welcomed by Lynette who introduced me to each individual staff member - at last a chance to meet people in person rather than communication via phone or email.
Session One - Acquisitions with Lynette. We discussed the workflow of acquisitions, online orders through DA Direct and Blackwell’s, examined faculty codes, budgets, ordering process and how the Edifact file hooks between the Millennium and book vendor databases. My first question was what is the costing difference between an ebook versus a print version. Interesting that they were generally the same price however the ebook needed to be re-purchased each year. Is this a cheaper option than the actual cost of managing and storing the printed version which can only be accessed by one patron at a time?
Session Two - Cataloguing with Deb. We both agreed that you are either 'into or 'not into' cataloguing and data management. Fortunately for both of us I am very 'into' it so we had a wonderful session that extended into morning tea break about our experiences. Deb has an excellent power point 'Cataloguing 101 by Deb' which I hope that all library staff can view as it gives a good breakdown and appreciation of cataloguing, marc codes and authority files. Our discussion continued into AACR2, MARC, Subject Headings (Main and added entry), realtime exchange and weekly uploads of bibliographic data, Libraries Australia as an authority, Millennium reports, authority checks and the most important of all - data management.
I directed a few questions about the Create Lists function in Millenniumm, what marc tag to locate various parts of information and learnt some vital 'hot' keys which I knew existed but did not know where to find them. Deb concluded the session with a demonstration of copy versus original cataloguing.
Session Three - the very juicy area of Metaquest (MetaLib) with Lisa. This session was wonderful in establishing an understanding of the 280 databases that ECU has access to and its relevance to my Camtasia project. I only hope that the finished project can be included on the Metaquest page and that it can help students find what they are looking for. Lisa covered an explanation of the AARLIN consortium (11 libraries) the development of Metalib/Metaquest as a 5 year pilot project with an annual subscription renewal and a proposed service review later in the year. We worked through using the search interface and looked at various entry points into the 280 databases, user statistics and the various levels of information literacy amongst students. We discussed the Camtasia project and I will keep Lisa informed of its development.
Session Four - Information session with David and James. We had a great discussion on my practicum experience, future plans and our collective experience together covering so many different industries and workplaces. My areas of concern were mostly work based issues on RSS feeds, email traffic (management of bounced emails), proposed ECU mail portal with email auditing and the new ECU catalogue. David and James were interested in my Flickr and Camtasia projects and past work experiences and skills at InfoVision. We joked about the discussion being on par with a job interview! We also covered the importance of workflow, using software functionality, Information Literacy and online tutorial resources. I hope that there will be future opportunities for work in creating online resources.
On the drive home I thought about the collective experience and skills that each staff member has in their particular area of expertise, the advanced use of Millennium software and how I need to better use and understand the software and its functionality, and the tranquillity of the LCA office with wide windows and a view - so different to the hustle and bustle of working in a library.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
