Embedding library media in the LMS

Here's my presentation from Friday November 20, 2009 at the WISE ShareCase held at Notre Dame University, Fremantle, Western Australia. WISE stands for WAGUL Information Sharing Exchange. And WAGUL is the Western Australian Group of University Librarians.

Each university library in Perth and also TAFE presented. A great event and thanks to the organisers.

If anyone else puts up their presentation can you let me know and I'll link to it.

Library podcasts and vodcasts

View more presentations from Julia Gross.

Impressions of LIANZA Conference October 2009

I got back to Perth last week from the excellent LIANZA Library Conference in Christchurch, New Zealand. The conference was a great mix of outstanding keynotes, targeted papers, with some opportunities for interaction with colleagues in the embedded unconference and workshop settings. The conference started with the Powhiri which is the NZ equivalent to our Indigenous "welcome to country" and was all conducted in Maori (see pic). Luckily I was standing next to an ex-Aussie who explained what was going on and how the local tribe were welcoming the visitors to their patch. The theme of the conference was: He Tangata He Tangata He Tangata meaning It is people, it is people, it is people.

New Zealand is ahead of Australia in terms of digitisation projects which are capturing local history and knowledge, in development of open source softwares (eg ketes), and funding for public libraries. And, it goes without saying, way ahead in terms of recognition of indigenous knowledges and the need for librarians to have cultural awareness.

Some of the abstracts are on the LIANZA website, but not the full papers yet. I do hope the papers or at least Powerpoints will be added in due course, but as the conference papers are not peer reviewed before, this may not occur.

All the keynotes featured high calibre international and local experts, so I’ll just highlight a few:

The opening keynote, Generation Ngai Tahu was Sir Tipene O’Regan and Hana O’Regan, engaging father and daughter team talking with love and humour about sharing of indigenous knowledges across generations.

Libraries Building Communities: Communities Building Libraries Jessica Dorr of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation talked about the Foundation’s work in United States libraries starting back in 1997 and how this work raised so many related issues about local and indigenous communities and lack of services. The Foundation is now spreading this work internationally.

Penny Carnaby, the National Librarian of New Zealand is a very inspirational speaker. Her keynote, A new equity emerges: citizen-created content powering the knowledge
Economy brought home for me how New Zealand is a world leader in cultural digitisation projects.

Some of the conference sessions I attended were Our journey into the future: Using ePortfolios to capture our learning and development with Gillian Hallam of QUT. She was speaking about an ALTC project using Pebble Pad software to help new career librarians develop E-Portfolios. Librarians involved in the project found this very beneficial for career advancement and finding work in this difficult financial environment. Co-incidentally some Australian tertiary organisations are using New Zealand Open Source software, Mahara to develop E-Portfolios.

Talking to the World: Using Online Identities for Professional (and Personal)
Communication: Brenda Chawner of School of Information Management, Victoria University of Wellington talking about how librarians are using Web 2.0 and social software for professional development and to build learning networks, how her surveys show how this has changed over time.

Here, there and virtually everywhere. Library services for distance learners with Anne Ferrier-Watson, Information Services Librarian of Waikato University Library, Hamilton. This was of particular relevance to me as it dealt with my subject area of services for teacher education. The Waikato University School of Education has developed VERD (Virtual Education Reference Desk) which provides an online communication channel to meet the needs of distance and online learners. It is a Moodle based online resource which combines web technology and learner-focussed service to help distance students find the resources and information they need. This could be implemented in many learning environments and across other disciplines where the majority of students are distance students.

One session I did not attend, but which was very well received, dealt with the problem of engaging university students with library orientation and first year student sessions. Simon Hart and Charlotte Brown of University of Otago Library, Dunedin delivered this session called: “I had no idea that the Library has so much to offer!” The Cephalonia method of library induction: shaped by students, for students, and starring students! Their ideas are soundly based in constructivist pedagogy and I feel could be adapted to other settings.

Connecting your Library to DigitalNZ delivered by Andy Neale, Jo Eaton, Virginia Gow, of DigitalNZ, National Library of NZ, Wellington. The DigitalNZ search system brings together NZ digital content from a wide range of content providers. They use search widgets, gadgets, enhanced catalogues, and mashups to enhance and deliver the data. DigitalNZ content can be embedded in blogs and on websites etc. I'd like to explore this more and embed some DigitalNZ into this blog.

There was a LIANZA 2009 Conference blog which is continuing to post follow ups. All in all a great conference, smaller and more accessible and interactive than some of the larger library conferences. The next LIANZA will be held in Dunedin in December 2010.

Richard Stallman will speak at LIANZA Conference 2009

I'm really looking forward to hearing Richard Stallman the free software activist an author of Free as in Freedom, deliver a keynote at the LIANZA Conference in New Zealand, October 2009. He's been getting some press in New Zealand during his visit there and was interviewed on NZ radio. If the podcast of the interview is anything to go by, this promises to be an inspiring and controversial keynote. Of course Wikipedia has lots of background information on Richard Stallman

The LIANZA conference blog is full of all sort of news and advice for attendees too.

Fires burning at Perth Library Camp

We had another really successful Library Unconference in Perth on Saturday October 3rd 2009. This year called Libcamp 09 LibraryCamp Perth 2009: Keeping the fire burning.

One of the highlights for me was our last minute surprise guest participant and Web Tamer: Michael Stephens.

Michael is part way through a CAVAL research project looking at outcomes of the 23 Things Learning 2.0 program in Australian libraries and he presented some of the preliminary findings of the research and also generously made himself available to answer questions and ask questions of the group.

Along the same vein it was also great the hear the Murdoch library people talking about implementing their 14 things ( an updated version of the 23 Things) for academic, library and other staff at Murdoch University.

One of the best parts of these days are the serendipitous lunchtime chats with people about all sorts of things like the recent: IAML conference in Amsterdam ...makes me wish I was still a music librarian!

Also heard about Central TAFE signing up to Microsoft Live@Edu

Another good session was on the New Zealand Kete. Kete Horowhenua is “a knowledge basket of images, audio, video and documents which are collected and catalogued by the community”. Kete seems to be like a Digital Commons for community and local history information

Coverage of called Library Camp Perth is at the wiki

Session notes here and there is also a Twitterfountain harvesting all the Twitter feed on the Librarians Matter blog.

Thanks to Michael, all the un-organisers and those who gave up their Saturday to participate and make the Library Unconference a great success.

Learning spaces, good and bad, what do university students think?

We are about to embark on a “photo elicitation” project with ECU students to taking photos of what they consider good and bad learning spaces around the campus. Participants will go in the draw to win an iPod Touch

Our students will be taking photos during October and it will be interesting to see what campus spaces students value for their learning.

This project is a small part of a much bigger ALTC Project: Retrofitting university learning spaces: from teaching spaces to learning spaces. Queensland University of Technology is leading the project, joined by Charles Darwin University and Edith Cowan University (ECU).

The project will develop guidelines, principles, exemplars and evaluation rubrics to guide the sustainable refurbishment of existing tertiary learning spaces to support a range of current and emerging pedagogical practices. Guidelines for academic staff development, facilities, AV and IT support, and for architects involved in institutional refurbishments are also included.

Eventually a selection of photos will be stored and made available on a Flickr photo site

Special guest at Perth Library Camp in October

Dr Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at Dominican University and author of the influential Tame the Web blog, will be a participant at LibraryCamp Perth on Saturday 3 October 2009.

There are a few places left. Just go to the wiki to register your place and then put your name down to facilitate a session or do some other job on the day. Further details are on the wiki, Library Camp Perth.

If you have already registered, it would be great if you could add to the list of sessions on the wiki so far, or think about facilitating a session on the day.

So far we have:
• * • iPhone apps – Kathryn
• * • Can we use Kete or Omeka in Western Australian Libraries? (eg. Kete Horowhenua) – Kathryn
• * • Setting up a new library
• * • RFID
• * • Using drupal for library web sites
• * • What are the next 23 things- technologies on the horizon
• * • Keeping up to date – what tools do you use? – Con
• * • Mandatory Internet Filtering in Australia – Amy
• * • LibJam
• * • What should we stop doing to make room for new library services?
• * • Outrageously expensive, ambitious and impractical ideas for libraries
• * • Beyond death by Powerpoint try Keynote!..and how not to use everything Rosemary
• * • Engaging non-users
• * • Open Source and libraries
• * • How do we prepare now for the library of 2019?
• * • My favourite web tools and tricks
• * • Step-by-step hands-on creating a LibX toolbar for your library
• * • Zotero vs Refworks vs Endnote Cage Match
• * • If our brand is books, then what is the future of the format and how does this affect our future ?

Perth Library Camp 2009

Registrations are now open for the third Western Australian Library
Unconference. More than 60 have registered so far and it promises to be a great day. There are still spots available.

This year we are calling the event: *LibraryCamp Perth 2009: Keeping the
Fire Burning* .

The agenda will be decided on the day by the participants.
To register and for more information about unconferences and what happened in 2007 and 2008, go to our Library Unconferences page.


*Date:* Saturday, 3 October 2009*
Time:* 9:30am for a 10am start. 4pm finish.
*Venue:* Central TAFE, 140 Royal St, East Perth. Map here