Library Gazette

Yesterday afternoon, Giz and I presented “Technology Tools for the Classroom” to an off-site faculty retreat of the Schools of Business. You may recall that the Calloway and Babcock schools have merged under a single dean; the combined faculty met at the Brookstown Inn for the day to kick off the new academic year. Michelle Roehm, Sr. Assoc. Dean of Faculty, invited Giz and me to present some new tools; after consulting with her we agreed to present Twitter, Google tools and LibGuides.

A quick poll revealed that faculty members aren’t using Twitter. Giz and I briefly described the micro-blogging site while showing it on two screens. We explained that it serves as a personalized news feed, a marketing channel and a social network. We demonstrated a Twitter feed we had created two weeks ago that assembled Tweets from such sources as the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Forbes and Business Week. The feed also pulled Tweets from a handful of business schools and nationally known consultants. We showed how links in the Tweets will take the reader to the original article and shared that Twitter is the first place that breaking news can be found.

Twitter is used as a marketing channel by companies to announce promotions and new products, communicate with customers and in some cases, solve customer problems. Some companies use Twitter to solicit customer comments while designing or improving products. Others use the customer interaction on Twitter to build customer loyalty. Giz suggested that the Schools of Business could use Twitter for keeping in touch with alumni, especially the 20-somethings who have moved on from Facebook.

The social networking aspect of Twitter wasn’t our focus, but we told the group about Twibes and how this can connect a reader with other Twitterers interested in a topic. We did show them how to find feeds using Google or Twitter’s find people tool. We also demonstrated how to follow issues using hash tags; our examples were #Fed for the Federal Reserve Bank and #economy for the economy.

Google has many wonderful tools and Giz loves them all. With much enthusiasm, we showed the faculty how to use Google docs for collaborating on projects; that could include faculty collaborating on research or their students’ working on group projects. The power of Google docs quickly became apparent to the group, which expressed enthusiasm for it and generated lots of questions. After Giz had shown them the benefits of docs, he went on to tell them about Google sites, a tool that helps one construct a web site very easily. Google will also host that website up to 100 mg of memory for free. He also described how Google Wave is going to combine email, chat and documents into a single, powerful, free tool. His repeated reminders that all these Google tools are free earned him the nickname “The Prophet” before the session was finished.

After finishing with Google, we demonstrated LibGuides to the group. We showed that there is a long list of guides available; some are course-specific while others cover general topics. An example of the former is for ACC111, into which I’ve placed links to all the resources a student would need to successfully complete the final project for the class. The guide includes instructions on how to use the individual databases and features video and screen shots. The example we showed of the latter is Company and Industry Information, a topical guide serving numerous classes.

The group paid rapt attention and several faculty sought us out after the session to discuss how we might help them apply these technologies in their classes. We appreciated the opportunity to interact with the faculty and enjoyed our time with them.

You may have noticed that ZSR has stepped up its recycling efforts this semester. We’re keeping pace with the rest of the university as Jim Alty, the new Assistant VP of Facilities Management, drives Wake Forest toward a more sustainable posture.

Throughout the library, one can find receptacles for recycling glass, metal, paper and plastic. In ITC, one can deposit spent batteries for recycling and outside the mail room, one can leave cardboard for recycling. Glass, metal and plastic can be recycled in the same container but paper must be recycled by itself.

If you look, you’ll find recycling bins throughout the building to make it easier for patrons and staff to recycle rather than throw away recyclable material. We’re using a variety of bin styles based on availability and the size of the bin and its location. In the 24-hour study rooms, you might see the big black bins or the square metal containers; in the stacks and stairwells you’ll see the black bins and the low blue bins while in government documents, Mary Lib has supplied her own tiny green recycle bins to fit in a small space!

We’ve had two recent additions to our collection of recycling containers. In the atrium you’ll find two multi-material recycling stations. These four-slot stations allow patrons to throw away trash, paper or glass/metal/plastic in a single container. You may have seen this same style of recycling station in Benson Center. Secondly, we’ve recently received personal recycling containers from the facilities department. Each office and public work area now has its own blue recycling container. Please note that our housekeeping staff will NOT empty these; each person must sort and empty her materials into the appropriate larger bins in your area. Housekeeping empties the larger recycling containers twice a week.

Did you notice that recycling bins are usually clustered with a trash can? That was done by design; making a trash can available near the recycling bins decreases the degree of contamination in the recycling bins. When a trash can isn’t readily available, patrons often deposit trash in a recycling bin, making its entire contents unfit to be recycled. By placing trash receptacles with the recycling containers for paper and glass/metal/plastic we’ve tried to maximize the amount of material we recycle. If you have a question about whether a container is intended for trash or recycling, here’s the indicator: trash cans are lined with black plastic trash bags but recycling containers are lined with clear bags.

Please, do your part to minimize the volume of trash ZSR sends to the landfill by recycling all the materials you possibly can.

On Thursday, the reference department initiated service via txt messaging. By doing so, we’ve joined a small handful of academic libraries making this format available to patrons.

In order to txt the reference desk, patrons should dial 265010, enter our IM screen name “askzaklive” followed by their question and press enter. The question will arrive at the reference desk computer in an instant message window, and the librarian will enter her response as with any other IM. There only two small differences between a reference session initiated via IM and one via txt messaging: instead of the patron’s screen name, her mobile phone number appears at the top of the window and there’s a limit on the number of characters allowed per message. Otherwise the transaction at the ref desk is the same as an IM. With this program, mobile phone users can send text messages to anyone with an AIM screen name who’s online.

We had been looking for a program to integrate text messaging with instant messaging for several months because most Wake Forest students have cell phones and text messaging is growing in popularity among this demographic cohort. We had been stymied in our efforts by a lack of service providers: one alternative provided only an international phone number which would have been prohibitively expensive to users, while another charged a handsome subscription fee. We had decided to wait until a better alternative became available and on Wednesday evening, Lauren found it. While reading a blog she came across an entry from American University describing their recently-launched text messaging reference service. We tested it on Thursday morning, found it worked seamlessly with AIM decided to go live.

We currently receive approximately one third of all reference questions via instant messaging and we’ll be tracking the statistics for text messaging, as well. We’ll report our finding in a later posting.

On Wednesday afternoon Chris Burris, Elise Anderson and I worked the phones at the WFDD pledge drive. We took contributor’s pledges and provided them with information about the thank-you gifts that are available at various donation levels. During our 2.5 hours at the studio, we collected $7,394 in pledges for our NPR station.

Why so much? I think three factors motivated listeners to call: we were there during the evening rush hour which is a heavy-listening time; there was a contribution match in place, so each donor’s pledge was doubled; and, there were some awesome thank-you gifts available including five ZSR library cards. For a donation of $200 to WFDD, a listener could receive one of our library cards and in fact, one donor claimed a card while we were on the phones. The other sought-after premium was the Terry Gross ticket package for the Fresh Air hostess’ visit to Greensboro next month.

We enjoyed chatting with our WFDD supervisors and had a chance to chat briefly with Denise Franklin, Molly Davis and other WFDD folks. As always, they fed us well – pizzas from Mellow Mushroom. Working the phones during the pledge drive was a fun experience and it felt good to support WFDD.