The Distant Librarian

What does a distance MLIS really cost?

A couple of months ago when Walt Crawford put out his Great Middle list of library blogs, I picked a few to watch in a separate folder before fully committing.  One of the ones that graduated to my "real" subscription list is OPL Plus, the blog for librarians in one-person libraries, written by Judith Siess.  I've found that she really does cover a lot of stuff I find interesting, even though I work in a big academic library.

Yesterday Judith posted about how much it costs to earn an MLIS through a distance program, based on 05/06 figures at the Become a Librarian website.  Even if a little out of date, there's some interesting info there!  Turns out I covered this site back in June (I thought it looked familiar!), but it's nice that Judith did the math for the total cost.


Technorati Tags: MLIS, MLS, Distance_Education, $$

Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources

Got an email from Jimmy Atkinson of the recently-launched Online Education Database, a site that's attempting to collect information about institutions offering degrees online.  I don't see anywhere in the few profiles I checked where the library's mentioned, but Jimmy was asking me to take a look at a research guide he'd just posted called Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources.  It's an annotated list of deep web places one could check in various disciplines when Google doesn't provide the answer.  Looks like a pretty good list - might be worth a link from your "resources for students" page.


Technorati Tags: Deep_web, OEDB, Online_Education

What would you like to know about screencasting?

As I wrap up my final prep for next week's SirsiDynix Institute, an Introduction to Screencasting, I thought I'd check to see what you thought I should be including.  Either because you're going to attend and want to learn, or if there's something you think I should be sure to cover, will you let me know?


Technorati Tags: screencasting, SirsiDynix

Distance Learning Librarian Conference Sponsorship Award

Connie Hildebrand writes to the OFFCAMP List:

Distance Learning Librarian Conference Sponsorship Award

Librarianship for distance students is often neglected but this award is an opportunity to show the world what we do.  Since many librarians are too modest to nominate themselves, each of us should take the responsibility to nominate an outstanding librarian.

Here are some ideas that may indicate a potential award winner.

• Superior service to students & faculty
• Scholarly research and publication
• Planning of model programs
• Advocacy for librarianship in distance programs
• Innovation in providing services beyond traditional programs
• Leadership in the field or in a program

The award is a plaque and $1,200 from Haworth Press for conference expenses.

Do not miss this opportunity to nominate your favorite librarian and reward them for their accomplishments.

NOMINATIONS ARE DUE DECEMBER 1, 2006

Applicants or nominators should send one completed copy of the award nomination form (ACRL Distance Learning Section) to:

Connie Hildebrand, Off Campus Library Services Librarian, Central Michigan University, Park 204c, 300 E. Preston Road, Mount Pleasant, MI 48858

Telephone: 989-774-6080,
e-mail: connie.hildebrand@cmich.edu.

Submissions must also include three letters of nomination or support (maximum two pages double spaced in 12 point Times New Roman font).

Completed applications and all supporting documents must be received by December 1, 2006.

Good to know about Feed2JS and Spam

Hot on the heels of the talk Meredith Farkas and I gave at Internet Librarian on using Feed2JS (and some other tools) comes this post from RSS4Lib warning about the misappropriation of a locally installed version of Feed2JS.  Basically, if you do choose to install the software on your own server, Ken points out that others may use it for nefarious purposes.  I know the version we have at the U of C is restricted to use AT the U of C for just that reason. Ken points to these directions for restricting Feed2JS to the feeds you want to be used.

Technorati Tags: Feed2JS

Wavago now Raketu

A year ago I mentioned Wavago as an IM aggregator, along the lines of Adium or Trillian.  I tried it, but didn't like the interface so kept Trillian.  I just got an email that suggests Wavago has been purchased by a product called Raketu, that will automatically import your Wavago clients, but that also supports dialout to landlines and mobile phones.  Might be worth a look.  I'll try to get to it next week.

Update: Wavago contacted me to make sure there was no confusion - "Wavago is simply shutting down. Raketu did not purchase Wavago nor is Raketu Wavago. Raketu simply bridges to Wavago as it does with the other protocols."

Got it...

Technorati Tags: Raketu, Wavago, IM

Test of Performancing 1.3 and images

Nothing to see here, unless of course we see an image, which I simply dragged in to my Performancing 1.3 window.  If that worked, cool!

New Blog - LibCasting

Just left a session presented by Greg Notess called Training Tutorial Tour and Tips in which we critiqued 4 different online tutorials, including a couple of screencasts, and Greg took the opportunity to unveil to the world his new blog, LibCasting: Screencasting and libraries.  He's only  been posting through the month of October so there's not a lot of content on the blog yet, but there will be.  If you're at all interested in screencasting in the educational arena, this blog should be at the top of your aggregator!  Be sure to note the tabs across the top of the site: Examples, News, Process and Software. 

Will this prove to be the most useful piece of information for me from IL2006?  I have a few other sites to visit, but right now this is leading the pack!

Glad to see you in this arena Greg :-)


Technorati Tags: Screencasting, Notess, IL2006

IL2006 Lightning Talk

No, there are no lightning talks at Internet Librarian, but during my presentation with Meredith yesterday I thought I'd do something fun since I wasn't going to be using my laptop.  I turned it around to face the audience and used the built-in iSight along with Gawker to record a time-lapse movie of the "crowd" filing in, listening, and then filing out again.  Thought I'd watch to see if there was a point at which a majority fell asleep, and after careful analysis I'm glad to report that aside from one big stretch by Greg Schwartz (it was the end of the day afterall), they seemed engaged :-)

Woulda been better quality had there not been lights shining directly at the stage we were on, but hey, whattya gonna do?

So here you have about 1:15 compressed to 15 seconds.  Whee!

More Screen Capture Software

Following up on Wednesday's post mentioning SnagIt as my screen capture software of choice, I thought I'd also point to Amit's recent post on free screen capture products for the Windows platform.  I haven't used any of these...

Netspeed 2006 Handout

Just got back from speaking at Netspeed 2006, where I spoke on the topic of Building Better Relationships through Blogging.  I wanted to get the electronic version of my handout up for those who were in attendance and wanted to follow the links.  This won't make much sense w/o the actual presentation, but that should follow in a couple of weeks.  The session was recorded, and once the audio's made available I'll try to synch it with my slides for the full experience.  The handout's a Word Document 'cause I couldn't get the PDF to keep the links live :-/

Catching up on work tomorrow, then off to Monterey to speak at Internet Librarian with Meredith.  I'll be blogging from there of course, but no session recordings this year, as ITI has explicitly stated "you can post snippets of talks only for discussion in your blog (similar to quotes from a printed publication), provided you have received permission from the speaker to do so."  Fair enough!

SnagIt for the Mac?

Techsmith continues to impress, this time throwing out a survey asking how many folks would be interested in seeing a version of SnagIt, their screen capture software, for the Mac.  I love SnagIt on the PC - super fast screen capture (my chosen part of the screen) plus the ability to immediately annotate with highlights, text, arrows, etc.  I use it pretty much every day when responding to students via email.  Anyhoo, here's the info on the short survey:

Boy, we've received a lot of requests for a Mac version of SnagIt lately.  I'm looking for your input on this as a product concept.  I've put together a short 6 question survey that will go a long way towards helping us better understand how we might tackle this opportunity.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=493032743512

By the way, if you aren't necessarily a Mac user but know someone that is who has always wanted SnagIt, please pass this survey link along to them.

Best Regards,
Tony Dunckel
SnagIt Product Manager

In the interests of full disclosure, I was given my copy of SnagIt by Techsmith - it came along with the copy of Camtasia Studio.  Once I started using it I stopped using another piece of screen capture software I had paid for out of my own pocket; SnagIt was that much easier, faster, and useful.  I did do some searching for screen capture software for the mac a couple months ago, but didn't come up with anything that would allow me to quickly annotate my screen grabs - is anyone out there aware of something that already does this?


Technorati Tags: Techsmith, SnagIt, Screen_capture

Camtasia Studio 4 now shipping

As previewed a couple of weeks ago, Camtasia Studio 4 is now shipping.  Amit at Digital Inspiration has posted what he feels are some of the significant improvements to the product, including mention of their new screencast-hosting service, Screencast.com.  Both Studio 4 and Screencast.com offer 30-day free trial periods. Incidentally, I've never played with it, but Qarbon also offers a hosting solution called ViewletCentral.


Technorati Tags: Screencasting

Have our toes just been stepped upon? Google Scholar within BlackBoard

Dean Giustini at the UBC Academic Search - Google Scholar Blog brings us news that Google and Blackboard are going to team up, with Google Scholar somehow being integrated within the Blackboard CMS.  From the Washington Business Journal story, "As part of the partnership, Blackboard's learning system will be integrated with Google Scholar, providing quick access to millions of scholarly references directly from courses within the Blackboard system." 

We use Blackboard here at the U of C, and I do have to assist many of my faculty members in building links to content that is available via library databases simply because there are so many different places one must go to grab the persistent link.  I have to assume that having Schoogle integrated within an institution's Blackboard installation will mean that the proxy server will be built-in, allowing access to library-owned content from both on and off campus, but damn, since we still don't know just what Schoogle covers, the potentially high adoption rate of such a partnership due to the brand name is going to mean a lot more edumacation here on campus as to the pros and cons of using Schoogle, and reminders that there are a lot more credible/relevant/transparent databases available on your library's website, and that they too allow linking directly to content.

OK, here's a more detailed press release from today, and in fact there is already a Blackboard building block available, so I guess we'll have to throw that on our test server to see what it's all about.

Also interesting is the fact that Microsoft and Blackboard have a "preferred relationship", according to this Chronicle of Higher Education piece from back in 2001.  That means, "Microsoft will promote Blackboard to its education customers and Blackboard will suggest that its clients use the Microsoft Windows operating system to run Blackboard on their servers to take advantage of special features available only to Microsoft users."  Not sure if that's still in effect, but even if so, it seems that Schoogle's addition is a pretty minor partnership, not likely to kick Microsoft out of Blackboard's bed...

Technorati Tags: Schoogle, Blackboard

All clear here...

I hereby do solemny swear to abstain from complaining about the weather in Calgary for the rest of the month.  I went to grad school in Buffalo and only had to deal with a couple of big winter storms.  Nothing this early.  Buffalo was hit overnight with as much as two feet of snow by some reports.  Wet lake-effect snow.  Yuck.  Here's a news page, and here are (currently) 268 pictures uploaded to Flickr. 

Happy Friday the 13th, y'all


Technorati Tags: SNOW!, Buffalo

This American Life - back and legit

Nope, I'm not moving back to the States ;-)  You may recall that back in June Jon Udell (and some others) had figured out how to build an RSS feed to receive episodes of This American Life that were already available for free on the web, but only in a streaming, listen while connected, format.  Shortly after that, the good folks at This American Life asked those who had put together such feeds to take them down.  It was all pretty amicable, but left us podcast-listening junkies out in the cold again. 

Until this coming Monday, October 16th, at which time This American Life will begin offering a legitimate feed of their own.  Huzzah!  Thanks to BoingBoing for passing on the good news.  Cool, I even notice on the TAL page that, "Note: everyone who paid for a
podcast subscription via Audible will receive a refund. You don’t have
to do anything; you’ll automatically receive the refund."

Technorati Tags: Podcasts, This_American_Life

The door is open - share your tutorials! (ANTS)

Back in February I announced the COPPUL ANimated Tutorial Sharing Project (ANTS), but noted that the COPPUL Directors had not given us the green light to open the project to non-COPPUL libraries.  Well gang, the light has turned green, and while I've been meaning to tell you that for a couple weeks now, a recent post by Chad on Library Voice about sharing screencast sourcecode seems to prove that the time is ripe.

To refresh your memory, ANTS makes use of a wiki at the Univerisity of Winnipeg and the DSpace repository here at the U of Calgary to coordinate the sharing of source code for animated tutorials, aka screencasts.  If I build a tutorial that you like, you can grab the original source code and modify it to suit your institution.  While our effort at coordination may look a little indimidating (we have guidelines 'n stuff), it's really mostly common sense, so shouldn't prove to be a burden to anyone who wants to contibute. 

And this is your invitation! Have you built a screencast for one of the databases on the wiki?  How about one that's not on the wiki? (that's just our list of databases we felt would be most useful within COPPUL libraries).  Why not share your source code?  It's easy.  I'm the administrator for the DSpace collection, so I'll review your submission before it's committed to the archive, and I'll let you know if there's anything amiss, so it's a friendly contact you'll have :-)  Right now have just under two dozen tutorials up there.  Go ahead and take a peek, and borrow any that you might find useful for your institution.  There are even a couple in French.  Like Chad, we are also using a Creative Commons 2.5 license on these puppies. 

Thanks in advance - off to let all the other wikis know about this project...


Technorati Tags: screencasting, sharing, ANTS

CFP: What is the role of distance education in the implementation of the right to education?

This might be an interesting idea for some of you:

The Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, in collaboration with 5 international journals, is launching a call for research and “effective practices” papers to be published in 2008 concerning distance education and the right to education (in particular reference to article 26 of the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights of December 10th, 1948) :

    * What is the role of distance education in the implementation of the right to education ?
    * How is distance education involved when education is seen as a right ? What is its position in educational policy, as a factor of quality and an instrument for liberty.

This theme can be approached from multiple points of view, pedagogical, sociological, economical, political, legal.

More information.

Book sales get a lift from Google scan plan

Hmm, looks like I was right (me and every other sane person); publishers are starting to admit that the books that are available through Google Book Search and Amazon's Search Inside program are <gasp!> actually selling more copies!

Some quotes from the Reuters piece: ""Google Book Search has helped us turn searchers into consumers," said Colleen Scollans, the director of online sales for Oxford University Press.", ""We suspect that Google really helps us sell more books," said Kim Zwollo, Springer's global director of special licensing, declining to provide specific figures because the company is privately owned." ""Our experience has been that the revenue generated from Google has been pretty modest, whereas the Amazon program has generated more book sales," Penguin Chief Executive John Makinson told Reuters at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week."

Technorati Tags: Google_Book_Search, Amazon, Publishers, Sales

Huge list of screen sharing tools

I've mentioned sceen sharing / co-browsing tools like Jybe and Unyte before, but holy cow, take a look at the list compiled at Kolabora.com!  That is all.


Technorati Tags: Screen_sharing, co-browsing

Just what am I looking at?

I have been increasingly interested in how flat the world of research literature seems to appear to the average undergraduate student.  I say "seems to appear" because I haven't actually talked to any students about this, so it's really just a wild theory.  Here goes.

I think students who have only researched through their computer monitor have a very hard time understanding what they're looking at.  Through the monitor, a page is a page is a page, whether it be from a scholarly journal, a book, Newsweek, a website, a chat window...  There are almost none of the visual clues that are present in a more traditional physical piece of information that might make it easier to tell if you're about to use a scholarly publication or a piece of crap in your paper.  If I've got a PDF from Academic Search Premier and I don't recognize the name of the publication and there are no ads on the page, surely it's scholarly, right?  Sure, there are options in many library databases that will help a student limit to scholarly material, but I still think they don't get it conceptually at all. 

And it's not their fault!  Think about it; if you'd never seen a physical scholarly journal, having grown up in East Rubberboot Saskatchewan, what frame of reference would you have?  You're told to access library resources through this magical screen, that also provides access to Google and Wikipedia, and hey, all these words on the screen kinda look like they come from the same place.  Guess they all must be equal! 

I was thinking about that when I saw a demo recently of one of the Gale InfoTrac products which, when viewed in IE but not Firefox, shows where on a physical page of a newspaper the article you've accessed appears.  I like that!  Kinda reminds me of what some of the handheld eBook readers do, which is attempt to show a representation of how many pages you are deep in a book, even though that's a fallacy for that particular product.  But it gives the reader a frame of reference.  I think that's missing from library web-based research, and aside from the image on the right, I'm not sure how this is best corrected.

Or I may be completely out to lunch.  Any thoughts?

Join a Canadian Library Association Interest Group...

...even if you're not a member of CLA!  Laurie the Librarian reports that CLA is now allowing pretty much anyone to join on of 23 interest groups at $30 (Cdn) per group.  She suggests (and I second) Services for Distance Learning.


Technorati Tags: CLA

Zotero launches

Well, Zotero has launched, and I'm all bummed to learn that it requires Firefox 2.0, which is a release candidate (beta) build, which means many of the extensions I rely upon are not likely to work, which means I'm not installing it yet, which means I can't install Zotero yet.  Lemmie know how you like it if you're adventurous...


Technorati Tags: Zotero

The Fall of Screencasting

Ha! Got you with the title of this post, didn't I?  No, screencasting's not heading downhill; quite the contrary.  That's just me being witty, see, 'cause it's Fall, and there's lots going on with screencasting.

First up, both Adobe and Techsmith have new versions of their screencasting products out this month.

Adobe is now shipping Captivate 2.  I recently attended a webinar they gave for the Education market, and while the webinar didn't really seem to be geared towards the education market to me, it did introduce some of the new features.  See for yourself - the webinar is now available online.  There were a couple of really nice features, and I hope to download the trial version for a looksee soon. 

Techsmith has also polished off version 4 of Camtasia Studio, and it will be available for download on October 17th, also with a 30-day free trial.  Techsmith has comped me a license key, so I have the full version now and have begun to play with it.  I like it :-)  There are lots of new features, including the ability to publish simultaneously to formats for the web and iPod, and you can just strip out the audio as an mp3 if you like.  They've done a really nice job with a new audio enhancement feature, and this is one I've played with already.  It strips out background noise, and equalizes volume levels.  I had my mic set way too high on the first screencast I recorded and the before and after were very noticeable.  Great feature.  Lots of other stuff, but I'll wait until I've tried them before reporting back.

And finally, my incentive for trying the latest versions of these tools, along with those from Qarbon and the freebies, is my November 8 SirsiDynix Institute entitled Show and Tell the Easy Way - an Introduction to Screencasting. It runs from 11am-12 EST (8-9am PST) and will also be available after the fact as a recorded session and audio-only podcast.  From the blurb:

This presentation will introduce screencasting, the software that is available to create screencasts, and the platforms on which they can be run. You'll learn how to plan a recorded procedure (the most time-consuming, yet often overlooked step) and get tips for making effective and engaging screencasts.

I won't be building screencasts during the presentation of course, but you'll reap the rewards of my preparation here as I report back on what I like and dislike about each of the products as I prepare :-)  The SirsiDynix Institutes are free, but you do need to register ahead of time.  See you there?

DistLib LinkDump

Gosh I hate to do a link dump; each of these deserve their own post, but I've just had so little time over the past couple of weeks, and see no real openings in the next few that I've got to clear these "to blog" tidbits out.  Lots of good stuff here, and I'm sure you'll find something good within - I'll keep each one short, and in no particular order:

From It's All Good comes notice of an opinion piece in the Chronicle of Higher Education called Show Your Librarian Some Love.  Hope it sticks with some faculty members.

The Centered Librarian informs us that the Chicago Manual of Style is now available online.  Sure wish the APA would do the same thing!  Oh wait, it's a pay-for service.  Still, nice to be able to search the thing...

The Call for Participants for the Five Weeks to a Social Library online course is now out.  The course is free and runs from Feb 12 - March 17, 2007, and is limited to 40 participants.  All presentations will be archived and made available for open viewing as well, so you can still learn even if you don't get to participate during the course.

Jenny Levine also notes a good-sounding Virtual Institute being sponsored by ACRL called The User at the Center.  Registration deadline is October 26th for this one, and unlike the above, it's not free.  Which is fine.

Lorcan Dempsey notes that JISC has made available an "academic database assessment tool" that will compare the contents of various databases one might be considering for purchase.  I haven't compared them side by side, but it sure sounds a lot like the CUFTS Resources Comparison Tool I noted in March 2005...  (which in turn has been updated, you'll see when you follow all the links...)

And finally, I haven't even made the time to follow along with Techsmith's 30 Screencasts in 30 Days, in which product manager Troy Stein brings us 30 tips and tricks about Camtasia Studio.  They're up to day 7, and I've got some catching up to do :-)


Technorati Tags: Librarians, Style_Manuals, Social_Libraries, Database_comparison_tools, Screencasting