Email Alerts for Google Scholar

Just wanted to point out the search alerts from Google Scholar. I am interested in encouraging more faculty to use search alerts in library and open Web resources. Are there any other search alerts you use for your own work or to suggest to patrons?

Does your library twitter?

We have been experimenting with Twitter, but I am curious to know if others of you have been using it in some way for your library.

Learning Tools on the Web

The Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies put together an excellent list of learning tools in the following categories:

1 Instructional tools
Tools for creating, delivering, managing and/or tracking learning and/or providing a formal social learning environment.

Includes course authoring, testing, LMS, CMS and SLEs

2 Live tools

Tools for delivering live meetings, screen sharing and accessing/ building virtual worlds

Includes web, audio, video conferencing, live broadcasting, 3D/virtual worlds
3 Document and presentation tools

Tools to create, host and/or share documents, PDFs, e-Books and/or presentations.
Includes word processing, presentation tools, PDF convertors, document and presentation hosting sites

4 Blogging, web and wiki tools

Tools to create blogs, web pages/sites and wikis as well as provide interactivity on those sites
Includes blogging tools, web site tools, wikis, widgets, RSS feeds tools, forms, web poll and survey sites
5 Image, audio and video tools

Tools to create, edit and/or host images, avatars, audio files, podcasts, screencasts and videos

Includes image editors, images hosting sites, audio editors, video makers, screencasting tools, video hosting sites

6 Communication tools

Tools for a range of synchronous and asynchronous communication activities

Includes email, voice/video messaging, instant messaging, chat rooms, discussion forums

7 Micro-blogging tools and Twitter Apps

These tools are for real-time updating (140 characters at a time) both publically or privately, as well as a range of useful Twitter apps

Includes micro-blogging, back channel tools, and Twitter apps
8 More collaboration tools

These are (further) stand-alone tools suitable for individuals to work and learn more effectively with others - as well as on their own

Includes social bookmarking, calendar sharing, mind mapping, note-taking/sharing, whiteboards, research and other tools
9 Social networking and collaboration spaces

These social media platforms include public social networks as well as tools to create private collaborative, social spaces for groups or communities, as well as enterprise collaboration systems (with multiple group sites)

Includes public social networks, networking and community platforms, group spaces, Enterprise 2.0 systems

10 Personal productivity tools

These tools are for an individual's personal working, learning and/or productivity purposes.

Includes mind mapping, information and time management tools, web search, and other productivity tools

11 Browsers, Players, Readers & Start Pages

These tools are useful for browsing the web and accessing web content

Includes browsers, extensions, plugins, bookmarklets, toolbars, readers and players, online start pages

12 Mobile tools
These mobile tools are for working, learning and/or productivity purposes.

-From the Site

Okay, so I sort of did something...

I bought two Kindles (one DX, one regular) for preloading content and circulating. Also, I'm sort of experimenting with something else -- cheap netbooks with preloaded content (library tutorials, bookmarked pages, etc.). I'm going to theme both types of technologies -- for Kindles, perhaps one will be psychotherapy and diversity, the second mythology and religious studies. Also, the netbooks will be themed to start -- general research, advanced research, copyright, course development (for faculty only). I have to get IT on board for the netbooks, which has been tricky as they're short staffed. Basically the netbooks have to be reset-able so that when they are returned we can wipe out anything that may have been downloaded; setting restore points, perhaps? Not sure, still working on it.

Will add a Sony ereader if the Kindles do well and may add cheap mp3s loaded with faculty lectures. There will be release forms/agreements that patrons will have to sign for all tech checkouts. Basically a catch all for each type of technology that explicitly states how expensive replacement costs are. Working on that too.

Thoughts?

Applied EZProxy

I am curious to know if any of the NCCPL libraries have implemented EZProxy in an interesting way. We use it  to log into our databases at this point.  We are very happy that the process of adding users to the user list is nearly all automated. The features I am curious about are setting up groups of users for specific access and providing authenticated access to documents that don't reside in a resource/database.  Just feels like, even as simple as EZProxy is, there might be more that we can do with it.

Prezi.com

At our last meeting, I shared one of my new favorite tools: Prezi.com. It is an amazing animated presentation tool that really raises the bar for the presentation experience. You can integrate text, video, and images in a very visual format. There are some academic account options for students and faculty that make this very accessible. The academic account options seem to be based on a .edu email account--I was set up without a hitch.