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ITI Bloggers October 31st, 2007

As promised earlier I want to add a few more training tips that I heard yesterday. Here’s some good stuff from Michael Stephens and Sarah Houghton-Jan:

• When you need a topic to use for training, let the learners pick ones that they’re interested in. The lesson will mean more and probably be retained longer.
• Be at students’ level, physically. If  they’re sitting, sit. Don’t tower above them; make a more personal connection.
• Reward people for giving correct answers, for participating, etc. Praise them aloud or make certificates for them to carry away.
• Train people on new software or hardware long before it’s implemented. Give staff time to play with it before they’re expected to help others with it.      

As Sarah

 promised,

 "Fun can happen     

in technical training; it really can."

~Kathy Dempsey

editor of CIL and MLS

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ITI Bloggers October 31st, 2007

We are in California, after all!  During the Tuesday evening session, a small earthquake occurred.  No, it wasn’t because of the energy generated from the session.  But it was felt by some that were there who noticed the chandeliers swaying gently.  Fortunately, there was no damage, except for a brief failure of the Wi-Fi networks.

Read all about it!

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL2007 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers October 31st, 2007

Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land modestly started by saying he had some trouble with the “future” of search – at this point he doesn’t really know what’s coming next. But two things he predicted back in 2001 have happened this year: personalized results and what he terms “blended” search. Those of us in the library field think of this as federated search—but others won’t call it that.

Google calls it universal search. This has actually been a big change for Google—bringing in local results, maps, news, photos, video clips, books, etc. onto the first results page. Bottom line—a lot more specialized (or vertical) search results are coming in.

Ask 3D debuted in June. It uses an algorithm called Morph to determine the selection from relevant verticals, which it now presents in 3 panes of content. Danny finds some aspects of the Ask presentation to be confusing—he feels it needs some finetuning.

Microsoft and Yahoo! have done similar pushes in this direction but it feels like they are just doing catch-up to the others. Verticals will become even more prominent, said Danny. The metaphor for presentation is still being worked out…but still, this is an exciting time.

And Danny said he still believes in personalized search…though he said Google’s personalized search is more of an ego search rewarder. But no other engines are matching what Google is doing. He thinks that personalized search should survive the privacy issues and will prove to be helpful.

What about social search? Eurekster was doing this back in 2004—it experimented with friend clicks reshaping results. Yahoo has dropped many of the features it hyped. The reality—it hasn’t really succeeded but perhaps it will indeed play a role. Facebook’s social network data is potentially useful but there’s the issue of who is a “true” friend—and it’s not a real search engine.

Paula J. Hane
News Bureau Chief
Information Today, Inc.

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ITI Bloggers October 31st, 2007

Today is Halloween (it’s the first time that IL has coincided with  Halloween).  Here are (L-R) Luke Hullette, Stacey Hogan, and Jenna Prifte packing some treats for the exhibit hall.  Conference planners do all sorts of jobs at an event like  IL!

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and  IL2007 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers October 31st, 2007

Barbara Fullerton, Sabrini Pacifici, and Aaron Schmidt gave their always popular gadgets session at an evening session tonight.  Copies of their PowerPoint slides with the details of the gadgets will be on Aaron’s and Sabrini’s blogs as well as the conference presentations website shortly.  A new feature of their presentation was the special inclusion of some eco-friendly gadgets. 

Following the gadget part of the session, a team from the Delft Public Library in the Netherlands presented a series of short videos illustrating best practices in various libraries that they visited on a road trip from New York to Monterey.  The video sketches will be combined in a documentary they are creating.  You can see the clips and the complete documentary (when it is ready) on their website.

As usual, the evening session was entertaining and punctuated by lots of laughter, and a good time was had by all.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL2007 Blog Coordinator

Here is a list of the gadgets that were described by Barbara, Sabrini, and Aaron:

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ITI Bloggers October 31st, 2007

The Tuesday afternoon street market in Monterey was, as usual, intriguing and fascinating–another reason why Monterey is such a great location for Internet Librarian.  (If you didn’t make it this year, plan to come next year–the conference is booked for Monterey for the next four years.)

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL2007 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers October 31st, 2007

(L-R) Rebecca Jones, Session Moderator; Kathy Petlewski; Evette Atkin

How far afield do your training courses go?  Just your own library?  All the libraries in the city or the region?  How about doing training for an entire state?  Well, if your state is Rhode Island or Delaware, it might not be too difficult to get an audience of librarians or users from around the state together.  But what if your state is Alaska? Or Hawaii where the state extends across several islands?  Even in a medium-sized state like Michigan, it can take 9 hours to drive from one end to the other.  The only way to do effective statewide training in such a situation is to use distance learning technologies.

Evette Atkin, Network Librarian and Training Consultant, Michigan Library Consortium and Kathy Petlewski, Electronic Resources Librarian, Plymouth District Library, have created some innovative distance learning courses using Moodle, a free open source software platform, and Second Life.  They use Moodle for training on the databases accessible through the Michigan Electronic Library.  Each course consists of an introductory lesson and a practice module, and then a quiz.  The students can go back after the quiz and review those parts where they need further training.  For the general public, courses are offered on database basics and health information, and for library staff, a variety of specialized courses (including one on bookbinding) are available.

The Centra software platform, an online learning environment using virtual training, is also used in real time.  The instructor can interact remotely with the students by audio or text chat and can offer feedback and help as needed.

In 2006, Michigan Electronic Library put a building on Second Life’s Information Island, and it proved so successful that they now have a 4,000 square meter site.

Offering statewide training courses is not as difficult as it was formerly, thanks to today’s social networking and Web2.0 tools.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL2007 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers October 30th, 2007

I’ve been spending a lot of time in Track C today, 2.0 Organizations & Roles. Good stuff.

After a funny tongue-in-cheek talk about "how to lose your new tech librarian" (fav tip: You shouldn’t hop on a tech trend until it’s ready to die, even tho your techie suggested it a year ago.), there were lots of practical training tips. Trouble is, in order to do all the training the right way, you must have an organizational culture that supports it. Too bad that’s not always the case. As soon as I find out how to easily change admins’ minds about supporting proper  training, PR, and lifelong learning, I’ll let you know. Meanwhile, do the best you can.

More tips and tactics from Track C  later!

~Kathy Dempsey

CIL & MLS Editor

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ITI Bloggers October 30th, 2007

Training professionals in high technology companies raises its own set of issues, as outlined by Karen Draper, Sr. Information Specialist at Adobe Systems, Inc.  She noted that innovative ideas need informamtion to help them turn into products or services.  The pace in a technology environment is fast; employees work fast and need information even faster. They face too much information and tend to shut thier minds to getting even more.  Draper developed several personas of various types of professionals in her environment:  product managers, engineers, marketing managers, sales people, interns, and directors.  See her presentation for the details. 

Adobe also offers a range of training classes to teach employees how to use information services; these are given using web conferencing technology.  I found it interesting that students are encouraged to bring their own laptops to the classes, even when they are physically present in the classroom so that they can try the techniques as they are presented to them.  Social networking tools like blogs, wikis, and folksonomies (all behind the firewall) are also used for training.

The Adobe scenario shows how Web2.0 technologies can be used to advantage in a fast paced, high energy technical environment and is a useful model to follow.

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today and IL2007 Blog Coordinator

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ITI Bloggers October 30th, 2007

I walked outside during one of the breaks and found this delightful display of "antique" cars.  (Well, some of them were truly antique, but others just made me feel old!  Notice the photo of the 1956 Volkswagen–after I told the owner that the first car I owned was the same model, he kindly let me sit in it.)

If you would like to see all of the pictures I took, click "Continue Reading" below. 

Enjoy!

Don Hawkins
Columnist, Information Today, and IL2007 Blog Coordinator

Continue Reading »

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