Using an iPad at conferences

I recently attended a national academic library conference (ACRL) and found it very helpful to have my ipad. I left my laptop at home. I thought I would pass along some of the ways that I used my ipad during the conference.

Devices:
Ipad: most hotels and conferences now offer free wifi
Iphone or other smartphone: I’ve found that the free wifi is often overwhelmed in large conference settings. Therefore I keep my iphone on 4G so that I can use that as an online backup if I can’t use the wifi on my ipad.

Apps:

• Evernote (free). Set up a folder with short conference name. For example: my folder name in Evernote for this conference was acrl. When you set up an Evernote account, you will receive an Evernote email address. Add this address to your email contacts list. Whenever you want to save something online from the conference, simply email it to your evernote email account. In the subject line, add @foldername at the end of the subject (for example,  subject @acrl) and the item will automatically file itself in the conference folder that you previously created.
• Browser
• Email
• Conference app if available
• Camera
• QRCode Reader. I use free QRReader app.
• Twitter. Typically there is a hashtag used for a conference (for example #acrl2013). Use that hashtag to monitor comments and resources during the conference.
• Note taking app (keyboard and/or stylus as appropriate). I use Notability ($$) and a stylus because I remember more from handwritten notes.
• GoodReads for scanning book barcodes
• Netflix or other streaming video if you have an account. I hate channel surfing in a strange city so I just streamed video from my Netflix account on the hotel wifi when wanting to wind down from a busy day.

How to use Apps at the conference

Sessions:

• Take notes on note taking app. Notability allows me to highlight important points. I can then email a pdf of the session to myself for future storage as needed.
• Monitor backchannel of twitter for comments, questions and further resources
• Browse to websites or online resources mentioned. In browser, email (arrow icon and select email) important web resources to your Evernote account with @conference folder name in subject line.

Poster sessions:

• Many posters provide QRCodes for more information. Scan QR code to bring up webpage with more information. Email that page to your Evernote account.
• Take a picture of the poster with camera. Email picture to Evernote account.

Vendors/Books:

• Take notes with note taking app when talking to vendors
• Monitor twitter for vendor announcements with conference hashtag
• If you find books of interest, scan the barcode with the GoodReads barcode scanner. You can then email book information to Evernote for later purchase. Or search for books in library catalog through browser to determine if they are already in the library.

Networking/Receptions:

• There are networking apps such as Bump where you can exchange business card information. But another simpler solution is just to take a picture of the business card and email it to evernote.
• Monitor twitter for evening events

Presenting:

Depending on presentation needs, you may be able to present from your ipad connected to the projector equipment. There are apps for powerpoint, prezi and other presentation software. Connect via the VGA adaptor cord. As always have a backup plan!

After the conference

• Review notes in note taking app. Email important notes to save on network drive.
• Review Evernote for resources, contacts, notes, purchases, and things to follow-up on.
• Review twitter hashtag for further resources or comments about sessions that you didn’t attend.

Have you found the ipad helpful at conferences? What apps do you use?

Moving from Information Literacy to Digital Literacy

I have been doing some thinking lately about the librarian’s role in digital literacy on campus. We have information literacy pretty well covered. Overall my faculty frequently contact me to provide instruction on research skills in various classes. But I don’t think they have the same reflex action when it comes to digital literacy. I’m starting to realize that I have a larger role to play in this arena as well.

This article discusses faculty and student needs when it comes to digital literacy. Faculty and students can become overwhelmed with the technological tools and options available to them in the classroom and for research projects. Multiple platforms and interfaces prove frustrating when navigating library resources. They often welcome guidance to sort through the onslaught, if the assistance is timely, concise and relevant. I especially liked the sentiment in this article about narrowing the choices for faculty. “Rather than overwhelm faculty by offering 20 examples of social media tools they could integrate into their classes, showcase one really effective use of social media to address a specific challenge.”

The above article highlights the role that faculty development and instructional technologists play in this endeavor. But I’m afraid that that they overlook the critical role that librarians can play in this as well. Librarians are already experienced at determining instructional and research needs to deliver effective information literacy to faculty and students. The ACRL Information Literacy Standards help librarians determine critical areas to cover. Librarians can bring the same process to understand pedagogical problems, present appropriate technological solutions and provide effective instruction on the solutions to digital literacy that they already provide for information literacy.

This potential transliteracy activity requires deeper collaboration among faculty development, information technology and library departments on campus. Each area brings unique skill sets to the table, and none should be overlooked or ignored.

A great example of this collaboration is already developing on my campus. Learning Technology Services, a department within IT, has been very open to inviting me to work with them on various training sessions. This past Spring I participated in the EdTech Day by sharing information about library apps including EBSCO, Ebrary and Zotpad. I also provide workshops on various apps and technologies in conjunction with LTS.

This emerging area certainly has its share of extra work and political challenges. But it is worth the time and energy to collaborate with other areas on campus and to provide needed services to faculty based on librarian experience and expertise within a larger partnership.

What is your experience? Have librarians on your campus collaborated with Learning Technology Services or other IT departments to provide digital literacy to faculty, staff or students? Share your stories.

Extending Academic Freedom to Blogs

I recently came across a troubling story about a publisher suing a librarian for libel based on a blog posting. Dale Askey, while an academic librarian at Kansas State University (he has since moved to McMaster University), posted a negative review about a publisher, Edwin Mellen Press, on his blog.  He stated that the publisher exhibited poor editing quality and processes. He referred to EMP as a ‘vanity press’ with few scholarly editors. His conclusion was that libraries should not purchase their materials. EMP subsequently sued both Askey and McMaster University for libel.

This case has the potential to chill librarian and faculty activities such as providing book reviews and authoring professional blogs. As Leslie Green states in a comment about this story, “Librarians are expert at making such judgments; that’s what universities pay them to do.” If librarians are silenced in these endeavors, the academic community suffers. If the same lawsuit were brought against negative reviews in the ubiquitous Choice Reviews cards we would be left with reviews of questionable quality and authorship, subject to editing and removal.

As a science librarian, I am very concerned about detecting spurious publishers of scientific research. Many of these predatory publishers attempt to pass themselves off as legitimate open-access publishers when they are in fact vanity presses with little to no attempt at quality peer review. Not only does this bury quality research under a blizzard of questionable articles, but it has the potential to do actual harm if findings are used.

We cannot depend simply on a publisher’s inclusion in acceptable organizations to differentiate between quality and predatory publishers. Indeed, at least one of the publishers identified as a “predatory publisher” in the link above is also a member of the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association, along with respected open access groups such as BioMedCentral and BMJ Group. Therefore, it is crucial that librarians are able to publish their findings about predatory publishers for other librarians and researchers without fear of reprisal or lawsuits.

Librarians, faculty and administrators must stand up to this bullying. Academic freedom must be protected and this protection must extend to blogs when the blogging includes professional opinion and research.

One Step Forward and Two Steps Back?

There has been a troubling development in the world of news periodicals. These periodicals are moving to a less print, or online-only format, but in such a way as to leave libraries and their large readership out in the cold.  The “progress” of moving to an online-only format means that readers who depend on library subscriptions now have less or even zero access. A well-informed population is critical to a functioning democracy; all citizens should be concerned about this development.

For example, our local newspaper, the Patriot News moved to a three-day per week printing schedule and is putting most of the news into an online-only format. They tout this as providing better access to their subscribers, which is true in most situations. However, they do not have a feasible library subscription option. The Archives on their website is nearly impossible to find and has limited advanced searching features, which makes historical research more difficult. The archives content does not include photos, charts or other visual materials. Our library now only provides access to the limited three-day print. Our online subscription stops in 2009 when Patriot News pulled out of our newspaper database, Newspaper Source. Even then, coverage and indexing in this database was spotty. Unfortunately the limited print editions with no library subscription option to online content actually makes library access more difficult. Readers who depend on libraries to provide access to news have lost a valuable resource the other four days per week.

Similarly, Newsweek moved to an online-only format this month. Again, this may provide better access and content for the typical individual subscriber. In fact, I have an individual Newsweek subscription; I added the Newsweek app to my ipad, and I really love the new format! However, the publisher has not made any concessions to libraries so that we may continue providing this important news vehicle to our readers. Instead, Newsweek suggests that, like an individual subscriber, we should provide the single userid and password to our readers. I’m sure all of you know how difficult it is keeping track of one set of userid and password for a single publication for just one person…. you! Now imagine doing that for 3,000 or so students, faculty and staff on our campus! That is just one magazine. Now imagine if that were the requirement for the 50,000 periodicals to which we have access! Their suggestion is simply impossible to scale to a library setting. We do have online access to Newsweek through our Academic Search Complete database, however access is typically several weeks behind the current issue and is html-format rather than pdf-format.

These single newspapers and magazines need to consider and provide subscription options such as IP address and EXProxy access (don’t worry, my librarian and IT friends know what I mean!) to their library constituents, particularly when libraries provide open and democratic access to information for all residents. As a news provider, this should be a requirement when they move to a predominantly online or online-only format.

Moving periodicals such as newspapers and magazines from print to online formats should cause celebration in the library world. It typically allows us to provide better, broader and quicker access to important news and research materials. However, when the publisher does not provide a feasible subscription option to libraries, we really do take one step forward and two steps back.

Did the Groundhog See Its Shadow? And Other Search Queries

One search strategy tip that has made it into all of my information literacy and research strategy classes is to inform students that they cannot search library resources with an entire sentence — they need to select the major keywords from their thesis statement or question and search just those words.

This reminder comes from experience at the reference desk. Occasionally I will assist a student who is convinced that the library has no books about the research topic. I ask the student to walk me through the search process. The student goes to the library catalog or journal database, types the thesis statement into the database and proudly shows me that the library has no books or articles on the topic. For example, the library has no books about  “what are the potential benefits and risks of alternative medicine”. I gently show the student how to search just the major keywords and the abundance of information that we do have on the topic.

I was reminded of this searching strategy last February (a year ago already!). The top search on Google that day was “did the groundhog see its shadow”. Of course through searching full-text websites which had this or similar questions and answers, the user would find the answer to their simple question. It is no surprise then that a student brings this successful search strategy to complex research topics and structured databases.

In some sense, research was easier in the days of the print card catalog and Reader’s Guide Index. Students were forced to search for keywords and standard subject phrases by the very structure and nature of the physical catalog.

The question becomes do we change the resource or the user? I understand the desire to change database features to allow natural language queries. Indeed, I point to this feature in SciFinder Scholar. However, I am cautious about moving too far in this direction. I worry that we downplay how difficult good research is to complete. Do we imply that there really is a simple “google-like” answer to complex questions such as risks of specific healthcare options if we allow natural language queries rather than having students struggle through alternate keywords, subject terms and Boolean logic? Do we want students to understand the very different structure and purpose of research databases when compared to general internet search engines?

I spend time in Nursing courses teaching MeSH (medical subject heading) within PubMed searching, even in First Year nursing student levels. I know I am asking alot of them at those basic levels. I know that many of them will revert to the simple search box on the initial page. But I think (or hope?) they also walk away with a greater appreciation for the structure and complexity of knowledge.

I’m sure I will join with the rest of America on February 2 when I search Google to find the answer to whether the groundhog saw its shadow. However, I think I’ll stick to medical databases and structured searching strategies when considering the best health care options for me and my loved ones!

The sad state of withdrawn articles on the internet

About a month ago I listened to an interesting story on NPR. The story contained an interview with Joan Juliet Buck who authored an article in Vogue about Asma al-Assad, the first lady of Syria.  The story was published just before the horrendous crack down on protestors, and violation of human rights that is ongoing in that country.

What interested me about this story was that in reaction to the abuses, Vogue completely withdrew the article from its website. You can no longer read this article that may provide insight into a woman that many are calling on to protest the killings by her husband. An article in Atlantic discusses why this is a concern. According to their research, the only online copy of this article is on a pro-Assad website.

For all the controversy, the article’s author, former French Vogue editor Joan Juliet Buck, did manage to spend some one-on-one time with both Asma and Bashar al-Assad, an exclusive many journalists might have killed for. Today, as the world watches for cracks in the Assad regime and in the Assad family, Buck’s interviews are an increasingly important tool for understanding the man at the top of Syria and the woman next to him.

This brings up the issue of what happens to withdrawn articles in an online world.  I first wrote about this back in 2010.  I often see this issue in the sciences. An article is retracted because of inaccurate data. It is still indexed, with a retraction note. But the article itself is withdrawn completely with no access to the original data. In the future, researchers who want to research withdrawn or retracted medical articles will no longer be able to do so, as they have been able to in the past with print journals. We lose a bit of our legacy with each withdrawal.

As a librarian I remain very concerned about withdrawal and censorship of online information by publishers because information is no longer “popular” or accurate. Rather, I believe that accompanying editorials and notes should contextualize the material for the reader.

Valuing the Expert – A Reflection

After working on a recent EdTech502 assignment in my studies at Boise State and reviewing an assessment rubric in a committee I serve on at Messiah College, I reflected upon the evolving role and appreciation of “experts” in our society.

The recent assignment was simply creating a table in CSS code.  We were to create an activity and divide a hypothetical class into groups based on the table we created. The students would do research on websites found through the table, and then present their activity to the rest of the class. The assignment stated that we were to call the students “experts” as they went through this process of learning and presenting.  In online forum discussions, I objected to calling students “experts” so lightly, and did not do so in my assignment.

My reflection on the assignment in my learning log post also discussed this issue:

“I deliberately did not use the word “expert” in this activity. I feel it misleading to students to imply that they will become an “expert” in an advanced academic database in a small amount of time; this takes deliberate honing of skills over many years!  Instead, I think it is appropriate to help them scaffold their current knowledge to more advanced practice, without using terms such as “expert”.”

About a week after this assignment, an assessment rubric was brought for review to a committee on which I serve. I found it very interesting and timely that one aspect of the rubric was to evaluate students’ critical thinking skills and their analysis of expert/peer-reviewed research. The rubric indicated that accepting expert opinion was lower on the scale than questioning expert opinion.

I agree with this rubric overall; developing critical thinking skills as students evaluate information is a much needed skill. In the meeting, however, I questioned whether the particular scale for critical thinking should be applied as it appeared to First Year Students. First Year Students come to higher education with little to no understanding or appreciation of the scholarly review process and what makes an expert more reliable than a non-expert.  Therefore, I believe that we first need to educate students about expertise and increase their appreciation and trust of expert opinion.  Only after they understand and appreciate the scholarly process should they be assessed in ways that encourage critiquing of those same experts.

There is a substantive difference between an individual questioning an expert while they themselves have no firm understanding of what they are critiquing, and an individual questioning an expert after they have a solid appreciation for the scholarly process that created the knowledge that they are analyzing. The internet is awash in uneducated opinions that question even widely-accepted research. We should aim to develop student scholars who appreciate expert opinion and question it responsibly.