American Libraries: Technology in Practice

The Guide on the Side

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 15:32:33 +0000

By Meredith Farkas

Incorporating active learning into online instruction

Many librarians have embraced the use of active learning in their teaching. Moving away from lectures and toward activities that get students using the skills they’re learning can lead to more meaningful learning experiences. It’s one thing to tell someone how to do something, but to have them actually do it themselves, with expert guidance, makes it much more likely that they’ll be able to do it later on their own.

Replicating that same “guide on the side” model online, however, has proven difficult. Librarians, like most instructors, have largely gone back to a lecture model of delivering instruction. Certainly it’s a great deal more difficult to develop active learning exercises, or even interactivity, in online instruction, but many of the tools and techniques that have been embraced by librarians for developing online tutorials and other learning objects do not allow students to practice what they’re learning while they’re learning. While some software for creating screencasts—video tutorials that film activity on one’s desktop—include the ability to create quizzes or interactive components, users can’t easily work with a library resource and watch a screencast at the same time.

In 2000, the reference desk staff at the University of Arizona was looking for an effective way to build web-based tutorials to embed in a class that had resulted in a lot of traffic at the reference desk. Not convinced of the efficacy of traditional tutorials to instruct students on using databases, the librarians “began using a more step-by-step approach where students were guided to perform specific searches and locate specific articles,” Instructional Services Librarian Leslie Sult told me. The students were then assessed on their ability to conduct searches in the specific resources assigned. Later, Sult, Mike Hagedon, and Justin Spargur of the library’s scholarly publishing and data management team, turned this early active learning tutorial model into Guide on the Side software.

Guide on the Side is an interface that allows librarians at all levels of technological skill to easily develop a tutorial that resides in an online box beside a live web page students can use. Students can read the instructions provided by the librarian while actively using a database, without needing to switch between screens. This allows students to use a database while still receiving expert guidance, much like they could in the classroom.

A great example of Guide on the Side is this tutorial University of Arizona librarians created for JSTOR (http://bit.ly/zA9DCf). The tutorial not only provides help locating and using the database, but it also gets patrons actively using the database and answering questions about it. Having the tutorial right beside the student is reassuring and convenient, giving him or her experience using the database with help easily accessible.

The moment I saw a Guide on the Side, I was convinced this was a model we should adopt at my own university for database instruction. It’s so much simpler than the multimedia tutorials many librarians have been developing, yet it may be a much better way to actually teach students how to use library resources. The team at the University of Arizona plans to provide the code for Guide on the Side through GitHub (github.com) in early summer so that other institutions can benefit from their innovation.

This project is also an excellent example of what is possible when teaching librarians and technology librarians and staff collaborate to find solutions to common instructional problems. “Many University of Arizona instructional librarians have contributed to helping shape the design and pedagogical approach over the years,” Sult said. “The effort and input of members of the team is a major factor in the campus success of the current iteration.”

MEREDITH FARKAS is head of instructional services at Portland (Oreg.) State University. She is also part-time faculty at San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science. She blogs at Information Wants to Be Free and created Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. Contact her at librarysuccess[at]gmail.com.

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Click Here to Engage

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 16:05:44 +0000

March/April 2012

By Meredith Farkas

Classroom response systems ease discussion and assessment

Librarians who teach are always looking for ways to get patrons more actively engaged in instruction sessions. Research has shown that active learning can have positive effects on student learning and certainly helps to get students to reflect on the application of what they’re learning. In large lecture classes, most active learning exercises simply aren’t feasible, making it difficult to avoid the “sage on the stage” model of teaching. In addition to active learning, librarians also frequently seek simple ways to assess learning so they can improve their teaching.

Instructors are increasingly turning to classroom response systems as a way to get students actively engaged in class and collect useful feedback or assessment data. Classroom response technologies allow faculty to poll classes and get anonymous aggregate responses. Polling can be useful as formative assessment to tailor instruction to where students currently are, or as summative assessment to get a sense of how well the class learning outcomes were achieved. Librarians use classroom polling tools as icebreakers, for pre- and post-tests, and to get feedback on their teaching.

The most common classroom response system is the clicker, a small remote control–like device that sends student responses wirelessly to the instructor’s receiver and then displays them on a slide. Clickers are a popular option for collecting student feedback, but they require a financial outlay that many libraries can’t afford or may not want to make without knowing if clickers are a good fit. Fortunately, there are tools that allow libraries to create classroom response activities for free, capitalizing on technologies the students already have with them.

Poll Everywhere is free online polling software that allows students to use text messaging or a web form to answer questions during class. The answers, in aggregate, are updated in real time on a PowerPoint slide or the website itself. Poll Everywhere can provide valuable feedback for the instructor and opportunities for students to be active and share their thoughts during the session. Since there is also a web-based interface for responses, Poll Everywhere can be used in schools where cellphones are banned.

The librarians at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, experimented with Poll Everywhere and found that not only did it open up valuable opportunities for classroom discussion but that students were excited by the novelty. Emerging Technologies Librarian and Information Tyrannosaur blogger Andy Burkhardt said of the trial, “It gives people a sense of control and people appreciate when they are asked for their opinion. It’s not simply someone telling them what to think.”

However, polling doesn’t enable students to provide individualized feedback or ask questions. Some faculty members have used Twitter as a classroom backchannel for student comments or questions, but it’s less than ideal since many students don’t want to mix their personal Twitter accounts with schoolwork, and don’t want to broadcast their classroom responses to the world.

Wiffiti is another free technology for capturing the classroom backchannel. Wiffiti creates a digital pinboard to which people can add comments anonymously via a web form, text message, or via Twitter with a hashtag. All of the messages show up on the board, which can be embedded on a website or digital display. Wiffiti can be used for collecting student feedback about the lecture throughout the class, or individual screens can be used for getting answers to specific discussion questions. It could even be used for students to provide answers to problem-based classroom activities. Anonymous response systems like Wiffiti can give students who feel uncomfortable asking questions and taking part in classroom discussions the confidence to share their ideas and questions without speaking publicly.

Of course, classroom response systems aren’t the only option for incorporating active learning into instruction, but they can be useful tools for meeting certain pedagogical goals. Sounds pretty engaging!

MEREDITH FARKAS is head of instructional services at Portland (Oreg.) State University. She is also part-time faculty at San José State University School of Library and Information Science. She blogs at Information Wants to Be Free and created Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. Contact her at librarysuccess[at]gmail.com.

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Providing the Tools

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:05:16 +0000

January/February 2012

By Meredith Farkas

Bringing digital creation technologies to libraries

In the 1990s, libraries were pioneers in providing access to the internet in their communities. Even today, libraries are the only place some community members can get online. Over the past few years, libraries have begun positioning themselves as the go-to place for digital creation technologies, providing hardware and software that most people wouldn’t have at home. By providing these creative tools to their patrons, libraries fill a valuable niche in the community, a niche consistent with their historical commitment to bridging gaps in technology access.

In many places, DIY and its tech-focused outgrowth, maker culture, are strongly embedded in the fabric of the community. Some libraries have sought to support these movements by circulating tools to patrons, but few are now enabling fabrication work to happen in the library itself. Recently, Fayetteville (N.Y.) Free Library began developing a FabLab where patrons will have access to a 3-D printer that creates computer-designed plastic pieces, along with a router and laser cutter; the equipment will allow patrons to bring their product-design ideas to reality.

Libraries can also help patrons by purchasing hardware and software that are not quite so bleeding edge. There are many people with an interest in digital media who simply can’t afford the high-end tools that would allow them to create a quality product. Professional video and audio recording hardware, mixing boards, and video editing software like Final Cut Pro would enable them to create movies, podcasts, music, book trailers, and so much more. Tools like Adobe InDesign and Photoshop allow patrons to create professional-looking print publications that are a far cry from the handmade and photocopied zines that were so popular in the 1990s. Skokie (Ill.) Public Library has built a digital media lab where anyone can come in and experiment with these creative technologies.

A growing number of libraries design such spaces and services specifically for teens. The YOUmedia lab at the Chicago Public Library, often cited as a model for the creation of digital library labs, provides teens with digital video and audio production equipment and classes to learn how to use them. Some libraries even lend equipment like video cameras so patrons can record elsewhere and come back to the library to edit and create a final product. Providing services like these makes it clear to young people that libraries are about so much more than books.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services is providing funds to support libraries in developing spaces for digital creation and learning for teens. Where I live, the Multnomah County (Oreg.) Library and Oregon Museum of Science and Industry received a grant to develop a Community Maker Center. Other libraries and museums will be building spaces and providing technologies that enable creative digital media production and expertise-building for young people.

Slides in the attic?

Many people have media at home in formats they perhaps can’t even view or listen to anymore. At the Lexington (Ky.) Public Library, patrons can convert old VHS tapes to DVD and audiocassettes to CD. The library also offers access to a slide scanner where people can digitize their old slides. Most people aren’t going to buy hardware they’ll soon have no use for, so providing access to such tools can give old family photos and movies new life.

This is an exciting time to reenvision what a library should provide to its community and think strategically about what services your patrons will find particularly valuable. Offering access to digital-media technologies that enable patrons to develop creative products provides a valuable service to a large and diverse constituency who, in most cases, could not access it anywhere else.

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Information Literacy 2.0

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:09:34 +0000

November / December 2011

By Meredith Farkas

Critical inquiry in the age of social media

Ideas about information literacy have always adapted to changes in the information environment. The birth of the web made it necessary for librarians to shift more towards teaching search strategies and evaluation of sources. The tool-focused “bibliographic instruction” approach was later replaced by the skill-focused “information literacy” approach. Now, with the growth of Web 2.0 technologies, we need to start shifting towards providing instruction that will enable our patrons to be successful information seekers in the Web 2.0 environment, where the process of evaluation is quite a bit more nuanced.

Critical inquiry skills are among the most important in a world in which the half-life of information is rapidly shrinking. These days, what you know is almost less important than what you can find out. And finding out today requires a set of skills that are very different from what most libraries focus on. In addition to academic sources, a huge wealth of content is being produced by people every day in knowledgebases like Wikipedia, review sites like Trip Advisor, and in blogs. Some of this content is legitimate and valuable—but some of it isn’t.

Keeping up and being able to find the latest information is an important skill that requires not only good search skills, but also good networking skills. In our own profession, it’s impossible to be well-informed about every aspect of librarianship. I focus my own professional development on areas most relevant to my current position, but there are times when I need expertise I simply don’t possess. This is where the axiom “I store my knowledge in my friends” comes into play. Because I have successfully built a professional network, I have a large group of friends with diverse knowledge whom I can rely on when I find my own knowledge is insufficient for a particular task. While networking is an important aspect of information literacy, it is rarely taught as part of information literacy instruction.

Years ago, it was often difficult to find enough information on a research topic, a product you wanted to buy, or a hotel at which you were considering making a reservation. Now we are in an age of such information abundance that the problem is not finding information, but determining which information is worth relying upon. An August 19 New York Times article, “In a Race to Out-Rave, 5-Star Web Reviews Go for $5,” discussed the growth of commercial services that are paid to create glowing reviews. After discovering that most people couldn’t tell the difference between real and fake reviews, researchers at Cornell started to work on a computer algorithm that could. While we may not always be able to distinguish real from fake, we should at least learn the clues that will help make that determination.

Academia is not immune to problems with quality and accuracy, challenging the assumption that articles that make it through the peer-review process can be trusted. The proliferation of peer-reviewed journals and pressure to publish from the tenure system have led to the publication of studies whose conclusions cannot be relied upon or are downright fraudulent. A September 15 Guardian (UK) article, “Publish or Perish: Peer Review and the Corruption of Science,” railed against a system that leads to the publication of worthless scientific studies with poor research design that come to conclusions hardly supported by the results. Given this, we all need to look beyond the headlines and evaluate research design before trusting conclusions.

Information literacy instruction should be focused on helping people develop skills that will benefit them in answering questions and informing decision-making throughout their lives, not just for their next paper. Therefore, it’s critical that we develop instruction that supports critical inquiry in this extremely complex information environment.

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Open Source, Open Mind

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 19:22:13 +0000

September/October 2011

Meredith Farkas

Evaluating open source and proprietary software

I’ve been a big advocate of open source software since I learned about the model of software licensing and development 10 years ago. I am a big believer that many minds produce great things, so the idea that a community of users would develop and improve software to the benefit of the community really appealed to me. Open source is often a great solution for cash-strapped libraries that can adopt tools like Open Office for free instead of paying for Microsoft Office licenses on all of their computers.

When I was asked to be on a task force at my new place of work that would be evaluating platforms for creating course and subject guides, I wanted to look at every open source option available, including systems like Drupal that are not specifically designed for guide creation. I would never have predicted that, at the end of our evaluation phase, I would be strongly advocating software that was proprietary and would cost the library money for an annual subscription. It wasn’t that I’d changed my mind about open source software, but that this was clearly the best fit for our library.

Here were some of the elements that figured into my decision and are worth considering any time you are evaluating open source options:

How robust is the open source project? Some open source projects, like Koha, have a strong community of open source developers who are improving the code for their libraries and are then contributing that code back to the community. Other open source projects are solely developed by one library or even one person. It’s important to consider what would happen if you adopted a piece of software that was later abandoned by the person or library developing it. Do you have the in-house expertise to continue developing it as technologies change?

What is the support like? I remember trying to install a piece of open source software built by another library years ago and ended up abandoning the project because the documentation was so scarce and I didn’t have the technological expertise to figure it out myself. Does the software you are looking to install have robust documentation? Is there a community of users online who are happy to answer questions and help when things just aren’t working for you? This isn’t to say that support is not also a concern with proprietary software; plenty of software companies provide really terrible tech support.

Do you have the expertise and time on-staff to make the software work for your library? Some open source tools, like Open Office, work right out of the box so this is not an issue and others will meet your needs in their native form and so won’t require any customization. However, if the software will not meet your needs out of the box, do you have staff with both the expertise and the time to customize it? This may also be a concern with proprietary software, as some options may require more customization.

What are your time constraints? If you are trying to launch something within a pretty tight time frame, you need to choose a piece of software that will not require a lot of development or customization. Depending on which is the less work-intensive option, that could mean either open source or proprietary software.

I’m still a big believer in open source software, but I don’t want to see libraries choosing software solely for philosophical reasons. Given the investment of time that some technology projects require, it’s imperative that libraries choose the best tool for the job based on their specific requirements and limitations.

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Tutorials That Matter

Beverly Goldberg — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 13:30:23 +0000

July/August 2011

Learning objects in the library instruction program

Over the past decade, a large number of academic libraries have created online learning objects for their patrons. Whether it was a basic guide on doing research or a suite of tutorials for every database and topic, there has been growing recognition that learning objects are an important way to instruct patrons at their point of need. Tutorials range from PDF versions of paper handouts, to static HTML tutorials, to video screencasts that visually demonstrate searches, to fully interactive tutorials that allow patrons to practice what they’ve learned.

At many libraries, online instruction sits outside of any integrated instruction program—more as an add-on than an integral part of the instructional mission. Academic librarians work to ensure that face-to-face instruction is tied to specific class work so that students can immediately practice their new skills, making the learning more sticky. Many learning objects are not designed for specific classes nor are they designed in collaboration with faculty members teaching in relevant areas. Many also sit on the library website, not in online classrooms, and, as a result, many who would benefit never find them.

Less and more

Perhaps this is because many do not see online instruction as something that can be as powerful and effective as face-to-face instruction. Online instruction should not be seen as less-than, but as another excellent way to impact student learning that has its own pros and cons. With online instruction, instead of trying to cram as much information as possible into a single one-shot, librarians can design instructional modules that can be assigned to students at logical points in their learning. Online instruction doesn’t need to take up valuable class time, perhaps making it a more attractive option to faculty whose syllabi are already packed with content. Instead of designing a one-size-fits-all instruction session, librarians can create multiple experiences that appeal to different learning styles. Students can also customize their learning experience, focusing more on topics they don’t understand and skimming areas in which they are already proficient.

In the short term, creating learning objects requires a great deal of time and effort. It takes longer to create a polished tutorial—especially ones incorporating video and/or audio—than it does to prep for and teach a face-to-face class. Librarians must ensure that tutorials are ADA-compliant and students find them usable and useful. On the other hand, once an online learning object is designed for a class, it may only require minimal editing in the future. At libraries where demand for instruction is outpacing growth in instructional staff, it makes sense for librarians to consider alternatives to the face-to-face instruction model.

Integration inspiration

Some libraries are already integrating online instruction into disciplinary curricula. For example, librarians at North Carolina State University developed a Library Online Basic Orientation, or LOBO, which contains a suite of learning objects designed to teach English 101 students about the research process. Not only is it modular, but each tutorial comes with lesson plans and suggestions for how faculty can integrate it into their classes. This way, faculty can assign specific pieces of LOBO to students at logical times in their research process and can assess their understanding of the concepts through discussion or an assignment. While it’s nice for students to meet and talk to a librarian, it’s not always feasible, nor is the one-shot always the best model for promoting lasting learning.

Librarians today have an unprecedented number of options for providing online instruction to students. However, to ensure that the learning objects we create have the desired impact, we need to work to integrate them into disciplinary curricula, making them an integral part of our instruction program.

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Too Much Information?

Beverly Goldberg — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:25:33 +0000

May/June 2011

by Meredith Farkas

Navigating the privacy expectation continuum

I have many friends who use the mobile location-based networking site Foursquare to broadcast exactly where they are at various points during their day using the GPS on their phone. In my Twitter feed, I see posts stating that one friend is at a conference, another is out to lunch, and another is at the grocery store. With all due respect to those friends, not only can I not envision who would want to know that I’m at the grocery store, but I don’t think I’d want the world to know where I am at all times. The universe of what I am comfortable sharing doesn’t extend that far.

Some might argue that we’re in a post-privacy world, but I’ve seen the opposite end of the spectrum as well. I’ve had students in my Web 2.0 class at San José State University’s School of Library and Information Science who are unwilling to create an account on Facebook because they are concerned about sharing any personal information online. I also know people who are happy to share information about themselves online, but never post anything about their children. The continuum of comfort with sharing online is vast, and the people I know represent just about every point on that continuum.

Social media has rapidly blurred the boundaries between private and public, but we live in a world where people have widely varying expectations of and desires for privacy. There is no right or wrong in people’s comfort with sharing. Problems emerge, however, when our lives collide at conferences, in the library, and in social situations. In those moments, the person who broadcasts every aspect of his or her life, which others are certainly a part of, might just violate the privacy of someone in a very different place on that sharing continuum.

At ALA Midwinter, a board member set up a video and audio stream of the Library and Information Technology Association's board meeting. It was an open meeting, of course, but a number of participants were uncomfortable with video streaming for a variety of reasons (privacy, the fact that it had not been discussed in advance, etc.) and the stream was shut down. While I am a vigorous advocate of open meetings being made accessible to members who cannot afford to attend conferences, I also agree that this should be done with the knowledge of everyone who will be attending those meetings so they can make an informed decision regarding their participation.

Librarians have always had a role in protecting the privacy of their patrons—sometimes even going to court over it. As our libraries have moved into the social media world, so have our responsibilities to protect patron privacy. Libraries are sharing pictures of events on Flickr, asking patrons to comment on blogs and Facebook pages, and using third-party sites to extend their reach. It’s important that libraries protect the privacy of their patrons in these spaces, both by examining the privacy policies of any sites they’re using that patrons might contribute to and by educating patrons about online privacy. Our educational role is especially valuable when working with teens who may not understand the long-term consequences of posting sensitive information about themselves online.

In spite of what Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook may say, privacy is not dead, and certainly not when it comes to the relationship between a library and its patrons. Life would certainly be easier if we all had the same boundaries when it comes to sharing information online, but in the complex social media environment we all navigate, we must strive to be cognizant and respectful of the boundaries of others.

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Let’s Not Borrow Trouble

Beverly Goldberg — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 22:10:38 +0000

March/April 2011

By Meredith Farkas

E-book collection development requires new considerations

At my library, I’m in charge of collection development for our largest academic division. Sometimes I find the task daunting as I struggle to find a balance between buying things that will likely get used today and anticipating what might be needed in the future. The choices I make will influence the long-term health of our collection and I feel the weight of that—especially when I’m making decisions about e-books.

I’ve been getting more and more requests from faculty for specific works in e-book format. We’ve purchased several e-book collections, but the most recent requests have been for individual works. While I know some libraries are already moving toward entirely electronic reference collections, these requests give me pause because there are so many issues to consider in a market that is operating atop shifting sands. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t act, but we should fully understand the issues before making any decisions.

With the growth of the e-book market, librarians involved in collection development not only need to be subject-matter experts, but they also need to be savvy about a variety of technological, legal, and business issues surrounding e-books. Here are just a few things librarians should consider when making decisions about e-books and collections:

How will patrons find the book(s)? Some e-book vendors provide MARC records, while others force patrons to search their own system to find books. How will we make it easy for patrons to understand the variety of options in our physical and digital collections and different ways to access each?
What devices can a patron use to read the book(s)? I can order and read a book on my Kindle at the click of a button. This is not the case with e-books provided by libraries. Some e-book collections can easily be read on mobile devices in PDF format or with an app, some require a complicated hack to get them to work, and others do not work on mobile devices or e-readers at all. Also, different e-readers read different book formats; interoperability is almost nonexistent.
Is this accessible? Beyond the topic of interoperability, it’s critically important that every library investigate whether its e-book offerings are ADA-compliant.
Will the vendor’s digital rights management interfere with legitimate use? Patrons want to be able to download books and read them offline. They want to be able to print portions to take to class (or the beach). Some vendors make these things impossible in the name of protecting rights-holders, while others have managed to protect copyright and still allow patrons to use e-books however they wish.
What about ILL? Interlibrary loan is a critical part of the work of libraries and allows us to offer so much more to patrons than we could provide on our own. What does ILL look like in the e-book world when currently only a very small number of e-book vendors allow for any sort of interlibrary loan?
How do you browse an e-book collection? No matter how good our library search engines become, browsing is still an important part of the discovery process, and this is not something that has been replicated well online. Many possibilities exist, but it’s difficult to imagine an easily browsable collection of various e-book platforms and print works.

Over the past year, the e-book market has exploded and blissful ignorance about the impact of e-books on libraries is no longer an option for any librarian involved in making collection decisions. We must keep up with the electronic publishing world, the e-reader market, and the online reading habits of our patrons in order to make the best possible decisions for our patrons and the health of our collections.

MEREDITH FARKAS, who has been head of instructional initiatives at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, becomes head of instructional services at Portland (Oreg.) State University April 1. She is also part-time faculty at San José State University School of Library and Information Science. She blogs at Information Wants to Be Free and created Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. Contact her at librarysuccess[at]gmail.com.

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Keeping Up, 2.0 Style

Beverly Goldberg — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 15:14:41 +0000

January/February 2011

Meredith Farkas

Current awareness through RSS

When I first received my library degree, I religiously kept up with blogs and journals in my areas of professional interest. I’d read blogs through an RSS reader—in my case, Google Reader—and I’d try to remember to read the journals I was most interested in when they came out. Now, as the mother of a toddler, I’m lucky if I can remember to put my socks on before leaving the house. It is a pipe dream to think I could remember to look up the latest issues of my favorite professional journals. I started to find that while I was still keeping up with blogs, I was missing a lot of what was coming out in the scholarly literature of our profession. If it wasn’t linked to from a blog post, I probably didn’t know about it.

Luckily, over the past few years, it’s become possible to subscribe to the vast majority of library and library-related journals through RSS readers as well. An RSS feed is basically a tool for subscribing to web content that is updated periodically so you don’t have to remember to visit the websites it came from. Once you find an RSS feed for content you want to follow, simply copy its URL into the tool you use to read RSS feeds (RSS reader, e-mail client, personalized start page, ticker, etc.). When new content is posted to that website, it will be delivered to you. Now, you can follow the professional conversation through blogs, trade journals, scholarly journals, and more all in one place.

There’s a feed for that

When I’m looking to keep up with a specific journal, I will first check to see if it’s available through a database my library subscribes to. The majority of database vendors (such as EBSCO, ProQuest, and Elsevier) provide RSS feeds that will deliver the most recent tables of contents of journals in their database to your reader. Unless the journal’s articles are freely available online, it’s best to get an RSS feed from a database in which the journal is available in full text because you’ll be able to access the article simply by clicking on a link in the RSS feed. If you do not have a database that provides RSS feeds of that journal or your library doesn’t subscribe to it, you can also frequently find table of contents RSS feeds on the website of the journal publisher. For example, the RSS feed for this column is available on the American Libraries website.

Some people may be more interested in following a topic than a specific journal. For example, I’m very focused on information literacy instruction and articles on that topic are published in a great variety of journals. Some databases, especially those from larger vendors, also make it possible to subscribe to search feeds. You create a search query that gets you the sort of results you’re looking for and then subscribe to the RSS feed for that search. Whenever a new article is published that meets your search criteria, it will be sent to you. This allows you to keep current on just those specific topics you’re most interested in.

We are bombarded with so much information these days that any content that isn’t right in our faces will likely be missed. This is why RSS is so valuable; it allows us to choose exactly what types of information we want to find and what sources we want to follow, and have all that delivered to us on a regular basis. The real antidote to information overload is having a well-defined current awareness strategy that fits into your workflow.

MEREDITH FARKAS is head of instructional initiatives at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, and part-time faculty at San José State University School of Library and Information Science. She blogs at Information Wants to Be Free and created Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. Contact her at librarysuccess[at]gmail.com.

Read the Fine Print

Beverly Goldberg — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:00:00 +0000

November / December 2010

Meredith Farkas

Think twice before you click “accept”

There probably isn’t a person alive who’s read the Terms of Service (TOS) of every technology or service they use. Those TOS statements are usually quite long and full of boilerplate legalese that any company must include. When you’re quickly trying to load and use new software, reading a TOS statement is not a priority, so most of us just click “accept” and move on.

Terms of Service or Terms of Use statements usually include rules about what you can do with a company’s software, service, or product and what they can do with your content or information. You tacitly agree to abide by those terms when you use their product. Sometimes, the terms impact how a library can use a technology or give a company broad rights to content that you or your patrons have created. Libraries should be cognizant of the contracts that govern software, services, and products they use and how they may impact patrons.

A number of public and academic libraries have begun using the popular mail and streaming video service Netflix to provide videos for their patrons. On the surface it sounds like a brilliant idea: For a small amount of money each month, you can provide to patrons a DVD catalog that is significantly larger than what any library could purchase. However, according to Netflix’s Terms of Use, “use of the Netflix service … is solely for your personal and non-commercial use.” This indicates that use of the Netflix service by an institution to circulate videos to their service population is a violation of their contract.

“We appreciate libraries and we value them, but we expect that they follow the terms of agreement,” Steve Swasey, Netflix’s vice president of corporate communications, said in the September 18 Chronicle of Higher Education, emphasizing that the firm does not offer institutional subscriptions and “frowns upon” libraries loaning Netflix DVDs or video stream to faculty members to share with students.

Amazon.com has similar personal use restrictions regarding the use of digital content on the Kindle eBook reader, and yet a number of libraries are loaning out Kindles full of eBooks. While Netflix and Amazon probably wouldn’t want the bad press that could come from suing libraries for violating the terms of their contracts, most school districts, colleges and universities, companies, and municipalities would not want their libraries putting them at risk.

Libraries today utilize a variety of online tools to have conversations, get feedback, and collect knowledge from their users. Patrons are adding book reviews to library blogs, putting photos on library Flickr accounts, and commenting on library blogs and Facebook pages. When software lives on a library’s server, the library has the control and ability to protect patron information. When the library uses a hosted service like Facebook, PBWorks, or Blogger, the library has far less control over how their patrons’ information is stored and used.

Many Web 2.0 companies have Terms of Service and privacy policies that make it clear that users own their content and it cannot be used in other ways by the company. However, other firms make claims on user content or constantly change their privacy settings, leaving previously private content open to all. Libraries have fought for decades to protect the privacy of their patrons’ information offline and patrons trust the library to do the same for them on the web. It is critical that we are aware of how patron content will be protected before encouraging users to contribute to a website.

New digital technologies have opened up many possibilities for libraries, but they have made the work of contract compliance and protecting patron privacy more difficult. When considering deploying a new technology in a library, it is imperative that the organization understands the rules they are agreeing to abide by. When something is unclear, simply contact the company and ask, getting any special permission in writing. This will ensure that libraries don’t make costly investments of time and money in a technology they ultimately cannot use for legal reasons.

Meredith Farkas is head of instructional initiatives at Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, and part-time faculty at San José State University School of Library and Information Science. She blogs at Information Wants to Be Free and created Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki. Contact her at librarysuccess[at]gmail.com.