So instead, I’ll discuss all the fun and glorious things I presented on, at the conference”s poster session.

Me and my buddy Angela Hamilton (Science Librarian at York), presented our lovely poster on the topic, “Why screencasting? The benefits of interactive online tutorials”. I say it’s lovely because Angela designed it and she made it look far, far prettier than anything I’d have been able to churn out. Bravo to her.

The poster focused on our combined work creating Adobe Captivate videos, with a lit-review we did of existing articles on the topic of screencasting video use in librarians. In fact, there is a lot of interesting coverage of this topic and it informed not only the contents of our poster, but the way I approach my own video-making.

We wanted it to be interactive, so we had a laptop set up with Captivate installed, to show attendees just how easy the whole thing is. It was fun to demonstrate in about one minute how you can capture your activities on screen, and turn it into a published video. We also had another laptop set up with our finished videos running on it — videos like “How to use CINAHL” or “How to cite properly”. That was cool too, because it shows off the bell’s and whistle’s of the software, and makes us look like competent, tech-savvy lie-berrians. Which we are, of course.

If you are going to be participating in a poster session: Bring lots and lots and lots of handouts. Why do people love the handouts so much? They were like, stealing them right off the table. We ran out. Lesson learned: More handouts. We had about 40 and that wasn’t enough.

Some common questions we got asked were:

1. How much does this cost? Answer: It depends. The Adobe Captivate website has a section on their pricing for academic institutions. We generally encouraged people to download Jing or Wink first (both of which are free downloads), and get a taste for the tool, before taking the proprietary plunge.
2. How does Captivate compare to other screencasting softwares? Answer: Uh… I dunno. Heh. I use Jing at the reference desk, to make quick-’n-dirty vidoes to send to students via e-mail or chat reference, but I haven’t tried Captivate’s main competitor, Camtasia. Hopefully people were able to mosey over to our friend Alanna’s poster, where she talked about the Camtasia product. Maybe I’ll download a Camtasia trial to see how it compares.
3. Is it hard to use? Answer: It depends on what you want, and how comfortable you are with jumping into new technologies. You can take five minutes to make a video, or you can take five months. It depends more on your own goals, and you’re willingness to sink time and effort into the finished product, than on the technology itself.
4. What is the uptake like? Answer: Ah, good question. We’re trying to work out a good assessment scheme to figure out what students think of the videos, how much they use them, and how long they stay on each webpage. It’s tricky since regular Google Analytics code doesn’t work in .swf files — it’s a far more elaborate process to get the code to work on video files. So, we’ve cast evaluation and assessment of these videos as “future areas of research” (That was Angela’s idea — she’s crafty!).
5. Can I get a list of your references? Answer: Yeah, sure. They’re right here :

Anderson, R. P. et al. (2008). Topics and features of academic medical library tutorials. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 27(4), 406-418.

Anderson, R. P., & Wilson, S. P. (2009). Quantifying the effectiveness of interactive tutorials in medical library instruction. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 28(1), 10-21.

Betty, P. (2008). Creation, management, and assessment of library screencasts: The regis libraries animated tutorials project. Journal of Library Administration, 48(3-4), 295-315.

Betty, P. (2009). Assessing homegrown library collections: Using google analytics to track use of screencasts and flash-based learning objects. Journal of Electronic Resources Librarianship, 21(1), 75-92.

Kimok, D., & Heller-Ross, H. (2008). Visual tutorials for point-of-need instruction in online courses. Journal of Library Administration, 48(3-4), 527-543.

Klapperstuck, K., & Lackie, R. (2009). Cool tools for content creation: More than blogs or wikis. MultiMedia & Internet@Schools, 16(2), 12.

Kroski, E. (2009). That’s infotainment!: How to create your own screencasts. School Library Journal, 55(2), 40-42.

Liu, S., Liao, H., & Pratt, J. A. (2009). Impact of media richness and flow on E-learning technology acceptance. Computers & Education, 52(3), 599-607.

Oud, J. (2009). Guidelines for effective online instruction using multimedia screencasts. Reference Services Review, 37(2), 164-177.

Tempelman-Kluit, N. (2006). Multimedia learning theories and online instruction. College & Research Libraries, 67(4), 364-369.

Let it be known that I am not the first among my friends to undertake this type of project. My buddy Ania, as part of her practicum placement during school, got to make these BIG and REALLY COMPLEX videos. She worked at U of T’s Gerstein Library and the topics covered in her captivate projects included: Citation Tracking in Web of Science, Citation Tracking in Scopus, and Citation Tracking in Google Scholar. That’s her, talking in the audio!

I want to chat with her about how she was able to ensure the right kind of detail and context, without making them unwieldy for student use, but she is in Jasper all summer cutting wood and climbing mountains. *sigh*

And my friend Monica has also undertaken the how-to video making for the internets: She test-drove Jing, a free screen-casting software application available online, and made a video for her mom, about how to set-up a Gmail account. So cute!!

To help me in the struggle to create concise, usable videos that are neither so brief that they still leave students confused, nor so detailed that they suffer from a bad case of the TMI’s (too much information), I’ve referenced a really great article from Reference Services Review, written by Joanne Oud, entited, “Guidelines for effective online instruction using multimedia screencasts.” The article is scholarly, but provides a lot of sensible tips on how to create online videos that are sound cognitively, pedagogically, and aesthetically… i.e., that are not junk. Stuff like “giving an outline of what will happen right at the beginning” is common sense (Oud 2009), but doesn’t always make it into the final edit. So to Joanne Oud, whoever you are: Thanks for the article.

Also helping to guide my movie debut is this awesome project called ANTS: the Animated Tutorial Sharing Project. They collect screencastings that libraries all over the universe have created, and aggregate them into a single site. They have a blip.tv account called LION (Library Information literacy Online Network) where you can view all kinds of videos from all sorts of libraries, with clear instructions on how to embed videos into your own library’s website (they did the whole Creative Commons thingy so it’s legit). Particularly videos about questioning the validity of online resources: That is universal, like the sun and taxes and stuff. They’d be helpful for any library. That is to say: Let’s not reinvent the wheel, people!

And finally, let it be known that the American Psychological Association keeps up with the times: From the latest APA Style Guide to Electronic Resources under “Video Weblog post,” they have instructed us in how to cite a YouTube video:

Norton, R. (2006, November 4). How to train a cat to operate a light switch [Video file]. Video posted to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vja83KLQXZs

That is, author or video creator, date, title, and URL. And now you know!

Note that with all this video-making going on, there are grave dangers… The infamous Rick-roll being one of them. But there are ways to keep yourself safe from these attacks! Check out the instructions online. Har har har.

One of the movements sweeping the world of academic publishing is the Open Access movement. I didn’t realllly get it until I attended some sessions on the topic at the CLA Annual Conference. And then had to explain it to non-librarians (the true test of knowledge).

I had to sum up my job to parents, and in doing so, found myself explaining in the simplest terms possible, the whole “Open Access” movement. I told them this:

1) Professors make research. It is expensive! But important. So the government gives the universities money to do it.

2) Their research is brilliant! So they want to share it with others by publishing it in a journal. Also, if they don’t publish in some really prestigious journals, they don’t get tenure. Tenure is where you get some job security and a nice-sized paycheque.

3) They don’t get paid to put their work in those journals, though. It’s like getting paid to receive the Order of Canada – just being there is enough prestige.

4) Those journals have important information in them! And universities need that information so people can do research. They work with libraries to get those journals into the library collections.

5) These journals can cost tens of thousands of dollars a year. It is expensive! But important. So the government gives the universities money to do it.

You’ll note that two of these stages are the same. Open Access just seeks to cut out the last stage, so that tax payers aren’t paying for that research twice (There are a lot of other really good reasons that OA is awesome, but that’s the explanation that resonates the most with my parents. No doubt they agree with concepts related to freedom of information and a narrowing of the global digital divide, but taxes – that really gets ‘em).

A big report just came out from the Knowledge Exchange in Europe, which discusses the economic savings of Open Access policies for research bodies. Among the most interesting points is the assertion that,  “Open access or ‘author-pays’ publishing for journal articles… might bring net system savings of around EUR 70 million per annum nationally in Denmark, EUR 133 million in the Netherlands and EUR 480 million in the UK (at 2007 prices and levels of publishing activity…”.

So, beside the important ethical and technological merits of this movement, there’s an even more salient reason for institutions to pursue economic policies… And it is called the bottom line.

One is Zotero, which markets itself as a Firefox extension to help you collect, manage, and cite your research sources. It lives right where you do your work — in the web browser itself. I use it to organize my bookmarks in Firefox, since you can include tags and other metadata (we all know how much lie-berrians love the metadata). However beyond a regular bookmark organizer, there are add-ons for Microsoft Word and OpenOffice which allow you to generate auto-formatted bibliographies. Genius!

I haven’t used it for any of my papers yet, but I do like holding on to the kinds of webpages that have a habit of getting buried (i.e.: news articles or blog posts) and seeing all the stuff I have tagged for “throw cushions” or “Report on Business” in a single list (welcome to my browsing behaviours). I made a few bibliographies in Word, and it works beautifully – akin to Office 2007′s internal References functionality, but with the added benefit of being integrated right in your web brower. It’s also open source, so if you’re a coding dork – go nuts.

Another app I just downloaded is called Digsby, which is one of those integrated web-based thingys that puts all your social media crappola into one pretty list so you don’t go crazy trying to keep up with all your status updates when all you really want to do it go read a paper-based book or something.

God. The double-edged sword of social media.

Anyway, it’s really cute and it displays very clearly. I’m going to have to disable some other apps because it has those pop-up windows to notify you when something happens on facebook, myspace, twitter, msn, g-chat, etc., and THOSE pop-ups combined with my TweetDeck pop-ups, gmail pop-ups and all the other pop-ups are making my desktop a frightening, hostile place to be… Even so, it’s nice to have a single window to manage all these various programs. I think I’m sort of behind on the federated-social-media-application trend, but I thought I’d share this one in particular, since it’s cute.

I’ve shared both applications with friends, and have received positive feedback, so check it out if you’re interested!

You can also pick from a couple dozen different designs and layouts, and can add as many pages as you want. Time magazine names it one of the 50 best websites of 2007 because of its ease of use and polished look: See it here. And if Time magazine says it’s good, who am I to argue? ING is on the list too, and I love that website like a child. A child holding my entire savings.

Anyway, check out weebly if you want a user-friendly website that makes cute websites!

The UTE Project: The University of Toronto Libraries have launched an ambitious project: In collaboration with the University of Toronto Archives and the federated colleges, plans are underway for the launch of the University of Toronto Encyclopedia (UTE) – a comprehensive, multimedia compendium of photographic, sound, audiovisual and text entries related to the history and academic achievements of the University of Toronto. The UTE will exist entirely online in electronic form and once the Collections Team has created archival fonds, written entries, and amassed audiovisual materials, the Systems Team will begin the process of uploading the collection to the the information management system.

It is not certain, however, which information management product is best for its purposes and goals. The UTE has a mandate that places the user at its centre; that acts as a preservation tool for archival materials; and that has a spirit of continual growth – that is, the collection is constantly expanding as U of T’s history is constantly evolving. A Task Force of programmers, user services librarians and archivists has been assigned to review a host of digital repository systems to determine which is best for the UTE’s needs. The project’s modest budget has precipitated the decision to investigate open source digital repositories as a means to easing the costs a proprietary software package would present. Fedora Commons is one open source digital repository which has shown great potential for the UTE project.

Problems with Open Source: There are, however, some significant disadvantages to open source software that the Task Force must consider. Open source software systems do not benefit from the same level of responsiveness and accountability that proprietary software companies provide, should there be problems (Poynder, 2001). The Systems Team will be responsible for ensuring that staff training in the implementation and maintenance of the system becomes an on-going priority. Fedora has several support tools including a wiki and discussion boards, and has partnered with a corporate information services company called Visionary Technology in Library Solutions, to offer training and support services (VTLS 2007). By subscribing to VTLS frugally, UTE can continue to enjoy the cost advantage of open source, while still reaping the benefits of a formal Fedora support contract.

Another criticism of open source technologies is that it is accompanied by weak documentation. Because there is no contractual obligation on the part of the developers to provide an explicit manual for use, open source documentation often acts more as a general guide that lacks concise instruction (Levesque, 2005). Fedora documentation is further testament to this, with some areas lacking the specificity the Systems Team may need for complex deployments (Moynes, 2007). Consultation with the Team will determine whether training can offset this weakness.

Open Source projects are further criticized because their interface designs are created by programmers who do not consider the use patterns and knowledge of the general public. The UTE audience is comprised largely of non-technical users – the public, students and researchers – who will depend on a clear interface to effectively access information. Proprietary software companies that have both capital and a vested interest in maintaining a large user-base, will ensure that a product interface is user-friendly for the general public (Levesque, 2005). Fedora has largely overcome this challenge in an evaluative setting, and as is illustrated with projects like the Encyclopedia of Chicago and The National Science Digital Library (Encyclopedia of Chicago, 2007; NSDL, 2007; Dion et al., 2006).

Fedora and the UTE: The aim of the University of Toronto Encyclopedia is to act as an educational tool as well as an archive. Its digital format allows for expression of information in a context-rich, relational environment that understands the research patterns and knowledge of its users (Dion et al., 2006). As well, UTE will ensure that the preservation of materials into a digital format will not dramatically compromise context, but will significantly increase accessibility and preservation (ODLIS, 2006). In order to decide which digital repository system is best suited to this mandate, the Task Force will assess three key aspects of design: Usability, preservability and expandability.

The UTE is dedicated to placing the user at the centre of its mandate. This project will only prove its value if individuals can exploit its digital format to create a rich educational experience that will perpetuate a community of use, learning and participation. In measuring usability, researchers point to Fedora’s flexibility in customizing the system’s interface to suit the needs of different digital projects. As well, Fedora supports multilingual access, which is important particularly in the Canadian context (between English and French), and with regard to the increasingly multicultural make-up of the U of T community (Dion et al., 2006).

Fedora is notable for its ability to create relationships between entries, so that users can contextualize their research within a larger collection of information (Fedora Website, 2007; Dion et al., 2006). Using the Encyclopedia of Chicago website as a model, one can see the complex relationships Fedora supports between entries of varying media: A map of a Chicago neighborhood links to census information for that district, to press articles related to the district, to photographs depicting that area, and to other related maps (Encyclopedia of Chicago, 2007). This feature is an exciting prospect for the UTE Team, because of the creative possibilities it affords information management and accessibility.

Another characteristic of the UTE will be the ability to support the needs of archival materials (Dion et al., 2006). Among the literature, Fedora is acknowledged for its sophisticated approach to preservation, and has features that are unique among open source digital repositories. It allows multiple versions for a digital object. For example, maps of the U of T campus will change dramatically over time. Buildings are torn down and built, and the UTE entry for “Map of the University of Toronto” will constantly have to be updated. With Fedora’s versioning feature, however, a user can see previous versions for the same entry; that is, maps from 2005, 2002 and so forth. Another important element of preservation is the issue of technological migration. By supporting several metadata standards, including emerging schema that is normally neglected by open source digital repositories, Fedora has made significant efforts to ensure quality control through the provision of a holistic digital preservation strategy – unique among comparable products (ODLIS, 2007; Han 2004).

As the collection grows, UTE’s technological architecture must have the features to support this expansion. Once the UTE project is deployed though, the formal Systems Team will disband, and entries will be entered by a variety of faculty and library volunteers. They will not be technically proficient, so ease of expandability is paramount to the sustained success of the project. Evaluations show that Fedora does not allow for easy addition of data objects – this procedure requires knowledge of code and an ability to clearly define input parameters. Automation of such processes are minimal, and this will undoubtedly cause problems once the Systems Team is no longer available for assistance (Arms, 2000). Fedora has great flexibility in terms of the possibilities it has as an information management application, which works well for a team with in-depth knowledge of its architecture (Staples, 2007). Once again, if UTE can secure a member of the U of T community to become proficient in this program, this may not be a significant issue, and could even be beneficial as entries diversity.

Conclusions: There are many open source information management systems that have differing strengths and weaknesses depending on the mandate of those that help to create them. With a limited budget, UTE would benefit greatly from the cost-effectiveness of an open source program. Fedora is certainly a quality product that has much to offer in terms of a user-friendly front end and key technological features for digital preservation. The deciding factor in whether UTE choses this package will be the availability of technically proficient programmers who can become well-trained in Fedora and who can offer sustained support beyond production. Should the UTE Team agree to this support however, there is significant opportunity due to the creativity afforded by Fedora’s flexible foundation.