Outreach in Reference Services: Capitalizing in Emerging Technologies Columbia Reference Symposium March 10, 2005 Kathryn Shaughnessy Instructional Services

Outreach in Reference Services:Capitalizing in Emerging Technologies

Columbia Reference Symposium

March 10, 2005

Kathryn Shaughnessy

Instructional Services Librarian

Reference Outreach: the Mission

University’s Mission:• Leveraging Technology

– Academic Computing Initiative – Infrastructure– St. John’s Portal and WebCT CMS

• Social Justice• Student Engagement

Reference Mission:• Instruction• Information Literacy• Outreach to Faculty• Equity of service for DL & on-campus

Reference Outreach: the Mission plan

Using technological innovations for outreach:

• RSS• Podcasts• Wikis• Blogs

Need to research, build up skills/resources

Outreach by modeling use of the technologies

Reference Outreach: the Mission Allies

Allies in the developing Outreach innovations

– Library faculty & Staff– E-services department– DLIS– Distance Learning– Center for Teaching and Learning

Reference Outreach: RSS

RSS is…Rich Site SummaryReally Simple Syndication

A growing method of delivering text & audio information– Time-shifted or real-time notification of web-site update– Self-selected or personalized syndication

• An informational broadcast in “lite-XML” or RDF

• Users access RSS feeds at their convenience via aggregator or Feed-reader


RSS timeline…• 1997: Dave Winer (Userland) develops “scriptingNews” format

• 1999: Userland & Netscape “RSS0.91” continue to develop and improve upon formatting versions, simplifying and standardizing the XML

• 2000: RSS 1.0 developed by Dornfest (O’Reilly) using RDF and namespaces; DW/USerland develop xml version of “RSS 0.92”

• 2002: MetaWeblog API uses Winer’s RSS 0.92 with XML-RPC for Blogging delivery; DW designs xml-based RSS 2.0

• 2003: RSS 2.0 Specs released through Harvard under a Creative Commons license

• 2004: “iPodders” search for a way to retrieve old blogs and audiofiles – develop RSS (Winer) and podcast software (Curry) for podcast delivery

From RSS at Harvard Law, by Dave Winer & Hobson & Holtz


RSS evolution …

• News delivery

• Website updates

• Blogging : Personal / information sharing

• Podcast delivery

• Education & Research


RSS for Professional Development and Informed Outreach

Put together training program on RSS, readers and provided some basic pertinent feeds:

• RSS feeds from Professional Associations:

ACRLog: http://acrlblog.org/index.php?feed=rss2

• RSS feeds from Professional Journal-Blogs

Library Journal Tech Blog: http://www.libraryjournal.com/LJTechblog.xml

• RSS feeds from other practicing librarians

Stephen Bell (Academic) : http://keptup.typepad.com/academic/atom.xml

• RSS feeds from Vendors/Innovators

OCLC Lorcan Blog: http://orweblog.oclc.org/index.xml


Developing RSS in St. John’s Libraries for Outreach

– Feeds for finding/compiling podcast lectures

– Scholarly Communication/Open Access journal updates

– Library News/Program updates (webpage)

– New book updates (OPAC)

– ProQuest (Currently Business) & Ebsco (in Development)

– Information sharing among professionals


Practical Questions:

– Investment of Money: minimal• Computer access• Aggregator:

– free or fee-based– Desktop or web-based– through academic portal

Newsgator (www.Newsgator.com) &

Bloglines (www.bloglines.com) seem most popular now;

a reader directory is available through dmoz


Practical Questions:

– Investment of time: • to learn aggregator• to build up *your* collection of sites

– Personal interest– Professional development– Reference-based

• to weed out less-helpful sites over time


• Strengths of using RSS in libraries (worth the time/effort):

– Richer resource-base for research/reference/outreach

– Facilitates keeping up in your outreach-specialty field

– Facilitates keeping abreast of news within your organization

– Convenience of checking all sites at once, on your own time

– Sharing/Learning from other library professionals

– Keep up with developments in other technologies • podcasts, wikis, blogs

Reference Outreach: Podcasts

A podcast is…

A growing method of delivering audio information– Time-shifted– Place-shifted

• An informational “broadcast” saved as an audio file (mp3) and distributed via the web (strictly speaking via RSS)

• Listeners download/listen at their convenience via desktop/laptop or on a personal player


Podcasting timeline…

• August 2004: “iPodders” search for a way to retrieve old blogs and audiofiles – develop RSS (Winer) and podcast software (Curry)

• July 2005: iTunes supports/distributes podcasts, get 1 million subscribers in first 2 days

• August 2005: 8,000 podcasts, 6 million listeners

• December 2005: Podcast selected as “Word of the Year” by editors of New Oxford American Dictionary: "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player"

• January 2006: iTunesU offers “free” courseware distribution

Hobson and Holtz Report, 8/4/2005 http://forimmediaterelease.biz/index.php/weblog/2005/08/05/ )Oxford University Press, US website, http://www.oup.com/us/brochure/NOAD_podcast/?view=usa


Podcasting evolution …

• Personal / information sharing

• Business applications

• Religious groups

• Education


Duke Report (2004 - 2005) Noted education benefits:

• playback of difficult content/material, especially in sciences

• multiple repetitions for students who have difficulty with English

• review/study class materials while multitasking (e.g.: commuting or exercising).

• inspired students to create podcasts outside of the classroom; noted increase of “frequency and depth of student interaction,” especially in language & music courses

• increased communication between faculty, library and IT; led to better, collaborative planning, both within the university and with other institutions.


Current Uses of Podcasting in Higher Education (2005-2006)

– Classroom Lectures for current students (U of New S. Wales)

– Class and Guest Lectures for Alumni (Stanford)

– Scholarly Communication (Princeton & U. of Florida)

– Audio tours & newscasts (Purdue & U. of Western Ontario)

– Admissions & Orientation materials (Mansfield & Drexel)

– Outreach to potential students (Peterson’s Directory)


Library of Congress http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/results.php?cat=2&mode=a

FirstGov http://firstgov.gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf/Libraries/Podcasts.shtml

OYEZ Supreme Court Podcasts http://www.oyez.org/podcast/

WhiteHouse Radio Addresses: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/radio/

NASA http://science.nasa.gov/podcast.htm

AAAS Science podcast http://www.sciencemag.org/about/podcast.dtl

UNICEF http://www.unicef.org/videoaudio/video_podcast.html

BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/downloadtrial/

NPR http://www.npr.org/rss/podcast/podcast_directory.php


Finding New Podcast Resources:

• Podcast Directories

• List-servs

• RSS feeds from blogs and your favorite websites

• Suggestions from others


“Programming” Podcasts captured by the St. John’s Libraries

– Poetry Readings: Poets Maria Mazziotti Gillan

and Jane Augustine

– Author visit: Richard Vetere “Third Miracle”

– Guest Lectures: Italian Consul General and diplomat, Minister Antonio Bandini on “Italy and World Diplomacy”

– Student essay winners, e.g.: Service Learning Essay

– Title III Project: Colloquia & meetings


Podcasts in the Department / Classroom

– DLIS Academic Library class: Dr. Becker’s Graduate course lecture & discussion

– Guest Lectures: McKeever Chair, Paul Lauritzen’s Lecture

on “The Commodification of Education”

– Distance Learning: Orientation to using WebCT, library resources; Pre-class lecture for “Just-in-time ”quiz & discussion

– English Student Projects: Graduate Poetry final


Instruction-related Podcasts

– Audio Tours: of physical library & library website

– Database Tutorials: Audio guide to supplement current online and paper-based tutorials

– Distributed Learning: Greetings from director, Orientation to using CMS, Intranet and/or information portal; Podcasts of instructional workshops, for patrons who cannot attend during instruction sessions

– Professional Development: Podcasts of professional / association meetings; podcast of information sessions for fellow faculty/staff; Continuing Education lectures/workshops


Legal Questions:

– Release form for electronic recording• Library developed one, approved by counsel

– Clarify distribution to lecturer• On main website: available to all• On WebCT / SJ Central: Although password protected,

once in digital format it is relatively easy to duplicate.


• Strengths of using external/internal podcasts:

– facilitates development of information literacy and life-long learning

– faculty contact re: information literacy throughout the course

– enriches primary-resource reference base

– coach vs. sage – facilitating/motivating individual learner inquiry and peer discussion

– engages different styles of learning

– assists low-vision and ESL patrons


Some Recent/Relevant coverage of Podcasting in Academia

• Chronicle of Higher Education: “Lectures on the Go” (10/28/2005) http://chronicle.com/weekly/v52/i10/10a03901.htm (Subscription req’d)and “Apple Releases Free 'iTunes U' Software to Colleges for Coursecasting “ (01/25/2006) Accessible for free. http://chronicle.com/free/2006/01/2006012501t.htm

• Duke University. “Duke University iPod First Year experience evaluation Report” (June 2005) Accessible electronically http://cit.duke.edu/pdf/ipod_initiative_04_05.pdf

• US News & World Report. (From the 10/17/05 print issue)http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/articles/051017/17elearn.htm

• Educause article on Podcasting (December 2005) http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0561.pdf

Reference Outreach: Websites, Blogs & Wikis

Social/collaborative trends in education

– For Students: • learn best from each other• learn to work together• greater engagement in the task

– For Faculty: • learn to be facilitator• E-portfolio for long-term assessment

– For Libraries: • learn to model life-long learning• Facilitates hands-on “evaluation”

Reference Outreach: Websites, Blogs & Wikis

Using Website development, blogs and wikis for outreach:

– Model use of instruction via library instruction• Reference desk wiki• Global Master’s program resources

– Set up “resource libraries” for these technologies• For in-house reference and instruction• For outreach to patron/faculty

– Offer collaboration with specialists: • Encourage/model life-long learning• Facilitate creation of assignments that provide new

evaluative insight

Reference Outreach: the Mission Allies

Allies in executing Outreach innovations

– E-services department – Library faculty & Staff– DLIS– Distance Learning– Center for Teaching and Learning– Center for Technology Education

Reference Outreach: Using Technologies

Please contact me with comments or ideas:

– Kathryn Shaughnessy, x1454

[email protected]

St. John’s University

Augustine Library 304

Instructional Services Lab

Documents

Outreach in Reference Services: Capitalizing in Emerging Technologies Columbia Reference Symposium March 10, 2005 Kathryn Shaughnessy Instructional Services