Hot off the press! “Mastering Mobile through Social Media: Creating Engaging Content on Instagram and Snapchat”

Greetings! I'm excited to announce my new report for the American Library Association's Library Technology Reports series: "Mastering Mobile through Social Media: Creating Engaging Content on Instagram and Snapchat." What I really dig about this work is that I had the opportunity to conduct a mini-case study during which I interviewed 11 standout library professionals …

Snapchat Explained: A 30 Minute Microlearning Event

Hello! I just wanted to announce another Snapchat workshop that I'll be teaching in September for ALA's eLearning series. This will consist of a 30 min online webinar where I'll show you the basics of Snapchat: how it works, how to set it up, and how your library can use it. This is perfect for …

6 Libraries to Follow on Snapchat for Some Snapspiration

In 2015 I wrote the post 5 Universities Killing it on Snapchat. Since then, I have seen a of bevy brands harnessing the app in really creative ways. Coming from a library background, I naturally follow several libraries on Snapchat (see Libraries on Snapchat: A Directory for a comprehensive list) and I have been really impressed …

New Session: Using Snapchat to Reach Library Patrons Workshop

Hello! I just wanted to send you all a quick note to let you know I'll be teaching a Snapchat workshop for the ALA's eLearning series. "Using Snapchat to Reach Library Patrons" will consist of two 90-minute sessions that will take place on Thursday, April 12, 2018 and Thursday, April 19, 2018 at 2:30pm Eastern. If …

Upcoming Workshop: Using Snapchat to Reach Library Patrons

Hello! I just wanted to send you all a quick note to let you know I'll be teaching a Snapchat workshop for the ALA's eLearning series. "Using Snapchat to Reach Library Patrons" will consist of two 90-minute sessions that will take place on August 24th and 31st at 1:30 Central. If you have any questions or …

Snapchat in the Library: Librarians Master an App to Reach Millennials- ALA Extended Article Version

Hello! I am very excited to announce my newest article that was published in ALA's magazine: Snapchat in the Library Librarians: Master an App to Reach Millennials! For this article I had the opportunity to interview a variety of amazing librarians who are leveraging this app to reach their patrons. Librarians from K-12, public libraries, and …

Incorporating Google Ads into Information Literacy Instruction

According to an article by The Verge's James Vincent, many teens can't tell the difference between ads and search results in Google. He reports that researchers at UK's telecoms watchdog Ofcom discovered that approximately only 33% of 12-15 year olds and 20% of children between the ages of 8-11 were able to tell the difference between …

5 Universities Killing It On Snapchat

I am becoming convinced that Snapchat should become a library social media staple. Being a "cusper" (on the tail end of the millennial generation) I might not be as in-tune with what's fresh in social as my younger counterparts, but the numbers don't lie. Smith, from DMR, reports that Snapchat not only touts 100 million …

Another Conference Organizer to Avoid: Global Academic Network

Here's a useful article by Jeffrey Beall, author of Scholarly Open Access, and expert on predatory journals and, apparently now, predatory conference organizers. You can read about my experience with a predatory journal in my previous post Beware of Predatory Journals.

Using Infographic Design to Make Common Core Connections

In a recent article in Phi Delta Kappan, Moeller discusses the use of visual thinking strategies to “strengthen students’ communication and critical thinking skills and creativity” (2013). Visual literacy, data visualization, and design thinking are buzzwords in the education rhetoric and are becoming more popular in the classroom partly because of the accessibility of visual …

Top 20 Library & Information Science Publications According to Google Metrics

Just wanted to let you all know that Google Scholar recently released their 2014 Metrics. Google lists the top 20 library science publications based on h5-index. Coming in at number one is the Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology with an h5-index of 56. The h5-index is the h-index for articles published in …

Promote Your Library With Snapchat Stories

This is probably the best way libraries can start implementing Snapchat for promotional purposes. According to an article published today by Business Insider, Snapchat Stories has increased 100% with over 1 billion stories being viewed a day! Since this app is so widely used by individuals under the age of 25 (traditional college aged students), it's a …

How to Create a Snapchat Contest

In the beginning of January I started hearing a lot of buzz about the privacy chat app Snapchat. From NPR to Mashable, everyone was discussing this new app. One fortuidious morning, during my daily Feedly perusal, I saw articles by both TechCrunch and Mashable reporting on a study that found that over 77% of college students use Snapchat every …

Data Visualization: An Effective Way to Encourage Librarian/Faculty Collaboration

    In our digital environment big data rules. It's changing they way brands market to consumers, how programmers develop apps, the list goes on but it is all resulting in a significant shift to the digital landscape as we know it. One way researchers are capitalizing on this trend is by using data visualization to depict …

Implications of Our Graying Profession

Today, on the College Libraries Discussion List, a email firestorm erupted over a simple survey request. A librarian requested that his fellow colleagues take the survey: The Mature Librarian: Over 55. The survey is intended to ascertain mature librarians' feelings about technology, staying relevant in their field, and working with younger librarians. Droves of emails have …

Get the Most Out of Your Graphic Design Team by Using These Tools

I was venting to a friend of mine the other day about not being able to articulate what I want to the graphic designers I work with. I explained that often I have the idea of what I want, but have difficulty expressing that thought semantically. Other times I have no idea what I want, …

Increase Your Productivity With a WiFi Coldspot

Sometimes I need to just disconnect from technology so I can reconnect with myself. If you're like me you probably have calendar reminders, new tweets, breaking news, blog posts, and a whole plethora of various other digital distractions all suffused across your desktop in about 50 tabs. According to Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet …

Beware of Predatory Journals

**I'm very sorry to announce that Beall's list of predatory journals is no longer online. Jeffrey Beall cited "threats and politics" as the reason for the removal. However, there is a version available through the Wayback Machine (but just keep in mind it is no longer being updated). Today I received an email from the Journal …

Snapchat For Your Library

Snapchat has been getting a lot of buzz as of late (Facebook offered to purchase it for $3 billion, but was turned down). It is currently valued at about $4 billion, and I think it will be the social media application of 2014 (here's an interesting story of why teens use Snapchat by npr). What …

Be a Twitter Fly on the Wall

In the past year I have become a Twitter fanatic, attending every Twitter conference session I can get into, and reading as many blogs, articles, and tweets that I can. I predominantly use Twitter for my library and not personally. Anywho while I attended TLA last year I went to an awesome session by Jim …

How Libraries are Doing Pinterest Wrong

Ok, I admit it I am one of the 71% of women on Pinterest. I use it to get travel, culinary, decorating inspiration and I pin whenever I find something awesome I want to remember later. I also pin for my library, but unlike my personal Pinterest account, my library account is much different. I …

Can You Match the Personality Disorder w/ the Alfred Hitchcock Movie Character?

Happy Halloween!! In celebration of the holiday I created a quiz to exercise your neurons. Can you match the Alfred Hitchcock character w/ the personality disorder? Summaries and disorder descriptions are listed below (from the DSM IV). If you want to skip straight to the answers click here. Disorder Descriptions (Taken from the DSM IV):  Dissociative …

Tips for Using Piktochart

Being a visual learner myself, I am a huge fan of infographics.  They have gotten so popular that it seems like you can't scroll down a Pinterest/Tumblr/Facebook feed without seeing at least one plastered on your screen. With their rising popularity has come the prevalence of infographic generators. These handy tools are great for those …

Tools for Creating Your Digital Portfolio

In today's digital job market having a digital portfolio of your work makes it easier for you to stand out among the sea of plain resumes. Digital portfolios are not only useful for job seekers but also for professionals wanting to keep track of their work for their yearly review and for those seeking job …

What Google’s New Search Algorithm Means for Libraries

In the nostalgic garage where Google first operated, Google celebrated it's 15th anniversary with the announcement of Hummingbird. Hummingbird is Google's new algorithm that has been silently implemented for about the past month. The algorithm is intended to produce more relevant results based on natural language search queries and networked relationships (think a more robust …

Mashies Finalists for Library Promotion Inspiration- Part 3

Please view past posts for more background: Mashies Finalists for Library Promotion Inspiration Part 1 and Mashies Finalists for Library Promotion Inspiration Part 2 In my first post I stated that I was going to create library ideas based on each nominee for every category each day. This has proven to be a bit too time consuming so …

Mashies Finalists for Library Promotion Inspiration- Part 2

In yesterday's post I discussed sharing my library tips/ideas based on the top three finalists in each Mashies awards category.  The Mashies celebrate the best in marketing. Since these companies are highly skilled in what they do I think it only makes sense to learn from their genius. Today I am taking on the category oooof: …

Mashies Finalists- A Great Way to Glean Information for Amazing Library Promotion

Yesterday Mashable announced their finalists for the 2013 Mashies awards. The Mashies awards celebrate the best in digital marketing, advertising and social media. The finalists were selected by a panel of experts and include categories like Best Use of Twitter  and Best Branded App.  In my opinion librarians can learn a lot from events that …

Creating a Flipped Video for Your IL Class? Make it Like a Vsauce Video

This semester I proposed to several professors in the English department an embedded librarian program. I was super stoked when they accepted my proposal. It basically just consists of two required information literacy (IL) sessions focused on specific search strategies and topic creation. To prepare for these sessions I combed listservs, websites, journal articles, and …

My Library Usability Study Stage 1

You don't have to be an expert on user experience to conduct your own usability study. Determining how your users prefer to use your site, collection, product, etc is something that everyone can benefit from and anyone can do. Usability studies are conducted to understand how your users actually use your system. You can then …

Best Pinners, Twitterers, and Bloggers to Follow for Awesome Content Creation Inspiration

How many of you become inspired when listening to an awesome TedTalk or conference presentation? When I attended sxsw interactive recently I thought my hand was going to break from writing down all the new ideas I was whipping up! I have created my top lists of people who post quality content for retweeting, repinning, …

Top 10 Hotkeys, Shortcuts, and Terms for Scholarly Research

Ok, in the spiraling vortex of information saturation lists of top shortcuts and hotkeys are about as prevalent as grumpy cat memes. So to ease your overly stimulated brain I am going to bypass the common sense shortcuts (CTRL + V, CTRL + C) and share some that you might not be aware of (or …

Use TED-Ed to Flip Your IL Sessions

Last week I attended the Texas Library Association's 2013 annual library conference. My head was spinning with all the innovative fresh ideas that were shared! One awesome session I attended was Flipped Classroom: Supporting New Educational Models. The session consisted of a panel of 6 educators who shared their experience flipping their classroom. While it was primarily aimed …

Using Hashtags to Teach Subject Headings

One of the hardest concepts, that I have found, for students to grasp and actually utilize are subject headings. Because students don't regularly employ them in their day to day life they tend to be cast aside for a comfortable natural language search technique. I show students how useful subject headings can be when searching …

Formatting a Word Doc for a Paper in APA

There are pricey software programs available that will do this type of formatting for you, but with a little effort on your part you can bypass the price tag and do it on your own for free! This tutorial will cover how to set MS Word to check for grammar and style that is specific …

Looking for a Job? Don’t Forget about Alumni Resources!

If you're one of the millions who are on the hunt for a job it might be helpful to tap into you're alma mater's alumni resources. That's what an alumni association is there for! Try doing a Google search for your university's name and "alumni resources" or "alumni association." Most universities provide help with job …

Is a User Experience Librarian in Your Future?

In the library world information literacy (IL) is a major buzz word. It involves finding, gathering, and synthesizing information. Now, while IL instruction is definitely an important component to any library, it might be beneficial to use those same concepts within our own workflow as well. We talk about teaching others to organize and synthesize but often times we don't organize …

SXSWi Spots and Sessions for Librarians

Here is the list of all SXSWi events. There are so many sessions to attend and people to meet that it can be pretty overwhelming. When searching this extensive list try narrowing it down by theme such as: DIY, Hacker and Maker Social and Relationships Design and Development Diversity and Emerging Markets Work and Career …

Your Infographic Toolkit (For those with little to no graphic design experience)

Creating an infographic can be tedious and time consuming, especially for those with little to no graphic design experience. Here are the best tools that I have found that enable me to not only create an infographic but streamline my process. Find an Infographic Generator These are just some of the many infographic generators that …

Top 10 Libraries for Academic Libraries to Follow on Pinterest

With the popularity of libraries joining Pinterest I thought I would share the list of top 10 libraries that I think are worth following. I like to follow libraries that have boards that focus on research, technology, and interesting promotional ideas. Criteria: Post quality content for repinning- This includes content that promotes research, innovation, best practices, …

Tips to Make Your Resume Stand Out

In David McCandless' fantastic TedTalk he says that "by visualizing information, we turn it into a landscape that you can explore with your eyes, a sort of information map. And when you’re lost in information, an information map is kind of useful.”  Employers these days receive hundreds of resumes. One way to standout from the ever-competitive …

Libraries on Snapchat: A Directory

Hello! A lot of you have reached out asking for a list of libraries on Snapchat. Due to the fact that you can't search Snapchat the way you can other social media platforms, this task is a little tough. What I thought I'd do is create a crowdsourced directory. I have started a list of libraries …

ALA Ignite Session: Using Google Scholar to Teach Information Literacy

Hello! I rarely ever self-promote but I could really use your help. I just submitted my ALA ignite session: Using Google Scholar to Teach Information Literacy. In order to be able to present this talk I need to win votes. Here's how it breaks down: "the public votes will be weighted for 30% of the selection process; …

Resources for Finding a Graduate Summer Research Position

I wrote this for the University of Denver's Office of Graduate Studies. I think it has some useful info to share with your graduate students. If you have any additional resources that should be included please let me know. 🙂 Resources for Finding a Graduate Summer Research Position

Promote Your Library Using Mark Zuckerburg’s Worldwide Book Club

Facebook's Mark Zuckerburg launched the New Year by announcing a challenge: "to read a new book every other week -- with an emphasis on learning about different cultures, beliefs, histories, and technologies." His announcement has currently garnered 119,199 likes and 5,502 comments.   Since then he has created a Facebook group entitled "A Year of …

Graphene Valley: What This Super Material Is and How It Will Affect Libraries

Graphene! It’s the materials science buzz word you've most likely heard on repeat for the last few years. It's being touted as the "wonder material" that will revolutionize technology as we know it. It was isolated in 2004 by Nobel prize winning physicists  Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, and since then scientists have been creating …

Top Libraries for Academic Libraries to Follow on Pinterest: Part Deux

I wrote the Top 10 Libraries for Academic Libraries to Follow on Pinterest back in 2013, but with so many new boards popping up I thought I'd add to the list (as a side note I noticed just about every library has either a Downton Abbey or cat-related board!). I used the same criteria: Post quality content …