Developing & Running your own E-reader Seminars and Gadget Labs
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Presentation for the Netspeed 2012 Conference in Edmonton, AB. Brief abstract: Often, one-on-one instruction is not the most efficient nor enjoyable method of helping your staff or community learn more about technology. And as Ereaders, tablet computers, smartphones and other gadgets grow in number and type library staff need to have ways of addressing questions about these devices. Whether you are a highly tech-skilled library or feel a bit behind the times, this hands-on workshop is designed to help you best serve your community’s needs. This session will: • Help you assess your staff or community’s needs • Help you decide the best teaching option for each kind of audience or device • Give you a working knowledge of a number of popular devices • Suggest ways to evaluate your programs • Give you an opportunity to discuss ideas and opportunities with other attendees
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Developing & Running your own E-reader Seminars and Gadget Labs
- 1. Developing & Running your own E-reader Seminars and Gadget Labs Sarah Felkar, MLIS Public Services Assistant, West Vancouver Memorial Library 10 am, October 19, 2012 Netspeed 2012, Edmonton, Alberta
- 2. Outline • Introduction • Why? • Goals • Planning • Execution • Ensuring Success • Evaluation • Discussion
- 3. Why?
- 4. Goals What are your organization's Mission, Vision, Goals, Values?
- 5. Goals How might working with gadgets support those goals?
- 6. Planning • What are you already offering? • Ask your community • Find out what other local libraries are doing • What can your library support?
- 7. Purchasing
- 8. Execution Types of programs • Staff Training • Seminar Style • Hands-on All need • Tech-savvy staff member • Some gadgets
- 9. Staff Training Types • One-on-one sessions • Small groups (pop-labs) • Webinars • Self-paced lessons
- 10. Staff Training One-on-One Pros • Able to give staff excellent, customized training on any number of tech topics Cons •Time consuming
- 11. Seminars Types • Device Information Session • Library Downloadables Information Session • Group Q&A
- 12. Seminars West Vancouver Memorial Library's "Ebook & E-reader Information Session" Pros • Lots of people at once • Answer questions some people might not know to ask • Only one staff member necessary Cons • Expectation of very specific answers
- 13. Hands-On Types: • One Staff Member, 6-12 patrons o Downloading Library ebooks or audiobooks, or music o Using a Kindle / Sony / Kobo o Using iPads • Many Staff (and volunteers), Many patrons o Drop-in gadget labs o Gadget/e-Reader Fairs • No Staff, many patrons o Gadget Library
- 14. Hands-On London Public Library's Gadget Labs Pros: • Able to help a variety of patrons on a diverse number of topics • Staff used as content experts • Volunteers as hardware experts Cons: • Need to organize volunteers
- 15. Others What other types of activities have you heard of? How might we set them up?
- 16. Ensuring Success • Soft launch • Advertise • Make sure your staff & board buy-in
- 17. Ensuring Success Be aware of: • Documentation o Circulation procedures o Resetting o Troubleshooting • Cataloguing Questions o Do we? Don't we? • Continual Change o New devices all the time
- 18. Evaluation Decide on your method of evaluating before launching so that your can work in into your activity •Collect comments •Use feedback forms •Ask staff about their experiences
- 19. Evaluation Did it work? • Set an evaluation period • Collect information • Analyse Then adjust the program as necessary.
- 20. Summary • Match the program to library's goals and mission • Discover Community Needs • Choose the right program to fit your community • Run over a trial period • Evaluate and adjust
- 22. No Questions? 2. Which one seems the hardest to put together? 3. What hurdle seems highest? 4. Does evaluating seen daunting? 1. Which activity would work best for you?
- 23. Helpful Resources Blogs: • No Shelf Required: http://www.libraries.wright.edu/noshelfrequired/ • Lori Reed/Library Trainer: http://lorireed.com/ • Teleread: http://www.teleread.com/ • Digital Reader: http://www.the-digital-reader.com/ Publications: “Growing a Technology Equipment Service in an Academic Library” by Sean Anderson and Sue Weatherbee (Computers in Libraries July/August 2012) Gadgets and Gizmos: Libraries and the Post-PC Era by Jason Griffey (Library Technology Reports vol 48 no 3) Overdrive's Test Drive Center: http://www.overdrive.com/resources/testdrive/approved-devices.aspx
- 24. Thank you! Email: sfelkar@westvanlibrary.ca Twitter: @SarahFelkar Slides:
Editor's Notes
- These are reference questions that you will be getting, patrons needing assistance, and people will be interested in getting help from their library. And often these activities also improve the digital literacy of your staff and community, which is a huge part of what we should be aiming to do. We need to be familar with what is out there and prepared to answer the questions that come to our desks.
- Goals : organization mission and values -examples of how technology training fits within your mission and values -literacy (digital literacy) -lifelong learning -building community Also: strategic initiatives, goals and projects that your library or municipality are looking to achieve.
- Ask: Can you think of terms within your library’s mission values/goals that work with offering technology training or access to technology?
- Planning : ask your community / survey / observe / get feedback -Now that we know that a program will fit within our organization's goals, we need to find out what sort of program will work best in our specific communities. - For example what works in my little district of 17,00 people, mostly seniors would not really work in Edmonton.... -We can find out our community’s needs -Ask other libraries about their experiences to help you decide Exercise : Ask around the room (5 ish)
- -purchasing - how many? what can we support? ie one staff member - one of each, more than one staff member, have more. -maintenance abilities are key -there is no point in spending a lot of money on devices that you & your staff can’t talk about, support. speaking of support.... - a good starting point is a Kobo ereader - they are Canadian, cheap, and available everywhere. A tablet is a good idea. Cost-saving trick - if you want staff to be able to learn how to download and use apps, but can’t afford an iPad at the moment (or an Android tablet) purchase an iPod touch, or something like the Kobo Arc. - all app stores are pretty similar, and once you have practiced a few times with one, the rest will be easy.
- I am going to list some examples and go into detail with three different activities. If we have enough time we can talk about more
- Read over types - for staff all or one might be appropriate.
- as an example, one on one - is wonderful because people may feel most comfortable asking "dumb" questions without an audience, and you can work with different learning styles more easily.
- Seminars or "hands-off" allows for the most patrons - per -staff member there are a number of types, and depending on time available you can do all at once.
- For example at my library we've run monthly ebook and ereader information sessions since late 2010. And we've had between 20 - 60 people at each one. I start off by explaining what an ereader is, how they work, and go over the features of common devices, and then talk a bit about what makes tablets different. Then, I go into content - where & how to get library ebooks, where to get other free content, and if there is time we compare and contrast kindle and kobo ebook prices or getting newspapers.... and other questions. Typically I take an hour and a half, and answer more specific questions for 30 minutes after.
- This is the most complex type - but if you are already offering group learning opportunities like computer classes, you are ready to do this type of session.
- Right now I'm looking into having someone from the London Drugs Computer Department come in to help talk about tablets in December - where they would give an idea of what is out there and the differences in capabilities, and I would talk about apps / websites that they can use from the library.
- if no one knows, no one will come. and without buy-in it is a lot harder to have a successful program. You need support.
- There are lots of things that pop-up unexpectedly when you get started. These are some of the additional tasks that we found appeared as we started troubleshooting gadgets, and developing a small device library. Continual change is perhaps the most difficult to get a handle on, new devices appear at least once a year, but it is important to remember that a lot of the changes are superficial and the basics from even the very earliest ereader are still appropriate today (even if they aren't as nice looking or light).
- Did it work? Decide on your method of evaluating before launching so that your can work in into your activity just collect verbal/written comments use already made up event feedback forms create & distribute feedback forms ask staff about their experiences hold a focus group Again, what you do depends on what works best in your community. If you a really pushing to have the program succeed and expand, try and work in as much qualitative and quantitative feedback as you can. If you know that the program will work, just collect/written verbal feedback as it comes in.
- Set a timeline for when to collect and analyse feedback - 6 months, 2 months, a year. And then adapt - do you need to expand? change direction? replace devices? find some volunteers to help out?
- just a sampling of resources to take a look at, if you aren't already familiar with them