Category: technology

A Genius Idea

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I blame Star Trek Beyond. I feel like Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power” is haunting and taunting me! I went to see Star Trek with my husband last weekend, and when the song came on,  I was reminded of a really cool lesson on illustrating the “scholarship as conversation” frame.

As I was reading ACRL’s Instruction Section’s Spring 2016 Newsletter this past May, and I came across an intriguing lesson idea submitted by Tim Miller, a librarian at Humboldt State University, “Citations & Hip-Hop: Using Genius to Illustrate Scholarship as Conversation.” You can find the article at the link above on page 2, but I also have included it below.

This semester I’ve been participating in a book circle on Emery Petchauer’s Hip-Hop Culture in College Students’ Lives. Our first discussion coincided with an upcoming workshop that I facilitate on citations & plagiarism that I was also in the process of revamping. While discussing the symbolism behind Boogie Down Productions’ 1990 album, Edutainment, I was struck by the similarities between the asynchronous conversations within hip-hop and academic writing. I’m not a huge hip-hop fan, but I decided to delve in and put this idea to practice using another song from that era: Public Enemy’s “Fight the Power.”

Hip-hop music incorporates sampling (using audio snippets) and is filled with references to other songs, lyrics and imagery. Genius, the online song lyric knowledge base and annotation tool, provides a visual representation of these references by incorporating interactive features that allow users to create annotations alongside the text of the lyrics. These annotations provide explanations and context in the form of comments, hyperlinks and images. I purposely chose “Fight the Power” because it is particularly rich with samples, references and imagery that not only provide a background to the meaning behind the song but also point listeners to artists and individuals who inspired the song.

The imagery within Genius helps demonstrate that references in hip-hop create a conversation akin to scholarship: a conversation that is ongoing and unfinished. Just within the intro and first verse there is a variety of examples, including: a link to the music video (with its own visual references), an image of the single for James Brown’s “Funky Drummer,” a link to The Soul Children’s “I Don’t Know What This World Is Coming To,” and a movie poster to Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing, for which the song was written. Genius makes these references come to life by incorporating comments, images and sound – all added by the various Genius users participating in the conversation. (Miller, 2016, p.2).

I would actually really love to do this as a workshop. I think it’s because of my history background; I did a lot of classes related to slavery and Civil Rights, and my interest in social justice. I will definitely keep this idea on my radar. I emailed Tim to let him know how much I enjoyed reading his piece in the newsletter. He let me know that he also uses Genius “to annotate an online article for my workshop on reading academic articles. It is a very easy way to add instructive elements into a webpage. I may explore using it with [LibGuides] to create virtual tours for our online programs” (T. Miller, personal communication, May 9, 2016).

LibGuides CMS Webinar

Lindsay DavisLeave a comment

I  haven’t been posting since I started my new job on June 1. I have been busy and thoroughly enjoying every moment. It’s Saturday, and I’m actually at the library now. Most of our new student orientations are during the week, but there are a few on Saturdays. After some morning presentations, I got the opportunity to welcome and speak with students and their families ¡en español! at the information fair. I really enjoyed it, and I think I helped people feel welcome. I have a couple more presentations this afternoon.

Coming in early today gave me a chance to watch a recording of a LibGuides CMS webinar that my manager sent me. She and the library’s technology manager attended the webinar on June 19th. I came from an institution where it took several years just to get a link to the library on Blackboard, so the features introduced by Springshare’s courseware integration tool are a bit amazing. Here is the rundown of the webinar.

Instead of being compatible with specific course management systems (CMSs), it is Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) compliant, so as long as your campus’ CMS is also LTI compliant, the LibGuides CMS will work with it.

With LibGuides CMS, not only can you display a LibGuide directly in your campus’ CMS (when you click on the link in the CMS, it opens directly in it), you can also add other things, such as a chat window, your library’s hours through LibCal, a list of the specific subject librarians, LibAnswers, and an A-Z list of subject-specific databases.

The webinar instructor did a great job explaining and showing step-by-step how you, at the CMS course shell level, can add a subject LibGuide to a slew of subject-specific courses though the automagic tool. You can also do this with class-specific guides. Changing between a subject and class-specific guide and vice versa is very easy. You can also add a single guide to a single course though manual mode. If you are wondering about usage statistics, those are also readily available.

The webinar also covered an upcoming update to the A-Z list in LibGuides. The A-Z list will be on its own page in both LibGuides and LibGuides CMS. There is also a place for internal notes and a way to mark certain databases as popular or be able to hide, say, a trial database. There is also going to be a keyword feature to increase discoverability. Only LibGuides CMS will have access to community analysis, which will allow you to see how many people in the system have a certain database, etc.

Citation Tools

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A while back, one of my friends from college who now teaches writing where we went to school together sent me a message about a little debate in a writing instruction-related listserv about how university libraries always seem to market citation tools to students, making students become dependent on machines to do the work for them. This is an advertising tactic, but the workshop the library is putting on might actually show students how these tools aren’t 100 percent accurate. This was pretty much what he thought was likely but wanted to see what I thought. I do support these tools when used appropriately. The reality is that a lot of our students do find and use these tools on their own; I might as well give them some pointers.

In instruction sessions, I point out citation tool features in databases, but I always comment that the citations aren’t to be taken at face value. I usually do an example and ask students to point out what is incorrect in hopes that they remember that it isn’t always right. I do support using the tools in order to save time —students can copy-paste and correct by looking at their writer’s guides, which often have sections on citing in APA and MLA; the APA or MLA handbooks; Library handouts; Library LibGuides on APA and MLA; or even by googling Purdue OWL’s APA or MLA Formatting Guides. I even have Purdue OWL linked on my LibGuides for APA and MLA. I also have other citation tools listed in those online guides with a note indicating that these tools are not perfect.

I went on to tell my friend, “Ain’t no one just telling them to use the tools point blank.”

Well, I was wrong. Recently, someone in an academic library listserv was complaining that EBSCOhost needs to get its act together to fix the problems in their citation tool feature because the “nice librarian is telling students to use the feature, and students are getting points marked off.”

I’m just going to say it. You are not doing your job if you are simply telling students to use these tools. That was the gist of the feeling among the people who did a reply-all response. No tool is going to be perfect, but it’s not difficult to live in the happy place I’ve described above. There is so much help available to double-check citations, and if points off is what is going to motivate students to learn or at least take the time to check, so be it. The other challenge is that students, who do seem to understand why we cite, at least when I’ve asked students in class, don’t seem know why there are different styles or why they must be so precise when using a particular format. There needs to be a much deeper conversation, and I am sure this does happen in research instruction and writing instruction courses. It’s just part of getting students familiar with academic culture.

With that said, librarians, what are your favorite tools to help students cite or keep track of citations? While I only list links on my LibGuides to free tools (again, with a word of caution), here are some free and fee-based tools that I know about, though the only one I personally use is Zotero. Diigo does look really interesting, so it may be one I try out for myself. The last citation builder I played with is North Carolina State University Libraries’ Citation Builder.

BibMe

Citation Builder

Cite This for Me

Diigo

EasyBib

KnightCite

Mendeley

NoodleTools

Perrla

RefMe

RefWorks

Son of Citation Machine

Zotero

 

Tablets Pt. 2

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An update on that tablet project I mentioned back in the fall.

Back in September, I found out I had one week to submit paperwork for a grant offered through student equity funding. I had planned to do a survey about our students’ technology usage in order to make some mobile technology recommendations to my dean, but I had to scrap the whole plan with the unexpected deadline and opportunity.We initially received 33 percent of the funds for 36 Microsoft Surface Pro 3s (at the time, this was the college approved tablet) and a charge cart. However, a little later, the Library received funding for all 36 tablets. The tablets are mostly for library instruction since we don’t have an instructional space, but we decided to circulate 5-10 for in-house use when not being used in the classroom.

We finally got everything delivered at the very end of 2015/beginning of 2016, but, long story short, we just started checking out a few this last week. I am bummed I wasn’t able to use them for instruction. I am also sad that I won’t be seeing this project through since I am heading to a new job in June.

With all the delays and my exit timeline, I forgot all about apps. One of the part-time librarians recently reminded me about apps after I sent her a Storify summary of a Twitter chat about tablets by ACRL’s Instruction Section’s Instructional Technologies Committee. Here’s the accompanying Winter 2016 edition of the Instructional Technologies’ Tips and Trends newsletter. Back when I used to do butcher paper posters in the hallway outside the Library doors with questions for students to respond to on Post-It notes, one of the questions I asked was about apps students use to help them with their work. I didn’t get much of a response, though. After this email conversation, I remembered that I had saved a really cool idea that could be modified a bit to figure out what sorts of free apps might be added to the Surface Pros. It really needs to be guided by our students (we really need a student advisory committee!). In 2014, there was a message in the collib-l listserv from a librarian named Beth Johns about a drop-in workshop she and a colleague did about apps.

One of my colleagues and I experimented with a drop in workshop for students last February. It was called “Sips, Snacks and Apps” and was designed as a “sharing” workshop–the plan was to share information on mobile apps that have an academic purpose (such as library database apps) with students and find out what they use in their academic life.

We didn’t get a huge turnout, but some students were coaxed into attending and thanks to one of our student workers who also wrote for the student newspaper, we had a short article published on the event. Snacks included coffee, tea and lemonade to drink and cookies to eat. We held it in a group study room, but when we do it again (planning for the fall!) we want to hold it in a more public place. This room was not a good location–kind of hidden in the library. I think we will hold it near the library entrance next time. The few who attended, including one faculty member, seemed to enjoy it. It was more about building relationships than the topic of mobile apps. I’ve attached a pdf of one of the flyers.

With this particular topic, it seems that students at our school are not yet using library or academic apps (unless they are just not telling us what they use), but we did find out that those with iPhones sometimes use Siri to figure out alternative keywords when they are researching something, so that was helpful and interesting!

I mentioned to our part-time librarian that what we could do is come up with our own list of apps that work with Windows, and then see what students want from that master list, as well as look into others that are suggested. If were going to stay, I would set up a student advisory committee that includes our student workers and other students. With less than a month left until I leave my job, I do plan to add this tidbit to the notes I’m leaving for the new librarian.

Exciting News!

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I have some really exciting news!

I just found out that my request for 36 Microsoft Surface Pro 3 tablets for my small library was funded, at 33 percent of the request, through Merced College’s student equity funds! $16,000! The dean of my campus, the Los Banos Campus, says the rest of the amount will be funded with other monies.

Why Microsoft Surface Pro 3? They are the district-approved tablets. Why 36? There is a really cool charging cart that fits 36 tablets.

The library at my campus doesn’t have a library instruction room like the other campus, and I often have to fit sessions around the computer labs that are scheduled for other classes. Often, I go to classrooms without any computers, so students don’t get to play with databases during library research sessions.

When the tablets aren’t in use for classes, students will be able to check them out to use in the library. We only have 17 computers available in the library for 1,800 students, and our statistics were around 18,000 computer uses for 2014-2015. This does not include statistics for the open computer lab across the hall.

The Student Equity committee for the college created a document of goals for both campuses, so part of the application for funding had to show how the proposed project helped meet those goals. I also incorporated how the project met the college’s strategic plan and institutional learning outcomes and how it fit with the goals of the Learning Resource Center’s program review and student learning outcomes. I think my request was also funded, in part, because it serves an instructional purpose. I included a lot of evidence in the document, and my dean was impressed with what I put together.

I have been on pins and needles waiting for a response from the committee. I am so pleased! If we go off of the timeline I created for the project, we will begin our tablet service in Spring 2016.

The start of my third full-time academic year has been fantastic! My three-year review process also begins this coming Tuesday, so I am feeling pretty good.