Category Archives: Services

Programs, Services, Tech

Top Library Tech Trends

Peacekeeper-missile-testing
This is  an excerpt from an ALA article By

“From virtual reality to gamification to security techniques, libraries are using the latest technology to engage patrons, increase privacy, and help staffers do their jobs.

American Libraries spoke to library tech leaders—members of the Library and Information Technology Association’s popular Top Tech Trends panel from the 2017 Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits—to get the apps, devices, software, and best practices that you can adopt for your library right now and in the near future.

1. Take patrons on a virtual tour

Create a virtual tour of your library using a 360-degree camera and post it to your website or social media, says Cynthia Hart, emerging technologies librarian at Virginia Beach (Va.) Public Library (VBPL). Virtual tours can be helpful for both information and accessibility.

“One of our branches is 125,000 square feet. The A’s for adult fiction are all the way at the end of the building. Can you imagine if you were a person with disabilities or if you were an older person or had low mobility?” Hart says. “If you didn’t know that when you went into a library, wouldn’t it be helpful to have that virtual tour of the building? Then you could call and say, ‘Hey, can you pull that book from the shelf?’” Virtual visit statistics can also be used as a gate count metric. Continue reading Top Library Tech Trends →

Programs, Resources, Services, Tech

Six Ways to Feed Innovation in Your Library

Idea concept with row of light bulbs and glowing bulb

By Dian Schaffhauser

“Once the initial dazzle of your new (or remade) library has worn off, just how do you keep up the pace and flavor of innovation? An expert from North Carolina State University offers her take.

When the James B. Hunt Jr. Library at North Carolina State University opened in 2013, it seemed nary an innovation was left out. The 225,000‐square‐foot building includes multiple display walls running at a resolution six times better than high-def; a whacked out game lab; a wide visualization space; creativity studios; nearly a hundred group study rooms and learning spaces; glass walls and writable surfaces anywhere you might lay an erasable marker; bookBot, a robotic book storage center with capacity for 2 million volumes; reconfigurable seating and tables everywhere (including a reported 60 different types of designer furniture); plus high-performance computing (HPC) and high-speed storage.

It took 98 pages for the university to describe the entirety of the wonders of the Hunt Library in its application for the 2014 Stanford Prize for Innovation in Research Libraries (which it handily won).

And yet that was four years ago. Just how long does the shelf life on innovation last? Continue reading Six Ways to Feed Innovation in Your Library →

Resources, Services, Tech

Software for hearing/seeing impaired patrons

Braille magazine cover example

A library person on a listserve submitted this question: “We are getting ready to set up some of our computers to be more user friendly for people who are seeing/hearing repaired and I’m looking for some software suggestions.  Anything would be helpful as we just started the search today.”

We are passing on a few suggestions shared, if you are also looking at getting this software for your patrons. Do you have other suggestions for software you like? Continue reading Software for hearing/seeing impaired patrons →

Services

Accessibility and Universal Design

“The ACRL Instruction Section, Instructional Technologies Committee, has published their latest Tips and Trends article, “Accessibility and Universal Design,” written by Bonnie L. Fong, Elizabeth M. Johns, and Becka Rich. Tips and Trends introduces and discusses new, emerging or even familiar technologies that can be used in library instruction.“Accessibility and Universal Design” is freely available at bit.ly/tipsandtrendsw17.”

From the article:

“Overview and Definition:

OXO Good Grips kitchen utensils. Large button light switches. Curb cuts. Mobile-friendly web

design. All of these originated in the movement towards accessibility and universal design (UD), and making life easier for more people.

 

Accessibility and UD are two separate, but related, concepts meant to consider the needs of different types of people and users. Accessibility puts an emphasis on supporting users with disabilities, whereas UD is broader, taking into account differences such as users’ gender, age, native language, and learning preference, to create a physical or virtual item that can be used by as many people as possible (DO-IT, University of Washington 2015).

 

When used together, accessibility and UD result in inclusive, barrier-free products that also meet legal compliance efforts. Libraries can adopt accessibility and UD guidelines to make services, teaching, and spaces more user-friendly”

(Read the whole thing for more good ideas!)

Academic, Services, Tech

Do you have ideas on virtual reference service in academic libraries?

From a library listserve – another library person reaching out for ideas! We are posting a few of the suggestions other people have offered. If you have other ideas, you can leave them below; and if you are facing this issue hopefully you get some ideas!

“Has anyone working in an academic library providing virtual reference services tried increasing usage?

If so, how did you market/promote this service? What were the results of the plan you generated?
At this time, we are beginning to test the waters of a promotion plan geared towards increasing usage of virtual reference. Particularly those of a research nature. Currently, most questions are directional, informational or instructional (unrelated to research).
The big roll out will be in the fall as we will work over the summer to develop specific marketing based upon student demographics such as: international, online, graduate, undergraduate, non-trad, traditional, commuters etc…. Going into finals, we are running a contest to encourage students to use virtual reference while conducting research for papers and projects. The prize for both weeks will be a pair of wireless headphones (Skullcandy). Keeping our fingers crossed…?
Thanks for any feedback you’d like to share”

Continue reading Do you have ideas on virtual reference service in academic libraries? →