Take the ADSL Social Media Survey

Is your library using Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or other social media tools to reach out to its art and design community? Are you inspired by other libraries’ use of social media? Interested in keeping up-to-date with your ADSL colleagues (while sharing what’s new in your library)?

If you answered “yes” to any of these, please take the ADSL Social Media survey! A list of ADSL members’ social media sites will eventually be compiled on the blog to show how we’re communicating and engaging with our users, provide inspiring examples, and help ADSL’ers keep up with each others’ accomplishments. Any social media sites that promote information services for student and faculty artists and designers will be considered.

Link to the survey: http://tinyurl.com/ADSLsocialmedia

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Screen Recording Technology

I have been experimenting with a software that allows me to create screencasts. I can record my screen actions, narrate and even video myself while demonstrating how to use various library technologies. Screen recording software also allows for lecture capturing, all of which can be easily uploaded to a website, LibGuide or emailed to faculty and students. The software I have been experimenting with is called ScreenFlow. Others include Adobe Captivate, Camptasia. I’ve just found out about some free online screen recording software. Some of these are: Screencast-O-Matic, ScreenToaster, Skoffer,. Reviews about these online screencasting software here.

As for learning the software, I would say that a small amount of tech savviness is necessary, but most importantly is that you understand the capabilities of the software and be curious and enthusiastic to learn how to harness those capabilities. I am cetainly on the low end of the tech savvy scale, but I knew that screen capturing software would give me the freedom to create everything from a short tutorial on “How to Renew Library Materials Online” to full library instruction sessions for distance learning classes. Our Digital Libraries Department used Adobe Captivate to create a dynamic tutorial introducing our new online catalog. Below I used ScreenFlow to create a very simple rough draft mock up (note: this is not my final product) tutorial on “How to Renew Books Online“.