or, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Fear and Loathing at a Public Library Reference Desk


Make Online Tutorials with Tildee

   October 20th, 2011 Brian Herzog

Tildee.com: You Explain. They Understand.I was flipping through the October issue of Computers in Libraries and found that Donna F. Ekart's Tech Tips for Every Librarian column certainly lived up to its name - not only was my library mentioned in the column, but she also profiled a tool I'd never heard of before (and can certainly use).

We were mentioned for the Library Use Value Calculator, and I was happy she included it as an easy-to-implement tool for libraries.

The tool that was new to me is Tildee.com, a very quick and easy way to make online step-by-step tutorials. Sure there are other ways to do the same thing, but this was really, really easy - type in your text for each step, upload an image/map/video if you want, and you're done. That's it.

In about two minutes I made one showing patrons how to log into their catalog account.

I think if I spent more than two minutes at it, it would look a little better, but still - two minutes. They also have a nice listing of other tutorials (how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, how to use Animoto) to give you some ideas. And it's got a bunch of social media tie-ins too, for easily promoting your tutorial.

I did have some trouble uploading images the first time, but it worked itself out. Something I'd love to see added is the ability to add circles and arrows or otherwise highlight portions of uploaded images - like being able to point to a "Login" link. You can always add that to the image before you upload it, but it'd still be a nice feature.

I think this tool is a great compliment to creating screencasts, because sometimes combining text and images (or videos, maps, whatever) is more suitable than just a video - and better than just emailing someone the steps.

See, even us techie people have a lot to learn (hence why I read Computers in Libraries).



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Resources for Redesigning Websites

   November 18th, 2010 Brian Herzog

Thinking about the new design of the San Jose Public Library reminded me that I've been collecting links to tools and articles about web design. I posted a few resources before, but the demise of Bloglines has prompted me to pull out all my bookmarks and do something with them.

I'll be using these when we redesign our website, and hopefully you'll find them helpful too:

Web Design Overview

 

Design Tips & Goals

 

Testing & Development Tools

 

And the final word on this subject will come from Chuck - Design Coding is not only hilarious, it's amazingly accurate:

But I'm sure there are tons of other tools out there, so please share your favorite in the comments. Thanks.



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Resources for Free Images and More

   November 19th, 2009 Brian Herzog

squirrelSometimes, being a librarian equates to being a packrat. At least in the virtual world, I can collect as many links as I want and it doesn't take up any room. However, to be useful, it does take organization.

For awhile now I've been bookmarking posts about free resources for clipart, photographs and other artwork. I use them for library publications, and also for my posts here. But just this week I got my act together and started transferring those links from my Bloglines account to my Delicious account, and thought I'd share them.

If you're curious how to do this with Delicious, check out my how-two post for creating library subject guides.

And just for good measure, here are a few web design tools I had bookmarked, too:



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Building Better Google Searches

   January 13th, 2009 Brian Herzog

google logo in legosSpeaking of learning things, Chris sent me a link that lists special strategies and syntax for searching Google more efficiently.

I use a couple of them all the time (especially site:), but I definitely spotted a few that will be extremely helpful:

  • +[stop word] - having the plus sign before a "stop word" (such as +not) forces the search to include that word, instead of ignoring it
  • inurl: and intitle: - similar to site:, but this limits the search to words just in the web address or title field. Very useful for increasing relevancy on obscure information
  • related: - lists websites that are "related" to the domain you search for (ie, related:swissarmylibrarian.net). This seems just oddly interesting, but there has got to be a very good application

The page also gives some great examples of how these can be combined. It's always good to learn how to search smarter, and it's certainly a conversation starter when patrons see me typing in these weird codes and getting better results than they do - always on the lookout for those teaching moments.

Thanks Chris, and to the faculty of the Valencia Community College for compiling the list. There are also other lists, too, but this one was very helpful.



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Webpage Highlighter Tool

   April 17th, 2008 Brian Herzog

Awesome Highlighter logoHere's a neat web tool I've been waiting to use ever since I read about it a few weeks ago on the Library 2.0 Ning group - the Awesome Highlighter.

It lets you highlight a portion of a webpage, send someone a link, and then they can see exactly what you highlighted. Great for virtual reference work, but also just good in general.

One of our more tech-savvy patrons emailed me asking if there was an easy way to search the Library's catalog right from book's page on Amazon. There is, using Firefox and Greasemonkey, and it is outlined on my Library's Tech Tools page.

But instead of just sending him the link to the Tech Tools page, I ran it through the Awesome Highlighter, so I could send him a highlighted page, with focus on exactly the portion of the page I wanted him to see. Not that he wouldn't have found it on his own, but it just makes it a little bit easier - especially the "jump to highlights" link at the top.

On the Ning page, there's some discussion about the highlighter working or not working depending on whether the user is signed in. I've only used it a couple times, but I haven't had any trouble. The great thing is that someone from the company is participating in the discussion, so hopefully whatever bugs do exist will be corrected as a result - much like Jessamyn's comments on SWIFT.

If we never speak up, then we'll never get tools that do exactly what we need (I'll refrain from inserting my ILS soapbox here).



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Online Photo Tools

   March 13th, 2008 Brian Herzog

cameraI am giving a workshop in early April on using flickr. It's the last in a digital photography workshop series at my library, because, after people learn how to use and take nice pictures with their digital camera, the flickr workshop will show them one option for doing something with those digital pictures.

I thought I'd get a jump on preparing for it, by compiling a list of websites I'd like to mention in addition to flickr - not just online photo sharing websites, but websites that let you edit photos, sites that have free archives of photos, etc.

In the process of working on it, it occurred to me that it'd be worthwhile to post it here, too. It's a long list, but certainly not all-inclusive, so if your favorite isn't listed here, please share.

Photo Sharing:

Photo Editing:

Image Archives:

Other flickr-related Information:

Also, this list will probably change a bit closer to the workshop.



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