From Sage on the Stage to Mobile and Engaged: One Community College\u27s Evolution of Library Instruction

Santa Fe Community College (SFCC) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has a student population of approximately 6,500 students. The campus community is served by a library director and staff consisting of 2¾ FTE librarians, a library technician, a library administrative assistant, and four work-study students. The majority of library instruction sessions are led by the reference and instruction librarian, with other staff filling in as needed. Fall semester instruction sessions increased from twenty-five to fifty-eight between fall of 2009 and 2014

Designing a cell phone application to alert and report drinking water quality to South Africans

Drinking water quality, especially in many parts of South Africa, is far below acceptable standards. With an annual estimate of 43, 000 deaths from diarrheal diseases, 3 million cases of illness and treatment costs of over half a billion US dollars, the impact is critical (Mackintosh & Colvin, 2003). To address this issue the Aquatest project seeks to develop a simplified low-cost water quality test kit and information management solution. This would allow Water Service Providers, especially in rural areas, to monitor water quality and distribute test data to the necessary parties - Water Service Authorities and consumers. This research addresses the challenge of reporting complex and critical water quality information in a way that is accessible to all South Africans as law requires. In a country with high illiteracy rates, 11 official languages and limited-to-no access to technology in many areas, this is no easy feat. We propose that the use of appropriate information and communication technologies (ICT), coupled with culturally appropriate ways of presenting scientific data, would allow water quality information to be accessible to South Africans. With the penetration level of cell phones exceeding 100% of the South African population (ITU, 2008), the low cost of Mobile Internet access and the popularity of cell phone applications such as MXit used for social networking, mobile technology seemed promising. This led to the design of Water Alert!, a cell phone application that alerts and reports critical water quality information to consumers who subscribe to it. Our assessment and evaluation of this design with users suggested that such an application would help to improve the consumers\u27 level of understanding of water quality information since the use of a tool and interface design that they are familiar with would lower the learning curve, while symbol-based messages would make critical water quality information more accessible to all regardless of their literacy level or language spoken

UX, It’s Not a New State in the Union: User Experience Explained!

Using user experience (UX) methodologies, libraries can improve their web site by identifying the tasks that their users need to accomplish, and then eliminate those barriers. This process sounds easy enough, but if your library makes web site decisions based on self-referential or anecdotal data, then it’s not being geared towards user’s tasks and goals. By following user experience principles, libraries can clearly identify problematic touchpoints, or expand upon touchpoints that users value the most. Here’s a quick overview

How to Pack a Room: 3D Printing at Albertsons Library

Libraries have a history of helping their communities create, whether it’s writing a paper or acquiring new information on a topic. Libraries have always helped communities learn new skills, and sometimes those skills are best acquired through creating. As technology has advanced, libraries too have evolved to boost individual’s digital fluency skills by providing tools and resources to help understand and experience new technology. Albertsons Library strives to helps students, staff, and faculty innovate by encouraging collaborative opportunities that promote information access and digital fluency skills. Providing campus-wide access to a 3D printer fits perfectly with this aim by bringing students, faculty, and staff together to investigate a new technology

From the Fringe to the National Fabric: A Resurgence of Disinformation and How to Neutralize It

GAME OF THRONES CALLING OUT POLITICAL CLIMATE? Imagine you are sitting at home having just finished Sunday dinner when there is a knock at the door. Your friends have arrived to watch the Season Finale of your favorite show, Game of Thrones. The finale revolves around a number of warring houses whose past betrayals and chicaneries have made it difficult to join together and unite against an unimaginable threat

Feeling Like a Fraud: Helping Students Renegotiate Their Academic Identities

A sense of belonging is an integral aspect of success in a long-term, group-oriented endeavor such as the pursuit of a college education. When students feel their presence at college is fraudulent, their achievements unfounded, or that they will be further disenfranchised if their true self is discovered, it is less likely that they will connect to the people and services who can help them achieve their educational goals. This “imposter syndrome” or “imposter phenomenon” can be addressed and turned around through a concerted effort. While that effort involves a personal journey, like any journey it is often aided and accompanied by others. Through strategic outreach efforts, academic libraries are positioned to be important players in that journey, helping these “imposters” renegotiate their self images to include a sense of their essential place in academia and belief in their ability to successfully complete their academic goals

Translating Failure into Success

Failure plays a key part in our professional and personal development, but traditionally many of us have been inclined to sweep our failures under the rug. Librarian and blogger Steven Bell posits that perhaps we are embarrassed at our failures, instead of recognizing that sharing our blunders can be an opportunity to celebrate our creativity (2010). Some brave souls are doing just that, such as the librarians who are sharing their failuresthrough Twitter, using the hashtag #libraryfail. An enormously popular website has grown through shared failures, CakeWrecks(http://www.cakewrecks.com/). And a meme has been making the rounds on the internet for some time, titled “Nailed It,” in which people contrast their failed attempts at craft or  baking projects with the original perfect creation

Tracking User Behavior with Google Analytics Events on an Academic Library Website

The primary purpose of an academic library website is to serve as a portal to library-acquired content. Navigational design of a library website affects the user’s ability to find and access content. At Albertsons Library, the goal of the navigational design of the website is to mimic user behavior on the website to help them access information and articles from over 300 different library vendors. Coordinating with different vendors makes tracking the navigational flow of user behavior difficult with the tool Google Analytics. Using the events feature in Google Analytics, the team responsible for web design was able to track user flow, and was able to quantify how many users were actual “drop-offs” versus those that were clicks into library resources. Decisions made after acquiring this data resulted in a website with a 10 percent or less bounce rate, and decreased the number of clicks required for users accessing the library\u27s content

WATER alert!: using mobile phones to improve community perspective on drinking water quality in South Africa

Drinking water quality, in many parts of South Africa, is far below acceptable standards. With a high number of illnesses and deaths in the country due to diarrheal diseases, the impact is critical. This research addresses the challenge of reporting complex and critical water quality information in a way that is accessible to all South Africans. High illiteracy rates, the presence of 11 official languages and limited-to-no access to technology in many areas, present some of the major challenges to the design of an alert notification and reporting system. We describe the design of WATER Alert!, a symbol-based prototype mobile phone application to alert and report water quality information to consumers and allow for citizen involvement in water management. Our findings from a preliminary evaluation revealed that WATER Alert! is simple to use and has a perceived usefulness amongst participants. The findings also suggest that such an application would help to improve consumers' understanding of water quality information leading to an improved Community Perspective on drinking water quality