Student Induction, Libraries, Prezi, and Interactive Maps

This'll probably be my last blog post for a while - I just wanted to share the results from a bit of an experiment to try and increase student engagement with library induction (and market the library at the same time). All new students go through quite a lengthy induction process in the first three weeks at the University. The library is slotted into that - how much time we get with the students varies between departments - and so it's a good opportunity for us to make contact, promote our services, and try and embed ourselves in the academic culture, but also tricky because the students are overloaded with information as it is.

I wanted to give each of my departments an interactive map with all the library info relevant to them specifically - the idea being that it's easier to navigate an actual map of the library than it is to just search for stuff on the library website. Because each department would have a bespoke map it would mean the students had all the info they needed in one place, and because I created the maps in Prezi they could also be used as a presentation tool (as well as a stand-alone web object, later; I give students the URL of the Prezi itself and tell them not to worry about writing down any of the other URLs it contains).

I created a generic map of the library with all the information which wasn't department specific, then copied that for each of my two departments and doctored it accordingly. I also made it available to my colleagues in Academic Liaison here at York, and a few of them created their own subject-specific versions too.

The upshot of all this is, it really seems to have worked! Both me and my colleagues have reported that students noticeably perk up when the Prezi starts zooming about (I even had some gasps from one of my groups...) and seem more engaged than they had in previous years when PowerPoint was used. I don't have anything to compare it to as it's my first Induction as a subject librarian, but my colleagues seem to think the student response is definitely better. What's also really good is that it's been great PR for the library - the academics all seem really impressed by it. One of my departments have asked me to run a session to teach them, the staff, on how to use Prezi, and it's made the library look innovative and more of an intellectual partner to the academic departments. I'm collecting a quote-book of all the comments we're getting (for example, a lecturer emailed one of my colleagues and said "[the Prezi] went down very well, and generated a much greater response from the students than in previous years – it’s a great presentation format, so do pass on that feedback"), and I might submit a proposal for LILAC all about this whole thing as I'd really recommend other libraries using Prezi in this way.

Anyhow, here is the presentation, based on a top-down outline of the library buildings created for my by my colleague Matthew Herring:

Music: Library Induction on Prezi (works best on Full-Screen)

It is designed to either be navigated through in the normal way, or to be a proper 'interactive map' with clickable hotspots. Anything that flashes green when you hover over it can be clicked on and zoomed-in on for more info - this also gives you the option of a student-led session where you ask them where they want to go, rather than leading them around. I'm planning on doing this with the Postgrads (many of whom will already know the library fairly well) but I must admit I chickened out of doing it with the Undergrads... I wanted it to be interactive but I didn't think fresh-out-of-school students would know enough about academic libraries to want to lead the session.

To achieve the hotspots I used a lot of hidden frames, one of the most useful features Prezi has. Here's what the canvas looks like in edit view - check out a new feature of Prezi, along the bottom: a preview screen showing you each stage of your navigation path:

And here's a closer view without the path showing, so you can better see how the hidden frames sit within the canvas:

Finally, here's an infographic I created about the library, which you get to when you walk in through the 'door' of the library map. The idea is to get across the scale of the library operation in one screen, without having to bore them with lots of stats throughout the presentation.

So overall, this approach worked well for everyone. For my other subject (Theatre, Film and Television) I'm planning to use an expanded Prezi for teaching purposes too. I don't think the scope of this is limited to Academic Libraries, either; you could easily embed a virtual Prezi map on a public library website, to help people use it better, too. If you're wondering about creating your own, here's a link to the Prezi guide.

Incidentally, one other  thing I did was let the students leave early from my 45 minute sessions. At this stage of the student lifecycle they are getting too much thrown at them for the full 45 minutes to be valuable - I wanted to get the key info across and leave it at that, rather than get them so bogged down in detail that they forget all of it or just switch off. When I see them again later in the term they'll hopefully be in a better position to go in-depth into the services and resources the library offers.

- thewikiman

Marketing libraries in a web 2 world

Marketing academic libraries in a web 2 world

View more presentations from Ned Potter

Above is an edited version of a presentation I gave at Oxford Social Media 2011 yesterday. It's primarily about marketing academic libraries, but actually most of it applies across the sectors.

There were some great presentations and I had a great time - check out Jo's slides on marketing yourself, and I'll link to Michael's slides on public libraries and social media when he stickes them online.

UPDATE: All the presentations are now uploaded in one place, check them out here.

- thewikiman

How to turn your blog into an app for iPhone

Wow! Less than an hour ago I saw this tweet:

... and 50 minutes later I have an app for this blog! Amazing.

The low-down

www.bloapp.com is a new site which allows you to create an iPhone app out of your blog. The crucial things to know are:

• it's free
• it's incredibly straightforward
• you retain your intellectual property
• it works .

Get my app!

The way Bloapp works is that you download the Bloapp app, and then subscribe to blogs within it that have been 'apped'. (That's not a real word, I just invented it; I mean registered with bloapp, basically). A bit like the Stitcher radio app works. So, you can download the Bloapp app from iTunes here, and then you can subscribe to this blog either by searching for thewikiman or, more excitingly, scanning this QR code within the app itself! (By the way, if you scan this QR code outside of the app itself, it just takes you to the normal mobile version of this blog).

The details

You register for the site, and give the URL of your feed, name of your blog etc. Then you get to some very good customisation options - firstly you choose a visual theme. Here's one I didn't go with in the end:

Then you get to tweak it - the header appears at the top of the page, and the logo appears within the Bloapp app when you're choosing which blog you want to read:

As you can see, it previews the header on the right so you know how it looks. You can then edit the fonts (both style and size) and the background image.

Once you've sorted all that, you need to add a meta-tag to your blog's html. (It supports wordpress, blogger, tumblr, posterous and the rest, incidentally.) Then that's it, your blog is registered and available via the app. You're given the QR code with which to publicise it.

When you then go into the app on your iPhone and scan the QR code within the app it looks like this:

...and once you've done that, it goes into your bookmarked blogs, and that's when the logo comes in to play, like this:

The home-screen of the blog displays your 3 most recent posts, and the posts once you go into them look great:

You can tweet links from within the app too, which is nice. And you get statistics from your Bloapp dashboard as to how many people have bookmarked your blog in the app.

Use in libraries

Making an app is incredibly expensive and / or incredibly expensive. I looked into it once before, and found a site that looked great and was known for being good value. I was excited right up until the bit that said 'packages are available from just $250 a month!'. Wow. So this, if it continues past the beta stage, is a fabulous opportunity for libraries to get on-board with new technology at no cost or really any hassle at all. My advice is to go to www.bloapp.com and set your library's blog app up (and your own blog, of course) - if you're worried about the fact that it's beta, you don't have to publicise it yet.

People are reading more and more on phones. You know all the stats already (all phones will be smart phones by the end of the decade; we'll access the internet more on phones than on PCs by the end of next year; people are preferring to read on apps than on mobile sites more and more, etc etc) so this has come along at a great time. Unlike the standard iphone widget you can install on wordpress.org blogs, this retains something of your blog's visual identity, too.

Do it! And when you've done it, let me know so I can subscribe. :)

- thewikiman

Why patrons are like marathon runners, and librarians need to serve refreshments on the hoof...

Library marketing guru Terry Kendrick describes the modern world as everyone rushing from A to B with their head down, and marketers having the near impossible task of trying to divert them over to come and talk about product X for a while. So for us as libraries to market successfully, we have to show these busy people how we, as a library, can get them to B faster or better - and we have to do it without slowing them down in the meantime.

I'd extend the analogy to a marathon runner running past the refreshment area - at the moment libraries are standing behind (metaphorical) tables shouting about what orange juices they have and what vitamins these contain; what we should be doing is running alongside people with a tray, telling them that our orange juice will help them reach the finish line quicker. (This encapsulates marketing rules 1, 2 and 3 from the previous post: market the service, not the content; no one cares about the how; and and market what THEY value, continue to do what WE value.)

- thewikiman

Three simple marketing rules all libraries should live by...

... but which so few do!  

1. Market the service, not the content. Telling people about content puts the onus on them think about how they can integrate that content into their lives; many people simply don't have time to analyse what we're offering in that way. We should be making it explicit how we can help them so they need no imagination to understand it - and that comes from marketing services. To paraphrase the awesome Sara Batts, Content is, Services do. Doing is more useful to people than being, so when you have a very limited time in which to appeal to people with limited attention span, market to them what you can do.
2. No one cares about the how! Can't stress this enough: libraries are seemingly process focused, but the the rest of the world is focused on results. When marketing a service we should concentrate on what people aspire to, not the tools which will get them there. A classic example is databases: we say things like "we subscribe to X databases which you can access via the library catalogue" or, even worse, we name them individually. We market the features; what people want to know about is the benefits. Like Mary Ellen Bates says, the way to market databases is to say 'we provide you with information Google cannot find'.
3. Market what THEY value, but continue to do what WE value. The SLA's Alignment Project unearthed some fascinating truths about what we as libraries and librarians think are important, and what our patrons and potential patrons think are important. There are marked differences, I'd urge you to read about it for yourselves. (To sum up, users put the emphasis on value-driven attributes, we put it on functional attributes. This is, essentially, points 1 and 2 above, mixed together.) But the key thing is this - it doesn't mean the stuff we value isn't important, it just means that it isn't as valued AS highly by other people. So we continue to DO all the important stuff we value, we just concentrate the marketing on promoting the stuff THEY value. .

You don't need to be a genius to do this stuff, or to have huge marketing budgets, or even loads of time. It's just a case of reconfiguring our existing efforts to acknowledge some simple rules.

Any that you'd add?

- thewikiman

p.s There is a part two of sorts, for this post, here.