W1: Searchers Academy
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 16:30
Want to sharpen your web search skills? Find information in the real-time collaborative and social web? Learn from the experts? Join search veterans, speakers, and authors to learn the latest strategies and techniques for searching online. This fast-paced, newly updated, day-long event allows you to interact with the experts, who share their searching secrets and expertise as they focus on the most-current practices in the field of web research. There’s always something new to be learned from these leading-edge panelists. Participants should have basic experience with web searching, but even searchers with an extensive searching background will find tips to polish and advance their skills and will come away with new resources and tools. Academy topics include the following:
- Hidden Tools & Features of the Major Search Engines: Learn about the new and little-known search features of the Big Three.
- Desert Island Databases: What online resources would you consider essential if you were stranded on a desert island?
- Cost-Effective Searching: Online strategies/practices for tough times to get the most for your search dollar and your time.
- Searching the Social Web: Find out how to tap into the social web to glean intelligence.
- Searching the Mobile Web: Best apps and strategies.
- Subject Search Round-Up: Hear from experts on the specific tools and resources for searching in a variety of specialized topics
Presented by: Mary Ellen Bates, Greg Notess, Gary Price, Marcy Phelps
Comment On This ArticleW2: Drupal: Start to Finish in a Day
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 16:30
This full-day, intensive, hands-on workshop is for new and novice Drupal users. It covers Drupal 6 and 7 skills, including installation, configuration, core functions, and theme development. This introductory workshop touches on most every aspect of the core Drupal framework:
- How to install Drupal and all the modules that a common site would use
- Adding, editing, and moderating content
- Creating user accounts and understanding Drupal’s permissions system
- Setting up menus and other design elements on a page
- Creating human-readable URLs
- Categorizing content using Drupal’s taxonomy system
- Editing your own Drupal theme
- Bring your laptop, and at the end of this Drupal day, you’ll have a simple but complete Drupal site.
Presented by: Blake Carver, Sean Fitzpatrick
Comment On This ArticleW3: Web Managers Academy: Usability & Users Experience (UX)
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 16:30
Interested in improving your library website and reframing your digital presence from the point of view of the user? This lively, high-level and interactive workshop shares practical ways to assess, design, and improve your online properties for maximum user friendliness. Immerse yourself in this in-depth workshop led by experts and practitioners that incorporates an overview of usability tools and techniques, a look at the latest research on designing for a positive user experience, tons of tips and tricks to help you avoid common usability and UX pitfalls, and discusses other useful measurement and assessment tools to help you better understand your users.
Presented by: Darlene Fichter, Jeff Wisniewski, Marshall Breeding, Frank Cervone
Comment On This ArticleW4: Handheld Librarians’ Mobile Tech Tutorial
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 12:00
This interactive and hands-on workshop provides a complete overview of mobile technologies, discusses the concept of the mobile revolution, and shares the potential applications to libraries. This tailored learning experience includes expert guest speakers presenting ideas originally shared at the online Handheld Librarian conferences. The workshop outlines the major mobile technologies available for libraries and exact methods for applying them with strategies for success. It focuses on interactive discussions enhanced by the mobile tools themselves and features immersive hands-on learning and playing to deliver specific takeaways that attendees can immediately apply to their libraries. Bring your laptop/notebook/mobile device/tablet!
Presented by: Joe Murphy, Chad Mairn
Comment On This ArticleW5: Web Developers Boot Camp
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 12:00
Are you a solo web developer with an interest in learning basic web scripting? A newbie thrown into your library web programming role because nobody else raised their hand? Somebody with a little more experience but always looking to improve your programming skills? This workshop is for you. Speakers work through the basics of web programming and highlight resources to continue learning. Their emphasis is on mashups and web services as a means to practice these skills. Featured topics include REST and Structured Data (e.g., JSON); common programming routines and functions; building simple video widgets with the YouTube API; mapping data with Google Maps; and learning how JavaScript (jQuery) and PHP work together to create advanced search mashups with the WorldCat API. Note: Attendees should bring a laptop to play along with the examples and have some familiarity with HTML and a scripting language.
Presented by: Jason A. Clark, Amanda Hollister
Comment On This ArticleW6: Digital Preservation Basics
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 12:00
“Digital preservation” and “digital curation” are phrases thrown about as frequently as iPads and Kindles these days, but unlike the latter, there aren’t any apps for “digital preservation.” As challenging as these concepts are to truly understand, the reality is that responsibility for saving our era from being remembered as the “Digital Dark Age” has fallen to libraries and archives. But, do you really understand what it means and what is required to preserve digital objects? Join us for this introductory-level, 3-hour workshop. We’ll take the mystery out of the terms and concepts and provide you with some real methods to begin (or further) your institution’s foray into this important and challenging area. The workshop leaders are graduates of the new Library of Congress Digital Preservation and Outreach Education (DPOE) Train-the-Trainer certificate program. Topics to be covered include six major areas:
- Identify – What digital content do you have?
- Select – What portion of that content is your responsibility to preserve?
- Store – How should digital content be stored for the long term?
- Protect – What steps need to be taken to protect your digital content?
- Manage – What provisions should be made for long term management?
- Provide – How should digital content be made available over time? Bring your questions and be prepared to consider your institution’s holdings and issues through the lens of best practices for digital preservation.
Presented by: Jody L. DeRidder, Sarah Rhodes, Amy Rudersdorf
Comment On This ArticleW7: Screencasting: Tips & Tricks for Fast & Easy Online Tutorials
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 12:00
Online tutorials can be extremely time-intensive to create. Screencasts offer quicker ways to create informative tutorials that demonstrate online library resources or anything else on the web or your desktop. New tools make it quick and easy to create screencasts and host them online. Explore using free and fee software such as Jing, Camtasia Studio, and web-based services to quickly create online tutorials for your users. Compare hosting options at Screencast.com, YouTube, blip.tv, or Freescreencast. In addition to gathering proven tips, techniques, and tricks for quick screencast creation, see examples of advanced editing features such as call-outs, transitions, zooming, and highlights. Bring your own laptop to check out sites that are discussed. Show and tell the easy way!
Presented by: Greg Notess
Comment On This ArticleW8: Impact Your Community: Strategies & Practices
Workshops – Tuesday 20 March
09:00 – 12:00
The 2009 US IMPACT Survey provided libraries for the first time with statistically valid national data that could be used to show patron impact from their technology services. In 2011, another 400 libraries took advantage of a self-service version of the survey to gather data in their local communities that could be used to talk about the impact libraries are having on their patrons’ lives. This workshop uses case studies from participating libraries to demonstrate effective strategies for communicating with funding agencies and community-based organizations to building sustainable funding and effective partnerships. Through interactive discussions, videos of actual meetings between city council members and partner agencies, and highlights of successful library activities, you will learn ways of positioning libraries as valuable community assets using survey data. If you took the survey, this workshop will help you use the data effectively; if you didn’t, you will learn strategies for gathering and using data in your own community to help your library technology services thrive, not just survive.
Presented by: Michael Crandall, Samantha Becker
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