Facebook, LibGuides & TLC event

Acorns! (and leaves, and a mushroom)

Days at the library have been extremely busy for me lately, and so instead of writing one of my usual meditative/rambling posts this week, I'm just going to describe some of the projects I'm currently working on:

#1) Camden County College Library's Facebook page

There have been a couple of past attempts at creating and maintaining a page for our library, but when I was recently nominated to take charge of the library's Facebook presence I decided to start from scratch. Due to a great many discussions in libraryland on the topic, I feel well-versed in the theory of library facebook magic, so this is a great opportunity to implement it.

I'm looking at the Green Library (Stanford University), the Library of Congress, and the TC3 Baker Commons pages for ideas. Also I'm hoping to eventually embed widgets from our various vendors in the page. Glad to see that the Camden County Library System has already created them for CamCat (our shared OPAC).

#2) LibGuides, LibGuides, and more LibGuides

We began using LibGuides when I started my job, so I cannot imagine our instruction program without them. They are a fantastic resource for librarians, students, and faculty. They supplant the paper subject guides or pathfinders, but they also can be used for a variety of other projects such as faculty support and special event pages.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, here's one way we're using them: A professor requests a library instruction session, usually related to a particular assignment. We create a LibGuide to highlight resources and materials to support the assignment. We publish the guide, the faculty member reviews it, and then we cover the material in the guide in class. The guides can be quickly and easily updated if anything changes, and they are extremely useful for students and the reference librarians to refer to. All librarians can edit the guides, but some of us have claimed ownership of particular ones.

At this point, we have 45 published (active) guides, and approximately 75 unpublished (in-process) guides. Here are some of the ones I've worked on: English Composition 102, Intro to Literature, Music subject guide.

#3) Teaching and Learning Center (TLC) event at the college "Technology In and Out of the Classroom: Online Communication with Students."

On Thursday I'm helping to host this event for faculty on campus. Two colleagues and I have divided up various Web 2.0 tools to discuss. My part of the presentation will be about how to use twitter as an educational tool. I'm looking forward to hearing faculty responses and questions!

Whew!