Library

Using WordPress and Vimeo to create a library video help site

Tracy Bruce — Sun, 23 Dec 2012 16:26:35 PST

What your teacher librarian can do for you

Margie Wallin et al. — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 19:05:36 PDT

Pre-service teachers often lack opportunity or encouragement to build professional partnerships with teacher librarians during their teacher training. While pre-service teachers may visit the school library during their placement, this may not provide an adequate opportunity for teacher librarians to effectively highlight the services and resources that are available. Teacher librarians and principals have collaborated with Southern Cross University Library to produce a series of video clips – showcasing the value of school libraries, and what teacher librarians can offer their colleagues.

'JING' your converged delivery: using screen capture software to improve information literacy in regional universities

Jann Small et al. — Wed, 13 Jun 2012 01:27:19 PDT

Crowd sourcing for conservation: Web 2.0 a powerful tool for biologists

David A. Newell et al. — Sat, 09 Jun 2012 08:16:58 PDT

The advent and adoption of Web 2.0 technologies offers a powerful approach to enhancing the capture of information in natural resource ecology, notably community knowledge of species distributions. Such information has previously been collected using, for example, postal surveys; these are typically inefficient, with low response rates, high costs, and requiring respondents to be spatially literate. Here we describe an example, using the Google Maps Application Programming Interface, to discuss the opportunities such tools provide to conservation biology. Toad Tracker was created as a prototype to demonstrate the utility of this technology to document the distribution of an invasive vertebrate pest species, the cane toad, within Australia. While the technological aspects of this tool are satisfactory, manager resistance towards its use raises issues around the public nature of the technology, the collaborative (non-expert) role in data collection, and data ownership. We conclude in suggesting that, for such tools to be accepted by non-innovation adopters, work is required on both the technological aspects and, importantly, a cultural change is required to create an environment of acceptance of the shifting relationship between authority, expertise and knowledge.

Using mobile technology to deliver information in audio format: learning by listening

Margie Wallin et al. — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 18:12:40 PDT

Libraries globally are exploring ways to deliver the myriad of quality information resources available to their users – via mobile devices. As well as focusing on documents (with the inherent problems associated with reading on small screens), Southern Cross University (SCU) Library has explored ways of accessing and converting key documents to audio form, so that students and staff have an alternative way of engaging with academic literature.

Ereaders in academic libraries: a literature review

Tracy Tees — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 22:41:36 PST

This literature review describes the experiences of universities in their use of ereaders as textbook replacements and of academic libraries in their lending of ereaders. Information gained from this review will inform Southern Cross University (SCU) Library’s forthcoming Ereader Project, which will trial the lending of ereaders as leisure reading devices. The trial will help to gain insight to borrowers’ ereader experiences in the Australian academic library context.

Delivering library instruction with screencast software: a Jing is worth a thousand words!

Jann Small — Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:26:08 PST

It can be a challenge meeting the different learning styles of your library clients, who may be based at different campus locations, and who, at various times, may be on clinical placement at a health facility anywhere from Broken Hill to the Gold Coast. This is exactly the situation faced by the Health and Human Sciences Liaison Librarian team at Southern Cross University (SCU) in Northern NSW/Southern Queensland. This presentation describes our use of the screencast software, Jing, to deliver short, focused, online training aimed at helping clients make the most of the information resources the library provides, whether they’re on campus, on placement, or studying online.

Jing allows you to record a video, with audio, of your onscreen demonstration, training or presentation, which your clients can watch at their time of need – ‘just-in-time’ training. The Health and Human Sciences team has produced three Jing clips tailored to specific assessments, and two relating to particular tasks that the students were finding difficult to master. Links to the clips were then placed in Blackboard unit sites (the SCU Learning Management System) along with Blackboard announcements/emails notifying students the clips were available. Clips can also be prepared quickly to respond to individual queries from external students, providing that personal touch. It has allowed the team to provide individualised, personal assistance to client queries without having to be physically present. Initial feedback indicates that students have responded well to the use of these clips, and Liaison Librarians for all SCU Schools are developing clips for use in a range of discipline areas. Further evaluation needs to be carried out to determine the extent of use by students, and student satisfaction, with this form of training.

ePublications@SCU and postgraduates@SCU

Kerrie L. Burn — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 16:43:42 PST

BONUS Plus: sharing content across New Zealand and Australia

Katie Wilson et al. — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 02:23:04 PDT

The BONUS Plus system is an unmediated requesting system that enables the sharing of monograph resources among 8 university libraries from Western Australia to New Zealand. BONUS Plus uses the INN-Research consortial borrowing software from library system vendor Innovative Interfaces Ltd that offers quick and seamless inter-library borrowing.

BONUS Plus: unmediated online requesting among libraries in three Australian states

Katie Wilson — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 02:23:04 PDT

BONUS Plus, a resource sharing network of seven libaries was established in September 2007. Four Victorian libraries - Deakin University, the University of Ballarat, the University of Melbourne, and Victoria University - joined the University of Technology, Sydney and the University of Newcastle. Murdoch University in Western Australia joined in 2008. BONUS Plus members contribute to a shared catalogue twhich allows all staff and students of member libraries to place online unmediated requests for monographs. This article outlines the development and benefits of the BONUS Plus network.

Theological library resources in the Melbourne College of Divinity: a collaborative report

Kerrie L. Burn et al. — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 19:21:39 PDT

Information literacy : assessing the needs of international students at Central Queensland University

Margie Wallin et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:08:48 PDT

Information literacy and flexible delivery: creating a conceptual framework and model

Debbie Orr et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 18:03:37 PDT

Despite the growing recognition of the importance of information literacy education, there are few working models for curriculum integration within the Australian higher education sector. Librarians, in conjunction with faculty at Central Queensland University, developed a framework that assist in the planning and evaluation of information literacy programs.

Information literacy and health science: developing a comprehensive and sustainable model

Debbie Orr et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:56:34 PDT

Student interaction in an electronically mediated classroom : results, issues and potential

Debbie Orr et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:47:59 PDT

Information literacy and flexible delivery: are we meeting student needs?

Debbie Orr et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 17:04:47 PDT

This paper discusses the impact of flexible delivery on the creation and delivery of information literacy programs. By focussing learning on the needs of the learner, libraries have had to adapt traditional services to meet the needs of a diverse and dispersed client group. On campus students visit the library and have the opportunity to attend face-to-face classes. Librarians can discuss their needs, demonstrate products, offer alternatives, ascertain appropriate levels of service and negotiate solutions until their information needs are satisfied. For students who choose not to visit the library, interpersonal communication, non-verbal cues, immediate feedback, human intervention and negotiation is limited, making it difficult to attain an equivalent level of personalised service.

CHEMPAGE : a model for exploring the internet for professional development

Debbie Orr et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:58:26 PDT

Several members of the Central Queensland University library staff developed a world wide web program to aid chemists in accessing and searching revelvant resources on the Internet. The model teaches people how to access, evaluate and manage electronic resources and it can be adapted to disciplines other than chemistry.

A pilot application of the Value Toolkit: assessing the impact of information services to clinicians in regional Queensland

Patrick O'Connor et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:46:37 PDT

This paper outlines the use of the Value Toolkit with clinicians in regional Queensland, in particular Queensland health personnel, to determine the impact of library services. The study revealed the identity of and details of information service users; provided data on information service provision; and systematically documented the impact if information service provision. The value users place on information services was measured and qualitative and quantitative evidence for the effectiveness of information services was obtained in terms of impact upon patient care outcomes. Recommendations for further service development based on these findings are included in this paper.

Studying tourism : applied information literacy

J Litster et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:35:58 PDT

Use of formal and informal methods to gain information among faculty at an Australian regional university

Sansnee Jirojwong et al. — Thu, 06 May 2010 16:23:46 PDT

Faculty members use formal methods, searching traditional print sources along with the newer electronic resources of gaining information for various purposes including research and teaching activities. A number of studies have shown that faculty also use informal methods of information gathering, such as personal contact and personal communications, more frequently because of the ease of using such sources and because the resulting information meets their needs.( n1, n2) The informal method of information gathering has helped faculty in the same field to compare and share information.( n3-n7) Many studies focused on the use of personal contact and personal communications among faculty for their research activities including conducting their own research projects and having their research articles published. In the past two decades, electronic sources of information have been increasingly widely available. These sources include online databases, online public access catalogs (OPACs), e-conference, e-mail discussion, full-text databases, books, scholarly Web sites and pre-print archives and bulletin boards. The advancements in technology continue to facilitate this formal information gathering method through the availability of electronic resources. Little research publication was available relating to the use of these ranges of resources by faculty and its frequency for teaching and research activities. Little emphasis has been placed on the use of electronic sources of information among faculty of regional universities. This study compared the use of formal and informal methods of information gathering by faculty for teaching and research activities. The study explored the use of electronic sources by the faculty of an Australian regional university and the frequency of their use of these electronic sources. The study also aimed to assess characteristics of the faculty who used informal methods of information gathering and determine if there are relationships between the faculty's characteristics and their use of the informal method to gain information. Demographic data, ongoing research activities, and competence to use electronic sources of information were used to form these characteristic profiles.