Guest spot on UKOLN blog!

I was asked to do a guest spot on the UKOLN cultural heritage blog about the text a librarian service after they spotted my recent article in CILIP's Update magazine.

Duly done this weekend and straight up on their blog today!

Text tips and tricks

Just sent a "welcome" text message to the first group of people to sign up to our "Text Tips & Tricks" service (by texting HUDUNI LIB to 81025 - so nice and easy!)

Hopefully a few more people will sign up over the coming week, so I'll set up a second group / welcome message for them.

The first proper text message is due to go out on Monday (5th October), containing a link to a podcast describing what they can find on floor 4 (the entrance floor of the library). I'll then schedule the rest to go out over the coming weeks....

QR codes, staff presentations

About to give my first presentation on QR codes to staff in the library, should be followed by another one next week, then I'll arrange a third to try and catch anyone that's missed out!

Most important part was letting people play with mobile 'phones to see how QR codes work.

QR Codes presentation for staff briefings

View more presentations from andy_walsh.

Or the recording made while I was speaking, it was cut off slightly during the questions, but the full presentation is there:

QR codes in printed guides

Feverishly adding QR codes to printed guides now, linking to online quizes, videos and further help...

For instance I've added a quiz to my Law resources guide.

Hopefully people will see these strange things at the bottom of the printed guides and some will investigate. We'll see if it works!

Starting to stick QR codes around the library

Starting to stick QR codes around the library now ready for the start of term, though don't want too many up when there are still changes likely before the end of summer!

All the print journals now have QR codes linking to SFX to find electronic holdings.

Print credit machine has link to video on using it - though not sure now whether to stay with MoleTV or go with Youtube.

Hopefully sticking up some of the general "help" type ones later today - linking to "text a librarian" service for the fixed library catalogue points, for instance.

First mobile video

Created my first "mobile friendly" video - a quick tour of one of the floors of the library. I've just done it as a series of photographs interspersed with nice large chunks of text, so hopefully easy to see on a small screen!

I've put the version online I've tried on my windows mobile device. It looks okay to me on a small screen, so I'll be tidying it up and creating a few more in 2 different formats and giving them to people to test with some trial phones as soon as I can...

Here's a QR code that links to it in various formats on MoLeTV:

Story so far...

I've recently been investigating the use of mobile 'phones with our library, in particular for in teaching information literacy and just gave a talk at LILAC (Librarians Information Literacy Annual Conference) about it.

If they won't turn them off, we might as well use them. Using mobile ‘phones in information skills sessions.

View more presentations from guest905cbed.

One concrete service has come out of it so far, a text a librarian service for the University library.

However, I've just been given some money to introduce QR tags in the library with the intention of blurring some of the boundaries between the physical library and the mobile / online world. I've also been given a small award to introduce some mobile friendly materials onto our induction webpages and link them to a series of text messages that students would be able to sign up to in the first term at University.

This blog will be my attempt to keep track of what I've done and when (so I can write it up "officially" later!), plus what I think has worked and what hasn't.