Technology in my Library Experiences

Undoubtedly, the academic library is becoming a less vital part of the university because students rely on fast and easy to use search engines (like Google) to yield fast results. I know that even during my undergraduate career I was guilty of this: I would Google something, and then attempt to find published articles/documents to help augment what I discovered in the quick search. We live in a time where people are less inclined to sort through stacks of books and volumes of periodicals to achieve answers and information. Currently college students have grown up with computers and Google and fast results.

 

As such, it is increasingly important to meet the needs (and technological based demands!) of such students. I had the absolutely pleasure of recently interning at a small academic college, where my two major responsibilities included the creation of LibGuides and the development of a YouTube catalog. A very popular asset to the students, library guides are basically a highly advantageous starting point for research. For example, a lib guide in art may suggest books in the collection pertaining to art, useful databases for art appreciation, reliable websites for browsing--and perhaps even online digital repositories for art from museums like MoMA and the Louvre. Resources like this will be helpful to ensuring students not only have quick access to information, but will also guide them toward efficient and appropriate resources. This is vital to our duties as librarians! Furthermore, essential technological skills are necessary for the creation of LibGuides: most of the formatting is similar to that of Dreamweaver, so some knowledge of html is needed. I found myself going through many other LibGuides while I was interning just because of awkward spacing, mismatched colors and links that did not work. These are mistakes we should not be making as pioneers of technology!

Secondly I created a YouTube catalog for the college. I assessed (informally) areas of the collection that would most benefit from the development of a YouTube catalog, and determined it to be the areas of Theater and History. Upon retrieving syllabi for many of the classes, and evaluating the course catalog, I then selected myriad videos for each, created the YouTube channel, watched the videos at length to determine their appropriateness and then added a variety for both the areas of History and of Theater. This project was entirely "free" to the college (I say this of course because I was an unpaid intern and therefore not staff), and I am still curious to hear how the YouTube collection affects the catalog. Because I just finished the project in June it has yet to be "officially" added to the catalog, but I remain curious nevertheless!