We have been eagerly anticipating the move from the original libguides to 'libguides 2' for quite some time. Now we finally have a migration date and all of the Reference Team are very busy getting ready for the move. So what are we busy doing? Well, Springshare, the company behind Libguides, have put together a list of recommendations to prepare for migration. The most important thing we need to do is to 'clean up' our current libguides to ensure the migration process goes as smoothly as possible. I have taken the Springshare list and adapted it slightly to create a Tanglin clean up list. We are all working hard to complete the clean up for all the libguides in our collection. | We are initially focussing on our most popular libguides but it is hoped that we can 'clean up' most (and preferably all) of our libguides before our migration date of Thursday 12th June. You can find our libguides here |
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The specimens range from leaves of trees to samples of fungi. For preservation, plants are spread out flat and mounted on paper together with important information, such as the identity of the specimen and the date and place it was found. You can search the herbarium's catalogue here. As well as visiting the Herbarium and the Public Reference Centre, we also saw the Reference Library. This area has restricted access so it was great to have the opportunity to visit one of the oldest reference libraries in South East Asia. The library has existed since 1875 and houses many rare books, including some with beautiful hand-drawn illustrations. We also saw a collection of fascinating old photographs with some showing the time when Singapore Botanical Gardens were zoological gardens (from around 1875-1905). I never knew rhinos and other zoo animals had once lived in the botanic gardens!
This video is about the New York Botanical Garden's Library. Although this is not about the library in Singapore, it does give a good explanation of what a herbarium is all about. ![]() It is almost a year since I began this blog. My very first blog in May 2013 was about smiling, so when I saw an article in 'The Guardian' about libraries and happiness, I thought it was time for another 'happy' post! The article talks about a study that found "visiting libraries makes us as happy as a £1,358 pay rise"! If you read the article you will see it is not quite as straight forward as it sounds; for example, there is a possibility that people who visit libraries are happy people anyway. So the findings don't appear to be very conclusive but it is an interesting read and I really like the idea that we are playing a part in making our students' lives happier! :) ![]() In a previous post, I mentioned that I had written a piece of work for my University course that included a discussion on makerspaces. I really enjoyed researching this topic (and managed to achieve my first Higher Distinction! :) ) so I thought I'd share a brief introduction to makerspaces here. A makerspace is an area in which individuals can use technology tools to create digital or physical items. Making in libraries is not a new idea; in 1873 The Gowanda Ladies Social Society met in New York to "quilt, knit, sew, socialise and talk about books" ("A history of making", 2013). Now, as libraries seek to adapt to a rapidly changing world where their physical space is needed less for the storage of books, there is a rise in the number of libraries offering facilities for people to create audio, visual or physical items.
One of the key advantages of providing a makerspace in a school library is the opportunities for creative learning. Some now believe that creativity can be considered as important as literacy in education (Robinson, 2006).
By creatively applying their scientific and mathematical knowledge in a makerspace students are able to solve problems and build things (Kemp, 2013). Through the development of their creativity, students are building skills for success in the new global economy (Partnership for 21st century skills, 2011). This is obviously a very brief introduction to makerspaces, if you are interested to know more I'm happy to share my report with you, just let me know :) REEFERENCES A history of making. (2013, January-February). American Libraries, 44(1/2), 46–47. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA315371795&v=2.1&u=csu_au&it=r&p=EAIM&sw=w&asid=0726982cf7625e9d0b730d2ae87360bf Kemp, A. (2013). The makerspace workbench: tools, technologies, and techniques for making. Retrieved from Overdrive Partnership for 21st century skills. (2011). Framework for 21st century learning. Retrieved from http://www.p21.org/storage/documents/1.__p21_framework_2-pager.pdf Robinson, K. (2006). Ken Robinson: How schools kill creativity. You Tube. Retrieved January 11, 2014, from http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
This video provides a brief introduction to Culturegrams: ![]() Earlier this week, all of the Reference Team, headed to the National Library after work. We went to listen to a very interesting talk by Dame Lynne Brindley about the future of research libraries. Dame Lynne Brindley is currently Master of Pembroke College, Oxford and previously she was Chief Executive of the British Library from 2000 to 2012. Dame Brindley began by talking about the current 12-15 year olds who will be university students in a few years time. Their needs are very different from any students before them, they spend much of their lives in an online world and libraries will need to adapt to their needs. She then covered a number of topics relating to the changing world of libraries. These included: Differentiation She talked about the need for libraries to offer differentiated services depending on the needs of students. In an academic, university setting this may involve offering different services to students from different faculties. So a Humanities student may need something quite different from a Biomedical student, for example. Dame Brindley, does see bookless libraries for libraries catering for subjects like Science and Engineering, while others, like History, will still need physical books. It is essential that library spaces are reinvented to accommodate changing needs. Digital acquisition and archiving As we know, libraries are currently facing many challenges. One challenge is the management of digital acquisition and archiving. Digital content is very different to the physical content that libraries have traditionally preserved. Digital content is much less durable and it is essential that ways are found to enable the long-term preservation of digital resources. The British Library is now working towards this by storing and maintaining digital content as well as physical. Opening up access Dame Brindley talked about the way that access to collections is being opened up. Digitisation is now a core function of all institutions that have heritage collections. 40 million pages of newspapers have been digitised by the British Library and, because they are outside of copyright, they can be made available to the public. Discovery and navigation The next topic was of particular interest to me, as I’m currently studying metadata as part of my Masters course. Dame Brindley mentioned the importance of metadata in creating the semantic web. People want easy access to information, with rankings, ratings and recommendations. They want to be steered towards quality resources and obviously this fits perfectly with the role of librarians. The overall message of the talk was that research libraries must adapt for their changing role in the 21st Century. Here you can see Dame Lynne Brindley talking about the future of research libraries at a lecure series on Innovations in Digital Scholarship supported by the Oxford eResearch Centre's Digital Social Research Programme: I recently completed the ‘Digital Environment’ module of my course. I was actually quite sorry it was over as I really enjoyed it! For my final piece of coursework I looked at two technological trends that are likely to affect libraries over the next five years. There are quite a few areas that would be relevant but I decided to look at Maker Spaces and Open Educational Resources (OER). In this post I’ll share some of the information that I found out about OER (I’ll look at maker spaces in another blog post).
Some Universities, like MIT, offer Open University courses that anyone can attend for free! MIT have already reached 100 million people worldwide with their courses and they hope to reach a billion by 2021 (MIT). The move towards open access obviously has implications for publishers. Many University academics are beginning to publish their work in open access journals. Their work has already been publically funded, so they believe the public should have open access to that research. The increase in availability of open access articles eliminates the need to pay licence fees. This could potentially, in the UK for example, save universities, colleges, libraries and museums millions of pounds every year (Green, 2013). Publishers' revenue is likely to be impacted as open access publishing becomes more popular.
The student can spend as much time as necessary working through this material. Lesson time is spent applying that knowledge in engaging activities, with the teacher’s support. These teacher videos can also be supported by the provision of other relevant videos, tutorials etc. for students to use before their lesson.
![]() I am still gradually adding blogs about the sessions I attended at the IFLA conference in August. This session was presented by staff from the National University of Singapore (NUS) who talked about how they use social media to bring students into their library. They use blogs, Facebook, Twitter and they have also explored Foursquare and a number of other sites as outlined here: FOUR SQUARE The library found that students were checking in with Foursquare with no intervention from the Library. The Library then decided to carry out a number of Foursquare campaigns in order to reach out to students and to highlight their presence on social media. Typical campaigns included:
The University found that a significant number of people checked in during campaigns. Although campaigns didn't significantly affect the number of walk-ins at the Library they did generate good will and highlighted the Library's presence on social media. ![]() MEME PROJECT A meme is a viral image in popular culture for certain information or emotions.
Memes had to relate to the library and all current students and staff could take part. The memes were judged on:
The Library uses Instagram to post pictures including 'behind the scenes' photos of the Library. The Library has a pinterest account. Twitter is used by the Librarian. The Library ran a project when staff took in turns to tweet about their work for a week so students got to know a bit more about each member of staff. ORIENTATION VIDEOS This year (2013) NUS are introducing very short orientation videos about seeking help etc. These were just being launched when I was at IFLA. I have just search You Tube and found this, which must be one of their new videos:
As we approach the end of the year, we know that the date is approaching when our Libguides statistics will be reset to 0 for the beginning of 2014. Some of our libguides have been so popular this year that I thought we should keep a record of that success - look at Pablo Neruda!!.... So, our most popular libguide ever, created by Joana, is about the Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda. If I had been asked to choose at the beginning of the year which of our libguides would be in that position, Pablo Neruda would have been way down my list of choices - quite a surprise! Joana created an excellent guide on the poet and his love poems which appears to be filling a gap in online information that many people around the world are finding very useful.
As you can see from the table above, we have many other libguides this year that have been viewed more than 2,000 times, with all of the Reference Team contributing to this success. As in previous years, we have found that guides relating to specific topics taught within the school are usually very successful and popular. The guides that are created with close teacher collaboration, then promoted by the teacher for coursework and homework are always well-used too. We will begin at 0 again on 1st January 2014 and will aim to achieve even higher usage of our guides next year... although I think 35,544 is going to be tough to beat!!! You can see our current statistics (and links to the guides) here: http://libguides.tts.edu.sg/topicguides Explore all our libguides by subject: http://seniorlibrary.tts.edu.sg/web/learningzone.html |
Suzanne Parfitt
I recently worked as Assistant Librarian at a British International School in Singapore. I've now relocated back to the UK and I am hoping to find a job that I enjoy as much as the one I've just left! Searching the ShelvesThis is my blog for interesting things to do with my work, my Continuing Professional Development (CPD), my studies or just anything that catches my eye relating to libraries, technology or books. Archives
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