Not going so swimmingly…

I’ve ground to a rather annoying halt.  The end of term was busy and then so many other things popped up and I’ve had loads of time off for one reason or another…so now I’m here in mid-april no closer to anything resembling a finished product.

It’s a good thing that I started this early as it means I do still have time left on the clock.   Project showcase is on July 7th, that’s plenty of time to finish off right?  Well, we shall see…

Now the only problem is where to pick things up again. Argghh mega stress!

Some lovely examples of what I’d like to achieve!

I found some excellent examples of library tutorials created using Adobe Captivate.
The first are from the University of Iowa Libraries; here they have set up a series called 60 Second Tutorials, demonstrating a variety of electronic resources – http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/help/tutorials/videos.html

Also Warwick University Library have a series of tutorials in the help section of thier website; potentially made using Captivate or at least something very similar, they are very slick and wonderful. http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/main/help/training/

Making good progress!

Since my last post Captivate has been installed on the laptop and I’ve managed to fit in lots of project work over the course of the term. Hurrah, on the road to success at last!

Importing a Powerpoint to Captivate

I love Captivate.  It’s clever but complicated.  Probably not for the faint hearted or computer shy! It makes  everything look so wonderfully slick and professional.  A million times better than Windows Movie Maker.

I missed the OUCS training session on Captivate because I was off work ill, but luckily I’m the type of person who loves working out how to use new software without instructions or tutorials.  Playing is the best way to learn in my book.

I’ve experimented with many different way of approaching the first guide; in the end I’ve settled on creating the slideshow in Powerpoint and then importing it to Captivate to make it super slick and professional looking.

So far so good, its very easy to edit each slide using Captivate making my life easy.  I’m about to start working on the audio part of the guide,  Captivate should be very useful here as you can record the audio for each slide seperately or do it as one big long track.  Editing audio looks easy too.

The editing window in Captivate

Tags: Adobe Captivate, computing facilities

Software issues…

As previously mentioned I’m been having issues with software, my office PC only has Windows Movie Maker installed. Not ideal if I want to produce something that looks profressional.  Hopefully our one copy of Adobe Captivate will be installed on the shared office laptop soon and I will be able to put together something which looks more professional.

I’m looking forward to getting started with Captivate.  Was supposed to attend an OUCS course about using it before Christmas however I was ill and couldn’t go…luckily teaching myself how to use new software packages without instructions and tutorials is something I’m very good at!

Project Update

I’ve hit a bit of a brick wall with my project this week.  Software is a bit of an issue at the moment so I’m waiting on our wonderful IT technician Penny to do some investigation into possible solutions.  As I’ve previously blogged, I’ve been doing research into software packages, and playing around with anything I can.  My machine only comes with Windows Movie Maker which is frankly, rubbish.  It isn’t behaving anyway(its distorting screencaptures if I try to make a movie using them and playback distorts the images even more) so even if I wanted to, I am unable to produce anything right now.   Its frustrating as I really would love to be working on putting together the finished final podlet.

In the meantime I think I will use this week to collect together the images etc that I need for other podlets and write scripts for the audio tracks.

Tags: screencasting, software

Screencasting Research

I have been doing some research into screencasting software, testing out some of the free options and hoping to test out the ones that you have to pay for too.   Whilst browsing I came across A Quick Guide to Screencasting for Libraries at iLibrarian, a blog post focused on the tools and rescources out there for screencasting in libraries.  iLibrarian has some really interesting links to online material such as articles on screencasting,  blogs & wikis and tutorials.

One of the most interesting and relevant for me was an article called Screencasting: How To Start, Tools and Guidelines at Smashing Magazine.  Here some of the main software packages for screencasting are reviewed, giving a brief idea of the pros and cons of each.  A good range of software is covered, from the expensive top of the range offerings by Adobe in the form of Adobe Captivate , to opensource programmes such as Camstudio and Wink.  A range of Mac offerings are also listed however I’m not as Mac user so despite looking really good these are no use to my project.

Tags: research, screencasting, software

FAQ Podlets Plan – Automated Stack Requests

A plan for a tutorial on using the Automated Stack Request system covering the process of ordering an item and collecting from the library: ASR FAQ Plan

Tags: ASR, FAQ, Planning, storyboards

What do other libraries do?

As I began thinking about the essential information about the Bodleian Law Library and ways to organise it, I began to wonder about other libraries.  In particular other university libraries and what they have in terms of a frequently asked questions or essential information section online.

I picked some university libraries, mostly at random and investigated how they present information about thier services to thier readers via websites.

Here are the results: A review of library FAQ’s.

Tags: FAQ, other libraries, project ideas, research

What are the other trainees up to?

I don’t really know what most people are doing for thier projects, nor whether other trainees have started or how far into them they may be as it isn’t something that’s been discussed much.  However Charlotte from the SBS has posted an update on the trainee blog about her project and progress so far.  We seem to be working on projects with similar elements so I’m keen to follow her progress and see how she gets on.

We have a training session about project management this afternoon so perhaps there will be an opportunity to discuss our own projects.  It would be good to find out what others are working on!

Tags: other trainees, project ideas

FAQ Podlets Plan – Computers

Here is the plan for my podlet covering the computing facilities offered by the library:  Computers FAQ plan

Tags: computing facilities, FAQ, Planning, storyboards