Thing 9: Reflective Practice (Visual Communicator Things, Option 2)

My task for this Thing is to reflect on Thing 3, an overview of image banks, Thing 7, an exercise in creating a small online exhibit, and Thing 8, gaining some experience in making an infographic. What an experience of extremes these last two were!

Completing Thing 3 was not an "extreme" activity, but still informative. I've used multiple image banks before (Flickr, Google Images, Noun Project, and Pixabay) when searching for just the right image to use, professionally (promotional posters and blurbs) and personally (mostly Christmas cards). Instead of focusing on the act of searching for an image, I chose to examine image tagging, as this determines what one can retrieve from a collection. I cannot tell whether my observations of Pixabay--finding that the visual representation of "entrepreneur" is narrowly defined--reflect an editorial voice, a type of groupthink on the part of Pixabay users who mark images with "Like" or "Favorite," or something else. Regardless, the experience makes clear that it’s essential to try multiple image banks when searching for representation of a type of person or a personal attribute. (And ideally, we users should create and add images that broaden the pool of options available for the next searcher.)

Thing 7 started out uncomfortably and the experience never improved. I couldn’t find any on-site collections appropriate for an exhibit and settled on re-working a handout—not the best of options. What I created was an unremarkable website comprised of a couple of pages. The whole experience was slow and tedious, even painful. Browsing through a multitude of themes--each with multiple possible variants--and "trying them out" holds absolutely no appeal for me. (I’m lucky that I’ve never had to select paint colors for a room, as I would run out of patience rapidly.) Trying to keep on schedule for Rudaí 23 added additional pressure. I grew fatigued, made mistakes, got frustrated, and made still more mistakes. CSS is a weakness of mine, and trying to revise the template to create the visual features I wanted gave me a headache. (When you have a brain injury, as I do, you can literally think too hard.) While I am not sold on using Blogger to create an online exhibit, the Thing wasn’t a complete exercise in futility. Since I feel more comfortable modifying templates, I have removed gadget clutter from this blog and added items I prefer to highlight. Other platforms listed in the original Thing post (WordPress and Omeka) might be more user-friendly, and I’d be willing to try them during a less stressful time of the academic year. At the job, however, I work in a department committed to LibGuides, and I am required to stick with that platform for anything I create in my role as a subject liaison librarian.

Fortunately, Thing 8 yielded considerably more reward for effort. The most challenging part of the activity was selecting a topic to portray via an infographic (so many options, so little time). There are a couple of reasons why this activity “clicked” with me. First, Piktochart presents a limited number of templates for each option (infographic, presentation, or “printable”), so it’s less of a cognitive load to browse the site. Second, the program steers users towards creating “blocks”--modular content that speeds the design of an infographic skeleton. Blocks can actually make for more flexibility in design--I used slides 1-4 and 8 of “Education Basic,” a presentation template(!) for something that is not a series of slides. Finally, I had the benefit of previous exposure to Piktochart via a webinar, and prior attendance at a library conference session on graphic design. I knew the key was to incorporate plenty of white space, minimal text, and just a few strong graphics. Looking back, I might have pared my content even more by removing the numbered blocks and reducing visual clutter in one block that contains three separate images. Because I found the execution of this Thing relatively painless, and the results look so professional, I will see if I can find opportunities to create more infographics (or other Piktochart items) in the future.

Statistics indicate that people from far-flung places (the Middle East and Asia as well as Europe and North America) have taken a look at my blog. I hope this post and others provide some useful information to readers, as well as a peek into the professional life and continuing education of an academic librarian.

Thing 8: Infographics

Reflections and infographic

This is the second infographic I have ever created (the first being a summary sheet in front of my annual report). The creation process was delightfully painless.

The Rudaí 23 blog post hinted that Piktochart provides a more modular experience than Canva. Using LibGuides at work makes me appreciate modularity. Another selling point was the opportunity to make progress beyond my initial exposure to the service, which came in the form of a much too fast and overly detailed live webinar. (Before immersing yourself in the recording, note that the presenter assumes viewers have access to either a dual monitor arrangement or a large screen monitor. If you use a standard size single monitor and you're not already familiar with Piktochart, you'll probably need to pause the video frequently or even replay parts to keep up with the "hands-on" that works better as a demonstration.)

I drew inspiration from two sources. We are in the process of hiring a librarian and our starting salary attracts (or at least doesn't drive off) brand-new graduates to interviews. I also follow a student on Twitter who attends my former graduate program. Both experiences are a good reminder that what is unsurprising after a few years in the same workplace is not at all routine for a newcomer. The infographic is about that ever-present aspect of a librarian's work: "other duties as assigned."

What has surprised me along the "other duties" path? By doing grunt work (sometimes delegation is impossible) I learned that catering services for business clients (i.e., catering refreshments at staff meetings) are breathtakingly expensive. (This also explains, in part, the costs of professional conferences--which in turn explains why our professional organizations seek sponsorship from commercial publishers for conferences.) As an academic librarian, I didn't expect to work with middle and high school students, but have done so many times to support various community outreach activities.

For the purely visual aspects of the infographic, once again I used a color scheme from my institutional branding toolbox. (If you're searching for a similar guide, also try looking for the "graphic identity" or "visual identity" of the organization.) This time I opted for Cabin font rather than Arial. I've since read a blog post noting that "Cabin is tight in the vertical," and I have to agree--any text block longer than three lines would have looked cramped.

For accessibility, infographics can be marked up for screen readers, posted as accessible PDFs, linked to a text alternative (transcript, "longdesc" file, etc.), or presented with a text alternative (see How to Make Digital Assets Accessible: Infographics and How to create an accessible infographic). I've opted for the last of those options, the text alternative below.

Click graphic to enlarge (separate window)

Text alternative for "Other Duties as Assigned" infographic

"Other Duties as Assigned": Librarians Off-Desk

If you’re a library school student, you’re looking for a job.

You’ve probably seen advertisements or position descriptions that mention “other duties as assigned.”

But what ARE those other duties? Here’s a sample from the University of Notmaine.

1) Book Reviews. We publish reviews of popular and scholarly books to support other librarians selecting titles for their collections.

2) Campus Badging Initiatives. We designed and oversee a 3-step pathway encouraging students to learn more about information literacy.

3) Cultural Activities. We facilitate student book groups and host a film series, bringing students together to learn more about topics that interest them.

4) K-12 Student Workshops. We collaborate with other departments, presenting library resource workshops to primary and secondary students visiting from all over the state.

5) Research Support Workshops. We teach employee and student researchers about finding grants, increasing scholarly impact, and publishing open access works.

Want to know more about what librarians do?

Talk to us. You might transform a conversation into an internship!

Nancy R. Curtis. October 2017.

Thing 7: Online Exhibitions

A brief search around my workplace for sources of inspiration yielded nothing but a set of guides about art works permanently on display in the library.  Oh no, I thought. Copyright problems!

And so the online exhibit I created for this Thing reworks a legal size single sheet illustrated handout. The original item is meant to provide new undergraduate students an overview of the library, but I think it leans too much toward an employee's view. About a quarter of the page is dedicated to departments (Special Collections and Government Documents) most of our students will never use, and photos bearing no relation to the adjacent content. The text includes undefined jargon like "periodicals" and "depository." Finally, there's information--perhaps included because of campus politics--utterly irrelevant to students. What student cares that we have a "new" (actually a couple of years old) classroom, and that it's shared with another unit on campus? My aim for "Exhibit Thing" was to try to speak more directly to the concerns and interests of students beginning their first semester at my university.

Planning the exhibit moved rapidly once I settled on an item to reinterpret. What I envisioned was a conventional website with few frills; a suite of pages, each briefly addressing one topic. To save time I re-used photographs from my own instructional presentations.

As for the visuals, I wanted a minimalist design that would look good on mobile phones, the devices our students use most often. I took the liberty of using my institutionally mandated branding toolbox as a starting point rather than a final set of rules. Official colors appear in the exhibit, but I expanded the palate slightly beyond white, black, and two shades of blue. Instead of Frutiger or Open Sans (neither one offered by Blogger) I selected Arial as an easy-to-read sans serif font. Since the exhibit is not meant for official distribution, I replaced a mandatory nondiscrimination statement with a placeholder.

I departed significantly from the original by adding a section titled “Eat.” American public university students pay tuition and fees, and many must work to meet these fiscal demands. For some, balancing education and employment means consuming meals (or snacks) while commuting, during class, and of course while studying or completing assignments. My library bans food consumption in most of the building, so I wanted to acknowledge students’ need for nourishment while also upholding our policy.

And then it was time for hands-on and the challenges began to mount. I had a rocky start, many ups and downs, and finally threw up my hands in resignation. First, it took some hunting around to find a technique for creating a redirect page that would serve as a stable homepage for the exhibit. Then the first template I tried seemed to make some of my content pages vanish--they literally didn’t show on the menu. I switched to the Notable template, which temporarily solved the problem...until the next day, when again pages vanished. I finally discovered they were unchecked on the page list, even though I could swear I hadn’t unchecked them after using the Select all option. The List Order function appeared to move pages in one direction only, not permitting full drag and drop. The More... menu on my phone displayed a background the same color as the menu links. “Black” (hex code #000000) text displayed as a low contrast grey instead, forcing me to switch to a dark blue for readability. Drop caps and accent (differently colored first line) effects disappeared when I added images. The only small relief I experienced was discovering that "gadgets" in the template code are labeled by comments, which enabled me to find and remove items a complete HTML coding novice would need to accept (Report Abuse, Search, and the "hamburger" sidebar).

My takeaways from the experience are:

• Use a familiar platform, use an experienced designer/coder, or prepare for a steep learning curve
• Allow plenty of time for creating an online exhibit. 

If you are interested in seeing my previous exhibit work, have a look at two LibGuides I created to complement temporary small display case exhibits about beer and the planet Saturn.

Thing 5: Video Presentations

I'd describe the making of my first Screencast-O-Matic Video as irritating and annoying.

If you've read my first blog post, you know that I have a number of musculoskeletal problems. I use some assistive equipment at work, including a small touchpad mouse. This doesn't make for long, smooth sweeps from one part of a screen to another...which appears to be an unstated best practice for Screencast-O-Matic videos. For me, preparing a higher quality video with this software would also mean finding a different workstation--one with a conventional mouse I can use (briefly!) to maneuver in a larger expanse on a table or desktop.

Here's my final product, which I created on a laptop that has a larger touchpad. It's rough around the edges, but I reached the point at which striving for improvements wasn't worth the investment of time and energy. I opted to omit a soundtrack, as that would require spending a bit more time on transcripts and captions.

[Video (3:38). Title screen: NUR 101 Library Presentation--A Quick Recap (Visuals only). Demonstrates a search of the CINAHL database, starting from the Fogler Library homepage. The presenter clicks on the Databases button and uses an alphabetical index to view part of a long list of library databases. She selects CINAHL with Full Text and clicks CINAHL Headings in the database menu bar. She searches for nurses, finds it as a CINAHL heading, and clicks on the term to display the tree of more specific terms under Nurses. She clicks the term Nurses by Role to reveal more details of the tree, scrolls down and selects Nurse Liaison, then clicks Search Database. She clicks Advanced Search under the search boxes to reach options for limiting the results. She selects 3 checkboxes: English Language, Peer Reviewed, and Research Article. Scrolling down, she selects Nursing from the Journal Subset menu, and All Child from the Age Groups menu. These limits dramatically reduce the number of search results. Some search results link directly to full text. For another, she clicks the Article Linker button under the result, and selects University of Maine as her location. After a moment, Article Linker returns a screen linking to the full text.]

Powtoon looks intriguing (and far less reliant on smooth mouse sweeps), but there's another Thing waiting in the wings.