The Synthetic Librarian

Last week I was walking through a library and saw a sign that read “Why waste time… Ask us!” I thought, “how true!” The next day, I walked through the same library, but as I passed the sign, the word “Why” was blocked by something, and I read “waste time… ask us!” and I thought “how true!”

It makes sense for libraries to concentrate expert knowledge and make it available at the service desk and then it makes sense to advise users to ask because everything is made available at a single point. On the other hand, there are physical and temporal limitations on the helpdesk model. Users may not get the answer they need, they may have to wait in long lines, they may have to take great care to explain their need, and they may find travelling to the helpdesk inconvenient. In short, users may very reasonably find asking at the desk a waste of time. This is not a dilemma: “ask us” services must supplemented with self-help opportunities to efficiently meet library users’ needs.

A more difficult question to ask is, “how can we reach those users who do not ask us?” Fortunately, there is a Web 2.0 solution.

Videosharing and Library User Needs

Videosharing, especially in the form of screencasting, can be an effective tool for libraries to reach users who might never otherwise spend their time at the helpdesk. Videosharing sites, like YouTube, Google Video, Howcast, and University Tube are sites that allow anyone to upload videos and allow people to search for and watch those videos. Many of these sites have a “social” side that allow users to find and discover videos through networks of friends or tags.

Libraries have much communicate to users. The needs of users are complex and varied. Often, technology is needed to access the resources that users require. Seldom, is the path from need to answer entirely intuitive but most often it is not difficult. Users can often meet their own needs with hints, simple instructions, or “how to” guides. When the instructions are visual, are procedural, or can be told as a narrative, video becomes an excellent media.

Webb (2007) recommends that libraries use videosharing sites for instructional materials and offer many examples of what type of video might be useful, but overlooks the “sharing” aspect of videosharing sites. Videosharing sites offer more than just an opportunity to post videos however. Libraries could post videos on their own websites. The social side of videosharing sites provides for the possibility that the videos will find their own way to the users who need them. In a social media site, it is not just the users who are social: the media files themselves have a social life where new relationships are made between them. These connections allow users to discover videos that are of interest to them even if the video was never advertised or marketed directly to them. This kind of organic resource discovery works not only for instructional materials but also for awareness and library marketing.

Finally, videosharing provides new opportunities for collaboration among libraries. Instructional videos, when shared under a Creative Commons license that allows re-use and re-mixing, can take on a life of their own. One library can create the video, while others can enhance it, make it part of a larger collection, or distribute it in new ways. Again, this is an example of how in social media, it is the media that is social, not just the users.

Concrete Video Sharing Examples

Calgary Public Library Marketing

Calgary Public Library (CPL) created a series of TV advertisements but they created their own YouTube account to host the videos. This is smart in several ways. First, it provides a viewing opportunity for online users who might never see the TV ad. However, the more exciting aspect is that users can share these videos on their own. Anyone can easily share a YouTube video by emailing a link, or cut-and-pasting a small bit of HTML into their blog (as I have done below).

In this context videosharing takes on a double-meaning. CPL has shared their video with the world but uploading to YouTube, but anyone else is free to share those videos by embedding them in their own websites or sending links to their friends. When a video is shared by a large number of people in a large number of ways, it is said to have gone “viral”: a metaphor that implies the video is being transmitted like a virus from person to person. This is the ultimate dream of any marketer, and while a library marketing video is unlikely to go viral, the cost of trying is extremely low.

Montana State University

Montana State University has produced practical screencasts on topics such as “What floor is that book on?” and “Finding electronic reserves“. These are undoubtedly frequently asked questions at the reference desk and both topics relate to services that are essentially “self-serve” already. Using self-serve help is entirely appropriate. [This example was found in the LibCasting Examples website, which contains other interesting examples of library screencasting.]

The Limitations of Video

When it comes to providing video materials, there are some important limitations to consider.

First, Internet search engines can and do index videos, however they cannot index the content of the video, they can only index textual descriptions of the video. For example, when you search for videos on Google Video or YouTube, you are searching for keywords that are found in the tags for that video, in the description of that video, or in the comments that user’s have made about the video. If libraries expect users to discover their videos, there should be substantial extra descriptive content. For example, if the video contains audio narration, it would be beneficial to have the text of that narration accompany the video so that searching for parts of the text reveals the video.

Second, it is difficult or impossible to browse or skim a video. There are some specialized video sites that display many key frames from within a video to help users identify its contents at a glance. While videos are excellent for instruction, they make poor reference materials: they must watched in a linear fashion from start to end. Text materials on the other hand can be glanced at, skimmed, etc. This is also an argument for providing supplemental materials along with each video when the purpose of the video is instruction.

Finally, it should be noted that video is not necessarily superior than other forms of instruction. For example, Lee, Pradhan, & Dalgarno (2008) studied the use of screencasts as supplements to other materials in teaching object-oriented programming to undergraduates. They found no significant effect when screencasts were provide over when they were not provided. However, this does not indicate that video and screencasts are ineffective.

Oud (2009, p. 166) examined research in cognitive psychology, education, and librarianship to establish guidelines for the effective use of screencasts and concluded that:

Multimedia, screencasts, and other types of animated media put high demands on 166 short-term memory, since a lot of information (text, graphics, audio, motion) needs to be processed simultaneously (Betrancourt, 2005). This means that it can be difficult for people to process information effectively from multimedia. Studies have shown that instruction using static graphics and visuals, like labeled screenshots, can be as effective or more effective for learning since it places fewer demands on our short-term memory (Clark and Lyons, 2004), leading to better understanding and retention.

However, Oud (2009, pp. 167-183) finds ways to compensate for these weaknesses including “simplifying and focusing content around clear goals, presenting content so it is easy to understand the main points, making sure the interface, technology, and practice activities are easy to understand and complete, removing any words or graphics not absolutely needed, and directing attention to the most important points using visual and verbal cues.” While video has its limitation is can still be used effectively.

In the next section, I will outline a method, based on my own experience, for overcoming the limitations of video during the creation of screencasts.

A Framework for Producing Effective Screencasts

Screencasting, is specific form of videosharing that is particularly useful to libraries when it comes to providing instruction. Screencasts are recording of a user’s computer screen along with audio narration. For example, a screencast might show a demonstration of how to search for articles using a particular database’s interface, or it might be a recording of powerpoint slides along with an audio lecture.

Screencasts are excellent materials, but should be supplemented with more effective reference materials. For example, a video that explains how to search for articles in an database, could be accompanied by a quick reference sheet that outlines the basic steps illustrated by the video. First time users, might appreciate the videos, experienced users might appreciate the quick reference.

An effective way to produce these materials is to use powerpoint for the production of the screencast. Powerpoint is not an effective tool for capturing interactive screen sessions, and I am not suggesting that it is. However, it is an excellent tool for creating storyboards, diagrams, and other visuals, and allows them to contain accompanying notes.

I propose the following steps when creating a screencast:

1. Create a powerpoint presentation with one slide per key point or step in the process being illustrated.
2. For each slide, take a screenshot that illustrates the point or step in the process.
3. Insert slides with diagrams that illustrate concepts, or title text as necassary.
4. For each slide add notes that will become your narration of the screencast. These notes explain the importance of each slide.
5. Reherse the presentation following the narration
6. Record the screencast. You can either record the actual process, or record the slides of the powerpoint presentation: whichever is more appropriate.

In the end, what you will end up with is more than a screencast. You will have the screencast, and supplementary materials that can be published side by side with the screencast. For example, the powerpoint slides can be saved as a PDF in the “notes” layout that shows the slide above, and notes below. This makes for a ‘textbook’ like document. Another approach is to have someone analyze the powerpoint and produce a separate quickreference. Once the storyboard is illustrated, it is easier to produce other references because so much knowledge has been explicitly documented.

Using Jing to Record and Publish a Screencast

To demonstrate my framework for producing screencasts, I decided to work with an existing powerpoint presentation I had made. I gave a presentation titled “Hackers in the Library” at Netspeed 2008. Netspeed is a library technology conference held Annually in Alberta.

My powerpoint slides already had copious notes and visuals and all I needed to do was choose a way to record the presentation together with audio. For this, I choose Jing, a free(ish) screen recoding program from Techsmith. There is no cost to download an use Jing but they do sell a pro version (more about the difference I discovered later). I am already familiar with and use Camtasia Studio at work, but Camtasia costs a fair bit. In the end, I prefer Camtasia as Jing has no editing features and some severe limitations on screencast length.

The funny thing is that, in the hour before I gave my “Hackers in the Library” talk in October 2008, I was speaking with a librarian who was doing a talk on screencasting with Camtasia Studio (also made by Techsmith). She had mentioned that she was interested in learning Jing. I thought she said “Ning”, which is a social network. Up until this course, I didn’t realize what Jing was, so I thought I’d take this opportunity to learn.

One of our course textbooks, Richardson (2009, pp. 122-124) describes how to setup and use Jing. I found that the author’s description was mostly accurate but I encountered some frustrating difficulties. When I first attempted to record my screencast, Jing has the Mic muted by default, so I had to make a second try. My second try went well, except that after five minutes, Jing stopped and informed me that I had recorded the maximum allowed. Presumably, if I sign up for the pay-for version, I might be able to record longer screencasts.

Jing offers integration with a videosharing site called screencast.com. Anyone can sign-up for screencast.com account that will hold 200MB of screencasts at no cost. When you finished recording a screencast with Jing it offers you the opportunity to “Share” the screencast by clicking a button. One of the option is supposed to be to upload directly to your screencast.com account. For my first attempt (the one with no sound), this worked perfectly. However, for my second attempt (the one that was cut off at 5-minutes), it would only save to my hard disk. There were no options to change how the “share” button worked as described by Richardson (2008, pp. 123). It simply saved to my hard disk without prompting me and there was no way to upload to screencast from within Jing. At first, I thought this might be because the file was too large, but it was only 5MB.

Eventually, I discovered that I could login to my screencast.com account from their website, and then manually upload the SWF file that I can recorded with Jing. From that point on, videosharing worked as I expected, and I was easily able to cut and past code from screencast.com into this post.

One other thing I learned was that the audio quality for Jing is poor. I suspect that it is highly compressed. Tests with audio recordings made directly on my computer with other software didn’t sound as bad as the screencast.com version did. Of course, this is probably not a bad thing. Audio can take up a lot of bandwidth, and some quality has to be sacrificed to make the screencast accessible.

Below is an image linked to my screencast of the first five minutes of my “Hackers in the Library” presentation.

In retrospect, I doubt I would use Jing. MS Movie Maker could have done the same thing with some editing capability and no limitation on screencast length. For work, Camtasia is still my favorite tool because part of its editing features include the ability to highlight portions of the screen or add arrows to highlight important things for the audience to pay attention to. MS Movie Make cannot do these things to the best of my knowledge.

An excellent site for sharing Powerpoint presentation is Slideshare

References

I like sharing videos website.

Garner, S. (2008). The Use of Screencasting and Audio to Support Student Learning. In Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (pp. 4693-4698). Chesapeake, VA: AACE

Lee, M., Pradhan, S., & Dalgarno, B. (2008). The effectiveness of screencasts and cognitive tools as scaffolding for novice object-oriented programmers. Journal of Information Technology Education, 7.

Oud, J. (2009). Guidelines for effective online instruction using multimedia screencasts. Reference Services Review, 37(2), 164-177

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Press.

Webb, P. L. (2007). YouTube and libraries: It could be a beautiful relationship. College & Research Libraries News, 68(6), 354-355.