ALA Chicago 2013

As always, ALA had many sessions to attend, with many of them being at the same time. I went to a lot of talks. Below were my 3 favorites:

1. Annual Reference Research forum: http://connect.ala.org/node/207609
Presents 3 original research articles that were published this year. I found the first speaker's research very interesting.

Research Guides Usability Study- Angela Pashia & Andrew Walsh University of West Georgia

• Has a Libguides for every subject offers a major in
  • Great for librarians- but would like students to use them too…they don’t. How to improve this.
  • What is frustrating the students?
  • When are they leaving the guides and googling it?
  • How to improve the design to get them to use it- did usability tests first & then focus groups
  Usability studies- 4 freshmen, 2 soph, 2 juniors, 1 senior, 1 grad student= 10 users; $5 gc to starbucks, pulled them in “off the street” on the fly. On average each one was about 10 minutes. Varied on how long it took them to complete the 3 tasks.
  • Fairly novice group with familiarity with resources
  • Used free CamStudio- screen capture software
  • Gave them tasks to complete- how would they find articles on education from the education libguide, how would they get help from a librarian from a libguide, how would they get back to the same libguide from the library’s homepage.
  • Made it clear, it was not a test on them but a test on the library
  Common issues:
  • They were using the libguides search box to look for articles- remove this box. Librarians like it, but it is confusing students.
  • Difficulty understanding the role of libguides in the research process; didn’t see the value added
  • Wasn’t sure what to click on when saw the list of databases- clicked on the more info link instead of the actual database link to get to it.
  • Trouble getting to a specific guide from the library homepage
  • Don’t see the tabs, Want more emphasis on the tabs.

• Focus groups

• Based on usability results, limited fgs to juniors and seniors. =who would need the libguides for subject specific research

• What do the labels mean to them?- i.e. background information vs. encyclopedias. They wanted encyclopedias. Finding sources vs. finding articles, etc.

• They loved the VCU rg homepage. (listed as best of in libguides) plus sign for all disciplines that open to subdisciplines.= systems librarian is going to model new homepage after this.

• Future: Doing more focus groups with grad students

• Google analytics: Libguides search data.Config special google anyaltics report.“goal completion” set up for search results page.Tracks this as an event and gives you the keywords in the URL string!

2. Conversation Starters: Achievement unlocked: Motivating and assessing user learning with digital badges 

3.  Two separate talks on "making" and "maker spaces." Cory Doctorow & Mark Frauenfelder

• Decline of making and DIY 1970-2000. Cheaper to buy new than to fix. Change in popular mechanics mag covers. Went from things you can make yourself to skyscrapers and brain implants.
• Rise of DIY subculture. 
• 2000-2013 we are in a making rebirth, modern making movement; Make magazine established in 2005;
• "Networked Making"- you don't start with a project that you read about in a magazine and try to build it. Instead if you an idea for something new. Look it up online and find someone who did it 80%...you figure out the remaining in online forums, communities etc. 
• Maker fairs- playful side of making; Pinterest was created at a Maker Fair