Learning about Participatory Design and using Ethnographic Methods to study users

August 15, 2013

Presenters: Cheryl LaGuardia, Kathleen Sheehan, Laura Farwell Blake

Cheryl LaGuardia, Kathleen Sheehan and Laura Farwell Blake shared what they learned in their work with Nancy Fried Foster and in the CLIR Participatory Design Workshops. They talked about using various ethnographic methods, including video interviewing, observation, student participatory design workshops, and field work. And, they shared what they learned from experiences here and those of our library colleagues at other campuses. Please see below for slides from their presentation, and related documents.

A Practical Guide to Ethnographic Research in Academic Libraries (ERIAL)

Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester, Nancy Fried Foster, 2007

Research Guides: Makeover Edition

September 19, 2013

Presenters: Enrique Diaz, Susan Gilman, Ramona Islam

Enrique Diaz, Susan Gilman, and Ramona Islam shared the results of a test usability study they conducted in order to enhance a research guide, focusing on creating fluency through visual design. Ramona introduced the guide in its original form; Susan demonstrated how she used Morae usability software, available to all librarians through the Sandbox Program, to capture a GSD students' verbal and nonverbal feedback in real time; Enrique engaged attendees in an interactive discussion of best practices for information design on the web; and finally, Ramona unveiled the made over guide, explaining how they applied the recommendations and principles to improve the user experience.

  • Original guide: Traditions
  • Made-Over guide: Traditions2 (Please note that the makeover is not yet complete - much more work is underway)

Session recording

Finding Digitized Books and Documents

October 17, 2013

Presenters: James Capobianco and Steve Kuehler


James Capobiano, from Houghton Library, facilitated an interactive discovery of sources for digitized books online.

Steve Kuehler, from Lamont Library, demonstrated Fold3, a resource for digitized documents from American history.

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Digitized Books Cheatsheet (created by James Capobianco)

Altmetrics & Project Muse E-books Collection

November 21, 2013

Presenters: Scott Lapinski, Greg Eow, and Katherine Leach


Scott Lapinski, from Countway Library, has been integrating altmetrics into his work at Countway and will helped us prepare to support our researchers in discovering, understanding and curating their own impact data.Altmetrics is the creation and study of new metrics for analyzing scholarship based on more than journal Impact Factor, citation counts, or an H-Index alone. By analyzing other contributions, such as blog posts and other items from social media, altmetrics promise to provide more than just a quantification of journal articles and citation counts. Altmetrics utilities empower researchers to identify where, how, and sometimes who is interacting with the various scholarly activities they have contributed to their profession.

Greg Eow, Warren Bibliographer, and Katie Leach, Bibliographic Specialist, presented on the library's recent purchase of the Project Muse/University Press Content Consortium (UPCC) content, which offers over 20,000 fully searchable, DRM free eBooks from scholarly publishers on the familiar Project Muse platform. Greg provided a brief overview of the place the UPCC initiative holds in the developing market for scholarly eBooks, and Katie gave a demonstration of the Project Muse eBook platform and discussed initial plans for conducting an assessment of these eBooks over the coming months.

A Festive Trip Through Europeana...and more

December 19, 2013

Presenters: Hugh Truslow and Reed Lowrie

Hugh Truslow and Reed Lowrie talked about Europeana, "a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe."  After briefly demoing the resource they led participants in a Europeana treasure hunt, complete with prizes.

After the Europeana presentation there was some time for an open-ended conversation on Research, Teaching and Learning.

Europeana Treasure Hunt (created by Vicky Garnett, Trinity College, Dublin)

from http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-cloud/blog/-/blogs/the-europeana-treasure-hunt