Scott Rice, University of North Carolina at Greensboro
Giz Womack, Wake Forest University
—————————
Scott
FYI—I went to library school with Scott.
Scott created a Firefox toolbar for his library. He had orginally worked with bookmarklets. User has to find bookmarklets and tweak them. Not very user friendly.
Toolbar
good for distance education
have links to library searches, blackboard, campus directories,
Why firefox? It’s easier to implement. Firefox toolbar has more flexibility
What do you need to make a toolbar?
Javascript
XUL (very much like XML)
Text editor (Notepad or Notetab light)
Zip (Winzip)
Image editor (GIMP)
Firefox toolbar tutorial
www.borngeek.com/firefox/tutorial
Mozillazine
Look at other library toolbars
Future Improvements
Work with Ezproxy
Rewrite URLs
Notify when not proxied
Allow user configuration
Impact
Who’s using it? not sure
Gotten any feedback? no not really
scott says he’s working on publicity. Will try to get it installed on local public machines
How to make a toolbar?
Create files
Zip
Install
Test
Toolbar is awesome. Imagine having this on all of the public workstations in your library.
——————————-
Giz Womack
The How and Why of Game Nights in Libraries
Get Game@GSR
An idea from the library director, who had learned about the idea at a conference.
Have done a September and February event.
Primarily Xbox
How they did it?
Staff–
Library Information Technical Staff
Resident Technology Advisors
RTA’s were very excited
Equipment
LCD projectors (got surplus projectors from other departments on campus)
Screens (rented at first then bought six screens)
equipment gives them competitive advantage
Supplies
Food
Long extension cords and surge protectors are a must
Painters tape and pens to put names on the equipment that participants bring
Tournaments need a trophy!
Format
Open game night 60 people, blew three circuits
Tournament fewer people,
Students registered in advance ( have to be students to bring their hardware)
Dates
Open Game Night on Friday in September 7-11 (it’s dark outside)
Tournament on a Friday in February from 3-6 (they like that time just as well)
Planning
Setup for each event about 2 hours
Marketing
email, paper fliers, website announcements
Costs:
Open game night $425 (lots of startup expenses that will not be recurring)
Tournament $172 (most went to food and the trophy)
Why we did it:
Gaming is big business
Many Library users are gamers
To encourage students to visit the library
to generate positive publicity for the library
IT IS FUN!!!
from survey:
100% did not mind bringing their own equipment
Lessons Learned:
External sponsors are hard to find
Very easy to trip a circuit breaker
The students like these events
Technorati Tag: CIL2006
We have created toolbars for both IE and Firefox (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/toolbar/) and they are on all public machines in the library. Feedback from users is very positive. E.g. “In popular vernacular, your toolbar is ‘Da bomb’.” “It’s amazing!!” and “Excellent toolbar! I don’t use any of the other browser toolbars now that I have the UIUC Library bar.”