Google and Beyond. Phil Bradley. Edinburgh. 13/6/11

Here are the most relevant nuggets I gathered from this event.

Google Tips:
Google search stories. Sadly as this is on YouTube, it’s surfcontrolled in my workplace. What we could do (if we ever find a way to show YouTube) is have a rolling course intro page that can play as delegates come in to our courses. Or, it would be great to use in our Internet Skills course. We let the delegates pick their own topic, and ask them to run Google searches on web search, maps, news etc. It’s a way of highlighting that there are different kinds of searches you can do on Google- you aren’t limited to the home page search box. Could be a good lesson for our Google users, and it’ll be a bit fun and different. If only we had YouTube. Damn!!

Google is an advertising company. 97% of its revenue comes from carrying adverts.

Google monitors your search history and will bias future search results accordingly. That’s one reason why everyone’s search results differ.

Google will produce different search results depending on the order in which you type your search terms. You can also promote a search term simply by repeating it.

Use + before a search term to force Google to search on the term as you typed it (You may have noticed Google now automatically ‘corrects’ search terms it thinks you’ve misspelt).

Use ~ before a search term to also search for synonyms.

Apparently Google has been supporting proximity searching for years – but didn’t advertise it. For example ‘Three AROUND(3) mice’ will produce results where the words ‘three’ and ‘mice’ occur within 3 words of each other.

Phil terms Google Advanced Search ‘Simplified Search’, because that’s what it does if you have a complex search.

The new filter for ‘Reading level’ was tested by US teachers categorising hundreds of results. May be useful if you want to just retrieve results for users with low reading ability or children. Otherwise not much use.

Use the ‘Find pages that link to the page’ function to help judge the quality of that page. ie if good quality pages are linking to it, then that’s an indicator the page is of good quality too.

Like Google’s Wonder Wheel (a graphical display of your search results – useful for showing related concepts), Google’s newly launched Image Swirl does the same thing for image searching.

Running a search, then clicking on ‘Related Searches’ (on the left hand column) will produce a list of similar searches you could do.

Define option has now been replaced by the dictionary.

Social Media search engines:
These search for content for social media tools. Socialmention is a good one. Also Who’s Talkin.

Google Realtime. Searches for mentions of your keywords in Twitter and Facebook. Includes a timeline which works better than Twitter’s.

According to Phil, we’ll see more of this as search engines adapt to search content produced by social media tools.

Other Google searches:
Google Discussions. Searches discussion sites like Google Groups, Forums, Flickr groups etc.

Google Squared. Creates a spreadsheet of content. Very new and only seems to work if your search terms are broad enough. A bit rubbish.

Google Custom Search. This has been around for years, but I’ve never got round to seriously thinking about it. Now having thought about it, I think we could use this to good effect in our Library's subject pages. Essentially you’re creating your own Google search engine, where you add a list of websites you want to search. That way you can still offer a Google search to users, but it will only retrieve results from the sites you’ve included. As we already have lists of quality websites we’ve included in our Netvibes pages and our subject pages, it would be a simple matter to take those sites and put them into a Google search. The link to each Google search would be at the top and centre of each subject page.

‘Me on the Web’ is a brand new Google tool that allows you to set up Alerts for mentions of you on the web, plus other resources to help monitor and control your online identity. We can use the Alerts feature within my workplace. But the other resources require at least IE8.

Other search tools:
There is only 4%-10% of overlap between the major search engines. Ranking Thumbshots illustrates this point well.

ixquick and duckduckgo search engines are private in that unlike Google, they don’t keep your search history or monitor your searches.

Addict-o-matic. I kind of like this. It’s a meta search engine that displays results in a dashboard.

Wolfram Alpha is a search engine for facts and figures. And Worldometers is good for global stats.

Quora. A ‘question and answer’ tool that connects to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, thereby enabling you to ask a question to all your Twitter and Facebook followers, and see their questions and answers too.

Flipboard. One to watch. Currently only on iPad, but will be launched on iPhone later this year. It turns your Facebook and Twitter content into a ‘social magazine’ format. If you can’t wait till then, try Pulse News (available on iPad, iPhone and Android).

Use Trunk.ly to get a weekly email listing all the links provided by your followers’ social media accounts. ‘Never forget a link’ is its motto. Think of it as a social bookmarking tool for Twitter, Facebook or any other social media tool.

Lanyrd links to your Twitter followers, looks for mentions of forthcoming events in their Tweets and displays details those forthcoming events in a calendar. Receive updates in a daily email.

Further reading:
Check out Phil’s website and subscribe to Phil’s search blog and his social media blog.

What on Earth have I been doing?

I've been doing some tidying up on my holidays. I have. And look what I found down the back of my sofa. Only my blog! So apologies for being so rubbish at updating, but here we go...

It's been a busy old time since I last wrote. The thing that has been foremost in my mind about my work is the spectre of public sector cuts. Next year could see changes to what I do. The thing I do most and seems to carry most kudos is the Internet skills training I write and deliver with my colleagues. The value of the other information services I and my colleagues supply seems only to be fully appreciated by our customers, in the most part. My point is training seems to be the way to go. And that will evolve. We'll do differently. Change emphasis. Produce eLearning packages. But there is an understanding that information literacy skills are needed.

So, I look forward to continue co-writing and co-delivering our various Internet skills packages (also available for all to see at http://sglibraryservices.wordpress.com/ generous, sharing, publicly funded types that we are). I suspect I'll be helping to do a fair bit of updating over the next few months.

Then there's newspapers. Staff in the Scottish Government buy print newspapers. Lots of newspapers. For much of the past year we seem to have been chasing various online news options as a more cost-effective alternative. But with News International and now other publishers wanting money for individual online access, and the likes of LexisNexis charging more than we can afford with our budgetary contraints, it's proving to be a real challenge. I wonder how other libraries (public libraries excepted) are providing news. Are we all just encouraging users to go on Google News? Which I see has just had a makeover, incidentally.

On a more positive note last year I spent sometime with a colleague giving our 'Alerts Centre' an overhaul. It's a one-stop-shop for Scottish Government staff offering advice on how to keep up-to-date on their subject areas. Job done. I thought 'right then, now we really must do something to encourage staff to use RSS'. RSS is something covered in our Web 2.0 Workshop and is a new, even strange concept to most course attendees. All of whom are Scottish Government or Agency staff.

I'm really pleased that the idea enjoyed alot of support from colleagues and I ran with it until I ended up building a Netvibes page to include RSS feeds by subject. Having demonstrated a draft version on 26/4 and 8/6 to colleagues, this was given the go ahead and we're now at the stage of populating the various subject tabs. Check it out if so inclined at http://www.netvibes.com/sglibraryservices.

I did come across some really good examples of organisations offering RSS feeds via Netvibes which helped alot when developing ours. Not least Shrewsbury and Telford Health Libraries: Team Knowledge Update. See http://www.netvibes.com/sathlibraries.

If only I can get Google Analytics to work (it did on the test tabs I had running!) I'd be a very smiley chap. I hope Analytics is just being slow at producing the first statistics.

Why we need to teach information literacy skills for the Internet

On 26th March I was lucky enough to see Tara Brabazon deliver the ISG (Scotland) Annual Lecture.

Portrayed by the media as being 'anti-Google' and a controversial commentator on the digital world her assertion that the Internet isn't a library and Google isn't a catalogue is, unsuprisingly, very much in tune with librarians' thinking.

She states the Internet is far from being an inclusive place where everyone can equally publish and access information. Fair to say, librarians know this and agree.

She highlights there are many in our society who for a variety of reasons are excluded from digital information and describes an information literacy matrix she uses with her students to build an 'information scaffold' enabling them to apply information literacy skills.

To illustrate, she described traditional models of literacy (citing Mary Macken-Horarik's 4 tier model of literacy) as being horizontal (or linear) and using teaching strategies to progress from the easier skills to the harder skills right through to the top tier. All very familiar. But then there's the Internet. A place where people do their online shopping, and routinely cut and paste stuff they think must be accurate because it's in the first page of their Google search results. She went on to describe the movement of information on Web 2.0 tools as "bouncing on the crust of knowledge". People's representation of an event as the story is bounced around the Internet. Where is the truth?

Tara argues the shallowness of this online information seeking behaviour requires an information scaffold to enable us all to apply information literacy skills to the Internet beyond simply how to use particular Web 2.0 tools. In short, she argues information literacy skills are required to take us from the 'how' of Web 2.0 to the 'why'. This is why we need to teach information literacy skills for the Internet.

Tara Brabazon is Professor of Media Studies at The University of Brighton.

Library: the vanguard of Internet training

There is clearly a demand for our Internet skills courses. We have 21 people on the waiting list for Internet Skills in the Workplace and 11 people on the waiting list for our Web 2.0 Workshop. To help reduce this I’ve been arranging additional sessions. This means we are almost running a course a week. And noteworthy that the Library alone is providing these courses. This obviously has resourcing implications for the Library. However, we have received very good feedback from delegates so far, and it appears we are delivering what the organisation needs. So it's all absolutely worthwhile, and right that this is what the Library should be doing.

It has also become clear that due to the speed at which the Internet changes both courses will be in perpetual Beta. I have already helped to make quite a number of revisions to course materials in light of feedback from delegates, Library staff and new resources we felt should be included. But by being aware of changes to the Internet and new tools, it will be fairly easy to keep our materials updated. Whilst this will take some resource to manage, the benefits of up-to-date course materials make this investment in effort worthwhile.

So, no surprise that since my last update I have been involved in a lot of development of Library course materials. Specifically:

Internet Skills in the Workplace
I completed co-writing the Internet Skills in the Workplace course materials and ran through the new Internet Skills in the Workplace course with the rest of the team for comments.

Web 2.0 Workshop
I completed co-writing the Web 2.0 Workshop materials. As with the Internet Skills course this includes trainers and delegates manuals, presentation, exercises and the course checklist for the trainers.

We received feedback on Web 2.0 Workshop exercises from Library colleagues, and redrafted the exercises taking comments on board. This proved to be particularly useful as the exercises provide much of the course content.

So far, I have been co-presenting all Web 2.0 Workshops. But next Wednesday all Library staff will be given training which will enable all Library trainers to deliver this course.

Web 2.0 for Policymakers
I co-wrote the course materials for Web 2.0 for Policymakers, although a colleague did most of the research on this, finding may relevant examples of Web 2.0 in Government. The course was successfully delivered on 26/11.

After further updating and tweaking, course material for the Web 2.0 Workshops and Web 2.0 for Policymakers is now complete. The resources we added to the policymakers course helps ensure the focus is on tools for Government staff. Therefore it was decided to put all the content into our Web 2.0 Workshop and run that for everyone. Trainer’s notes will help ensure we focus on resources relevant to delegates.

Corporate Induction
Having co-presented a Corporate Induction session on 29/9 it was agreed to make the Library part a bit more interactive, and we would spend a couple of minutes asking delegates what they thought the Library could do for them. Writing their ideas on a flipchart before revealing what we do via the ppt slides. This simple change does seem to work and liven up the session a bit.

SG Web 2.0 blog
I set up a test SG Web 2.0 blog (http://sgwebtrainingtest.wordpress.com/) as a place to easily make our course materials available and to encourage discussion amongst SG staff on Web 2.0. If you wish to see our current course materials, take a look. However, we are considering other options, so very likely we do this via another tool. Watch this space!

A-Z list of Library resources
I’ve also been working with our Digital Comms team to make the Library’s list of resources more accessible. Applying metadata to each resource will enable us to do much more with this potentially useful list.

It's not easy being fun

It was Learning at Work Week Glasgow last week. And as ever with our LAW events, we were there. This time showing our eager Glaswegian colleagues our debut Discover Web 2.0 session in their shiny newish building at Atlantic Quay*.

You'd think a PowerPoint presentation supporting an hour long overview of social media tools would be quick to prepare. Write it off the top of our heads, really. But it's interesting how much time it took. I estimate at least 1 day of my time, plus that of a colleague.

Which is fine, actually. Because in that time, the original outline really evolved, not least informed by delivering the session. Looking at it today, it has more depth, is more relevant to our target audience, and broad enough to have something for everyone. And importantly, will provide a good foundation for the soon to be launched Web 2.0 Workshop. Some beefed up content with a liberal sprinking of hands-on trying out of tools, and that course will be good to go. Now, that will be fun!

* If you ever find yourself heading there by taxi, ask for Scottish Enterprise. Trust me. It'll be easier.

Back in the thick of it...

Back from my holidays for one week now. Felt I was in the thick of it by Monday afternoon :-)

So, still helping with our hour long Discover Web 2.0 session (as she is now named). Going to run through it for the first and only time tomorrow. Course is on Wednesday! 15 attendees of a possible 30 already booked.

I've added our Oct-Mar course programme to our online booking system, so I can at last link that through to our training module on our new look homepage, meaning I can at last publish that. Good feedback so far. So, pleased about that.

And good news our corporate communications team are getting all Web 2.0. Well, they're promoting some of the more mainstream social media tools, and they've been speaking to us about these. Thus enabling us to reference that in our Web 2.0 courses. I think this will improve the content, as it'll make it much more relevant to our staff.

Still loads to do though. Especially course-wise. Thankfully I'm only helping :-)

Oh, and I need to write a short summary of the usefulness (or not) of podcasting in the workplace. My instinct tells me this is untapped training tool, aswell as being an effective way to blog.

Off to bed now. Up earlyish tomorrow. Gawd!

Teaching Web 2.0 skills in the workplace

It's been Graft Central at my desk this week. Back from my hols for a week and (amongst other duties) I've...

Collated and considered feedback for our new look library homepage. Now written, waiting to be published. Now to sort out the rest of them. Stares blankly into the abyss.

Discussed tweaks to the new Internet Skills course. Which needs to be called something zestier than 'Internet Skills'. Mmmmm. Must work on that.

Also helping with the materials for a short interactive hour long Web 2.0 course, and a full 3 hour version of same. Yep. A 3 hour long webby course.

Staff want Web 2.0 tools. Glossing over the apparent demand for YouTube, it's clear there is a need for this. And more tools are being made available in our workplace to satisfy this expectation. So we really do need to show staff the most relevant. It will be interesting to see their expectations, assumptions and interest in these tools. Which ones will they want to use and why?

Anyway, all that left me so weak with effort that I'm on holiday. Again. This time there's no plan to do any work whatsoever.

Well...

Wot I did on my holidays...

Apart from lazing around, punctuated by moments of guilt that induces, I wrote the first draft of our Library Service's all new Advanced Internet Skills course. Yes. Be impressed. This will replace two previous courses we have been running on alternate months - Essential Internet Skills (EIS) and Advanced Internet Skills (AIS). EIS was pitched just a bit too low and undersubscribed as most folks opted to book on AIS. However, AIS course content was too broad.

The all new AIS will launch in October. I think (I hope) it will go down well with all concerned. More on this work in future postings.