Additional Publication Project Materials

I have been experimenting more lately with creating flyers, book marks, and brochures and wanted to post what I have done. I've had a lot of fun working on a multicultural program for a fictional library. I decided to make some promotional materials for this program. It was a lot of fun to play with colors, clip art, fonts, and more to create eye-catching materials to promote this multicultural youth program that I may use someday. 

Below is an example of a flyer I created for one of the events for my program. You can click on the link to be taken to the file on my Sky Drive. Some of the elements do not display properly, but you can still get a general idea of what the flyer is supposed to look like. :)



Here is a poster I created to advertise the first week of the Hispanic Heritage Month youth program I'm developing.



And here is another poster I created for a display.

Podcast Module-Reflections

WHEW! I had an interesting time creating my Podcast for this assignment. At first, I felt intimidated when I first looked at Audacity and attempted to figure out the program. However, the PDF with Audacity basics was very helpful. One of the first problems I ran into when I did my first test track in Audacity was dealing with the horrible noise my laptop's hard drive has been making lately. After many frustrating attempts, I went to Staples and invested in a set of Logitech headphones that I really like. They did a great job canceling out the background noise of my laptop, cats, fan, and all of the other noise that came across as racket while trying to record my Podcast. I will definitely use these headphones when doing audio recording in the future. They will also be great for Skype.

Once I was able to record, I did several test versions of my brief informational blurb about the USF Tampa Library. The commercial includes a quick overview of the library's collections, amenities (for lack of a better word), location, and hours. I chose the best of 3 trials and added some light jazz in the background. I turned the volume of the music way down so that it would not distract listeners from my voice. It was a bit tricky cutting down a 4 minute song to match my 1 minute 48 second commercial. I used a fade effect in the last few seconds to end the song without it seeming too abrupt. I found that I would like to experiment some more with this sort of thing and see what creating an informational video might be like. The library at FMHI here on the main campus has some great short introductory videos with information about the library and its collections. I'm not certain if my library (the USF main library) has something similar. If so, they are not very visible on our web site. Of course, I need a lot more practice before I create something that would be suitable for putting online.

Below is a link to the MP3 file that contains my Podcast, where it is stored online. Click on the icon to be taken to Windows Live. Click on the icon again to either save the file or choose a program (Windows Media Player) to play the MP3 in.

Publication Module-Reflections

For this assignment, I decided to create a poster using a PowerPoint slide. It gave me the opportunity to play around in PowerPoint some more and to use it to create something other than a slide show. I created a poster for Information Literacy Awareness month in a fictional library. The poster is 36" wide by 25" tall and is intended to be printed on a large printer like what my library uses to print its posters. The poster is for advertising an upcoming Literacy Awareness program in a public library. I am currently experimenting on creating other publications using Word and possibly Publisher for my Multicultural Materials for Children/YA class. I am creating a program for Hispanic Heritage month about the Mexican-American culture. For this project I have to create materials such as brochures, bookmarks, etc. that I would use for an actual program. Once I am finished with these publications, I will post an example or two to this blog.

One of the things that I did find tricky about creating a poster from a PPT slide is the sizing. I ended up creating the poster before I customized the size. Once I made these changes, it messed up several elements of my poster. I then had to go back and readjust the size of text, placement of decorative elements, and so on so they would be visible on the large poster. So, I learned that if I ever create a poster from a PPT slide in the future, I need to make sure to format it before I begin adding content.

Below is a link to the poster I created. Click on the icon to be taken to Windows Live. Once there, click on the icon again to open the PDF version of my poster from Windows Live.

My Sister Blog

The Memoirs of a Modern Librarian (or a librarian in-the-making!)


This is a blog I recently created that chronicles my exploration into Web 2.0 and how technology has affected the library and information science profession.

Embedding a PPT into a Blog using Sky Drive

Here is the PowerPoint presentation I created for the Presentation Module for this class. I learned how to embed this presentation by following a Microsoft tutorial and using Sky Drive on Windows Live. If I were to make changes to the PPT slides in Sky Drive, they would automatically update in my blog. 

Windows Live: Sky Drive

I have been very interested lately in Web 2.0 and how it can be used to increase a library's presence. Because of this, I have been playing around with Web 2.0 applications that I am not yet familiar with. As a millennial (born in 1984) I regularly use Facebook, instant messaging, and more, but there are many other applications I have yet to encounter. Because of a random email from Microsoft, I have just discovered Windows Live and Sky Drive. I think it's pretty neat that you can create a Word, Excel, PowerPoint, or OneNote document on Windows Life and store it online in Sky Drive for free. It also looks as though you can invite others to collaborate on the documents with you. It sounds like it may be similar to Google Docs. I have also found that I can use Sky Drive to upload a PowerPoint presentation file and embed it into a blog. So I am going to attempt to embed the PPT presentation I created for this class and embed it into this blog. We'll see what happens! Technology can be pretty neat. :)

Here is the link to the tutorial for embedding a PPT into a blog:
http://blogs.office.com/b/office_blog/archive/2010/09/24/say-more-in-your-blog-with-embedded-powerpoint-and-excel-files.aspx

Presentation Module: Reflections

This project ended up serving multiple purposes for me. What began as a project for this class turned into an alternate version that I will be using to give a presentation at the Kick-Off Event during Research Week at USF.
http://www.research.usf.edu/ResearchOne/2010/ro/index.html

For the past several months I have been engaged in the development of a digital archive that contains article citations, data, and more about the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and related spills. USF Libraries created the Gulf Oil Spill Information Center (GOSIC) in order to offer students, scientists, and researchers a valuable resource for their information-seeking needs. The front end of this project is a website that I am the administrator of and on the back end is the archive that is currently under development. My part of the archive is the creation of a database filled with about 1,200 citations for empirical research articles about the Gulf oil spill as well as related spills. As I am explaining this in a nutshell, I am leaving out a lot of tedious details, but it is a very substantial and time-consuming project!

Myself and another colleague who is also working on the project have been asked to give a short presentation at the Research Week Kick-Off event on October 11. As I began working on the presentation module for this class, I realized that I might also be able to tailor my PowerPoint presentation and come up with an alternate version for our presentation.

I had a lot of fun creating the version I submitted for the class assignment. Hopefully it gives a broad overview of what GOSIC is and is self-explanatory enough that a viewer can click through the slides and understand the purpose GOSIC serves. Though I obsessed a bit over both presentations, the one that I will be presenting took a bit more tweaking. Since President Genshaft will be in attendance I want it to be very organized and professional. However, I am not completely happy with the final product, but due to time-constraints, I cannot continue tweaking it.

Coming into this course, I knew a bit about PowerPoint and felt comfortable using the program to create presentations. While doing this project, I did learn more about editing images, using custom animations, and more. I really like the free template I was able to find online and thought it was appropriate for the topic.

Overall, I am actually pretty happy with the version I submitted for this assignment. However, I am always open to pointers and constructive criticism! :)

This is my pet project from my job:
http://guides.lib.usf.edu/gulf-oil-spill