Google Form Settings: Need Help!

I found out today with the new Google Form, anyone with the link to my form can edit and make changes to my form. Terrible! After some digging and trying in different browsers on PC and MAC, I still can not figure out how to control the access setting the way it used to be. See the screenshots  Google Form sharing settings:

New Google Form Sharing Settings

With this new setting, the access level options disappeared, so that I was not able to stop "anyone with the link" to edit my form, post-class survey I created for the students. I certainly don't want students to edit the survey questions. Now they can if they want to.  

Old Google Form Sharing Settings

I like the old settings. However it applies to response spreadsheet not the actual entry form. If you read this post and if you know a way to change "edit" to "view", please leave a comment or contact me: lwu5atuthsc.edu. Thank you!

True Reward from the Embedded Librarianship

It's been a year since I started embedding library services into academic courses with the College of Nursing and the College of Allied Health.  This email message makes my day! It tells all what embedded services mean to the students.

My Gallery and My Wishes to you!

My gallery journals my life through the camera. This is my last post for 2012 and I wish my readers healthy, happy, peaceful, and joyful in the year of the snake!

Happy New Year!

Thankful to have a good busy year! The most rewardable project was the Embedded Librarian Pilot for the College of Nursing. I couldn't be more happy to get the support to do what I love to do.
Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Healthy and happy 2013!

Embedded Librarian Challenge Three: Understanding the Context

As the course progressed, my role as an embedded librarian seemed to evolve into something unexpected. After the students and faculty came to me with some questions, I realized I had to spend time understanding the context, such as:

• what instructor expected students to accomplish 
• instructor's criteria to grade students' papers 
• how to write a scholarly paper 
• how to cite and reference in APA format
• what students were required to read
• what supplemental materials students had access to
• what resources students were expected to use for their papers

This is more than an one-time-shot lecture or presentation! More than just helping students searching for and retrieving information. To embrace these challenges, I spent time doing the homework: 

• went through course syllabus carefully
• read and understand instructor's grading rubric for course papers
• reviewed instructor's class presentation slides by modules
• requested an access code from the college to review supplemental online materials (e.g. quizes and assignments) associated with the course required textbook
• learned about chapters of the course required textbook
• contacted the instructor when I had questions
• got myself familiar with APA book 6th edition 

The homework really injected me with confidence providing assistance to students and the instructor. Now students' grades were distributed and my work was done, and as commented from the course instructor, done beautifully! 

Embedded Librarian Challenge Two: Librarians' Role in the Course Syllabus

I do believe to be successful in any project, the goal or objectives have to be defined and made clear the same as you plan to drive long distance. You have to know what your destination is. So does the Embedded Librarian Pilot Project. A written proposal is not enough, librarians' specific roles have to be reflected or described in the course syllabus. After some looking and asking around, I was not able to find what I needed. Most embedded librarians were listed either as co-instructors or research assistants with contact information in the course syllabi without detailing their roles. I turned to Mr. David Shumaker for help. His pointer was very helpful:

"The course-embedded librarian can take many different roles, such as presenting in-class information literacy instruction, meeting with students individually or in teams to counsel them on research projects, collaborating with the instructor to specify assignments, grading assignments, posting help and comments to the course website, etc.  So the first task is to define your role in consultation with the instructor. Then you will know how to describe your role in the syllabus."

After discussing with the course instructor and program coordinator, embedded librarian services were officially included in the course syllabus:

"The embedded librarian works with the course faculty to achieve the goal of improving each student’s scholarly writing, library, and research skills by providing the following services: 

• Assisting with and providing training on locating, retrieving, and evaluating information for course assignments and/or research projects.
• Providing help with using information management tools such as EndNote for course assignments and to organize references.
• Answering questions posted on course discussion board, Embedded Librarian FAQ.
• Linking library resources to the course by creating a course research guide using LibGuides.
• Maintaining the course blog related to writing and research such as Tip of the Week related to library research."

As the course progresses, am I doing what were expected in the syllabus? More challenges are on the way...

Embedded Librarian Challenge One: A Workable Proposal

It took several months for me to start a new project: the Embedded Librarian Pilot Project: a pilot program between the library and the College of Nursing. I will be officially embedded in a nursing distance course this summer.  Being given this excellent opportunity was not happening overnight. Getting to this point met with lots of challenges. I will be using this blog to post my thoughts, hopefully, helpful for the-to-be embedded librarian.

Is there a perfect match?

The first challenge was to come up with a workable proposal for both parties involved in the project. When gaps appear between expectations and reality, passion and feasibility, needs and priority, the best way was to set back, rethink, and take a different approach or take another strategy. It will be more likely to be successful if the proposal comes directly from the customer group rather than the librarian himself/herself. The proposal has to state the librarian's primary role in the course focusing on utilizing their expertise such as enhancing student information literacy competencies, library researching skills, information searching, information retrieval, and information management. When you can get to this point, way to go!

Not Impressive Photos

Take a look at the photos I took using the new iPad. I'm not impressed at all. The camera can't even do a better job than that in an iPhone. Without quality photos high quality screen is not worth the money, though!

E-Book Exploration--What's My Choice?

McGraw Hill's Connect

Son asked me to pay for this textbook he needed for his school: Business Driven Information System 3rd edition by Paige Baltzan. He gave me the link and login information to access the e-book trial version from connect.mcgraw-hill.com.  Like any parents, I started to think if there were any ways I could save some money. My first  thought was to check the book availability from his school's library, but no luck. I started looking around, here are my options:

1) Purchase from McGraw-Hill that provides two choices

• Connect Plus: $96
• Connect: $39.99

No matter which version I choose, the online access to the book will expire on July 30, 2012. I won't own the book. 

2) Purchase paper copy from www.textbook.com. 

• Used: $101.38
• New: $143.85

I will get 50% cash back when the books are returned to the site by June 30, 2012.

3) Purchase from Amazon.com

• Kindle version: $105.95
• Paperback: $134.99

4) Purchase from www.inkling.com, accessible only on iPad

• Entire book: $139.99
• One chapter: $21.99

Later I found out. I really didn't have any choice but pay for the Connect Plus from McGraw Hill. Why? Because it's a required textbook version from the instructor. Look at McGraw Hill's ads about its Connect, which has so many attractive build-in features and tools that any instructor, I'm afraid, can resist taking it.  It ties coursework closely with the e-book content and saves instructor lots of time. I can see this really as a publisher driven model that has nothing to do with the library. They aim directly to the instructor. I guess, the publisher might even provide a free copy for the instructor to use for the course. In return the instructor might require the entire class to buy a Connect ebook. When the instructor wants it, the student won't have any choices, will they?

Looking at this model, questions swept through my mind: What's the library future for electronic books? Who are the driven force for electronic books? What can or should libraries do about this, ignore, accept, or do something? What's the best for students?

Rough or Peaceful?

Happy New Year! Wishing my readers a healthy, happy, and excellent 2012.

 

How did you feel about your life, rough or peaceful? You can be the driver of your life. I love this saying "attitude is everything!"

 

New PubMed Advanced Search Builder

Today new PubMed Advanced search page gave me a Wow! I think it is more user friendly than the old page.

New PubMed Advanced Search Page

The neat thing is you can stay on this page and keep adding different search terms to the search history saving the time to go back and forth between the search results page and search builder page. The search results will be displayed in History.  You can easily combine them by clicking the Add button.

I do wish one thing to be added for the new page the Limits, which will make the search even more intuitive.

Where are MeSH Terms in PubMed Mobile?

While teaching students searching for medical literature, I enforced the importance of expert searching, which started with MeSH database. I also recommended students using MeSH terms associated with each citation as their search terms. For this purpose, I asked students to enter a PMID in the PubMed search box and find the MeSH terms. Interesting thing happened. Several students used iPad2 to search PubMed and they were forced automatically to use PubMed Mobile version. They were not able to find the link to MeSH terms from the mobile site. After some look around, I wasn't able to find the MeSH terms, either.

PubMed Mobile Search Results

What's the solution for that? Click the Standard PubMed link at the left corner of the page, and you will find MeSH terms. 

Standard PubMed Search Results

Keep in mind that PubMed Mobile is a light version of PubMed. Standard PubMed link is always available somewhere on the mobile site. You can switch to it whenever needed.

Last Presentation of the Year

Yesterday I gave a presentation on literature searching to 75 DNP and PhD nursing students. The course director sent me a nice email afterwards:

"Thank you for the excellent presentation you gave to the DNP and PhD students this afternoon! The content of your presentation and the pdf file you have shared will be useful to the students and me as course director. The faculty who are assisting with the course and I can readily refer students to the pdf file to reinforce the information you shared today."

Looking back, I really had a good year with my liaison services to the College of Nursing. The more I actively engaged myself with them,  the more return requests I received. A good busy year! 

Snow=Good harvest

E-Tracking Reference Statistics

Desk Statistics Record Sheet

If you want to turn manually recording of Reference Desk statistics into digital, read this article, "How to Build a Desk Statistics Tracker in Less Than an Hour Using Forms in Google Docs" by Sunshine Carter and Thomas Ambrosi  from the University of Minnesota–Duluth. The article provided detailed instructions on how to create a form for your library.  It would be better and more helpful if Google Docs form provided more functions for data collection and analysis.

My New Article

Fall Mood

Supporting Evidence-Based Medicine: A Survey of U.S. Medical Librarians, Medical Reference Services Quarterly 2011, 30:4, 365-38.
The most challenging part was to content analyze the three open-ended questions. But we did it!

Contact me if you are interested in the article.

No More Library Workshops!

Does your library experience low attendance rate to your library workshops? As a librarian instructor, you have worked so hard to get people to attend your workshops, but still  not much improvement. Does that mean your patrons do not need the information? Does that mean library workshops have no value to your library community? Librarians all know that is not the case. Here is an innovative way to make some changes: No more workshops in the library! One-on-one and on demand instructional sessions instead.

I look at this as a patron driven change and another level of providing library instruction. I can certainly see some of the advantages of one-on-one or on demand sessions:

• Fit into the patron's schedule
• Deliver content based on individual's needs or at the point of need
• Provide a conformable environment to ask questions -- patrons
• Reduce the tense of speaking in public -- librarians

I believe it's time to make a change for better or worse depending on what you think and what content you want to deliver. It might be more effective to turn those workshops that have hands on components into one-on-one sessions. 

Want to Start an iPad Program for a Library?

Yesterday I attended the ALA Webinar, Integrating iPads and Tablets Computers into Library Services (1). I  think the presenters did a great job. I hope MLA hosts a similar webcast to show successful iPad programs in health sciences libraries. At least one thing I learned from the webinar was that librarians need to ask questions before setting up a tablet program for their library:

• What's it for? Is it for staff development, in-house use such as in class, or for circulating them to library patrons?
• What content are you going to load on the device? Content would include apps and tools related to patron needs.
• Do you have technical support for the program? 
• How are you going to train library staff to provide frontline support for the program?

If you already have a tablet program in your library, what's your thought so far? 

Taking Photos Using an iPhone

Want to take good pictures using an iPhone? Here is my experience:

1. Composition: You are not taking a photo, you are creating one! -- Creative!
2. Light: Make full use of natural light as iPhone doesn't provide any supplemental light - Critical! 
3. Focus: Tab the object, zoom, focus, and shot - Sharp! 
4. Stillness: Hold a deep breath and be as still as possible when pushing the photo button 
5. Some of my photos taken with an iPhone: 

Content Creators: Be Creative!

Are you a librarian or a medical librarian? Do you use Twitter? Does your library has a twitter account or a Facebook page? As one of the content contributors to our Reference Department's twitter account, library's blog, Flickr, and Facebook page, I constantly felt it is challenging and time consuming to keep the contents in these accounts rolling effectively and feeding it with relevant information quickly. Ideally, I wish our contents were updated while I'm sleeping...

A recent conversation with a librarian friend about feeding twitter account with RSS feeds on some desired topics. "Well, don't depend on those automatically feeds only. This is why you are here and you are the content creator." What he said really got me thinking. Yes, librarians are well known for being content creators in many ways including Web sites, subject guides, pathfinders, instructional materials, and library tutorials. Now content creators has evolved to include twittering, blogging, facebooking, and more. Librarians becoming digital content creators are the result of digital technology and digital reference services. The difference is digital content creators have to come up with contents in a quick and effective way.

If you are the person behind the scene, how do you manage your library's social media accounts to keep them fresh and relevant?

Make it Easy for them

There is an interesting article, Don't make it easy for them, set me thinking. Yes, students need to learn library research skills. What about faculty members? My point is make it easy for them. Yes, make it easy for them! We call it support faculty teaching, research, and clinical education.

The library outreach programs have provided lots of opportunities for librarians to connect with academic faculties. Years of liaison experience told me faculty members like helpful, personalized, and convenient library services delivered to their desktops. I found myself really enjoy working with them by providing these services. I questioned myself a while ago, "Am I spoiling them by doing so?" One of my librarian friend said, "No, this is called another level of customer service." So, here they are:

• Set up automatic email alerts for each faculty on their research topics with My NCBI. This personalized service includes knowing and understanding each faculty member's research interests or topics, constructing a good search for each topic, creating My NCBI account for each faculty, and writing up instructions on how to manage the alerts.
• Conduct literature searches for faculty members. This involves not only expert search using related databases, but delivering the search results in the format of their preferences. Sometimes it goes further than that such as organizing citations and retrieving full text articles for them.
• Scan articles from the library's print collection to PDFs and send to them via emails. The challenge is basically time especially when I have a busy schedule and when the faculty are rush to need the articles.
• Deliver one-on-one library workshop sessions to faculty's offices. This is especially in demand for hands-on workshops. What makes this service welcoming is the focus of individualization. This requires me to get very familiar with the workshop contents and alter the teaching method based on each individual faculty's characteristics and needs.
• There are some very basic things we, librarians, expect our users to do them themselves while faculty members expect librarians to do those basic things for them. My liaison philosophy is don't ask, just do it. For example, could you get the full text of this article for me (I know we have online access to the article and she can download it from her desktop.); do we have this book in the library ( I know we do. A catalog search will tell her.); I need this article via interlibrary loan, could you request for me? (I know she can do it online by logging onto her library account.); Could you pull these articles for me from the library stack? I will come and pick up after work (I know the library doesn't offer this service. She can come to the library and do it herself.)

Concern and worry was if I got lots of requests, it might be difficult to handle and it would greatly increase my workload. I took it as a challenge. Reference service hasn't change a lot, we just need to do it in different ways: make it easy for them, but might mean make it difficult for us. This brings to the core of my job -- providing excellent customer service!