The Distant Librarian

Author: Paul R. Pival

  • What good are online tutorials?

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    Paul R. Pival
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    Last week Rita Barsun posted a question about the effectiveness of online tutorials to several lists.  Yesterday she posted a lengthy summary of the responses, and I found them to be quite enlightening.  Of particular value to me were the citations to the literature that address this question.  The posting is available in the OFFCAMP…

  • New Journal on Copyright

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    Paul R. Pival
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    As announced in InfoBits: COPYRIGHT is a new open-access, peer-reviewed journal that will publish papers on "all aspects of copyright in the Internet age." Topics covered will include: digital rights management, scholarly communication and open access, collaborative authorship, blogs and other new media, and the social implications of copyright. For more information and for paper-submission…

  • Screencasting article in Computers in Libraries

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    Paul R. Pival
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    The Sept 2005 issue of Computers in Libraries has a solid article on screencasting, though it’s called "demonstration authoring software" in the article.  Written by two non-librarian IT folk, it starts with  a nice introduction to the concept of screencasting, provides some solid tips for those who are new to the game, and includes a…

  • Google Scholar vs PsycInfo

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    Paul R. Pival
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    As noted by Dean at the UBC Google Scholar Blog, librarians at UCLA (is this Esther Grassian again?) have been busy creating a page to help students understand what Google Scholar is and isn’t.  One of the highlights is the Camtasia Studio screencast comparing results and search options in Schoogle and PsycINFO.  Nicely done, and…

  • PROWE – Personal Repositories Online: WIKI Environment

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    Paul R. Pival
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    Richard, of Science Library Pad, pointed me towards PROWE, Personal Repositories Online: WIKI Environment.  This initiative was just launched by JISC in the UK, and while there’s nothing to see there yet, the project description sounds like something distance librarians would want to participate in.  I won’t reproduce the whole description here, but here’s the…

  • Canadian Electronic Reserves

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    Paul R. Pival
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    A new blog with the following tagline: A forum for librarians implementing E-reserves in academic libraries across Canada: Canadian Electronic Reserves.

  • TechSmith Blog

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    Paul R. Pival
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    TechSmith, the folks who produce Camtasia Studio and SnagIt have a new blog: TechSmith Visual Lounge. No real content there yet, but I would expect them to announce product news there, and they accept comments, so this could be a good way to provide them feedback on their products.  Well, this is what they have…

  • Google Talk

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    Paul R. Pival
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    I’m away on vacation now with only a Mac at my disposal so haven’t had a chance to try this, but Google has just announced an Instant Messaging solution called Google Talk – it requires a download.  From the site: They say talk is cheap. Google thinks it should be free. Google Talk enables you…

  • Tutorials and screencasts galore!

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    Paul R. Pival
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    Just about a month ago there was a nice little exchange on the OFFCAMP list about creating mini-tutorials for distance students.  I was really impressed with some of the stuff people were doing, and wanted to collect the links in one post, so here they are in no particular order: University of Nebraska Medical Center…

  • Survey of the biblioblogosphere

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    Paul R. Pival
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    Are you a librarian who blogs?  Meredith is trying to answer some questions Walt didn’t ask – why not take a moment to fill out her survey?