Beyond Method #10: Meet You Online

Discovery Exercise:

1. Watch the YouTube video interviews Skype an Author and Using Skype to Connect with Loved Ones. The Skype an Author site is valuable for children's books and authors. I am hoping someone has done the same for adult authors. The most active book clubs in our library are for adults, and it would be handy to have a one-stop place to identify authors who would share their time for free with book clubs. The Skype service offered in the Tigard Public Library sounds interesting, but our computer lab is way too busy as a location to host such a service. We actually advertise it as a place for "quiet" work during the few hours we are not holding classes there. What we could do is offer classes on how to set up Skype at home.
2. Watch the YouTube videos Using Skype in Library Book Clubs and a little bit of The Hole in the Sky to see a few virtual author visits in action.  The book clubs using Skype in this video segment could benefit from the setup used in the classroom for Barbara Mahler's visit. It makes sense to project the author onto a large screen, instead of using a single laptop. For most people, the laptop version would be no different than an audioconference.
3. Read TechSoup’s Web Conferencing Tools: Right for You? The best conferences I have attended have had these features: presenters who spoke well, and showed screens that complemented their talk; screens that changed frequently enough so that you did not become bored, but slowly enough that you could read or even make notes as needed; survey instruments included, to gather feedback from the audience in real time; chat features so you could type in questions that were answered at the end of the presentation; multiple presenters and seamless interchange between them; archives available soon after the presentation, with additional information included that resulted from the questions of the participants, not all of which could be addressed online.
4. Education Webinars: In the past few years I have watched many educational webinars. They are a great way to do training at the desktop, without the time and expense of travel. The quality of presentation varies greatly, though. I have learned to be more selective in the ones I sign up for, as some are really a waste of time. A recent one that comes to mind is one on the topic of Games in Libraries. Publicized as "fun", it was the most UNFUN webinar I have viewed. I gave up about half way through.
5. I personally have never used any online meeting or online conferencing tools other than using Skype to talk with distant relatives. This has been a real asset for my husband who has talked online with relatives in Romania, Spain, Germany and Mexico. Being able to actually "see" the person really does contribute to making the world smaller. Our library system currently does not use any online conferencing tools, but many of us wish they would start. We have monthly branch librarians meetings, and at least 26 of us drive across town to get there. We could save a lot of time and money if we could somehow do this online. Getting this done would require some planning and setting up by our e-branch or Network Services department. Like all of the rest of our departments, they are short-staffed and can barely handle the workload they have, let alone take on something new. I think we will have to just jump into it someday soon, however, in the interest of economy. We would need to purchase web cams and decide on the appropriate software and format for the meeting.

OPTIONAL – I tried sharing my screen with a friend using JoinMe. We were not able to use the audio component by the phone listed, since our phones are blocked from easily calling long distance numbers. Since there were just two of us, we called each other by cell phone. My friend was able to see my screen, so I could show him the training that I was doing and several other items. I could give him control of my screen, and it was strange to see him move my cursor.
We both were a little spooked by all the security messages we saw along the way. I got a message after I had closed out, saying that the security settings on my computer had been changed. It seems like "Join.me" is detected as a kind of spyware. I think I would feel uncomfortable using it again without approval from our Network Services department. I am concerned about comproming the security of the library network and would want reassurance that it is OK to use.