LiT Training 2018-19

Everyone wants their teaching to be as engaging and successful as possible, right? But how often have we found ourselves talking to a group of students from behind a podium and thinking “there must be a better way to get this group more involved?” but aren’t sure where to start? Active learning is an approach that makes the traditional, passive approach to teaching more active and this session will explore how to harness good active teaching techniques in any educational scenario, whether you’re doing a 1-2-1 with a student or teaching a big group of people in one go. The session will be built around active learning principles so be prepared to get involved and get engaged in your own learning and teaching practices.

Please bring an internet-enabled device (phone, tablet, laptop etc.) to help with engaging in some of the activities.

Please note: Since this session was last offered, web accessibility has become increasingly important. The session has been revised to cover both usability testing and assessing the accessibility of websites.

This session will help you get started with website usability testing. The session will be interactive and activity-based, which will give you a chance to try out some testing and to reflect as a group on the experience. It will also provide you with some tips and tricks that can be used to help you conduct your own usability testing. If you’ve ever wondered how people actually use your library website, or are currently thinking about how to best revamp your Libguides to match the approaches and needs of your users, this one’s for you!

This course will look at how to create metadata for online catalogues and digital libraries, concentrating on special collections material. We will be using TEI (Text Encoding Initiative) as the most suitable metadata standard for the description and presentation of manuscripts and rare books in a digital environment. The course will focus on the descriptive element of TEI, but will also touch on the possibilities for transcription, translation, and the presentation of digital images. There will be a taught element (1 hour) followed by the opportunity to have a go at creating a description in TEI yourself.

You’ve seen the gorgeous photos of hand-drawn planners on Instagram and thought, “I would never have time to make my diary look like that.” Or you’ve bought pre-made planners before only to abandon them after a week, but still prefer to have a paper-and-pen backup to your online calendars. Or maybe you’re just curious about what a bullet journal is. Whatever the case, Emma and Kirsten have you covered! With six years of bullet journal experience between them, they’ll talk you through the basics of bullet journaling, show you some of the ways you can customise yours and get you started on planning your life with paper and pen. Participants should bring their favourite pens as well as their appointments and to-do lists for the day of the session and the next day. If you have a notebook you were already going to use as a planner, feel free to bring it. Otherwise, scrap paper will be provided for practice.

In 1906, Melvil Dewey wrote that ‘what we call books have no exclusive rights in a library. The name “library” has lost its etymologic meaning and means not a collection of books, but the central agency for disseminating information, innocent recreation or, best of all, inspiration among the people.’ Most libraries contain mostly books. But most libraries have other things in them too. Some of these things – films, musical recordings, maps, sheet music – have standard cataloguing practices. But what about flashcards, skeletons, jigsaws, bookstands, postage stamps, DVD players, and the many other odds and ends we collate, curate and circulate. Should they be catalogued? Perhaps. Can they be catalogued? Certainly. This course provides an introduction to the theory and practice of cataloguing ‘realia.’ Examples will be provided for group cataloguing activities, but feel free to bring along your own unusual library materials too.

A two-hour session designed to introduce you to the skill of compiling back-of-the-book type indexes. Indexing is a useful skill for anyone working in a library or information environment and also provides opportunities for self-employment and working from home. We will touch on the basic processes, standards and conventions, the Society of Indexers’ course, and embedded indexing, and we will have a go at creating a basic index. Feel free to bring a laptop but they are not essential.

A growing number of images from cultural heritage institutions around the world are available for use and re-use by scholars through IIIF (the International Image Interoperability Framework http://iiif.io). This framework and community facilitate comparison of materials across repositories through a common protocol. It also allows for the use of a number of lightweight tools that can be hosted at your institution, or on your laptop, for viewing, annotation, transcription, and collection-building.

No previous experience with IIIF is required. The workshop will be led by Dr Anne McLaughlin, Sub-Librarian of The Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, and Andy Corrigan, Cambridge Digital Library Co-ordinator.

Please note: This course will be cancelled if booking numbers are insufficient.