MULTA:Murdoch University Library Thinking Aloud
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Contents |
What is MULTA?
MULTA is a two month collaborative project between Murdoch Library staff running from 16 June to 11 August 2006. We aim to:
- Find out about "Library 2.0" technologies
- Gain "hands on" exposure to five classes of technology
- RSS feeds
- Wikis
- Blogs
- Forums
- Social tagging
- Create library wide discussion of these technologies, formally on the webspaces and, hopefully, informally.
- Investigate the technical setup required for these technologies and gain staff skills to set them up.
- Create a set of recommendations about the future use of these technologies.
Why did you do it?
- I was asked to find out about RSS feeds and blogs, and suggest some ways we could use them in the library.
- Poking about on the web, I quickly realised that the attitudes and expectations brought with new web tools were probably more interesting than the tools themselves.
- I also realised that it would be much better if other library staff knew more about the tools and attitudes, and then we worked as a group to find gaps that they could fill...
How did you do it?
- The idea to use the new web tools to discuss them was stolen from the ALA Library 2.0 Bootcamp which ran from April to June 2006
- After much to-ing and fro-ing we found a friendly bunch of people at the Centre for Comparative Genomics who gave us some space on their linux box and held our hands to set up a TikiWiki installation.
- TikiWiki was chosen because it provides quite a good wiki, plus blogs, forums, RSS feeds, polls, quizzes, surveys, chat, webmail. The blogs and forums are fair to middling, but adequate for a two month play.
- We got the empty site on 29 May and went live on 16 June 2006. It took about two weeks fulltime to set up.
Why would anyone want to participate in MULTA?
- We need to know about these tools sooner or later and it's more fun in company
- Students and academics are using the web to bypass us as a scholarly information source. We are no longer the only "gatekeepers" of scholarly communication.
- The new tools can help us to do our job better.
- The new tools bring a whole new set of attitudes, particularly to do with what our users will expect from us.
What does a MULTA participant do?
- Every week, participants are given a set of three readings and two or three tasks to complete.
- Each set of tasks relates to the week's new web tool.
- For Week Six, for example, the readings are about Wikis, Local Librarians 2.0 and Radical trust. The tasks involve viewing a screencast about how to edit a wiki, playing with the wiki page associated with their login and adding a suggestion to the collaborative Recommendations wiki.
- The more important bit is posting to the forums, making blog entries, suggesting FAQs and chatting over coffee in the staff room.
- Participants attend a start up, midway and final meeting.
- Every Friday afternoon, I sit in front of a PC in a meeting room for MULTA open house, where people can come and chat about whatever takes their fancy. I suspect that it will be mainly "how to".
What are people reading about in MULTA?
- Each reading is either about New Web Tools, Library 2.0 or Meme of the week.
- New Web Tools
- Library 2.0
- Memes
Where is the site?
http://multa.murdoch.edu.au It looks best viewed in a Firefox browser. The forums can only be accessed by people who have logged in.
Feel free to post your comments here...
Kathryn Greenhill 19:03, 20 Jun 2006 (WST)