Designing a Database Brochure
by Debra Orellana 

I am very eager to start on my next class project for LIS 724-10 Media Services and Production [Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Summer 2014].

The assignment is a creative and informative one, encouraging students to use a real or imaginary library as the focus for a library brochure. The objective is to include and expand on the digital resources (other than the traditional physical materials offered in libraries) and focus on subscription databases the library of one's choice would offer. 

The concept for the Urban Spaces Virtual Library celebrates city culture in the "here and now" where members are encouraged to share and submit their own materials such as historical documents and records they may have in their possession, research on urban development, digital photography and video, audio recordings and broadcasts, urban artifacts and ephemera. This kind of city collective gives back to society and proceeds are invested back into the community and to local charities.

The library I created is called the Urban Spaces Virtual Library which would feature actual subscription databases such as Academic Search Complete, Art Museum Image Gallery, Art & Architecture in Video, 3D Urban Virtual City, Naxos Music Library and Style Sight Fashion. 

I based the selections for databases on the following criteria: 
familiarity and usefulness (Academic Search Complete)
contemporary and diverse (Art Museum Image Gallery, Art & Architecture in Video), 
uniqueness and utility (3D Urban Virtual City), 
creativity and inspiration (Naxos Music Library and Style Sight Fashion).

The list of special collections resources incorporated into the brochure were made up. I wanted to include resources that focused more on current urban street culture, the street art, architecture, fashion, street music and poetry. 

"There is so much going on in cities, a smorgasbord of different cultures morphing to the next as one neighborhood ends and the other begins...
this urban line of separation and gentrification intrigues,
 and is the true voice of a city."

I started by selecting a three-fold brochure template and created the layout using the Pages 4.2 program for Mac (luckily this design program came with my Mac). I used the three panel brochure template because it would allow for separation of the introductory pages leading to a one page spread when fully opened. I envisioned using the inside spread to list the subscription databases and collections giving a poster-style vibe. 

The Urban Spaces Virtual Library would be a membership program offering members free access to subscription databases and collections and incentives like a 10% discount on the purchase of e-books, poster-quality scans and reproduction of images and audio. An added member bonus would include discounts to city events and venues. 

The photographs included in the brochure were taken by me at various spots in downtown Chicago over the last four years. I like to photograph unique wall markings, textures, interesting stylized tags and graffiti because it amazes me that some of this street art is intended to be conspicuous yet one may find these in the most inconspicuous places!

Submitted on July 30, 2014.

Personal Learning Network: Creating a Makerspace Inventory: A Team Effort!

Personal Learning Network: Creating a Makerspace Inventory: A Team Effort!: Makerspaces are all about bringing people together to share ideas and to problem solve. With three members in my group, the task for our c...

Collaborative Work Using Prezi

Note: The following is a follow up to the Makerspace blog enry

My same class group worked together over the weekend to transform our start-up class project: Grandstories Makerspace Inventory into a Prezi slide presentation about our Equipment Investigation. Never having used the Prezi site before, it was quite an experience learning the basic features. Navigating and selecting the individual slides in a "not-so-friendly" drag and drop screen tested my patience at certain points in helping to create the presentation. I found myself being distracted in searching for an option that could turn off the animation feature while helping to type up our slides with no luck. Undergoing several slight dizzy spells due to the screen panning while zooming in and out into a slide I was trying to adjust, I was able to finally make sense of some of the tools and features. One could see other team member's actions hover about the screen as we each quietly collaborated in our own spaces miles away from each other with one goal: to include all project requirements in an informative and creative visual. 

Prezi did not afford our team the same collaborative comments/feedback options as working in the Google documents did. Prezi is a very useful tool available for free which is great for many, especially students on a budget. From a scale of four stars being the highest, I would give the Microsoft Powerpoint presentation tool four stars and Prezi about two.

Creating a Makerspace Inventory: A Team Effort!

Makerspaces are all about bringing people together to share ideas and to problem solve.

With three members in my group, the task for our class project was to develop a concept for a new Makerspace and plan out an inventory of equipment and materials needed to jump start the space on a budget of $3000.  We began collaborating using a single Google Document [comments on, a great feature for multiple users to share input and feedback].

Each member contributed to the concept of creating a makerspace targeting Senior citizens in the community and elaborated by including young children. The concept became a Grandstories Makerspace where Grandparents (or Seniors) and their Grandchildren could work together in creating heirloom inspired artifacts such as scrapbooks and memory books, photo albums, artwork, crafts, story-times and recordings. 

Another goal was to develop an environment where technology could be explored and learned by members of the community feeling left behind in the new age of technology. 

Joining new and older generations in passing along history in the making! 

It was a great experience creating within the group and being a small one, it helped to manage our time in contributing and collaborating in the document. The google doc inventory itself could be easily incorporated into a working business plan if needed.

Creating and Collaborating in a Virtual Learning Commons

Our class assignment today for LIS 724-10 Media Services and Production, entailed the collaborative efforts of our group in learning about virtual learning commons. In doing so, Stephan, Ashlie and I began to design a learning commons using a Google template from David Loertscher, San Jose State University. Sharing and agreeing on our ideas or brainstorming together provided a positive means in achieving our project goals.

Using the Google sites creation tool was exciting due to many of the options being readily available. 

https://sites.google.com/site/emueduhub/

1. The model is useful because users need not navigate away from the template to find editing tools and one does not need to input information in the HTML markup language, although the option to do so is available. Another useful managing tool is in adding pages and the ability to select the order of these pages.

2. Aspects that can be omitted are in the typeface selections, and possibly the addition of classic typefaces such as Times Roman, Caslon, Bookman, Futura and Helvitica [the good foundry designs benefit the legibility of body copy].

3. Missing from this web creating tool is the ability to select any item and move items to one's choosing, or freedom in layout design. The color palette does not provide a color wheel or cmyk for creators to easily custom make their own custom color palettes. 

4. The Google Sites Virtual Learning Commons template is very helpful and useful because information about a VLC is included in the template itself. Suggestions for inputting certain kinds of information into the template created a guide in designing a VLC, and this was very good, and also the way our group began to explore the template itself, motivating us to brainstorm even more.

Selecting a Blog Site to Use

There are many free blog resources to use these days, and as many sites compete for visitors by offering user-friendly web authoring tools or predesigned templates, what should a newbie blogger like myself look for in one of these sites?

This will depend on the type of information to be shared. Creative blog tools for artists and photographers may fall into the portfolio layout type, and writers may prefer simpler layouts akin to a typewriter or simple pad. 

The process used in deciding to create my blog posts using https://www.blogger.com was based on wanting to explore its host and owner, Google. Being rather new to using Google+ for sharing information and creating circles, it would be beneficial to explore its blogging platform.

Composing a post while having the post settings menu bar visible at the right of the screen, and basic tool options across the top increases one's understanding and "want" for exploring the tools. Everything needed is simply laid out in the window and the option to see the HTML version is also provided.

Having used WordPress in the past to create a simple blog entry, Blogger seems to be straightforward and less focused on creative layouts, which might be a better route to go in developing a Professional Learning Network and collaborating with colleagues. Although Blogger does provide some available template designs and widgets, Blogger can definitely be used as an online "database-type" tool to keep a list of library resources and notes for librarians, teachers, researchers and students. Information can be added easily as well as links and adding geotags or location links (Wikipedia, 2014).

Roadblock on the Digital Literacy Highway by Debra Orellana

Course: LIS 724-10 Media Services and Production I, Professor Katie Kirsch;
Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science, July 2014.

The following post is in response to the the article
In School Libraries Cultivate Digital Literacy by Tonya Roscoria. 

http://www.centerdigitaled.com/classtech/School-Libraries-Digital-Literacy.html

Roadblock on the Digital Literacy Highway
by Debra Orellana

In this article, Tanya Roscoria explains the challenges and obstacles librarians in school libraries encounter in their efforts to provide children with access to technology and provide a learning environment to increase digital literacy.

Roscoria identifies five literacy roadblocks 

as follows:

1. Access to technology
2. Filtering
3. Advocacy for Literacy
4. Instructional Time
5. Teaching Youngsters

After evaluating the five difficulties encountered by school libraries relative to digital literacy, teaching youngsters appears to be the most challenging due to all the variables that must be determined and considered before students should delve further down the digital highway. Age groups and comprehension levels, learning concepts explored using the computer, the amount of computer usage time, purpose and learning outcomes.

Balancing how much technology a young child should learn in a day with the other necessary non-technological skills such as reading and writing by hand, penmanship, spelling vs. typing on a computer keyboard. Learning face-to-face social skills with classmates vs. their attention to a virtual world are very important factors to consider in a child's development and how they develop an understanding of the real world vs. a virtual world. 

Read: https://www.princeton.edu/futureofchildren/publications/docs/10_02_05.pdf