Academic Library Presentations

In the Fall of 2012, I was applying for jobs at academic libraries. I managed to be fortunate enough to be asked to interview and present at two institutions. In late August of 2012, I gave a presentation at FAMU about emerging technologies in libraries. Then in December of 2012, I interviewed and presented at Notre Dame on designing web-based library services in academic libraries. Neither position wound up working out, but they were great experiences.

I have uploaded my slides to SlideShare and present them here.

Exploring the Emerging Technologies/Systems Librarians Role in an Academic Library

“Exploring the Emerging Technologies/Systems Librarians Role in an Academic Library” Presentation from Carlin Trammel

Usability Analysis: Blackboard Redesign

In this final assignment for this class, we were to select a component of the Blackboard Learning Management System and do an analysis of its usability and design an improvement. I selected the “tests, surveys, and pools” component which allows for instructors to build questions that can be used for assessment or surveys.

In the analysis, I compared Blackboard to competing systems, researched criticism, and interviewed active users. The design was a cleaner, more graphical interface that is not as piecemeal as the current system.

The video below is my final class presentation/report on the assignment. Images below show various stages of the project.

Usability Analysis: Good and Bad Stories

For my Usability Analysis class, we started off the semester by identifying something with bad usability and something with good usability. We were allowed to present this in the form of a video. Using my video production skills, I decided to do just that.

For my “bad usability” story I chose to talk about DVD digipaks although a runner up for this was the ordering system at Chick-fil-A.

For my “good usability” story, I went with a mobile app. I’m a big fan of the YouVersion Bible app on both the iPhone and iPad, although this video discusses just the iPhone version.