Project-tastic; I presented both my library turorial project and the blog project today- I think they were received pretty well! Hurrah!

Blog
Even though I say it myself, the blog subject guide turned out super-fantastico. The artistic colleague designed a great banner using fab images from Getty Images; my Yahoo Pipes RSS feed and Rollyo searches had a satisfying wow factor, and the whole thing looked polished. Later in the day one of the librarians from the Library of Congress to whom I had presented recommended that I present at the upcoming SALALM conference; unfortunately my original presentation proposal was mislaid (…) but the reference and bibliographic instruction committee asked for presentation ideas- and I was accepted! Yippee! Here’s hoping the workplace doesn’t impede my participation.

Tutorial
The fake ppt slides done in html and css worked a treat! It took me a couple of hours on Friday to tinker with them and to recall my very rusty css skills, but I cobbled and copied and within no time had a fairly workable Academic Search Premier tutorial to present to the boss and the rest of the reference team as a prototype. I was very happy with the way they turned out, and especially pleased at how little time it took me to adapt them. The uninspired-reference-colleague thought that they were “ok”- his enthusiasm was particularly thrilling, but I’m still waiting for feedback from the other colleagues, fingers crossed. I’ve a horrible feeling they may want something more flashy and with fluorescent moving parts, but hey, they don’t have to make the things, and judging by typical library speed, I think it would be easiest to get something basic out there and then use these basic ideas as templates/story boards for the flashy stuff if and when we ever get approval/more hours in the day to start snazzing. On verra…