In Part 2 of Lorette Weldon’s series, she emphasizes that to promote information literacy you would have to practice what you preach. You must retain customer interaction information so that you may add to it in forthcoming interactions. Thus says Weldon, the patrons experience both familiarity and warmth when they return to the library because the librarian remembers who they are and what they had been looking for in previous visits.
This is the first of a three part series by Lorette Weldon. She discusses the role of “The Three T’s” – talking, tinkering, and traveling, in relationship to building a bond between librarians and customers seeking reference and research services.
Lorette Weldon discusses how busy business professionals determined to make the time to share and learn best practices from colleagues use a range of methods to accomplish this goal. But professionals seeking to talk to, travel and engage with experts in the skills that they wish to obtain and/or develop may be stymied in their efforts. In the late 1980’s, these Three T’s were formalized as a teaching method for the “tight time” individual. It was initially a method to help unite parent and child as they worked together on educational needs. Taking this further along, Weldon brings us forward through the dynamics of ELA, my Electronic Library Assistant, used to could build skills by taking the experts or teachers on the road. In order to use ELA as a training process, the Three T’s approach allows professionals to employ the skills of talking, traveling and tinkering with devices that they used daily in personal and work life.
Microsoft SharePoint expert Lorette S.J. Weldon asks us to imagine walking into the library without worrying about file compatibilities and adjustments of applications to do what you want when you want. All you would see is a library with your workstation. When SharePoint is properly implemented, it could blend into the background. You would never know that it was there. Lorette created an animated series to assist librarians to leverage this application, and has included a very short survey to offer suggestions for future episodes.
Lorette S.J. Weldon continues to share her guides on how librarians in various sectors can effectively leverage SharePoint within the enterprise, in groups, and with individuals outside the organization. She refers to her 2010 survey, “How is SharePoint used in Libraries?” that found 16 out of 54 participants used SharePoint’s site features, such as the blog. Lorette provides insights and associated documentation on this application’s limitations, features, and operational structure.
Lorette S.J. Weldon highlights the challenges her organization has encountered in its use of SharePoint to manage information through a client-matter-based-interface for attorneys, product management marketing and the library.
Lorette Weldon’s research has identified that librarians are using SharePoint in the corporate, government, and non-profit sectors. She expertly identifies and illustrates how to leverage the power of this application through an understanding of the site templates that Microsoft bundles in SharePoint “out-of-the-box”. These templates are based on social networking abilities and not program coding. Through “plug and play” efforts librarians can find the features in SharePoint that will assist them in managing their multifaceted “collections.”
IT Librarian and SharePoint expert Lorette Weldon provides guidance on requisite questions for staff and other users to ask for content in Microsoft SharePoint out of the box (OOTB). The research requires you to ask the four “W”‘s: What; Who; Where; When. What type of SharePoint item do you wish to obtain? Who contributed and/or created the SharePoint item? Where did the SharePoint item come from (the source)? When was the SharePoint item created and/or modified? This would work for Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 3.0 and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007. WSS is the basic compilation of applications.
Lorette S.J. Weldon discusses innovative methods to use social networking and oral tradition to support the goals of sharing professional experiences and collaborating on best practices for past, current, and ongoing research.
In the past, many of us have failed to document processes for ourselves or for our organizations. A good example of a professional arena where good documentation has the potential to have a positive impact is within the IT department. When a computer-related system blocks access to staff or fails to timely record updates, the IT staff has to respond accurately and effectively. Ulysses Weldon and Lorette S.J. Weldon focus on the importance of good documentation and how computer-related systems are installed, configured, customized and implemented.