Thing 11 - SlideShare

I found SlideShare fairly straightforward to use even as a novice, and the resources there were some of the most useful I'd come across so far, so I'll be grasping the full scope of opportunities that SlideShare gives me, both for professional development and for use in our Faculty Library. It's an easy way of sharing documents in their original formats (Word, PowerPoint, pdf) which would otherwise not sit well on a website (pages of uninterrupted text just copied and pasted anyone?). Such a tool can be used to make available all sorts of information which would otherwise be awkward and non web-friendly to share, such as reports from library surveys, annual reports, guides and help documents... It's versatile, slick and engaging which makes it efficient from both the librarian's and the reader's point of view.

As for the content, why reinvent the wheel when others have produced and shared good material? SlideShare's strength lies in the free access to quality documents shared by respected colleagues.

I particularly liked the following PowerPoint presentation which seemed to fit in perfectly with what we're analysing on the 23 Things programme, making a very strong case for the use of Web 2.0 technologies in libraries and outlining how crucial it is that libraries embrace these technologies if they want to stay connected to their users. I loved the balance between quotes, screenshots and examples, and pure bullet-point facts, and thought they covered the topic extensively:

Social Software in Academic Libraries for NYPL

View more presentations from Ellyssa Kroski.

I also liked the following report on a survey looking at the innovative use of new technologies to attract new readers, as it's an area I'm interested in:

Social Media, Libraries, and Web 2.0: How American Libraries are Using New Tools for Public Relations and to Attract new Users - Second Survey November 2009

View more documents from Curtis Rogers.

I was impressed to find Keren Mills' Arcadia report there too. SlideShare was not a place I'd even thought of looking for Cambridge-related documents (well, obviously, since I'd never heard of SlideShare before, so how could it have been on my radar?), but that's changing as of today!

University of Cambrigde Information use on the move

View more documents from Fred Zimny.

Last but not least, I loved Andy Priestner's presentation on plagiarism, complete with clear examples and survey results highlighting the scope of the problem, as well as advice and guidelines for avoiding plagiarism:

The Plagiarism Code

View more presentations from priestcam.

All in all, SlideShare turned out to be another one of these 23 Things gem: I'd not heard of it before but it's made my top 5 list in just a couple of hours. I'm grateful to have been introduced to it!