Category Archives for UNC
UNC Libraries UX Blog
My posting frequency dropped off a cliff lately, but this time there’s a legitimate reason! Following the lead of other Library UX departments like NYU and UVa, at UNC Libraries we’ve got our own departmental blog to talk about our … Continue reading
Your Content Management Strategy Can Save Lives
My headline is an exaggeration, but only a slight one. Bear with me: Last night at about 11PM there were two armed robberies on campus in quick succession. (Nobody was hurt, thankfully!) UNC has an elaborate campus alert system called … Continue reading
Usability testing with Optimal Workshop
Usability testing is one of the best parts of my job. I love hearing from users about how they interact with the library’s website and then figuring out what we can change to better meet their needs. The dark side … Continue reading
ALA 2014: My two WordPress presentations
After a couple years off, I’m returning to ALA’s annual conference this year. I’m obviously excited to see colleagues and the Vegas sights, but I’m also looking forward to my two presentations there. If you’d like to come hear about … Continue reading
My presentations from Computers in Libraries 2014
I was fortunate enough to have two presentations accepted at Computers in Libraries this year in DC. As always I’m not sure if my slides make much sense without my accompanying narration, but I’m happy to answer questions about them. … Continue reading
Semi-Automatic Chat: Speeding up reference questions in Pidgin
This is an expanded write-up of a lightning talk I presented at the 2014 LAUNC-CH conference: Semi-Automatic Chat: Using a Library of Common Responses to Speed Up Chat Sessions from chaefele Some background: We answer reference questions via chat at … Continue reading
Exporting page details from WordPress for a content review
Now that we’ve got a large chunk of the UNC Library site‘s content in WordPress, we’re working on setting up a system to do semi-annual content reviews. Before we can plan the review itself, we needed to be able to … Continue reading
Redesign of the UNC Libraries’ website
Last month we debuted the completely overhauled UNC Libraries website at library.unc.edu. Roughly a year in the making, this is a huge step forward for the Library. Our old site was entirely hand-maintained pages, and included over 60,000 files (HTML, … Continue reading
Defining what I do: What makes a technology emerging or disruptive?
“I’m the Emerging Technologies Librarian at UNC.” “So what does that mean?” Every time I meet someone new at work, that’s how the conversation goes. My response usually consists of arm flailing and a disjointed summary of my duties. I’m … Continue reading
Android’s App Inventor: Drag and Drop Programming
It took a while, but Friday afternoon I finally got an invite to use Google’s App Inventor program. What is App Inventor? It’s Google’s attempt to simplify building apps for Android devices. Apps are built using a drag and drop … Continue reading