A presentation given by Toni Olivas (with a short segment from Ian Chan) at the 15th Distance Library Services Conference, April 18-20, 2012. More conference information is available at http://ocls.cmich.edu/conf2012/.

1. “FACE-TO-FACE OR ON THE COUCH IN
PAJAMAS: RESEARCH HELP FROM
ANYWHERE!”
Toni Olivas & Ian Chan
California State University San Marcos
http://biblio.csusm.edu/

2. OBJECTIVES
 Identify cost-effective online/virtual reference tools
 Successfully conduct reference interaction techniques
to use with distance students

3. INTRODUCTION
 Face-to-face or on the couch…
 Libraries have limited budgets
 Free or low-cost tools

4. OH THE PLACES WE COULD GO!
 Khan Academy
 http://www.khanacademy.org/
 University of Florida Digital Worlds Institute:
 http://youtu.be/RSLd-lSk9ts

5. CSUSM BACKGROUND
 California State University San Marcos
 Founded 1989
 Fastest growing of 23 CSU campuses
 10,276 students
 CSUSM Temecula branch
 CSU Online

6. LIBRARY SERVICES
Local Students Distant Students
•CSUSM databases •Same
•30 items (undergrad)/40 items •Same
(grad) •Same
•4 week checkout •Same
•Renewals •Same
•Holds •Same
•Recalls •Same
•Interlibrary Loan materials •Same
•Circuit materials •Distance Services (Virtual/mail)
•Instruction/Reference help

7. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
 For-profit B.A. + 400%
 (U.S. Department of Education, 2011)
 Initial expenditures on new equipment, software
and training = substantial amount of time and
money
 capital & recurrent costs;
 production & delivery costs;
 fixed & variable costs
 (Bartolic-Zlomislic & Bates, 1999)

8. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
 Software, training, licensing, maintenance, monitori
ng costs
 Bandwidth, network, security audit and compliance
costs
 Han, 2011

9. REVIEW OF LITERATURE
 91.5% received little to no distance education
training while on the job
 (Fritts & Casey, 2010, p. 622)
 Successful use of technologies = Instructor
attitudes
 (Askar & Umay, 2001; Huang & Liaw, 2005)

10. COST EFFECTIVE SOFTWARE
 Course Management Systems (CMS/LMS)
 Blackboard
 Haiku LMS
 Coursekit
 Moodle

11. COST EFFECTIVE SOFTWARE
 Instant Messaging (IM) Services
 Meebo
 LibraryH3lp
 Google
 Yahoo
 Spark (Ignite Realtime)
 Openfire IM

12. COST EFFECTIVE SOFTWARE
 Screencast Applications
 Captivate
 Camtasia
 iShowU
 Jing (TechSmith)
 Example: http://screencast.com/t/VLbs1DtTCRlm
 http://www.the10most.com/entrepreneurs/10-useful-screencast-applications.html

13. COST EFFECTIVE SOFTWARE
 Video Chat
 Google Video Chat
 TokBox
 iChat
 Skype
 http://lifehacker.com/5088083/five-best-video-chat-applications

14. SUCCESSFUL INTERACTIONS
1. Plan
2. Make Friends w/IT
3. Focus on Objectives
4. Patient
5. Clear
6. Establish Relationship
7. “Meet” Often

15. IAN CHAN, WEB DEVELOPER
 Cost?
 Features and need?
 Easy to use?
 Instillation difficulty?
 Future?
 Community?
 Ian’s full online presentation: http://biblio.csusm.edu/dls/

16. CONCLUSION
 Be adventurous
 Make time try new things
 Listen to others
 Failure is OK!
 If I can do it, YOU can certainly do it!

17. EXAMPLES USED AT CSUSM
 Skype: http://www.skype.com/intl/en-us/home
 Moodle: http://moodle.org/
 Jing: http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html
 Library á la carte: http://alacarte.library.oregonstate.edu/
 Spark (Openfire): http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/
 Drupal: http://drupal.org/

18. THANK YOU…
QUESTIONS? PLEASE CONTACT US!
Toni Olivas, Education Librarian
(760) 750-4333
tolivas@csusm.edu
SKYPE: toni.olivas
http://biblio.csusm.edu/people/tolivas
Ian Chan, Web Developer
(760) 750-4835
ichan@csusm.edu
https://biblio.csusm.edu/people/ichan
CSUSM Library: http://biblio.csusm.edu/