The wonderful world of Internet language learning resources

During the four weeks that Alex and I have been volunteering with Instruction and Outreach, one my projects has been helping with the creation of a LibGuide to assist students of foreign languages, and in particular those learning languages outside the context of a university class.

Consequently I've been spending some time exploring the world of free online language resources, and while I've run across a number of antiquated, sketchy or poorly-designed sites, the more I look around, the luckier I feel to be a language learner in the Internet age, with instant access to so many useful tools and detailed reference works--and perhaps best of all, with endless opportunities to encounter authentic foreign language material, both written and spoken.

I won't try to list all the helpful resources I've found, but here are a few that stand out:

RadioTime is a directory of online radio broadcasters with an on-board interface. Listening to foreign radio stations is a tremendous way to develop language skills, and RadioTime's regional directory offers easy and reliable access to stations all over the world.

Tex's French Grammar is a clever, comprehensive and entertaining introduction to French. It's been around for a long time (I dimly remember using it during my initial forays into French many years ago) but it's showing no signs of age. Tex's home is the Texas Language Technology Center at UTexas, which also offers online language resources for Arabic, Spanish, Persian, German, Portuguese and Italian. Definitely worth a visit.

Rikaichan is a Firefox extension which brings up an instant popup translation when you move your mouse over Japanese text. It's a beautifully quick and click-free way to look up unfamiliar words.

Typeit.org is one solution to the problem of getting accents, umlauts and their ilk into your text. It provides an online text box with buttons used to enter the special characters of 19 different languages. You can enter text and special characters into the box, then copy-paste it wherever you need it. Easy! Or, as they apparently say in Icelandic, "auðveldur!" ("ð" provided courtesy of typeit.org.)

This is a tiny sampling of the helpful tools language learners can find on the Internet. If you have favorite online language resources, we'd love to hear about them!

Going Global.... (Part 2)

Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the projects that I’ve started to work on as part of the I & O Department. Here is the (brief) continuation of my discussion of “Going Global” at Duke Libraries:

On Monday (I know, that seems like ages ago), Aisha Harvey, the Head of Collection Development at Perkins Library, introduced Jake, Diane, Emily, and me to the WorldCat Collection Analysis tool. First of all, it was cool to meet Aisha! We also got a good overview of the tool’s rich functionalities and discussed a few of the bumps that we might experience along the way. Diane and I will be working on analyzing Duke’s global health collection by creating subject profiles, comparing our collections to our peers’, and developing some sort of collection development plan from there. Since global health is necessarily interdisciplinary, it might be a little tricky to formulate our subject profiles (we’ll probably have to piece together call number ranges... and maybe some other stuff... I’m going to check out what’s posted here, but if any of you readers have had experience with this, please let us know!). I’m sure we’ll be able to work out the kinks, and I’m looking forward to getting into the WCA system and seeing what it can do for us. Part of the reason I applied for this field experience was to gain some collection development experience; I think this project looks promising! It’s also pretty rad to be learning alongside Diane and Emily, who are uniquely gifted mentors. Again, stayed tuned for updates.

One final thought on my Going Global rant:
Another aspect of Going Global is inviting international students into the Duke community. Working with international students and growing increasingly sensitive to their needs in an academic library setting is something that I’ve been interested in for several years. Emily Daly is working with colleagues on making sure that international students are getting the attention they deserve at Perkins. As a burgeoning librarian, it is inspiring to see the Going Global theme not only pushing out toward the rest of the world, but also working within our lives here in the United States. I know I’ve just started at Perkins, and only part-time, but I’m totally looking forward to going global right here in Instruction and Outreach. Wish me luck!

Going Global... right here in North Carolina

This week marks the three-week anniversary of my field experience in the Instruction & Outreach Department at Duke’s Perkins Library. Besides all the usual getting-started stuff, both the exciting and the mundane (being warmly welcomed by Emily and Diane, taking a brief tour of the library, gawking amazedly at The Link, setting up Outlook, getting an ID, forgetting said ID and waiting outside the staff door for some kind soul to let me in), I’ve also had a chance to begin working on several projects that all roughly fall into the category of “Going Global.” Yes, “going global” is a hackneyed slogan, no doubt, but it’s actually a surprisingly accurate theme to describe the disparate projects I’ve begun as a part-time member of the I & O team.

Back in March, when I saw Diane’s posted request for a student to assist with the Library’s Global Health duties, I’ll admit that although I wasn’t absolutely sure about what that meant, I did know I was interested. In just three shorts weeks it’s become clear just how expansive Diane’s role as both Head of Instruction & Outreach as well as the Librarian for Global Health is. For me, as a second-year library-school student, it is invaluable to be able to see, experience, and understand not only her overarching roles but also the department’s day-to-day responsibilities. I mean, it’s only been three weeks and I’m already getting into the thick of it!

Having a snappy concept to encapsulate my main projects keeps me focused on why I’m here at Perkins. (The bus ride over from UNC is a welcome respite from the busy week, but I’m here for more than that!) “Going Global” is a way for me to think about how Duke Libraries fits into the University’s mission (in general) and into the global health and global education at Duke (in particular). Going Global also reminds me that it’s not only Duke students, faculty, and scholars going abroad through study abroad, Duke Engage, or fieldwork at Duke Global Health Institute -- students, faculty, and scholars are coming to the Triangle Area in droves every year, the issues and challenges abroad are felt right here in North Carolina, and information is being transmitted internationally every minute of every day.

.... Interesting to think about, sure, but what have I actually been doing here?

My first week here I started working on revamping the Global Health LibGuide, an entryway for users to find resources to do research, read current news, find relevant data and stats, and get assistance in the area of global health. It’s still a work in progress, but definitely worth checking out. Compiling resources for that LibGuide gave me a chance to practice using the Springshare software (with which I was already familiar), and, more significantly, get familiar with the global health resources and tools that are essential to the field. I visited several other research libraries’ websites to get a sense of what other librarians find important. Feeling connected to what other global health practitioners and researchers are using is something I hope to learn over the course of the semester. For me, actually going through the databases and webpages and actually making a usable subject guide is a more effective (and more fun!) way to learn than to sit in a library school class and try to memorize lists of resources. Thank god for field experiences!

Another (mini-) project I’m starting this week is updating the library page for students studying abroad through the Office of Global Education or Duke Engage. This page will offer students studying or researching abroad links to local libraries and information resources in their area. “Find a library near you!” helps students understand that when they are overseas, they not only have access to Duke Libraries remotely, but they may also be able to use on-the-ground resources available in the country where they are staying. Connecting Duke students to local libraries may seem like small potatoes, but it is critical to the Going Global theme: Duke students are still Duke students when they’re abroad, but they’re also global actors, international visitors, local participants. Stay tuned for updates to the “Find a library near you!” page....


C'mon back on Friday, when I'll be writing a bit about some other Going Global projects we're working on in Instruction & Outreach!

Welcome, Alex and Jake!

The start of the fall semester brings two additions to the Duke Libraries Instruction and Outreach department and blog:  Alexandra "Alex" Gallin and Jake Vaccaro.  Alex and Jake are second-year students at UNC's School of Information and Library Science (SILS) and, lucky for us, have chosen to complete semester-long field experiences here in Perkins.

Alex has an undergraduate degree in anthropology and sociology from Carleton College, where she worked as a library assistant (and perhaps got bitten by the librarianship bug!).  She then spent nearly two years working in the reference department at NYU's Bobst library before pursuing her MLS.  She currently works at UNC's House Undergraduate Library and Davis Library and is active in the Community Workshop Series.  While at Perkins, she will help Diane support DukeEngage and Duke's Global Health Institute through collection development and instruction, as well as participate in the general activities of the Instruction and Outreach Department.

Jake completed his undergraduate degree in English and classics at Haverford College and then earned his MA in comparative literature and a graduate certificate in Medieval studies from UNC-Chapel Hill.  He completed all coursework and exams toward a PhD in Italian before beginning work on his MLS.  He taught Italian at UNC and Durham Technical Community College for several years and currently works at UNC's Davis Library.  Jake will be working on resources to support the Language Learning Options Group and helping to provide collection development for and outreach to Duke's Program in Education. 

Both Jake and Alex will regularly contribute to this blog, and they may ask to observe shifts at the reference desk or instruction sessions in Bostock or Lilly, so keep an eye out for our newest members of the team!

Emerging technologies and library instruction

Public services librarians here at Duke just received a pool of iPads to experiment with (thank you, Library Executive Group!).  Our colleagues in the Center for Instructional Technology have been keeping us posted about faculty interest in using iPads for instruction, and there are at least two projects up and running.  One, giving new masters students in Global Health  iPads to use in their research methods course, has been getting some press.  We knew that we had to get up to speed on the capabilities of the iPad so that we could help faculty and students use library-centric resources on them.  And if you’ve used an iPad, you know that searching a database and getting the full text of materials onto it is not always a straightforward process.  So we’re sharing iPads, and sharing what we learn about them through brown bag lunch meetings and Google Docs. 

Using new technologies for library instruction, or teaching about new technologies, is on my mind these days.  For example, how do you teach with a web-scale discovery interface like Summon?  Does it change the way you explain searching and retrieving?  Should we be presenting mobile interfaces in our instruction sessions?  Last night I met with first year students in one of our FOCUS living-learning programs.  I asked how many students had an iPad (one) or iPhone (many); then I talked about some apps that might be particularly useful for the courses these students are taking.  I’ve never done that before, but there seemed to be a lot of interest in relevant apps.

Photo: Robert Cox (Flickr Creative Commons license)

There seem to be several issues here:  finding out about emerging technologies, identifying the ones that seem promising for teaching and learning, getting our hands on them, and understanding how to use them (or at least talk about them) in library instruction. Many questions, few answers from where I sit.