We have two new Year in Review infographics for you courtesy of Debbie Lind, Director of Wallowa Public Library, and Amy Kitchen, Marketing and Communications Graphic Designer for the Johnson County Public Library. Both designs do an excellent job highlighting the ins and outs of a year at a busy public library and share statistics with easy-to-read graphics and clean layouts. Continue reading “Year in Review Infographics”
When Gail Schaub, Cara Cadena, Patricia Bravender, and Christopher Kierkus, surveyed 750 students at Grand Valley State University, one thing was clear: the language of information literacy can be complex and confusing. To combat misunderstandings, Gail began a collaboration with graphic arts professor Vinicius Lima where students would create visual representations and definitions of frequently used information literacy and library terms. The resulting campaign–Learn the Terms–resulted in some beautiful work by student artists, Stephen Dobrzynski, Jacob Luettke, Micah Martin, Carissa Storms. You can read more about this amazing collaboration and view all of the resulting artwork via the Grand Valley State University’s Open Teaching Tools.
Here’s Gail describing this collaborative project:
The “Learn the Terms” campaign was the result of a study I did with colleagues. We discovered in a survey of over 750 students on campus (a representative sampling), that 50% of our students don’t know the meanings of words they hear regularly in classrooms and on syllabi, terms like scholarly, peer-review, and even journal.
 We published our findings, but I knew that we had to let others know, and offer some kind of solution. I collaborated with Vinicius Lima, a professor of graphic arts here, and his students created these designs that we’ve since produced and are sharing in the library and beyond. The designs are in our institutional repository for sharing:http://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/oer_teaching/2/
There’s a new group of students working on designs for a new list of eight terms for creation in the coming year. It’s been an incredible experience, being part of the design thinking process with these students, and I’m so enamored by their work, I want to show everyone I possibly can.
We can’t wait to see what new designs this year’s students develop!
If you haven’t had time to look up from the frenzy, the end of the year is HERE! And with the end of another academic year, often comes the annual gathering of stats. Jess Denke, Public Services Librarian at the Trexler Library at DeSales University, has created an infographic that really illustrates how her library was used.
Jess says,
This was created using Adobe Illustrator. The infographic of last year’s report went over very well with students, faculty, and visitors and has been up all year – so I decided it was time for another! This one was more successful at visualizing the data versus simply presenting the information as a series of graphs. A lot of the statistics were related to use of a particular place in the library, so I decided to set them inside the floor plan.
I think using the floor plan is so smart–it connects your patrons with the spaces they use, and it clearly demonstrates to them that you are keeping track. I’m filing away this idea for my own library as we welcome the tutoring center in our space this year and continue to tweak our arrangement.
You can find all of Jess’ beautiful designs (see this post too) on the Librarian Design Share Google Drive as both .png and adaptable Adobe Illustrator files.
The Spring semester is like the worst kind of ninja: It hides in the shadows and then BLAMMO, it’s 3/4 over. It may be the first week of April, but if your library is anything like ours, you might already be planning Finals Week outreach and engagement activities for your campus community. With that in mind, today we’re sharing flyers and activities from Jess Burkhardt, Public Services Librarian at the DeSales University Trexler Library. Jess created all of these designs using Adobe Illustrator for Fall 2016 finals week, and is making them available to us all via the Librarian Design Share Google Drive.
One-half of Librarian Design Share is headed to Knoxville, TN to present at the 2017 Library Collective Conference alongside Amanda VerMeulen (St. Mary’s College of Maryland) and Dan Vinson (Mount Mary University). I’m super excited to be presenting with these awesome folks, and wanted to be sure to share our presentation slides, handouts, and other resources with Librarian Design Share readers. The focus of the conference is “Make it Beautiful, Make it Useable” which was all the sell I needed to attend. The conference schedule looks amazing, and I’d encourage you to check it out.
Here’s the info about our session:
Enhanced by Design: Creating user-informed, aesthetically attractive projects for your library
In this session participants will learn how different visual materials can address user concerns uncovered through focus groups, surveys, and ethnographic studies. Products created from data gleaned through these methods aren’t inherently beautiful, but by applying aesthetic design principles to these projects we can create products where usability is enhanced by design.
What this session IS about: basic user research methods, applying basic aesthetic principles/theories to creating visual materials, design-decision making
What this session is NOT about: in-depth session on graphic design or aesthetic theory,
how to analyze user research data (no coding, no stats).Some questions to think about before the session:
What is a problem you want to solve in your library?
What is a big picture question you have about your library/users/etc.?
You can check out our session slides below. It’s a mix of lightning style talks, discussion, activities, and Q&A. We hope the session will be interactive and fun, and we’re looking forward to learning from people who attend.
We also have a number of resources we’re sharing with participants, including:
- This fantastic LibGuide Amanda put together.
- Design Best Practices
- User Research Methods Glossary
- User Research Methods ChartÂ
- From Text to Graphics Handout
You can also find all of the designs highlighted in this presentation on the Librarian Design Share Google Drive in the Enhanced by Design Presentation 2017 folder. If you’ll be at The Library Collective Conference too, stop by and say hello!
We’ve featured LibQUAL+ related infographics on Librarian Design Share before, and want to continue sharing examples of academic libraries that are making survey results public. Transparency is important, and the more we share what we do and how our users perceive our spaces, collections, and services, the more opportunity we have to make improvements.
Continue reading “Sharing Your Results: LibQUAL+Infographic”
Last summer we featured a series of instructional materials by Randal Sean Harrison, Emerging Technologies Librarian at University of Notre Dame’s Hesburgh Library on One Button Studio. If you haven’t had a chance to see them, I highly recommend checking out that original post. They are a great example of clear, concise instructions in a visual format.
It’s the first day of classes at my college, and as stressed as I was about getting everything ready by today, I find myself much more relaxed than I thought I would be. It’s so nice to see familiar student faces on campus; the whole college just feels more alive. It’s a nice reminder of why we do what we do.
As we start off a new school year, April and I would love to see what you’ve been working on. Whether it’s new signage, a new marketing campaign, or, in the case of today’s post, a new flyer to try to recruit students for a library advisory board. Jess Burkhardt, Public Services Librarian at DeSales University’s Trexler Library created today’s featured design. Here’s what she had to say about it:
Every once in a while something comes into your life and changes it forever. For my colleagues and I, that something was this 1″ button maker kit from American Button Making Machines. It’s been in action all year and there are no signs of our button-making obsession stopping anytime soon.
Librarian Design Share 