New technological tools ~n academe
reading. Chapters cover vir-
Teaching with
Technology:
An academiC
Iibranan's gUide
Academic libraries have
changed fast, reacting quickly
to the 'social software' revolu-
tion and the huge range of
remotely-hosted tools and
services it has brought. Terms
like Library 2.0, wikis, blogs,
podcasting, webcasting and
instant messaging have gone
from the language of a select
The book's origins are a
Williams, J. M. and Goodwin, S.
P. (eds). Teaching with Tech-
nology: an academic librarian's
guide. xviii + 157 pp. Oxford:
Chandos Publishing, 2007. ISBN
9781 843341727 (pbk); 978 1
843341734 (hbk). £39.95 (hbk).
few to words in daily use. And
library education has come a
long way since the early tape-
slide presentations.
This book has appeared at
just the right moment - and
is very welcome.
It describes technolo-
gies for enhancing library
education (in both formal
teaching and enquiry-desk
work), filling the gap between
teaching manuals and tech-
nology guides.
The main chapters are
by specialists, with each dis-
cussing one or several tech-
nologies and their benefits,
aided by examples and further
tual reference services, mobile
computing, collaborative
learning, video-conferencing,
course-management systems
(such as Blackboard), the role
of gaming and professional
develop men t.
The editors suggest that
soon these systems will be
even more interactive and
have better personalisa-
tion featutes allowing, for
example, on-screen anno-
tation and improved co-
browsing.
Most writers have a clear,
descriprive style. I should,
however, have appreciated
more (and clearer) screen-
shots, plus evaluations of the
tools' effectiveness. Discus-
sion of other issues would
have been useful, too: staff-
development, institutional
politics (conflicts wirh other
departments, such as IT), pri-
vacy, copyright and security,
for example.
mystery: published in Oxford,
the editors and contributors
are from (often little-known)
US institutions. The style is
very American and, in some
cases, off-putting (l felt pat-
ronised by the many refer-
ences to 'patrons' per page).
Knowledge of US library and
education systems is assumed.
Why there are virtually no ref-
erences to the UK work is not
explained: is this due to a lack
of development on this side
of the Atlantic? We should be
told.
Ralph Adam
Harrow