On Friday I gave a presentation to my student organization: Social Networks and Blogs for Today’s Children’s Librarian. The title of our group is Children’s and Young Adult Library Services Student Organization. We call ourselves C-YA for short. My friend Amanda started the group last year when she saw a gap in our school’s options and opportunities for those interested in youth services. And luckily I get to be vice-president! It’s been an awesome year watching us grow as an organization! Hopefully soon we’ll be passing it on to another cohort of great students to continue the tradition.
For my presentation, I wanted to try using Prezi. It is an online presentation software that just recently entered my radar and I’ve been dying for an excuse to try it out. I was happy that our C-YA meeting was the perfect chance to do that. Prezi is a really cool departure from the slide-based metaphor of presentations. If you think about it, it really makes sense. How many outdated metaphors do we cling to long after they no longer make sense? Slide presentations when it’s been decades since anyone used an actual physical slide. Card catalogs when we’re no longer limited to those tiny 7.5 by 12.5 cm cards? When everything has moved online, it makes sense that we start letting some of those old ideas go.
Hence, Prezi. It isn’t your standard, linear, bullet point presentation. It zooms, it twists, it goes in circles, basically it flows. You can make a pretty good point that it more closely represents though processes, especially when it comes to brainstorming and creative planning and such. It shows connections and relationships. And really, who I am I kidding, it just looks really really cool.
So, in the spirit of emerging technologies (which is fitting considering my topic), I made a prezi. And you should totally click on the link above and check it out. You can even use it to start making your own. I had a lot of fun with it. While I’m sure I still have a lot to learn, for the most part it is really intuitive.
I had a lot of fun with the topic as well of course. I am really starting to get sucked into the blogging world and it is SO MUCH FUN! And much credit goes to Abby the Librarian and her wonderful blog. I got a lot of ideas from her CYPD handout on a similar topic, which she presented with Melissa from Mel’s Books and Info. Thank you so much! I just wanted to post the link today, more thoughts on this topic to come later this week, as well as my favorite blog discoveries so far!
Allison's Library 