Thing 6: (Screen)Casting a spell over my PC

Some of the more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that Thing 5 seems to have fallen by the wayside - in fact, I was very keen to give Lightshot a go, especially after Ange's excellent blogpost, but admin allowances on my work PC have scuppered attempts and outside work I've been manically busy, so it will have to wait until post-holiday, I think.

Anyway, screencasting is the first Thing which has been a completely new venture for me, and I'm very excited about it. All the other Things are useful for me personally and have indirect usefulness for my job, but this Thing can directly benefit our library users and potentially solve a problem which I've been puzzling over for some time.

Back in March, I tried to organise drop-in sessions on the theme of electronic resources for our users. Here in Classics we've really jumped on the electronic bandwagon as far as possible, and our lucky students have got loads to choose from here. The problem is that they're either not sure where to find them, or they don't feel confident using them. I hoped to solve this with my friendly drop-ins, but despite posters, emails from student reps and seeming enthusiasm, I spent a few Monday lunchtimes alone before giving up the ghost...

...until now! Our relationship with our students is excellent, but no matter how friendly you are, some people just won't admit to needing help. And that's where screencasting comes in - they can anonymously click, watch a video and hopefully gain the confidence to go ahead and learn more themselves.

So here's my first attempt: my internet isn't super-speedy so it's a bit longer than I'd like, and my mouse-use is apparently a bit butterfly-like, but I hope it's a decent introduction to using one of our larger databases, Année Philologique:

Muppet that I am, I didn't choose to post it to Youtube, but it is also available (with better clarity) on Screencast-o-Matic's own site here. I'm also hoping to embed it into the Classics faculty website at some point, but obviously I need Lyn's approval first!

I feel that this will not be my last screencast, as they're easy, effective and hopefully attractive to bashful grads and anyone else who wants some anonymous aid.

This will be my last blog post for a short while, however, as I'm off to Istanbul - see you in two weeks!

N.B. A very important point that many other bloggers have raised: there's no soundtrack as I haven't got a microphone on the issue desk computer (and whispering instructions would be a bit weird anyway). However, Gareth's clever creative way round it impressed me greatly...