Slideshare

Another invaluable tool on the 23 things programme. I can see this being greatly beneficial for preparing presentations - seeing what is out there, what issues others have covered, how they have branded their presentations, used images and humour to get their points across etc. Though a bit dated now, having been created for a plenary talk at the "Library of the Future" forum, Learning Resources Services Network, Western Australia in 29 November 2007, I particularly liked this one:

Five Social Software Sites that libraries shouldn't ignore

View more presentations from sirexkat.

I'm not convinced mining SlideShare for actual presentations, in their entirety, would be terribly useful to libraries but for mining ideas and to save reinventing the wheel this tool has to be an absolute plus. The importance of marketing / selling your library does, however, surely need to be borne out by the branding given by the institution / individual within the institution creating the presentation. In this respect the main benefit of posting your slideshow / presentation on Slideshare after it has been given is to try and encourage some of your end users to embed it in their websites. For example, a library as large as the UL could perhaps encourage faculties, departments, the university admissions office etc. to embed introductions to the library, presentations on research skills etc. into their own pages. This would make the presentation available to the reader in new social spaces and hopefully capitalise on sites they are already visiting. The potential for receiving user feedback on SlideShare must also be a bonus for making improvements to further presentations and in finding out what users actually want and how this can be catered for. The facility for the creator being able to delete comments deemed inappropriate should also hopefully ensure commenting remains relevant.

I suspect I will be using SlideShare in the future if not to create a presentation, to keep up-to-date with new technologies and to enhance my professional development. I love slideshows like this that give you a quick brief overview to something new leaving the potential to research further when time permits.