Tag Archives: press

Q&APL: Facebook Live at Austin Public Library

News Leave a comment

For the past several months my colleagues Cesar Garza and Amy Mullin and I have been producing Facebook Live episodes in series called Q&APL Live. These 20-30 minute broadcasts focus on a theme like New Year’s Resolutions or cooking. We show off the collections—in print and online—related to that topic while taking live questions. We’ve also done program teasers for crafting and music events.

Check out the the archived videos here and the upcoming schedule here.

Meg and Cesar doing Q&APL Live with Facebook Live.

In December 2016 we had a brief shoutout in the Texas State Library Library Developments blog:

Tech Success Story: Austin Public Library & Facebook Live

This led to a web article in Library Journal…

Live from the Library

…which in turn has led to a webinar speaking gig with Library Journal later this month!

Social Media Made Easy

It’s been awhile since I’ve done a webinar, standard fare in my previous librarian life at Walden University. I’m obviously still not camera shy, at least not enough where it gets in the way. 😉 It will be fun.

Tech Toy Time

Asides Leave a comment

Anticipating the post-holiday crush of customers with new devices they don’t know what to do with, I proposed a designated drop-in time for hands-on help downloading ebooks from the library. Tech Toy Time was born! Throughout Sundays in January at the Austin Public Library, dozens of people brought in their iPads, tablets, phones, Kindles and Nooks to get set up with OverDrive. They even put me on the teevee! The initial program was a great success, and we’ve rolled it into our regular repertoire of computer/tech offerings.

However ubiquitous such devices are becoming, digital literacy is still at a premium. If you don’t have a grandkid or a niece to walk you through it–or if the genius bar cats terrify you, or Amazon phone support gives you the vapors–what do you do? You never turn on your $200 paperweight. It’s a huge gap the library can fill, at least when it involves accessing our materials (ebooks, e-audiobooks, digital magazines and more). If only there were time and staff to push it to the branches….