Thing 11 - Slideshare

Slideshare is one of the Things that was completely new to me. It looks like a useful source of ideas. I explored Heriot-Watt University Library's presentations which focussed on user education such as library induction and time management presentations. It was clear that these were used in research skills library courses aimed at students, but wasn't clear how Slideshare fitted into this - whether they were on Slideshare in order for colleagues to find them, or whether it was hoped that students might use them.

I particularly liked Phil Bradley's helpful and timely presentation on Facebook privacy options, which prompted me to check my own Facebook profile on Zesty (something else I had never heard of). I also intend to go through and check all my privacy settings when I get home.

The 'related slideshows' feature helpfully allows you to discover presentations on similar topics, which is nice. It's very useful that Slideshare has the option to search for Creative Commons licensed presentations and documents, like Flickr. This whole information-sharing ethos is a nice collaborative approach to working.

On exploring, I was pleased to find that a presentation from one of the brown bag lunches was available (Tony Hirst's Time for a Library Shift). I missed the discussion, so it's good to be able to see what I missed. I initially thought that if any other brown bag lunches or similar Cambridge libraries events contain presentations, it might be useful if they were made available on Slideshare too, although I then realised that such things are probably already available on CamTools. Depending on the intended audience and subject of each presentation, CamTools may be a better option.

If I have to give a presentation in the future, I'll be tempted to use Slideshare for inspiration and ideas (citing the original of course if I use an existing presentation). It saves re-inventing the wheel. I think depending on the subject, context and audience of my future presentations, I may upload them to Slideshare. If it was a work-related presentation, I would be wary of doing this without first obtaining the Library's permission.