Infograph Site Comparison

If there is a poster with information, I will read it.  It doesn't matter where I am or what the content is, I am automatically drawn to these posters.  I blame this on my love of random fact gathering.  I love learning new things, but I will admit that the thought of sitting down with a tome about the Vietnam War, post-Depression era politics or Victorian fashion faux pas makes me cringe. I like gathering my facts quick, and if there is an intriguing graphic to go with it, that's a total bonus.  

It is only recently that I have learned that these posters that I like so much are known as infographs.  As a teacher, I have unwittingly had my students create many of these as review projects.  They have toiled manually over them but I am now aware of at least three different sites that will facilitate their work.  Not only are the sites easy to use, people who are creatively "challenged," *cough* like me* cough*cough,* can use a myriad of pre-generated graphics to liven up their work.  The three sites I visited and experimented with were Easel.ly, Inforgr.am and Piktochart.com. These sites are all user-friendly and each one allows users to connect to the site via their Facebook and Google accounts. (I am all for less username and password memorization, so I love when I am given the option to connect with my Google account.)

Piktochart
This site was user-friendly and offered 10 free templates BUT if one signs up for the PRO version of the site, they will have over 600 templates available to them. I can be a bit of a Scrooge, so the thought of forking over $15 or $29 a month for a something I will only use once or twice a month is not appealing.

Infogr.am
This is another site that was easy to navigate.  What I liked about this site was that it immediately let me know what I would be able to have access to. Not going to lie, I got a chuckle at the sight of my picture under the word BASIC and a large checkmark. I am pretty basic, especially in fall when I get a pumpkin spice latte and don my Han Solo apparel. =)

What I didn't get a chuckle from was the pricing plan or the limited templates. If one goes the basic route, they'll only have three templates to choose from. 

Easel.ly 
As trite as it may sound, the third time really is the charm.  Not only was Easelly really really easy to use, it has over six million visuals (a.k.a. templates) available for FREE use.  There is, of course, added benefits if you pay the monthly fee of- drumroll, please- $3 a month.  

Needless to say, but this was my favorite site and one that I'll be sharing with my current students and one that I foresee myself using when I become a librarian.  Below is my first attempt at a digital infograph.  I used information gathered from The Pew Research Center: Internet & Technology page.  This site has a plethora of articles on varying subject matters.  I chose to read the March 29, 2017 report entitled, "THE FUTURE OF FREE SPEECH, TROLLS, ANONYMITY AND FAKE NEWS ONLINE."  The report was an extensive look what the future of the internet as a social forum will look like.  The report is a beast of a read that covers four distinct themes that has over 35 professionals from varying backgrounds weighing in on the issue.  This is definitely a report that would benefit from an inforgraph-or five. The themes are as follows, and my infograph is what winds up this post.

RESOURCES:

Create and share visual ideas using infographics. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2017, from
      https://www.easel.ly/

Create Easy Infographics, Reports, Presentations | Piktochart. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2017, f
     from https://piktochart.com/

Create Infographics, Charts and Maps. (n.d.). Retrieved October 21, 2017, from
      https://infogram.com/

Rainie, L., Anderson, J., & Albright, J. (2017, March 29). Shareable quotes from experts on the
     future of online public discourse. Retrieved October 21, 2017, from
     http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/03/29/shareable-quotes-from-experts-on-the-future-of-online-
     public-discourse/

Rainie, L., Anderson, J., & Albright, J. (2017, March 29). The Future of Free Speech, Trolls,
      Anonymity and Fake News Online. Retrieved October 21, 2017, from
       http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/03/29/the-future-of-free-speech-trolls-anonymity-and-fake-
       news-online/

Facebook and Twitter

I am an unabashed Facebook addict. In my defense, it is a great way to keep in touch with my extended family and friends. Facebook is also a great place to get a good chuckle from the funny memes my friend's post. It is also where I get a lot of my local news because I don’t watch the news hours and I don’t read the local paper; Knowing that I am not alone when it comes to this addiction lessens my guilt about my method of news intake, and the amount of time I spend on Facebook.

Considering the popularity of this social media outlet, it is no surprise that school libraries across the world have set up Facebook pages in the attempt to reach their students, parents and faculties. 

                      

I visited these pages:

  

Barrington High School Library Information Center

-Barrington, IL

Barbara Rose School Library

-South Barrington, IL

Elizabeth Page Elementary

-Springfield, Oregon

Overall, I don’t think that Facebook is a successful platform for school library promotion and interaction.  I think that the failure of school libraries on this social media platform can be chalked up to the redundancy created by having a library website and a Facebook page.  These pages create extra work for librarians that in the end is not worth the effort.

My school district has made a push to have us more active on Twitter and I created my account a few years back. (@vSaenzEcisd).  This platform, at least for me, does not hold the same appeal as Facebook but I believe that is because I’m a busybody and Facebook allows me to indulge in this deplorable trait.  But just because I like Facebook more does not mean that I think that it is better than Twitter when it comes to school libraries.  

Twitter, in my opinion, provides a more effective platform for librarians to reach out to their patrons, interact with each other, and learn about different resources available to them.  I chalk this up to the brevity of the messages. When librarians use Twitter they must get straight to the point and in a world with an ever shrinking attention span, brevity is paramount. This, however, does not mean that librarians must lose their human warmth in these posts.  In fact, when visiting leading technology and library expert Twitter feeds that the ones I wanted to spend more time exploring were the ones who shared slices of life with their audience. My two favorites were Buffy Hamilton- @buffyjhamilton - and Gwenth Jones- @GwynethJones.

Blogs and Blog Readers

On her Zapier blog, Vicky Cassidy explains that a RSS is:

“… a file that most websites update with their newest blog posts, videos, deals and more, so you can "subscribe" to sites and have new content automatically pushed to you. Instead of checking the 40 websites you follow, you can just open an RSS reader app and see what's new on all of those sites together.”

She notes that feed readers that are a great tool for following your favorite sites.

The following is a chart from www.zapier.com that lists what they consider to be to top RSS apps on the market today.

App	Best for:	Price	Platform
Feedly	Building a personalized newsfeed	Free; $7/mo.	Web, iOS, Android
Feedbin	Advanced search	$3/mo.	Web
NewsBlur	Predictive article filtering	Free; $2/mo.	Web, iOS, Android
Feed Wrangler	Advanced feed organization	$1.60/mo.	Web, iOS
Inoreader	Long term content archiving	Free; $1.25+/mo.	Web, iOS, Android, Windows Phone
Selfoss	Customizing your RSS reader	Free	Self-hosted

I decided to try out Feedly.  I liked the fact that I was given the option of linking the account with my Google one- I really do like have everything connected.  Aside from convenience having everything connected allows for efficiency in the future.  Instead of stumbling around the web trying to remember which site provided x-thing, it is all grouped together, which will make it easier for me to function as a librarian.

I don’t know about my fellow educators but I find myself super stressed nearly all the time. As a result, the majority of the blogs that I’ve selected to highlight are funny and witty. Bloggers like Rita Meade have a biting humor while at the same time function as learning oppurtunities.. 

Screwy Decimal

This Brooklyn based librarian writes quirky and amazingly funny entries about her life as librarian.  Her posts are blissfully short- ain’t nobody got time for lengthy posts when there’s books to be shelved and reference questions to be answered.  She is also very knowledgeable when it comes to books for children, which would aid me as a librarian when trying to find the right book for patrons. (Try as one might, we can’t read all the books on our shelves.)

Mr. Schu

John Schumacher, a.k.a. Mr. Schu, is a school librarian based out of Oak Brook, Ill.  I became a fangirl of his after seeing him at this year’s Region One Conference.  I didn’t win a book, but his enthusiasm was infectious.  His love for children’s books is reflected in his many posts and is a great resource for librarians.

Library Decorations

This blog is chockfull with pictures of beautiful, eye-catching and even quirky displays that are meant to catch people’s attention and lure them into checking out books.  The blog also has a section with a list of helpful websites that will further help librarians attempting to make their library displays more visually appealing.

A Fuse #8 Production

I became a fan of Besty Bird a few semesters ago when I had to write a mini-research paper on her.  Bird is brilliantly witty and extremely knowledgeable about children’s literature.

Librarians Classified

This one is just purely humorous. It contains gif after gif of bitingly funny observations that librarians would never dare say in the presence of patrons, but absolutely think and share with co-works over a nice cold glass of iced coffee.

Tumblr

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/nesasaenz81-blog