My First Screencast

View it here. The announcement on our blog was Dec 15th.

Feedback wanted, solicited, encouraged!!!

#1 I didn't use audio on this... did you miss it?
Should it have an audio explanation too, or would that be too distracting as you read the screen?

#2 for those of you NOT familiar with the suspend holds function of Horizon, did this make everything clear?

#3 I anticipate making screencasts of :
how to renew items online
how to search (basic)
how to find a list of the new DVDs/audiobooks/CDs
how to search (intermediate: sorting results, limits, etc.)
how to place a title level hold
and how to place an item specific hold.

any other immediate ideas/suggestions?

Once I get those done, I think I'll do some basic ones to promote resources such as NoveList, NewsBank, Ebsco. It seems once people have seen one search in those, they can pretty much handle a basic search on their own, once the fear and apprehension has been removed. Hey if they can't come to an actual class, maybe they will download the screencast and then use the resource.

How to make your own screencast:

Paul Pival's Sirsi Dynix Institute presentation on screencasting is in the archive.

I used Wink to create this screencast.
Small learning curve if you've used any application that uses text boxes and the ability to draw shapes (publisher). Of course, the how-to-use wink file is actually a screencast. The PDF manual is quite brief but had everything I needed.

As usual... this was free software.