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UC Davis - University Library - Staff Professional Development

Bernadette Daly Swanson, MLIS: About Me

Bernadette Daly Swanson
bswanson @ lib.ucdavis.edu
Health Sciences Libraries
HVX Silverstar in Second Life®

I work at the Carlson Health Sciences Library at University of California Davis as a Reference, Instruction & Outreach Librarian. My liaison work is with the Health Informatics Program at UCDMC and with the Department of Psychiatry.
In late 2006 I became interested in the virtual world of Second Life® following a presentation given by UC Davis Faculty, Peter Yellowlees MD, on his Virtual Hallucinations project and Schizophrenia research. Around the same time, Harvard Law School was offering a class on Intellectual Property in Second Life® and a library was also opening that month. I logged in and, ever since, have had difficulty logging out.
I now work on capturing machinima, specifically on what libraries and educators are doing in the virtual world. During the Autumn of 2009 I worked with Psychiatry & Health Informatics faculty, Peter Yellowlees MD, Marty Leamon, MD and James Cook MD as instructors for the online course, The Internet and the Future of Patient Care, offered through the UC Davis Extension and the Health Informatics Certificate Program. I have also taught a variety of continuing education classes for UIUC Graduate School of Information Science in Second Life® on camera controls and machinima workflow. My interest has led to a number of invitations to speak at conferences or participate in panel discussions on Libraries and virtual environments, and I continue to maintain my YouTube Second Life® Machinima Channel and blog about machinima librarians. More recently, I have been working with video and screen capture software to create short videos, much like a visual table of contents, as with the Veterinary Medicine resources and other short video blasts available on the Library Video Channel. The Health Sciences Library blog is where you'll see some of our library's more current goings-on.

Click on the images below to view a few of the HD flash videos on my YouTube channel: updated Flash Player required for your browsers to view in HD

I am Library Machinima Karuna Island bovines Best Practices in Education

Follow me on the web:

In my off-hours I work as a librarian/machinimatographer with the Alliance Virtual Library, a project sponsored by the Alliance Library System of Peoria, IL. with over 1000 librarian participants in the virtual world of Second Life®. Join the Google group: AllianceSecondLife.


Recently and Upcoming in 2010...

  • Engage Workshop (April 8, 2010, 3.5 hours)
    California Academic Research Libraries (CARL) Conference
    April 8-10, 2010, Sacramento, California.
  • Libraries as Motion Video: Setting up an in-house studio, getting visual & extending skill-sets into new environments
    • 'Libraries as Motion Video' will delve into new ways for librarians to connect with students and faculty visually through video hosting sites such as YouTube, growing in popularity as a site to find and share answers and instruction through videos, and
    • Introduce a framework and budgetary considerations for setting up an in-house production/post-production center for a variety of budgets.
    • Identify new skill-sets, workflow, time requirements & training options.
    • Address challenges of 'transliteracy' in new environments related to citing sources, permissions and copyright.
    • Provide video samples: instructional, promotional & machinima from 3D environments such as Second Life®.
    • Include hands-on activities and follow-up group discussion: participants are encouraged to bring laptops and work in small teams on YouTube activities and will share ideas for collaboration with students, faculty & colleagues on video projects.






  • UC Davis September Institute on Teaching & Technology (SITT)
    • University of California Davis, Sept. 2008
    • Teaching with Second Life®: Davis Honors Challenge Case Study (presentation & afternoon workshop)
    • Co-presented/facilitated workshop with African American Studies Chair, Prof. Milmon F. Harrison, Sandra Vella, MLIS
    • Video: Davis Honors Challenge: Welcome to your Second Life with Milmon F. Harrison. Slides & handouts on SmartSite. (UC Davis login required).



    Earlier...

    Prior to my current position with the Health Sciences Libraries, I have worked in the Library Instruction Services Department as an Instruction Librarian with responsibilities for the Library Graphics which included an ongoing marketing poster series, and also as a Reference Librarian in the Biological & Agricultural Reference Department, both at Shields Library.

    Before coming to UC Davis, I have had a variety of positions within the library field. After graduating from GSLIS at the University of Western Ontario in Canada I worked for the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce as an Intranet Developer/Librarian Specialist in Business Information and Records Management (Corporate Governance Group)for a few years before moving to the UK.

    At UKOLN (UK Office for Library Networking), based in the Library at the University of Bath I worked as an Information Officer /Co-editor of Ariadne and Exploit Interactive web magazines.

    Alas, seeking out the sun and heat, I came to the Unites States to work as Branch Manager of the Fountain Hills Branch of Maricopa County Library District in Phoenix, AZ. The branch was featured in the 2002 Public Library Association Conference as model for deployment of new services (one-stop reference, smartcards, team training on new technologies, museum/library facility) in the very beautiful Sonoran Desert. I presented at the Hawaiian Library Association Conference in 2002: Prototype of a 21st Century Library: Maricopa County's Fountain Hills Branch.