Hello, I’m Jennifer Wile, Information Services Manager at Surrey Libraries. Managing our online collections is one of my roles. I’m so glad to be presenting on Lynda.com because Lynda.com has been a super resources for both our patrons and our staff. First I’ll tell you a bit about Lynda’s content, and then I’ll discuss access, a broad overview of usage and stats, and use of the resources as well as some patron and staff feedback.
Content
Lynda has almost
6000 audio/visual courses on software, business and leadership, and creative skills.
More than 200,000 videos as each tutorial is divided into video segments making it easy to take one or a few components of the course rather than the whole thing if that’s what you need.
Lynda groups the tutorials into
topics, type of software and learning paths (e.g. of
learning path is a series of courses to become an animator, a good leader/manager, etc.)
Some Lynda courses have downloadable course materials, Certificates of completion and some courses have assessments/quizzes
Helpful feature: filter by competency by Basic, intermediate or Advanced level or "appropriate for all".
Some Examples of Courses
Software for all areas: animation, Architecture, drawing, sound engineering, Music production, Excel, Construction Engineering, Film Making, Programming, Automotive Design, Microsoft Word.
Business Courses: Marketing, 6 Sigma concepts, Branding, Leadership, Business Skills, Project Management
Technology: Big Data, Cloud computing,
Arts and Design: Photography, lighting techniques, software related to design generally
Writing: Press releases, creating eBooks, character development,
Charts + Graphs
Social media and web development: blogs, SEO, Google analytics
Documentaries: on specific artists and experts, how to make a documentary,
Access
- 100 seats.
- No geography restrictions - Offered it to City employees and Surrey RCMP - demoed it to RCMP and issued a number of new cards to both City and RCMP.
- Authentication -To get around privacy complications, we authenticate temporarily thorough the Coop - thank you! We have built our own borrower authentication API and are now working on a SIP2 wrapper that we can use for services who require authentication via access to SIP. We hope to have this solution viable in the next few months. So close!
- App - Despite what your rep may have told you the Lynda App is available and users can download courses on the app. I let our rep know this and she saw no issues with promoting it as the reasons Lynda thought we could access were technical limitations. North Van District has some very clear instructions on their site (and we will soon). Under the “Organization” tab type in your library website and click on Login. You’ll be taken out of the app to login through the website with your library card number and pin. Use the app like you would the website, or download videos for offline viewing.
- Catalogue - we have not catalogued Lynda. Some libraries have had trouble even getting the MARC records, and our CS department just did not see the benefit of the labour intensity of trying to keep up with all the changes in Lynda. We will revisit in the future because it would be great to have them discoverable so we will keep checking in with LinkedIn on getting the materials.
Stats
2016 (first year)
- 8364 logins
- 3586 hours viewed;
- 826 courses completed;
Top courses: programming, web development, Excel, photography, project management
2017
- 1867 hour viewed, which means our usage is going up so we’ll keep promoting now that we have our glorious new website where you can actually see things!
- 325 certificates of completion
- Average of 850 logins per month so far
- 1,341 users although only 1/2 have logged in so far this year
- Top courses: Photography and web development sites, Project management professional courses. (The market for PMP professional may be saturated soon!)
Reception and Programing
Terms state can’t show portion or whole of video to public, but programs could certainly be built around some of the courses in bookclub style. I’ve emailed Lynda/Linked in for more information on this, but no response yet. Their customer support gets back quickly if they have the answer (although sometimes it’s not the right answer so we wonder how familiar they actually are with the product).
We promote it at outreach to transition safe houses where it gets positive reception.
I canvassed staff asking about their personal experience with recommending it on desk.
- As do many public libraries, we have many people coming in to increase their skill sets or find jobs. According to our last review in 2015, we have between 250 - 300 questions a week asking questions around job seeking. Many patrons looking for work also need to learn software including Excel and Microsoft word. As one staff member said, “In terms of those in the workforce wanting to keep their jobs or improve their skills to get a better one, it seems really have an impact on people.
- Recently we had a person come into our Guildford branch whose job required her to learn Excel on her own time because they wanted her to do invoicing and accounting. We showed her Lynda.com and she was over the moon.
- As I mentioned earlier, we give City Employees access and this was a great visibility tool for us as the City promotes it on their intranet.
- For those who ask at the info desk about classes on excel, or computer books on a piece of software, it’s a great resource to redirect the patron to and most people seem happy to pursue that route
- I have recently referred two customers to Lynda.com and had fantastic feedback from both. One I referred to for advanced computer skills and the other was using it for Interior Design (specifically CAD). The last person I referred said it would be a shame not to use this resource, as it is so valuable! “Excited we offer this resource.”
- One Patron was so thankful we had Lynda because he could do basic coursework leading to advanced studies. I think it was C++ (or another computing language) and we didn’t have very many books on it.
Marketing
Resource Centre - not currently working, but mainly had logos and some OK posters.
Brought some of our posters - I love this Abstract expressionist poster, but I may be the only one!
Stats
Within a couple of months of having Lynda we went to an average of 900 logins a month and that has stayed steady.
It's exciting to have such an engaging course that meets our mission and vision as well as our core strategic objectives by truly engaging both the public and staff.
