QR for your library and a new site for your RSS feed

At our high school I can tell you one thing for sure. Teenagers don't read signs. Period. I struggle with signage.

Let me give you an example. We have a LCD screen behind our main desk and use it to promote events and showcase student life. For the past couple of weeks we have been using it to remind students to clear their student network server accounts before the vacation as all work would be deleted. I was standing right under the display when a student asked if there was a limit to how much he could leave on his network account over the summer. I pointed to the Keynote presentation advising students to clear their accounts that was running right above MY HEAD!

I just came across a great blog that had a neat idea. Shelf Consumed: Cool Tools for Libraries...QR Codes. Click through to the post, which is rich in links and resources.

The short version is that this free (yay!) service allows you to generate a QR code for anything. It is a neat way to tag your collection, promote events, promote books - anything! Tagging is a core skill in organizing web-based information, so why not incorporate it in other ways as well?

Our students don't seem to read signs very well, but they read their cell phones with great skill. Smartphones can be used to read QR code. Hmmm... Using a free mobile barcode and an app like Ingima  a student can "read" a QR code and automatically link to a website, video or any web-based destination. This could be a great way to publicize the learning commons in September. Or to showcase some of our new books. Shelf Consumed has even more suggestions for uses of QR codes in your learning commons or library.

Additional links:
QR Code Generator
Sticky Bits

I can see that Shelf Consumed is going to be a valued addition to my RSS feed.