Google+ Goes to School: Using Google+ in a University Environment

In Fall 2011, Google+ was added to the Google Apps for Education suite at the University of Minnesota. As librarians, we’ve been exploring how we can use this tool for collaboration, communication, and personal information management in a professional context. In this hands-on session, we will discuss how we have incorporated Google+ into our work flows at the University Libraries and provide exercises for participants to try out some of its features. We will discuss some of our wins with Google+ and how it differs from other social networks, and teach you some of the tricks and workarounds we’ve discovered. We will also talk about the limitations of this tool and some of the hairy situations we’ve run into using it, such as differentiating professional and personal accounts and setting up a Google+ business page. Looking forward, we will reflect on how we see Google+ fitting into the scholarly community at the University of Minnesota and beyond. No prior experience with Google+ is necessary, but participants must have a Google account to participate in the exercises. To access the full presentation, click on the Link to Full Text button on the right. View Session Handout