Google Docs Rocks!

Google Documents for Librarians

Computerside Chat

Southwest Iowa Library Service Area

February 11, 2008

Today’s session

What, Why and How of Google Docs

Demo

Practice (if time!)

What is Google Documents?

Online workspace Word processing, presentations, spreadsheets Invite collaborators to share:

Viewing documents

Editing documents

Google Docs in the Library?

Advantages Work on docs from any computer with Internet

connection Collaboration—multiple editors, simultaneously Changes/edits are seen by everyone immediately Automatically saves Can “revert” to previous versions

Disadvantages Some limitations on export formats

What might it be used for? Newsletter—share the authorship! Co-authored blog posts County budget presentation; each library

contribute Develop/revise procedure manual Develop agendas for meetings Collaborative projects—organize, manage Committee work Keep your own documents “handy” for

access from any Internet computer

How does Google Docs work?

Google Docs Bare Bones

Get Documents In

Edit Documents (shared editing, if desired)

“Get Documents Out” to use

(publish, save, distribute…)

First things first…

Docs Home

Get Documents In New (create in Google Docs)

Upload (from your computer)

E-mail in (as attachments)

New document

Editing a document Edit by yourself

Invite collaborators View only -OR-

Edit

Share a document

Edit a document

Previous Revisions…

Spreadsheets

Discussing a spreadsheet

Presentations

Getting Documents Out

Print E-mail Export (save to computer, etc.) Publish

Formats (export/save to computer) Documents: html, rtf, Word, Open Office, pdf, text

Spreadsheets csv, ods, html, pdf, xls, txt

Presentations pdf

Organization in Google Docs

Other features

E-mail documents to your Google Docs

(Upload—scroll down to see unique e-mail address for your Google Docs)

Post docs to a blog

(RSS feeds of your public Google Docs)

Some Numbers… 10 people can edit a document or

presentation at one time, 50 can edit a spreadsheet at one timeLimits: 1000 documents per account 1000 images per account Docs: up to 500 KB each Presentations: 10 MB from computer 2 MB from the web 500 KB via e-mail Spreadsheets: up to 1 MB

More resources

This chat’s support page:

http://www.swilsa.lib.ia.us/CE/computerside

Karen Burns

kburns@swilsa.lib.ia.us

quiltlibrarian on Yahoo, MSN, AIM