After poking around with some of the curation tools Dr. Morris, well, curated for us, I found myself trying to think of ways that my library population, my college students, could use each of these. Admittedly, this drove me a bit batty. I broke out ye olde whiteboard (my default brainstorming tool) and after thinking like an undergraduate, I settled initially on Pinterest given its proliferation and my own knowledge of the tool.

Then, while running my ideas by my fantastic other half (as an aside; having a husband with an academic background in instructional design & technology is a MAJOR asset as a librarian-in-training!), he asked me point blank what exactly a curation tool was. When I explained my definition of what it was (something that facilitates the collection of materials/ideas/thoughts), he asked me what my favorite organizational tool was when I was knee-deep in my thesis and research.

…I seriously could have kissed him. Okay, maybe I did!

For this assignment, I’m going to be utilizing ProQuest Flow as my curation tool. What is ProQuest Flow? Flow is a citation management and information curation tool that allows the user to collect information like journal articles, websites, and videos, interact with the materials, share their collections among colleagues/friends/others, and then produce a bibliography of their materials.

As a personal testimonial, oh my goodness, Flow and its predecessor RefWorks saved my bacon during the thesis process. I had folders for each section of my work organized with annotations that I could access from anywhere I had an internet connection.