Slides Seem To Be Back In

Slideshare seems a very straight-forward kind of resource. You want a PowerPoint presentation? Then you'll probably be able to find one on Slideshare. No problems so far. The point is though, how often would you want to find somebody else's PowerPoint? I've used PowerPoint in a number of presentations and have attended many more where it has been used. I can see the benefit of getting hold of a PowerPoint presentation after an event, in order to refresh your memory about what you were able to learn (although obviously it won't have your own notes scribbled all over it). But would I want to use somebody else's PowerPoint myself? Presentations are very personal things and PowerPoint has to reflect the logical progression in the mind of the presenter. I would find using somebody else's PowerPoint too constraining. Also, looking at a silent PowerPoint for the benefit of learning about something, seems mostly a fruitless exercise. For example the first three Slideshare items I looked at, I could not work out particularly what they were about or what the logical progression of the slides was. One from Andy Priestner illustrates the point well (sorry Andy - I'm sure you made it into a great presentation when you delivered it).

The Inspector Morse Factor; faculty engagement at Oxford (and Cambridge) University

View more presentations from priestcam.

Clearly, this is in need of a speaker to bring the PowerPoint alive and fill in the gaps. I find the kind of video clips available in a lot of online 'helps' very useful because they are designed as a whole package, often including voiceovers or text instructions, but Slideshare does not seem to match this level of usefulness.

My library is often responsible for hosting lectures and talks, many of which may involve PowerPoint presentations. It might be worth using Slideshare to make these available after such events, to the people who attended. Otherwise, because of the limitations I've been describing I can't see a huge role for Slideshare in my library or libraries at large. Having read some of the Cam23 blogger posts, there seems to be a general consensus that Slideshare is a bit limited although thanks to Catherine's 23 Blog for pointing out that it is a good way for getting ideas about what is possible in PowerPoint.