PaLA Bulletin to be indexed by LISTA!

News flash! PaLA has signed an agreement with EBSCOhost to have the PaLA Bulletin indexed in Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts. Work should begin sometime this summer to begin the indexing and abstracting of the last 2 years' issues.

Getting the Bulletin indexed in LISTA will benefit all members but especially academic members who must 'publish or perish' in order to obtain tenure and get promoted. Having a presence in LISTA will benefit those who have written articles for the "It's Academic!" column by making their articles more visible and accessible.

Our thanks go to our hard-working PaLA staff, especially Glenn and Ellen, and to the Executive Board for moving PaLA to the next level!

IMLS Grants to Bolster Library Education and Library Programs

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal program, has awarded grants totaling $20.3-million to 31 institutions to train librarians and to support library programs across the country. The grants, which were announced last week, are going mostly to colleges and universities.

In Pennsylvania, there were two awards given:

Drexel University - Philadelphia, PA
Grant Category: Research
Award Amount: $224,386; Matching Amount: $42,086
Contact: Dr. Jung-ran ParkAssistant Professor(215)899-1669; jung-ran.park@ischool.drexel.edu
Project Title: "Modeling Interpersonal Discourse for Digital Information Service: Evaluation of the Question-Answering Service of the Internet Public Library"
This Early Career Development grant will provide support for Assistant Professor Jung-ran Park to analyze interpersonal communication between librarians and the public in digital information service. Using transcripts from the Internet Public Library’s Question Answering Service, the researcher will study patterns of communication employed by librarians and the public in their email and real-time chat interactions and provide an empirical model for assessing the impact of interpersonal communication on successful digital information reference. Such a study carries the potential to enhance one of digital librarianship’s core skill sets.

Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh, PA
Grant Category: Continuing Education
Award Amount: $391,400; Matching Amount: $418,061
Contact: Mr. Paul VanderwielDirector, Human Resourcesvanderwielp@carnegielibrary.org
Project Title: "Management Skills Workshop"
Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh will conduct a staff development program that identifies and nurtures future leaders within the library's ranks in a year-long professional development program. Graduates of this program then enter a second tier of training that develops executive leadership skills and teaches nonprofit management skills. At the end of this three-year project they will produce a case study and educational training materials based on this model that will be available to other libraries.

Carnegie Mellon University Libaries 'Library Arcade'

Check out I'll Get It! and Within Range, 2 fast-paced games guaranteed to sharpen your reference and classifying skills. The games were developed by graduate students from the Entertainment Technology Center, in collaboration with the University Libraries, with support from the Buhl Foundation.

I'm not usually into games, but I found these fun (once I figured out how to play). I can see using them with students.

Linda

CRD's 2008 SPRING WORKSHOP

How to Hit a Research Homerun: Tips and Tricks from Some Heavy Hitters


Brian Mathews, The Ubiquitous Librarian blogger and User Experience Librarian at Georgia Tech, spoke about his experiences doing focus group studies. He is all about engaging library users. Tour Guides and Campus Celebrities are two of the groups that he targets to populate his focus groups. He doesn't record, but he does make use of ice breakers and other activities to stimulate conversation. He uses 10 new undergraduates each year to be "mystery shoppers." The thing that Brian said that resonated with me the most is that "things are always changing because the students are always changing."



Judi Briden, Digital Librarian for Public Services and Brain & Cognitive Sciences Librarian at the , discussed some of the methods used in Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester. Not only did she talk about the various approaches that they used for their qualitative research, but she also shared some of the techniques that they used to stimulate creativity. Judi emphasised that "my library is not your library," but that much of what they did could be adapted to suit any size library.


"Ask-the-Experts" Panel Session

Panelists (l to r): Joe Fennewald, Head Librarian, Penn State Hazleton; Marianne Goodfellow, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Sociology, Lebanon Valley College; Brian Mathews, User Experience Librarian, Georgia Institute of Technology.

Panelists (l to r):Judi Briden, Digital Librarian for Public Services, University of Rochester; Tim Wherry, Associate Professor and Library Director, Penn State Altoona; Nancy Dewald, Reference Librarian, Penn State Berks.

CRD members enjoying the Altoona Curve baseball game.