It's Academic!

We've Moved!

2011-06-02T07:10:00.000-07:00

The It's Academic blog and the PaLA College & Research Division website have moved to a fancy new site powered by WordPress with our very own URL!

crdpala.org

If you were subscribed to this blog, thank you for your attention! We hope you'll join us at crdpala.org. The RSS feed subscription button for posts and comments is on the lower right, along with the option to subscribe by email. We're posting pretty regularly now, but not too much--a few times a week. We hope you'll join us and comment!

Also on the site, you can learn more about any upcoming programs, find out who is on the CRD Board, and apply for an LSTA grant to fund a program of interest to academic librarians. (If you're planning a program for this summer, check with us to see if grant funds are still available!)

If you're not a member of the Pennsylvania Library Association and would like to learn more, please visit their website: palibraries.org

Call for Articles "It's Academic" column, PaLA Bulletin

2010-11-19T08:36:00.000-08:00

Are you doing something new and innovative at your academic library? Have you recently researched a new and exciting trend in the academic library world? Are you looking for an opportunity to be published in the library literature?

If so, please consider submitting an article to the “It's Academic” column of the PaLA Bulletin. This publication is indexed in the Library Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database. Articles generally range in length from 1,000 to 1,500 words and should report on an issue that is relevant to academic librarians working in Pennsylvania.

Please send inquiry e-mails to both of the co-editors of the "It's Academic!" column:

--Rachel Masilamani: rpm18@psu.edu (Penn State Greater Allegheny Campus)

--Larissa Gordon: gordonl@arcadia.edu (Arcadia University)

PaLA CRD Webinar: User Assessment and User Studies

2010-11-17T14:15:00.000-08:00

Dates & Time: December 15 from 2-4pm AND December 16 from 2-4pm (Webinar format is two 2-hour sessions)

Instructor: Erin Mayhood, Head, Music Library at University of Virginia

Description: In this workshop participants will learn how to transition their libraries into institutions that embrace assessment and user centered design. Specifically, we will learn how to:

incorporate users' expectations and needs into the program design process
understand and employ the basic methods of gathering user requirements data, including surveys, card sorts, focus groups, and usability testing
employ user requirements data in decision making and planning processes
keep up to date with ever-changing user demographics 5. incorporate user requirements data into library assessment programs

Cost: No cost to attend! The College & Research Division is able to provide this webinar through LSTA funds. Transportation cost to the webinar location is not included.

To Register: https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGNlZy1OVDVSb0M4bjNTWi1RbHd0THc6MQ

Questions? Contact: Bonnie Oldham at bonnie.oldham@scranton.edu

This workshop has been fully funded with Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds administered by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries and would not have been possible without the help of the College and Research Division of PaLA. Show your appreciation by becoming a member of PaLA! And if you are a member – thank you!

Blogging to Develop Your Digital Identity: Crafting Your Personal Brand

2010-11-07T17:13:00.000-08:00

This was a session from the 2010 Annual PaLA Conference held Sunday, October 24, 2010 - Wednesday, October 27, 2010 in Lancaster PA.

A panel of four librarians, Erin Dorney, Peter Coyl, Amy Pajewski, and Tara Murrary shared their insights for using blogging as a way to extend one's personal brand and provide a strong digital presence. Each had different experiences and advice.

Peter Coyl started the panel discussion off. Peter is currently a librarian at the Hsinchu International School in Taiwan. He is a 2010 MLIS Drexel graduate, where he was awarded the Doris Keller Hossler endowed Fellowship. His blog is called Adventures of a Guybrarian. Peter started blogging back in 2004 and his current blog he started in 2009. He started his blog primarily to be his digital portfolio. He feels blogging is a great way to stay connected, especially since he is a librarian in another country. Some other blogs he follows include Will Unwound, The Unquiet Librarian, Library Grits, and Dear Librarian.

Next up was Erin Dorney, a Syracuse graduate and Millersville University Outreach librarian, whose blog is called Library Scenester, which she began in 2007. She addresses the 'would anyone really read it' thought with "If you are passionate about what you write, people will follow you." She see blogging as an doorway for many opportunities, such as involvement in professional organizations, requests for more writings and publications, networking, friendship, and support. She also offered some great advice:

tie the physical to the virtual (don't silo yourself)
be genuine and be professional
monitor the conversation
leverage social networking

Amy Pajewski followed Erin. Amy is currently finishing her MLS at Clarion University. She is a single mom and a full-time debt collector, but is actively seeking employment in the library field. Her blog is called Adventures of a LIS Student, which she started in March of 2010. She blogs primarily on things such as being a student, job searching, and her thoughts on things she read or learned about in the library literature. She sees a blog as an opportunity to go beyond your traditional CV (Curriculum Vitae). She sees two very positive benefits to blogging as always having a ready writing sample to offer and as a great way to establish relationships.

Last, but certainly not least for the panel presentation, was Tara Murray, the Director of Information Services at the American Philatelic Research Library (located in Bellefonte, PA). Tara not only has a personal blog, DIY Librarian, but also participates in several group blogs. She was very fortunate as blogging actually helped her get her job as the library wanted to start a new blog and she already had that kind of experience. Some blogs that she followed early on (and still) include Jessamyn West's blog, librarian.net, and Meredith Farkas' blog Information Just Wants to be Free. Tara's two main pieces of advice are to be yourself and to imagine that your boss, patrons, or mom are reading the post before you actually make it public.

The panel left time for Q&A and there were many questions, such as how to get started, how to find time, what to write about, etc. The panel provided a very informed presentation on blogging and many left this session motivated to start!

What They Know...And What They Need to Know

2010-10-28T07:44:00.000-07:00

This session focused on the research and information skills of first-year college students.

During the first part of the presentation, Linda Neyer, Health Sciences/Science Librarian at Bloomsburg University, and Allison Burrell, Librarian at Southern Columbia Area High School reported on the results of a survey completed by academic librarians about their perceptions of the research skills of incoming freshmen as compared to the skills that the librarians identified as most important for these students to be successful.A quick poll of the forty or so attendees confirmed findings of the survey that "evaluate information critically and competently" was the most important information literacy standard. In fact, the consensus of the survey was that the most important skills were the least in evidence, and the attendees agreed.

Terry Mech, King's College Library Director, used the second part of the presentation to discuss the results of an information literacy assessment tool that over the past seven years has collected responses from 3,800 students at six different institutions. Data gleaned from these assessments corroborated the responses to Linda and Allison's survey--incoming freshmen do not know how to "evaluate information and sources critically. Terry then looked at what factors might have contributed to the variation in test scores and found that students' high school curriculum may be a major factor.

For more information on this topic, go to the Google Site created by Linda and Allison: PA info lit learning community

New Member Reception

2010-10-28T07:14:00.000-07:00

CRD Board Members Linda Neyer, 2011 Vice Chair, Amy Deuink, 2009 Chair, and Cynthia Slater, 2010 Chair get together at the New Member Reception at the PaLA 2010 Annual Conference in Lancaster.

Assessing Assignments: The Library as Partner in Campus Wide Assessments

2010-10-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

Beth Transue and Beth Mark, Messiah College
1401 syllabi were analyzed, under direction of provost, in addition to looking at info lit outcomes, also looked at:

1. clear statement of clear objectives (96% did)
2. whether syllabus included integrity policy (66% did not)
3. statement about ADA disabilities statement
4. grading scales (about 30% did not include info)
5. course management systems - about 12% mention (from 2006)
6. writing center - did they refer students? .2% require, 9% recommend
7. learning center - .1% require, 8% recommend

For library, looked for mention of
-library and library instruction - 9% (have 5 librarians)
-information literacy - 11%
-reserves - 13% list items on reserve
-websites and databases - 22% recommended websites, 2% recommend databases (but not all library databases)
-citation styles - 24% mention; APA, MLA, 'other'

Gen ed had the largest number of syllabi

Some syllabi had assignment info, but not enough for collection development purposes
Solution: collect separate assignment information

Unplanned benefits
-appreciation of provost
-request to present data to Academic Council (deans and admin)
-subsequently presented to two schools within college
-raised visibility of librarians as campus stakeholders
-prepared the way for expanded project (assignment analysis)

What we learned -- begin planning at least a year in advance when dealing with other academic offices

Library Assignment Analysis Project
-meet with provost again, who approved the project
-asked to present proposal to school deans for their buy-in and for them to be communication channel to depts.
-deans agreed, recommended timeline and wording changes
-one dean suggested using a form faculty could fill out in lieu of submitting written assignment directions (problem will be that you can't see what they are handing out)

Got good return (about 1/2 by spring 2010), again used a student work to extract data
842 assignments
Assignment types:
research paper & presentations most common types of assignment, in addition reserve readings, reflection essay, 'other' (if an assignment students had to complete required use library resources, should have been included, but faculty may not have realized)

-page length by course level did increase over 4 years (used minimum number e.g. 5-8, entered '5')
-number of sources by assignment type
-number of sources by course level (leveled out for 2 - 4th years) may be due to faculty not 'spelling it out' for students
-where forms where used, some narrative info was lost, but did provide info not included in some written assignments
-individual follow up provided opportunities to raise awareness of faculty regarding unknown library resources

Interesting project; unfortunately I could not stay till the end.

Going Mobile: Putting your library in the hands of your patrons

2010-10-24T12:15:00.000-07:00

Ronalee Ciocco, Director of User Services & Jessica Howard, Reference & Web Services Librarian Gettysburg College

Ronalee and Jessica talked about how they have developed their mobile web site and the content for it.

Background:
1/3 of current U.S. population currently uses mobile phones -- and more and more are using to access the Internet.

Currently, less than 1/2 percent of library 'hits' are via mobile devices at Gettysburg

Library Success Wiki has lots of examples of library web sites - they looked at these sites; some of the concerns they identified:
-response time, esp. with lots of images
-text is so small, hard to read
-didn't want to make entire site available on the mobile site; small number of choices preferred

Gettysburg College had used (free) iWebKit to create a CSS for college mobile pages, also developed an iPhone app aimed at prospective students, and the library was able to tap into that.

They asked themselves, 'What do our users want?'
They surveyed users in spring and fall 2010, asking them what library resources or services they wanted to access, what device they are using, and who they are

Got about 28 responses, not a lot, mostly students
1/2 used iPhone/iPod Touch
1/4 used Blackberry
1/4 used Android, Palm, or other device

Survey results -- what users want:
-top choices: library catalog & renewing items
-surprise choice: databases

Databases:
Start small -- just one or two large, interdisciplinary ones
Testing other mobile databases/tools
Track use of those they've implemented

Tracking usage of particular resources

Mobile marketing
-doing a homepage redirect, if users have a mobile device
-traditional PR campaign
-marketing plan -- marketing committee

They are considering using LibGuides for their mobile web page, but need to evaluate it.

Partnering to Introduce eBooks into a Graduate Education Course

2010-10-24T11:06:00.000-07:00

Ronald Musoleno, Ph.D., Penn State Great Valley School of Graduate Professional Studies spoke first about the use of Kindles for all the course readings

25 Kindles -- required some accommodations for the graduate educational leadership course:

converted all journal readings to pdfs (need DX model for this)
had a librarian demonstrate how to use the Kindle, and Ron put links to tutorials in his ANGEL course
after purchases, they had to disassociate credit card from Kindle

They developed pre- and post-surveys, and librarian (Delores) administered so grades were not a concern for students.

They analyzed the survey data to evaluate the pilot

People liked Kindle because it saved them time and money, and was a 'green' alternative. It also allowed them greater access to materials anytime, anywhere, and everything was all together in the same place, easier to make connections between texts. A certain camaderie occurred amongst students.

Students also got a view of how ebooks can be used in ed, felt it gave their careers a 'leg up'
The course was on technology, and students liked that it was hands-on

Post-Survey
Similar to pre-survey
There is an ADA issue, several universities had been sued, so the grad school could not make it mandatory if someone couldn't use it, but there were none who didn't
(Case was settled, with the universities agreeing to note make use mandatory)
Actually, some people liked that Kindles were physically easier to use (large print, e.g.)

Results
-paradigm shift, no pencils or paper
-students saw direct connections to instructional and administrative uses
-raised the level of what students thought about the grad program
-some people still like the physical form
-thought it would be good for reluctant readers

There were some mixed attitudes. Most were happy with it, but some still preferred using a physical book

Delores had selected some readings for the course, based on the syllabus, but not all things were available for Kindle
-drawback was that Kindle was in black and white (only an issue of color images are needed)
-students could only keep for 2 weeks at a time, but they also needed to have the book
-hasn't been enough Kindles for the class size

Kindles are a little easier to circulate than the I-pad

Library procedures
-Purchased Kindle DX model due to pdfs
-Library purchase card was used
---worked with Penn State Libraries to facilitate purchase procedures
-Loading Kindles
---Setting up accounts
------lots of help from MIT (Delores is very willing to help anyone who wants to do this)
------separate email for each Kindle (when you buy on Kindle, can use on 5 devices, didn't want to do this)
---How do we prevent students from purchasing on the Kindle?
------after purchases, disassociate credit card from Kindle

What was on the Kindle
-text book
-required and suggested readings
-reserves were downloaded as a pdf from database
-purchased a copy of book for each

Logistics of circulation
-reserving Kindles had to be done manually
-checking on them when they're returned to make sure everything was still there
-cost if lost; a concern, but just have to trust users
-ADA issues

There is a list of libraries circulating Kindles, although Amazon's official policy is that they should not be circulated.

Penn State emails:
Delores Fidishun dxf19 (at) psu (dot) edu
Ron Musoleno rrm18 (at) psu (dot) edu

EXTRA
Library has a site within their course management program for handouts, etc.

Conference coming, Oh my!

2010-10-21T07:40:00.000-07:00

The emails have been coming fast and furious, reminding us about this and that event at the PaLA 2010 Annual Conference, which begins Sunday, October 24th, in Lancaster. If you're at all like me, you are just now mapping out your schedule. So to help you, here's a schedule of events that are either being sponsored by the CRD or that the CRD is participating in.

If you'd like like to blog any event at the conference, and you are a member of the CRD but not a blog member yet, just send me an email (lneyer (at) bloomu (dot) edu) and ask for an 'invitation'.

See you soon!

Sunday Oct 24

2:00–3:00pm Partnering to Introduce eBooks into a Graduate Education Course

3:15–4:15pm Going Mobile: Putting Your Library in the Hands of Your Patrons

4:30–5:30pm Assessing Assignments: The Library as Partner in Campus-Wide Assessments

4:30–5:15pm Conference 101

7:30–10:00pm President's Program & Reception

Monday Oct 25

9:00–10:15am What They Know and What They Should Know: Research and Information Skills of First-Year College Students

10:30–11:45am Search Strategies of Millennial Undergraduates on the Web and in Library Databases

1:00–2:00pm Poster Sessions

12:00–2:00pm Pennysylvania Community College Library Consortium (PCCLC) Luncheon

1:00–2:00pm Poster Sessions

5:00 - ??? pm Tentative dine-out for CRD (check back for more info)

Tuesday Oct 26

9:00–10:00am Information Literacy through a Looking Glass: Assessment of a First-Year Experience Program for At-Risk Students

10:00–11:00amVisit the Exhibits!

11:00am–12:00pm You Can Be a Game Designer: Creating 3D Games to Teach Information Literacy Concepts

12:15–2:00pm College & Research Division Luncheon

2:00–3:00pm Visit the Exhibits/Vendor Showcases/Raffle Drawings

3:00–4:00pm Levity in the Library: Incorporating Humor in Instruction Without Being Robin Williams

4:00–5:00pmPoster Sessions

6:00–9:30pmAnnual Awards Banquet(advance registration required)

Wednesday Oct 27

9:00–10:15am Blogging to Develop Your Digital Identity: Crafting Your Personal Brand

9:00–10:15am "Yes, This IS a Real Job and You DO Need to Show Up on Time!" How to Hire, Train, and Retain Excellent Student Employees

10:15–11:15am Visit the Exhibits/Vendor Showcases

11:15am–12:30pm TEDx and Libraries: A Perfect Partnership for Community Engagement

12:45–2:45pmClosing Luncheon

New Co-Editors of "It's Academic!" Column

2010-09-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

The CRD Board is pleased to announce that Rachel Masilamani and Larissa Gordon are the new co-editors of the "It's Academic!" column in the PaLA Bulletin, effective January 2011. Both are 2010 graduates of PALS. Rachel is Reference Librarian at the J. Clarence Kelly Library of Penn State Greater Allegheny Campus, and Larissa is Information Literacy Coordinator & Reference Librarian at the Landman Library of Arcadia University.

The Board is looking forward to their contributions. Please join us in welcoming them aboard and congratulating them!

--Linda Neyer, "It's Academic!" out-going editor and Vice-Chair Elect of the CRD

CRD Election Results

2010-08-18T11:13:00.000-07:00

The results of the PaLA CRD elections are in. Linda Neyer was elected Vice Chair/Chair elect and Mary Lou Patrick was elected Secretary. Their terms begin in January 2011. Congratulations to both of you!

CRD officers for 2011:

Chair: Bonnie Oldham, Information Literacy Coordinator, The University of Scranton
Vice Chair: Linda Neyer, Health Sciences/Science Librarian, Bloomsburg University
Treasurer: Erin Dorney, Outreach Librarian, Millersville University
Secretary: Mary Lou Patrick, Reference Librarian, Altoona Campus, The Pennsylvania State University

Students: Web Savvy?

2010-08-02T14:21:00.000-07:00

clipped from www.northwestern.edu

Not as Web Savvy as You Think

Young people give Google, other top brand search results too much credibility

EVANSTON, Ill. --- Google it. That's what many college students do when asked to read an excerpt of a play for class, write a resume or find the e-mail address of a politician.

They trust Google so much that a Northwestern University study has found many students only click on websites that turn up at the top of Google searches to complete assigned tasks. If they don't use Google, researchers found that students trust other brand-name search engines and brand-name websites to lead them to information.

The study was published by the International Journal of Communication.

Read the article.

Information Commons in the Wild: Lessons from the Field

2010-06-30T09:31:00.000-07:00

The Information Commons was the theme of CRD’s 2010 spring conference. The program began with a presentation by Scott Bennett, who has written and consulted widely on

library space planning. As one of the founders of Project Muse, Bennett fostered some of the changes in information use that are driving innovations in the use of library space.

In his keynote session, Dr. Bennett noted that the concept of a learning commons is not just about space, it’s a philosophy. He posed some pivotal questions that libraries should consider prior to undertaking an information or learning commons project. The systematic gathering of data about student behavior and about how students learn being the most important question to ensuring the creation of a successful information or learning commons. He suggests that this data will reveal that librarians should stop thinking of students as information consumers. Instead, we should think of students as learners. The library focus would then be on accommodating the learning needs of students, and reference librarians would see their role as collaborators with student learners.

The afternoon session consisted of a panel of administrators who have already implemented an information/learning commons at their libraries or who are in the process of building one representing a variety of size and type of institution. The panel included: Don Smith, Dean of the Library at the University of Louisiana at Monroe; Katherine Furlong, Associate Director for Access & Administrative Services at Lafayette College; Sally Kalin, Associate Dean for University Park Libraries, Pennsylvania State University; and Anuradha Vedantham, Director of the Weigle Information Commons at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Bennett served as panel moderator.

One attendee commented, "The workshop gave me a lot to think about. I especially appreciated the idea of using what you have - but using it better - rearranging + improving facility to make it more learner-centered."

CRD will be posting Dr. Bennett's presentation as well as a list of publications that he mentioned on the CRD Web site in the near future. We will also post several of the panelists' slide shows.

CRD Board Candidates for 2011

2010-06-06T09:00:00.000-07:00

Following are the PaLA-CRD members running for the CRD Board for 2011. More information on the candidates will be posted here before the elections, so watch this space!

VICE-CHAIR/CHAIR ELECT:

Calida Barboza, Instruction/Reference Librarian, Kings College, Wilkes-Barre

I am an Instruction/Reference Librarian at King's College (Wilkes-Barre, PA) and a graduate of the first PaLA Academy of Leadership Studies (PALS) class. As a result of speaking with academic librarians about how PaLA can meet their needs, I decided that I'd like to be more involved in the College & Research Division. I am currently the Intellectual Freedom Chair of the PaLA Northeast Chapter and a member of the Chapter's Membership Committee. I was recently part of a panel on the PALS experience at the Chapter workshop and at the 2009 Conference. Since joining PaLA in 2007, I was awarded a PaLA Brodart Conference Grant to attend the 2007 Conference and volunteered at the CyberSuite during the 2009 Conference. I am also involved with the ACRL Virtual Conference Committee and two ALA New Members Round Table committees. I earned an MSLIS from Drexel University, an MA in English from Youngstown State University, and a BA in English from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania.

Valerie Lynn, Head Librarian, Hazleton Campus, The Pennsylvania State University

After serving as the Instruction Librarian at the George T. Harrell Health Sciences Library at the Penn State Hershey College of Medicine for approximately four years, I was recently promoted to Head Librarian at the Penn State Hazleton campus. I hold a Master of Science degree in Instructional Technology from Bloomsburg University and attended the Dartmouth College, Evidence-Based Medicine Institute, last year.

Linda Neyer, Health Sciences/Science Librarian, Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania

As editor of the College & Research Division's "It's Academic!" column in the PaLA Bulletin, I have been actively involved on the Board since 2003. I'm especially proud of my role in getting the Bulletin indexed in EBSCOhost's Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, a free database. As a member of the PaLA Membership Committee, I've also worked on ways to promote the value of a PaLA membership to academic librarians. One of my current interests is to explore ways of increasing collaboration between school librarians and academic librarians within Pennsylvania. I think PaLA provides an ideal forum for this collaboration!

SECRETARY:

Karen Cook, Assistant Professor, Library Science Department, Clarion University of Pennsylvania

I am running for PaLA-CRD Secretary because I believe strongly in the importance of the Association and that I have the requisite experience and skills to make a positive contribution to the Division's good work for our academic library community and the Pennsylvania Library Association. During twenty years of active involvement with professional library organizations at the state (Indiana, Alabama, and Louisiana, and now Pennsylvania), regional, and national levels, I have had the honor to be elected to various offices, including Secretary of national ALA/Exhibites Round Table; I have also served as secretary for other entities (academic, professional, and governmental) on numerous occasions. I thank you for your consideration, and hope to have the opportunity to serve you and PaLA-CRD as Secretary.

Lizah Ismail, Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Public Services, Marywood University, Scranton

Lizah Ismail is Assistant Professor and Coordinator of Public Services at the Marywood University Library in Scranton, Pa. In her current position, she supervises circulation services, oversees reference services and teaches information literacy classes. She is a Board member of the Pennsylvania Library Association Northeast Chapter and serves on the Membership, Distance Learning and Communications committee of the ACRL College Libraries Division. Lizah has published in the area of library use and needs of Millennial as well as non-traditional/adult students and has written several reviews of library online resources. She received her MS in Library and Information Science from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and her MA in Communications from the Annenberg School for Communication , University of Pennsylvania.

Jennifer V. Luksa, Head of Collection Resource Management, Bevevino Library, Misericordia University, Dallas

I am the Head of Collection Resource Management at Misericordia University where I have been employed for over 16 years. I received my MLS from Drexel University in 2008, and I am a graduate of the inaugural class of the Pennsylvania Academy for Leadership Studies (PALS). I served on last year's PaLA Scholarship Committee, and I have served on numerous committees at Misericordia. As an academic librarian, I see numerous challenges ahead as the concept of "library as space" changes with the development of new technologies. CRD provides the opportunity for all academic librarians in Pennsylvania to share ideas and give support as we meet these challenges.

Mary Lou Patrick, Reference Librarian, Robert E. Eiche Library, Altoona Campus, The Pennsylvania State University

As a candidate for the office of PaLA CRD Secretary, I would like to introduce myself. At Penn State Altoona, I am a reference and instruction librarian and the collection development coordinator for the Robert E. Eiche Library. I also serve as a member of Penn State University’s Alumni Library Board. Previously, I worked as a reference, instruction, and collection development librarian with Pennsylvania Highlands Community College (PHCC). During that time, I was elected to two terms as recording secretary for PHCC’s Faculty Senate. I also served as a Senate Curriculum Committee member and as the Senate’s coordinator for its Blackboard site and Web page. My academic credentials include a Master of Science degree in Library Science from Clarion University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Arts degree in Adult Education and Communications Technology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. It would be an honor to contribute to the work of the Division as CRD Secretary, and if elected I would conscientiously strive to fulfill my duties and responsibilities.

Librarians do Gaga

2010-06-02T05:41:00.000-07:00

This video from University of Washington's Information School is making the rounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_uzUh1VT98

We No Longer Have Librarians

2010-05-07T10:58:00.000-07:00

Fortunately most college and university presidents realize the value of librarians. Michael MacDowell, Misericordia University President, apparently is not one of these enlightened people. In response to the question, "How has technology affeced libraries at colleges?" President MacDowell stated, "We no longer have librarians or head librarians." MacDowell was being interviewed by a reporter from The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, PA because he will be receiving a special achievement award from The Ben Franklin Technology Partners of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

MacDowell further states that while "...students themselves come [to college] with a great deal of ability to use technology in communications...sometimes the students pick up things on the Internet and determine that they're definitive and they aren't."

One of the reasons that academic librarians are recognized as valuable resources is because they are the ones who are teaching Information Literacy skills to the students on their campuses. While all students may know how to use Google and Wikipedia, many of then don't know how to find a book or how to find an article in a scholarly journal. Or even know what a scholarly journal is. They can't synthesize the information they do find when they are writing papers, and they don't know how to give credit to the sources that they use. Where do students gain these skills? Why from librarians of course!

ASSESS THIS! What, How and Who Cares? Presented by the Delaware Valley Chapter of the ACRL

2010-04-22T11:42:00.000-07:00

ASSESS THIS! What, How and Who Cares? Presented by the Delaware Valley Chapter of the ACRL

April 16, 2010 10:00-3:30

Speakers: Peter Hernon and Stephen Spohn

Panel discussion by Nonny Schlotzhauer (Penn State); Melissa Gold and Scott Anderson (Millersville University); Ruth Perkins, Krista Prock and Karen Wanamaker (Kutztown University)

Dr. Hernon (a prolific speaker and author of 45 books) brought fresh perspectives to the assessment conundrum such as how to examine program learning (not course learning), i.e. specific to each discipline; consider direct evidence (not indirect evidence like self-reporting), reflect on outcomes (not outputs), and identify the stakeholders (parents, accrediting bodies, taxpayers, school boards, students, etc.). Read Assessing Service Quality: Satisfying the Expectations of Library Customers (2010) by Peter Hernon & Ellen Altman for more information.

Innovative ideas for direct evidence include asking faculty to write a quality story, students generating a portfolio, and students participating in internships. Assessment is a continuous process of data collection—not a onetime survey. San Francisco Public Library is a good example of an online survey that patrons can complete at any time (http://sfpl.org/ "Take Our Survey"). Counting Opinions is a commercial company that was recommended by Dr. Hernon that provides an instrument for continuous data collection and is customizable.

The planning documents at Sawyer Library, Suffolk University serve as an excellent university assessment model which includes an Institutional Accountability plan as well as Student Learning Outcomes plus a Long Range Plan.

Consider the following query which should be answered collaboratively with other departments of the university: What impact does the library have across the university?

Stephen Spohn’s afternoon presentation reinforced one aspect of Peter Hernon’s concepts: decide who the stakeholders are and solicit feedback from them. Additional planning includes: identifying trends/long term goals and generating actionable data.

Millersville University is collecting student artifacts such as videos, research papers, and tests. The IL rubric from the Association of American Colleges and Universities will be useful in analyzing them. One measure is to document the percentage of resources in student bibliographies that were derived from the Library. Penn State convened a Library Assessment Metrics Council and Kutztown University engaged external reviewers (who were from a library that Kutztown wanted to model).

[Thanks to Carol Videon for guest writing this post.]

This workshop was partially funded with Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds administered by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries and would not have been possible without the help of the College and Research Division of PaLA.

Best Practices in Library Instruction

2010-04-19T06:33:00.000-07:00

Doug Cook and Ryan L. Sittler took a tag team approach to their keynote presentation at the PaLA Library Instruction Roundtable (LIRT) workshop on April 16, 2010. They used some hands-on examples from their book, The Library Instruction Cookbook (published in 2009 by ACRL) to demonstrate how easy it is to incorporate active learning into information literacy instruction. Some techniques included using the Telephone Game to determine where primay sources end and secondary sources begin, using clues placed in coffee cans to determine which database would be the best for specific questions, and writing a haiku poem as a form of self-reflection about one's research.

Doug is Reference Librarian/Professor at Shippensburg University, and Ryan isInstructional Technology/Information Literacy Librarian /Assistant Professor at California University of Pennsylvania. If you weren't able to attend Friday's program, you can sign up for their Preconference, Practical Pedagogy for Library Instructors, which will be held from 1:00 to 4:30pm on Friday, June 25 at the ALA Annual Conference.

Following the keynote speakers was a Best Practices Panel. Larissa Gordon shared how Arcadia University Library used mini-grants to foster faculty-librarian collaboration; Margaret Montet and Willliam Hemmig shared how they enhance an embedded eBrarian program at Bucks County Community College; and Kelley Beeson shared how the Allegheny County Library Assoication used 23 Things-n'at to create an non-threatening environment for library staff to learn about Web 2.0 technologies.

A second panel featuring assessment followed the lunch break. In addition to Hedra Packman, who spoke about how the Free Library of Philadelphia uses a variety of methods to assess the variety of instruction programs they provide, there were two presentaions on assessment in academic libraries. Tom Reinsfelder, from the Mont Alto Campus of Penn State, explained how PSU used the SAILS Test for incoming students at select PSU campuses. They administered the test before any Information Literacy instruction had been done in order to establish a baseline for students' knowledge about Information Literacy. This enabled them to identify what was the most important skill set for librarians to teach. When asked about testing upper level students, Tom indicated that it would be difficult to re-test the same students since the original test was administered throught faculty class time. Olga Conneen presented a rubric that the library is using to assess student learning outcomes for a library assignment in the "Achieving the Dream" program at Northampton Ccommunity College. Though active learning, she demonstrated how the librarians were able to improve this assignment by evaluting interrater reliability.

Bonnie Imler, Altoona Campus of Penn State, the day's final presenter, compared the feature four screen capture software options and included some tips for using this type of software for online tutorials.

This workshop was partially funded with Federal Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) funds administered by the Office of Commonwealth Libraries and would not have been possible without the help of the College and Research Division of PaLA.

Innovation and Libraries

2010-04-07T14:00:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday, April 6, Stephen Abram spoke on the topic of "Innovation and Libraries" to members of the Canadian Association of Special Libraries and Information Services (CASLIS), a division of the Canadian Library Association. Abram was listed by Library Journal as one of the top 50 people influencing the future of libraries, and he recently left SirsiDynix to join Gale as vice president of strategic partnerships and markets. On his blog, "Stephen's Lighthouse," he posted his presentation. He also has compiled all of his previous postings on the value of libraries. His post on the Value of Academic and College Libraries, highlights a study called “Libraries Designed for Learning” by Scott Bennett--keynote speaker at the CRD's Spring program, "Information Commons in the Wild: Lessons from the Field" which will be held on June 15 at The University of Scranton. Abram calls this study, "... an articulate report on what needs to be considered to place the library at the heart of the new university – virtual and bricks."

Why I Attend Small Conferences

2010-03-22T13:09:00.000-07:00

A recent post on Inside Higher Ed by Kevin Brown sums up nicely the value of attending a small conference, like the annual PaLA Conference. Brown, an English professor at Lee University, weighs the pros and cons of attending large conferences vs small conference:

Large, national conferences are important for a number of reasons... However,
for the rest of us, smaller local conferences make more sense and are more
enjoyable. They help us to build smaller communities within the discipline with
peers who hold similar values and who want to see everyone involved improve.

Read the entire post here.

SAVE THE DATE! June 15, 2010

2010-03-17T10:27:00.000-07:00

"Information Commons in the Wild: Lessons from the Field"

Where: DeNaples Campus Center, The University of Scranton, Scranton, PA

Keynote Speaker:
Scott Bennett, Library Space Planning Consultant, Yale University Librarian Emeritus, and one of the founders of Project Muse, will lead a session designed to promote active learning about the design of an information or learning commons. Conference participants will then be asked to work together on some key questions that Scott will pose about the design of information or learning commons, concluding with a reporting out session meant to share the wisdom of the group.

Panel:
Don Smith, Dean of the Library at the University of Louisiana at Monroe
Katherine Furlong, Associate Director for Access & Administrative Services at Lafayette College
Sally Kalin, Associate Dean for University Park Libraries at Penn State University
Anuradha Vedantham, Director of the Weigle Information Commons at the University of Pennsylvania

Watch the CRD Web site for further details and registration information: http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpla/CRD/
For more information, contact Bonnie Oldham. You can also find us on Facebook.

PaLA CRD: help newer librarians become leaders!

2010-03-16T05:44:00.000-07:00

(Above: 2009 PALS Attendees)

The College and Research Division (CRD) of the Pennsylvania Library Association would like to sponsor two attendees to the PaLA Academy of Leadership Studies (PALS) to be held June 6-9, 2010 at the Radisson Penn Harris, Camp Hill, PA. We invite nominations and applications from academic librarians who have less than six years of experience and who have the potential to become the next generation of library leaders in the state of Pennsylvania. The CRD will pay for Academy registration for the two librarians chosen and will work closely with them as they continue to enhance their careers. Further information about the Leadership Academy can be found at:

http://www.palibraries.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=102

If you are interested in applying or in nominating someone to be sponsored by the CRD, please send the following by April 1, 2010 to Tina Hertel at tina.hertel@lehigh.edu:

• A letter of interest
• A letter of nomination from your supervisor
• Current resume of the nominee
• Statement indicating PaLA membership or intention to join at the end of the program

Nominees will be informed of the CRD's decision by April 16, 2010.

Please call or email me with any questions or concerns about the process.

Thank you.

Tina Hertel
College & Research Division

2009-11-04T13:49:00.000-08:00

Connecting Research and Writing Through Students

Tuesday, October 20 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Speakers: Greg Skutches, Tina Hertel, Kenzie Bartlett, Deborah Streahle (Lehigh University)

Moderated by Christine Roysdon

The innovative TRAC (Technology, Research and Communication) Writing Fellows Program at Lehigh University is based on the “tried-and-true notion that collaboration among peers is one of our most effective and efficient methods of learning.” Greg Skutches described the evolution of the TRAC concept over his initial year as the Coordinator of Writing Across the Curriculum at Lehigh. He stressed that his rather unique placement within the Library and Technology Services unit, as opposed to the usual WAC placement within an academic college, enabled him to imagine a program that encompassed not only writing, but also the research process, the use of technology, and faculty development.

The program tests the idea that student writing mentors embedded in courses can knowledgeably and empathetically interact with peers on assignment drafts and research progress, and can even help faculty fine-tune assignments. Fellows chosen are talented undergraduate student writers from across the majors, nominated by faculty, and selected through a highly competitive application process. As a group, they are enrolled in a semester-long training course that encompasses not only writing, but also library research and instructional technology.

Tina Hertel has developed the library research aspect of the program. She noted that in the first year she presented the big picture of the information environment, but now has adopted a more practical focus. She has observed that the TRAC students tend to be good researchers who are sometimes surprised by the methods used by fellow students.

The two TRAC fellows, Kenzie Bartlett and Deborah Streahle, have been thinking about how the libraries can be better integrated into the student research process. They emphasized the importance of just-in-time librarian visits to courses with assignments, and the need to simplify and streamline the navigation of library systems.

Christy Roysdon

2009-11-03T12:18:00.000-08:00

When Students Go Mobile: The Effects of Smartphones on Information Literacy and Academic Library
Featuring Kristen Yarmey-Tylutki, Digital Services Librarian, Weinberg Memorial Library, The University of Scranton and moderated by Erin Dorney

Smartphone – phone with computing ability

Over 50 thousand apps for iPhone as of last year

In 2008 smartphone sales in North America grew by 63%

Lost of apps are student-designed

Mobile librarians and libraries – Joe Murphy

How do these impact the research process? Information literacy?

It’s hard for students to find big blocks of time for research – mobile helps them break it up into chunks

Looking at 2000 ACRL standards for information literacy – 5 standards

What did mobile phones look like in 2000? Cell phones called people, stored contacts, could text but many people didn’t. A lot has changed since then!

Standard One: “The information literate student defines and articulates the need for information”

Free apps vs. authoritative, more costly apps (in terms of reference resources)
Talk to vendors about providing mobile interfaces
Think about subsidizing cost of authoritative mobile apps
Devices can be used to both collect and analyze data
Can confuse students – new set of formats (print, electronic, mobile, website, app, device specific?), third-party developers w/ somewhat sketchy documentation.
Cost and benefit – students pick free over pay, website over print, w/smartphones, they will probably choose mobile over computer-based.
It needs to be affordable and accessible to students in order for them to use it

Standard Two: “The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently”

New ways of searching – the ACRL standards assume word-based searching, but now we have different input types – pictures, barcodes, audio keywords, location
These options can make searching easier for students, but we need to know how to help them and incorporate this into information literacy
No extra typing – fewest keystrokes possible = no long search strings, Boolean, etc.
Mobile raises expectations – traditional services won’t be enough
On a smartphone, we only see the first 3/4 results in a Google search – will students scroll down or click to the next page?
Extracting information – lots of note taking tools out there and microphones built in (i.e. Margins, tools to convert spoken notes into written notes)
iPhone can’t run different applications at once – this is a problem but should be fixed (Palm Pre does it)

Standard Three: “The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.”

Ebook apps – more time for reading in their lives, but is it “deep reading?”
All in one devices are fabulous but also distracting
Students are going to want to use things that are designed well
Mobile research look at more items but spend less time on/with them
Discussing research with peers

Standard Four: “The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.”

Syncing mobile and computer applications

Standard Five: “The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally”

Privacy issues, personal information – outward flow of information, educate students about what they post to the web and how it can impact their future
“Collaboration has become a fact of life” – Kristen YT

Standards hold up well, but there are some new themes relating to smartphones

Is dividing literacy between information and technology helping or harming our students?

Continuous partial attention – we need to be informed – education, psychology, sociology

What’s next? Plans to talk with students about how smartphones are being used by students. Looking for collaborators!

Q: Tools for libraries to mobilize? SMS is first step, in terms of resources, haven’t seen it written about yet

Q: Multi-literacies? Kathleen Tyner

Q: What about faculty using smartphones? Mixed bag, some embrace, some still don’t want to talk about Google. New generation of faculty will help with this transition. We don’t have to push it, but some will be interested.

2009-10-22T15:28:00.000-07:00

Avoiding Certain Doom: Integrating Information Literacy Through Collaboration
Alison Gregory, Assistant Professor, Snowden Library, Lycoming College

I had the good fortune to be the moderator for this session of the 2009 PaLA Conference on Monday, October 19. This topic was of particular interest to me since I recently became the Information Literacy Coordinator at The University of Scranton. To begin, Alison highlighted several of the articles on the extensive list of recommended readings in her handout that address why librarians should collaborate with faculty and how they should do it.

Before she shared how she collaborated with faculty at Lycoming College, Alison asked attendees to write down an assignment from their institutions that they considered to be “doomed” and then had us share this assignment with a neighbor.

Alison’s first example of collaboration was from an entry level political science course. The professor’s goal was for the students to increase their critical thinking skills. Alison collaborated with this professor to develop a problem-based learning assignment in each of three content areas for a total of six classes that met in the library. The majority of this class time was spent doing research. When students asked a question, Alison often answered them with another question. Rather than providing the students with the name or the call number of a specific book in which information could be found, she would suggest types or categories of resources that might be useful. Instead of a one-shot, “sage on the stage,” Alison said, “It became very Socratic,” and as a result one-third of the course was devoted to library research.

The second collaborative endeavor that Alison shared involved a faculty member in the History Department who had previously “banned” Wikipedia as a source. She worked with this professor on an assignment that required students to contribute to Wikipedia. They selected topics that were either missing or were stubs (a term used by Wikipedia for incomplete articles). Students were required to use primary and secondary sources to write their entries, and the professor had to approve the entries before they could be posted. Students came to the realization that others might cite the information from one of their entries. Their classmates were not “experts” on these topics, yet their entries might be treated as authoritative by someone. As a result of this assignment, the students in this class had a better appreciation of why not to use Wikipedia as source material for a paper.

After sharing her experiences, Alison then suggested ways for those of us in the audience to collaborate with faculty at our institutions:

1. Be reasonably familiar with a variety of pedagogies so that you can knowledgeably discuss them.
2. Let faculty know that your priority lies in improving student skills.
3. Be willing to be a sounding board and be willing to put in your 2 cents, for example, “I heard about an assignment that might meet your goals for this project…”

Then she came back to those “doomed” assignments that we had shared. She gave us the task to think about some potential alternatives, not for the assignment that we had written down, but for our neighbor’s “doomed” assignment. Some of us then shared these alternative ways to improve a specific assignment. This active learning assignment gave us all something concrete that we could take back to our own libraries. I know I did!

2009-10-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

The State of the State Networks 2009

Susan Pannebaker, Director, Office of Commonwealth Libraries
Joe Scorza, Executive Director, HSLC/Access PA
John Barnett, Assistant Director, PALCI
Catherine Wilt, President, and Ann Yurcaba, Director of Regional Services, Lyrasis

I always try to go to this session each year to get a sense of the overall library community statewide. It's basically a 'show and tell' session for the different speakers to review last year's developments and 'coming attractions' (or coming disasters?).

Susan spoke first; unfortunately, she has no good news to tell us. Budget essentially went to $3 million from $11 million. Will know more about the final outcome in the next few weeks. Things will be lost, no doubt. They are establishing priorities. However, some good news. They are starting a state partnership with WebJunction. Will subsidize some of the online courses, which will help with staff development. Can also develop some courses; let them know if there are courses you're interested in.

Joe Scorza was next. Spoke about programs "which may possibly continue; may possibly continue in different forms." They don't know yet what programs are going to go away.
1) 77 libraries are currently using Millennium System, which can automatically update AccessPA database
2) Access PA Digital Repository - ContentDM - 67 collections (approx.) - work with Pittsburg site to harvest data; host the websites. Approval process; currently no cost (may change?) - U. S. Civil War Collection at State Library, for example
3) POWERLibrary - over 40 databases currently; ceased development with WebFeat, looking at an alternative front-end interface for federated searching
4) Ask Here PA Virtual Reference Service - used by Gov Rendell himself; averaging over 500 questions a day; 70+ libraries; users very happy about it; 50% of activity supports school-age children
4) Access PA Online Training - had been using eCollege, but will be switching all training to WebJunction system; will no longer be doing live training, much more cost effective

John Barnett spoke next, from PALCI. They currently have about 75 member libraries, 70 in PA, 3 in NJ, 2 in WV (includes branch campuses). Traditional focus has been on resource-sharing (ILL); EZborrow and RapidILL. Also work with collection development, disaster preparedness, electronic resources. 28 institutions currently participate in RapidILL. 60 institutions now participate in EZBorrow. Number of books borrowed continues to grow. Sept. 2009 was busiest month so far, despite losing 4 schools. Uses Sirsi Dynix but are developing new software (Relais, a Canadian ILL) - May/June 2010 roll-out. Will eliminate 'groups'; but will target other collections, too, like e.g. open archives / open access collections.

RapidILL - developed by Colorado State U libraries; electronic delivery of journal articles predicated on 24-hour turnaround. Over 129 participants in US, Canada, East Asia, members are grouped into 'pods'. Cosmo pod (60 members) allows for 'cross-podination'. There is a PALCI pod, but you can 'qualify' to be members of different pods.

Other resource-sharing efforts - reciprocal ILL photocopying, and faculty borrowing privileges; members of IDS of PA.

Electronic resources:
ACS, Annual Reviews, ACM, eBrary, IEEE, MathSciNet, Opinion Archives, ProQuest, Reference USA, StatUSA; and adding more. Are looking at e-books right now.

CD & Management: CCD Task Force
-Shared print journal archive
-Focuses on print science journal collections by major scientific socieites: APS/ AIP, ACS
A-im is to have complete print runs to 2000; let libraries weed collections older than 10 years
-'Dark' archive for safe-keeping; 'light' archive for ILL
-Should be in place by Fall 2009

Disaster preparedness
-fostering collaborative approach to disaster preparedness
-received $25K LSTA grant to provide consortium-wide disaster preparedness raining and continuing ed; 6 regional training sessions planned; subcontracting with Tom Clareson, Lyrasis, to provide training
-MayDay activities - take 1 day out of year to do one thing for disaster preparedness
-Alliance for Response - goal is to do a state-wide program. In Pittsburgh, they have had discussions on mold-prevention, fire prevention, insurance and risk prevention, etc.

Digitization
-not so much the mechanics, but the 'big picture'
-Digital collection guidelines for PA
-Pennsylvania Digital Library search interface (meta-data harvestor); PALCI supports Lyrasis mass digitization project

MINES for libraries ' Measuring the Impact of Networked Electronic Services'
-ARL protocol for determining electronic resource use, by whom and for what purpose
-provides info on electronic resource use; under development
-ARL has to work with systems people in your library

EBook collections
-also under development
-looking at

LOCKSS network - developing a PALCI network. There are 7 PALCI members currently participate in LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keep Stuff Safe)
-will be surveying members

Cathy Wilt and Ann Yuracaba of Lyrasis spoke next.
Lyrasis = Solinet, PALINET + NELINET; integrating services.
Ann is 'Legacy Palinet' representative.
What's in it for PALINET members - more services
1900 PALINET members; more than 4000 members overall

New service development:
-Digital services; want to support the other regional orgs. Received a grant to digitize PA libraries, based on open-access
-Enterprise-wide library computing - RFP for open source options. Examples: Drupal, Evergreen
-Collaborative collections - what will model be for delivering materials in future?
-Leadership
-Strategic Plan 2010-2012
-Consortial 'deals' with vendors
-Education: hundreds of classes, on-demand, etc. Expanded offerings: Ebooks (free seminar); Information Literacy, Management 101, Open Source, etc.
-Consulting: Strategic planning, Leadership and management, grant-writing assistance
-Technology - 'Tech Squad'; open source support
-Preservation & Digitization
-'My Lyrasis' account coming soon; also has job bank

2009-10-20T06:03:00.001-07:00

Adventures in Site-seeing: Implementing Web Usability Tests for Your Library Web Site
Rob Behary, Duquesne University

Rob gave an excellent presentation; unfortunately, Sydney Walden, his co-presenter was unable to attend due to personal reasons, but he gave her full credit for her help in preparing the session.

I was very interested to hear what he had to say, as we are in the process of redesigning our web page using LibGuides.

Assumptions they started with:
-No budget for testing
-No software, no staff budget
-Library web sites still matter
-Any improvements are worth the time

Duquesne is a conservative culture, want to manage university's 'image' closely. The library's goal was to make their web page more user focused. Their LibQUAL study showed that users found their webpage deficient.

Good article: Jeng, J. Usability Assessment of Academic Digital Libraries Libri 2005

Elements of their study
-learnability
-satisfaction
-efficiency
-effectiveness
-error correction
-ease of use
-visual appearance

In their next LibQUAL study they added some library specific questions, to get more information about their web site. They had some support in place, multimedia graduate program and strong faculty partners, had some software and hardware available for testing. Students approached them about testing their web site

Used Morae - TechSmith software (expensive $2,000 for license, but their IT dept. had already)- used for experimental testing. It has a high learning curve. Tracks mouse clicks and mouse movements, time between mouse clicks, and time on a task, also works with a video camera to track user responses.

Needed additional data - did brief survey to library staff; did a card sort/free association; 'what would you put at the top level?', etc.

Advice:
- Before starting come up with elements, what you're going to be testing
- Do an environmental scan, what resources are available to you - student or faculty partners?
- Don't get frustrated by user expectations

Minimal expertise needed:
- Ability to conduct and analyze primary research
- Ability to conduct interviews
- Ability to do a basic modal analysis

Ideal
- Understand how to design a study
- Some experience with inferential statistics

Consider your resources -- ideally need at least 2 people; both taking notes, helpful to get 2 perspectives (one to handle interruptions)

Minimal requirements for technology:
-Workstations
-Isolated room, preferably soundproofed (can also use video camera)
-Survey software

If you need to build your skills, ACRL offers an e-learning course: Intro to Website Usability Course (developed in 2007). Can also audit university courses on research design (Ed or social sciences).

If you need to obtain software, can use Morae for a 30 day trial. There are less expensive/free options. Possibly forego the software?

How We Did Our Testing
- Referred to article "Why you only need to test with 5 users" Jakob Nielsen
- Needed mix of faculty/staff/students, undergrad and grad
- It didn't really matter what tasks they gave their users, they all seemed to make the same comments about font, color, etc.

Morae analyzed total time, time to complete, number of times back button used, umber of mouse clicks, success rate, number of errors, negative feedback (facial expressions and negative comments)

Some students and faculty analyzed the library's site, and the librarians made a point of attending their sessions where they presented their research/

Extremely useful web site for creating detailed statistics on text comments: TextSTAT - they used it to analyze their LibQUAL comments; it even shows key word in context

Also surveyed users, including library staff: "Please answer the following from very important to not important, and then from very easy to not easy"
-Accessing the library webpage
-Asking the library a question online
-Finding a book
etc.

They used 30 users for their card sort: they had them choose categories, and organize other items under the categories they suggested.

Constraints
-University template was developed to recruit students; library web site is more an application than a public relations tool or fundraising tool (although it does have that function, too)
-Limitations on coding/scripting
-Duquesne uses Luminis Content Management System - allows them to share pages with each other, sustainability advantage

Has Usability Helped?
-University redesign, everyone is switching to the CMS, library was 'early adopter'
-New appreciation for library as such, are performing leadership role on campus

Where are we now?
-Some subject pages redesigned; Rome wasn't built in a day, however
-New design in progress

2009-10-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

Copyright Challenges in a Web 2.0 World and Virtual World
Stephen Marvin, West Chester University

Importance of copyright -
-educator issues: photocopies, websites, distance learning
-research interests: publishing, repositories, storage
-library and research issues: ILL, reserves, access and learning
-are you the author? faculty are!
-unpublished / published
-orphan works

Benefits of copyright
Rights to the author
Is your work considered 'work for hire'?

Librarians are naturals to be 'go to' expert on copyright on their campuses.

Fair Use Exemptions - must have all 4 - PANE acronym:
P - Purpose - education vs. corporate
A - Amount - 'reasonable'
N - Nature - fictional, unpublished, nonfiction
E - Effect - impact on profitability

Courts look at other factors:
-creativity
-originality
-fixation (a fixed, tangible medium)
-AND effect on market

Ken Crews wants librarians to 'push' the envelope on copyright
Expand fair use! Think in terms of blogs, Flickr, YouTube, etc.

Classical fair use - 'appropriation' art
Personal fair use - home recording of t.v. shows
Personal productive use - combines the categories of classical and personal uses into a new category of home users

Criticism, parody, sarcasm - Moral Rights are not recognized in this country but are in other countries, particularly European ones

Examples of some cases where 'transformative' use is being questioned
Shepard Fairey - Los Angeles street artist, who used someone else's original photo to create a poster of President Obama labelled 'hope' - AP is prosecuting him

Joy Garnett and Susan Meiselas (look for Harper article)

Steven Vander Ark vs. J. K. Rowling (fined the minimum however; Johnathan Band wrote article, "How Fair Use Prevailed in the Harry Potter Case")

DMCA lets you submit a DMCA counter-notification (if you get a 'takedown' notice)

Do you need institutional guidelines? Yes, but don't make them too 'prescriptive'.

Librarians should be teaching students about copyright. Why? Plagiarism involves infringing others' copyright.

Problems
-Problems with social networking: giving double messages 'Copyright' vs. sharing links..
-Books and Google - Books Rights Registry
-Email management systems - many have a problem with people posting emails asking for full-text articles via this medium; ILL
-Instructional media - can you convert VHS > DVD - only if use within the library
-Images - should not be permanent

There are some librarians who blog about copyright, such as Bobby Newman - "how to attribute a creative commons license..." blog post (look up)

He encouraged us to consider using more social network tools to have users interact with our resources, like Flickr for digital archive images. Encourage our users to 'mash' our data: how to do mashups; check out http://www.programmableweb.com/mashups

2009-10-19T11:41:00.000-07:00

Whole Lotta Online Tools in a Short Amounta Time (or '40 Online Tools in 60 Minutes')
Tina Hertel, Help Desk/Web Support Librarian at Lehigh University

OK, this isn't what Tina's session was officially called, but it's what she had on her presentation and I thought it was a great 'alt' title! All the links that Tina reviewed are available on a website available at: http://bit.ly/HT3S1. This session has become a 'PaLA Annual Classic', over 100 (at least) attended, and there was literally standing room only.

A few of my notes (I missed the first part due to a phone call)

Hakia uses semantic ranking rather than popularity ranking, as does Google. They also label all results and 'relevant' results (picked by librarians).
ChaCha - mobile searching (can also text questions)
Virtual Reference Shelf - reference sources by formats like almanacs from Library of Congress
GovTrack.us - create your own 'track'
Wolfram Alpha - provides info about a topic rather than websites
Forvo - tells you how to pronounce words in over 200 languages
Diigo - 'Delicious on steroids' -- allows you to put sticky notes on and highlight; can set it up in Diigo so that your Delicious account will be automatically updated
Netvibes - personal reading page which you can also make public (similar to iGoogle and PageFlakes, which do not let you make your page public)
Awesome Highlighter - easiest to use of three similar tools - highlights a section of a web page
Zamzar - free online file conversion; works with MS Works
bit.ly - makes smaller URLs than TinyURL (good for Twitter users) AND tracks usage, including others linking into the URL
YouSendIt - lets you send large files for free
Communication tools - Skype
Meebo - Web-based manages Twitter, AIM, or other chats and other accounts
TinyChat - can create a chat room without an account; permanent
Collaboration - Basecamp - has word processing, calendars, etc.
Wiggio - for working as a group; also have video chat
eLearning - through Eluminate - online video conferencing; can meet with 3 people for 'free'; free 'public' version that is open to anyone; or can purchase a paid sub
Slideshare - lets you upload and share presentations (PPT); can also handle audio
Prezi - zooming presentation editor; can create a path
Jing - free and paid version; from Camtasia; can use for one-on-one help
Online Mapping Tools - alternative to outlining (or whiteboarding, brainstorming), graphically based
Polling Everywhere - Text Message Polling
Poll Daddy - similar to Survey Gizmo
Doodle - easy scheduling online
Picnik - can do photo editing
Back Up URL - make a cache
How do I keep track of new tools?Techcrunch, Lifehacker, KillerStartups (evaluates new web sites, 15 each day)

2009-10-19T06:02:00.001-07:00

Putting the Wow into Your Library Using Nonverbal and Merchandising Principles
Larry Nesbit, Mansfield Univ (retired)
Joyce Seno, Larson Design Group
Judy Brown, Brodart Co.

I was interested in this session as we're thinking about reconfiguring some space in our library but have no budget, and I thought I could get some 'free' tips. Although the session was mostly directed at public libraries, there were lots of nuggets that academic libraries could use too.

The three speakers followed a format of each addressing the same 'talking point' from their perspective, usually with Nesbit first, and then Seno and Brown following. Larry is a Library Building Consultant and helps libraries develop a program for renovation within their budget. Once he's consulted with the client, he'll turn the project over to Joyce, the architect, who then designs a graphical plan (including HVAC and electrical). And finally Judy works with library to make decisions on furniture, etc.

They first addressed how much library buildings have changed so much in last 6 years, primarily in that libraries are now being designed from the user's perspective not the librarians'. Libraries are (no surprise here) looking at retailers, especially bookstores, to pick up some cues for improving their space.

2 important factors to keep in mind: Everyone wants a cafe! Why? Because commercial bookstores have them! Also, computers are omnipresent.

Nonverbal communication is very important in design and varies by culture. 75% of how we communicate is nonverbal. Nesbit used an example from Wegman's - they use ceramic tile to slow down carts in their produce section because they want shoppers to take their time. Use of flooring, smells and textures are important to the user experience.

Library as the 3rd space
1st space: Home
2nd space: Work
3rd space: Community space

Requirements for 3rd space is that it be safe and comfortable, provide social opportunities, and provide a place where people can accomplish something worthwhile

The retail view looks at space from a user's viewpoint, and looks at different zones.

Civic zones:
-Outside the building, be aware of surroundings, look at retail stores
-Entrances are very important; take stuff off windows and doors, it creates clutter and confusion
-Put displays and maybe a bench in your vestibule
-When you walk into a Borders, what do you see? Books. When you walk in a library, what do you see? The Circulation Desk. Don't make your users have to hunt for your 'stuff'
-When you create displays, don't put too much on display, which causes confusion
-Leave enough space so people are 'butt-brushing' - women especially hate this

Information commons idea is the marriage of computers with service
Villanova (which used Larson) used individual and group work stations, flooring/carpeting to direct the traffic flow, and decluttered. The individual and group areas are both important; want to let users create a sense of territory and privacy.

Brodart has designed some flexible Information Commons furniture - "grid wall" to separate spaces.

Seating is important, "seating says you care". Use empty space or extra space for placing seating. Seating is the #1 request of users. Keep seating next to windows or use lamps if cannot.

Keep in mind the use of endpanels in your stacks. The stacks are the "Forgotten Zone" -- we want users to get into the stacks and use more. Carve out searing in stacks areas. Pull out some books for display, if possible. Use lower shelving too. Have 'lookup stations' with computers at ends of stacks, for ease of use.

Administrative Zone -- how to get a flow through technical services. May need to reconfigure this area too.

Larry recommended reading Paco Underhill's book, Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping; it's a classic! I didn't manage to snag his bibliography, so I guess I'll have to email him for a copy.

2009-10-18T13:37:00.001-07:00

Around the Campus in 8 Days: Learn How Librarian House Calls Can Create a Buzz About Your Library
Renate Sachse, Catalog and Circulation Librarian, and Andy Gulati, Systems Librarian, Franklin & Marshall College

This was a very engaging presentation about how F & M librarians take 2 weeks each semester to visit academic departments on campus. Ten librarians make 'house calls' with their liaison depts. F & M is a very walkable campus, and the library has a good-sized collection with lots of study space. Librarians do not have tenure at F & M, and they thought that 'house calls' would provide a perfect excuse to visit faculty and staff, and dept. coordinators.

How does it work? Each semester, for 2 weeks after fall and spring breaks, librarians travel in pairs, and tour for no more than 2 hours per slot, and no more than 2 slots per day. Traveling in pairs is optimal -- 3 was too many, and 1 doesn't work too well, as the librarian-faculty relations is not really an 'equal' one.

Advertising is primarily done through 2 emails; first email 6 days before program, setting up program, telling them what to expect, give them talking points (ill, requesting books, etc, new resources). In the email, they do ask for appointments, but there has not been much demand for that. They select a 2 hour period when people are likely to be in their offices. They also send second email at beginning of 2nd week of visiting, highlighting some of the ‘good questions' they've gotten, which seems to spark interest.

They travel with literature (a nice brochure about the Library which is also used at Parents’ weekend plus a brochure with all the librarians’ pictures and their liaison areas) and pens. In the past they've also given a coupon for free coffee for ‘significant interactions’.

They only knock on open doors, introduce self and their purpose– ‘we’re here to see if you have any research questions…’ If there is no response, they will fall back on ‘talking points’ until they have a question 1) highlighted databases 2) their dept. budget 3) where students can go for help

Highlights over the years:

-Andy writes up a report with abbreviated questions, and for whole year to see what they've done and what to do next year

-2003 - 33 contacts first year (15% of faculty)

-2004 - # of house calls jumped ~50%
-2005 - start of successful outreach program to international students, faculty are pleased with the new patron-initiated (EZborrow) -

-Their outreach program was an outgrowth of their house calls.

They are careful to respect faculty members' confidentiality.

2006 - started promoting digitized programs, quiet study areas, 'Ask Andy' (over 1,000 questions a year, including texting, up to 2 am) and librarian research appointments.

2007 - faculty members' ongoing concern for students' knowledge of research processes; marketing of good will.

2008 - citation concerns; increase in student/faculty collaborations.

2009 - sciences demand online journal access and SciFinder Scholar; LibQUAL survey currently.

Average number about 50 - 60 per semester (out of 200+). There is enough turnover among faculty, so that about 30% of their contacts is with new faculty.

Observations:
-Their focus is on quality vs. quantity. They know they are not going to you get 100% involvement. The process can't be a numbers game, it's about building relationships
-You have to be sensitive to office space dynamics and human nature - you are entering their space and should be sensitive to that; the interpersonal interaction is everything
-They have been considering inclusion of computing services, but are not sure how to do that
-They are building their mission statements and goals
-This service can be adapted to university library settings (with college focus); special libraries; public libraries (legislators? constituents?)

Future?
-Possibly including members of library staff or computing services (if have good interpersonal skills), pros and cons
-Understanding budgets and finding ways the library can best support the College mission
(time of opportunity?)
-Get the most out of what you have, despite library budget cuts; faculty are not often aware (let them know something about library budget)

-Q & A Period - Renate and Andy answered our questions
-Do try to get librarians to go to other depts. outside their areas
-Liaisons tend stick to own areas, but good to get them to branch out
-Do visit admissions, and other offices; but visiting some depts. wasn't so productive, so they do tend to focus on academic depts. However, they've had productive meetings with Advancement/Development offices, International Students, Admissions, Career Services, Writing Center

2009-10-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

What Net Generation Students Really Want From the Library: Determining Help-Seeking Preferences of Undergraduates
Lizah Ismail, Assistant Professor/Coordinator of Public Services, Marywood University

Lizah began by showing a ideo from YouTube called "Digital World: Kids Today", which made the message that the 'Net generation' are social networkers, builders of a digital culture, multi-taskers.

Many librarians are trying to take up the challenge, and meeting students 'on their own turf' - in dorms (Nims, 1998). Marywood librarians tried that, but it was not really successful, as students preferred to do homework in library, not in dorm.

She read studies that showed that (some) students preferred 'face-to-face interactions' (Oblinger & Oblinger, 2005; Johnson, 2004), and had only a moderate preference for technology.

Myths debunked in CIBER 2008 study
1) all young people are interested in social networking
2) young people are more competent with computers
3) it is important to be where users are in a social network environment

Important point: Before doing outreach, know your users. "User studies.. are a necessary component of any student-centered academic library" - Foster & Gibbons (2007)

Char Booth (2009) - on ACRL page also talks about importance of user studies

Marywood University Library history of 'Reference Services' to millennials:
-Began chat reference 2006-2007 - not many takers, but may have been due to short staffing
-Ask Here Roadshow - Spring 2008 - in residence halls - wireless laptop in residence halls, but not many takers; they did in other buildings too, but results were not very encouraging
-Library Forum in Moodle (Fall 2008 - present) - Moodle is their CMS, embedded into 2 courses, Ismail follows course syllabus and posts links and tips; more moderate success

Completed a survey in 2009, and question remains of 'where to go from here?' Methodology of survey:
They used Survey Monkey for easy online access; they had an instutitional annual pro account, good for analysis and downloadable formats for data.

Collaborated with their MIS dept as they wanted to contact only undergrads. So MIS created a listserv of current undgrads, and survey was sent to listserv via email. They posted it 4 times in 3 weeks (IRB approved)

Asked the following demographic info:
1) full-time/part-time?
2) incoming, returning, transfer?
3) age group: 18-22, 23-29, 30-39, 40 & over
4) if they had attended a library instruction session or not

Help-seeking behavior and preferences (used Likert scales)
1) library website visit frequency
2) how often had they asked a librarian for help
3) where did they prefer to get research help
4) resarch help preference
5) confident without librarian help?

Survey
-low response - 245 ~10%, 88% of respondents were Net Generation
-limitations: not generalizable
-possible trend, basis for further studies

Most students were confident without librarian help (3.44 mean)

When they looked at 18-22 age group, new and returning students, they found even more discouraging results. Of other locations besides library, most preferred student center. Most surpising, however, was that most preferred email for help rather than chat/im/texting or CMS or Facebook/MySpace. Appear to prefer to use social networking tools for socializing.

Further studies:
Aim: to obtain statistically significant results. Possibly use focus groups, another survey, collaborations with student activities/IT.

Char Booth 2009 study found that older respondents were more receptive to library technologies than younger ones!

2009-10-18T11:04:00.000-07:00

Open Source and Pennsylvania Public Libraries

I met up with a fellow PASSHE librarian, Jane Hutton, and we both headed to the Open Source session, figuring we would learn something of interest to academic libraries.

First up was Ann Lee, Free Library of Philadelphia
Wish list for catalog, currently unable to do:
Customer tagging
FRBR (1 record for all different formats, editions of a title)

IMLS grant for Kings County, Maryland (?) will be creating a knowledge base for libraries considering open source

FLP, during recent budget crisis, used a 'staff forum' to keep everyone up to date and scotch any false rumors

Also used a staff wiki, for 53 different agencies within FLP, for Programming Directory

Borrowed code frokm NYPL for popup window that everyone visiting their page saw

They use Cold Fusion and Javascript and really like open source. Some favority sites:
http://www.riaforge.org/index.cfm?event=page.category&id=1
Authority for open source Cold Fusion projects

http://galleon.riaforge.org
Site for staff forum application we are using

http://www.cflib.org
Repository of Cold Fusion functions

Betsey Allen, Schlow Centre Region Library
-provided her handout, they are located in central PA, main library is in State College
-all libraries in district have different catalogs, worked with Liblime to create DPAC (their opac), DCAT (cataloging) and DILL (interlibrary loan)
-Use Open Office and Google Apps and Drupal for library web page, and Dim Dim for conferencing

ILS systems in district:
Horizon (Sirsi, end of life)
AmLibs (now owned by OCLC)
TLC
Millennium (though HSLSC)
Exploring Koha and Evergreen - test versions

Planning:
-district plan was needed, got library directors together and brainstormed and decided they wanted an open source, common ILS (and not too costly)
-merging systems of 2 libraries has shown a real benefit to end users

Outstanding questions:
-functionality requirements
-consortium granularity vs. high-level demands
-acquisitions - vendor integration, SIP
-autonomy vs. standard rules
-time-frame

State has been interested in working on a statewide open source project, and the district wants to make sure they are in step with the project

John Brice, Crawford County Library System - 9 libraries, Meadville Public Library
-using open source (Koha)
-operating system doesn't really matter, browser is more important as that's the way the user accesses the info
-programming is an easily taught skill (in community colleges)
-has a full-time programmer, but are not paying any license fees

Koha
-started in New Zealand, built with open source programs and tools, Uses MySQL, Apache, written with Perl, full international MARC support, Z39.50 compliant
-installed all over the world, strong support on foreign library market
-uses FRBR to begin with
- 17 countries worldwide, go to http://koha.org/support/pay-for-support
-Invest money to get exact system you want - they always buy the absolute best hardrives they can
-Their programmer developed their own interface for staff side of Koha
-They use LibraryThing for their pictures, which are free
-His presentation is at http://www.meadvillelibrary.org/os

Had to leave early so was unable to catch the rest of the session...

2009-10-16T07:20:00.000-07:00

We have a Facebook page! Check our newest posts here ( lower right).

Here's the direct URL:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/PaLA-College-Research-Division-CRD/153686726915

If you're in Facebook, search for "pala crd".

2009-08-05T09:16:00.000-07:00

As academic librarians return from what was summer break on balmy beaches for some and uninterrupted work for others, it bears thinking about possible outlooks for the new school year. For many in academe, the return to class is marked by concern over the “melt” of student admissions over the summer and the poor financial situation of the world generally. In searching Technorati, talking with colleagues and observing librarians, I don't sense the same sort of muffled panic as our friends in academic affairs may be feeling with regard to student retention and availability of resources. Certainly, there has been some curtailing of building projects and other heuristic examples of difficult times, but all-in-all academic librarians and their parent institutions have not been hit too hard by the financial meltdown. As librarians emerge from the long dark night of concerns over the prophesied demise of the profession with the general feeling that Internet searching might not be the death knell some folks conceptualized it as, our future is pretty bright compared to some professions despite our pervasive and profound public relations problem (I claim no researched basis for the first part of that sentence, only a general supposition).

My heart then goes out to our colleagues in public libraries whom have had funding sources decimated, their services cut at a time of very significant upturns in door counts, computer usage and other metrics (see http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/240212 for one example of many articles on the subject). Glenn Miller, Executive Director of the Pennsylvania Library Association, has been filling many of our inboxes with some pretty dire news and calls to action over the summer. (A few of them had a fantastic quote, “libraries are the emergency room for the unemployed.”) The initial proposed cuts were indeed very dire. Over time, through the stalwart efforts of Glenn and many other librarians and library supporters in the state, the library community has won some minor gains. That is not to say the work is all done by any means. Governor Rendell announced today that a temporary budget to facilitate paying state workers is going into place (see the article at http://bit.ly/O3v27), but the main contentions have yet to be resolved. Those who have heeded the calls to action need to continue to do so and those of us (like me) who could spend more time sending messages to our representatives should. In the final analysis, however, PaLA might not get the even funding it is pushing. So, yes, things could get even worse.

As we enter the new semester, if you are feeling fairly confident in academic libraries and are considering new projects or a new outlook for the new school year, then consider working with your public librarian or library systems. Public/academic cooperation is probably under-researched, underused and under-valued and even if one makes the argument that it is not; those are fellow librarians stranded on the financial woe floe and it behooves us to help ourselves and the profession in the short term while some brilliant and deft mind solves our crippling PR issues in the long term. Sound off in the comments if anyone has a great project or another way to help public libraries from an academic standpoint.

2009-06-08T15:03:00.000-07:00

Pennsylvania Library Bulletin Now Indexed in EBSCO's Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts Database!

The Pennsylvania Library Association is proud to announce that the PaLA Bulletin is now indexed in LISTA, the Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (LISTA) database. LISTA, the oldest continuously produced database covering the field of information science, is provided as a free resource from EBSCO via this link and via many public and academic libraries (note that the 'abstracts only' are available through LISTA; EBSCO also offers a full-text version for subscription).

As of today, the first two issues for 2009 (volume 64, issues 1 and 2) and the last issue for 2008 (volume 63, issue 10) are searchable. Issues dating back to 2007 will gradually be added over time.

I love librar* button | Library Stuff

2008-12-06T07:43:00.000-08:00

Truncation humor, gotta love it!

I love librar* button | Library Stuff

2008-11-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

Greetings from King of Prussia!

The PaLA Annual 2008 Conference has begun. The College and Research Division has lined up a very impressive slate of speakers this year. Unfortunately, I can't attend them all, although I'd like to.

The first session I attended was on Sunday afternoon, entitled, "Researching Student Searching'. The session was comprised of two sets of speakers who addressed student learning from two different angles. The first 2 speakers, Kate Carter, Digital Initiatives Coordinator, and Spencer Lamm, Digital Initiatives Programmer/ Analyst, both of Swarthmore College. They discussed the findings of the Swarthmore Digital Initiatives Group which tested some of the myths or assumptions held by students attending the Tri-College (Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, and Haverford). After making the caveat that their findings would not necessarily apply to other institutions, they discussed the findings and how they impacted their services.

Myth 1: Students don't use the library anymore; they pretty much start and end with Google.
In reality, 40% of the students they surveyed did start their searches with Google and/or Wikipedia, but usually for those topics about which they knew very little.
21% start with JSTOR (!), which they had learned to use in high school and tended to go to by default
14% start with Amazon to identify books on a topic that they want, and then move over to the catalog. They reported liking Amazon's search capabilities and being able to get some results, unlike searches in their catalog which often resulted in 0 'hits'
The remainder (25%?) began their searching in various subject databases including one 'outlier' who reported beginning searching in Lexis-Nexis (!)

Myth 2: Students want the single search box that searches everything the library has.
Reality: To test this myth, the Digital Initiative group observed students actually using Metasearch (360Search). Students initially reported that they really liked the concept of being able to search everything; however, as they used it they reported disliking the search interface and the results. Why? Overall, they found the process user-unfriendly and tedious.

Myth 3: Students will transfer the technologies they use in their personal lives (like Facebook) to their academic lives; AND students want to express themselves by adding tags and reviews to library web sites.
Reality: Students did not thinking tagging would be that helpful if done by other students. They thought it might be helpful if their professors tagged. In short, students did not want to take the trouble to tag and do reviews, nor did they want other students to do it. What did they want? 91% wanted spell check in the OPAC. And many of them mentioned wanting a new EZBorrow interface.

Essentially, students wanted technology that worked and they wanted it customized. When they were shown WorldCat Local, they liked many of its features but did not like the lack of customization. The Digital Initiatives group noted that many of the next generation catalogs (like VuFind and Library Find out of Oregon) are not quite ready yet. So the question is, how to improve what is already being offered in their catalog called Tripod. The Digital Initiatives group has begun offering bookmarklets so that users doing a search on Amazon, for instance, can easily check and see if it's in Tripod. Bookmarklets.com offers code that can easily be individualized for a library.

Kate and Spencer also reported using Library Thing for Libraries for Tripod. Simply send your ISBNs to Library Thing, and they will supply tags. Look for more information on the PaLA Conference Web site.

The second session was entitled, "Teach Them to Fish! Incorporating Active Learning into Information Literacy Sessions for Developmental Students," given by Rachel Rohlf, Harrisburg Area Community College, who gave a very engaging presentation discussing active learning strategies she uses with developmental students. For those not familiar with the term developmental, this refers to students who must take remedial classes to get their skills up to speed before they can take college classes for credit.

Rachel began by showing the 'Learning Pyramid' which illustrates the different modalities by which people learn and how much they retain with this modality. At the top of the pyramid, which people retain least, is the 'Lecture', followed by Audio-Visual (i.e., movies), Demonstrations, Discussion, Practice, and Teaching Others.

Preparing 'active' learning sessions, using the bottom of the pyramid requires a lot of preparation on the instructor's part, but is less work in the long run. It also means sacrificing quantity for quality. You cannot 'cover' everything in a single session. This is a problem with some faculty because -- they want it all! One way around this is to use instruction menus with faculty, to find out exactly what their goals for the session are and to let them see the amount of time each will take.

So what types of instruction do they offer at HACC? They offer individual subject-specific sessions, of course, as well as their Library Workshop Series, for which some professors give extra credit to students for attending. And they also teach a component of the College Success class for the developmental students for 4 weeks. The bulk of Rachel's session was devoted to describing the learning activities she uses for this course. They have found that providing lots of repetition to these students help them master the content. Some successful activities include:

Using Guided Note Taking - during a session, the instructor provides a worksheet which students have to complete by filling in the blanks. This means they have to listen carefully; the definitions are written out, students merely have to listen for what the term is that's being defined and fill out the sheet. Graded assignments are based on these guided notes
Narrowing topics - rather than just telling students to narrow a topic, they have them work through, in small groups, some practice topics that actually are narrowed
Hands-on scholarly vs. popular - criteria for evaluating them are provided, and then students work in groups to practice working on identifying different types of periodicals and tell why they are either scholarly or popular
Dewey Decimal Game - students are assigned a number and have to line up in decimal order
Boolean Operators - students have to respond by standing up in groups of 1) who is wearing blue jeans, 2) who is wearing blue jeans OR pants, 3) who is wearning blue jeans AND pink -- and then explain what is going on
Concept blocks -- helps students break down their thesis statement into component parts; helps them identify synonyms, Boolean identifiers, etc.
A GOOD Treasure Hunt (yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus) -- Students work in a group with assigned roles like time keeper, note taker; every group has a DIFFERENT assignment (key), and then the groups report back to the larger group and are given a GRADE for completing the assignment (also key)

Last of all, Rachel shared her favorite web tool for creating online games for students to practice various skills -- Quia.com. It's relatively cheap for a one year subscription ($49 for individual, group rates available). Go to http://www.quia.com/shared/ and check out some of the quizzes others have created. Just go to Library Science to view a list of games.

Rachel offered to send her slides to anyone who emailed her at rsrohlf (at sign) hacc (dot) edu. I dare say that many of her suggestions can be adapted for regular students. -- LN

2008-10-01T13:23:00.000-07:00

The LIS Faculty Perspective: The Evolving Digital Age at Drexel University

Steven Bell gave the last presentation of the day, providing a different perspective on transitioning to electronic resources by drawing from his experience teaching in Drexel's iSchool. He spoke about the raison d'etre for electronic resources -- the students -- and how their use of them has changed from the 1990s.

Currently 70% of the students at Drexel's iSchool are totally online students. For them, e-journals are essential. Students are coming out of library school having had a vastly different experience with electronic resources than most librarians have had in their LIS education.

Steven surveyed three classes (2 face-to-face and and 1 online class) about the amount of readings they had in electronic format. The greatest number of students (approximately half) reported that 81-99% of their readings were online, and slightly more than one-quarter reported that 61-80% of their readings were online. Most students reported that they had not had much experience using electronic resources as undergraduates.

Students said that the positive impact of electronic resources on the LIS experience were that it:

makes earning a degree possible for those who are employed or otherwise unable to attend face-to-face classes
enabled them to save money on gas!

Some of the negative factors:

Students said that they should be forced to the library to experience print and know how to find stuff in the library
They did not like the experience of reading e-books online
They felt they needed to print out all their readings because they would lose access to them after the course ended

So how are the faculty using electronic resources? Steven referred to a 2006 Ithaka study, titled "Studies of Key Stakeholders in the Digital Transformation in Higher Education" published in August 2008 and available here. Highly recommended reading.

Steven's parting thoughts:

traditional students find value in e-resources; we should facilitate faculty efforts to support students use of e-resources
this goes double for online students!
LIS students live in an e-resource world
the Humanities/Social Science faculty may need more of a push to use e-resources

Steven's PowerPoint is available here.

2008-09-29T16:36:00.000-07:00

From Innovation to Transformation: Managing the Transition from Print to Electronic Journals

Patrick Carr, the Electronic and Continuing Resources Acquisitions Coordinator at East Carolina University, spoke next. He began by recapping the problem currently faced by libraries: rising serial subscription costs of roughly 10% a year and flat library budgets. Expenditures for serials consume an ever-greater percent of the library budget, and libraries have been faced with essentially two alternatives: consortial buying partnerships or pay-per-view access. Consortial partnerships have become the dominant model for acquiring e-journal content.

At Mississippi State University, where Patrick previously worked, the Library was able to increase the number of journals they subscribed to via their "journal expansion project." By working with liaison librarians and faculty subject experts, they identified duplicate titles and titles to be cancelled, and swapped them for desired titles. Working with vendors like Wiley and Elsevier, they were able to add new subscriptions for less or only slightly more money.

Patrick commented that the pay-per-view model isn't really a mainstream model. It requires libraries to develop accounts whereby authorized users can download articles at the library's expense. The problem with this model is that it's difficult to keep control of costs. However, some institutions have adopted this model, providing their users with access to journals they would normally be unable to use.

With regards to providing users with content, Patrick noted two trends.

Trend #1) Every user his or her access point
There is no one correct way of approaching or accessing information. For example, users might find their information via the OPAC, A-Z Journal lists, a metasearch engine, link resolvers, and so on.

Trend #2) Toppling information silos
There is a greater reliance on using a single knowledge base (a la VuFind, metasearch, etc.) to access information. The number of libraries using metasearch continues to grow as more and more librarians accept the reality (to paraphrase Jane Burke) that a federated search engine is a necessity, not a luxury.

Patrick next discussed the administration and support of e-resources, which are closely allied. In particular, he discussed several standards/initiatives that will impact e-resources:
1 - Electronic Resources Management Initiative (ERMI) - Its goal is consistent, industry‐wide e‐resource management guidelines.
2 - Shared E-Resource Understanding (SERU) - This is a pragmatic alternative to license
negotiations. Patrick shared an instance when instead of renegotiating an unacceptable license agreement, he was able to persuade the vendor to accept the standard SERU license agreement. He was happy, the vendor was happy.
3 - TRANSFER - This refers to a code of practices dictating what happens when an e‐journal transfers from one publisher to another (not a pretty situation as every tech services and public services librarian knows)
4 - Knowledgebases and Related Tools (KBART) - Provides guidelines for the effective interaction between members of the knowledge base supply chain (e.g., publishers, aggregators, link resolvers, libraries).
5 - Cost of Resource Exchange (CORE) - Its goal is interoperability between the acquisitions'
data in a library’s ILS and ERM system.

He noted that "effective e-journal management requires personnel capable of adapting to and mastering a complex and constantly changing array of tools, interfaces, and workflows," and he demonstrated this complexity by showing us a flowchart taken from an article by Rick Anderson and Paoshan Yue, "Capturing Electronic Journals Management in a Flowchart" (Serials Librarian 51:3/4: 101-8, 2007).

One piece of e-journal management is evaluation. Formerly, when evaluating a print subscription, librarians had a pretty clear-cut decision: either maintain a subscription or cancel it. With e-journals, there are more questions to be answered:

How many 'simultaneous users' does the library need to pay for?
What interface is best when there are several to choose from?
Should the library subscribe to individual titles or to a package?
Should it subscribe to archives or just current issues?
Should access be by IP address or password?
And so on...

He next talked about the impact of e-resources on the print collection, noting that libraries are devoting less space to housing print materials and more space to areas for patron collaboration. Some of the challenges faced when weeding the print collection include identifying titles, evaluating the quality of online access, finding environmentally responsible means of disposing of the print, and (very important) avoiding negative PR.

Finally, libraries need to ensure that they will have perpetual access to their electronic journals. Libraries should become members of some initiative to ensure this such as LOCKSS (Lots of Copies Keeps Stuff Safe) and Portico, a non-profit initiative developed with support from JSTOR, Ithaka, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Library of Congress.

Last of all, Patrick (who holds an MA in English) shared a poem by Samuel Beckett with us that sums up his belief that we need needn't be afraid to "Fail Better!":

Ever tried.
Ever failed.
No matter.
Try again.
Fail again.
Fail better.

2008-09-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

Blogging "In the Transition Zone" - Part I, Judy Luther
Well, I'm finally getting around to blogging the excellent CRD workshop, "In the Transition Zone: Making the Move from Print to Electronic Journals," held in Grantville on Sept. 12. (I know, I should have live-blogged at the event itself, but I didn't, so that's that.)

Joe Fennewald, PaLA president-elect, opened the day by giving what Judy Luther called the absolute best 'pitch' to join an association she had ever heard. And I assume she's heard a few. (At PaLA Leadership Orientation this week, I suggested that Joe film his spiel for YouTube or some such and post it to the PaLA web site; it was that good.) Joe also distributed "Funds for the Future" brochures, which were snapped up by attendees apparently inspired to at least donate money to PaLA to support its advocacy work if not actually join it.

Judy Luther, president of Informed Strategies, gave her presentation entitled "Crossing the Digital Divide: Navigating the Changing Landscape." I had never heard Judy speak before and found her very engaging and easy to listen to. She compared an earlier study on growth in electronic resources with a newer one she recently completed with Rick Johnson for ARL, entitled, The E-only Tipping Point for Journals: What's Ahead in the Print-to-Electronic Transition Zone. Much of her talk was based on this study. The rate of change in ARL libraries from print only to electronic from 2002 to 2006 has exceeded her predictions, but there still remain some glitches or "bumps in the road" as she termed them. This quote from the study nicely sums up the problem:

Publishers and libraries today find themselves in an extended transition zone between print-only and e-only journals. The persistence of dual-format journals suggests that substantial obstacles will need to be surmounted if the transformation to e-only publication is to be complete. Approximately 60% of the universe of some 20,000 active peer-reviewed journals is available in electronic form. Online journals are popular with readers; online use of library-provided journals exceeds print use by a factor of at least ten, according to a University of California study. While electronic formats offer powerful attractions for users, the costs of supporting hybrid collections are straining library resources and the economies of the e-only collection are still speculative.

Just as libraries currently support hybrid collections, publishers are investing in both print and online publishing. A declining number of mostly smaller publishers still offer their journals only in print and a growing number of journals are available only in electronic form. But today’s norm is dual print and electronic publication of a title. A few publishers, having adjusted their pricing to the dual-format model, are trying to hasten the day when they can discontinue print and the associated costs. But most are either navigating a gradual transition or holding onto print.

Judy noted the difference in organizational perspective between libraries and publishers. Libraries have moved more quickly to e-only, while publishers are moving more slowly to drop the print. Publishers are still designing their publications as print ones and are challenged by the whole idea of metadata. She noted that XML is vastly preferred to PDF format for making this transition.

Factors affecting libraries' migration to e-only:
1) The readiness of readers to accept e-only
2) An e-only pricing model
3) Perpetual access and archiving provisions, such as those offered by LOCKSS and Portico
4) The management of e-only. For example, libraries should consider using SERU as an alternative to e-resource licenses. SERU stands for Shared Electronic Resource Understanding: "publishers and librarians agree on the products for which they wish to reference SERU and forgo a license agreement"

Factors affecting publishers' migration to e-only:
1) The readiness of readers
2) Assessment of risks of e-only option; for some publishers it means the potential loss of revenue, especially in clinical areas
3) Workflow and production issues
4) Distribution issues

She cited MIT's Technology Review as a good example of how more can be done with online publication but noted that change is and will be incremental.

Judy answered questions at the end of her session. Someone asked about the relationship between aggregators and publishers as more publishers are publishing electronically. She noted that there is lots of tension between the two groups. Aggregators do offer lots of content to libraries that could not afford it otherwise, and while the visibility is good on aggregator databases, it is also riskier for publishers, many of whose subscriptions are dropping 8-10% a year (for "core" publications in the Wilson indexes). If publishers are smart, they are imposing embargoes.

Someone else asked about the relationship between Open Access and e-only publishing. Judy said Open Access relies on e-only publishing but is not a business model. It works OK in the sciences, but not so well in the humanities and social sciences because of funding.

2008-06-27T10:19:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-06-23T15:47:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-06-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

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.

2008-06-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

CRD members enjoying the Altoona Curve baseball game.

2008-05-14T05:00:00.000-07:00

Blended Librarian Webcast: Opening New Windows of Opportunity: Creating Breakthrough Instructional Experiences

I just got an email that Brian Mathews, the Ubiquitous Librarian who will be speaking at the CRD Spring Workshop in Altoona on June 9, is a guest of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community on Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 3 pm. EST, hosted by PA librarians Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders.

Brian's 'event' is called 'Opening New Windows of Opportunity: Creating Breakthrough Instructional Experiences.' Brian will "speak on 'breakthrough opportunities' as he shares his latest ideas on creating interactive library experiences for students. This session will feature tactics for engaging students in both the classroom as well as in digital environments. Brian will also discuss possibilities for the library and librarians to become a more integrated part of campus and will highlight his ubiquitous 'push-out' philosophy."

The event is free, but advance registration is required. You also need to be a member of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community. Here's a link to the Web page with a link to join. Sounds interesting.

2008-05-10T12:47:00.000-07:00

Library Association Newsletters

I've been doing some research into how library association newsletters are indexed in the library science literature for PaLA and have come up with the following chart. (Click on it to get a larger view; unfortunately, Blogger doesn't let you upload Excel spreadsheets, so I couldn't hyperlink the URLs.)

You'll see that 11 of the 21 associations that publish newsletters are indexed in the library literature. It's also interesting that only 7 of the 21 do not allow open access to their newsletters.

More to follow.

2008-03-11T11:53:00.000-07:00

Best Wishes, Barbara!

The CRD Board bids a fond farewell to Dr. Barbara Burd as she steps down from the Board at the end of the 2007 -2008 academic year. Barbara will be leaving her position as Library Director for Misericordia University to assume a new position as Executive Director for the Library and Instructional Technology at Coastal Carolina University in South Carolina. It sounds like an exciting opportunity for her, and we wish her all the best of luck!

We'll miss you, Barbara! Thanks for serving on the Board and please keep in touch.

LN

2008-01-02T13:06:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year!

And a warm welcome to our new Chair of the College and Research Division, Christy Roysdon!

Vickie

2007-12-18T12:34:00.001-08:00

Here's a nice photo of the 2007 College and Research Division Board members:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/11126910@N05/1600739858/

From left to right...

Back row: Vickie Kline, Martha Stevenson, Barbara Burd, Linda Neyer, Bonnie Oldham
Front row: Amy Deuink, Tina Hertel, and Christy...

SquirrellyLibrarian: Joe Janes is my new hero!

2007-11-15T07:25:00.000-08:00

If you ever have a chance to hear Joe Janes speak, take it - he's a riot. I just heard him speak on Reference 2.0 at Internet Librarian. Check out my blog for more:

SquirrellyLibrarian: Joe Janes is my new hero!

Vickie

2007-11-14T16:39:00.000-08:00

Just Nuts about Rainie!

I had the good fortunate to hear Lee Rainie at both PaLA 2007 and Internet Librarian 2007.

If you'd like to find out more about the latest research from Pew Internet & American Life Study, check out my blog.

Vickie

2007-10-17T07:33:00.000-07:00

State of the State Networks
James Hollinger, Acting Director of Library Development, Office of Commonwealth Libraries
Chris Matire, Director of Strategic Partnerships, PALINET
Dan Iddings, Executive Director of PALCI
Joseph Scorza, Executive Director, HSLC

James Hollinger spoke first.
-Looking at and discussing Open Source initiative for ILS, following Georgia PINES - possibly using one library card for entire state, bypassing need for ILL.
-Also looking at content management technologies for library web sites (like Oregon's).
-Commissioner of Libraries is interested in providing leadership in preservation of library materials; developing a model for what a position might look like; what kind of leadership role can they provide; next few months should flesh out more
-Continuing education
-Providing network for small, rural libraries

Joe Scorza
-Access PA Millennium System - subsidized; now have over 80 libraries and adding 4-5 a month; separate databases, centralized authority control
-Access PA Digital Repository- have approx. 40 projects http://www.accesspadigital.org/
-Federated Search - WebFeat Enterprise Edition, signed in April 2007; licensed as well as freely available databases; can search across metadata collections; are setting it up to search all Access PA Digital collections; primarily a public search tool; four interfaces, including Academic, recognizes IP; implementation Fall 2007; looking at a geo-location product, can connect from anywhere in PA; Access PA is looking at technology that will push users back to their own libraries
-Power Library - will be integrated into federated search systems; will provide access to both the new and old interfaces
-AskHere PA Virtual Ref Service - 80+ libraries participate; over 47,000 questions since inception; Chat2 most recent software development (screen readers, Chat Lite)

Chris Martire, PALINET
-Collaborative efforts, 614 members, 4 areas: ed and consulting, technology leadership, consortial savings, member outreach & support
1-Education and Consulting 50-60 % of classes are 'Live Online'; participate in WebJunction (training managed by OCLC); Network Education Exchange - bring back other workshops back to our area too; Access PA training
-Consulting - Disaster Preparedness; PALCI Libraries & Philadelphia Alliance for Response (Fidelity Foundation & Heritage Preservation)
-PA Advisory Committee on Collaborative Digitization; Laura Blanchard, Part-Time Coordinator, new approach to determine digitization priority; will be a Technical Issues Working Group (will be holding a Digitization Expo)

2-Technology Leadership: Podcasts (http://blog.palinet.org/podcast/; Open Source Initiatives (software LibLime - Koha and Evergreen software, can get a discount; will be announcing other applications in a Technology Sandbox, cooperative effort with NELINET- DSpace, etc.); Gates Opportunity Online Hardware grants - administer for PA; Technology Workshops (emerging technology, Web sites, specific workshops, etc.)

3-Consortial Savings - work closely with state groups: KLN, PALCI, VALE (NJ), MDL (MD) for academics; WorldCat on the Web Group Offer, negotiated a significant discount; establishing new groups: Hospital-wide groups serving smaller, private hospitals

4-Outreach & Support: PALINET Support Center (recruiting for additional staff); RLG Transition (for those libraries that had not been members of OCLC); bolstering communication via Member Spotlight Series & PALINET News E-Newsletter (weekly); PALINET Leadership Network - beta prototype at ALA in June 07, launching to members in early 2008, Walt Crawford will be taking a leadership role in the Leadership Network; PALINET Conference in Oct. in Baltimore (looking at a catalog futures)

Dan Iddings, PALCI
-New staff, John Barnett, new Full Time Director working in areas of collections, development; New offices in Library Services Building in Pittsburgh; New programs; New newsletter!

-RapidILL - fast delivery of journal articles less than 24 hours; unmediated/automated discovery of article suppliers; unmediated delivery of articles to requesters; unmediated delivery of articles held in open source collections, delivery in less than 30 minutes; 6-8 libraries currently involved, including U of Penn and Marywood, Drexel, Lycoming, Rutgers, Kutztown
-membership now 72 libraries
-new from PALINET, PACSCL & PALCI (3Ps) - Pennsylvania Digital Library, conceived by the 3Ps, implemented by the University of Pittsburgh's Univ of Library System, is now functional

Demo of the Pennsylvania Digital Library - Mike Bolam and Brian Gregg from U of Pitt
-statewide digital metadata depository
-have built on Open Archives Initiative (OAI) and are asking folks to let them know of digital collections so that they can be 'harvested'
-Institutions can register their collections online, but if you're a member of AccessPA Digital project, your materials will be going into it automatically
-If not registered with Open Archives Initiative, need to be sure that your data is OAI compliant; go to your vendor if not sure (strongly recommend registration with OAI) - it's a good thing; then register with their site
-Once you're registered, it is up to individual library to make sure records are displaying properly, etc.
-Need more data to be able to massage the system
-When you think of searching the system, think of it as a type of union catalog; it only contains the data records, doesn't store the content, the better your description, the better your results; they can work with proprietary or copyrighted materials since only accessing metadata
-(Google had not been finding this stuff)

Q & A
-Can we let Google know or have them work? Will be looking at. Perhaps Google Scholar?
(Side note from Joe Scorza: Entire AccessPA database will be loaded into Google Books.)
-Commericial resources like Readex and Gale will not be harvested.

-Open Source: is everyone working together on these initiatives? Yes, they are talking among themselves; are aware of what each other is doing. There is some overlap...
Are creating some platforms to create some synergy...

-ILL - AccessPA is now using ILLiad

-Rapid ILL - works within ILLiad; designated groups (contact DanIddings for more info)

2007-10-17T06:01:00.000-07:00

DMCA, TEACH, and Copyright in Higher Education

by Becky Albitz, Electronic Resources & Copyright Librarian, Penn State

Brief History of Copyright
Copyright are rights granted by U. S. Congress to an author or creator of an original work; does not require registration with the U. S. Copyright office, although registration has its benefits (to file an infringment suit and collect damages, for example). U. S. Constitution Article 1, Section 8; codified in the Copyright Act of 1976; updated in 1998 to take care of digital stuff and bring the U. S. in compliance with other countries' treaties.

You can actually (as the public) can do a lot with copyrighted works, covered under Fair Use.

Doctrine of First Use (Section 109)
-permits you, as holder of a copyrighted work, to sell, lend, rent, or dispose of the physical manifestation of that copyrighted work without permission
-you do not own the copyright to the work, just the physical object
-does not apply to personal copies of computer programs and phonorecords

Doctrine of Fair Use (section 107)
-the stuff we do in higher education
-reserves in libraries falls under this category
-4 factors: 1) purpose and character of use, whehter such use is of a commercial or for nonprofit educational purposes; 2) published or unpublished (published weighted more); 3) amount and substantiality of the portion used (how much? CONFU was an attempt to prescribe, but not accepted by ALA); 4) actual market effect

Court Cases establishing Fair Use boundaries
1-Basic Books v. Kinko's Graphics Corp (educational vs. for-profit use) (Supreme Court decision)
2- Sony v. Universal Studios (Betamax) and Newmark, et al. v. Turner, et al. -- when can you make copies of movies and shows on TV; the technology became the issue. For personal use; were not available for sale.
3- Harper & Row v. Nation Enterprises (how much is too much?) Time to Heal, autobio by Gerald Ford. Time got first serial rights, but Nation published 400 words, the core of the work.
4-Ludlow Music v. JibJab (copyright infringement or parody?) -"This Land is Your Land" - Woody Guthrie's estate sued; settled out of court; lawyers posted their letters online, parody was motive. Tune was actually in the publicd domain. Never got to court, and there was no settlement.

Permitted copying (libraries and archives) - section 108
ILL, individual patron use, preservation of unpublished works, replacement of damaged, lost, or stolen published works, or whose format is obsolete

There is a push to update this with, with the Section 108 Working Group; Librarian of Congress can accept or reject the report

Performance and display - Section 110
-big areas for problems in libraries - vido, dvds and films - are exempt from copying

When can you show a film
-in a regularly scheduled class
-in a classroom or similar place
-if tape off TV, can keep for 40 days
-has been updated under TEACH
-Movie Licensing, Inc. will sell licenses for showing commercial films

-essentially can't show film in public places

DMCA
-passed in 1998, updated 1976 copyright law
-prohibits circumvention of technological protection measures
-prohibits alteration of info embedded in digital works (watermarks, e.g.)
-limits online service providers' liability; someone at an institution has to be designated for take-down notices; have to take down material only

-more info: http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf

-Exceptions to anti-circumvention prohibition: every 3 years, Librarian of Congress may make exceptions for certain classes of works; newest wrinkle: in 2006, permitted circumvention of copyright protection of a/v works included in the educational library of a college or university's film or media studies dept. -- media studies of film professors may circumvent -- very specific; has to be listed as a film course; has caused a lot of problems; film industry did NOT like this exception, probably reason exception was kept so narrow

Bono Copyright Extension Act
-passed with DMCA; extended copyright from life of holder +50 years to 70 years before stuff goes into public domain
-extension challenged in the Supreme Court-Eldred vs. Ashcroft; Supreme Court refused to hear the course, because Congress has the sole right to change copyright

TEACH Act
-passed in 2002 to address concerns surrounding distance education not addressed inthe DMCA
-primarily makes changes to section 110
-institutions may choose to be TEACH Act compliant or not
-TEACH can be used along with fair use- neither is mutually exclusive

To be TEACH Act compliant
1-have to be a nonprofit accredited educational institution or a governmental agency
2-have a policy on use of copyrighted materials
3-provide accurate information to faculty, students and staff about copyright
4-your systems may not interfere with the technological controls for the materials you want to use
5-the materials you want to use must be specifically for students in your class
6-only those students in a class may access the material...
and lots more! (see PowerPoint)

If you do all this stuff, you can use copyrighted materials, print, audio, and video, without seeking permissions or paying fees, BUT TEACH Act is intended to justify use for distance learners, not to replace face-to-face classroom interaction and is NOT to be used as justification for electronic reserves.

Licensing and Copyright
-When you sign a license for an electronic resource, book, video, etc., you give up your copyrights.
-Contract law trumps copyright law
-Know your rights under copyright, and negotiate to have those rights reinstated in the contracts you negotiate!

2007-10-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

Understanding the Problem Before You Solve it: Effective Resource-Based Assignments
Terry Mech, King's College, Wilkes-Barre, PA

Terry began with the statement that Middle States is concerned with the teaching and learning experience. Terry next 'assessed' our assumptions about effective library assignments.

Osmosis - many faculty and students evidently believe they can learn by osmosis.

Full-time students spend about 16 hours a week, about 10% of their total time in a week. Many studies have shown that little learning takes place in class (including in our 50-minute one-shot sessions).

So how do students become info lit? He referenced a study called "Connecting the Dots" which found that a well-designed resource-based assignment increased student retention and learning and their sense of what they can accomplish.

Today's students -- no less intelligent than previous generations. However, they have diverse learning styles & preferences; are visual & kinesthetic learners; have a positive view of technology & their ability to use it.

Students of today --
need to see 'big picture' before disaggregating, expect customization & choices; low threshold for boredom; aliterate, read less; self-assured & self-focused; 'prove it to me' mentality; wants something in exchange; multi-taskers; take word of their peers over the word of the expert; hate busy work; responds well to 'coaching'; like to know the payoff, don't like getting frustrated; weak general knowledge & facts; impatient

Today's students:
-Like structure & clarity
-Like immediate responses
-Like to solve problems
-Like to apply to 'real situations'
-Like collaborative work
-Like to share what they know

35% of college students report large gaps in at least one area, and 86% report some gaps in at least one area. However, employers/instructors are more dissatisfied with high school's skills prep; especially with students' ability to read and understand complicated materials. So students are aware of shortcomings, but not of scope of their shortcomings.

Kolb Learning Style Inventory
4-stage learning cycle
-Concrete experience
-Active experimentation
-Reflective observation
-Abstract conceptualization

Students 70% are active learners 30% are passive learners
Faculty 46% are active learners 54% are passive learners

Scherdin 2002 studies show that librarians, like most faculty, are mostly introverts

Faculty socialization: faculty share a strong belief in education, yet most never really aspired to be college teachers. Many faculty by nature do not enjoy the social interaction central to teaching (Bess, 1982). Grad schools produce subject specialist not undergraduate teachers.

In past not as many students went to college; those that did, taught themselves to learn, but perhaps because more and more students are going to college.

Faculty view teaching as a very private act; don't like "unwelcome intrusions." Most are at the very least not totally comfortable with classroom teaching.

Higher Ed's dark secrets:
- Despite our rhetoric about higher order learning, most faculty still focus on knowledge acquisition (Cashin & Downey, 1995).

Why give assignments?
-Students acquire and refine critical skills
-Reinforce lecture and other materials
-Preparation for future learning activities
-Assess what students have learned
-Apply previous learning in new situation
-Acquire the disciplines' conventions
-Allow students to explore their interests
-Allow them to work at own pace
-Able to use resources not in the classroom
-Encourage independent learning & self-discipline
-Makes the best use of class time

Terry shared his handout, a trait analysis of effective assignments. He emphasized that learning objectives should reflect what you want them to be able to do and to learn. It's important that faculty understand what assumptions they are making about students' ability. Tell them what their evaluation criteria; have to know what hoops they are trying to hitting; a rubric is ideal - difficult to write well - however, it makes grading much easier.

Effective assignments break large projects down into smaller tasks; don't waste students' time.

VERY IMPORTANT: Many faculty teach the subject, not the student.

Active learning
We comprehend:
10% of what we hear or read, but almost 90% of what we do

Faculty dread
grading/evaluation, disappointment of worse work; nuisances of late/sloppy work; plagiarism

Librarians observe
students are not prepared; students do not understand assignment; students read into assignment or unsure how to proceed

Librarians wonder
what does it take to get a copy of the assignment; how much help do we give students before we send them back to the instructor; why are we hesitant to give instructors feedback on their assignments

Sample assignments, from Lynn Cameron
Worst: Term Paper: Write a 15 page paper due the final day of class
Best: Broken down by week, give instruction where to look for resources; how to cite; not necessarily a paper -- could be an pamphlet; define terms (peer-reviewed, substantial); tell students what to consider (issues, for example); begins with the learning objective (Stoloff: ex: in order to write more effective literature reviews, students will read and evaluate reviews written by other students ... to determine what makes an effective review.)

Suggestions for librarians
-give faculty feedback on assignments
-work with your teaching center
-focus on faculty who enjoy and talk about teaching
-search out innovative faculty
-remember that real change takes time

Lots of Q & A
Here's a revolutionary idea: don't do instruction without an assignment! Can do it nicely,
-do not despair

Innovative fauclty tendencies
-interdisciplinary
-internally focused research (what can I do locally)
-non-traditional background
-identify with the intutitional mission
-are older (more secure)
-enjoy teaching at all levels
-talk about teaching (Holland & Latiolais 2007)

Pop Quiz! Terry went over the T and F answers which examined our assumptions

2007-10-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

Information Literacy Trends: Within the Virtual World of Second Life
Alexia Hudson, Penn State Great Valley/Donna Upshaw, Avatar Persona

What is Second Life?
An online, virtual 3-D multi-user, avatar-based "virtual world"developed by Linden Lab
More than 9.9 million 'residents' as of October 10, 2007
Membership is free; your avatar provides a catalyst for individuals to assume a "Second Life"
Alexia staffs the online virtual reference desk within Second Life

Why are people interested in Second Life?
It's fun, first of all. Can do all sorts of things virtually; quadriplegics for instance can 'fly' in Second Life.

Second Life Demographics
~63% are between 25-44 years of age; avg. age is 33 (in adult grid)
~42% are women
-US constitutes about 26.5% of residents followed by Brazil, Japan, German, the UK, France and Italy (there is a translation device called 'Babbler' which doesn't work in Japanese yet)

Type of info you have to give to register - name, credit card, has to be real name because of cultural norms which are tracked

Real Businesses & Educational Institutions
-Virtual Currency is called Linden Dollars, is exchanged for services & items in SL
-Current exchange rate $1 = $186 L
-Business Week featured first millionaire in Second Life in 2006
-Electric Sheep Company is one of the companies specializing in developing and managing virtual networks

Ed institutions using SL:
-Harvard Law School
-NYU
-Penn State, etc.

Penn State Second Life Pilot Project
-ETS (Ed Tech Services at PSU) purchased several virtual islands within SL (Penn State Isles)
-http://ets.tit.psu.edu/gaming/ - Penn State Educational Gaming Commons Blog
-Penn State began investigation in 2005
-They believe avatar based learning applications will become the 'norm' for the next generation of Penn State students

Second Life's Connection to Librarianship and Info Lit
-at Penn State, have used in 2 courses:
Operations Management and Information Science Seminar, total of 43 students; built a virtual library for students

Trends
-Students & their employers identified the library as the place for info & instruction of Second Life
-Librarians gave students a space in Second Life to play with and learn aspects of SL
-Virtual Reference/Distance Ed: time in SL given course-related instruction, reference consultations, and providing resources (landmarks) to qualified SL locations for Research projects

It's essentially a tool for distance education, only avatar-based. For example, a class will meet online in a room with avatars. There is more classroom interaction with avatars since it doesn't require the bandwidth that webcasting does.

May need to add more RAM on computer to sustain gaming environment. Crashing computers is a fairly common occurrence.

The pilot courses using Second Life are synchronistic, not asynchronistic; students have to be there at the time the course meets.

Probably not appropriate for vision-impaired students because SL is so visually oriented.

Lots of questions from the audience; for many of us, this is a new concept and people are trying to 'wrap their minds' around Second Life.

Can be highly addictive in terms of time; do have to manage your time.

Is a highly monitored environment; 'Big Brother is watching' -- socially inappropriate behavior is monitored and banned.

Learning Ecology
--can simulate a possible 'real world' business scenarios prior to implementation
--fostering a unique learning environments

2007-10-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

Who and What Comes After the Millennials?
College & Research Division Luncheon
Lee Rainie, Project Director, Pew Internet & American Life Project

Millennials = digital natives, born in 1989 and later. Haven't had to learn to use technology, have always used it. Reviewed some important dates. Blogs came into their own in 1997, but really came into their own after 9/11 in 2001, and again in 2003 (with Howard Dean's presidential campaign using blogspace). Folksonomies/tagging: many users, one item; one user, many items; many users, many items. Twitter - short form blogging; people can sub to your Twitter. (Technology staff at Penn State uses it!)

Lee showed us a video on YouTube on the power of the Web, by Prof. Mike Wesch at Kansas State University.
Five hallmarks of new digital ecosystem
1. Home media gadgets are ubiquitous
2. The Internet is the computer -- people are using online applications. Broadband users have grown in numbers; they use the Internet different than dial-up users.
3. New gadgets allow people to enjoy media, gather info, and carry on communication anywhere. Wirelessness is its own adventure. 88% of college students have cell phones; 81% of college students own digital cameras. Think of it as a way of communicating with their friends.
4. Ordinary citizens have a chance to be publishers, movie makers, artists, song creators, and story tellers. Over half of online teens have a social network site, but more and more are putting up some privacy restrictions. Four out of 10 teens have created something online. Many teens are 'tech support' for their families. 33% of college students keep blogs as an online diary, for their friends. Much higher content creation rates for young people than for older folks.

But here's the good news -- the things that engaged students in past still engage them. They are not techno-snobs; they are actually quite compliant and willing to work with you in whatever way you want. You don't have to move into their ecology totally.

Time spent with media, among 8-18 year-olds; almost 8.5 hours a day engaging in some form of media (including newspapers, magazines, and books) but packed into about 6.5 hours a day. How do they do that? Multitasking! Students live in a state of "continuous partial attention" which adds to their stress and distracts them from completing tasks well. (Linda Stone) Counterargument -- you're more efficient, using new info.

Millennials' relationship to information changes. Volume: long tail grows. Velocity -- smart mobs shine. Valence -- "Daily Me/Us" gets made. Kids are adept at screening out content that is not meaningful to them.

Millennials' learning experiences change. Boundary between education and entertainment breaks down. Experiential learning increases. Collaboration grows. Amateur experts arise. Just-in-time research becomes common. Cut-and-paste papers are more likely.

Students' social world changes. Human ties are being built around looser, rather than denser network groupings. People have partial membership in multiple networks and rely less on permanent memberships in settled groups.

5. Everything will change even more in the future.
J-curve laws:
Computing power doubles every 18 months - Moore's law
Storage power doubles ever 12 months
Communications power doubles every 2-3 years - Gilder's law (Spectrum power)

New Internet is being built to accommodate new uses. Security online wasn't an issue with original Net. New Web and new applications -- voice recognition, touch (haptic) activities and new displays, search will continue to improve (collective intelligence is being used). Semantic web -- Tim Berners-Lee's new passion.

Where does this leave us? We're in a metaphorical cloud or fog of data.
What's coming after Millennials?

Metaverse Project - when so many people are online, there will be 4 hallmarks:
1) virtual worlds will be much more common
2) mirror worlds - e.g. Google Earth
3) Augmented reality - e.g. Smart door knob, more stuff will have more data
4) Life-logging - Nike and iPod link

Q & A
Net Neutrality issue of new Internet? Because Internet Pew is nonpartisan, they don't actually have a position on this, but they are surveying the designers of the new Internet. Are asking them if Internet will remain as open as it is know. Suspects the community will be divided.

2007-10-15T07:33:00.000-07:00

Launching a Redesign of your Library's Web site? What do your users want?
Bonnie Oldham, U of Scranton, Tina Hertel, Lehigh University

Part 1, Bonnie Oldham
Library Dean Charles Kratz had suggested getting input from users; got internal grant money and IRB approval for their focus groups.

Target groups
-faculty
-grad students
-traditional undergrads
-works study students
-distance learners
-students with disabilities

Very labor intensive -- 900 letters, over 300 emails, about 26 users
Moderators: grad students in the School Counseling Program; focus groups held in library
Librarian had online interview with distance learners and students with disabilities

Results were audio-taped and transcribed by moderators

Key Themes:
1 - Ease of use
2 - Home page style issues
3 - User name and password
4 - Database access page

Followed up focus groups with Web usability testing. Observed participants completing a set of tasks using the Library's Web site; used Camtasia Studio screen recorder. Was an amazing experience; many could not find the article to which they had a citation.

Redesign process
-librarians reviewed all input and then examined other Library Web sites to compile a list of desirable features
-committee met with official University PR committee
-when had a draft of page designed by professional designer, went back to users and surveyed about new page

First version; they liked fact that all the important links were on left side. Left some white space for important notices to users, e. g., a database down for maintenance.

Important feature was implementing single sign on for users; eliminated need to have remote user links. About six months after implementing page, got a tab on University portal page. Had just the links that were needed, not the bells and whistles.

Actual timeline was almost 2 years for new page to go live.

Part II, Tina Hertel
Accessible Web Design

Tina mentioned that students with disabilities are often not kept in mind when Web page is designed. She referred users to her handout with summaries of the law.

Ten Quick Tips from the Web Accessibility Initiative
1- Images & animation -- Some folks do use text-only, turning off images. Make sure content is still available to them. Important to consider context, to make sure that context that picture conveys is not lost to this user. Can turn feature on in Dreamweaver to add 'alt' tag to provide more info. Tag does convey info to user what the image is, that is, a link or image. Always have an alt attribute when there is an image. Use an empty alt attribute if the image doesn't contribute anything (like a spacer line); then screen reader won't read it. But if you don't have an alt attribute, and the screen reader will say there is an unknown image.

2 - Image maps - always use client-side image maps, NOT server-side image maps. If you're scripting, that is server-side.

3- Multimedia

4 - Navigation - make sure Web page is keyboard accessible; tab key allows users to jump from link to link; enter key allows users to 'click on a link'; mouse only options limit users. Drop-down images are problematic if you use Java script, be sure to use 'on focus' option. Annoying things for users are text like: click here, more, link, link to, go here, more -- doesn't give any info on where the link is going; provide context. Appearance: underline and color are standard conventions.

5 - Structure, content, organization - try to keep content separate from structure. CSS helps with this. It's OK to use tables with screen readers; they've gotten smarter. Dreamweaver can distinguish if for layout or content purposes.

6- Graphs & charts - in alt attributes, convey what kind of info chart contains.

7 - Scripts, applets & plug-ins

8 - Frames - bad. Don't use them. If you do use them, use appropriate titles, have no frames option, have alternate navigation options. Cascading Style Sheets take care of this.

9 - Tables - can use them. For complex tables, there are newer accessibility codes.

10 - Check your work and validate it. Bobby has been bought out; now called WebXACT. Plug in URL and check accessibility of page. Free online version will evaluate one page at a time.

Tina's favorite pages for accessibility (from her handout) are Web Accessibility in Mind and Dive Into Accessibility.

2007-10-15T05:58:00.000-07:00

Where Angels Fear to Tread: Devising a Lean and Mean Reference Collection
Gumberg Library, Reference Dept., Duquesne University, Pittsburgh, PA
Allison Brungard & Sandra Collins

What to do about the print reference collection? Considerable maintenance, not much usage. How they went about it, what was involved. Not how we done it good, but 'don't do what I did.' Criteria: Currency, significance, and relevance.

Sandy spoke first. Budgetary considerations were a large part of it. Reference is prime real estate; library wanted an information commons. Collection had not been weeded for a time. Has been a reorientation to how to do reference; standard reference works like Sheehey and Katz are simply not being used, even by reference librarians. Are the materials timely? Do we even know what's there, if it's outside of our subject specialty?

Another question they asked was whether more of the reference collection should circulate. Probably, since librarians aren't really using much of the collection. Avoid like the plague Internet guides -- out of date once they're published. Bibliographies in the Zs should be in the subject areas. Obsolete formats -- why get phone books, CIA Fact Book, when available online.

How did they do this? First began by updating Reference Collection Development Policy to reflect new priorities. Collection has outgrown the space, and they needed to deselect (not 'weed'). Does the item deserve to be in Reference? If not, then where does it belong? Needed to create a consensus among reference librarians and went to liaison librarians (bibliographers). Took about 4 months to this point.

Wanted to keep process relatively simple, a few basic questions/priorities. Don't tell me what was done in past; does it belong in this collection? The process for weeding Reference was a pilot for weeding the entire collection.

How was the weeding actually done? Allison spoke to this. They wanted a lasting record of how the process was done. They started with 9400 records (not individual titles), imported 6800 records into an Access db of all Reference titles. Assigned different librarians different LC call number ranges. Had to be able to share the db to work on it; on a shared server.

Only decisions that could be made about a title:
1) Keep in Reference
2) Move to stacks
3) Withdraw completely

Had to allow for some flexibility; set a terminal date for decision making. In hindsight, should have had a field for over sized; did hold them up a bit.

Positives ('Blessings'):
-taking ownership of a large, multi-departmental project
-increased confidence that you can go over to the shelves and pull something that would be worthwhile
-did provide a blueprint for weeding rest of collection

Negatives ('Curses')
-too many stakeholders means that the project can get bogged down
-some who feel slighted by project can create discord; internal politics
-some will want more or different choices than those offered by the project parameters; some people can't make a decision (notes field was kept purposely small)

Had to take into consideration the human element; had to work with folks to help them make decisions. Had to get them to focus on whether or not the book belonged in the collection; not questioning relative worth of book, just its relevance to the Ref collection.

Project is still ongoing. Continue to add new books to database. Updating the collection now involves pricing print vs. electronic. If electronic, then becomes an Electronic Resources Committee decision. Bought the Gale Philosophy, Religion, and Literature Center, but is still librarian-directed.

Recommendations:
-Communicate expectations; have participants try out the process and report back by a specified deadline
-Get organizational buy-in
-Clarify decision-making authority; who has responsibility
-Set solid deadlines but have a back-up plan
-Limit the number of decision makers

One year later...
-Kept 35% of Reference books; withdrew 10% of materials, rest (55%) went to general collection
-Have more room for tables
-Most books not yet moved; backlog in tech services
-First electronic purchases on the horizon: Narrowed choices to Gale & Oxford collections

Q & A
Was usage tracked? No, hadn't done that. Would have been helpful. Did ask, "Have you ever had a question about that?" as criteria. One library made tick marks on inside of cover when used book for a transaction. One library tracks usage in library instruction. Is this really use if users aren't using.

-LN

2007-10-13T15:47:00.000-07:00

The Challenge of Open Access for University Presses (Tuesday, 2:45 to 4:00)
Sandy Thatcher, Director, Pennsylvania State University Press

University presses were founded in the late 19th century to help alleviate a problem of market failure, namely, insufficient demand in the commercial marketplace to sustain a publishing operation on the basis of sales alone. Now, in the face of another type of market failure --insufficient funds to sustain library subscriptions to STM journals -- calls have come forth to change the economic model of publishing from sales-based to grants-based, offering the fruits of knowledge for free to all users with an Internet connection. This session will examine both the challenges and opportunities that the variants of 'open access' present to university presses, as they seek to fulfill their traditional mission of disseminating knowledge, far and wide, while remaining sustainable as businesses.

(Thanks to Christie Roysdon for the reminder!)

2007-10-13T08:52:00.000-07:00

Soaring to New Heights!

Here's a link to the full Conference Program.

In addition to the CRD workshops posted by Bonnie yesterday, here's a few more that will be of definite interest to PA academic librarians:

SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14
2 - 3:15 pm - Academic Librarianship by Design: The Blended Librarians' Perspective on Enhancing Library Instruction
John D. Shank, Instructional Design Librarians, Penn State, Berks Campus
Sponsor: Library Instruction Round Table

MONDAY, OCTOBER 15
9 - 10:15 am - Low-Cost Techniques for Creating an Interactive Web Site
John Houser, Senior Technology Consultant, PALINET
Sponsor: Electronic Resources Round Table

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 16
9 - 10:15 AM - The Impact of the Internet on Politics
Lee Rainie, Project Director, PEW Internet & American Life Project
There have been many predictions about the impact of the Internet on
politics. Is the Internet the lever for direct democracy? Or is it a wedge
for political polarization? Either conclusion may prove too simple. To
understand how technology might reshape politics, consider what has
been learned from the initial decade of online campaigning, and how
various fears and hopes have fared.
Sponsor: College & Research Division

2007-10-12T11:06:00.000-07:00

PaLA Annual Conference: October 14 - 17, 2007 at the Penn Stater Conference Center Hotel, State College.

Here is a list of Conference Programs being sponsored by the

College & Research Division:

SUNDAY 10/14/2007

2:00 PM - 3:15 PM
Students as Library Advocates: Friends of the Academic Library
Presenters: Amy L. Deuink & Marianne Seiler
Moderator: Bonnie W. Oldham

SUNDAY 10/14/2007

3:30 PM - 4:45 PM
Beyond Browsing: Online Tools You Can Use

Presenter: Tina Hertel
Moderator: Bonnie W. Oldham

MONDAY 10/15/200

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Where Angels Fear to Tread: Devising a Lean and Mean Reference Collection
Presenters: Allison Brungard, Sandra Collins, and M. Diana Sasso
Moderator: Christine Roysdon

MONDAY 10/15/200

10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Launching a Redesign of Your Library's Web Site? What Do Users Want?
Presenters: Bonnie W. Oldham & Tina Hertel
Moderator: Barbara Burd

MONDAY 10/15/200

12:00 PM - 1:45 PM

College & Research Division Luncheon
Presenter: Lee Rainie
Moderator: Vickie Kline

MONDAY 10/15/200

3:30 PM - 4:45 PM

Information Literacy Trends Within the Virtual World of Second Life
Presenter: Alexia Hudson
Moderator: Vickie Kline

TUESDAY 10/16/2007

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
The Impact of the Internet on Politics
Presenter: Lee Rainie
Moderator: Vickie Kline

TUESDAY 10/16/2007

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
Understanding the Problem Before You Solve It: Effective Resource-Based Assignments
Presenter: Terrence Mech
Moderator: Mark Podvia

TUESDAY 10/16/2007

10:45 AM – 12:00 PM
Gone Fishin':
Using the Fish! Philosophy to Shore Up Employee Morale and Improve Customer Service
Presenter: Sandra Janicki & Ed Zimmerman
Moderator: Tina Hertel

WEDNESDAY 10/17/2007

9:00 AM - 10:15 AM
DMCA, TEACH and Copyright in Higher Education
Presenter: Becky Albitz
Moderator: Christine Roysdon

WEDNESDAY 10/17/2007

10:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Blogging, Wikis, RSS and More in the Classroom
Presenters: Clara Hudson & Megan O'Malley
Moderator: Tina Hertel

2007-06-27T19:22:00.001-07:00

Final Thoughts

Attending my first ALA Conference was a great experience. Before the conference, I was a bit overwhelmed, but once I got there I found that it was just like any other conference I had attended, but on a much larger scale. I was fortunate to be able to attend with three of my colleagues who are veteran conference goers--Margaret Craft, Bonnie Strohl, and Narda Tafuri. I woud definitely attend again.

While in Washington, DC, I was able to spend some time visiting with my daughter and son-in-law, Lynn and Donald, and I was able to do a little sight-seeing. Lynn and I toured the National Building Museum where there is currently a wonderful David Macaulay exhibit. This building is where all of the U.S. Presidents have held their Inaugural Balls since 1885. Here is a photo of me with the White House in the background.

2007-06-27T18:58:00.000-07:00

Garrison Keillor was the speaker at the closing session. He talked about libraries and librarians for about 45 minutes and was delivered with his usual dry sense of humor. (cf. his article on libraries in Salon which touches on some of what he said to us.) This session was taped for broadcast on C-Span and the auditorium was packed. I was fortunate to be able to attend the Awards Ceremony and the Inaugural Banquet later that evening in support of Charles Kratz, the Dean of the Library at the University of Scranton, who is joining the ALA Executive Board. I saw Barbara Cole from Commonwealth Libraries and Debbie Malone, Library Director at DeSales University and Co-Chair of PaLA's Legislative Information Committee.

2007-06-25T12:57:00.000-07:00

This morning I attended "Once Upon a Furl in a Podcast Long Ago: Using New Technologies to Support Library Instruction." This was a panel of four librarians: Joan Lippincott gave an overview of emerging technologies and library instruction; Kathy Burnett is teaching future librarians at Florida State Unviersity how to use technology tools in the classroom; Kathryn Shaughnessy is using the tools with Social Justice students who are in Third World countries; and Heather Tompkins shared lots of tips about using the social web tools.

Poster Session - This afternoon was devoted to my poster session, "You Asked, We Responded: Redesigning an Academic Library's Web Site Based on User Input." Several people who are thinking about redesigning their Web sites asked quite a few questions. When I get back to the library, I'll add a picture.

Although I never did manage to hook up with Barbara Burd, I did see several more librarians from Pennsylvania, including Christie Roysdon and Evelyn Minick. There are two Internet cafes here at the conference and there is a kiosk at the hotel that also has some computers with Internet access which have made my ability to blog while I'm here possible.

2007-06-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

I went to an interesting program this morning, "Harnessing the Hive: Social Networks and Libraries," sponsored by MARS. There were 3 speakers. Matthew Bejune talked about his Wiki research. He said that libraries are using Wikis mainly for collaborating with other libraries or with library staff, but few are using Wikis to collaborate with their users. This is where he focused his research. He created LibraryWikis as a companion to his upcoming article in the September 2007 issue of Information Technology and Libraries. Matt was followed by Meredith Farks, aka Queen of Wikis, who maintains Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki and who is the Distance Learning Librarian at Norwich University in Norwich, VT, spoke about "Knowledge Management." She demonstrated several ways that libraries are using Wikis. Her presentation can be found at http://meredithfarkas.wetpaint.com/. The final speaker was Tim Spalding, creator of LibraryThing, an online service to help people catalog their books. He describe LibraryThing as social cataloging. Libraries are starting to incorporate LibraryThing into their online catalogs. Currently only one library, the Danbury Library in CT is using this, but Tim said that within the next month more will be added. For more info about how your library can incorporate social cataloging, go to http://www.librarything.com/forlibraries/. On the negative side, I overheard some people chatting as I was waiting in line in the rest room the they were unhappy with Tim's criticism of Library of Congress Subject Headings.

2007-06-23T19:06:00.000-07:00

I went to two interesting programs this afternoon. The first, sponsored by ACRL, was on gaming. James Paul Gee, a professor at the University of Wisconsin, explained the many ways that video games incorporate good learning principles. Some of these principles include the following: 1) they lower the consequences of failure; 2) they encourage players to think about systems and relationships, not just isolated events, facts, and skills; 2) learning is embodied and affective (emotional). He encouraged librarians to not just read a story to children, but to play a video game with them. George Needham, Vice-President Member Services at OCLC, then spoke about what librarians can learn from gamers. He suggested that we should rethink how we deliver services. IM and text messaging are ways that we can hit people where they are, when they really need it.

The second program was sponsored by LITA. It was a panel discussion with the librarians from the "Google Five" libraries and Adam Smith, Product Developer from Google. They gave an update on the status of this project. There were some problems like unbarcoded books, brittle paper, and binding; but, the librarians all seemed to feel that these were minor and that the benefits far outweighed the problems. Dale Flecker, from Harvard University, suggested that because of the project text mining would become a new research field.

2007-06-23T09:03:00.000-07:00

I was able to spend about an hour visiting the exhibits this morning. While I was there I met some other PA librarians, Lynn Moses from Commonwealth Libraries, Merrill Stein from Villanova, and Joe Fennewald from Penn State Hazleton. I didn't find the booth with the Wheel of Acronyms yet, but I'll keep looking!

ACRL 101 - This was a great program! Very well organized. Pam Snelson, ACRL President gave a welcome and invited us to get to know a little bit about our neighbors. Then she gave an overview of how ACRL is organized (more acronyms!) Mary Jane Petrowski, ACRL Associate Director, told us how we can get involved in the Association and she broke this down by how much (or how little) time we could spend being engaged. We also heard from Jo Ann Carr who told us where we could find a home in ACRL, and if one doesn't exist, then they would build one for us! Louise Sherby, ACRL Representative to the 2007&2008 ALA Conference Program Coordinating Team explained how that committee organized the programs. She also gave us some tips on finding things in the Program Guide. And Julia Gelfand, Past Chair, ACRL Science & Technology Section gave us some tips on navigating the Exhibit Hall. The 'official' program being over, we were free to speak with representatives from many of the Sections. ACRL is creating a New Member Wiki and the surveyed us for things that we thought might be helpful to include. On our way out we participated in a Jelly Bean Assessment. We voted on whether or not we found the program "useful" by depositing jelly beans in jars. When I left, the "useful" jar was filling up fast and the "not useful" jar was empty.

2007-06-23T08:49:00.000-07:00

I just noticed that my last posting is time stamped 5:41 AM. Yikes! It was more like 8:45 AM. The computer terminal from which I'm posting this message says that it's 3:51 AM so please disregard the time stamps on these postings from the Conference.

2007-06-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

ALA has a lot of acronyms. There are 2 pages in the Program Book devoted to defining them. At yesterday's Conference 101 program, they told us that there is a game in the Exhibit Hall called Spin the Wheel of Acronymns. I might want to check that out because I learned what quite a few of these acronyms mean at the first program that I attended this morning, RUSA AND ASCLA 101. My next stop is ACRL 101. I do know that acronym stands for Association of College & Research Libraries.

2007-06-22T17:55:00.000-07:00

Conference 101

I got to this program 10 minutes before it was scheduled to start and there wasn't a free seat available. The room was set up with 15 tables, 10 chairs at a table. At least 50 more people eventually were seated around the room. Some dragged in chairs from another room. The President of the New Members Roundtable gave a little commercial about joining the Roundtable. Then a guy named Michael (I didn't quite catch his last name) went through the program book telling us page numbers for all of the important things that we should know about--maps, schedules, freebies. He said that, being the librarian that he is, he organized all of the cards that he got in the mail from exhibitors by booth number. Silly me, I wasn't even going to bring mine! Diner was great. We ate at a tapas restaurant. It's a good thing that we had reservations because it was very crowded.

2007-06-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm here at ALA. Margaret Craft and I came together. We checked in to the hotel, but we can't get into our rooms until 4:00pm. We walked the 2 blocks to the Convention Center. It's 3 blocks long! After we picked up our badges, we wandered around a bit and found the Internet Cafe. I'm going to Conference 101 at 4:00pm which is a program for first time attendees. This evening we are being taken to dinner with one of the library's vendors.

2007-06-21T11:44:00.000-07:00

I will be attending the ALA Annual Conference in Washington, DC. Since this is my first conference, I thought that some of you might be interested in my experience. I'm not there yet and I'm already feeling a bit overwhelmed by how large it is. There are so many programs, meetings, and events that ALA has created an online Conference Planner to help you schedule your days.

2007-06-13T17:49:00.000-07:00

Our recent workshop, "Logging the Academic Life" at Lehigh University, was a great success. We had about 60 attendees turn out on a hot, summer's day to hear Scott Carlson of the Chronicle of Higher Education and Richard Sweeney from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, our two keynote speakers, give two highly entertaining and stimulating presentations.

Folks also attended one of the three breakout sessions, one by Suzanne Kellerman, Penn State, and Chris Raab, F & M, on their experiences digitizing student newspapers, a second by Richard Griscom, Univ of Penn, and John Osborne, Dickinson College, on what their institutions are doing towards digitizing the best student scholarship, and the third by Julia Maserjian, Lehigh University, who showed us some of the nifty projects faculty, students, and library staff are collaborating on.

Look for a more complete write up of the workshop in an upcoming issue of the PaLA Bulletin.

Photo of Chris Raab and Sue Kellerman by Bonnie Oldham