library+instruction+technology

I've been busy this month. I just haven't been blogging. I plan on writing more about some of the bigger projects soon. Here are the highlights…

• Reactive weeding and shifting in our reference collection to eliminate a row of shelves to make more room at the computers.
• Withdrawing those weeded reference books from our catalog.
• Selecting books in the juvenile collection for weeding after education faculty confirmation.
• Adding a "Book Quick Search" to go with the existing "Article Quick Search" on the library's web site.
• Adding a MeeboMe widget to the library's web site.
• Decommissioning the Reference Desk in prep for a combined Service Desk at our existing Circulation Desk at the start of Fall term. (How many times can I say desk in one run-on sentence? If you answered three you are correct.)
• Getting ready to switch offices with Brian in two weeks.
• Getting ready for the OPAL conference.
• Finalizing the changes of the redesign of the OPAL catalog.
• Tearing out the kitchen at home. This is the last room to be redone since we started working on the house in July 2004.
• Finding a brick floor in this greenhouse/stall/thing attached to the garage that was full of junk when we bought the house.
• Going to the farm to see my mom and sister who was on vacation for a couple of weeks.

Stay tuned for more details. I may also share the fun as we begin our final descent towards the first day of classes…only four weeks for those last minute projects! 

I now have an answer (kind of…sort of) to one of the questions I posed back in April when talking about Second Life.

The Pew Internet and American Life Project has released a study on home broadband adoption in the US. Pew reports that 47% of US adults have broadband at home. We still don't know if these are fat tubes or skinny tubes running into houses around the country. That would be interesting data that may exist. I haven't really looked for it.

There are certain demographic categories for households with broadband and it shouldn't come as a surprise. "In particular, broadband penetration remains high among Americans ages 18-49, those with annual household incomes over $75,000 and college graduates." These people tend to also live in urban (52%) or suburban (49%) areas.  (p.4)

Hat tip to Stephen Abram. 

The Ohio State University Libraries hosted a Library 2.0 Seminar back in June. Two emails showed up in my inbox this morning indicating that videos of the presentation and handouts have been posted to the site.

If you are curious about some of the uses of 2.0 apps in libraries and have a broadband connection, then here is yet another free way to get yourself up-to-speed.The videos require RealPlayer. It appear that the videos will not play on some older versions. 

Presenters included:

• Stephen Bell – "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad Web 2.0 World" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Chad Boeninger – "Wikis in Libraries" Watch presentation
• Brian Matthews – "Social Context" Watch presentation
• Ken Varnum – "RSS Basics and Beyond" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Eric Schnell – "Mashups" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Ellyssa Kroski – "Folksonomies and Social Tagging" Watch presentation | Handouts
• Stephen Abram – "Our User Experience: Puzzle Pieces Falling in Place" Watch presentation
• Lorcan Dempsey – "The network reconfigures discovery: the importance of disclosure"
  Watch presentation

I was a bit disappointed last night after reading Steve Lawson's post, Facebook to library apps: drop dead. I had been playing around with some of the apps being developed, hoping to be able to leverage someone else's idea for use locally. It sounded like the "good folks" over at Facebook were back to their old tactic of our way or the highway.

I had been half following some of the discussions on the FacebookAppsForLibraries page. It appears that the "problem" with some of the federated search apps created is that they display on the profile. Web search boxes are in violation of the terms of service to build an app. If things hold, it appears to be okay if search boxes appear on the application page. 

This morning I read Ken Varnum's post, Getting in Their Face[books] and discovered the Librarian app created by Brad Czerniak. I spent about 40 minutes playing around with the widget code sample Brian provided to allow for customized content to appear on the Librarian's application page. I used our space to display search boxes for OhioLINK's Quick Search, our catalog, and the OhioLINK catalog. It is not pretty because of the 200×320 pixel "widget" box size limitations, but it does work. I'm going to play around some more and see if I can get the search boxes to look better.

Brian's app made it very easy to put our most heavily used resources in our students social networking space of choice. 

I was about 15 minutes late arriving at the Dual Assignments Discussion Group. Thirteen people had found McPherson A and B tucked away at the end of the third floor of the Four Points Shearton. Most of the participants were from academic libraries based on the sign-in sheet. 

The publicized topic is what drew me to this discussion group, "Collection Assessment: Analysis and Decision".

Libraries of all kinds are assessing collections using tools such as WorldCat Collection Analysis and their integrated library systems.  The results lead to important decisions about what to add, what to preserve, what to discard, and what to replace. And how do we explain to concerned users why these choices were made?

I'm interested in this topic for two reasons. First, our circulating collection has not been evaluated, assessed, pondered, let alone weeded in a very long time. Second, I'm on OhioLINK's Collection Building Task Force and one of our current projects is a statewide collection assessment.

My impression from the conversation is that everyone in the room was very interested in collection assessment and some had started to do projects with the various tools. It seemed that many were either in the planning phase or in the data analysis phase. Most had not gotten to the decision/action phase.

Lack of space was mentioned a couple of times as a driving factor for collection assessment. Planning to commit to electronic only versions of resources was given as another reason. The conversation ranged from dark storage to electronic reference books to disposition of withdrawn print materials.

I like discussion groups, because I get many good ideas that can be tried at my own library. One of the take-aways for me was hearing other libraries' experiences with Better World Books. My colleague had talked to them at the ACRL conference and recommended that we try it out. It was good to hear positive comments from other participants. One attendee cautioned the group to make sure it is okay locally to dispose of withdrawn items this way. Some state universities have restrictions on how they can dispose of items purchased with tax payer money.

Another lesson I learned from this session is to take better notes. I wrote down…metrics: look at percentage of circulation, percentage of the collection, and percentage of the materials budget.  Sounds good. Now if only I could remember the context.

Towards the end of the discussion Allison Cowgill suggested that this topic be brought up again in a year or two. She hoped that by that time, participants would be able to share more about how they communicating actions taken based on assessment with faculty and students.

I OCRed the bibliography that Jessica and Allison distributed. It's not on the RSS or CODES site yet and I'm not sure it will be.

Dual Assignments Discussion Group
Reference and User Services Association
Reference Services Section and Collection Development and Evaluation Section
June 23, 2007

Collection Assessment: Analysis and Decision 

Agee, Jim. "Collection Evaluation: A Foundation for Collection Development." Collection Building 24, no. 3 (2005): 92-95.

Baird, Brian J. Library Collection Assessment Through Statistical Sampling. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004. 103 pp.

Ballestro, John, and Philip C. Howze. "When a Gift Is Not a Gift: Assessment Using Cost-Benefit Analysis." Collection Management 30, no. 3 (2005): 49-66.

Brewer, Michael. "Identifing Holdings Unique to Your Library’s Collections Using WorldCat." Slavic & East European Information Resources 7, no. 4 (2007):115-121.

Bushing, Mary, Bums Davis, and Nancy Powell. Using the Conspectus Method: A Collection Assessment Handbook. Lacey, WA: WLN, 1997. 200 pp

Dilevko, Juris, and Lisa Gottlieb. "Weed to Achieve: A Fundamental Part of the Public Library Mission?" Library Collections, Acquisitions & Techical Services 27 (Spring 2003): 73-96.

Hiott, Judith, and Carla Beasley. "Electronic Collection Management: Completing the Cycle – Experiences at Two Libraries." Acquisitions Librarian 17, no. 33/34 (2005): 159-178.

Hoffman, Frank W. Library Collection Development Policies: Academic, Public, And Special Libraries. Lanham, MD: Scarcrow Press, 2005. 329 pp.

Johnson, Peggy. Fundamentals of Collection Development & Management. Chicago, IL: American Library Association, 2004. 342 pp.

Knievel, Jennifer E., Heather Wicht, and Lynn Silipigni Connaway. "Use of Circulation Statistics and Interlibrary Loan Data in Collection Management." College & Research Libraries 67 (January 2006): 35-49.

Lesniaski, David. "Evaluating Collections: A Discussion and Extension of Brief Tests of Collection Strength." College and Undergraduate Libraries 11, no. 1(2004): 11-25.

Lyons, Lucy E. "A Critical Examination of the Assessment Analysis Capabilities of OCLC ACAS." Journal of Academic Librarianship 31 (November 2005): 505-516.

Metz, Paul, and Caryl Gray. "Perspectives on: Public Relations and Library Weeding." Journal of Academic Librarianship 31 (May 2005): 273-279.

Mitchell, Steve. "Machine Assistance in Collection Building: New Tools, Research, Issues, and Reflections." Information Technology & Libraries 25 (December 2006): 190-216.

Mortimore, Jeffrey M. "Access-informed Collection Development and the Academic Library: Using Holdings, Circulation, and ILL Data to Development Prescient Collections." Collection Management 30, no. 3 (2005): 2 1-37.

Nisonger, Thomas E. Evaluation of Library Collections, Access & Electronic Resources:
A Literature Guide & Annotated Bibliography. Westport, CN: Libraries Unlimited, 2003. 316 pp.

Oberlander, Cyril, and Dan Streeter. "LibStatCAT: A Library Statistical Collection Assessment Toll for Individual Libraries & Cooperative Collection Development." Library Collections, Acquisitions & Technical Services 27 (Winter 2003): 493-506.

Perrault, Anna H., Tina M. Adams, Rhonda Smith, and Jeannie Dixon. "The Florida Community College Statewide Collection Assessment Project: Outcomes and Impact." College and Research Libraries 63 (May 2002): 240-249.

Shouse, Daniel L., and Linda Teel. "Inventory: Catalyst for Collection Development." Collection Building 25, no. 4 (2006): 129-133.

Slote, Stanley J. Weeding Library Collections: Library Weeding Methods. 4th ed Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1997. 240 pp.

Stoller, Michael. "Building Library Collections: It’s Still About the User." Collection Building 24, no. 1 (2005): 4-8.

Teper, Thomas H., and Stephanie S. Atkins. "Building Preservation: The University Of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign’s Stacks Assessment." College & Research Libraries News 64 (May 2003): 211-227.

Jessica Moyer, RSS
Allison Cowgill, CODES
Co-Chairs
June 20, 2007 

technorati tag: Annual2007

Saturday morning found me at the Hotel Washington around 8 a.m. for the RSS Open House. I personally want to thank Emerald for the coffee. I needed it…badly! 

For those of you not consuming ALA alphabet soup by the 55 gallon drum…RSS is the abbreviation for the Reference Services Section, which is part of RUSA (Reference and User Services Association). The Open House is open to anyone and is a great way to get an idea on what has been happening in RSS. Every committee and discussion group chair were given a few minutes to provide an update on what they have been working on this year. 

Following the open house, I participated in an unofficial Web Advisory committee meeting. This is a new RSS committee that is charged with advising the RSS web master on the content and design of the section's web site. I volunteered to serve on the committee and my term didn't officially start until after the end of ALA. Our first official meeting will be at Midwinter in January. Right now we're trying to identify content gaps and also keep on eye on the proposed ALA redesign to see how that will impact the section's web site.

Take a look at the proposed ALA web site wireframes and give ALA some feedback.

technorati tag: Annual2007

I went to the ALA premiere of The Hollywood Librarian on Friday night. I was surprised to find people lining up an hour and half before the red carpet walk was suppose to begin. I had a very good seat in the front behind one of the VIP sections. 

I was expecting the documentary to be more about how Hollywood depicts librarians compared to how our jobs actually happen in the real world. I had this impression after reading the about the film page prior to going to Annual.

In a sense, my expectation was met. However, the flow of the film seemed to change somewhere in the middle to be more about how the public doesn't want to fund public libraries anymore. This may not have been the filmmakers original intent, but that was my take away by seeing so much of the film focused on the financial problems experienced in Salinas.

The film did a good job of trying to represent all library types, but it would have been nice to have included more K-12 and academic libraries/librarians. I realize that most non-librarians have a greater affinity with their public library. Still, it would have been a good place to make the K-12, public, academic library connection. This becomes even more important in state's where all library types pool money to provide electronic resources to all library populations, (e.g. Libraries Connect Ohio). This takes place behind the scenes and most people don't realize it.

I'm also not on-board with Ann's plan to get the movie out to the masses. She wants libraries to agree to show the movie twice during Banned Book Week and to charge admission. I wouldn't mind asking for a donation, but I wouldn't expect college students to pay to see the movie on campus and neither would they since they don't pay for any other similar event on our campus. 

I would recommend reading posts written by Karen Schneider, Andrea Mercado, and Rochelle Harman on the premiere and the proposed marketing plan. I did enjoy the film, but I'm not sure it's ready for prime-time.

technorati tag: Annual2007