library+instruction+technology

Anaheim is fast approaching. Here is what I am planning to do (at the moment). Let me know if you are going to be in SoCal and want to get together.

Thursday, June 26

• Arrive at John Wayne Airport at Noon
• Dinner with LA friend

Friday, June 27

• OCLC Symposium: The Mashed-up Library, 1:30 to 4:30 p.m.
• Meet the MARtians Happy Hour (maybe), 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

Saturday, June 28 

• Reference Services Section (RSS) Open House, 8 to 9 a.m.
• RSS Web Advisory Committee Meeting, 9 to 10:30 a.m. 
• Research to Understand Users: Issues and Approaches, 10:30 to Noon
• There's No Catalog Like No Catalog: The Ultimate Debate on the future of the Library Catalog, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
• ACRL-IS Current Topics Discussion I: Using the Social Web to Promote and Enhance Information Literacy, 4 to 5:30 p.m.

Sunday, June 29

• Beyond Gaming Tournaments, 8 to 10 a.m.
• What is the Future of Face-to-Face Reference? Is Face-to-Face Reference Dying?, 10:30 to Noon
• 14th Annual New Reference Research Forum, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
• RSS Executive Committee II, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
• Book Cart Drill Team Championship, 4 to 5:30 p.m.
• Dinner with former coworker

Monday, June 30

• Reference Services to Teens, 8 to 10 a.m.
• Booklist/Reference Books Bulletin: The Future of Electronic Reference Publishing, a View from the Top, 10:30 to Noon
• RUSA President's Program: Quality Service in an Impersonal World, 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
• PLA President's Program: Jamie Lee Curtis 5 to 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, July 1

• Auditorium Speaker Series featuring Khaled Hossein, 8 to 9 a.m.
• Disneyland/Disney's California Adventure

Wednesday, July 2 

• Disneyland/Disney's California Adventure

Thursday, July 3

• Fly out 9:45 a.m. and arrive in Columbus 7 p.m. 

You are invited to the Reference Services Section open house on Saturday, June 28 at 8 a.m. in the Palm Ballroom of the Sheraton Park Hotel (1855 S. Harbor Blvd).  Learn more about our section's committees and discussion groups. Refreshments are being provided courtesy of Emerald Publishing Group. 

Make sure to attend the 14th Annual New Reference Research Forum on Sunday, June 29 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at Hilton Anaheim, Conference Room 8. The three peer-reviewed research projects that will be presented include: 

• The READ Scale (Reference Effort Assessment Data) Project: Qualitative Statistics for Meaningful Reference Assessment, A Report of the National Study – Bella Karr Gerlich & G. Lynn Berard
• Does Size Matter? Examining Trends in the Provision of Remote Reference Services in Academic and Public Libraries – Denise Agosto, Eileen Abels & Lorri Mon
• Problems, Processes and Judgments: User Expectations of Online Reference Service – Lynn Westbrook

Read more about the other Reference Services Section programs and discussion groups taking place at Annual on the RSS Events page. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I'll do my best to answer them or direct you to the correct person.

Disclosure statement: Yes, this is a shameless plug for the Reference Services Section. I do it because I am a member of the RSS Web Advisory Committee and RSS Co-Web Manager. Spreading the word about our activities is an easy thing for me to do with this blog.

This was one of the two "current issues" discussion groups sponsored by ACRL's Instruction Section (IS) at Midwinter. I was planning to go to both, but impromptu Collage training (more on that in another post) changed my plans. The topic for this discussion is very relevant to me as an instructor. IS has an overview page for this discussion (the link should be good for awhile…but I know they are planning a redesign eventually).

Scott Scheidlower from York College (CUNY) lead the discussion. Scott started by reminding us that the student, the institution's disability coordinator, and the instructor/librarian are all responsible for student success.  We must accommodate special requests if possible, except if they are prohibitively expensive. The student's disability must be documented with the institution for the accommodation to be required.

Invisible disabilities are not seen by casual observation. Invisible disabilities can include deafness, dyslexia, color blindness, depression, and mental illness. It is okay for us to ask how to help someone. It is not okay to ask what the disability is specifically.

Scott is a firm believer that we should understand and effectively use Gardner's multiple intelligences to increase student learning. Scott had created 10 scenarios and assigned each table to discuss two. I jotted down notes as each table reported their ideas.

These ideas can be used to improve your teaching technique and handouts for students with/without disabilities:

• speak clearly and depending on the room louder than normal
• face your students when speaking (speechreading aka lip reading)
• make sure you are illuminated in a dark room
• gesture with your hand or with a laser pointer instead of saying "click the search button"
• number handouts instead of relying on color to distinguish the
• use shading or patters on charts and graphs instead of colors
• label colors with numbers
• consistently use the same shape to represent a color (e.g. triangles are red, squares are blue)
• ask a student to take notes and make them available to the entire class
• ask a student to navigate the computer allowing you the ability to maintain eye contact and gesture freely
• accept alternative assignments if possible
• determine if your disability services office provides a scribe service

These ideas can be used to improve the computers in your libraries and your library's web sites:

• install a text to speech screen reader on computers
• install voice recognition software on at least one machine
• use alt text in html pages to be very descriptive of the image being displayed
• don't use frames and limit the use of tables to layout pages

One participant suggested that we find out if our institution was a member of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic. She had positive experiences working with "RFB&D" to obtain materials for students.

Scott recommended that we read the following references for more information.

Fabio, D. (1994-2007). Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences. In Encyclopedia of educational technology. Retrieved December 3, 2007, from <http://coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/multiintell/index.htm>

Hernon, P., & Calvert, P. (Eds.). (2006). Improving the quality of library services for students with disabilities. Westport, CT: Libraries Unlimited.

Hurst, A. (1996). Reflecting on researching disability and higher education. In L. Barton (Ed.), Disability and society: Emerging issues and insights (pp. 123-46). Longman sociology series. London: Longman.

Konur, O. (2006, July). Teaching disabled students in Higher Education. Teaching in Higher Education, 11(3), 351-363. Retrieved January 3, 2007. doi:10.1080/13562510600680871

U.S. Department of Justice. (n.d.). ADA home page. Retrieved November 27, 2007, from <http://www.usdoj.gov/crt/ada/adahom1.htm>

[tags]ALAMW08, Midwinter08[/tags] 

Going to Midwinter?  Involved in reference?  Still putting together your schedule?  Consider the following RUSA Reference Services Section discussion groups to go along with your committee meetings. Full details and complete list of committee meeting and discussion groups are available on the RSS Events page.

CODES/RSS Dual Assignments Discussion Group: Training Collection Development Librarians
Saturday, January 12 from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
"focusing on in-house training for collection development librarians, either new to the profession, new to the institution, or new to the discipline. This discussion on practices and procedures will be both informative and lively as participants talk about how they teach colleagues to successfully handle this complex range of responsibilities."

Bustin' Loose:  Discussion Group Session on Providing Reference Service Away from the Reference Desk
Sunday, January 13 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
"providing reference service away from the reference desk. This includes roving reference, reference service in other campus buildings, kiosks in malls, and virtual reference done away from the reference desk."

Catalog Use Committee Discussion:  Real World Ideas for You and Your Catalog
Sunday, January 13 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
"discussion topics will include: 1. Should you have to teach the catalog? If so, what are different words to use when teaching the catalog to different groups? 2. Pushing the catalog out to users using RSS feeds, PDA’s, LibX, WorldCat, and Google. 3. Tech services and front-line reference, talking to each other 4. Assessment and Usability, information seeking behavior in different age groups 5. Web 2.0 and the Catalog, Amazon, LibraryThing, etc. as discovery tools and other web 2.0 enhancements." Facebook event invitation

Marketing and Public Relations Committee Discussion:  As the Definition of Reference Changes–How Do We Market It?
Sunday, January 13 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
"implications of marketing reference services, as the definition of reference changes."

Reference Services in Public Libraries Discussion Group
Sunday, January 13 from 10:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
"discussion on continued relevance in reference: strengthening and improving our services to the community. This is an opportunity to participate with your colleagues in an informal exchange of information and ideas about issues of mutual interest relating to reference services in public libraries of all sizes."

Performance Issues of Reference & Information Librarians Discussion Group
Monday, January 8:00 – 10:00 a.m.
"discussion of common challenges relating to performance issues in reference services."

Disclosure statement: I currently serve on the Reference Services Section's Web Advisory Committee. 

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

I've been having "fun" creating a schedule for Annual. I'm trending towards RUSA activities, since I was just at the ACRL Conference in March. Saturday is a bit heavy. So, we'll see what really happens. I'm hoping to fit in some sightseeing as time allows.

Friday

• 5:30 or 6 p.m. MARS or STARS Happy Hour
• 8 p.m. World Premiere of the The Hollywood Librarian

Saturday

• 8 a.m. RSS Social Hour
• 10:30 a.m. CODES Dual Assignments Discussion Group
• Poster Session 1: The Collectors (if I can get there)
• 1:30 p.m. CODES Cooperative Monographic Collection Development – Recent Trends
• 3:30 p.m. Exhibits
• 6 p.m. Dinner with DC friends

Sunday

• 10:30 a.m. CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee Meeting
• 1 p.m. Poster Session IV: Outreach
• 2:30 Exhibits
• 5:45 Blog Salon 

Monday

• 8 a.m RSS Catalog Use Meeting
• 10:30 ALA Publishing: Reference Books Bulletin: Is Print Reference Dead?
• 1:30 RUSA President's Program: Time Odyssey: Visions of Reference and User Services