The sun has taken its leave of us, but I must say that as a first time visitor, I’m enjoying seeing Seattle in both rainy and sunny weather. Saturday was another full day, though I’ve felt less pressured than at some other conferences, because I know that much that can be re-visited later on the virtual conference site.

I camped out in the Cyber Zed Shed for a good portion of the day where there were several widget-related presentations (Sprout, Library Subject Guide Widgets, Online Info Lit Tool) that focused on portability, flexibility, and customization. In my opinion, this is definitely where libraries are headed.

I also attended a panel session, Mapping Your Path to the Mountaintop: Planning Where You Want To Be In Your Career which was moderated by Steven Bell. It was informative and inspiring and included input from the audience too. If you missed this one, I highly recommend that you check out the recorded version.

I had dinner at Dragonfish (tasty!) before grabbing a shuttle back to SeaTac for my flight out Saturday night. I will leave Seattle with a lot to think about. And really, the conference is not over, because there are several things I missed or want to review on the virtual conference site. I hoping some of the conversations will continue too.

One of the biggest themes I’ve seen in this year’s conference is subject guides. I think there were about 7 presentatons in all.  This has been a hot topic at my university as well.  The LibGuides session on Friday was packed - standing room only.  Their presentation was great (and entertaining) so I recommend viewing the slides if you missed it.  One cool new feature they mentioned is that you can now enter your proxy URL and check a box and it will add the URL to all your links in the guides so that students can use resources from off-campus. There are a lot of templates for sharing available at http://springsharelounge.com. LibGuides has built in templates for adding RSS feeds, video, tag clouds, polls. and widgets.

I was interested to hear that OSU has developed an open source package for subject guides called Library ala carte.  It has many of the features of LibGuides.  We do a lot of open source at my library so I am definitely going to check this out.

Green Pledge

The ACRL’s Green Component Committee for the ACRL 14th National Conference makes me proud to be a librarian! At this panel presentation, members of the Green Committee shared their experience planning a green conference, the first one for ACRL. As they mentioned, Seattle is a great place to start this trend, as the “green” opportunities here are more widespread and more accessible.

The efforts this committee made went far beyond the usual recycling containers. Their process included surveying ACRL members for conference attendees’ environmental priorities, creating a planning wiki called The Big Green Wiki, collaborating with other conference planning committees such as the Local Arrangements for information about sustainable businesses, and marketing/educating attendees and participants to their options for an environmentally-friendly conference experience.

This type of goal inspires all sorts of support. Over 80% of conference registrants signed the Green Pledge at registration, and received a green watermark on their conference badge. Seven exhibitors committed to being green, and information about them is on page 78 of the conference schedule. A volunteer created a Google map mashup with locations shown of the local sustainable/local restaurants and businesses. Presenters reduced the number of their handouts, or eliminated handouts altogether.

Some of the specific actions the committee took with this conference included efforts to reduce, reuse, recycle in various ways. Paper usage and waste was significantly reduced through the use of the Virtual Conference. Handouts and presentations are posted online, accessible to conference registrants. I appreciate this not only for the environmental aspect, but the access to simultaneously scheduled sessions that I couldn’t attend. It gives me the opportunity to virtually be in multiple places at once! Another reduction in paper came from the conversion of press kits and binder manuals for vendors from paper-based products to online documents. For the conference-related paper that was printed, soy-based ink on recycled paper was used, and the printer didn’t charge any extra. The cost of “going green” for this conference was less in some areas (A Lot less paper), more in others (bamboo plates and corn forks), and some costs were the same (printing).

Food scraps and leftovers are being handled in a way I’ve only seen at my hippie friends’ houses: Composting! Surplus food from the kitchens that wasn’t needed (and wasn’t unwrapped) is donated to FareStart. Vendor giveaways left over will be donated to local charities, and leftover vendor books are donated to Better World Books.

The committee members emphasized that communication and marketing through multiple outlets helped ensure the success of the green initiatives: website, wiki, newsletters, articles, emails, and word of mouth. For planning our own green conferences, events or meetings, it’s important to get membership initiation and drive, association buy-in and support, and formalize plans via a committee. The Green Committee plans to document their experience and efforts for next year’s committee, and hopefully we can take what they’ve done back to our own events to spread the word.

To hear more, come listen to the invited Green Speaker: Robin Chase (Sunday morning 8 am Sheraton ballroom). She’s the former CEO of ZipCar, now head of GoLoco.

Go Green!

Just like the other bloggers, I can hardly believe how fast this conference seemed to fly by.  It’s early Saturday evening and I have just had the chance to catch my breath.  This afternoon I went to a panel session titled Mapping Your Path to the Mountaintop: Planning Where You Want To Be In Your Career with Steven  Bell, John  Shank, Brian  Mathews, and Lauren Pressley.   Bell encouraged adn moderated the conversation between panelist and the audience.  The audience (of all ages) was encouraged notto compare their careers to others in the library world.  Instead, audience members were encouraged to come up with a motto that would reflect their individual goals and strategic plans.  Through a series of questions, panelists and audience members were encouraged to think about where they are going and what they want with their career.  The interactive panel provided lots of audience participation and an opportunity to share ideas on the different aspects that contribute to a career: strategic plan, presenting, publishing, innovation, entrepreneurship, and future plans.  I think that the panel can be best summarized by saying: be fearless, volunteer for as much as you can, learn new skills or technologies when presented to you and talk to your colleagues - you never know where your next opportunity might be.  We were encouraged to take some time to think and come up with a motto that can help guide us in our professional development.

This panel motivated me, especially since I was presenting a CyberZed Shed presentation on Facebook right after it.  I’ll admit it - I was nervous.  It was my first presentation at a large, national conference.  Halfway through my presentation though a thought struck me.  My peers are listening to me and they want me to succeed because what I have to say contributes to the profession.  The thought whizzed through my mind but I’ve had the remainder of the afternoon to think about it.  For anyone else out there considering writing a blog, submitting a proposal, or creating a survey: be fearless.  This echos the discussion from the Mapping Your Path to the Mountaintopsession earlier.  We all get nervous and we will all face rejection at some point, but it is worth the try.  After this afternoon’s activities and thoughts, my motto might be: be fearless.

LibGuides at two academic libraries

Emily Frigo & Laura Harris, Grand Valley State University; Kenn Liss, Boston College; Maura Seale, Georgetown University.

Huge room, overpacked with people. Folks sitting on the floor along the walls, some to access the one electrical outlet in the room, others to be comfortable. The obligatory knitter is in the floor group.

History of research guides

Beginning: MIT pathfinders. Early 1970’s. Coined the term “library pathfinders.” Provided instructional information on how to search. Introductory sources, key subject headings, aimed at beginning researchers. Fairly brief. Made them available to other libraries to adapt.

Questions raised in the literature

How broad or narrow in scope should the research guides be? Some are very narrow in scope. Some broad. Lately more emphasis on course guides.

Guidance: should guides lead students to the research sources or help them find their own paths? Some guides have gone back to a simple list, others incorporate instructions. Key subject headings, steps in research projects, etc.

Design/terminology. What do you call them? Pathfinders, research guides, webliographies, library guides. Library jargon=bad thing.

Standardization: how much should there be among guides? Standard format, or color?

Workload: what impact does guide management and maintenance have on librarians’ workload? As guides have gone online and our contact with students is online, does that make them less important? Is it important if nobody uses them?

How can guides best be brought to the attention of those for whom they are intended? The more prominent they are on a library page, the more likely it is they will be used.

Implementing LibGuides

Librarians at GVSU and BC were frustrated with the systems they used to create subject guides. LibGuides helped reduce the workload - boxes and pages can be copied. Boxes and pages can be copied from other institutions - are we moving back to the MIT model? Web 2.0 features: RSS, videos, books, files, Delicious tag clouds, Google search boxes (including Google Scholar.)

What should LibGuides be used for? What shouldn’t it be used for? Both institutions are increasing number of course guides. Can have different ways of organizing the guides. Has moved from long list of resources to tips and suggestions on how to do the research. Changed “Indexes and Databases” to “Finding Articles.”

Neither institution has done much promotion, but link placement has helped. Little customization in the guides. Trying to find balance between individual creativity and standardization.

Librarians are loving LibGuides.

Student survey

Lack of information about users of research guides in library literature. Conducted survey at GVSU and BC. Questions asked about scope, guidance, design and terminology, and promotion.

Scope - Non-users preferred more specific guides at both BC and GVSU. Course guides seen as most useful.

Users thought the amount of information offered was appropriate. Descriptions were deemed useful. Users at GV preferred general subject guides; BC users preferred specific guides.

Guidance - non-users: significant number expect help, how-tos, explicit guidance. Some expectation of credible, reliable, high quality information.

Users: “How to do research” and descriptions desired in addition to lists of resources. Majorities had not used librarian profiles to contact librarians. Hoping this changes when the guides are promoted more.

Design and promotion - Close to 90% found tabs at top of page helpful. Argues against long, linear pages. Best to keep info above the fold. 97% of BC users liked “research guides.” 75% at GVSU liked ‘library guides.”

Where to link from? Strong response for Blackboard and syllabus. Student comment - “NOT Facebook, that is unprofessional.” Having a link from the library website had an influence at GVSU, less so at BC. Students heard about the guides from professors, librarians, library website, classmates, and blackboard - in that order. Few users accessed guides from Blackboard, but 90% recommended they place links there.

Non-user answers: library homepage, university website, email reminders, department website.

Many of the open-ended responses indicated that they had never heard of the guides. “The survey is the greatest promotion tool that we’ve done so far.” (Chuckle from the audience on that one.)

Next steps

Market to major stakeholders, get on Blackboard and syllabi, integrate with instruction, more course guides, more guideance and “how-to.” Will do deeper analysis of survey data and will do further testing (2009-10.)

LibGuides is not the only way to do subject guides - can use wiki, delicious, home-grown solutions.

For more information.

As an ACRL Librarian Scholarship Recipient, I was one of many who were invited to attend a breakfast at the Sheraton Hotel this morning.  It was designed as a time to recognize all scholarship recipients, welcome us to ACRL, and encourage us to be forces of change within our libraries.

Our speaker for the morning was Richard Sweeney, University Librarian at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.  His interactive presentation was titled How the Millennial Generation Will Change the Future of the Library.  It was an interesting presentation, because it evolved into a discussion of the future of libraries towards the end.  He welcomed the thoughts of the millennials present and encouraged us to make comments.  Sweeney’s research on millennials has lead him to recognize a few key features that can help libraries serve this new population. 

Guest Speaker, Richard Sweeney, at the ACRL Scholarship Breakfast.

First, technology for millennials is all about speed and time.  Many uses text message features because it allows them to stay connected but does not require large amounts of time on the phone.  Second, millennial students want to be engaged.  Libraries should be interacting with students and connecting with them on levels they may not have previously.  Libraries should be creating memorable experiences that hopefully allow students to contribute information.   Students are using Web 2.0 technologies like YouTube, Facebook, and more and libraries should be positioning themselves to work with a new student population.  Sweeney also talked about disruptive technology.  Technologies that libraries may not consider part of their traditional services, but students are using these new technologies and libraries must be positioned to respond.  It was excellent food for thought and the comments audience members provided made for interesting discussion.

After the scholarship breakfast, I had time to quickly walk through the exhibits to catch the beginning of a CyberZed Shed presentation, Popculture Multi-Media and Library Instruction, before heading to Reinventing Research Guides: LibGuides at Two Academic Libraries.  Librarians from Grand Valley State University and Boston College discussed LibGuides at both of their institutions.  After a review of the literature, librarians discussed their motivations for using LibGuides and their experiences. 

GVSU and BC librarians reported that LibGuides was easy to use, created a sense of community, and used Web 2.0 technologies to reach students.  Instead of the traditional research guides, LibGuides was dynamic and easy to update.  They were happy to demonstrate that students appreciated the guides and their survey results indicated that they need more marketing, more guides, and the ability to incorporate LibGuides into course management systems.  GVSU and BC librarians will be doing more in depth research in the future and look forward to creating more guides for students.

The college I work at participates in LASR, but as its development started well before I got there, so I stepped into this panel session to get a bigger-picture view of how this project was conceived and how it’s being developed for the future. 

Institutional repositories (IRs) have already come up in the session I attended earlier this morning and in sessions I’ve read blog posts about. For the past several years, they’ve been a basket in which we are placing a lot of effort and expectation, and that trend seems to be only increasing. The LASR panel session told one story of how an IR was created to serve a specific set of users. 

Key points about LASR development:

–its development  is collaborative and distributed–librarians at the eight participating liberal arts colleges obtained funding for short, intensive f2f meetings and continued work individually at their home institutions

–distributed development allowed the group to tap into a wide range of talents–there were people to specialize in planning, tech needs (software, metadata), and policy needs

–it was focused to the needs of liberal arts students and faculty, had an eye to broader consortial initiatives (connecting technology to liberal arts teaching) and this helped it get the financial support needed to sustain long-distance collaboration

–from the beginning, LASR librarians strategized content recruitment, but even this clear focus on growing the collection has not made it easy to grow the collection

Growing IRs clearly takes persistence and flexibility. For example, the presenters talked about how they  thought that, in the context of their mission, the low hanging fruit would be student work. This led to a thicket of evaluation and fairness concerns: student work ranges in quality, and there is no clear mechanism for making a consistent call, such as journal peer review for faculty work. We can seek administrative mandates for archiving particular categories of student work–eg comprehensive papers–but there is always a range of finished-ness and readiness for prime time. The last thing we want is for students to fear the IR and feel embarrassed about the work that represents them there. New options have to be considered, perhaps the creation of a student editorial board to self-mediate what represents their school on the web. 

How much energy do we devote to IRs now, when there might not be a ready stream of content? As anyone who reads IR bloggers knows, it’s a frustrating and time consuming job to build and promote something that seems to resist growth. Flip that question the other way, and we can ask how our IRs will become the powerful tool we want them to be when “they are everyone’s responsibility and nobody’s job,” in the words of one presenter?

It’s a beautiful day here in Seattle - the sun is out and the view of the mountains to the East (Cascades and Mt Rainier) and the West (Olympics) is great. Hope all those attending the conference get a chance to get outside and enjoy the view.  It sounds like tomorrow will be typical Seattle weather with rain.

This is only my second big library conference, my first being ALA last year.  This conference seems much more relaxed and everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. This morning I attended the Research Services presentation and the room was packed.  I am very impressed with the technology here at the convention center. The room was outfitted with a large screen and great sound quality.  The wireless here is great, very fast and available pretty much everyone in the building. Remember the days when you had to plan for the wireless to not work and have screenshots ready for a presentation just in case?  That’s not a problem here!

The Custom Research Services session provided great information and I was surprised to find out that many of the solutions suggested were “low tech” solutions such as getting out and talking with the faculty, providing comfortable spaces for them in the library, meeting with them to discuss research needs and providing materials delivery.  It was a good reminder that technology doesn’t solve everything! There were also good technology based suggestions such as providing institutional repositories (electronic publishing), distance learning offerings and content management systems.

I’m off to the exhibits and cyber presentations. Looking forward to seeing all the new technology being used out there.

Casting a net to provide customized research services for faculty and students

USF - Tampa.  Faculty research suite - serves faculty and grad students.  “Only thing constant about academic libraries is that they’re always changing.”  Now under academic services rather than being a stand-alone service.  Research services and collections, reference.

FSU - Florida State U.  Scholars commons.  (Like the name!  MB) Serves faculty and graduate students.  Didn’t like sharing research space with undergrads.  (!)

Brainstorm sessions with assigned questions….Our question: Given the number of electronic resources available in academic libraries today, how important is library as place for faculty members and researchers?  Of course, this is of particular interest to me, having one of the only virtual academic libraries in the country.  Jen felt strongly that place is no longer important.  Jamie felt it was important. I think that a physical space is important as a gathering space, a collaborative space, a reflective space.

Q: How can librarians learn more about their faculty and support their research? From the audience: Ask the students; task force to look at future of scholarship; gather stats to see what they’re actually asking.  From the panel: FSU: listen.  Talk to faculty, develop relationships.  Interviews and focus groups to determine research, preferences and needs.    SFU:  environmental scan of research and curriculum.  Looked at degree programs, explored research interests of faculty.  Investigated research grants that have been awarded and conducted curriculum scans for existing and new degree programs.  Bibliometrics - gathered data on faculty publications.  Helps librarians focus collections.

Q: What types of new and customized services can library leaders develop to support student/faculty research? Audience: institutional repositories.  Letting faculty and grad students know what’s available, especially in dissertations (ETDs).  Comment that term “institutional repository” is outdated and library speak.  Panel: take services to researchers - on site office hours, faculty delivery service.  Collaborate to create course-specific content in course management systems.   USF: used blogging to do outreach - The EdLib Report.  Conducted specialized workshops related to faculty research.   Partnered with the Center for Excellence in Teaching to do so.  “Beyond the Basics” workshops for deeper research.   Created digital repositories and supported scholarly communications.

Q: Given the number of electronic resources available in academic libraries today, how important is library as place for faculty members and researchers? Audience:  Comfort with technology does not equal skill with technology.  They may know how to Google but may not know if you add one more word, you narrow the search.  (Great comment! - MB) Faculty knowing they can go to a place to get what they need.  Browsing for physical volumes is essential to research; the faculty loves it most.  How is that duplicated in a virtual world?  Hard to introduce that serendipity.  Panel: USF:  library is largest game in town in large metropolitan area.  Focused on undergrads.  Needed to make the distinction between what the librarians perceived and what was actually true.  Perception that since “everything is online” that faculty no longer need to come to the library.  Conducted surveys and focus groups.  Found that faculty wanted quiet space in the library.  They wanted to be away from the undergraduate-focused Information Commons.  (Again! - MB) Wished for meeting rooms and comfortable seating.  Created the USF Faculty/Graduate Research Suite.    FSU: library is in center of campus, vibrant area.  Scholars Commons - quiet area.  Main floor is for undergrads and is pretty noisy.  Faculty and grad students prefer the quiet area.  No cell phones.  Librarian offices adjacent to the Scholars Commons; allows easy access.

Q: What new roles can librarians play to bring library collections and services to the table with researchers? Audience: Grant writing, research assistance, data services.  Pages with RSS feeds.    Panel: library as publisher - now publishing monographic series.  Teaching credit courses.  Forge innovative campus partnerships.  Collaborative collection development projects with faculty.  Get administrative support in getting the message out.

Page of suggested readings.

Also published in Impromptu Librarian.

Session Description:
This panel presentation will explore leadership development through the scope of geographic diversity and how regional cultural contexts impact one’s response to and effectiveness in maximizing potential and professional growth. Each panelist represents a diverse geographic demographic, including two regions of the U.S. and the Middle East. Panelists will help program attendees review their leadership style and identify ways in which they can improve their skills and effectiveness while encouraging innovative thought in others.

Benefits/Objectives:

• Attendees will be able to identify a variety of resources in order to develop effective leadership skills
• Attendees will be able to evaluate their environments in context in order to strengthen visibility and improve delivery of library services.
• Attendees will be able to assist others in the development of leadership skills in order to build an effective library team, recognizing that being a leader is not necessarily tied to position or title.

Presenters:
Eric A. Kidwell, Huntingdon College, Montgomery, AL, United States, Isabelle Eula, Central Library, Qatar Foundation Education Division, Doha, , Qatar, Shannon Van Kirk, Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, OR, United States

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