Baylor Central Libraries

Barbara Fister on "power struggle over what a library is-and who gets to decide"

"The Idea of Order: Transforming Research Collections for 21st Century Scholarship"

Nice review of Ohio State University's renovation of the main library

"a community of faculty, academic technologists, librarians, administrators, and other academic professionals interested in two interlocking questions: how do creative uses of new technology and networked information support the current project of liberal education, and, perhaps more interestingly, how do they force us to re-think what it means to be liberally educated?"

"What does the "classroom of the future" look like? In contrast to the traditional lecture-oriented room, this increasingly popular kind of space, known as a "studio classroom," emphasizes group learning and collaboration. But designers might not always get it right. AV expert Michael Leiboff shares 14 distinct characteristics of a successful studio classroom design."

Nothing earth-shatteringly original here, but a good summary of basic ideas for a studio learning environment.

"In the current financial climate where every penny counts, raising our internal profile has never been more vital. There are people making decisions on what jobs are vital to the institution's goals and they are not necessarily aware of what librarians contribute, making our posts vulnerable to redundancy. It has therefore never been more essential to make non-library colleagues sit up and take notice of the excellent work we do."

"Although today's academic library users may feel that browsing is an ancient scholarly right, the practice is in fact no older than the baby-boomer faculty who so often lead the charge to keep books on campus."

Abstract: On March 3 and 4, 2010, the ELI community gathered for an online focus session on mobile learning. This white paper is a synthesis of the key ideas, themes, and concepts that emerged from those sessions. The white paper also includes links to relevant focus session materials, recordings, and archives. It represents a harvesting of the key elements that we as a teaching and learning community need to keep in mind as we work to integrate mobile technology into teaching and learning in higher education. It is clear that while the application of mobile technology to learning is just now getting under way, the potential is enormous and we can expect that the rate of development will be very rapid indeed.

"National Science Foundation (NSF) officials announced a change in the implementation of the existing policy on sharing research data. In particular, on or around October, 2010, NSF is planning to require that all proposals include a data management plan in the form of a two-page supplementary document."

The introduction of information technologies into higher education added new dimensions to the educational enterprise and led to investigations into how the design of learning spaces affects teaching and learning. The time has come to broaden the scope of that inquiry and consider factors beyond space, including learning culture and the changing roles of instructors, students, and other people involved in teaching and learning. The effort to understand and develop effective learning environments includes more individuals and more roles than have generally been involved in the discussion about teaching and learning, and the factors at issue include, but go beyond, technology.

A cleverly presented message...

Interesting results from a survey of librarians on the topic of ebooks