BCU Library

Some surprises for me:  39% of students wish instructors would use email more?? I've often heard the same from instructors, so... ? 31% of students wish their instructors used e-books 88% of students reported using the institution's library website wait a minute... 48% want to learn programming languages? Who are these people?  73% still think printers are important for academic success ::sigh:: 

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at Texas Wesleyan University undertook a project to find out what a classroom would look like if it were designed by faculty and students-and then to build that classroom. The goal was to promote innovation in learning space design and to advance instructors' understanding of how classroom design impacts teaching and learning. Classroom.NEXT initiated a campus-wide dialogue on the design of informal and formal learning spaces, and faculty, students, and administrators identified flexibility and interactivity as key attributes to be promoted in all Texas Wesleyan learning spaces. Collaboration, particularly student-faculty collaboration, was a central component of the success of Classroom.NEXT. Faculty participants commented that they learned as much from their students about learning space design and technology as they did from the research.

Free online book (HTML / browser-based) about learning research.  See in particular Chapter 6: The Design of Learning Environments.

Defines an "effective school library program" to be staffed by a state-certified school librarian, have up-to-date materials including technology, teaches digital literacy skills, and finally, has regular collaboration between other education professionals over curriculum. Replaces Improving Literacy Through School Libraries with Improving Literacy and College and Career Readiness Through Effective School Library Programs which would award competitive grants to underserved local schools and school districts to develop an effective school library program. Allows school librarians access to professional development funds under Title II of ESEA.

A way to turn off this annoying feature

"UC Berkeley - Search, Google, and Life - Guest Lecturers Sergey Brin, Bradley Horowitz, Jason Schultz, and more - This free course from the University of California at Berkeley gives you an opportunity to sit in on some of the greatest minds in modern technology as they discuss how their products, services, and companies play a major role in shaping the way we obtain information, process it, and view the world. They also discuss how they came to be involved in those technologies, and how search and search engines work and have changed the internet as we know it."

Ebook of research report from ACRL about how students use libraries. "we were interested in how students write their research papers and what services, resources, and facilities would be most useful to them"

This is a code of best practices in fair use devised specifically by and for the academic and research library community. It enhances the ability of librarians to rely on fair use by documenting the considered views of the library community about best practices in fair use, drawn from the actual practices and experience of the library community itself. It identifies eight situations that represent the library community's current consensus about acceptable practices for the fair use of copyrighted materials and describes a carefully derived consensus within the library community about how those rights should apply in certain recurrent situations.

One question I hear quite a bit is this: Don't we have to teach the basics of Boolean search to our students? The answer, from a Google perspective is this: We teach Boolean searching only for using traditional database systems.

The Research Works Act will prohibit federal agencies from unauthorized free public dissemination of journal articles that report on research which, to some degree, has been federally-funded but is produced and published by private sector publishers receiving no such funding. It would also prevent non-government authors from being required to agree to such free distribution of these works. Additionally, it would preempt federal agencies' planned funding, development and back-office administration of their own electronic repositories for such works, which would duplicate existing copyright-protected systems and unfairly compete with established university, society and commercial publishers.

We are pleased to announce publication of the new Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (pdf) by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL). The Visual Literacy Standards include: · an introduction to and definition of visual literacy · a brief discussion of visual literacy and higher education · a brief discussion of visual literacy and information literacy · suggestions for implementing the Standards · key sources and bibliography · 7 standards, 24 performance indicators, and 90 learning outcomes

Apps by topics: productivity, reading, research, notes, presenting, and music, plus a resources page

book from d.school at Stanford University "Appropriate for designers charged with creating new spaces or anyone interested in revamping an existing space, this guide offers novel and non-obvious strategies for changing surroundings specifically to enhance the ways in which teams and individuals communicate, work, play-and innovate. This work is based on years of classes and programs at the d.school including countless prototypes and iterations with d.school students and spaces."

"Academic libraries that choose to emphasize services that are relevant in a digital world strike the authors as the most likely to find fertile ground." Academic libraries that choose to emphasize services that are relevant in a digital world strike the authors as the most likely to find fertile ground. They would be entering a realm of many opportunities; a realm characterized by rapid and discontinuous shifts. These institutions would be well advised to begin the process now. The trend-line is clear and the shift to a digital environment has tremendous momentum. Libraries cannot afford to wait until the smoke has cleared and the digital revolution is complete to take action. First the risk of being subordinated to more nimble entities within (and perhaps outside of) the academy is significant. Libraries will be hard pressed to reclaim lost territory once others fulfill these roles successfully. Second, the shift to a predominantly digital environment began more than a decade ago, shows no sign of slowing, and is creating a cascade of associated changes.

Survey results shared from interviews with chief academic officers and an online survey taken by over 130 leaders in academic affairs yield surprising results. Perhaps the final lesson we can take from hearing from administrators is that they look to us not just to make the case for libraries but to ride the wave of change. We must ensure that libraries and librarians step into new roles and take up different challenges, reimagining the ways we and our libraries can be essential consultants in all the ways that students and faculty learn, discover, and share their work.

FOSS4LIB (Free/Open Source Software for Libraries), a website dedicated to providing guidance about open source software for the library community.