During the ILA Planning Day meeting, this book was recommended as it has interesting ideas on what associations such as ILA and ILA/ACRL should do to stay relevant.
"We're friendly and helpful, but sometimes we make things harder than they need to be. The thing is, even the simplest of academic libraries can be overwhelming to freshmen, so we need to do everything we can to make the library as welcoming as possible, including the signage." I liked her idea of stepping outside your silo to see how signage is done at hospitals, malls, etc.
If you attended Steven Bell's session on gatekeeping, he recommended this book. I have only read one chapter but it is an easy and thought-provoking read so far!
The Attaining Information Literacy Project has focused on identifying first-year college students with below-proficient information literacy skills, gaining an understanding of those students' self-views and perceptions of information literacy, gaining an understanding of their instructional experiences and preferences, and developing an intervention that will address their instructional needs. Focus groups were conducted with students with below-proficient skills to determine their instructional preferences.
The findings from the focus groups indicate that students place a high value on personal relevance in the knowledge and skills they are learning, and they prefer a combination of demonstration and hands-on activities, interaction with the instructor and other students, and the availability of supplemental instructional materials in the form of handouts. In addition, they feel that incentives to participate in instruction are crucial and that a number of communication strategies are needed to advertise effectively the availability of instructional sessions.
This study investigated the value of academic libraries for teaching and research staff. The academic library community has been dealing with the issue of how best to demonstrate its value for years, especially value to students. Yet although a good deal of evidence is collected, much of this is evidence of activity rather than evidence of value and impact, especially value to and impact on teaching and research staff.
"Write, edit and improve Wikipedia's entries relating to Multnomah County, past and present. Experienced, newbie and everyone in between are welcome to this workshop."
This publication was created to serve as a practical guide for instruction coordinators and managers to use in the environmental analysis of their own unique situations. Information provided here includes nationally-established guidelines, suggestions of possible local resources to consult, questions to ask, and sources for additional reading.
Instruction Librarians wanting to understand how to effectively engage in their institution's instructional environment would benefit from using this workbook. The workbook guides practitioners through an environmental scan and provides information such as nationally established guidelines, possible local resources to consult, questions to ask, and sources for additional reading.
The December issue of the ILA/ACRL Newsletter is now available. It includes the President's Piece by Rebecca Funke and news from libraries across the state.
"The following information literacy concepts and skills provide a framework for library instructors and teaching faculty to address during each of the indicated class levels."
A few weeks ago, I found myself just up the road in Nashville for the ACRL Immersion Intentional Teacher program…sort of a professional retreat for instruction librarians.
Part way through the Immersion program, I remembered a great piece that Char Booth wrote for In the Library with the Lead Pipe in which she argued that librarians are persistently beset with similar questions of identity. That is, we have a nasty habit of trying to define our roles by appeal to something other than “librarian”; it’s the “librarian as __________” problem.
To put the obligatory philosophical spin on it, the “librarian as __________” issue is an issue of bad faith. In attempting to mold ourselves into the roles we think we should embody, we are only deceiving ourselves.
Librarian as ________ analogies are useful in exploring our response to a critically transformative time in the trajectory of our profession, but their function as metaphor should not be overlooked lest we creep too far from our own (rather amazing) archetype.
our library instruction curriculum for the massive First-Year composition program where our most important learning outcome is that students understand how their librarians and their library can help them succeed.
The $9.99 ZotPad app lets you access your Zotero library on an iPad.
I’m delighted that the newest version of ZotPad has solved these two limitations: you can now access your Zotero attachments if you use WebDAV (and also if you store your Zotero library on DropBox), and regardless of which method you use to sync your Zotero files, you can upload annotated PDFs back up to Zotero.
You can highlight, underline, add notes and comments to the the PDF, using whatever your preferred app is on the iPad. Then, when you’re ready, use that app’s Share… or Open In… feature to kick the document back to ZotPad. ZotPad will figure out which item that PDF belongs to, and swap out the old version for the newly annotated version.
In other words, if you download a PDF directly from, say, JSTOR, while in iOS’s Safari, you cannot send that PDF into ZotPad. You still need a PC to do that.
My second caveat is that you will probably want to adjust ZotPad’s settings so that it doesn’t try to download every attachment in your library all at once.
Go to the main Settings app and scroll down to find ZotPad listed among the apps. Under the section labeled “Preemptive Cache,” change the Attachment files option to “Active items.” This ensures that ZotPad will only download an attachment when you specifically request it.
essentially it’s a place for folks to make things, perhaps writing and illustrating a zine, using the open source Arduino computing platform to program a robot, screenprinting, or creating model houses with a 3D printer.
some public libraries are experimenting with makerspaces, including Fayetteville Free Library in New York, Westport Public Library in Connecticut, and Cleveland Public Library in Ohio.
What could a makerspace look like in an academic library? What do we help our patrons make? We have computer labs, some more specialized and high-end than others, and we could add equipment like 3D printers. Of course, not every library will have the funding and staff to create tech-centered makerspaces. And faculty and departments may already have that equipment for students to use, especially those in engineering, computer science, and other technical majors.
For those colleges or universities that can’t create a physical makerspace, what are some other ways we can encourage the maker ethos in our libraries?
We could produce a student journal or create a zine, and I have a colleague who asks students to create their own citation style. But I’m struggling with the idea of the one-shot instruction session as makerspace. What can students “make” in a one-shot?
We need to find ways to support creating, not just finding. The Student as Producer project at the University of Lincoln in the UK is an interesting model to consider.
But I’m interested in adapting the *spirit* of makerspaces for an academic setting, by giving students a space the facilitates content creation and experimentation and play. I’m wondering if Digital Media Labs are in some ways equivalent to makerspaces in this way?
Students generally have one thing on their mind–pass their classes and they visit the library to do that. Even if they never speak to a librarian, they may find the ambiance of a library conductive to the end goal of passing a class. They often do not have the time or current interest to pursue creative endeavors, at least not in the library. They instead go work out at the student athletic center or participate in student organizations that provide a more creative outlet. In other words, it’s a different community and a different mission than the public library.
I guess more than anything I’m interested in the spirit of makerspaces, as Elizabeth notes, as a place where creativity and excitement are encouraged. Maybe these feelings aren’t as closely-associated with a place intended for (school)work as they are with one intended for hobbies/leisure. But I think it *is* exciting to research a topic and make something out of the information you find.
At U.Iowa we’ve been developing a 75-90 minute lesson plan with an overview of zine history, hands on time with zines, and then time to make a collaborative zine. I’d be happy to chat about it, send an e-mail! Colleen Theisen, Special Collections & University Archives – University of Iowa