Iowa ACRL

Everyone may have seen this article already but wanted to share! Features the University of Iowa!

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.

Great little LibGuide on how to take notes while reading and some potential apps to use for staying organized.

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!

conference presentations from Designing Libraries at NCSU

This research was designed to address a gap in our understanding of information literacy education by adding student perceptions to the question of how to ensure that all students develop the information literacy skills they need as part of their educational experience. The findings from this study provide important input for the design, development, and implementation of information resources and services, particularly those aimed at reaching students with non-proficient information literacy skills. All AIL workshop materials from this study are freely available for educational use from the Information Skills Workshop Materials section of this site. Proper attributions should be given to the researchers (Melissa Gross and Don Latham) and to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for their support in developing these materials. Commercial use of these materials is not permitted.

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.

Having just opened the Learning Commons at the University of Iowa, this has been an interesting read!

Big collection of free e-books from NASA, including history, biography and lots and lots of science. Many of them have great archival photos, too.

Thanks, Sara. I shared this on our Sciences Library Facebook page and Twitter feed.

"Our goals include to: Develop strategies libraries can use to identify types of publishing services and content that can be created and curated by libraries. Assess trends in digital content creation and publishing that can be useful in libraries and suggesting potential future projects. Identify efficient workflows for distributing content for free online and with potential for some cost-recovery in print on demand markets."

Research tutorial from UC-Irvine; sections include Knowledge Cycle, Searching, Citations

This is great, Sara. Thanks for sharing!

It's no secret, I love Barbara Fister. This is a great blog post that reminds me that I have had a very different experience with the creation, organization and distribution of information than many of the students I work with today. I need to reevaluate my assumptions.

Publishers have offered a solution for the federal government's new open access policy. What solutions do libraries have to offer?

Analysis of the CHORUS proposal: http://www.michaeleisen.org/blog/?p=1382.

And now, the proposal from libraries: http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/universities-and-libraries-envision-a-federated-system-for-public-access-to-research/44147.

Visual satellite imagery of locations over the last 20 years

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.