Instruction ideas / methods / analogies

Below are some ideas for instruction that I found valuable from the CARLI Best Practices in Instruction Forum last week. Please share if anyone has any other good ones - I think analogies and new instruction methods are great!

Pre-session assessment – what do they already know?

How do you prepare students to learn?

• Tell a funny story
• Show a short video clip
• Tell them that this will be “the greatest library experience of their lives!
• Start class with a Google search – similarities, differences, and how the library resources can do so much more
• Ask them what they would like to get out of the session

“What do you want to get out of this today?"

• Gets students involved immediately – creates a sense of ownership, that this is “their learning”
  
• Empowers students, answers their questions

Communicating with faculty about a vague or difficult assignment

• “What do you want your students to get out of the assignment?”

Library Instruction Analogies

Selecting a database

• “If you were searching for ice cream in the vegetable section, you might think, this store sucks!”
• Databases as different stores like Target and Wal-Mart – they have overlap, but also offer different specialized things – if Target doesn’t have it, you don’t just go home, you go to the next store, or a specialty store

Searching in different databases and catalog

• How Facebook and iTunes are organized – advanced searching in these areas – form comparisons
• How students organize and search their music files and collections

*All of these ideas came from a number of different people - I wish I could remember their names!

Fwd: Plagiarism 101: Keys to Preventing Academic Misconduct

This came across the GSLIS webboards. The online conference is $200 with no restriction on number of attendees. Anyone else interested? Care to invite other interested faculty?

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Plagiarism 101: Keys to Preventing Academic Misconduct 11/28Audio Conference
Date: Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:46:22 -0500
From: audio@HigherEdHero.com <audio@HigherEdHero.com>
To: painter@uiuc.edu

For those concerned with preventing student plagiarism at youruniversity, there will be a live, 60-minute Audio Conference:

"Plagiarism 101: Keys to Preventing Academic Misconduct"Wednesday, November 28, 2007 1:00 - 2:00 PM ET

http://www.higheredhero.com/plagiarism3i?ID=-977501286

Academic misconduct and dishonesty pose a threat to the mission ofhigher education. Today?s technologies result in increased studentplagiarism, making it a problem on every college campus. With studentsplagiarizing both on and off line, what do college faculty and staffneed to know to recognize and prevent different forms of plagiarism?Join us for a live, 60-minute audio conference where you and yourcolleagues will learn:

** Strategies to Protect Your College from On and Off-Line Plagiarism
** How to Increase Student Awareness of Plagiarism & Misconduct
** Most Common Types of Cybercheating & How to Prevent Them
** Keys to Recognize Sources of On-Line and Internet Plagiarism
** Strategies for Drafting an Effective Academic Dishonesty Policy

Dr. Dennis Gregory is Associate Professor of Educational Leadership andCounseling and Director of the Higher Education Graduate Program at OldDominion University in Norfolk, Virginia.

** Dr. Gregory has served as a chief student affairs officer at several institutions and has served in both line and staff positions at public and private institutions of higher education.
** He has also served in a wide variety of leadership positions in professional associations and has presented and written in areas of student affairs, legal issues, the federal role of higher education and the places and programs where these issues have combined.

Hosted by Higher Ed Hero, this audio conference gives you theopportunity to add immediate, money-saving impact to your workenvironment that is:

FAST - No wasted time here. Get right to the heart of the matter with a1-hour block designed to easily fit into your busy schedule.

CONVENIENT - No airlines. No travel. No time out of the office.Listen in from the comfort and convenience of your desk.

EASY - A telephone is all the equipment you need. Just dial in, punch inyour access code, and you're in. That's it. Follow along with the audioconference handouts provided in advance.
ACTIONABLE - Our audio conferences provide money-saving tactics you canstart using as soon as you hang up the phone.

IDEAL FOR MULTIPLE LISTENERS - Use a speakerphone and as many people asyou want can listen in - at no extra cost to you. These sessions are acost-effective, time-efficient means of training Higher Educationprofessionals and staff, and reinforcing key issues in a fresh, newmanner that they will remember and act on.

AFFORDABLE - Priced at $199, a fraction of the cost of travel andattendance fees for a lengthy, high-priced conference or seminar.

** Plagiarism 101: Keys to Preventing Academic Misconduct**
** Live, 60-Minute Audio Conference **
** Wednesday, November 28, 2007 1:00 - 2:00 PM ET**

Register now for this exciting event by clicking the following link:

http://www.higheredhero.com/plagiarism3i?ID=-977501286

or calling 800-964-6033. When registering by phone please refer to yourPriority Code: 70034
As usual we offer a full refund if not satisfied from now until7 days after the event.

I hope you'll join us.
Sincerely,
Higher Ed Hero370 Technology DriveMalvern, PA 19355
P.S. When registering by phone please refer to yourPriority Code: 01286
ContactID#: -1914072548

Research & writing training

Meg's post of the Penn info lit site reminded me of this tool that Lauren and I used in our tutor training: Tufts Research Paper Navigator http://www.library.tufts.edu/researchpape. It's like the U of Minnesota navigator, but it combines the writing process with research. Lauren and I liked it, but the students were less impressed (they don't work as "linear-ly" as the navigator).

If you are curious about the training module we created for the writing center/library project tutors, you will find the outline and linked resources on the shared drive:
S:\Marcia\Writing Center\Training material\Training outline combined2 final\

Marcia

Info Lit resource

Just in case you haven't already come across this Info Lit site...
http://www.libraries.psu.edu/instruction/infolit/andyou/infoyou.htm

It was mentioned in the best practices session at heartland yesterday.

Clever Special Collection Funding

This came across my feed reader. It would be a great way to support collecting the materials our student teachers need each spring.

Scholastic Book Fair

Get a head start on holiday shopping while supporting the Miami University Libraries! Come visit the Scholastic Book Fair between Thursday Nov. 15 and Monday Nov. 19 and shop for yourself, your family, the holidays, or any special occasion. There will be more than 30,000 books available for all ages, and your purchases help enhance the children's literature collection of the Miami University Libraries. The book fair, which features easy readers, picture books, best sellers and more, will be held at the Instructional Materials Center (IMC) on the ground floor of King Library at Miami University. In addition to the book sale, Clifford the Big Red Dog will pose for photos with customers, and there will also be an opportunity to donate books for children in need in our local community and through the Books for Africa program. Scholastic Books will match book donations, up to 150 books.For book fair hours and more information:http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/homepage/miamikinglibrary

~Sarah

Twine

I'm on the waiting list for this new tool. But I want it now!

"...Twine is a place to organize information you find or create on the Web—bookmarks, notes, videos, photos,contacts, tasks. (A Web browser plug-in makes it easy to save stuff to your Twine wherever you may find it on the Web). You can also share that information with a private group or publicly. Once you ingest in all the information you want to organize, Twine applies a semantic analysis to it that creates tags for each document or video or photo. The tags match up to concepts that Twine’s algorithms associate with each piece of content, regardless of whether that concept is specifically mentioned in the Web page or other content being tagged. For example, you might bookmark this post and Twine would create tags for all the people mentioned in it (Nova Spivack, Paul Allen, Peter Rip, and Ron Conway). It would also create tags for the organizations related to the post, such as Radar Networks and DARPA, but also Paul Allen’s venture firm Vulcan Capital—even if Vulcan was never mentioned in the post."

IT DOES THE TAGGING FOR YOU!!! I love this and I haven't even tried it yet. Want to know more? See the TechCrunch Post that talks about it. Or get on the waiting list your self at Twine. This might be a better information sharing tool for the librarians as a group than this blog...

Calming down now and going back to working on SFX...

~Sarah

Vision of Students Today video

This YouTub video A Vision of Students Today came out of an intro anthropology class at Kansas State University. Pretty interesting.

Marcia

Personal Library

I'm not sure what to make of this resource. I'm talking about Questia, what appears a subscription-based online library which you can access via one of several personal subscription plans including the low annual price of $99.95 per year. It gets a big zero in the science resources column, but I'm not sure how the humanities journal titles stand up.

This is from the "about" section for librarians-

"Although the agreements licensing the content on Questia from publishers prohibits us from selling directly to libraries, Questia is a great resource for librarians who routinely assist undergraduate students in their research efforts to recommend to their students."

This is from the "about" section for publishers-

"When students borrow a library book or photocopy pages directly from texts, you lose an opportunity for revenue. The Questia business model captures that opportunity. Students and other users are able to search the Questia collection at no charge, but they cannot access a single page without paying a subscription fee. Publishers receive revenue from these subscription fees each time a student views a page of one of your works."

A community college librarian on the ERIL-L asked if anyone had any experience with providing individual Questia accounts to students... Isn't that what EZ Proxy is for?

OPAC Text Message

"Click here for the bibliographic record for Hanging Out with the Dream King. Again, note the boxes on the left with the new addition of "Missing or Checked Out?" that gives users options to find the title in other ways if it is unavailable. I would love to see this feature duplicated in every library catalog in the world. Also note the option to send the book record via text message, and the item tags at the bottom of the record."

Too cool!

Other features are outlined here- http://library.bowdoin.edu/news/phebe2007.shtml

"Well, if They're Already Using it..."

This article from InsideHigherEd echos a lot of what we've been talking about in the last 3-4 months. I find it very intriguing that Northwestern has outsourced its email to Gmail.

SDK

Library Subject Pages

I won't copy the whole post, but Meredith Farkas writes at great length about her exploration of and struggle with library subject pages. In light of the introduction of the same topic at our faculty meeting yesterday, I found this very interesting.

http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/2007/10/24/the-long-road-towards-subject-guide-20/

~Sarah

Chicago Trib article

Interesting article I thought I'd pass along...

http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1363161731&Fmt=3&clientId=44404&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Why Yahoo, not Google, should drive your search:[Chicago Edition]
STEVE JOHNSON. Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Ill.:Oct 12, 2007. p. 1
Full Text (1250 words)
(Copyright 2007 by the Chicago Tribune)

For the most recent chunk of our Internet lives, most of us have been on autopilot.

When it comes time to look something up on the Web, we "Google" it.

We don't do this generically, in the manner that someone may "Xerox" a document on a Ricoh copier.

We literally "Google" it, entering a search term (say, "Facebook widgets") in the box at google.com, hitting "Enter" and letting Google supply us with an impressive absurdity: 7,880,000 results in 0.21 seconds, somewhere between 7,879,980 and 7,879,999 of which we will never even consider.

We are more likely to do this than ever: Google's growing share of all searches executed in the U.S. now stands at about three in five. Google's stock, this week, has risen above $600, after people speculated about overvaluation at $500.

But by failing to examine our search behavior, we are not only laying pavement on the road to monopoly, we are missing out.

Since the ascendancy of the Mountain View, Calif., giant, there has been no better time than now to stop automatically "Googling" and to start searching again.

The Yahoo and Microsoft search engines, as the distant Nos. 2 and 3 in the search market, are trying much harder to land some of the 80 monthly searches Internet users worldwide average.

They have both recently unveiled significant overhauls that make them easier to work with, nicer to look at and a little bit closer to figuring out what we really meant when we typed "Facebook widgets."

Engine No. 4 or 5 in various rankings, Ask.com, the former Ask Jeeves, has taken to begging for you to give it a chance via TV advertising. "Instant getification" is the clever, but not exactly catchy, term its ad agency cooked up for what the search engine claims to do.

Type "getification" into the Ask search box, though, and the first thing it does is suggest that you might be trying to spell "certification." Yahoo Search thinks you might mean "gasification," while Live Search, Microsoft's engine, offers "gratification" and even includes results for it.

Although it offers a pleasant interface and many options around the edges of the window, I've been less than impressed by Ask in several tests. The site is supposed to be strong in travel, but a search for "Chicago" sites turned up Ticketmaster's offering of Michael Baisden tickets on the first results page. The radio host is appearing here, true, but of all the city-related Web sites, of all the events taking place here, why this would score prominently on the list is confounding.

The concert wasn't even among the "sponsored results" (better known as "ads"), which Ask doesn't do a very good job at distinguishing from the legitimate search results.

The Yahoo effort (search.yahoo.com), on the other hand, is so impressive I'm going to make it my default searcher. Best is "Search Assist," an expandable box right below where you type your query that offers a bevy of clickable terms to help you refine it. A good reference librarian will write a specific, targeted search. Yahoo's search assist gets you close to librarian status, without the bother of getting an MLS degree.

Improving your searching is important because, while it has become the dominant means of Web navigation, a survey Yahoo commissioned suggests that only 15 percent of people find what they want on the first search. And, just as a 20-page restaurant menu makes you wonder if the place does anything well, a search result that gives you 8 million answers isn't as good as one that boils that down to 80, or even eight, that are highly relevant.

Search "Chicago" at search.yahoo.com, and you get, first, Yahoo's own Chicago travel guide, from the Yahoo Travel site, with a skyline photo and a link to a slide show of other photos of major attractions.

Below that are the sites selected from out on the Web, in this order: the City of Chicago; the Convention and Tourism Bureau; Metromix, the Tribune's things to do guide; Chicago Citysearch, another city guide; the band Chicago; the Tribune; the Sun-Times; the Chicago Wikipedia entry; the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago; and the movie "Chicago." Not a clunker in the bunch.

"Yahoo's release is almost like mind reading. They're anticipating what you're going to do next," says Charlene Li, an analyst who covers consumer search for Forrester Research.

As much as you might want to criticize the Yankees of search, Google provides a very good first-page "Chicago" list too. It starts with a link to the excellent Google Maps service, and it adds, in the results, a few very timely headlines from Google News, the company's news rake.

It leaves out Tribune and Sun-Times sites, although they are linked to in the news results. The "Chicago" movie listing comes, instead, from the Internet Movie Database site. Instead of the local Fed branch, it provides a listing for the University of Chicago. There's also a link for Chicago.com, the privately run aggregator of city information.

The outlier in Google's list is a link to the Chicago Bulls Web site. Presumably, if you want the Bulls, you would know enough to type the team name into the search area.

Live Search (search.live.com), Microsoft's search, goes one weirder. Instead of the Bulls, on the first page of a "Chicago" search, it offers the site of the less-than-widely-popular Chicago Sky of the WNBA. Also, why the private Chicago Yacht Club would make the list is a puzzler that only Michael Baisden could answer. Or perhaps Bill Gates.

On the positive side, Live Search was the only engine to provide a link to a great Chicago neighborhoods site (neighborhoods.chicago.il.us) and the only one to provide, right up front, a link to "Top Videos of Chicago," which the engine asks you if you find useful.

More and more, the engines are working to try to turn a three-page process -- enter search term, get search results, click on what you were looking for -- into a two-page one, where the results page tries to provide some of the most obvious answers, Li says.

Don't expect earth-shattering changes, though. When one comes up with an innovative feature, it's a safe bet that the others will find a way to offer a version of that. All, for instance, are trying to offer more photo and video links along with text results; Yahoo, which owns the Flickr photo-sharing service, is doing an excellent job incorporating its image library into its results.

So Yahoo gets my default search-engine vote, partly for what they've doing, partly because competition is good for Google. But others will find features or tendencies they prefer in the other search engines.

It is simple to test them yourself and to switch back and forth. If you have the Firefox browser (and you should), the upper-right corner is a search bar that will automatically execute searches based on what you type in. The drop-down list provides a handful of engines preloaded; you designate which one you want to use by clicking on it. To add others, click on the "Manage search engines" link at the bottom.

If you run Internet Explorer, the process is almost identical. Using the tabbed browsing features, you can run side-by-side comparisons. And soon enough, you can be searching again, rather than, by force of habit, Googling.

----------
sajohnson@tribune.com
[Illustration]
Caption: Graphic: TOP SEARCH WEB SITESMonthly unique visitors, scale in billionsGoogle: 5.54Yahoo: 2.29MSN: 1.11AOL: 0.44Ask: 0.44JAN.-AUG.Source: comScore Inc.Chicago Tribune-See microfilm for complete graphic
Indexing (document details)

Author(s): STEVE JOHNSON
Document types: News
Column Name: THE INTERNET
Section: Tempo
Publication title: Chicago Tribune. Chicago, Ill.: Oct 12, 2007. pg. 1
Source type: Newspaper
ISSN: 10856706
ProQuest document ID: 1363161731
Text Word Count 1250
Document URL:
http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=1363161731&sid=1&Fmt=3&clientId=44404&RQT=309&VName=PQD

Fun stuff just in time for Halloween

From InsideHigherEd.com:

The Illustrated Librarian Temporary Tattoos


SDK

Fluency in the Digital World

This showed up in my bloglines account today. Jenny Levine linked an interesting chart on Info Lit by Karin Dalziel. Here's Jenny's post:

Fluency in the Digital World
By jenny on project next generation

I'm intrigued by Karin Dalziel's Chart of 4 Types of Information Literacy, although I would add "evaluating" to the first "information literacy" box.

Sadly, most libraries don't teach her third and fourth types - media literacy and digital literacy. For several years, I've highlighted Illinois' Project Next Generation in my presentations and how it creates collaborative work spaces where kids can learn the skills necessary for media and digital literacies. I'd still like to see more libraries provide these types of opportunities because after all, where else are these they (and adults) going to learn them? Are libraries really just about books and information, or is there more we can and should be educating users about? Or at least providing the spaces in which they can do that?

Good news on student research behavior plus what we can do more of...

From Roy Tennant's Current Cites:

Head, Alison. "[16]Beyond Google: How do Students Conduct Academic Research?" [17]First Monday 12(8)(August 2007)(http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_8/head/). - This article, based on research conducted by noted professor and usability specialist Dr. Alison Head, challenges assumptions about student research behavior. Far from turning to Google and confidently flipping out a paper, students rely more on authoritative sources vetted and provided by instructors and librarians, and are more hesitant, diffident, and confused by the research process than is often assumed. The paper concludes by recommending we pay more attention to research instruction and information literacy, but implicit in its suggestions is a ringing endorsement of classic librarian tasks in higher education.

ALS First Year Report on Second Life

From the ALS site:

A First Year of Operation Report on the of the Alliance Second Life Library 2.0 Project also known as the Alliance Information Archipelago in now available.

The report spans from April 11, 2006 through April 18, 2007

The report was compiled by Tom Peters of TAP Information Services with the assistance of Lori Bell and Beth Gallaway.

The entire report can be found here."

ALS also has great professional development/educational opportunities for librarians and library staff, listed on the CLeO section of their site (registration required to access list).

Learning Style Information Literacy

The Otis College of Art and Design has made this helpful page available to their students. It provides written, interactive, and in-depth guides on how to use the library.

http://library.otis.edu/informationliteracy.html

Virtual Worlds & Education bibliography

From LISnews.com:

"It's Not Whether You Win or Lose, but How You Play the Game: The Role of Virtual Worlds in Education"
An Annotated Bibliography by Sharon Stoerger

"The articles that are summarized in this bibliography examine a wide variety of topics including immersion, creation (versus memorization), and game innovation, as well as Csikszentmihalyi's (e.g., 1993) concept of flow. Many of the authors take a constructivist rather than an instructivist approach to the topic and draw from the work of scholars, such as Piaget and Vygotsky. One theme that is repeated throughout many of these articles is the lack of empirical research and the reliance on anecdotal evidence that suggests conceptual learning.

While the focus of the articles included in this collection is primarily on the positive aspects of educational gaming, references to concerns, such as violence, bias against girls, and game addiction are included, as well. In general, this annotated bibliography is an attempt to pull together and examine a corpus of the available literature on the topic of virtual worlds in educational settings. It is by no means an exhaustive list of resources; rather, it includes some of the more commonly cited sources related to the use of this type of technology for the purpose of teaching and learning."

Pedagogy Journals outside of LIS

From ILI-L:

The Research and Scholarship Committee is pleased to announce the revision
of an online publication collaboratively authored by 2006-2007 committee
members Nancy Dewald, Wendy Holliday, Merinda McLure (Chair), Karen Munro
(Intern), Barbara Petersohn, and Rob Withers.

"A Selected List of Pedagogical Journals in Fields Outside of LIS"

This updated and expanded list aims to provide academic librarians and LIS
students with periodical sources for current awareness of disciplinary and
higher education pedagogy, and with suggested venues for publication
outside of the LIS literature. The list includes journals that have a focus
on higher education and pedagogy and are peer-reviewed and published in
English in the United States. Suggested journal titles are drawn from the
arts and humanities, the sciences, mathematics, the social sciences, and
higher education.


Karen Munro
Chair, IS Research & Scholarship Committee 2007-2008


Karen Munro
E-Learning Librarian
University of California, Berkeley
Doe/Moffitt Libraries
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
kmunro@library.berkeley.edu
510-643-1636

Open Library

Story from InsideHigherEd.com:

"Open Library is a new online tool for finding information about books – even (perhaps especially) for titles that are out-of-print, scarce, or likely to find one reader per decade, if even that. It is, so to speak, a catalog with benefits. If a text is available in digital format, there is a link. you to it. Citations and excerpts from reviews will be available. Likewise, cross-references to other works on related topics. A user of Open Library can see the cover of the book and, in some cases, search the contents."

SDK

Mountains Beyond Mountains on Facebook

So, I recently composed an email to Stephanie suggesting that we start a discussion about Mountains Beyond Mountains on the Facebook Group "Illinois Wesleyan Class of 2011." Then I checked to see if the students might have already started a discussion; they had! 21 students have participated in the discussion since July 4th.

424 people are members of this group, many of them incoming freshmen. If you're not on Facebook yet, sign up and check this out. Or, come to my office and I will show you.

~Sarah

Facebook Professional

Hi,

This article nicely outlines 12 Ways to use Facebook Professionally.

~Sarah

Loriene Roy Podcast

From InsideHigherEd.com...very interesting!

More on Facebook

Hi all,
These items are from Gerry's McKiernan's blog - thought they'd be of interest:

(1) Thesis: Facebook.com At Ball State University: Perceptions Of Students' Communication In Virtual Communities: An Examination of Facebook.com At Ball State University
Joshua Sebastian Hill, M.A. | Educational Studies | 2006

Abstract
As new methods of communication have been created by technological advances, it has become important to examine how students use these methods to interact with other students, the campus community, and the world. This study at Ball State University helped researchers understand how students communicated online in order to create policies regarding online communication.

Data were gathered using the qualitative methodology of responsive interviewing. Students and administrators were interviewed (during May and June of 2006). The data were analyzed by identifying important themes, trends, and concepts among the data according to Rubin & Rubin's (2005) model. The study found that institutions should create educational opportunities for faculty, staff, and studentsto learn about online communication technologies. These educational sessions should include how to use the technologies, the potential for their misuse, and the responsibilities attached to their use. The study concluded that existing policies should be used to address online policy violations.

(2) Thesis: Uncovering The Social Impacts Of Facebook On A College Campus
By Matthew Robert Vanden Boogart, Master of Science, Kansas State University 2006

With the creation of Facebook in 2004, colleges and universities across the United States have been playing catch-up with students. This new technology carries much weight as a new medium for students to build social connections and grow as members of their institutions. However, this new technology also brings negative implications such as lowered GPAs with greater use.

Research was conducted at four major institutions across the country exploring how residence hall students use online communities and the impact it has on their physical world experience on campus.

This study explores the impacts Facebook has had on a college campus. University administrators are urged to use this data to take a proactive approach to using these technologies to enhance the overall campus experience.

Undergraduate Research

Some interesting discussion has been taking place within Ames over the use of the word, "Research." Many think it is what our students do when they come to the library. However, when surveying our student workers in preparation for the upcoming AskAmes chat reference advertising campaign, the term "research assistance" didn't resonate with them. Instead, "Need help?" really struck a cord. The usability testing done by Suzanne and Stephanie reflects interesting contrasts between the links in the student created categories of "Research" and "Help." In my recent undergraduate career, I never considered the work I was doing, "research" until I began to work in earnest on my senior project. All of these thoughts were rolling through my head as I began to consider the recent article, "WebGURU: The Web-Based Guide to Research for Undergraduates." in the July/August issue of the Journal of College Science Teaching. The authors are recommending that faculty direct their students to learn more about doing research http://www.webguru.neu.edu/index.php. Resources that can be found in libraries ARE included in the website. It just seems, from this site's scientific perspective, that research encompasses so much more than using the library. Maybe this is why our students are confused by the term...

Maddy's blog

Without my consent :) my daughter Madeleine started a blog of her own. I thought I’d share, just for your amusement. What’s fascinating to me is that Maddy is not a very forthcoming verbal communicator, so this blog allows me to see someone I know very well in a completely new way.

Marcia

IM training guide

hi,
I read the "Real-Time Virtual Reference Training Guide" that is posted on the AOK page. I found the information presented in the Scope of Service and Communication in Real-Time Virtual Reference Services sections to be very informative. Will we have some sort of a policy document to refer to that is IWU specific? I think this document raised some good questions for us to think about. I also think it would be helpful to have written policies to ensure that we are offering service in a consistent manner, and to help new librarians get up-to-speed in the future.

Lynda

New LibGuides Feature

The creator emailed me and there's a pic on Gerry Mckiernan's blog. LibGuides has made it so you can display your instructional guides on your Facebook profile. It's actually quite simple and tasteful as Facebook Applications go.

http://onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2007/07/new-libraryfacebookapp-libguides.html

~Sarah

Dewey Free?

According to the New York Times, the Perry Branch Library in Gilbert, Arizona, has decided to abandon the use of the Dewey Decimal System. Books are shelved by subject matter and searchable by subject terms and authors in a database, but no call number is assigned.

I don't think I would mind this experiment so much, except that this branch is located on the grounds of the local high school. What kind of information literacy skills are the students going to have when they leave this system to go to college? The casual browsing the director alludes to certainly isn't the only type of need these students will have as they work to complete their assignments for grades 9-12. Incoming college freshmen from the Perry Branch Library would be lost here at Wesleyan, and heaven help them if they ever have to find a book someplace like the main stacks at the U of I.

Faculty information needs

The latest issue of Educause Review contains a short article about The Changing Information Services Needs of Faculty. The results of the research commissioned by Itaka conclude confirm what we know: "It becomes evident that faculty perceive themselves as becoming decreasingly dependent on the library for their research and teaching needs."

Marcia

Cool idea for IL

I thought this was pretty interesting and the idea could be applied to different disciplines...
-----
In the spirit of national celebration, I am declaring Fantasy Sports as the official national sport of librarians. That's right, since I'm not aware of any other "National Librarian Sport" I'm declaring Fantasy Sports (ie. fantasy baseball, fantasy football) the official national sport. On what authority you may ask? None. None what-so-ever. But...

Fantasy Sports require:

• Strong research skills
• Excellent use of information literacy
• Critical thinking abilities
• Social communication
• No physical qualifications

[more at the link...]

http://researchquest.blogspot.com/2007/07/national-librarian-sport-declared.html

When 'Digital Natives' go to the library.

If you can look beyond the comparison of the library to the church, Jaschik makes a few interesting points. I know I am prone to doing the following.

"A digital native would never read an instruction manual with a new game before simply trying the game out, Gee said. Similarly, students shouldn’t be expected to read long explanations of tools they may use before they start experimenting with them."

http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/06/25/games

A Hipper Crowd of Shushers

There's a fun article in Sunday's NYT on librarians.

Marcia

Another view on Facebook

For another view on Facebook and libraries, see Steve Lawson's recent blog posts
Marcia

IM transcripts & Assessment

Hi all,

I read over the very helpful IM document Jean sent out this morning and just wanted to comment on her question on the last page about keeping transcripts. My opinion is that keeping transcripts of the interaction between user and librarian is important for evaluation and for training, and that we can strip any identifying information out of the transcript to ensure privacy. When I did online reference at UCI, our coordinator did this and it was helpful in training sessions to see how others handled questions differently. Also, from a website content management point of view, the transcripts could help us identify areas of our website that need changes, clarifications, reorganizations, etc. So, I would advocate for keeping this information.

Another idea for an assessment tool could be brief online surveys through SurveyMonkey or another online resource. At the end of the session, the librarian could send the link and the user could choose to do the survey or not. Another option could be to keep a list of emails of people who used the service (separate from their question) and then send a survey to them near the end of the semester.

My two cents!

Thanks,
Stephanie

Where is the RSS message?

We have so many new communication tools in play that I can't remember where I saw a message regarding RSS feeds for Luminus. I think it was from Suzanne and I think it was Luminus but I can't remember and don't know where to find it! Can anyone help? Thanks - Marcia

Test message

Hi Folks,

This is just a test to see if I am doing this correctly. I will be here this week but am leaving for Tennessee on the weekend. Back to work, July 23. A happy 4th to yo all.

Bob

meebo identities

Hi Everyone,

Apparently, IT is testing the meebo widgets. When I had my account and several other pages open Friday, I didn't see or hear that new messages were coming in. The tester got "cute" and typed some not-so-pleasant things indicating he was angry at my lack of response.

That got me to thinking, have you seen anything that will show who the sender is?

Over the weekend, I realized he could be anonymous by sending the message from the widget on my blog. At least that's what I'm guessing! But if he had his own IM account and had to use a specific IM address, we'd be able to tell who messages were coming from, right?

And in thinking of this as a tool for Reference, if we have to forward messages to someone else to handle how will they know who to reply to?

Meg

Idea for using a wiki with students & faculty

Sue and I were talking yesterday about components of ideas that have been floating around and how they might coalesce into one approach with a wiki.... How about partnering at the course level with a faculty member where one project/assignment the students have is to create a wiki "subject page" with annotated sources for the course as a whole or for a particular portion of the course? Perhaps then it could grow and evolve over the semesters.

It seems like an intriguing way to combine student engagement with information, information literacy, and technology. Any thoughts? Has anyone heard of other libraries doing this?

LibraryThing in the Library Catalog

The Danbury, CT, Public Library has tied its library catalog to LibraryThing, integrating LibraryThing tags and similar books into the bottom of their catalog records. Read more about it at here. Or, try it yourself. The page loads slowly, but it is worth it!

~Sarah

BlogBib

BlogBib (Part 5) helped me find blogs that were of professional interest. Note that the creator, Susan Herzog, has stopped updating the bibliography as of January.

Learning 2.0

To explore one library's take on what is 2.0 and what basic familiarity they want their staff to have, check out Learning 2.0 by the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenburg County. They created a self-paced continuing education program to develop the knowledge base of library staff on 2.0 topics they knew patrons are talking about.

LibGuides

For the sake of adding the information to a collective space, here is the LibGuides info I emailed to all of you.

If you are interested in learning more I would first encourage you to go to the LibGuides homepage and watch the video at the top of the right hand column. http://www.springshare.com/libguides/index.html

This is the demo LibGuides homepage: http://demo.libguides.com/
This is the Temple University LibGuides homepage: http://temple.libguides.com/
This is the Dalhousie University LibGuides homepage: http://dal.ca.libguides.com/

The guide that I created to reflect what we learned at ISU is located at: http://demo.libguides.com/content.php?pid=281

If you would like to try making a guide in the demo format, let me know and I can create an account for you.

I thought the annual cost was $900, but the most recent quote was $300 for a semester pilot and $700 to complete the year if we liked the pilot.

~Sarah

Content Management System

If anyone is intersted in doing anything with RSS feeds within the Content Management System this can be done. IT is sending the code over for us so just let me know if you are interested.

Thanks,
Sue

Lynda, here is the general info that will answer your question, I used Feed Demon for Gloria to notify here of feeds from ILCSO. If you would like to set this up let me know

Special pieces of software called Newsreaders (or Aggregators) can scan these feeds, automatically letting you know when the sites have updated. Examples are FeedDemon (Windows), Bloglines (web-based).

Brian

RSS feed?

oh boy, we may have created a monster - here's my second post in two seconds.

is there a way to be notified when someone posts something new to this, or do we have to keep checking it?
thanks, Lynda

First of all...

This blog is for informal conversation, for sharing what kinds of 2.0/technology/new and exciting things we're working on.

I started my own blog last week - Harmless Addictions. It's completely unrelated to work, which I like, but it gives me a creative outlet and also some familiarity with blogs.

Looking forward to hearing more about what others are doing/thinking...