The new classics

I thought you might like to see this list of books that have been labeled new classics by EW.

These books are in the range of 1983-2008

Collection development ideas...

EW 1000: Books

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars' Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World's Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators' Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

Prof. Development on June 24 in Fargo

I enjoyed the presentation on the mock trial and brainstorming with faculty on how they could collaborate in their classes.
The presentation on the Baccalaureate culture was ok (it will take time to move to that completely, as long as we are still doing 2 yr degrees--that said, I think we are starting to head in that direction; it just will take time as we increase the numbers of 4 yrs students in MN).
The millennial student presentation was interesting but I find it to not be of much use, since not all millennials are necessarily in the (technology) group that they are supposed to fit in (and some boomers may be considered Gen Y because of their use of technology). I scored as a Gen X (which I am) but when I get a cell phone with a camera, I'll be bumped to Gen Y.
The HLC Reaccreditation was a nice refresher (I've been through ACICS, and HLC visits and self-studies before) and it was interesting to see how we as a college have grown (a large number of people in the room have been working for us a year or less and didn't realize what the concern was about the growth issue that HLC has:-)
Overall, it was a nice day, I got to connect with new faculty members at my campus (made some touchpoints on the library and they are interested in contacting and setting up workshops or learning more about what we can provide to help them).

(Non) Project Organization

First, thanks to all those who submitted your comments (kind and otherwise) for my formal review. I appreciate the kudos and also the suggestions on how I can be a better manager and leader.

One item that appeared in the comments more than once is that it's hard to keep up with all of the "to-dos" that we have going on both on campuses and at a system level. I'll admit that I have had my own bouts of "when did I say that was due again?" and changing dates on a whim (and I know you know it).

I think that the solution to this comes in three or more parts.

1. Better time management for all of us. This goes for me included (especially) - I am the worst procrastinator when it comes to tasks I don't like (bills, anyone?). I also don't prioritize well; that is, what is a priority for me isn't necessarily a priority for our CAO, or for you, or for your Academic Dean. And I waste time on things that I shouldn't. Maybe this list looks familiar:


- responding to e-mail the moment I receive it; or checking it every 10 minutes (or more frequently)
- not cleaning out my Inbox and creating folders for content
- sending e-mail when I should just pick up the darn phone
- not filing and/or throwing things away (no, I do NOT need to keep a 2006 Choice
- not using technology to make life a little more efficient (I do not need printouts of every user manual... I do not need to read CNN when I have updates in my Google reader... I need an RSS feed reader??
- doing things when I could be training people to do things
- creating and sticking to a due date

2. The final item leads to my next part: Outlook. I love Outlook - truly. I'd marry it if I wasn't already, well, you know. You can create a myriad of folders in folders (and you should) and the color coding options for tasks and calendar items is, well, beautiful. But it also has its down sides. For example, while folders are nice, most of the messages I receive belong in two or more folders. I would prefer Outlook to have a tags feature (Alas, life goes on). Also, I don't like the default setup of Outlook and I'm not sure how to change it - I need tasks to become more prominent on my page view and my e-mail to become smaller. I also need better ways to manage tasks and date them. Not every task I have is due in two weeks and it takes forever to create a custom due date. Saving nearly every item I've ever written and received is also a time drain - it's great when I need to find a password I set up for our team ages ago (for those who DON'T create folders or save e-mail, shame on you), but it does take time to search. And the keyword search in Outlook is comparable to the keyword search in ALEPH (cr**).

3. Ok, so the last part was a rant, not a solution. Still, I think I need a more functional task management tool. Preferably, something web-based that I can have as a tab in Firefox, but will sync with Outlook to e-mail me reminders. I also think that those of you who don't have folders set up already for your e-mail in Outlook better get on the ball.

4. We need a project management tool. I think this would be useful for all of us to keep track of what's going on with which project, when we have due dates, who is responsible for what, etc. There are some free tools, and some pay-for tools (my best suggestion is a Google search, there is a myriad). I've looked at a few pay tools that I think I would be willing to shell out for if we'd use them, like 5pm and Teamwork. My concern is that they are too fancy for our needs. What are your suggestions for a project management tool for the whole team? I already e-mailed Google to see if they have something in the works (like they'd tell me).

5. I'm modifying the current database I use to keep track of invoices to also track passwords. I should be able to run a report of all the administrative passwords AND campus that I use, along with vendor contact information. This will be a great tool for my #2 and/or successor (relax, a long time from now - this girl must plan ahead). With any luck, I should be able to mod it further so that you can use it to track your own invoices (and run a report to show what you've spent and the budget you have left) along with your local campus passwords that I wouldn't need to have access to (but your successor might).

6. We could also simply create a new Calendar in Google to track due dates for everything - orders, projects, displays, assessment data, etc. Would that be useful to anyone?

What else can WE do to be more organized and effective WITHOUT burdening ourselves with additional passwords and sites to track?

The Millennial Student

I enjoyed the session on the Millennial Student during Faculty Development Week. Thank goodness for 23 Things on a Stick which enabled me to get to Generation X on the quiz we took. I got a 10 on the quiz, but I can justify it. My parents don't text and since I don't do illegal things, I really don't know where to download free music from the Internet.

I thought it was interesting that when we were coming up with characteristics of the Millennial Generation, the group found it difficult to express the descriptions in positive terms. Some of the terms were: self-absorbed, flexible ethics, want to be rewarded for existing.

Some of the things we should be doing for the millennial student:
Communication - in kind. Let students determine mode of communication whether it be email, text, IM. Facebook and MySpace are ways to communicate with the students that they will pay attention to.

Make sure students have specific instruction/directions. Show relevance for what they have to do. They want to know why or how it will benefit them.

Single point log-in. It is a hassle when students have to log onto the student portal and then log in again for online classes.

Update the Library website so that it is user friendly and customizable for the student.

So many workshops....

For next quarter, I already have three full time instructors who are requesting a total of about 9 in-class workshops. These are in Business, Criminal Justice, and HIT. I haven't even queried the adjuncts yet. So, what do you do when your workshop load becomes unmanageable? I am curious about how everyone is handling workshops. Do you do them as requested? Do you combine classes? Do you do a lot of workshops outside of class? Other ideas?

See WorldCat grow!

Kind of cool to watch......

http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/newgrow.htm

Does anyone Twitter?

I joined twitter... I need new friends to follow on there.. and followers

This is Twitter explained for librarians.

Routing periodicals

Does your library route magazines and journals? At my previous employer, we’d route new magazines to faculty by request. We’d just put each issue in their mailbox, and then when they’d finish reading them, they’d have to bring them back to the library (or put them in the library mailbox), and we’d add them to the general collection.

One problem was that some faculty would keep issues for months—or forever. BUT- my print magazines and journals are so infrequently read, that I wouldn’t necessarily mind if they went MIA.

So, I’m thinking of asking my faculty if they’d like to have certain periodicals placed in their mailboxes each month- example :

Chronicle of Higher ed to whomever requests

WIRED or Educause for IT/Dean

Businessweek or Economist for Business instructors

Thoughts? Experience with this?

Contest participation question

Last month I did a crossword puzzle for Physical Fitness and Sports Month. This month I am doing a picture quiz for GLBT Book Month. Last month the prizes were target gift cards and this month it is Borders. Last month I had five people turn in finished crosswords. One of them wasn't a student here, so it didn't count. So far this month, I have had three quizzes turned in. I have signs on the bulletin boards, tabletops in the library; it's in the student newsletter, on the monitors in the halls, and on the inside of the bathroom doors.

So, for those of you who do contests, how do you get students to participate?

Clean Off your Google Goggles

I created a new workshop this past quarter called Clean off your Google Goggles.

I thought I'd share some of the concepts and a few of the slides.


I had the students help me make a list of what constitutes a quality website and a poor quality website. The students actually put together a nice list, and it was a great, interactive way to start the workshop.



Next, I showed the students some examples of bad websites and good websites. It's easy to find links for these sites b/c of lists like this provided on the web.



Then, I explained all the other fixings that Google has to offer like Google Scholar, Images, News, Maps, Alerts, etc. The students didn't seem aware of anything beyond the usual, basic google.com search. I think they were pretty intrigued by setting up an Alert to track websites and articles throughout the few weeks that they'd be doing research each quarter.

Also, I think they liked being able to search solely for newspaper articles similar to searching for newspaper articles in the databases.









Next, we went through the alternatives to Google. I took them through google search in each of the different jazzy google options like Scholar, etc, and then I used the same keywords that we selected in the Ebsco databases. Then, I took them to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Turnitin: I'm a plagiarizer?

Today was the first time I've used Turnitin. I submitted a paper I wrote to see how it would fair under Turnitin's scrutiny. In my paper, I cited my sources, paraphrased, and used quotation marks. Yet Turnitin said that 21% of my paper was similar to other works. When I looked at the passages marked as similar and compared them to the originals, I noticed a few things...

I had never used (or even seen) the sources/papers to which my paper had similarities. Many of them were student papers submitted to Turnitin.

If I quoted a passage and a writer in the Turnitin database had also cited the same passage, my passage was flagged even though I had used quotation marks and cited properly. So if another writer and I used the same source and both decided to quote the same section, I get flagged as a possible plagiarizer.

Sections of the citations on my reference list were flagged because other papers in the database contained those same reference citations.

On the similarity report, I can exclude quotations and bibliography. Doing that decreases my paper to 4% similarity.

I can see a lot of value to using Turnitin or a similar service. However, there would need to be substantial (and repeated) training for instructors who use it so that they can accurately interpret the similarity reports. I'd hate to have failed my paper because 21% of it was similar to other works (including reference pages).

Gift Cards: RESOLVED

Librarians,

We can use our purchase account through Amazon to buy gift cards. There is a minimal charge for shipping ($1.95), but the entire cost is charged to our account.

You can buy iTunes, Target, Amazon and more. There are some other specialty items, such as gift baskets, that you can buy through Amazon as well.

This should resolve the "gift card" issue.

-Emily

Meebo Math

We've been recording our Meebo chats for over two months now and I wanted to take a look at our statistics to get a picture of which days and times are more popular. I'll just be straightforward and give you the numbers I crunched.

Disclaimer: The results may be skewed because everyone would record their sessions differently. Some of us would record a request to be added to the buddy list as a transaction and some of us didn't. When a student would navigate away from a chat window and then come back, some of us would record that as multiple sessions while others would count it as one. If a chat session wasn't recorded in the Google Documents session, then naturally it won't influence the results here. Finally, I'll admit to rounding, estimating and even human error on my part. Counting seemed so much simpler in first grade.

April and May Overview:

April: 81 chat sessions over 122 hours for a rate of .67 questions per hour.
May: 143 chat sessions over 133 hours for a rate of 1.08 questions per hour covered.

That's an improvement of 62%!

Morning, Afternoon and Evening Chat Overview:*

I divided up the chat sessions into three time periods. The first period is the morning period and it covers any time before 1 p.m. Central. I didn't second guess the times entered, however. If a librarian was on the east coast and said their session went from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., I counted it as an afternoon session even though it was technically only 1 p.m. Central when the session ended. There were a few times when two librarians would have the same hours covered because of this. The afternoon time period went from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The evening time period covered any time after 5 p.m. That technically makes it the longest time period but most of the evening chat sessions were done before 9 p.m. Central. If a session went from 12:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m., I'd split the session up and give one hour to the morning and another to the afternoon. If there were an even number of questions recorded, I'd divide them equally between the two time periods. If there was an even number or an easily dividable number (3 questions over 3 hours), it was random which time period received the extra. Overly scientific, this is not.

Morning: 57 questions over close to 80 hours with a rate of .71 questions per hour.
Afternoon: 99 questions over 111.25 hours covered with a rate of .88 questions per hour.
Evening: 110 questions over 95.75 hours covered with a rate of 1.15 questions per hour.

*These figures include the past week's June sessions so the numbers aren't just April and May.


Days of the Week Overview:*

The most popular days of the week were Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday with averages over one question per covered hour. The least popular were Friday and Saturday with about one question per every two hours.

*Listed by most popular days to least popular days.

Tuesday: 60 questions over 43.75 hours for a ratio of 1.37 questions per hour.
Sunday: 27 questions over 24.5 hours for a ratio of 1.1 questions per hour.
Wednesday: 62 questions over 57.75 hours for a ratio of 1.07 questions per hour.
Thursday: 54 questions over 62.25 hours for a ratio of .87 questions per hour.
Monday: 37 questions over 46.25 hours for a ratio of .8 questions per hour.
Friday: 13 questions over 24.5 hours for a ratio of .53 questions per hour.
Saturday: 13 questions over 25.75 hours for a ratio of .5 questions per hour.

It should be noted that most of Friday and Saturday's chat sessions were done in the morning or early afternoon which could influence how low they are since morning is the least active time period. In the same vein, all of Sunday's sessions were done in the evening which is, according to the time period comparison, the most popular time for chat sessions. The numbers aren't weighed down by inactive morning or afternoon sessions.

*These figures include the past week's June sessions so the numbers aren't just April and May.

There is a rough glance at the numbers. We can perhaps study these to determine which time periods are important to cover as best we can while leaving room for a life. Or maybe just look at them because numbers are cool.

-Krista

ILS: The Final Word

I dislike budget planning. First, it always coincides with my review and I have too much paperwork to do with that. Also, I'm always worried that a bad performance review will equal less resources for the library. Finally, I just have too much data in my head to keep it sorted.

This year is especially trying since we are looking at a new ILS. I've read through and heard your comments through the blog and various conversations.

One thing is crystal clear: what we use now is no longer meeting our needs. As solo librarians at your campus, you need an interface that is efficient for all services. You need clean reports for the purposes of assessment and development. You need a product that will interface with our vendors and with partner software (i.e., CLASS). And you need an OPAC that students will come as close to enjoying as anyone would doing research.

Not many of you rooted for Polaris. I'm not sure that I am surprised: we didn't have very long meetings with the Polaris folks, and the OPAC isn't shiny. For what it's worth, I think that their cataloging and circulation interfaces would work fine for us. My primary concern is their customer service - who are you going to call if you need help?

Most of you seemed to like TLC for one reason or another. While cataloging seemed complex, I don't think that it was much more so than Polaris (he just went into quite a bit of detail). Serials would be nice to have but not crucial to our service. Acquisitions may also be a nice bonus but I don't think it's something we could use this year (or even next). I liked their Authority Control, the high level of support, and the flexibility to work with B&T, CLASS, etc. Of course, it's also the cheaper option, which is not so bad.

So I guess it comes down to WHICH OPAC in TLC you like more - AquaBrowser or Indigo? Indigo is pretty but it isn't finished - and he never directly answered the question if it would integrate with WebFeat. AquaBrowser ALREADY integrates with WebFeat. Indigo has nice tagging features that AquaBrowser will not have. However, I'm not sure we could set our homepages to Indigo - so the book river, while beautiful, may not be functional for us.

I'd like to make a decision for budgeting purposes by Friday. What's your final choice? TLC Aquabrowser, TLC Indigo, or Polaris - and why?

Outlines and Table of Contents

Do you have students ask you how to do an outline or table of contents in APA formatting. I have this happen to me every quarter. There isn't any info in the Wadsworth about APA rules for these items. I have looked online, and I have not found much info. This is pretty great for Outlines, but I find myself wondering if APA really even has rules for outlines or TofCs.

I think that some assignments must say: "your research paper should include a table of contents in APA format," and then students are scrambling to figure out what this means.

I was thinking of emailing the instructors on my campus to tell them that there aren't real concrete rules for APA in regard to TofC and outlines. Thoughts? Advice?