Digital World @ SWFLN Annual Meeting

After our Orlando team meeting, on Thursday morning, Nov. 5, 2009, I zoomed down to a library at the bottom of Naples (near the Everglades!) to attend the annual meeting of the Southwest Florida Library Network. Fortunately, "tourist" Sara was my companion during the long drive.

Both of us enjoyed hearing the meeting's guest speaker, Arnold Hirshon. He is the chief strategist and executive consultant at LYRASIS, and former executive director of NELINET. His speech was titled "Where is the Library Field Going????"

("Created in April 2009 by the merger of PALINET and SOLINET and joined shortly thereafter by NELINET, LYRASIS is the nation’s largest regional membership organization serving libraries and information professionals. The primary service area is the Mid-Atlantic, Southeastern, and New England regions.")

First, Mr. Hirshon showed the following video:



Afterward, he asked if the audience thought that the video's "predictions" will be positive for society. Many people raised their hands. But several people also raised their hands when he asked if the "predictions" will have negative ramifications for society. I am sort of conflicted! How about all of you?

Then Mr. Hirshon basically talked about how print books are going the way of the dodo bird. Period. Full stop. No ifs, ands, or buts. He totally endorses digital readers 1000%. But when one librarian said she has concerns that people will take them to the beach and drop them in the sand (good question -- remember -- this is Florida!!!), he really didn't have an answer...

Database workshop without a lab

As our student population grows, it becomes more difficult to secure a computer lab for library workshops. This happened to me this week when I conducted a journal database workshop for English Comp. Thankfully most of the classrooms now have overhead projectors connected to the instructor's computer. I was trying to figure out a way to make the workshop interesting when students could not sign on and try their own searches. As the students arrived, I handed them a slip of paper and told them to write their program at the top and write their thesis statement or what they were going to write about for their project. (Engaging the student as they walk in the door) I collected these and then had the students get into small groups by program. I had them brainstorm for about 10 minutes to come up with search terms that they could use. (Catering to the millenniums who like to do group work) Then I did one search from each program in Ebsco, showing the students how to narrow their search; find scholarly, peer-reviewed articles; and how to create an account and save to their folder. We also took a look at Proquest and Safari to show other types of databases. Overall, the students were engaged and I received positive feedback. One drawback was that the students were not able to fill out their electronic surveys during the workshop. However, I did check later and one of the students had taken the time to do it.

NDLA 2009 Conference in Dickinson, ND

Chandra and I attended the NDLA Conference September 23-25. It was great to meet Chandra and other ND librarians.

You might all know about this already, but EBSCO has some great training videos that may be useful during classroom presentations and some free, customizable, downloadable promotional materials (posters, bookmarks, etc.) available for free at http://support.ebsco.com.

Is It All Online For Free

Check out this SlideShare Presentation I saw at NDLA. Great links we may want to add to Delicious or in presentations.

Is It All Online For Free

View more presentations from Valley City State University.

new APA tidbits

I'm wondering what my library teammates have discovered in th 6th edition of the beloved APA Manual. I've already found a couple things new things, plus a few I thought were new but were really old things that I just didn't know from the previous edition.

What's new to you in the latest APA Manual?

1. NEW: In the reference page listing for a book, all cities now get their 2-letter state abbreviations. So no more trying to remember the list of which cities were exempt.

2. NEW TO ME: Although I knew that personal communications don't get listed on the reference page, I learned that classical words (like the Bible and the Qur'an) do not get listed on the reference page either. (See p. 174.)

New Student Orientation

While I'm still getting oriented to my new job, I have started working with the Dean of Student Learning to be involved in new student orientations. The Learning Center instructor and myself are going to give 20-minute presentations at all of the orientations about the library/learning center services available to students. We figure it will be a great opportunity to increase usage.

ND Author visits Bismarck

During summer quarter, I worked with a campus instructor and a librarian at the local public library to bring a noted North Dakota author into the Bismarck/Mandan community. Shadd, the instructor, contacted Larry Woiwode, a North Dakota native whose works have received high acclaim, and asked him to come to Bismarck to do a reading of his book A Step from Death: A Memoir and to discuss his experiences as a writer. I launched a campus-wide book discussion group over A Step from Death and invited the Bismarck Veterans Memorial Library to partner with the college for the author’s visit. The public library hosted event and publicized the event through displays, on its webpage, and to its mailing lists. The marketing team from Rasmussen crafted a press release which was picked up by the local newspaper.

On August 20, approximately 70 people gathered in a meeting room at the public library. After an introduction by Shadd, Larry Woiwode shared a poems and then read sections from his novel. He then took questions from the audience, many focusing on his writing process. The evening finished with Larry signing books and visiting one-on-one with attendees.

As a result of this successful event, my contact from the local public library and I are already discussing ways to collaborate in the future for more community and lifelong learning events.

TLC - Helping students get what they need!

Since using TLC, I have to say I'm hugely impressed with the usability and the interest my students have had in using the catalog. In the past, students were NOT very receptive to searching within ALEPH for items ... perhaps because it was lacking visual aides. I believe that TLC is already proving it's value at my campus (and most likely at other campuses) because I'm noticing a HUGE uptick in the number of items borrowed and loaned by my campus. What about at your campuses? Also, is there a way to track how many requests are being placed directly by the students, as opposed to being mediated by library staff? I think that would be an interesting figure to track. I know that many of my students were delighted that they could now, seamlessly, request books on their own.

On a side note... Have we included the additional cost of postage and bubble mailers into our budget for 2009-2010? Seriously, we may need to! :)

Amazing connections

An amazing thing just happened to me at work in the library this Saturday afternoon, July 18, 2009. I checked my email and got the following:

"Hi Libby, May I borrow parts of your MA libguide as I construct my own? Thanks so much!"

The email came from Paula J. Hearn of ivytech.edu. I racked my brain to think: "How do I know her?" "How does she know me?" I could not come up with anything....

Then I forwarded the email to Emily and IM'd her to ask if she would take a look at it. I also asked Emily to affirm if I remembered correctly that sharing can be part of Libguides, if you want, and if your stuff is public. (My MA libguide is set to public even though, ironically, we are not yet using it.)

During our IM'ing, Emily and I also both decided to look up ivytech.edu. It is a community college in Indiana with 23 campuses that serve more than 75 communities.

Emily said of course we can share if we want, and it is probably a good idea. I agree, because I am a big believer in what goes around comes around! So the upshot is that I emailed Paula that of course she can use my stuff, and that I am flattered. (Now I will have to remember to check her MA page!)

I copied you all on the email to Paula, but this is the "back story," as they say. Cool, huh?!

Book River

I love it that the book river comes up when a student goes to the Internet in the library. It looks fabulous and it gets students interested. I had a student ask about it yesterday and today a student called me over to explain it. She liked the idea that she could manage her own holds and she created an account on the spot.

Jing

Have you used Jing? It's a free screen capturing service.

I was able to make this video in literally less than 5 minutes. It's so cool! It's really quick and easy.. and I can envision it being really helpful when email or chat reference hits a dead end. You know? I usually take a lot of screenshots in those situations and request the student's email address, but we could just paste the Jing video URL into the Meebo chat with this service.

Get Caught Reading

May was "Get Caught Reading" month. I caught the Bismarck faculty and staff reading books which matched their professional or personal interests. Even our RasMall mannequin got into the spirit.

To view staff/faculty pictures, checkout my Flickr photostream.

Library Promo

Last week, I did a promotion "Celebrate Romance!" for June which is Nat'l Wedding & Marriage Month. The first 10 students had their choice of a free romance novel. While low-key, this was a success and something fun & different for the students. They let me take their picture w/the book, but many didn't want them 'posted on the Internet'- so I'll have to figure something else for that. I rec'd a number of free books at one of the FLA programs, donated some of my own that were new (and was willing to part with), and received donated copies from our Gen Ed instructor of one of her books (signed).

ebook tutorial

I found this ebook tutorial to be really helpful. I didn't even know about some of these features.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

The Fort Myers campus has hired an MLT coordinator (Steve Shelfer) and is trying to get enough students to start the program. I was surprised when Steve told me that 70% to 80% of a patient's medical record are lab results, but there's going to be a severe shortage of lab technicians to meet the needs of a growing and aging U.S. population. It "smelled" like a good news story to me, even if I weren't connected to a college that is new in town and offers the MLT associate's degree.

I emailed the story idea and some Labor Dept. stats to some local editors and reporters, some of whom I know. I wrote that although I have a vested interest in the college, "I think it is a great story idea - really a worry if the labs are unable to hire people - esp. in this economy."

The editor of Florida Weekly, with whom I am acquainted, sent a reporter to interview Steve and our MLT program was featured on the cover of the Business section, with a teaser on the front page: http://fortmyers.floridaweekly.com/news/2009/0603/business_plans/032.html

Now we just hope it piques students' interest!

The Golden Day

Originally I was going to name this post the Golden Notebook, but Jon, the Learning Center coordinator who shares space with me, said I should name it the Golden Day because that really reflects how my day has gone. It started off with my first workshop on APA formatting in which I had 10 participants! Students from one instructor’s class brought the rough drafts that had been returned to them. This lent itself very well to the workshop as they could fix mistakes and learn the proper way to format. Aside from those students, I had one who is a midstart, online only, who has been to two of my workshops and another student who hasn’t even started yet. She is excited to start in July and she will already be a step ahead of her fellow students. After my workshop, I found two boxes of books from B&T. One of the tutors was so eager to open the box and see what had arrived. When she and I were talking, Jon came over to see if the book he had recommended for staff picks came in. That book was “The Golden Notebook.” He was so excited that we had it. He ran his hands over the cover and then he looked at the edges of the pages and said it was just like he remembered. I told him I had to blog about it because it was so sweet that he was caressing the book. The only blip in the day was when a sociology student who was working on his paper asked me if I had attended the Woodstock music festival. All in all, a golden day.

poetryslam

poetryslam
Originally uploaded by Rasmussen College - Green Bay

Military Appreciation Month

Last month was National Military Appreciation Month and I'm happy to say our campus had a very successful display - with student, faculty, and staff participation. My student assistants put together the background for the bulletin board and we included information on the branches of service, etc. We received a number of photos, which is great. For June we are doing something similar to continue campus participation/community by asking for comments/memories of parents and/or photos.

Better Signage for All

I’ve had the opportunity to visit a few campus as of late, or see pictures of your libraries, and I’ve noticed that we have quite a bit of signage. Some of it is positive, and some of it has a clearly negative vibe - “Absolutely NO Cell Phones” – as an example.

I’ve changed the post below slightly to encourage a different set of responses. I’m going to post this to the blog, as well – please use that space to post your comments. I encourage ALL of you to post at least one comment. It might be time for us to develop some better signage to provide better customer service to our users.

The group he is referring to is:
http://www.flickr.com/search/?q=bad%20library%20signs&w=all

---

Stephen Abram wonders... Now think about libraries. We have alll followed the Flickr group on bad library signs. There's much to learn. If we had a good discussion about behaviours we wanted to encourage what would our signs look like?
If you accepted the research based communication results above, how would you:
1. Communicate about fines or returning books (on time)?
2. Communicate about not reshelving books?
3. Discourage the use of cell phones?
4. Encourage groups to move to the learning center or student lounge if they are disturbing others?
5. Discourage children being on the computers? (Note: this does not say “discourage children being in the library”. Unless your campus has strict children’s policies AND made students aware of those policies. Children will come in the library. Please don’t fight that battle).

MILE 2009

During the last week in April, I attended MILE. MILE is the Minnesota Library Association Institute for Leadership Excellence.

It was held at the Bug-Bee Hive Resort in Paynesville, MN. Librarians from around the state gathered to:
-learn about leadership styles
-develop our strengths
-ask questions of a leadership forum of current librarians holding leadership roles in the state of Minnesota
-mind map our goals
-get set up with mentors that were in our career path. The mentor and mentee will meet monthly over an 18 month period.

We each took an assessment to find our strengths. We used Strengths Finder 2.0. I found that my top five strengths were Input, Command, Ideation, Activator, and Achiever. The book explains how we can use our strengths to our maximum potential. Much of the institute focused on building our lives around our strengths and simply learning to manage our weaknesses instead of obsessing over them.

Comedy Sportz did several improv activities with the group during the first evening. I learned many new ice breaker games that I have now incorporated in my library instruction. Some examples are having all the students pick their celebrity baby name or robot name. There were several games that required team work and/or expressed status. We did several exercises where we could witness power struggles between two individuals of high status or the empowerment of a high status individual over a low status individual. This occurs in the workplace on a daily basis as well as on the sidewalk or hallway each day when the decision is made who is going to be the person to "back down" in a given space OR be the person to power through. There are certain behaviors that we use each day without even realizing it. This is a nice guide on some of the different behaviors of each status.

Overall, it was a great experience. I met some great people, and I was set up with a mentor. Being accepted into this institute required an application process and letters of recommendation. I encourage the Minnesota librarians to participate in the future.

Disabled student

We have a new mid-start student who uses a wheelchair, and I am becoming well acquainted with her because she uses the library often. The other day she asked me to retrieve a book for her from a top shelf, and of course I was happy to help.

I have been thinking about her request ever since, however. Her disability literally "handicaps" her from being able to physically browse many of the bookshelves -- not just top shelves, but the second to the top shelves as well. I also know there are implements for even able-bodied people to retrieve hard-to-reach items. Yet I do not think she would want to use something like that even if I ordered one.

I don't think there is any "answer" to this ... it is just something I have been thinking about, especially since Emily noted we will be stressing "customer service" at our team meeting. Fortunately, the student seems comfortable asking for help, as I strive to have a "low key" and "accepting" environment.

Workshop series

This quarter I tried to turn my open workshops into a series. The flyers had the same elements. I did not use the word 'workshop' on any of them in hopes that students would be more apt to attend. I planned Internet Searching for Week 7, Database Demonstrations for Week 8, and APA Format for Week 9. Unfortunately I had no attendance for the Internet workshop. However, students at my Database Demonstrations said that they would have liked to attend. Note that all of the workshops are advertised on the monitors on campus, on the student portal, and emailed to all of the students. I exceeded my goal for increased attendance at my Database Demonstrations. I decided to do it as demonstrations, as Emily has suggested in an earlier blog. I had a signup sheet next to a bowl of Snickers. I had different databases set up on different monitors so that students could go around and check them out. Each monitor that had a database already set up had a sign with the name on the top and handouts next to it on how to use the database. They could also sign on to the open computers and do their own thing. I had a PowerPoint set up that kept running showing students how to create an account in EBSCO, save articles to a folder, and search several databases at once. The feedback from the students was positive and they expressed interest in attending the APA workshop next week. You can view the flyers on GoogleDocs in the very near future.

Serial Boxes

Sometimes I think that I'm personally keeping Demco fiscally alive with my orders for those little plastic serial boxes for storing back issues.

Now that my print book collection is growing larger, the books and the back issues of serials are competing for shelf space. I'd have enough room if I didn't have so many back issues of serials to store. I follow the suggestions for how long to keep back issues, but I have so many distinct titles that each require their own little plastic bin.

This whole budget planning/serial ordering project has come at just the right time. I've been whining about how much room it takes to store back issues, and now is my opportunity to avoid that problem in the future by ordering fewer serials in print. My goal is to order only as many serials as I can neatly display on the slanted shelves---and to stop ordering more little plastic boxes from Demco!!

ALA

The event planner is now available. This is a useful tool for building a tentative schedule and list of exhibitors that you want to see (w/booth numbers). To login, you need to already be registered for the annual conference-
http://ala.cistems.net/Index2.php

EP Library - Lookin' Good 2

Sitting Area

Reference Collection

Magazine Rack - Not complete

Already the favorite chair on campus! Three people have already sat here this morning!

EP Library - Lookin' Good

Take Down

First Shelves

First Books

Books on the Shelves

See next post....

Fake Wikipedia Quote of Composer Maurice Jarre Makes Way Into Newspapers Worldwide

When you are explaining how to USE and NOT USE Wikipedia to classes this is a great example. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30699302/wid/11915829?GT1=40006

Newspapers across the planet published a quote that originated on Wikipedia, and attributed it to the Oscar winning composer Marcus Jarre. The quote was placed in his Obituary and newspapers in America, Great Britain, India, Australia, and numerous blogs published it. The pithy quote read:

One could say my life has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final Waltz playing in my head, that only I can hear.

The quote was created by 22 year old Sociology student Shane Fitzgerald. Shortly after Jarre's death, he published the quote on Wikipedia, and reporters picked up the quote, published it, and others copied their lead.

Administrators at Wikipedia removed the quote 3 times because of lack of attrbution, sometimes within minutes, sometimes within hours. But not quickly enough to prevent journalists from copying & pasting the quote.

In one of Fitzgerald's classes, they were studying how fast information traveled around the globe and how media outlets are increasingly relying on Internet sources to produce content for news. It's refreshing to see that professional journalists need to ask the question "Source?" in addition to our students...

Get Caught Reading

With May as Get Caught Reading Month, I asked campus faculty and staff let me "catch" them reading so that I could take a picture of them with books from the library. Sometimes I took a stack of books to the employee, and other times employees browsed the library. Overall, they enjoyed trying to find just the right book.

Poem in Your Pocket

For April, I went with the Poem in Your Pocket theme. The bulletin board had old jeans pockets that were filled with poems from the Poem in Your Pocket website. There was a sign encouraging students to help themselves to a poem and another that told about carrying a poem around in your pocket all month and then sharing it with someone on April 30. Students actually took poems and I had to refill pockets. The board also had covers of poetry books available through NetLibrary. We had a poetry contest, which was my best contest to date as I received 24 submissions.

The Future of Newspapers that are History

Anyone pay attention to the news about newspapers as of late? Newspaper owners are filing for bankruptcy, and slowly (but persistently), print newspapers are ending production - and either moving fully online or closing up shop altogether.

Today, via Stephen's Lighthouse and an article from the The Wrap about Google enhancing newspaper content for its users.

While we don't question the relevancy of a database such as Academic Search Complete, due to its purchase, archiving and indexing of proprietary journal content, I do wonder about the relevancy of a database like Newsbank. Sure, it aggregates content so that only a single search is required - but doesn't Google do that, to an extent? Aren't our users (read: students) more interested in enhanced content - images related to the story, related local content, classifieds, etc.?

Would it be smarter for us to move away from Newsbank and link to the digitized versions of our local newspapers? Or, to us, does Newsbank still hold value - and how? And for how long?

Favorite books

I've been getting lots of good general education collection ideas from faculty and staff the past few days -- ever since Fort Myers dean Tara McIlmoil suggested I ask them to email me their top five favorite fiction and non-fiction books. It's fun to see their choices. And it's great that it keeps them thinking about the library, on the heels of such a terrific library-centric April!

PACODES/Lost Boy interview

I just wanted to acknowledge and thank you all for the work on this diversity/PACODES event. It has been a wonderful experience working on this project, as we move to the groundbreaking and eventual building of the library, I welcome input for the development of a library cataloging plan, approach to internet connectivity issues, grant possibilities, staff training, etc. I will keep us up to date as developments occur. I've included this link of the interview with Gat-kier on Monday the 20th.

http://www.vimeo.com/4262852

ALA

When are you going to ALA?

Where are you staying?

What is the one thing you are most looking forward to seeing / attending?

When should the RCLS get together?

online instructors

What, if any, communication have you had with the online instructors for your campus’ students?

syllabi

Are you collecting syllabi for both online and on-campus classes offered to students on your campus?

Organizing!

When I first started here, way back in October, one of the first things I did was to organize all the print books by subject. It was pretty haphazard, since a lot of my books were either uncataloged or missing call number labels, but I rationalized that at least students could go to, say, the Allied Health section, and find books in their subject.

However, now that my collection is growing and my cataloging is speeding up, I'm having a hard time keeping my original subject areas. I originally organized my print books in an almost Barnes & Noble-esque set up - as I said before, each program had its own subject area, including General Education, and I organized by call number WITHIN each subject area. But now, I'm wondering if I should re-organize the books and simply have everything in call number order (i.e. traditional academic library structure), and then identify collections within that call number order.

I feel that both have pros and cons. On the one hand, students feel more comfortable with the bookstore model, and can quickly identify that one subject section is "their" section. On the other hand, I find myself fighting with the LC numbers and disagreeing with where individual books should go. Following the traditional LC classification for the entire collection would then allow students to explore additional subject areas through browsing.

I know this is a common library science debate, but I would love to hear from you guys on how you organized your print collections. What model do you prefer: traditional library or "bookstore" model? Or do you somehow combine both models? What would you suggest?

free educational videos online

I discovered that many videos from NOVA and National Geographic are available online for free. (Yes, including at least one I purchased a while back.)

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/ http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/programs/

Additional videos are available for streaming from Annenberg Media. They're not to be downloaded, and the user needs to sign in to a free account.
http://www.learner.org/index.html

I put links to the home pages and to some specific videos on our Delicious page, tagged with videos and other tags when relevant.

Lost Boys Event

What is everyone planning for the Lost Boys film showing?

I have a captive audience with the film class. So far I have had two staff members and one student RSVP for the event. I was able to get the largest room on campus so hopefully I can accommodate everyone who wishes to come. I have the event posted on the monitors around campus and it will go in the student newsletter this week. I also bought two mini posters for National Library Week so that I can add the event to them and post one at each elevator. I have two facilitators for the discussion, one with a background in film and one with a background in sociology. I made canisters to place with the PACODES brochures in the library and at the front desk for donations.

What are you doing for food/snacks?

ILL at a distance

I just logged into First Search/OCLC and saw that a book from my campus had been requested by a library in Norway. Now that's what I call a long-distance ILL!

Hounding the faculty

I'm an old newshound from way back, which is why I pitched Rasmussen's terrific MLT program to a TV reporter at our county library system's recent reading festival. But I also have been partaking in another kind of hounding recently -- getting the faculty to give me ideas for ordering! I had good luck this past order deadline, with 10 instructors submitting requests.

How did I do it? Lots of emails on a regular basis, with the RCLWeb info attached. Also, I buttonholed faculty members if I saw them during their office hours, at our Saturday finals study session, and even in the halls or of course in the library. Persistence paid off, and I already have the start of a new list for my next order.

Library Liaison - Massage Therapy Meeting

Today I had the privilege of meeting with the massage therapy department, during their annual Massage Therapy Summit. As I came into my Massage Therapy Liaison role somewhat recently, it was a great opportunity to introduce myself and the liaison program to them.

We began with some simple introductions, then I went on to describe the history/background of the liaison program, followed by providing some liaison successes across the Rasmussen system. Next, I introduced the liaison program as it specifically applied to their roles and their discipline. I focused on the ways I could provide assistance and support for them and their students. Lastly, I mentioned what instructors could do to improve and best utilize the liaison system and their campus libraries.

All in all, the meeting was quite successful. The group tossed out some great ideas that I plan to use in the future. In addition, they were VERY happy to hear about our new library site. With Emily's approval, I showed them their department's libguide page and they seemed pleased with it. We even had a brief discussion regarding other items/boxes they'd like to see on the page and I have decided (again with Emily's approval) to send them a "preview" link of the page so that they can send any other ideas my way.

It was great to have the opportunity to meet with the group. Hopefully it will really help to open lines of communication between the program and the library.

Student volunteers

For the last two Saturdays, I had two students come in to help me with cataloging. Emily gave me the great idea of asking a couple of students to help me identify which books in my young collection still needed cataloging. So I asked two young ladies who are in the library often and are responsible to come in and help (this is also a great way for me to test them out as potential work studies in the future!).

The girls simply entered in titles and authors into our catalog, and looked to see if we have any. Then, we divided each section into: cataloged, cataloged (but needs call numbers) and not cataloged. Thanks to their help, my cataloging dilemma seems much more manageable.

I plan on getting my volunteers a certificate stating that they are official volunteers, and I will also put their pictures and "story" into the next campus newsletter. :)

Rassy visits Bismarck

Rassy made an appearance in Bismarck this week. For you Floridians, the white stuff is snow.

How I know it's week 10

My day so far:

11:00 - 2 voicemails from students waiting for me when i arrived
11:30 - On reference phone call with student, while conducting reference interview on meebo with another, with one student sitting at my desk, and 3 others in line waiting to see me. (Mentor center coordinator making a statement about how popular I am)
12:45 - On meebo with student while on the phone with another.
1:20 - Observing a peacefull moment. :^)

Book Donations

Mary and I have been discussing ideas for ways to support the PACODES library. When she shared the idea of running a book donation, I remembered that someone on our team had once mentioned Better World Books.

Better World Books is an organization which accepts book donations and then sells them. Some of the money goes to support literacy programs. I sent about 6 boxes of books, and got a check for about $200, which I’ll put in the donation for PACODES. (I weeded in the library, plus the dean and I went through the outdated instructor textbooks in the faculty lounge.) Better World Books issues checks once per quarter and has some specific guidelines to be followed.

"Better World Books finds the best possible use for each book collected in support of our mission to promote literacy. Books are either sold to raise money for non-profit literacy programs, sent to one of our non-profit partners for use in their programs, or recycled if unsuitable for sale or partner use."

"The specific terms of most Better World Books partnership agreements are confidential. In the college textbook market, the company’s 'social profit' margin currently averages 7 to 8% of net revenue from each used book sold. Library books are transferred to Better World Books under consignment and sold with a fixed percentage of the net revenue paid to both the library and a non-profit literacy partner. Typical arrangements are 15% of the net sale price to a library and 5% to their chosen literacy partner."

Supporting online instructors

For the last two quarters, I've been exchanging e-mails with an online English Comp instructor who has a class of Bismarck students. Although she initially contacted me (interim dean) regarding concerns with student work, it's been a great opportunity for me (librarian) to support an online instructor.

I realize I was in a unique situation while in my dean/librarian role in that I could easily refer an online instructor to the librarian. However, I'm sure deans or Student Success Coordinators would be happy to recommend you to online instructors when students are struggling with sources and information literacy.

The online instructors I've "met" lets me know which Bismarck students are struggling with finding resources or citing sources. If they live in the area, she directs them to me or I seek them out. I've had a couple come in for help. Last quarter, we even set up a designated day/time for her online students to come to the campus library to meet each other and to get help. (No takers.)

Today I got another e-mail from the instructor, and I think it underscores the support we as librarians can provide for our online instructors. It also made my day. Here's an excerpt...

"Personally, I do not think I would still be doing this if I had not run into you. I have tried to contact different people...but I have had less than helpful responses or no response. I guess I do not like working in a vacuum...I have taught for 30 years, but I find that online teaching presents its own very special challenges."

My attempt to encourage students to use the Library Catalog

I created a poster which hopefully will create some interest in checking the library catalog for books. I hope it will spark interest in the library's resources.

Professor's Picks

Our Campus Dean and I were brainstorming about boosting circ. We came up with the idea of monthly or quarterly "Professor's Picks". It will be a display naming the instructor and there book picks for both leisure reading and coursework. We plan on starting it next quarter, they will announce their "picks" in class and we will distribute lists via email as well. Has anyone done a similar display/program?

Liaison areas & ALA Annual

In my next installment for "all things ALA" to know before July... in addition to the programs, exhibits, and networking you can also find a section/discussion group/committee/round table related to your program or subject area. i.e., Office of Diversity, Video Round Table, BRASS section (w/i RUSA for business), Law and Political Science section (w/i ACRL), etc. You might need to dig into the division, office, and round table pages.

Also, the New Members Round Table (NMRT) has an orientation "101" program on Friday night and again on Saturday morning. http://www.ala.org/ala/conferencesevents/upcoming/annual/2009/2009_prelimprogram_only_FINAL.pdf

Technology Literacy

I had my yearly review this month and as part of my objectives for this year, my Dean put that I would provide support for HLC Preparation by leading Technology Information initiatives. Now, I know that she really means Technology Literacy because I am not an IT person. As part of the measurement of this objective, she has that I will provide 2 workshops to faculty and staff on Technology Literacy (my word). Has anyone else been asked to do this? If so (or if not) do you have suggestions on how you might provide a Technology Literacy workshop?

Ethical question

What would you do if you suspected that a student might turn in a piece of work that was plagiarized?

Let's say you were working with that student on a research paper. The student wanted the first draft to be proofread, and after reading it, you noted that most of the paper was taken word for word from the sources you had accessed earlier.

You advise the student that they need to put information in their own words, and to use proper citation when needed. You even discuss plagiarism and how the paper in its rough draft would be considered to be plagiarized if turned it as it was.

Let's say that you know that student pretty well and suspect that they will not take the time to make the appropriate changes.

What would you do? Would you hope for the best? Would you notify their instructor? Would you notify the Academic Dean? How far would you go?

Go Figure

Just when I was despairing that not many students care about print serials, I received an email from a student asking if the Fort Myers campus could subscribe to The New Yorker. Interestingly, the student responded immediately after I sent an email blast seeking recommendations for library materials. Just shows how hard it is to judge....

NAACLS team praises liaison concept

The Bismarck campus just completed an accreditation visit for our MLT program. (The accrediting agency is NAACLS.) During the exit interview, the site visitors listed the strengths of our campus program. They made specific mention of our use of library liaisons, and they praised the concept. One of the team members is going to send me a list of sites and resources she recommends.

Just more proof that the Rasmussen Library System is a great system!

More good news: The NAACLS team did not list any areas of concern in their report. Now we just have to wait until September for the NAACLS board to meet to rule on our accreditation, but it looks good.

Rassy loves books

The Bismarck library has been home to the RasMall mannequin for quite some time. In addition to startling unsuspecting library visitors, "Scary Mannequin Guy" models clothes from RasMall. However, he recently donned the Rassy costume. He's even celebrating his love of books with Mardi Gras beads.

Circ Stats!

I had a great idea the other day for keeping those circulation stats up. I often bring in print resources with me to workshops for students to check out, especially for classes that are writing papers on the same topic. However, since most classes write papers in their field, this is not always possible.

Last week, for my Success Strategies workshops, I had each student complete a self-checkout form to get comfortable with the idea, and then the instructor had them complete a worksheet about that particular source. So each student left with at least one book! At the next workshop for Success Strategies, I taught how to use the online catalog, and each student's "assignment" was to order an interlibrary loan on something in their field. Now, each student is comfortable checking out books, ordering ILL, they each have at least two resources for their research paper, AND my stats went up!

NYT's Future of Reading Part 3

Here's the latest installment of the NYT's "Future of Reading" series. (I like the idea of having students write book reviews that then go on the library web site!)


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16libr.html?_r=1&hp

Digital Branch Style Guide

Hello,

A blog author that I follow posted this style guide for online communications/resources for patrons.

Please keep this handy as you are preparing your website pages, so that we can provide the most effective service as possible to our patrons.

Scholarly journals in workshops

I've been wanting to add this post for a while, and I think it fits in nicely with Emily's previous post. For one of my workshops this quarter (for English Comp), the instructor wanted me to focus on explaining what scholarly articles are and how they are used. I've found that many of our students have not been exposed to the "world" of scholarly journals before, and I think there is a disconnect between information online and what students are used to seeing.

So I decided to bring in some print examples. Since my library doesn't really have a print journal collection, I grabbed some from home (mostly poli sci and humanities, and yes, even a couple Library Journals). I passed them out in the class, and had students start comparing them to popular magazines. We made a comparison list on the board, and talked about what makes scholarly journals so different from popular magazines, and why we use them.

I think this exercise helped the students understand that what they are viewing online is also available in print. It seems to help to have literal, hands-on examples for students to touch and look at it when explaining new concepts. However, I agree with Emily that perhaps our focus should be our online databases, and not print journals. Students may like seeing the resources for themselves, but when it comes to using the resources, they seem to prefer online.

The Budget: Meeting Student Needs

One of the projects slowly making its way up from the back of my mind is our budget. While it's still the beginning of the year, I need to start planning now for major anticipated purchases: namely, library resources, electronic or otherwise.

I've been looking over databases and ebook vendors most of today, and I can't help but wonder how to balance out the fiscal responsibility of resources for our students. We've danced around it for three years. Do we need less print and more online?

I would never suggest eliminating the print budget completely. Print materials are essential to our campus libraries, and as our circulation increases it is obvious that our students value print resources. However, there are many valuable resources that we were unable to purchase last year due to cost. If we cut back our print budgets by 25%, it would save us over 100K a year - enough to purchase 4 or 5 quality databases.

One of your esteemed colleagues suggested to me today that we move our journal collections completely online. We could definitely do this (I think) - that is, we have the technology available to do this, or will with the new catalog. But, do you have enough students who use your print resources to warrant having items in print? Many items, or just some general magazines & your local newspaper?

I know that your responses to the following question will vary campus to campus. I expect some of you could cut back your print budgets to only 20% of this fiscal year's allotment and probably do quite well. So, I ask you: what are your opinions on print & electronic?

-E

Evaluating websites exercise

I just gave my "Clean Off Your Google Goggles" Workshop for the 3rd time. This time was very successful. I presented the workshop, and then I had the students complete the exercise that is shown above. I think it really helped the students have an understanding of the quality of resources they will receive with using different search engines.

In this workshop, I also introduced how to search for only government websites in Google. This feature is at www.google.com/unclesam. This website will definitely be useful to our Criminal Justice students.


A Search for the "death penalty" is shown below. The students were able to see the quality of results were better than searching for the death penalty under the normal google.com platform.

** Sorry for cross posting. I also put this blog post on my personal/professional blog.

Gamin' @ Rasmussen

I'm so thrilled about an event I planned in response to goal-planning for the campus & the library.

Backstory first. We have a large number of students in this community who are simply afraid of technology, afraid of trying things out, and afraid to make mistakes. We also have a large number of students who are quite adept at Web 2.0 stuff and aren't afraid of texting or messaging.

I went to a "Gaming In The Libraries" session last October for the Wisconsin Library Association annual conference and was intrigued about the idea of using gaming as a tool for literacy (or in many ways technology literacy) in the library.

After mulling over the session with Emily, we decided it would be interesting if we could have an event on this campus and see what happens!

We're on!

I'm working with the Admissions department and have MANY volunteers. I sent out an email to the leadership team on campus:

I will be hosting the PS3 & RockBand2. The college has the Wii and Pam has some games that she will share. It will be a fantastic way to have fun with our students, a good way to assist in retention, and possibly even a way for some of our tech-wary students to have some fun and learn not to be afraid of technology.

I'm so excited that the event seems to be gaining momentum. We will have at least 1 person in each room to staff each room for the Wii & the RockBand2 so students can come in, and even if they don't know HOW to do the game, they will be able to shown how.

Did I mention that I actually have fantastic support from the leadership team, including the DOA and the Campus Director?

I'm so excited for this, and hope it will be successful. I'll be starting to advertise it in the near future.

Cataloging accomplishment

It's amazing what one can accomplish in just a few months. I'm finally feeling GOOD. If not 100% then pretty darn close, and it's apparent in the work I've been able to accomplish recently.

We have the internal auditors here this week, and it was important to the campus director to get as much cataloging as we could for this campus. It's not to say nothing was cataloged. There was a slight glitch here because Aleph was going through an upgrade around the same time I started, and while items were ready from OCLC, we couldn't get them into ALEPH. I'm not complaining - it just is what it is.

Well, nothing like a deadline to just get things done…

We now have 700+ books, reference books & DVDs in the ALEPH (public online) catalog. Since June 2008, I’ve cataloged +550!!!

Since I returned from vacation / surgery / 2008 craziness, 351 items were cataloged. I’ve had assistance from Sara from St. Cloud (THANKS!) who successfully cataloged 124 which helped tremendously.

Phew ... bring on the world! :)

Captive Audience for Open Workshop

Last quarter, I had 14 students attend one of my open workshops. Hurray! The back story? It was in Week 9, and was on resumes and cover letters (now Fort Myers has a mentor center coordinator who will handle these in the future). But per the terrific suggestion of Tara, our dean, I held that workshop in the lunchroom during lunch break!

At least 20 people were actually coming and going, but it was easy to get the 14 students to take a look at my "portable resume workshop info." I didn't even need a laptop; just had lots of copies of things like template ideas, lists of active verbs, pathway info, etc., that I handed out.

(I caught everyone's attention initially by displaying that funny poster from Ras Career Services. It shows an appropriately dressed job interviewee and her "clean" resume, contrasting with a picture of her slacker alter ego and a resume that potential employers would immediately put in a circular file.)

The Big Time

I feel like I have finally hit the big time. I just filled my first request for Interlibrary Loan from a library outside of Rasmussen College. I believe I did it correctly and it will be picked up tomorrow and delivered to another library system. I have to give credit to my practicum student for this as he is the one who discovered that I was not listed as a reciprocal lender in OCLC.

Wiki for Annual 2009 in Chicago

Usually updates more often than the website- http://wikis.ala.org/annual2009/index.php/Main_Page

I've been back... just been busy & am catching up on things at the campus! Will send a message by Fri w/info from Midwinter.

Preliminary program is on the website


Reference & User Services Association (RUSA) Programs-
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa/events/annual09/index.cfm

Chat Reference

I love chat reference and our Meebo sessions. I wish it was available to our students 24/7, but I certainly do not want to be the person working in the wee hours of the night. :)

One of the sessions that I attended at the MLA Conference (November 2008) was about a digital reference services that is 24/7. In the future, we might want to consider a similar option through a cooperative service. This service is through Minnesota Libraries and QuestionPoint, a National Reference Cooperative.

Name of the session: AskMN: The Librarian Is In

This session explained how many libraries are teaming up to have 24/7 instant messaging services for patrons. They are now able to have the librarians at a site get first “dibs” on a question posed by their patron. If the librarian at that location is not able to answer the question after a certain period of time OR if their library is closed, the question will be picked up at another location. The participating libraries pay for this service. They provide logins and passwords so librarians that are not working for the institutions where the questions are posed are then able to access the same databases granted to those patrons. Therefore, they are able to “see” what the virtual patron is navigating. This would be a great service for Rasmussen due to the 24/7 availability. The only login and password would be needed as the Non-Rasmussen librarian logged into the Student Portal. The website for this services is AskMN.org, and participating libraries can put the widget on their library homepages. The libraries that are currently utilizing this service are both academic and public. This session was led by Carla Steinberg Pfahl from MINITEX.

Categorizing Grid CAT

Last week I did a workshop for Intro to Criminal Justice. Since the majority of the class was first quarter students, the instructor asked for an overview of the library resources. When he saw the PowerPoint for using the library for great research, he decided to go with that. For assessment with the Intro to Library Resources workshops I had been using a questionnaire based on the one that Amy created. I wanted to try something different this time, so I did the Categorizing Grid, where students had to put the terms under the proper category. It was a simple assessment that didn't take much time to create or implement, and only a few of the students got a couple of the terms mixed up.