Plagiarism among professors

Check out the article from The Chronicle of Higher Education---a Harvard prof. got caught by a journal!!!

Journal Retracts Harvard Professor's Paper Flagged by Copycat Search Tool

student interest in IM

Dave Lungren and Randall Smith met with Bismarck students today to discuss students' perceptions of online learning. When asked what features they'd like to see added to their online courses, someone mentioned IM as a way to get instant answers to questions. The suggestion was met with enthusiasm from other students.

Even though they were talking about IM as a way to improve communication with instructors, I was encouraged that students would use and appreciate an instant chat service. Once again, our library team is on the cutting edge when it comes to improved customer service.

ID cards for online students

I'm wondering what the rest of you do for ID cards for online students who live too far from campus. I know I can simply assign a library patron barcode to distance students, but I'm sure they would like the discounts that come with having a student ID.

I told a patron today that I'd check with the rest of my team and would get back to her this week. I'd appreciate your input.

February's display

We've decided that February will be Black History Month. I have been playing around with some ideas for a while - something that our students can really be engaged in/with, and the idea didn't come to me until Friday of last week. I'm pretty excited about it!

Here's a snapshot of the poster I created.

So, what is YOUR February display going to be?

Collection Development - Faculty Collaboration

Hi everybody!

I had an idea today and was wondering if any of you do this and if so, has it worked out...

In CHOICE (cro2.org), you can of course look for titles on a given subject/program area. You can then 'select all' and email yourself the list. I did this today for business titles I wanted to come back to w/o having to re-do the search. So, what I was thinking was we could send these program-specific lists to the advocates and/or faculty on our campuses to (hopefully) get more feedback. Maybe this will work better than just saying 'I need recommendations' or filling their mailboxes with catalogs that sometimes get lost. Don't get me wrong, I still like publisher catalogs! I also thought it might streamline the process to send a copy of the Recommendation Form with the list of titles/reviews. Not that it is that difficult to get a form off of CHIPSnet... :-) And of course, there are the lists from RCL and B&T we could send out as well.

So, what do you think? I'm thinking of starting this on my campus.

And while I'm picking your brains... would this maybe be a good poster session topic??

Thanks!

Report from Ocala

I know I should be grading papers right now, but I wanted to take a break to say hello. I don't want to clog up e-mail with something that is basically irrelevant to your work, but I wanted to catch you up on what's going on down here. I also want to apologize for not calling and for not notifying (some and/or all of) you that I was unable to call.

I arrived in Ocala late Monday night. My first workshop was at 8:30 am for a group of Nursing students. Several of the students had never been in the library before (the allied health building is separate, but I don't think this is an excuse). I completed a total of 5 workshops that day for approximately 100 students. In three of the workshops, I completed a presentation on the start-to-finish process of writing a paper (I call it anatomy of a paper). In the other courses, I completed kind of an APA-mash. Most of the instructors wanted me to talk about APA and writing and databases for the entire period (2 hours). I know that's too much information for students, and at times I know a few of them were bored with just what I covered.

This is the first week that I've tried to be entirely PowerPoint free and I think that I've been pretty successful. I used the white board to list various points and information (in either theme-workshop). In the "anatomy" class, we pretended like we were writing a paper on the topic assigned by the instructor, and worked together to brainstorm, research, etc. I was very impressed by the number of students who interacted with me and provided informed opinions and ideas. I also had many good questions during the APA workshop.

The most unsuccessful workshops by far have been the times that I've done database demonstrations. The demonstrations have been brief - no more than 15 or 20 minutes - but I could tell the students just weren't interested in watching me search. The highlight was when I compared searches in Google to searches in the database. I also related the importance of narrowing a topic to searching in Google - how narrowing can take your results from 800,000 to 800.

I have collected worksheets and surveys in all workshops, if for no other reason than to prove that it most certainly can be done. After collecting the handouts, I immediately stapled them to the worksheet so that I knew how to enter them when I fill out the Excel sheet (which will be on the plane ride home). Most of the feedback has been positive, although I have not examined any of it thoroughly.

Aside from workshops, I've done quite a bit of work cleaning up the library. I begged Hilary to come to Ocala today (and she was a huge help, Thank You Hilary!!!). Together, we weeded about 500 very outdated materials (folks, we just scratched the surface) and purchased about 150 books from Barnes and Noble.

I am trying a new method of cataloging, and we will see how it works. I've entered all of the books into OCLC and given each book a spine label and a barcode. I then entered the ISBN and barcode number into an Excel chart so that I can do the ALEPH portion later even if I'm not in front of the books. This may be a good exercise if you have multiple books to catalog or if you know you're not going to be at the desk for several hours, but will still have access to a computer.

In all, this has been a good but exhausting experience. I've put in 12 hour days (at minimum) all three working days this week, and I haven't touched any of my System responsibilities. I am looking forward to working with a new librarian (we have a great candidate right now) to get that campus back to the place it should be in terms of both resources and services.

10 workshops in 4 days.... 150 books in OCLC in 3 hours.. who knew?

-E

ILS (Midwinter Meeting demos)

Of the ILS I looked at this time, one I particularly like is Innovative Interface (III). Their product is Millennium and new OPAC is Encore. Encore seemed intuitive to use, tagging capability and navigation on the side for material type from results screen. The rep equated the OPAC navigation to social networking. University of Michigan State uses this product. Millennium has a toolbar on the desktop with icons for the different modules (Circ, Cat, etc.). Also, many of the functions could be done from the Web. MARC records in Cat module has free text option. One caveat- have a certain number of user licenses, so staff would need to remember to close the module to have enough available throughout the system. According to the rep, there would be enough licenses for the number of staff.

I am still on the fence about Polaris. They’re not bad, I’m just not 100% sold on it being user-friendly; someone else might think differently. In any case, they are getting more academic libraries using their product. The rep said about 10% are academics and are a “very vocal group”. Toolbar on the desktop with icons for the modules. Pretty basic staff end, but I think some of the icons might be confusing- particularly for the assistants. One nice feature in the Circ module- items can be tracked by campus (returned at X campus, shipped to X campus).

I looked at Virtua which is one of the VTLS products. Same type of toolbar, although this one has small icon groups for each of the 4 modules. In Circ, the patron record looks like a MARC record, but the tags could be changed to have words instead of tag numbers (“Name”). The web OPAC is iPortal and is customizable. At this point I stopped the rep because she said it was “easy to do” by the librarian. I wanted to clarify that we would have tech support and not having to do all this customization! She brought in another rep and there are a number of options. From out of the box where we would control everything, to them controlling, and for anywhere in between.

We know we like TLC but they are lots of $$$$.

All of these are compatible with Connexion.

I wasn’t able to look any Endeavor products, since they were not at Midwinter.

Assignment calculator...

This is cool... Check out this assignment calculator.

I tried using the U of M calculator.. and in their time line of when to complete certain steps of your assignment, they have links of when to contact the librarians.. I love it.

Crying babies and social hour

I realize that this is not our grandmas' library and I don't have a problem with students talking in the library, but some students actually use the library to study and write papers. There have been complaints to the Dean in the past about noise in the library. In the last two days, there have been some issues. For instance, yesterday a young woman was in to get help from a tutor for her online class. She brought her two-year old child with her. She brought nothing for the child to do, so one of the tutors went to the admissions office to get coloring book and crayons. After the child had colored some, she decided that she might like to color on the equipment. The tutor ended up having to take care of the child, too. Then the little one proceeded to throw a fit - thrashing around on the floor crying and screaming. At that time there were no other students in the library. Ron, the Mentor Center Coordinator who shares the library with me, had to leave to go find a phone elsewhere to make a call. Mom kept saying they were going to leave and they finally did. Then this morning, I was in a webinar for Aleph and there were a group of students socializing and getting rather loud. I said that I hoped no one was trying to study.



Anyone else have any issues and how do you handle them?

More Mankato Rasmussen Photos

Mankato Rasmussen New Library Photos

My display

I'm an ebook fan.. and I try to promote ebooks on my campus... I manage to use ebook covers a lot in my displays.. I print off the covers in color ink.

This display is about New Year's Resolutions.. I also mentioned the RAS fitness blog.

Librarians at for-profit schools

I found a short article in The Chronicle of Higher Education this morning to be interesting:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/2661/librarians-at-for-profit-institutions-seek-to-be-heard?utm_source=at&utm_medium=en

As far I as I know, in St. Cloud, we've always been part of our local consortium (Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange) and have been able to buy from any vendor (why would you want to completely cut out a customer?). Has anyone had problems with these issues because of our status?

January Library Display

For my monthly display for January I decided to do National Mentoring Month. I have a bulletin board just outside of the library that I used to highlight Ron, our Mentor Center Coordinator, and the six tutors. (I call them "Ron and the Tutors," which makes them sound like an alternative rock band.) I asked the tutors to write up short bios and then I took their pictures and put them all on display. Although I had a little bit of grumbling from the tutors, most of them were happy to do it. I included the January tutor schedule, also. I thought it would be nice to highlight them since they really do work hard. We have 119 new students this quarter, so I thought it would be a good idea for them to be able to put names with faces of tutors. For inside the library I made up little signs for the three tables that I will include here also. I have received a lot of positive feedback on this display.

hands-on library training for admissions team

Today I met with our campus admissions team and DOA in a computer lab for about an hour so I could properly introduce them to our library. I began by thanking them for being library advocates when they give tours and for introducing me to prospective students. (That helps combat library anxiety, I think.) I told them that I wanted to show them exactly what it is they’re promoting when they tell students we have “a phenomenal online library.” Then we worked our way across the library webpage in a hands-on, interactive way.

• FAQ
• Ask the Librarian (that's why I got the Who is Joe Jones question)
• APA handouts
• NoodleTools (they all set up accounts and made a sample reference page)
• Library catalog and ILL possibilities
• NetLibrary
• Academic Search Premier

The team members and DOA expressed their appreciation for the workshop, and they commented that they learned a great deal about what our library offers. (Somone even e-mailed herself an article she found during the session.) I think it will have a positive impact on what they tell prospective and new students about our library and the tools and resources we provide.

Library Marketing: Why it Absolutely Matters

Yesterday, I (finally) finished typing up the brainstorming sheets from our session at the team meeting about Workshops and Programs. While I hope to spend some blog space talking about each portion of that brainstorming session, marketing is foremost in my mind.

I relate to marketing and marketers. Part of my love of marketing stems from the stigma attached to being a young library director - or a librarian at all. I've had to consistently challenge the views of non-library colleagues, friends and family about the value and rigor of my work. Most conversations about the library with non-librarians have been, at least in part, a sales pitch.

Another part of my love of marketing is my love of making something different out of what already exists. An interior design term for this concept is "repurposing". It's kind of like taking leftover roast turkey and turning it into a casserole or soup. Although, unlike a turkey soup, the results of repurposing related to marketing are usually fresh, innovative, and easy on the eyes & the stomach.

Marketing is vital to our role as librarians. Without a degree in marketing or an understanding of its ins and outs, I'd even argue that it's essential to almost any job. At very least, we must self-market. Very few products in today's world truly sell themselves; the worker bee is the least of these. No matter how good you are at your job, you have to make others aware of the great job that you are doing and the great job that you're going to continue to do. It's not bragging; it's self preservation. What is a commercial other than a company bragging about how good its product is? However, self-marketing is for a different day.

We are not a culture of students and faculty who clamor to the library in search of the depths of our databases, piling on interlibrary loans and seeking obscure texts. I think that as a team we could agree that we are a culture of the "instant answer" - dare I say Google - or maybe even a culture of apathy where no research is preferred to any research. How then, in this culture, can we expect students to seek out tools such as NetLibrary or Points of View? Marketing. Because the secret of marketing is not to tell students what they should use, but instead to reveal to them what they've needed all along.

So how does resource marketing work?

1. Create a need. Consider a carpet cleaner commercial. How many times is something spilled or stained in a commercial? And it's always something impossible to get out - wine or grass stains or ketchup. Consumers who see this commercial can relate to the need. In other words, you need to think about the timing and the audience that you are addressing when you are marketing a database. Are you advertising childcare resources in your child care classroom? What do you put in the Digital Design room?

The need concept works well when marketing to faculty, too. They have needs to provide content related to the course, to provide assignments, to enhance learning, to collaborate. How can a database meet this need?

2. Introduce the product. Yes, we have links to the databases on our website - but how many students and faculty have you spoken to that don't know how to access the Portal? Advertisers use pictures and text everywhere to convey the message that something is available to meet a need. How can you physically market a database to attract a user without singing its merits?

3. Be specific. Don't introduce a suit of databases, or a database and Noodlebib, in one marketing "campaign." Address one need at a time, and address it concisely so that your consumer isn't overwhelmed with data. Very few commercials will try to sell more than one product at a time (unless they are closely related and complement each other).

4. Meet the need. You've introduced a problem to your consumer (and just one problem). How do you solve that problem? A student needs books that they can search. Netlibrary lets you search books - how about that! Remember that you are control of the marketing destiny of each product that you put out there. You have to make up the mind of the consumer before you even put your plan out in public.

5. Use professional tools. Don't create a brochure when a poster will do. Use images instead of text - but make sure they are clean images that don't like copied and altered thrice over. Use easy to read, large fonts in attractive colors. When available, use glossy, heavy-weight papers.

6. Think outside the box. One suggestion from the brainstorm was to use baby bibs to promote Noodlebib. Or, you can create a poster of pastas with a phrase "what's your favorite noodle"? NetLibrary suggests putting a beach chair with a sunhat and sunscreen in a location with a sign on it that says "ebooks wherever you are.. or wherever you want to be". The possibilities for promoting your resources in new and alternative ways that spark interest because you are meeting a need will bring in results.



What are your ideas for marketing our resources?

Did you know that you can...

...Request a print catalog from AHIMA?

Does anyone else have a publisher that they utilize (online or a print catalog) to share?

Why I Hate Making Student ID Cards

When I ran the signed cards through the color printer to add the photos and logo, the printer jammed and nearly perforated the cards. It jammed twice, so the cards were in sorry shape. The side where the picture was to go got all smudged, so now I've resorted to printing the colored side on regular paper and using a glue stick to affix the colored side to the signed ID card. Hmmm....scissors and glue stick. Reminds me of childhood.

Any good (or not so good) stories about fiascoes while making IDs?