Weeks 14, 15, and 16: Whirlwind End of the Semester!

It is hard for me to believe we are already at the end of the semester! I've continued to assume additional responsibilities as the semester has gone on, putting in extra hours to attend committee meetings, observe and assist with unique info lit sessions, and prepare for our upcoming LOEX presentation. Here's a quick rundown of some of the highlights:

University of Dubuque, Charles C. Myers Library 

• After having life-sized cut-outs of people in the library for April's abuse/assault awareness, we spent one morning dismantling the display so it could travel to its next destination (quite a moving display showing the names, ages, and the story of how they died as a result of domestic abuse).
  
• LOEX prep, LOEX prep, LOEX prep. (Did I mention LOEX prep?) Anne Marie and I have worked hard to complete both the paper and presentation, sharing our experiences from our internship/mentorship semester, as well as recommendations from the literature. See you in Fort Worth in just a few days! (Here's a sneak-peak at our Prezi: http://bit.ly/LOEXMentoring2011)
• Crafts (not just for elementary teachers, dear friends)! Between helping prep multicolored note card packets (complete with stickers) for the Great American Poetry Race (more on that in a bit) and transcribing colorful handwritten concept maps into electronic form, I was all about being crafty and creative!
• We had a master's student studying communication host a workshop for the library staff. We talked about effective communication, our habits as a staff, effective leadership, diversity of views & how that helps groups come up with new ideas.
• Web meeting: What do we like about what we have? What would we like to change? What new technologies would we like to incorporate into our library services and how would that be reflected in our website?
• Ref desk coverage for a colleague and my regular shifts--always something new there!
• The Great American Poetry Race: Students work in small groups, racing through a set of cards to find critical sources on their chosen poems. After a brief refresher on library resources, particularly those they'd likely use for this task, the students are on their own to find quality resources (with one "help card" they can cash in for librarian assistance). Progress is charted on the wall and the first group to complete all of their cards receives an awesome prize! The students were really involved with this activity and, while it was competitive, the competition didn't overshadow the learning objectives.
• Evaluation time! Anne Marie and I scheduled some time to go over the evaluation forms from IU as well as just discuss the internship experience. I won't go into too much detail here, but I am so thankful to have found a place for my internship that matches my student-first philosophy, one that has given me an abundance of opportunities and realistic experience that I can take with me anywhere, not to mention the new friends I have made!
• Jenny Parker and I prepared and lead a book discussion over Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach. The meeting at the end of last week went really well, and reminded me that despite my colleagues having more experience than me, they continue to face the same challenges in and out of the classroom. By opening a dialog and sharing successes and frustrations, I think we were able to better understand each other as librarians and educators. At the end of the discussion, Mary Anne expressed an interest in regularly scheduling other discussion times to continue the professional sharing that happened during our meeting. 
• OCLC visit day! We hosted a meeting with the Iowa OCLC rep and invited the Loras library folks to join us as we learned about what is available through OCLC's Web-Scale Management Services, what will be available in the near future, and offered suggestions regarding features we like with the current system that aren't readily available through OCLC's product.
• I almost forgot to mention this!  The latest Iowa Library Association/ACRL newsletter is out.  Here's the link to my Scholarship Recipient Report.  

Anne Marie Gruber & Cara Stone

It has been a fantastic semester, and I would recommend this experience to anyone interested in librarianship! Many thanks to those who helped coordinate details between Bloomington and Dubuque, and to the UD faculty and staff for helping to develop me as a librarian!

Week 13: More LOEX Paper Writing, English 101, and a Fun Surprise!

Though it may not sound jam-packed, this week certainly was. Between juggling LOEX writing, teaching, and assisting patrons at the reference desk, I was definitely kept on my toes! Anne Marie and I have spent several hours fine tuning the LOEX paper, working from a modified outline I used for my presentation at the Iowa Library Association/ACRL conference. Originally we were concerned about being too long-winded, but between the two of us we have been able to be clear and concise (and stay within the required word count limit).

We also continued our work with English 101, finishing up the unit about scholarly research in preparation for their paper deadline. What is unique about this class is that essentially, the entire class writes the "same" paper. They create the same research question, analyze the same resources, take the same notes, and craft their thesis statement together. Even their bibliography is provided from the start. What is left is the writing of the paper. By extracting these elements and doing them together the students really learn the process before jumping in and trying to start from scratch on their own. By giving students this foundation, they are better prepared for assignments later in the semester, and later in their college careers, as they advance to the next level of research writing. In this last class period with the students and librarians together, we explicitly defined the connections between the different articles they dissected before. In making a chart and examining the similar factors and measures of success (factors: student engagement/involvement, metacognitive skills, locus of control, action behaviors, relationships with faculty, relationships with peers; measures of success: degree attainment and the amount of time it takes to earn the degree, cumulative grade point average), students noticed much overlap between the articles. We also worked together to define unfamiliar terms, and crafted a thesis statement together ("Engagement, internal factors, and relationships positively influence college students’ success as measured by cumulative GPA, and timeliness to graduation .").

This week I also received a fun surprise in my email inbox. I was very excited to hear that the American Library Association, New Members Round Table selected Indiana University’s IU ALA-SC as Student Chapter of the Year for our work in 2010. Having served as president in 2010 I was very excited that the efforts and activities of the membership and board were recognized. I, along with the current President, am looking forward to heading to the Annual conference in New Orleans to accept the award and represent Indiana University and the IU School of Library and Information Science!

Week 12: Scholarly Article Dissection, LOEX Preparation, and Reference Work

For the most recent unit in English 101, the students learn to dissect scholarly articles, finding information to answer their research question and guide them in writing their thesis. The process is designed to introduce them to this type of writing and set them up for success in future classes. As this is likely the first time students have had to work with scholarly research, the approach for this unit may feel "backwards" to some. Anne Marie compiled resources that compliment each other. The topic the classes were examining was: student success in college. She compiled three scholarly articles, as well as chapters from their required text, The Naked Roommate, and an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Throughout the week the class examined the articles together, identifying the pieces that helped answer their research question, "How do various factors influence college student success?" Students were to have read each of the articles prior to class (and were to have printed them to bring to class, to annotate as we discussed the important factors and results). The first day, Anne Marie popped in at the end of class to give students an idea of what to expect for the next class. On Wednesday the entire class dissected the first scholarly article all together, extracting factors and measures of success. That Friday I helped facilitate small group discussions (we broke into two groups, each discussing a different article). I was impressed with my students' abilities to see past the "fancy-author-talk" and interpret the article to get to the meat of what we were looking for. The next week we discussed both break-out articles as a class.

In addition to teaching, I assisted patrons at the reference desk, and Anne Marie and I spent quite a bit of time preparing our paper for LOEX--It will be here before we know it!

Top Ten List: Number Six

From the Library Technology Conference, in reverse chronological order:

6. E-learning: Tips, Tricks, and Tools of the Trade, Susan Kane, Harvard Office of Information Systems

• Susan Kane presented a wide range of tools and approaches to online instruction. She began with a brief introduction, asking which tools attendees had used in the past (see list below), to get a sense of our backgrounds/levels of experience. Then she dove into the "why?" questions. While there is nothing wrong with teaching face-to-face, particularly if instruction is an accepted and promoted part of your institution's culture, there are sometimes barriers to instruction delivery. They include scheduling conflicts, poor attendance at sessions when offered independent from a class (particularly when not tied to grades), and users may prefer to have things available online to be viewed and reviewed at their convenience. The benefits of online instruction are the flexibility of when the content is delivered (at user's convenience), reusability of tutorials when applicable, users may go a their own pace (supporting multiple learning styles when well done), instructor consistency (when delivering in-person instruction to multiple sections, some information may be accidentally excluded, creating inconsistency), and ease of standardized scoring, and that these technologies and the way information is presented is becoming more and more native to today's users. Drawbacks include a disconnect between students and librarian, potential for learner distraction (i.e. checking other web pages or doing other things while the instruction session is happening), watching tutorials can be boring, high-speed internet is usually required to successfully run online tutorials, computer proficiency, software updates "fix" or cement content (making it harder to update content). There is a trade-off between face-to-face instruction and online instruction. Face-to-face may require complex scheduling, man power, and cooperation from faculty, etc. Online instruction may be perceived as time-saving; however, production and maintenance is quite costly when examining the staff time it takes. An interesting figure presented was, for every hour of training you are trying to convert to online presentation/format you will spend between 49-127 hours in production. 49-127 production hours/1 hour of product. Making content reusable can help alleviate some of this strain, but then you risk lowering the relevance or context which may make it less valuable to the user. Kane recommends being as specific as possible within your goals for reusability. By determining what does and does not need to be taught in context, you are allowing for the potential of greater reusability.

Planning and Pre-production

• Determine what you are starting with. Notes from an in-person lecture? PowerPoint slides? A website or other documents? Nothing?
• Determine your goals. Does everyone agree (what are others' expectations)? What are your limitations on staff time or policy objectives? Service objectives? How much content is presented and how interactive will it be? What are the key objectives (choose one or two).
  
• Do you have the tools to accomplish what you want? The hardware, software, staff time (assumption is that this will save time, but people often forget about the behind-the-scenes work in producing the content), expertise, and delivery platform?
  

Other helpful things to keep in mind when producing online instruction content

• Will you need to convert the files to another format in order to deliver the content (i.e. post to Moodle, etc.)?
• Why reinvent the wheel? Will some of your older content work with your new software (i.e. pulling in PowerPoint slides)?
• How easy is it to add audio, what is the quality like, and how can you edit as necessary?
• What are the costs associated with what you are using? Several options are free or quite reasonable, but do the free products offer you the flexibility you need? Are the more complex programs too complicated and clunky? Find that balance.
  

Resources mentioned throughout:

• Snag It
• Jing
• Adobe Presenter
• Adobe Captivate
• Articulate Engage
  
  • Example Articulate tutorial from UW La Crosse
• Audacity

Top Ten List: Number Eight

From the Iowa Library Association/ACRL Conference, in reverse chronological order:

8. Skillful Scaffolding: Integrating Information Literacy Outcomes into Literature Courses, given by Dan Chibnall and Dr. Amy Getty from Grand View University

• While one-shot instruction sessions may still be the norm for many classes, the presenters took an integrated IL approach to their American Literature I and Literature for Children and Adolescents courses. They provided a detailed handout to conference attendees, highlighting the skills taught the assignments, and activities associated with those skills. Throughout the semester resource evaluation skills are taught and reinforced, specifically finding quality websites, books, and journals as well as understanding scholarly vs. popular publications. Much of what the presenters were sharing is what I have been observing and actively doing in my internship. The last piece, having both instructor and librarian taking an active part in summative evaluations tied to course grades, is something not yet incorporated at UD. Based on the way the IL program has expanded over the last several years, I could see this as an eventual possibility (however, additional staffing would need to be provided to allow for the time it takes to evaluate learning artifacts).
  

Top Ten List: Number Ten

From the Iowa Library Association/ACRL Conference, in reverse chronological order:

10. Seeking Wisdom in Community: Shaping a First-Year Research Experience given by Andi Beckendorf, Germano G. Streese, of Luther College (Go Norse!)

• This session was particularly interesting to me, partially because I'm a Luther grad, and also because this program targets first-year students and their learning experiences. As a transfer student into Luther, I did not take Paideia. While I had heard stories about the course from my friends, this session allowed me to see the instructor side of the course. Germano and Andi provided a brief history, how they identified the need to modify the program (both the course and library approach). With new needs identified, the library was able to utilize LibGuides to support student learning. This integration lead to changes in what was observed at the reference desk; questions shifted from the seemingly simple "how do I," skill-based questions (that can be answered with a set of directions), to more complex, strategy-based questions.
  

Week 9: Humanities, Technology, and Presentation Preparation

The week of March 7th was filled with great discussions, observations, and reference work, and instruction experiences. Monday I observed additional RES104 Humanities sessions and worked with the students to understand the Humanities in relation to their next paper. In Humanities Day 1 the students worked in groups to find resources to provided questions. They then gave an informal presentation demonstrating how they found a resource containing the requested information.

I taught the "Q" section of Research 104 and we discussed finding credible resources to be used for their Humanities paper (we focused on web evaluation and finding relevant articles/books for their annotated bibliography, due shortly). The students submitted their website examples and, as a class, we discussed what aspects of the website made us think it was credible, and what aspects made us hesitant to use it to write papers. I also showed them a couple of databases and where to find humanities resources on the library's website. The students came up with great topics and I was excited to hear their paper ideas.

We had another Web Committee meeting, discussing more details of the changes we would like to make on the "How do I?" page. There are lots of pieces we'd like to see incorporated (embedding Jing videos, mobile interface, continuing to tweak/modify language and categories for tutorial content and other questions). In addition to technology related to the website, we are looking at bigger-picture issues such as the use of QR codes, computing in the cloud, and other software and technologies that can help UD grow in terms of technology offered to help students, faculty, and staff be their most effective.

The rest of the week was spent tweaking my ILA/ACRL presentation, "Cultivating Future Librarians: Turning Students into Colleagues Through Mentorship."

Week Nine: Classes and Conference Preparation

It is clearly evident that the spring semester is in full swing, here at UD.

On Monday we went over the web content and design components for the "How Do I?" page. We narrowed down our list to emphasize simplicity and clarity when addressing frequently asked questions and hope to include a few bells and whistles too (compared to what we currently have). One thing I was keeping in mind as we examined what we currently have and other Web sites was the accessibility. Right now the main menus are hover-over/drop down menus, which work but can be difficult for those with physical disabilities to navigate. In just glancing at the code, I found many validation errors and glanced through to see if alt text was used or longdesc. There were alt text examples, but no longdesc. Indiana University's Adaptive Technology and Accessibility Centers were helpful when I was working on my Web project for Information Architecture for the Web (a class I took this past fall). They offer a wide range of services to not only support students and their technology needs, but will also review student-created (and other) content for ease of use/accessibility. The accessibility component will be taken care of by the web-gurus here on campus, but it’s something I like to keep in mind as we brainstorm.

I observed and assisted with Speech Communication (COM101). Rather than what others might think of as a “traditional informative speech,” the students will be presenting a policy speech wherein they cover the policy within a federal bill (or state bill if approved by the instructor). In this policy speech the students will present factual evidence from both sides and then encourage their audience (their classmates) to take action on that subject. GovTrack and OpenCongress help compile the necessary information into one place, making it easily accessible and understandable. I worked with two COM101 classes last week and was impressed by the level of engagement with the topics. Throughout the instruction portion of the class, students were reminded to consider bias (personal and within the language of the bill), what problem is being solved should the bill pass, and the credibility of other sources that discuss the bill.

I worked with the students in RES104 as they learned about the humanities, and searching for humanities resources and topics. Students worked in groups to answer questions about finding specific kinds of resources (one group looked for appropriate print items, another searched general databases, another looked at specialized databases, and the last looked at print and online encyclopedia articles). That was built upon in the next session, when students examined the credibility of sources, particularly websites. In the second library session, students discussed what makes a website credible, authority, whether the website is current, chose their topic, and dove into finding sources for their next paper. I enjoyed assisting with the classes, but really appreciated leading the Humanities Day 2 session.

So much of teaching is making the topic relatable to students (and not just “because you have to write this paper soon” kind of relatable). I found myself pulling from previous experience with Wikipedia, using humor, and using examples the students provided to emphasize the importance of evaluating your resources (for credibility, bias, etc.). I also really enjoyed working with students to develop the scope of their topics. They are studying the Mississippi River Watershed which lends itself to a variety of topics.

Later in the week I helped out with the CIS101 class as they learned about plagiarism and how to avoid it. On Saturday, Anne Marie and I came in to work on our LOEX presentation/paper. We have a strong start (which is good, since I'm presenting something similar at ILA/ACRL coming up on March 18th)! I'm working with Prezi, which I have used in the past, but am trying some of the newest features (the ability to choose the three fonts, modify the colors, etc.) and have created my own "background" using images that fit my gardening theme for ILA/ACRL. Also, I was excited to get a call on Tuesday from Mary Iber, librarian at Cornell College in Mount Vernon, informing me that I received the ILA/ACRL Annual Spring Conference Scholarship for 2011! I'm excited for this opportunity and look forward to learning a lot from the sessions and meetings I attend!

Week Eight: Scheduling, Implementing, LOEX Preparing, and Curriculum Library Touring

Here's an easy-to-digest list of last week's happenings:

• Info lit observation/teaching scheduling
• Reference desk manning (including an instance when a student used the library to woo a girl--we go the extra mile for our patrons!)
• LOEX presentation preparing/collaborating
• Preparing for Web Sub-committee meeting'
• Institutional repository informal discussions
• Concept map transcribing/digitization (for several classes)
• Curriculum library tour (collection policies, transitioning to a new space, what to keep/what to deselect, how it supports education program)
• CIS 101 Plagiarism assignment run through (done by Mary Anne and Jon to fill the rest of the staff in on what they have planned for the classes)
• A little bit of everything (because that's what librarians do)

 I have had several conversations about the future of education and the impact many proposed legislative changes may have on all levels of learning (from public elementary schools to college, and beyond with life-long learning being supported by public libraries).  As I am sure is the case in many areas of the country, librarians here have been following legislative news closely, particularly HF 45, HF 103, SF 163, HF 9 and the Iowa Work Force Development office closings.  There are lots of changes (or proposed) happening which would impact library users.

Week Six: Assisting, Teaching, Shadowing, and Celebrating Scholarship & Creativity

I packed a lot in to this first full week of February. On Monday I did my first solo stint at the Reference Desk because one of the librarians wasn't feeling well, so I volunteered to slide in and man the station. While I only had a couple of reference questions, it was still nice to be able to be there and help. I also observed a sociology class where students answered questions based on their readings. They considered the various types of resources needed to answer the questions (articles, books, primary, secondary, etc.) and talked about keywords for searching. After an orientation to the catalog and Academic Search Premiere, they were off to answer their questions! There are a couple of quirks to the current library catalog to keep in mind when students are searching for books. Of course, the library catalog isn't intuitive when it comes to creative student spelling and won't anticipate or offer suggestions like Google might. Another thing to keep in mind is that when the catalog finds resources that match your search terms, it bumps the most recent item to the top of the list (and the catalog recently added new e-book titles). By returning e-books as the first search results, some students were ignoring those print resources they were seeking (for those unable or unwilling to download the e-books). We showed students how to limit by material type, which helped them be more successful.

Sprinkled throughout the week was prep work and various other ongoing projects. Tuesday was a day filled with teaching (both observing and assisting). I worked with two sections of a World History class preparing for an upcoming assignment that leads them to a larger paper (due in April). We searched for relevant articles concerning a student-chosen topic within a certain time range. Students would engage with the articles, providing commentary on the viewpoints presented for their assignment, and eventually bring the information together for a longer paper. Many of the students were able to find all of the articles they needed for the rest of the semester (though for this class day, they were only required to find their first article--but we encouraged them to get as much done as they could to be ready for their upcoming article discussions).

Wednesday I observed one section and was able to teach on my own (WOO HOO!)! I worked with two World View II (WV2) classes. The first was an 8 a.m. class who, though still a little sleepy, was able to engage with information about their local organization, St. Mark's. Following the templates provided for all WV2 sessions, I began by introducing myself and what we would be doing for class that day. We discussed the "big picture" and the impact individuals can have by simply doing and being involved. The students will eventually present about their community organization at the Service Learning Fair, sharing with their peers what the organization does. After talking about various sources that may be used, and bias that goes along with sources, the students broke off into groups to answer the questions about who is involved with and benefits from the services they provide, how the organization is structured, how it is funded, and they developed additional questions to be presented to the organization representative when they met later that week.

All of the students answered questions that were provided using Moodle forums (they added threads to the posted questions). With the last 10-15 minutes of class, students reported back to the entire group a few interesting things they found as they were searching. This process was repeated for an afternoon class researching Big Brothers, Big Sisters. I enjoyed helping the students work collaboratively to find the information they were looking for. There was definitely some redirecting students away from unreliable resources toward things that would more easily help them answer their questions. At one point I used the example of a Wikipedia article I saw (and took a screenshot of) that listed a town's nickname as "The Armpit of America," and it's motto as "Too lazy to commute. Let's go on title [sic] 19." The article also notes the population as "15,579 Smiling toothless methheads." While this example is extreme, and the above mentioned information was removed that same day, it was effective in driving home the point that while Wikipedia is a fine place to start to find out basic information to steer your search in the right direction, it should not be your only source.

I returned to campus again on Friday for a shadowing session with Jon Helmke, Assistant Director for Library Systems and Technical Services. Jon teaches instruction sessions and performs liaison duties to various departments on campus (as do all of the librarians at UD), is responsible for maintaining the library systems (including Horizon and ILLiad), vendor correspondences for electronic resources, Gold Rush Electronic Resource Management System, and the Data Central Project. He supervises Meris, Sue, and Meghann (who I talked about in week five). Jon works with the University webmaster to keep a uniform look for the library's website while adding content. We discussed eventually moving from Horizon to a cloud-based system (similar to the new World Cat), or possibly even going Open Source, but at this point that just an idea they are keeping in mind but not actively pursuing.

After spending time learning more about Jon's duties, I worked on a project to learn more about the Report on the geological survey of the state of Iowa (and another from the state of Wisconsin) that had been donated. After exploring the online Library of Congress National Union Catalog, I went down to the basement archives to check out the print version (just to be sure, and to say I'd actually used the print version) and found that even though the item says it's Volume 1 (part 1 and 2 for the Iowa survey, and just one part for the Wisconsin) only one volume was ever published (we wanted to be sure it was complete before adding it to the collection).

The afternoon was filled with scholarship and creativity as the library held their annual Scholarship and Creativity Celebration which displayed scholarly works, and artistic/musical talents of those who work at UD. The reception included food (of course), music, and spoken word. It was quite the event, and wonderful to see that so many are active within their disciplines! Friday was also UD night at the Dubuque Fighting Saints game (and it was a close one too--overtime leading to a sudden death shootout, but ultimately a home team loss)!

Article 3: Information Literacy and First-Year Students

Orme, W. A. (2008). Information literacy and first-year students. New Directions for Teaching & Learning, 2008(114), 63-70.

The definition of Information Literacy (IL) has changed as new technologies have been incorporated into higher education. What began as recognizing, locating, evaluating, and effectively using information has changed to a relational relationship based on information need and other contextual factors (previous knowledge and experience, instructor epistemological beliefs, and student characteristics). While some think of first-year students as "empty vessels," those following a more constructivist approach believe orienting the students to their new learning environment and academic culture can (and should) be done by meeting the students where they are in terms of their previous learning experiences. By using previous experience and orienting it toward this new environment, students are given meaningful learning experiences that can be used as a foundation for future learning and inquiry. Challenging held assumptions can also expand the student's knowledge base. Supporting this constructivist approach is the practice of giving additional academic assistance to "at risk" students (typically first-year, first-generation). This practice recognizes the "probable lack of a supporting environment that can help negotiate the challenges of an academic setting." Emphasis is placed on the nature of knowledge and how it is acquired, setting a foundation for lifelong learning within the students' first year.

Article 2: Librarians as Agents of Change: Working with Curriculum Committees Using Change Agency Theory

Travis, T. A. (2008). Librarians as agents of change: Working with curriculum committees using change agency theory. New Directions for Teaching & Learning, 2008(114), 17-33. doi:10.1002/tl.314

Barriers to integrating information literacy (IL) into the general curriculum include an unclear understanding of IL, ineffective methods of assessment of IL skills, a lack of ownership for IL instruction, and university culture. Librarians may not be seen as integral parts of classroom learning. IL is possible when its definition is understood as a way of thinking, and is seen as a liberal art, as opposed to just a skill set. California State University, Long Beach (SCULB) began the process of integrating IL by applying Change Agent Theory. The campus participated in a review of the general education policy, was preparing for an upcoming accreditation review, and there was increased interest in student-centered learning, indicating the campus would be receptive to incorporating IL efforts. Integration efforts began with the development, articulation, and shared vision of the intended change. SCULB received administrative support and grant funding to support the planning and implementation of IL integration. The grant supported those who took part in pilot projects or received additional job responsibilities. Progress was monitored, librarians were on every academic committee, and IL advocates were on key committees. The Director of IL and Outreach provided assistance, supporting the needs of faculty. Programs were also put in place to create a community of practice. Key elements of integrating IL into the general curriculum were that efforts aligned with the university’s goals, change agents and early adopters were prominent on committees and within their departments, and data provided evidence-based examples of increased IL skills.

Week Two: Let the Projects Begin!

This past week I was able to participate in a few meetings and complete some projects (while starting a few others).

Monday was mostly a day for project work. The librarians here have begun preparing for spring instruction sessions, particularly Introduction to Research Writing 104 (Res104) and World View II: Self and Society (WV2). The description for WV2 is:
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In this interdisciplinary experiential learning format, students and faculty address significant issues that challenge contemporary American culture. We analyze these issues and discuss how our values and faith shape our responses to them. This course focuses on the themes of citizenship, social values and vocation (University of Dubuque, 2009, p. 14).
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This course is required for graduation, and has traditionally been done during the second semester of the students’ sophomore year. It will be interesting for me to see the difference between the J-term sections of this course and the spring semester sections. As I may have mentioned earlier, this January is the first time UD has tried J-term. UD has introduced new courses and adapted others to fit the time-frame. WV2 was one of the classes for which the target student audience has changed. Instead of sophomores completing the class (as is traditionally done in their sophomore year’s spring semester), freshmen were required to take WV2 during J-term. Each class will present on their associated charity/non-profit to all other sections of WV2. I am curious what the librarians think of the final outcome as compared to the product put out by the sophomore classes.

As part of my project work I did some pre-searching, finding articles on the course topic (primarily local charities or non-profits). Because of the local, service-oriented nature of this course, many of the articles were found in the Telegraph Herald, the local newspaper. In order to do our best to present a balanced view of the charities, we present positive and negative press (in the form of quotes on our presentation slides). The students are learning to consider the authority and bias of authors.

Another course I began helping with was Res104. In this course,
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Students will conduct introductory research and write papers in three areas: the natural sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. Students will work closely with their professor and a reference librarian as they frame research questions, differentiate among various disciplines’ research techniques, explore and analyze scholarly and professional resources, and write clear, effective papers on topics in the three disciplines (University of Dubuque, 2009, p. 13).
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One of the librarians has been preparing for the class by pulling relevant books, preparing Prezi and PowerPoint presentations, and brainstorming relevant topic examples. This spring, Res104 is covering the Mississippi River Watershed (containing areas ranging from Montana to Ohio, North Dakota to Oklahoma and, of course, Louisiana). In past years they have rotated between other areas of the world. My work was to go through the brainstormed list of relevant topics to see if there were enough resources for students to make it a viable topic for their research. While fascinating, this is does also tend to be a time-consuming process. The time it takes to do the research is well worth it if it helps a student be successful in their research. We don’t present the student with the research we’ve done, by any means, but what we do helps us know whether a topic will work for students or if it might be best to steer the student in another direction.

On Tuesday, I participated in a few meetings. The first was an Info Lit meeting, discussing the WV2 J-term sessions presented the week before. Overall the feedback has been positive, both from the librarians/faculty perspective and from the student perspective (which was something we were all holding our breath about, as it’s the first time for J-term and the first time it has been a requirement for freshmen. There were a few miscommunications with professors (some not staying for their classes instruction session or some misreading the instruction schedule) but, for the most part, things went well and when the library instructors encountered the unexpected, they were flexible and adjusted their instruction strategies as necessary. Some things to keep in mind for future J-term classes is that (because the students are meeting in multiple places for the same class, changing locations throughout the day) there were some lost students, so perhaps making sure their Moodle page reflects their locations and times would be helpful.

Another thing we discussed during the meeting was the staffing of the reference desk. Unsure as to when the busiest times would be, Anne Marie examined both the seminary schedule and the J-term schedule to see when class breaks were. By manning it during the 11-1 and 3-5 timeslots, we have found the majority of the reference work happens (particularly from 11-1). The librarians decided to leave the reference schedule the same for the rest of J-term and do a more formal assessment of the reference interactions upon the completion of J-term.

I also met with a Career Services Center representative, Trina. The library has proposed adding a career development component to their current student employment practices wherein students are given the opportunity to consult with Trina as part of their paid employment (allowing for one hour of paid time for this). Though it’s still in the works, this opportunity would allow students to receive services such as career assessment and counseling, resume/cover letter assistance, consultations for awards/scholarships, assistance with graduate school preparations, and interview preparation assistance. During our meeting we discussed some of the work I did, as one of the employees staring up the SLIS Career Center, and hammered out some of the logistics (i.e. a spreadsheet with student names, contact information, etc.) and also talked about the upcoming Career Week (Feb. 21-25) display/programming.

Another fun project I worked on was the Education Blog, covering the recently announced winners of various children’s book/author awards. You can read it here: http://www.dbq.edu/library/education/?p=70). That was particularly interesting to me, as it tied in my coursework from a course I took last semester, “Materials for Youth.”

I almost forgot to mention that I've been doing some collection development work, recommending titles for purchase. Anne Marie purchases for several different liaison departments and wanted me to look through some lists (i.e. Choice Reviews, etc.) to find "the best titles of 2010" to be added to the UD collection (as long as they fall within the scope of the collection). I've begun looking at Natural & Applied Sciences materials, adding them to the pre-purchase cart (to be reviewed more closely) in Books in Print. It's always fascinating to see the new information being presented (or old information being presented in a new way). I even found a few titles to add to my (ever-growing) Goodreads list!

As I’m sure is the case in many places, a lot of informal training and professional learning happens in those interactions that aren’t planned or specific to one area of librarianship. Some of the most valuable learning happens when you’re chatting with a colleague in the hallway, or you just happen to pop into their office to see what’s new in their area, or you pass someone going to lunch as you’re just coming from lunch. It’s nice to be in an environment where this happens on a regular basis.


University of Dubuque. (2009). Undergraduate Catalog. Dubuque, Iowa.

Week One: Orientation and the Start of a Good Thing

It’s official! I have a name badge and everything. Last Monday I began my internship experience at University of Dubuque (UD)! My supervisor, Anne Marie Gruber, and I had been communicating quite a bit prior to the start of the semester (working on a couple of conference presentation applications and simply getting things in order) so were able to jump right in to library/UD orientation. I took a walking tour of the Charles C. Myers Library and was able to meet the wonderful librarians and staff along the way. Of course I was curious to learn how things are done at UD, so I asked many questions as we went...Circulation policies (do they vary with certain collections or populations?), study room use (do they need to check out a key or reserve the rooms?), course management software (Sakai? Moodle? – In case you’re wondering, they use Moodle.), reserves (do professors put their own reserves up or does the library?)...

Anne Marie also shared with me some UD history and information about various programs of study. Some programs unique to UD (especially for a school this size) are Aviation and Flight Operations, as well as the Theological Seminary’s offerings for graduate studies.

After our tour we were able to take care of some paperwork (human relations, parking, identification and library card, emergency contact information, etc.) and technology. We spent some time going over log-ins, accessing shared network storage, and we talked a lot about UDOnline (Moodle). I’m excited to learn more about how Moodle works and about customization options. We have been trying to figure out a way to use an HTML form (with PHP) so that students can fill it out and submit the information to both themselves and the librarian (though, from what I’ve found on various Moodle forums, I think the PHP might be an issue…I plan on picking some folks’ brains to see if it’s an option, as the last forum post I could find addressing this was from 2008—Hopefully things have been updated).

We took care of some goal-setting (listed at the very bottom of the post) and established a weekly schedule. Over the next few days I was able to observe some Info Lit sessions with World View 2 (WV2) classes. This January is the first time UD has done J-term classes for their undergraduate students (though the Seminary students have had J-term for some time), and it has been a little bit of a transition for the students and the faculty. For the most part the sessions went smoothly and the sessions I observed helped me to better understand the instructors’ and librarians’ expectations for the students.

Each course was tailored to the service organization (or population) the class was serving. All of the library instructors had the same basic presentation template, but incorporated specific resources and strategies to connect the students to the organization (i.e. Big Brothers, Big Sisters; local nursing homes; local public parks). The instructors each brought their own style to the instruction session, but kept in mind the objectives of the class: What do we know; what do we want to know; conduct search; use the questions provided to help guide your search (the students were divided into five groups with five questions for each group to answer about their organization); if there is still information we don’t know, let’s formulate questions to ask the organization’s representative the next time you are in contact with them. Each instruction session utilized Moodle to collect the students’ findings. I noticed the students were particularly engaged when their professor was in the room, wandering along with the librarian, checking on groups as they worked. This emphasized the usefulness of the IL session and reinforced to the students that the information they were finding was something they would be using in their final presentation (to all of the other sections of WV2, around 400 students).

I also was able to sit in on a meeting with a professor and librarian as they discussed Research 104 (RES 104) for next semester (as it had been several years since the professor had last taught that course). Sitting in on the meeting really helped me to understand the professor’s perspective, along with the librarian’s role and view, of the course. UD incorporates information literacy into their core curriculum and RES 104 is an excellent example of showing how that is done. Throughout the semester all sections have six Info Lit sessions directed toward helping students understand how to best prepare, research, and present their scholarly ideas. The students prepare three research papers throughout the semester: one on a social science topic, one on a humanities topic, and one on a science topic. The library instructors go through several steps to help the students not only find quality resources, but to also understand the process of writing and properly citing the resources in their work.

Anne Marie also went through some of the library’s resources as I shadowed at the Reference Desk. We talked about the program used for the catalog (SirsiDynix Horizon) and went through their (open source) journal finder list, Gold Rush. We also talked about a few of the basics they use often with their undergraduate work (Academic Search Premiere, JSTOR, and LexisNexis), as well as some new or seminary-specific resources (new ones include Credo, e-books, and Films on Demand; a heavily-used database is American Theological Library Association’s ATLA Religion Database). UD also shares resources freely with Wartburg Theological Seminary, also in Dubuque, without having to submit ILL requests for every item. Instead the two libraries’ catalogs are linked and the items can be requested and delivered, or students may travel across town to retrieve the desired item.

I already started working on a few of the projects we discussed earlier, including doing some preliminary selecting for the purchase of print materials, working with recommended lists and Books in Print. This week holds more exciting adventures preparing for spring semester (including scheduling, preparing course presentations and research guides), shadowing various departments around the library, and working with the Career Center to discuss further supporting the library’s student workers.

All in all, week one gets two thumbs up from this intern, and I’m looking forward to learning more!
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Goals:

* Collaboratively design, deliver, and assess library instruction sessions
* Create learning tools using course management software to support course objectives and student learning
* Evaluate and implement various summative and formative assessment tools
* Support the research needs of students, faculty, and other library patrons through reference services, both in-person and virtual
* Assist with collection development and faculty support through liaison work
* Update and redesign webpages
* Assist with the refining of a new Information Literacy component in a required course, Introduction to Computers (CIS101)
* Initiate projects using a variety of open-source and emerging technologies
* Promote the library’s mission by assisting with programming, special events, and displays
* Participate in other professional development activities and staff meetings