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!

Article 9: Students' Academic Success and its Association to Student Involvement with Learning and Relationships with Faculty and Peers

Ullah, H., & Wilson, M. A. (2007). Students' academic success and its association to student involvement with learning and relationships with faculty and peers. College Student Journal, 41(4), 1192-1202. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

Many factors are associated with student success at the collegiate level. Some the student may be able to control. Ullah and Wilson used the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) to examine the academic achievement and level of involvement (student engagement with learning activities and institutional environment that supports learning) of students at a Midwestern public university over a span of three years. Factors noted were: student involvement, student relationships with faculty, student relationships with peers, gender, ACT scores, and age. All were examined in relation to academic achievement as measured by cumulative grade point average (GPA). The student sample was randomly drawn for each of the three years and included students ranging from first-years through seniors. The study found a significant positive correlation between students' relationships with faculty members and GPA, class involvement and GPA, and relationships with peers and GPA. There were also positive correlations between student academic achievement and ACT scores, and GPA and students' age. However, since age and ACT cannot be controlled by students currently enrolled (meaning, those things happened in the past or cannot be changed), their importance is less significant than the other factors mentioned. Female peer relationships had a positive effect on GPA and male peer relationships had a less significant positive effect on GPA. While not the focus of the study, it is something to note. Creating a learning environment in which students are actively engaged and relationships with faculty are developed will help students better succeed at the collegiate level (as measured by cumulative GPA).

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

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 Seven: Web Meetings, Career Week Displays, and Scheduling Reference/Instruction

The week began with a meeting that returned to an earlier discussion about the library's "How Do I?" page. Jenny, another intern, shared some examples with the committee and we discussed the features we liked and those we didn't. Quite a bit of time was spent discussing: purpose, audience(s), format(s), and the features themselves. While students are the primary audience for the FAQ/How Do I? page, we still need to keep in mind faculty and other library patrons. There is a heavy lean toward Information Literacy as the focus, but there are still elements that are straight forward Q & A. Many of us liked the clear language and the white space found on the University of Central Florida's website. We also liked the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's simple, browsable, one page format. Though fairly well hidden (those unfamiliar with the website would have to look carefully to find it), the page presents basics using headers to categorize questions (that use jargon-free language). A sub-committee (made up of Jenny, Anne Marie, Becky, and me) are going to review the websites and create an outline of the content and presentation we would like to see for the new version of the "How Do I" page. What was left of Monday was spent reviewing professional literature.

The library is almost to the implementation stages for the Library Student Worker Career Development Program, where students are paid to visit with a representative from the Career Services Office. I worked with Diana Newman, the library secretary, to finish up the brochure that will be given to students. The rest of the week was spent preparing materials for the Career Week display. I looked up various items in the catalog (general suggestions were given by Trina, our contact in the Career Services Office), printed off my list, and explored the stacks to find materials for the physical display. My cart filled with résumé writing guides, discipline-specific career guides, books geared to help students find their vocation, and popular movies about students finding their way in college and the "real world." I changed all of the items' status to "on display" should anyone be looking for them, and set them up on the reference shelves on the main floor of the library (near the main entrance). Right after I set the items up, a student came to the reference desk asking about cover letters--I was able to directly to the display and grab a book that helped her prepare her application to become a Dorm Resident Assistant!

I was also able to review my teaching with Anne Marie (who had observed me the week before). In the next few weeks I'll be assuming more solo teaching and reference desk responsibilities. We also discussed institutional repositories, library assessments, reporting library statistics to various agencies, and University accreditation (more on that in the future). Jenny and I are also going to be working together to facilitate a professional development book discussion with the librarians (happening in early April).

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.

Week Four: Four Weeks Already?! Haikus, Collection Development, Research, and Web Content

It's hard for me to believe it has already been four weeks since I began my internship here at UD!

Last week was the kickoff week for RES 104. Becky Canovan, Reference and Instruction Librarian, has been working tirelessly to prepare the first set in a series of instruction sessions for this course. The librarians join each section of RES 104 (13 on campus sections, and one online section) six times throughout the semester to assist them with the research and writing process. The first round of sessions introduces the research process as it relates to the students' first paper covering social science topics.

The librarians here give each other the opportunity to observe (for the benefit of both the person rehearsing the instruction, and for those observing to be more comfortable with the content and approach before jumping into teaching). Becky ran through the Res104 Day 1 lesson (she is teaching all of the Day 1s and the Days 2 and 3 are divided between all of the librarians). She put together a creative first day incorporating various technologies as well as a haiku matching game where the students matched example topics to the prepared haikus (you can learn more about them in her blog post, click here). I was able to observe the first two (of three) of the social science sessions for one of the sections (with the third observation taking place later this week), taught by Becky. It was interesting to see (even between just the first two sessions) the difference in the ways the students responded to the instruction. I could see them connecting the ideas presented in the first session to the initial/exploratory research in the second section, as they looked to see if their proposed research questions were viable. I loved going around, helping students refine their searches and topics, asking questions and offering suggestions to help them be more successful.

This past week, Anne Marie and I also had the opportunity to discuss the collection development practices in a bit more in depth. Each librarian is responsible for approximately four different liaison areas. As is the case in many libraries, when purchasing for their liaison areas, the librarians welcome suggestions from faculty and students. The faculty suggestions are particularly key when purchasing in subject areas that are not the librarian's subject of specialty. In addition to faculty suggestions, librarians consider how the curriculum is changing, and whether the selections may serve multiple areas. Anne Marie gave examples of her selection and deselection processes, though weeding tends to fall to the bottom of the list behind instruction, public services, and selecting new items. Weeding happens, typically in the summers when the library is less busy, when space becomes an issue; deselection policies vary with department standards.

I was able to complete the WV2 prep (though some professors have yet to submit their partnering organizations to us so we can prepare the slides), update discussion threads on Moodle for the instruction sessions, and observe at the reference desk. As it was still early in the semester (only three days into the term), there were only a handful of reference questions, allowing Anne Marie and I the opportunity to discuss another one of the core classes, English 101 (ENG 101).

The design of ENG 101 is different than that of any other course I've seen, in that students are developing critical thinking, evaluation, and thesis developing skills through the writing of essentially the same research paper for the entire class. The students are learning about the research writing process and, rather than complicate or distract the students from the elements of this process, the students are presented with the same resources; as a class they evaluate the resources, formulate a class thesis, and compile the same bibliography. The students then write their own research paper using the resources from the class. The pedagogical idea is that the students are there to learn the process, not get bogged down in the resources or the last minute habits that seem to plague younger college students. By emphasizing the process and grading along the way, the students are able to better understand the building blocks of writing and connect that process to future classes (RES 104) where they complete the research, evaluation, thesis writing, and paper writing process independently. The librarians participate in a two-week unit (4-5 class days) in which the students examine the same articles (popular, scholarly), discuss, develop research questions as a class, break into smaller groups and complete a similar process for other articles, discuss answers as a class, develop a thesis/argument, and discuss how to read a scholarly article.

This week was another week where I came in on Friday to participate in meetings and instruction session observations. We had a meeting to discuss one area of the UD library's web page, the "How Do I?" page. What began as a quick reference has gotten bogged down with text, and is not necessarily presenting the information in a concise or organized fashion. We discussed:

What are the goals of the page? Is it a teaching tool? Should it not duplicate what we do in the classroom? Or should it present the same information, but in a "Reader's Digest" form? Do we want to include podcasts/screencasts? Who is our target audience (on campus students, distance students, those needing help with the research process, faculty, all)?

The plan is to look at other library web pages (including public libraries) to see how they present their FAQ or "How do I?" pages, whether it is presented in database form or browsable form or both, examine mobile interfaces, and look at best practices for libraries.

This week I'll be shadowing in several areas of the library and continuing to observe classroom instruction sessions.

Week Three: Circulation to Orientation and Everything in Between

Week Three: Circulation to Orientation and Everything in Between
In addition to projects preparing for spring semester instruction sessions, I get the opportunity to shadow in various departments around the library. Monday’s job shadow was in the Circulation Department with Jaimie Shaffer, Circulation Supervisor. Not only did I get a great behind-the-scenes look at the circulation desk and all of the wonderful things they do there, I also got a behind-the-scenes perspective on things like hiring & supervising student workers, training employees to work with the public, circulation and reserve policies (and how they have changed to accommodate the needs of the patrons and the collection), working with faculty, and working with the local community.

In my library teaching philosophy I write, “I see librarians as educators, organizers, facilitators, collaborators, preservers, outreach experts, and public servants. Above all else, librarians are people who care and who want to help others.” I can see that portrayed through the actions of those at the Circulation Desk, and I was impressed by the emphasis Jaimie put on service as we were conversing about the various duties the Circulation Department performs. Much of what they do is what one might think of as “typical circ desk work:” checking books in and out, fixing the copy machine, answering basic questions about where some things are in the library (i.e. bathroom, newspapers, etc.), pulling materials to be put on reserve, and shelving materials. During times when the reference desk is not manned, the circulation staff will help out with some reference work (where things are located, or basic catalog or database help) and some technology help (printers, copy machines, etc.).

Every two hours one of the circulation student workers enters statistics as they conduct a visual sweep of specific areas in the library. These are compiled periodically and used for reporting to the university as well as ACRL. They also reshelve non-circulating materials and keep track of in-house use (again, for reporting). There are a few special areas behind the desk where certain materials are kept. Though many professors are using electronic reserves, there are still some physical copies of materials kept on the reserves shelf. Students and faculty can also request certain items to be held for them behind the desk until they are able to come in and check them out (similar to my experiences at a public library). A few course reserve items are kept in the supervisor’s office, particularly DVDs needed for class, because of scheduling or other problems in the past. These items are not only put on reserve, but they are also scheduled at certain times for class viewing.

Throughout the week I continued to work on researching/prepping for spring semester courses (specifically World View II and Research 104). I’ve also begun orienting myself with Moodle (here they call it UDOnline), adding discussion forum topics for upcoming WV2 classes. Doing the behind-the-scenes work helps me feel more comfortable with what I will be helping to teach in the coming weeks. Not only am I learning more about the research topics (local charities in WV2 and the Mississippi River basin in Res 104), I am also learning more about the courses and what is expected of the students.

Speaking of getting ready for the spring semester: Hello InfoLit scheduling! Talk about a puzzle! As I may have mentioned before, UD incorporates Information Literacy as a part of their core curriculum. That means they do a lot of library instruction (and by a lot I mean over 500 IL sessions per year spread between five librarians—yep, a lot). I was able to participate in the meeting where the first few weeks of instruction are divided. First, before anything can be done, Anne Marie and Becky (a reference and instruction librarian) worked on entering all of the sessions from all of the classes into a spread sheet, keeping in mind: course times, instruction session needs (i.e. computer equipment, access to library print materials, etc.), room schedules, requested times, and instructors. Once that is taken care of, the librarians are able to sign up for various sessions. They traditionally sign up to work with professors with whom they already have a working relationship (whether through past instruction experience or through liaison work); after that it is first come, first served. I am excited to be putting myself into the instruction rotation! My schedule for the week of February 7 is full of assisting with some lessons and taking charge of others (woo hoo!).

On Wednesday, a few of us met to discuss the Career Services component they are adding for library student workers. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the students are offered one hour of paid time to meet with one of the Career Services representatives. They may meet with her to discuss a wide range of career-related topics: résumés, cover letters , graduate school applications, job applications, and mock interviews. This spring semester will serve as a trial, but they are heavily encouraging all of their undergraduate student workers to take advantage of this wonderful opportunity (getting paid to meet with a career counselor (when others have to pay career counselors for similar services? It’s a win-win situation!). We discussed marketing these services to the student workers and modified a brochure from the career center to fit the needs of this new program.

I deviated from my regular schedule, putting in an extra day on Friday, so I could participate in new student orientation. The library hosted 3 hour-long sessions for incoming students. The time was divided between the technology orientation and the library orientation. In each session the same technology person presented information on the basics of using UD technology (how to set up your laptop, which anti-virus software programs are required, saving files/downloads, and accessing various accounts). It turns out, the tech. person is also a great library supporter and is on the Board of Trustees of the local public library. I plan on contacting him about doing some volunteering there. The library portion was a basic introduction to the library and was delivered by three different librarians, giving me time to observe their different teaching styles. Again, the information presented was pretty basic, but crucial to early success at UD. The biggest emphasis, in all three sessions, was that the librarians are here to help you (whether it be finding an article in a database, finding your way across campus, or finding a nearby convenience store).

My favorite part of the day came at the very end. One student missed the first part of the session (covering technology). We were just at the start of the log-in process, so I made it a point to stick close to her, helping her get on track with what the rest of the class was doing, but also wandering to make sure the others were able to log in. She was doing fine, I just had to help her figure out her password and she was off and rolling. As the session wrapped up, I asked her if she wanted to stay an extra couple of minutes to catch up on what she missed. We joked about the cold weather, and I asked her where she was transferring from (California). After covering the information about laptops, connecting to the UD network, and anti-virus software we went back and looked at Moodle (she was familiar with Blackboard, which I used as an undergrad at Luther). I explained that the folks at the library are always here to help. By the end I think she felt a lot more comfortable with the material, the library, and with her decision to transfer to UD (from sunny southern California...during the coldest time of year! What a shock to the system!). I’m glad I was able to take a little extra time to make a connection with a student. I can’t wait to do even more of this!

Teaching = Wonderful!

Though my internship hasn't *technically* started, today's teaching session was just too wonderful not to write about! I had the privilege of working with a group of attentive, respectful, enthusiastic, high school AP English composition students from BHS North (68 of them, to be exact). Beforehand I prepared a half-page handout, a "Helpful Hints" guide to Wells Library. During my instruction session I gave that to the students to take notes on and later use throughout their day of research. I cannot emphasize how positive of an experience this session was for me! How I missed being in the classroom!

We began by herding the masses into one of our largest media preview rooms (our regular information clusters are not large enough for this group). We had as many of them as we could sit in chairs and the rest pulled up a spot on the carpet. As they were getting arranged I was playing Carrie Donovan's YouTube Video emphasizing ASKing librarians for help. After that, folks were pretty well settled in and the "formal" instruction session began with a question: Where do you search?
The students were fantastic about offering up their ideas: Google, Bing, Wikipedia, and one student (in the front row, bless him) said EBSCO. I found out one thing I can certainly work on from conducting this interactive part of the lesson: my throwing arm. The kids soon learned why softball was never my sport because I missed the mark several times when tossing "prizes" (Wells Library Post-Its) to participating students.

We practiced a few sample searches in IUCat using some of their terms, and a few of mine as well (to keep them headed in the right direction), and then we moved on to using databases to find articles. A modified "Simon Says" helped the students understand how the different terms can expand or restrict your search results, and I also introduced the magic of truncation. After practicing in EBSCO (using Academic Search Premier and MLA), JSTOR, Literature Resource Center (making sure to talk about how they needed to save their information AND citations for each), discussing check-out policies and a brief introduction to the importance of scholarly research, we were off on a quick tour of the main level of the library.

We made a sweep past the East Tower's circulation counter, moved over to the reference desk, looked at the doors to the reading room (where their teacher would be camping out for the day, should they need something) and then moseyed over to the West Tower, where the nitty-gritty searching would begin. I walked them by a majority of the computers, pointed out where the reference desk was on this side, passed out log-in information and they were off! There were a few lost souls, as there always are, so I wandered around and helped anyone who looked like they needed some assistance.

I made a couple of loops around the West Tower computers and bumped into a gal having problems locating a book up in the stacks. We headed up to the 10th floor, together, to see if we could find the book she was looking for. After a little bit of searching, and some rereading of the call number we were able to successfully locate what she was looking for AND other resources grouped nearby (the wonder of LC classification!). I also bumped into other students successfully wandering the stacks and locating their materials. This was one of my favorite parts of the teaching day--seeing them find what they were looking for, and seeing them get excited about it!

I just had to return to the reading room after the students were pretty well settled and thank the teacher for bringing such a great group of high schoolers in! What a great Wednesday! I can't wait to start my internship so I can have even more rewarding experiences like this one!