Top Ten List: Number Five (LibTech Keynote)

From the Library Technology Conference, in reverse chronological order:

5. TechSoup for Libraries Sarah Washburn, Library Program Manager, TechSoup for Libraries

Simple sharing that makes a big difference.

• Sarah Washburn began by giving a brief introduction to the services TechSoup for Libraries offers, and the types of institutions they support (public libraries that are listed in the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) database or have 501(c)(3) nonprofit status). Basically, they provide support and training, regular newsletters, their "Cookbooks" for IT maintenance, help connect libraries to donated products (facilitate product partnerships), and promote & assist with advocacy. How are they so successful in helping libraries? Simply put, they listen to the needs of the institutions they serve, and share wisdom from past experiences to help other libraries. Stories are powerful tools that can not only help bring about innovation, but also reach individuals. By sharing these experiences, knowledge is passed, creating a network of experts with experience (particularly with open-source technologies). Washburn also emphasized aspects that make a tech story one they want to share: story/solution is outcome based, solving a problem from the "daily grind." Something that is tricky about finding these stories is that librarians tend to be (too) humble, thinking "what I do is just part of the way things work; others are probably doing the same things elsewhere." This isn't necessarily the case, so share what you are doing--you never know who you is looking for the exact solution you may provide.

Examples of success stories include:

• Ankeny, Iowa: Created a freeware self-check system, reconfigured existing hardware and only had to purchase a monitor and scanner.
• Adopt a Computer Program: Library patrons can pledge one dollar per day to support computer purchases. They receive an adoption certificate, quarterly updates (a letter of how the computers are doing, how they are being used), and signage recognizing donors.
• Radom Hacks of Kindness (RHoK): Hacking for humanity done by Google, NASA, World Bank, Microsoft, and Yahoo! (and a long list of others). Technology companies work together "to make the world a better place by building a community of innovation. RHoK brings software engineers together with disaster relief experts to identify critical global challenges, and develop software to support them."

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 Seven (ILA Keynote)

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

7. Keynote Address: What t To Do With the Time That Is Given Us, given by Kenning Arlitsch from University of Utah

• As we are well aware, library services are in a state of flux. Economic pressures are mounting, and educational organizations are feeling the impact. In addition to financial considerations, library services that were once acceptable are no longer meeting the needs of library users. The shift from print to technological advances (including remote access and online education) is forcing libraries to focus less on the local collection and more on shared digital collections. Redesigning spaces (and librarian attitudes) to facilitate group work (both in person and online) is important, but what do we do with the print assets and other physical collections as they (or their format) becomes irrelevant (particularly special collections)? The move to digitize special collections not only makes a "back-up" copy, but also makes the information found within the item more easily shared and accessible to library users. One concern over digitization is the long-term preservation of the digital data (and how it adapts to upgrades in technology). Another concern, and this is regarding any information, is that data can be overwhelming. Making it understandable and usable through linking and data visualization is key. The question Arlitsch left us with was: what is your response to adversity? It is easy to stay in your comfort zone, particularly if technology is not your strong suit. But, as a public servant, it is your responsibility to adapt to the changing needs of those you serve. That may mean examining and completely redesigning the way you approach information services. 

Resources mentioned throughout:

• Planet Money, NPR
  
• The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine, Michael Lewis
• Disrupting College: How Disruptive Innovation Can Deliver Quality and Affordability to Postsecondary Education, Clayton Christensen
• Libraries are Screwed, Eli Neiburger
• Espresso Book Machine
• DataViz.org
• VisualEconomics.com
• Gapminder
• Twitter
• Kaggle

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 Nine

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

9. On Being Essential: Making Connections and Facilitating Access, Collection Development as Public Service, given by Kevin Engel, Rebecca Stuhr, and R. Cecilia Knight from Grinnell College

• The presenters gave a brief background about the structure within the Grinnell College Libraries. One of the points that stood out to me was their patron driven acquisition program (similar to that at UD, but specific policies differed). Their criteria for ILL initiated acquisitions looked at date published, the availability (would it arrive in the same time or less as compared to traditional ILL transactions?), and the purchasing cost (under $100). Usually items could arrive within 2 days, be cataloged the next, and be available to the patrons by the fourth day. The librarians know the items will circulate at least once. For their serials acquisitions, the librarians went through an in-depth serials review in 2008 (initiated partly as a result of strictly restricted budgets). As a result, the library cancelled 145 journals and 309 switched to online-only format. They also switched Elsevier and Wylie to a pay-per-view model. Students request Pay-per-view articles through librarians; faculty are able to access articles without that step. This approach is most appropriate for high-cost, low-use journals, and the downloads can not be used for ILL sharing. Another important thing to note: Rather than pay-per-view, it is really pay-per-day-it-is-accessed, meaning once the library has purchased access to the article, it may be accessed as many times as needed, by a variety of users during that 24-hour period with only one purchase fee being charged.
  

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 Ten: On the Road

Week ten was filled with road trips, random music, librarian chats, conference sessions, and (of course) a Pulitzer Prize winning musical. The week began with the faculty and staff gathering to listen to run-through presentations for those presenting at the Iowa Library Association/ACRL Conference and the Library Technology Conference. The run-throughs allowed presenters to share what they are doing and work out some of the bugs before the "real deal." It was also a good reminder to me about what is expected of presenters (not that I haven't seen my fair share of conference presentations*).

Becky Canovan, Reference and Instruction Librarian at UD, and I then hit the road for the Twin Cities. She was presenting at LibTech and I was planning on going before I even knew that I would be at UD for my internship, and certainly before I knew she'd be presenting. It worked out nicely that we could carpool together. We arrived in the Twin Cities on Wednesday, in time to grab dinner with some awesome folks. Becky and I were staying with her friend from grad school, Amy Commers (Youth Services Librarian at South St. Paul Public Library), and met up with Rachel Slough (E-Learning Librarian at UW La Crosse) and Vicki Gruzynski (Information Services Instructor at South East Missouri State). Rachel was a classmate of mine at Indiana University, and Vicki is another IU alum. I always love spending time with librarians who love their jobs--thanks for being an inspiration, ladies! Throughout the next couple of days we attended sessions, shared ideas, caught up on some of the things happening in each others' lives. After LibTech wrapped up, Becky and I hit the road to Pella, this time for the ILA/ACRL Conference. Stay tuned for my "Top Ten List" of Library-Related Conference Sessions (a la The Late Show with David Letterman)! I wrapped up the weekend by visiting with a former teacher-colleague of mine, spending time with family, and catching Next to Normal with some Dorian Camp counselor friends at the Civic Center in Des Moines. Busy is the best way to be--especially when your time is shared with folks who are so excited about what they do and who they help.

* So far I've attended the following library-related conferences:
ILA/ACRL, Pella, IA, March 2011
LibTech, St. Paul, MN, March 2011
Brick & Click, Maryville, MO, November 2010
ILA, Coralville, IA, October 2010
ILA/ACRL, Cedar Rapids, IA, April 2010
Non-library-related conferences:
Iowa Music Educators Association, Ames, IA, November 2005-2010 (serving as Assistant to the Conference Registration Chair, 2007-2010)
International Society of Bassists Convention, Oklahoma City, OK, June 2009 (assisted with merch and registration)