Professional Development

On Wednesday, Oct. 7^th, I attended the North Carolina Library Association Conference in Greenville. Keith Michaels Fiels, American Library Association Executive Director, was the keynote speaker at the Opening Session. I won’t rehash the details since Wanda has already summarized his presentation, but I agreed with his comment that “we need to assert our role in education because libraries are the other half of education system.” I also attended the Women’s Issues in Libraries Roundtable luncheon, which featured Linda Carlisle, N.C. Dept. of Cultural Resources Secretary, as speaker. The N.C. Department of Cultural Resources includes the State Library, the State Archives, Historic Sites, History Museums, the North Carolina Symphony, the North Carolina Arts Council, and the North Carolina Museum of Art. She made a good point that “Libraries are important to the health and vitality of a community.” Also, Bryna Coonin from East Carolina University was a recipient of the Marilyn Miller Award for Professional Commitment of the Women’s Issues in Libraries Roundtable. I had served with Bryna Coonin on the Association of College & Research Libraries-Science & Technology Section (ACRL-STS) Research Committee, and it was great to see her win the award.

On Friday, September 25^th, I attended the N.C. Special Libraries Association Government Information Workshop, which was held at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in Research Triangle Park. Jean Porter, Reference Librarian at Meredith College and formerly Patent Librarian at N.C. State University gave a presentation on finding patent information through searching the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office website and Google Patents, which also covers U.S. patents. Amanda Henley, Geographic Information Systems Librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill, also gave a presentation on “Geographic Information Systems - Resources and Applications.” She highlighted some useful online tools such as Batch Geocode and Juice Analytics Excel Geocoder. In addition, Susan Forbes, Assistant Director of the EPA Library in Research Triangle Park, gave an overview of “Finding Government Scientific and Technical Information.” She covered numerous sources of government information, including the National Technical Information Service (NTIS), which is the largest repository of government funded sci-tech reports, and Science.gov, which is a federated search of 14 federal agencies. Other useful websites are Science Accelerator, which is produced by the Dept. of Energy, and MedlinePlus, which is a great resource for consumer health information. Overall, it was a great and informative workshop!

Yesterday, Susan Smith, Mary Scanlon, and I viewed the online panel discussion on Kindle loan programs at various libraries at the Handheld Librarian Online Conference. At the River Forest Public Library in Illinois, e-books are pre-loaded onto each Kindle. The River Forest Public Library currently circulates three Kindles with fixed, selected content: Popular Fiction Kindle, Popular Non-Fiction Kindle, and Mystery and Suspense Kindle. The selector also considers suggestions for particular titles from patrons. Circulation policies range from 2-3 weeks, and renewal policies vary by library from no renewals to one renewal. At the Univ. of Nebraska at Omaha Library, the overdue fine is $5 per item. After 5 days, there is a “$10 additional processing fee and the replacement cost for each item is assessed.” It was interesting to hear the various ways these libraries are implementing their Kindle loan programs. More information about the Handheld Librarian Conference is available at http://www.handheldlibrarian.org

On Saturday, I represented the ACRL-Science & Technology Section (STS) at the “ACRL 101″ orientation session. ACRL has more than 12,500 members, and three new interest groups were recently formed. I also attended the ACRL-STS Membership and Recruitment Committee meeting. Our committee is currently working on some interesting projects, including developing a wiki for new members of ACRL-STS and sending brochures about careers in science librarianship to various library schools.

On Sunday morning, I went to Lauren Pressley’s book signing and also ran into a few ZSR folks. Next, I went to the Exhibits and talked with various vendors. I stopped by the National Library of Medicine’s booth and learned that there are some upcoming changes to the MEDLINE database. On Sunday afternoon, I participated in a panel discussion on “Information Technology and Communities of Color: Issues and Opportunities in a Global Context.” There was one representative from each ethnic caucus of ALA on the panel, and I represented the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA). We had a lively discussion about the information technology needs of our respective communities. On Sunday evening, I joined other ZSR folks and Roz’s sister for dinner at an Italian restaurant.

On Monday morning, I attended the ACRL-STS program on “Big Science, Little Science, E-Science: The Science Librarian’s Role in the Conversation.” John Saylor from Cornell University Libraries, George Djorgovski from California Institute of Technology, Melissa Cragin from the Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Chris Greer from the National Coordination Office for Networking and Information Technology Research and Development spoke about the role of science librarians with regards to E-Science. Djorgovski made a good point that “understanding complex phenomena requires complex data.” In addition, technology for information storage and access are evolving. Cragin also said that librarians need to be engaged with scientists during the research process. Next, I attended Roz’s presentation on the “Review of Web Guide Software for Libraries.” Roz spoke about LibGuides, and their presentation was informative. I was also able to attend the ACRL-STS Poster Session, which was focused on E-Science initiatives at various institutions.

It was also great roomming with Carolyn while at ALA Annual, and we were able to grab dinner a few evenings. The summer weather in Chicago was also nice. Overall, ALA Annual was busy yet productive and very informative this year.

On Thursday, June 18th, Bobbie Collins, Carolyn McCallum, Leslie McCall, and Sarah Jeong attended the 4th Annual Information Literacy Conference in Charlotte. As usual, the organizers of this conference did an excellent job pulling together an impressive group of speakers who addressed a variety of issues and trends relating to information literacy. The 100 attendees were able to select from several breakout sessions that focused on the broad areas of pedagogy, assessment, and technology. And for the first time attendees were able to view several poster sessions. The poster sessions added a new dimension to the conference and provided an opportunity for poster session presenters to exchange information with other attendees in a relaxed setting.

Bobbie, Carolyn, Leslie and Sarah submitted a poster session proposal to Metrolina and were very pleased when the proposal was accepted. During our assigned time period, we discussed with other conference participants the challenges that we faced in developing and teaching the subject specific IL credit courses for the Sciences, Social Sciences and Humanities. Sarah and Carolyn were able to capture some pictures of the posters.

This year’s keynote speaker was Jill Gremmels, Leland M. Park Director of the Davidson College Library. Prior to her position at Davidson, Jill was the College Librarian at Warburg College in Iowa. In 2002, Warburg College was one of 10 institutions invited to the Best Practices in Information Literacy Conference. As part of her presentation, Jill discussed the “Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices: A Guideline.” Before the conference, attendees received a link in an email with a note to review this information before the conference: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/characteristics.cfm
This document which was approved by the ACRL Board in 2003 provides some excellent background information to help individuals develop, assess and improve IL programs. Moreover, the document notes that these characteristics may be useful for benchmarking purposes.

Jill mentioned that San Francisco State University undertook a self-study of its IL program and used the ACRL best practices characteristics as a benchmark to compare their data. For additional information about how they went about creating and implementing the survey instrument, Jill recommended reading the article by Kendra Van Cleave entitled “The Self-Study as an Information Literacy Program Assessment Tool” which appeared in the 2008 issue of College & Undergraduate Libraries Vol. 15(4), pp - 414-431. This article is available online if you are interested in reading it.

Mike Olson from UNC Charlotte asked the question: “How do we get students to discern?” During his presentation, he mentioned the ACRL standards and provided the ACRL defintion of IL. He noted that Donna Gunter (Coordinator, Information Literacy and Instructional Services at the J. Murrey Atkins Library) is busy preparing materials for a new online resource that will be up on the library’s website by August 24. Mike reported that 490 library instruction sessions were given during 2007-2008 and 690 sessions were provided during 2008-2009 reaching 14,794 students.

Joan Petit, who is the Instruction and Reference Librarian at the American University in Cairo, Egypt, led a session called Library Instruction 2.0. Many of the technologies she discussed, ZSR has been utilizing (i.e. Facebook, blogs, and wikis). According to Ms. Petit, students in Egypt are nuts about Facebook, so she created a FB page for her library. It took quite a while for her to get approval to create the page. AUC Main Library’s FB page has 966 fans. She uses WetPaint.com, a free website builder software program, to set up a wiki for her IL classes and wishes that her library would use Twitter. Ms. Petit authors a blog called The Chatty Librarian and can be followed on Twitter as well by the username chattylibrarian. One interesting thing she reported is that Duke has created an iPhone app. for individuals to browse Duke’s digital collections.

“I Never Wanted to be a Teacher” was the title of the session led by Nora Bird and Linda Gann, both of UNCG’s Department of Library and Information Studies. At the beginning, they asked attendees to write on a note card two job responsibilities one had when they were first hired and two responsibilities that one is currently doing in their job but wasn’t listed in the original job description. They feel there is a disconnect between library school curriculum and instruction/teaching and they are gathering information to determine how MLIS programs should respond. Using Powerpoint, they flashed job advertisements for public and academic libraries on a screen that dated back to the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s and today. One could definitely see a trend in advertisements going from “seeking a person with people skills” to ones that required skills in teaching and instruction of technology and other library resources.

Diane Harvey from Duke University led a session on “Assessing for Improvement: Student Learning Outcomes Assessment for Information Literacy Instruction.” Student Learning Outcomes Assessment is a systematic look at what students are learning. Learning Outcomes Assessment is not an evaluation of teaching, but it moves instruction away from “What am I going to teach today?” to “What do I want students to learn today?” Some examples of assessment methods include knowledge tests, the One Minute Paper, bibliography analysis, concept inventory, and standardized tests. Student Learning Outcomes Assessment provides a practical student-centered approach to teaching as well as a means to improve teaching.

Amy Gustavson and Clark Nall from East Carolina University led a session on “Evidence-Based Librarianship in Assessment of Information Literacy Instruction.” Gustavson and Nall’s presentation focused on the theory and different research methodologies of Evidence-Based Librarianship research. Evidence-Based Librarianship provides a foundation for the practitioner and helps practitioners make effective evidence-based decisions. Gustavson and Nall are currently researching the comparison of students’ self-reported confidence in their research skills and testing their knowledge of research skills.

Overall, this conference was very informative. We highly recommend it to those interested in information literacy. If you would like to discuss any of the sessions that we attended, please let us know!

On Saturday, I attended three helpful sessions at the Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching.First, I attended “Active Learning: Shared Experiences across Science Classrooms and Strategies for Matching Tools and Techniques to Courses and Course Objectives.” There were six presenters from Furman University: Dennis Haney, Mike Winiski, Min-Ken Liao, Brian Goess, Wes Dripps, and Brannon Andersen.I learned about the latest teaching strategies used by these faculty members at Furman University, including concept maps, low-stakes writing, case studies, clickers, and wikis.We also discussed other factors to consider when designing activities in our classes, such as students’ previous background knowledge, multiple learning styles, and how to foster higher levels of learning.

Next, I attended “Expanding the Use of Case Studies to Encourage Collaborative Learning and Integrate Classroom Theory with Clinical Practice” presented by Alfreda Harper-Harrison and Debra Benbow from Winston-Salem State University.Dr. Harper-Harrison and Dr. Benbow incorporated case studies into their courses.Students were assigned a case study, compared and contrasted the information gathered from the client with research literature, and presented their findings at the end of the course.I think that their teaching approach of using case studies combined with finding research literature and incorporating discussion is very interesting.

Third, I attended “Teaching Who We Are or Who We Want to Be: Creating a Teaching Philosophy through Personal Narrative” presented by Vicki McCready, Louise Raleigh, and Jane Harris from UNC-Greensboro.This was a very helpful session on how to develop your own teaching philosophy through self-reflection.They also covered the components of a teaching philosophy, which should include the following:

• your view of teaching and learning
• a description of your teaching approach
• justification for your teaching approach

They also shared three books with different perspectives: The Courage to Teach by Parker Palmer, How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman, MD, and A Life in School by Jane Tompkins.

On Sunday, I attended the Closing Session led by Louis Schmier from Valdosta State University and Todd Zakrajsek from UNC-Chapel Hill.Dr. Schmier reminded us that it is important for teachers to connect with their students.He also asked the participants to think about what we want our students to remember from our teaching five years later.I am still pondering his question as I am thinking about my next LIB220 course.

Overall, the Lilly Conference was great and has encouraged me to think and reflect on my own teaching approach.I feel that I have gained deeper insight into teaching, and I plan to apply what I’ve learned into my own teaching strategies. If you would like to discuss any of the sessions that I attended, just let me know!

Yesterday, I attended a very informative pre-conference on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) at the Lilly Conference on College and University Teaching in Greensboro.The pre-conference was led by Scott Simkins, Director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning at N.C. A&T State University and Karen Hornsby from the History Dept. at N.C. A&T State University. The presenters gave each participant a book entitled, Inquiry in the College Classroom: A Journey toward Scholarly Teaching by Paul Savory, Amy Nelson Burnett, and Amy Goodburn; I’m really looking forward to reading it!

Four core practices include the following:

• Framing questions
• Compiling evidence
• Implementing and refining new insights in the classroom
• Publicly sharing what is learned with others

Each participant applied the SoTL research model to their own course, and everyone commented on others’ ideas for projects.I also received a selected reading list on SoTL, and I’m happy to share it with those who are interested.

On Friday morning, I attended “Active Learning, Constructivism, and the Millennial Student: A Comfortable Marriage,” by Maria Yon from UNC-Charlotte. The constructivist approach provides students with experiences to build on prior knowledge. I agreed with her point that “the teacher is a facilitator and coach rather than a transmitter of knowledge.” In addition, active learning stems from constructivist learning. The rationale behind active learning is that “learning is by nature an active endeavor.” She also shared the characteristics of the Millennial generation:

• need for relevance (e.g., Why is this lesson important?)
• enjoy the challenge of problem-solving
• learn by doing

Next, I attended “Classrooms as Knowledge-Building Communities: A Cross-Cultural Competence and Inquiry Approach” by Maria Stallions from Roanoke College.I agreed with a quote that she shared during her presentation: “Culturally competent educators are aware and respectful of the importance of the values, beliefs, traditions, customs, of students and…are also aware of the impact of their own culture on their interactions with others” (National Association of School Psychologists).She emphasized the need to understand cross-cultural interactions with students.

Friday afternoon, I attended “Millennial Learning: Teacher Communication and our Classroom Environments” by Kim Cuny and Erik Lytle from the University Speaking Center at UNC-Greensboro. This session was very informative and provided tips to enhance communication with students and also addressed how the classroom environment can inhibit communication. Factors that can hinder communication include inappropriately lit rooms, room temperature, classroom design/architecture, and seating arrangement.

On Friday evening, I gave my poster presentation entitled, “Teaching Scientific Scholarly Communication in the Open Access Era.” I shared my teaching approach with LIB220 last semester on Scientific Scholarly Communication, Open Access, and Zotero, and I received great feedback from others. Zotero was incorporated into the final project of LIB220 students, who created bibliographies of articles from Open Access journals as well as traditional subscription-based journals.

The Lilly Conference has been great so far, and I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s sessions.

I arrived in Denver, CO on Friday afternoon.After I unloaded my luggage at the hotel, I had dinner with Susan, Lauren C., and a couple of our Elsevier reps.On my way to dinner, I was happy to find a Starbucks near my hotel.

On Saturday morning, I went to the ACRL-Science and Technology Section All-Committees meeting.I am a member of the Membership and Recruitment Committee, and we discussed plans to create an ACRL-STS New Members wiki page, which would provide helpful information for those who are interested in joining a committee or becoming a chair of a committee.We also discussed plans to organize the New Members Breakfast, which is held every year at the ALA Annual Conference.

On Saturday afternoon, I attended the ACRL-STS Hot Topics Discussion Group.We discussed Assessment in the context of instruction.This topic has been on my mind lately, as I am planning to teach my second semester of LIB220.I shared my experience teaching LIB220 with my colleagues, and we had a lively discussion about various assessment techniques. I’m happy to share if anyone is interested in hearing more about what we discussed.

Next, I attended a discussion group on Embedded Librarians sponsored by the ACRL Heads of Public Services Discussion Group. One of my colleagues made a good point that Embedded Librarianship can inform our collection management decisions. They also provided a selected bibliography of publications about Embedded Librarians, and I will be happy to share this bibliography with others if anyone is interested.

On Sunday, I went to the Exhibits before my second committee meeting.This year, I am serving as Chair of the Scholarship Committee of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA).Every year, the Scholarship Committee selects a librarian to be sponsored by APALA in the ALA Emerging Leaders Program and awards a $1,000 scholarship to a graduate student in library school.More information on the APALA Scholarship is available at http://www.apalaweb.org/awards/scholarship.htm. I have served on the APALA Scholarship Committee since 2005, and I have really enjoyed working with my colleagues on this committee.

I stayed at the Curtis Hotel, which was a unique, fun hotel.It was great rooming with Lauren P. at the conference, and we were able to grab dinner a couple of nights.On Saturday night, I had dinner with Steve and Lauren P., and we also ran into Debbie Nolan after dinner. It was also nice seeing snow again this winter in Denver.Overall, it was an enjoyable, productive conference.

On August 21st, I attended Elon University’s 5th Annual Innovation in Instruction Conference. Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University, was the keynote speaker. I won’t rehash the details already reported upon by Lauren, but the take-home lesson for me is that we should teach less of an “Information Paradigm” but more of a “Participation Paradigm,” where students can navigate the world and critique and analyze information. In addition, teaching is less about control, and more about enabling your students to become active participants rather than passive observers.

Next, I attended Lauren’s presentation, “Students as Contributors: Teaching Skills While Teaching Content.” There was lively discussion about the influence of social media in business, politics, and education. For more information, check out her presentation here.

I also attended “Evaluating Critical Thinking” by Ed Neal, Director of Faculty Development at the UNC Center for Faculty Excellence. This session provided many practical tips on how to effectively evaluate your students’ critical thinking skills. He provided many examples of the types of exam questions which assess different levels of learning in Bloom’s Taxonomy. He also provided examples of grading rubrics, which are effective tools for encouraging higher level performance among your students.

Last, I attended “Teaching the Future” by Jeffrey Coker, Assistant Professor of Biology at Elon University, and Janna Anderson, Associate Professor in Communications at Elon University, which was already reported upon by Lauren. I was especially interested in the method in which Dr. Coker taught his Introductory Biology class. Dr. Coker has an interesting approach to teaching biology for non-science majors, where he focuses on “Ecological Change,” Cellular Change, and ” Genetic Change.” In his class, students design, implement, and analyze and present their own experiments. In addition, students design plausible biological systems for the future and plan their implementation. Some examples of student projects are “Eradicating human influenza” and “Human resistance to antibiotics.”

I am so glad that I attended this conference, because I learned many lessons about effective teaching that I plan to directly apply to my LIB220 course this fall and in future classes, as well.

This year, I chaired the ACRL-Science & Technology Section(STS) Research Forum at the ALA Annual Conference. Our guest commentator, Patricia Kreitz from the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center and who currently serves on the Editorial Board of Science & Technology Libraries, provided insightful commentary on the two selected papers:

“Library-based Bioinformatics Support: Who and How? An Exploration of Librarian and Scientist Perspectives,” by Michele R. Tennant, Health Science Center Libraries and UF Genetics Institute, University of Florida. As the use of bioinformatics databases becomes prevalent in biological research, libraries are stepping into the role of bioinformatics support providers.

Where are Bioinformatics Support Specialists employed?

• 45% in university or college health sciences library
• 25% in university or college sciences library
• 5% in university or college “main” library
• 5% corporate library

Summary:

• A number of bioinformatics support specialists reside in libraries; models of employment and activities vary
• Researchers, Bioinformatics Support Specialists, and directors believe that a degree in science and laboratory experience are important for Bioinformatics Support Specialists
• All groups surveyed indicated that bioinformatics support can appropriately be provided through the library

“Subject and Bibliographic Access to Sci-tech Electronic Theses and Dissertations via Digital Institutional Repositories (IRs) and Online Public Access Catalogs (OPACs): Perspectives from US and UK Science Librarians,” by Sophie Bogdanski, West Virginia University Libraries; Susan Copeland, Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen, Scotland; Anne Christie, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. Over 90% of US institutions provide electronic access to some portion of their theses and dissertations collection. In the survey, one US librarian expressed frustration at not being able to do a topical search for ETDs across institutions and also about not being able to search the IR and OPAC together. The survey results indicate the on-going development of ETD programs in the US And UK.

I also attended the Scholarship Committee meeting of the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA). The Scholarship Committee awards $1,000 scholarship to a student who is currently enrolled in a graduate program in Library Science. I also attended the ACRL-SPARC Forum on Open Access (already reported upon by Lynn). Overall, this program was great, and I thought that Kevin Smith’s presentation on “Campus Open Access Policies: Legal Considerations” was very informative.

On Monday morning, I attended Susan’s award ceremony, which was one of the highlights of ALA Annual. In the afternoon, I went to the Exhibits and volunteered at the Welcome Desk for the ALA Ambassadors Program, which provides orientation for first-time conference attendees. Although I was busy with STS Council meetings and committee meetings, I was able to attend the ExLibris reception and saw Disney’s fireworks with Susan, Carolyn, Lauren P., and Elizabeth N. Overall, ALA Annual was productive, informative, and enjoyable this year, and the weather was great (always a plus!).