Professional Development

I spent the day Thursday, October 18th, at NCLA in Hickory, NC. I attended a couple of sessions, walked through the exhibit hall and looked at some of the different poster sessions, stopped by the conference store to say hello to Carolyn and Steve, and saw a lot of people that I haven’t seen in a long time. On top of that I was apart of a presentation by the Master Trainers of North Carolina at the end of the day, so it was a full day!

One session I attended was titled Telling Our Story Using New Technology. The session was held by the State Library, specifically by Michelle Czaikowski, a friend from my Master Trainer days. She discussed Web 2.0 technologies, the pros and cons, and even built her presentation using a couple of technologies: empressr and del.icio.us.

What I continue to realize is that because there is so much to Web 2.0 there is never enough time to talk about it all. Really, you could talk for days on everything that there is out there. It also continues to amaze me how much there is still to come and how many things are out there that you may have never heard of. So many doors opening…

In the afternoon I ran into some of my ZSR co-workers. Carolyn and Cristina had a terrific poster session entitled Utilizing ILL Deflection to Improve Workflow. People were swarming around their poster, it was almost impossible to get a picture of them!

Clifford, the Big Red Dog, also made an appearance at NCLA, which led to some great photo opportunities.

At the very end of the day, as I mentioned above, I got the privilege to present along with my Master Trainer class on what we have to offer the rest of the libraries in the state of North Carolina. This was a great session, and I hope that the rest of the state knows we are here and more than willing to help with any training needs anyone might have.

You can see some of the pictures of the day at my Flickr site.

And now, back to work!

Lauren did a good job of describing the closing session, there is nothing I can really add to it. Overall, I thought that the conference was good. Libraries clearly need to change their methods and librarians need to change their perspectives if they plan to stay relevant. I know, I know, how could libraries not be relevant. Well, unfortunately it seems to be happening whether we like it or not, so we need to do something about that.

During the closing session I started thinking about our students, faculty, staff, and patrons in general. Who am I and who are we to say what they want and how to deliver what they want? I think we can assume certain things about our users: they want information quickly, they want it as accurate as possible, but they don’t care how they get the information they are seeking as long as they get it, and fast. And there are a lot of new technologies out their, but how do we know what they are really using.

I have come away with several ideas, but one idea for sure: I feel like our Library needs its own student group. This would be a group of students from each class, some student assistants, some students from other student organizations maybe, and this group would help shape the Library, what we offer patrons, and how we offer services to patrons. This group could even help with Wake the Library and marketing opportunities. We would have to have at least one staff member, maybe two, advise this group, and then maybe we could get this group recognized by student government and this group would be an official student group on campus. I think with the ever changing library world, it makes sense to have a group of the same people we are trying to serve help us in this endeavor. Maybe even include a faculty member.

I did enjoy rooming with Lauren, we both have a lot of ideas and it was nice to bounce ideas back and forth. Also, I enjoyed tasting her not vegan friendly meal at lunch (it was like tasting whether something was poisoned, I know the people at our table thought we were crazy) and finding appropriate food . We both had a nice time at dinner that night with Erik, during which Erik and I decided to get dessert and almost died when the waiter brought back what could have been enough to feed 6 people. We prevailed over dessert and finished our servings, but it’s not something I plan to attempt again anytime soon.

After a stop in Charlotte to attend UNCC’s graduation on Saturday (fastest, shortest graduation I have ever attended, and that makes it the best by far) I made it home yesterday and have been catching up ever since. I’ll be happy to get back to work tomorrow.

Lauren did an excellent job of outlining the keynote speech and the first concurrent session, and I have to agree that the Roy Tennant gave an amazing presentation. I felt really motivated afterwards. What he mentioned, and Lauren so tremendously outlined, are points that we all need to consider and start discussing at ZSR.

I was hoping that the first concurrent session was going to be a little more focused on privacy and social networking than it was, but it was still a good presentation.

Lunch was good, and although I missed the author speaker (Gwyn Hyman Rubio), I plan to get her books Icy Sparks and The Woodman’s Daughter, they seem interesting.

In the afternoon I attended three more sessions. The first of these sessions was entitled “We Change Our Buildings Our Buildings Change Us.” The director of the Georgia State University Library and one of her librarians discussed their experience of renovating their building. They have a portion of their website devoted to this major GSU Library transformation. One thing I found interesting about this project was/is its funding. With permission and acceptance from student groups on campus, they school has added a student fee to every students’ tuition (undergraduate and graduate students) of $35 to pay off the costs of renovation. The way they presented this possibility to these student groups was also very good, coming from the position that the students deserve a better library, as opposed to we want a better building for us. After all, we are about our patrons.

The second afternoon session I attended was a repeat of a session offered earlier: “Staying Ahead of the Technology Curve.” There is so much out there right now, and of course it’s hard to stay ahead, but the presenters point was that we can’t stay ahead, we just have to be aware of upcoming additions. There are a lot of things out there right now. A few examples given during this session of new technologies: Wapedia.mobi is the mobile version of Wikipedia; more use of Opera (web browser), lots of examples of blogs and social networking sites such as OverheardinNewYork.com (there are a lot of these Overheard sites, I think we need an OverheardinZSR or OverheardinLibraries); Semapedia (this may be a little too much); OQO (I want it); and so on. There will always be something, but we were reminded to watch out for “Technology Tsunamis.”

The last session I attended was the best, but I am biased. Erik and Lauren presented on “Social Software and the Future of the Library,” and they did a fabulous job. As an observer of the presenters and the crowd, people were furiously taking notes, especially when Erik was talking about our recent methods of teaching Information Literacy using the wiki. A lot of people were interested in what they had to say, and I was very proud to be a part of the Library that they were so perfectly representing.

All in all a very good day, and a worthwhile conference. Tomorrow is the closing session and then we’re all coming home.

Today I had the privilege of attending ASERLs workshop for non-librarian managers in Atlanta, GA. First, I must say, they had very good coffee, the Tech Team would have appreciated this aspect.

This was a very interesting workshop. Of course the morning began with a brief opening, followed by introductions. People from several different universities were represented, along with several different positions within those academic libraries. This gave way to many different viewpoints, which I found beneficial.

The opening speaker discussed “why we do what we do.” I really liked the message from this presentation. The focus not what we do individually, but what we do in regards to the mission of our libraries and inevitably our universities, nation, world, etc. A story was shared (and it may or may not be true) in which John F. Kennedy, while visiting NASA, bumped into a janitor and he asked the janitor what he did and the janitor replied that he was helping to put a man on the moon. We’re not just staff in circulation or tech services, we are providing services for the betterment of the university, and so on.

A couple of other sessions I enjoyed involved the new technologies at research universities and how those affect us and user perceptions of academic libraries. Good news, we’re moving in the right direction and everyone is struggling with the same issues that ZSR is. Bad news, we have to be aware of security/privacy issues and the perception of libraries is that of a place of books - and that’s it. There was also mention of how the library is not where people go first for information and how we are having to compete with Google and other search engines, but in thinking about this I don’t think we should compete with Google, if anything we should collaborate with Google. Should it matter where or how people get information as long as they get good, useful, correct (and if applicable scholarly) information…I don’t think so. I can understand the concern behind that, but I think it doesn’t have to be that way.

The last session involved a three person panel of library directors (deans) sharing “what keeps library directors awake at night.” This was interesting, directors must never sleep. Some of the things directors worry about are: faculty status of librarians (this opened up a big conversation amongst the non-librarians, there are several pros and cons as you can imagine, but the cons seemed to depend on whether tenure was an option), budget issues, information commons and renovations in general, library hours (being open 24 hours), noise created by increasing collaborative space (and other such complaints from faculty), reluctance to change (library and campus wide), and the future of higher education. There were more, but these seemed to be the issues mostly discussed.

There was also mention of disappointment in library science schools. I don’t want to say too much in regards to this topic, especially since I don’t know much about the issue, but I thought this topic was interesting, and especially the openness of this discussion and how all of the directors agreed with this. Enlightening, very enlightening.

Overall, this was a great workshop, I would encourage anyone else in the ZSR Library to attend this workshop. We have been asked as participants to suggest topics for potential future workshops and events and I have a few ideas…

Tomorrow is SOLINET, which should also be interesting.

Well, this is it, my last post regarding Master Trainer (for now, anyway).  For this last day we discussed (old and brand new trainers) power and influence in “libraryland.”  Basically, this session was aimed at getting us to think about our goals, focus our goals, organize our goals, decide the minimum we would accept for our goals, and developing an effective 30 minute introduction to our goals (what I like to refer to as a “getting your foot in the door” speech).

Then, after this very useful session, we met in our regional groups.  My region covers all of the central piedmont and Charlotte area.  We are planning to meet in June, I believe June 15th, and then hopefully again in the fall.  The rest of my region would like to come to Wake Forest, so hopefully I can arrange that, I am sure that I can.

We had lunch shortly after our regional meeting and then we met one last time to discuss tools and trends.  The good news is that we are ZSR are already using and investigating a lot of the new tools and trends out there right now.  The bad news: the world is always changing and there is always something new.  Even when you feel caught up, you do a quick Google search or get an article and realize you’re behind again.  I guess that’s good, keeps things interesting.

After this session, I went back to Winston-Salem.  I actually came right back to ZSR, I couldn’t wait to see everyone and show them my showcase board.  I am very glad to be back and ready to start teaching!

I’m a little behind on my posting, but the last few days have been too hectic, so bear with me.

Tuesday was the final presentation and showcase.  My director, Lynn Sutton, came to be my support, which was wonderful.  All of the directors were invited, but not all of the directors decided to come.  Some folks had their immediate supervisors, and that is nice, but it is more reassuring to have your director there, I think, there’s a lot of unspoken support in that act.  I would have loved to have my supervisor, Susan Smith, of course, I would have brought everyone if I could have, but that wasn’t possible.  Anyway, I thank Lynn for coming, it meant a lot to have her there supporting me.

My presentation was excellent.  I was second from last to go (out of 15 people), so I was ready when my name was called.  I made a few witty comments, got a few laughs, but I also made a great presentation.  During our showcase I had a lot of people asking me about my topic (RSS) and how we were able to get an RSS Feed set up with our catalog.  I of course didn’t know all the answers to the technical questions, but I would like to learn (Erik and Kevin).  I have a pretty good idea, I know how to set up a RSS Feed, but how it works with out catalog, no clue, probably very similar to any other site.

I gave out a lot of business cards and handouts, so I hope to hear from people in the next few weeks.  It was great to hear that I/we as a Library at ZSR are doing something considered amongst our peers as very “cutting edge.”

I graduated after the Showcase and now have a certificate of completion and an official Master Trainer of North Carolina name badge.  I have meetings with my regional group lined up for the summer and fall (I might be hosting the meeting in the fall) and am now on an email list of all the Master Trainers in the state.  I have started coming up with a lot of ideas of different training classes I want to offer in the fall, I just hope the creativity keeps flowing!

Thanks again to everyone that supported me through this process, I could not have done it without you.

We spent today getting ready for the Showcase, which will be all day tomorrow. It will involve setting up early in the morning (7:30am) and starting around 10am with the presentations. First, there should be an overview to the directors of our prospective libraries of what we have been doing with this program, what we have learned. Then, each of us (15) will give a 5 minute explanation of what we did for our training designs. There will be a break in between that and then lunch at the end of those presentations. After lunch we will have the actual showcase, where we each stand by our presentation boards and answer questions from attendees (directors and other Master Trainers around the state).

I need to polish my presentation tonight, but I am pretty confident with the information I am going to give. At the end of the day tomorrow we actually have a graduation ceremony. I have to say, as much work as this has been, I have learned a lot (more on that after graduation) and it has been rewarding. My next post will be a post from a Master Trainer…me!

More reflections after tomorrow’s big day!

Okay, so I am going for a little drama here, trying to make things interesting…

I am back in Raleigh for the third and final round of Master Trainer. I have my display board ready to go, the showcase is Tuesday, but we’ll spend all of tomorrow getting ready for that. We haven’t been told much about that yet, we have to present our displays and give a 2 minute presentation to the other Master Trainers and our Library Directors (thanks, Lynn), but as far as the set up or what we are supposed to say, no idea yet.

Not to spoil anything, but as a little teaser, the title I decided on for my display was/is “Let RSS Feed You.”

I think it’s cute and original, but it also shows that I am a nerd…but a PROUD nerd!

I’m home, yay!  I got home a little while ago, and even though I did complete more of my goals, there is nothing that makes me happier than being home.  But now, time for a recap of our last day until April!

We started the day with our 3 minute presentations, which were recorded.  I was 2nd to go, and it went well.  The thing I wanted to work on was speaking slowly, slowing down on my presentation.  I was able to do that, and got some great feedback in the process.  I need to keep my pace (slowing down) in mind, always, and I used a few fillers (uh, um, etc.) but nothing too major there, things that I can work on.  I got great compliments on my posture, the way I present information, and my eye contact.  I was even told that my speaking is good, again it’s more my pace.  So I will watch my video and see for myself how I look and sound.  A part of our homework for next time is watching this video and reporting your interpretation of your presentation skills, so I will get on that.

I was able to finalize my learning objectives, cycle of learning, and  even get a preliminary outline for my training piece.  Now I need to my outline worked out completely and then pick a date to offer my class.  I have to give my session and design a tri-fold (think science fair) for the showcase at the end of April.  On top of everything else going on, I am going to be busy, but I can handle it, and after the showcase I will be a North Carolina Master Trainer.

For now, back to work!

What a long day! I started at 8am, I couldn’t get coffee in me fast enough! The first thing we did this morning was to revisit last time, make sure we were all still on the same page on our four models: needs assesments and learning objects, the cycle of learning, the group dynamic model, and the learning styles. After that, we had a break…more coffee for me!

After our break we broke into design groups, our same groups from our first session, but this time instead of planning training amongst each other, we bounced our ideas for our training sessions off of each other, and with the help of our coaches, were able to narrow our topics and focus our topics. One thing that continues to challenge me is keeping my learners in mind and make sure I cover what my learners want/need covered, not necessarily what I want to cover. I am coming along, though, and I have some good ideas about how I want to present my training.

After group design meetings was lunch (the cheesecake was good, but that’s all), and then we had a session on power and influence. Basically we learned ways to approach getting what we want and need as trainers. I realized while talking to some of my colleagues that I am very lucky in this regard. Everyone at my Library is very open to new ideas and training, especially my supervisor and director, so it is easy to approach people with new ideas and present my ideas, in fact I am encouraged to do so.

We then had another round of group design meetings and then the last session of the day covered presentation skills. One thing I have always wanted to work on regarding my own presentation skills is slowing down, and I think I have learned a few ways to do that, other than just slowing down.

I have homework tonight! I have to get ready for my 3 minute presentation tomorrow. I am pretending to present to my supervisor and director my training idea. I have to design to flip chart visual aids tonight and organize my thoughts regarding my topic to present. The presentation material does not have to be perfect, the presentation skills are what are under fire, so to speak. AND, like I have mentioned, this is being video taped and given to us to keep and watch for our own educational purposes.

I’ll let you know tomorrow how all that goes!