Poster Sessions!

A good time was had by all at the fabulous Poster Sessions on Wednesday evening.

WLA NMRT Round Table

Help! Becky Yoose and I will be manning a table at the poster session tonight promoting the revival of the WLA's New Members Round Table. We have a petition to get this going again, and we need your signature! You can also check out the WLA NMRT wiki and sign the petition there. See you tonight!
---Brett

WAAL 2008: Next generation virtual reference

• Steve Frye, UW-Madison College Library
• Mark Beatty, WiLS
• Valerie Beech, Marquette University
• John Jentz, Marquette University

IM/chat at UW-Madison, and future of virtual reference

• Steve:
• UW-Madison started online reference in 2002 with Convey software
• Needed to change software, and thought we'd look at new vendors
• Instead, library powers that be asked us to look at virtual reference as a whole first
• 2006 started with blended service (chat/IM)
• "Ask a Librarian" link ubiquitous throughout library webpages
• Decided early on that service would be staffed at desks, with staff of various levels
• Needed to be stable, and simple - if needed more than 5 minutes of training, too much
• Video: watching collaboration on virtual ref between reference staff
• Choosing software - some useful websites
• Will add Chat button within OPAC when "no results found"
• Discussion btw. Writing Center, IT, libraries, tutoring service re: creating virtual Information Commons
• Using Jing - free to download, screencasting for multi-step processes, free online hosting with URLs you can send patron
• Takes 7 steps to order another book from another UW System library
• #1: Virtual ref isn't the point - it's just another communication channel - we don't say "telephonic reference"
• #2: What is it we do? - if you're thinking about doing it or not, does it fit in your mission? - 1876 Samuel Greene quote on what librarians do - doesn't mention a desk, or having to be there with a patron
• #3: What do we call what we do? - TAIGA Forum 2006 - library directors - "Within the next 5 years..." - end of reference - library role is to project specialized services into research and learning workflows - Steve: they seem unable to conceive of "reference" beyond the desk
• If you were building a new library, would you have a ref desk? If not, why do you have one now?
• What is the future of providing support to students and faculty doing research? Bright.
• Are we in the buggy business? Or the transportation business?

IM at Marquette University

• IM = commercial free; VR = expensive client-based software (aka "chat")
• 2006: John learns of Meebo; also looked at Pidgin (was GAIM) and Trillian
• 2007: Use both Tutor.com ($$$) and Meebo
• Meebo: entirely web-based (no download), allows anonymous chat
• Students are used to being interrupted during reference, so prioritization of modality a non-issue
• Hand-written log for ref stats, although can keep transcripts
• In 3 months, IM has become 7.7% of ref Qs; less e-mail (fairly steady); less still VR
• Think IM may level off at 10%
• Types: ref (substantive) - mainly, ref (technical), directional (technical), directional (non-technical)
• Minority of rude, impatient patrons
• Ref staff really like IM; don't really like Tutor.com (complex national scheduling, etc.)
• [Live demo]
• Meebo sidebar in Firefox, so you can monitor as staffperson

QuestionPoint at WiLS

• Finally able to do quality control - virtual ref staff previously worked in a vacuum
• Both academic and public library patrons
• AskAway
• QuestionPoint introduced Qwidget one month ago - availability indicator, can re-direct to email for off-hours, or link to other live coverage when you aren't available
• Starts anonymous; can enter email address; can still get a transcript if they don't share email with staff
• [Live demo - email icon is small and not really obvious, but otherwise looks good!]
• NWTC using on homepage, and integrated into LibGuides
• I was able to get it into a MySpace page, and a regular Facebook profile (not a Facebook Page)
• Would hate to think that librarians wouldn't do something because they were afraid of being inundated by reference questions
• Could take a while if we ever need changes made to the software; QP is huge consortium with variety of opinions (ex: co-browsing - librarian can take over patron's desktop - Mark: this is dead; others insist they need it)
• Steve: VR vendors should have talked to users, not librarians - too many features, it became unstable
• Audience: I tried using public library chat, and Michigan person answered - I needed local knowledge, was referred to email
• Mark: Garbage In, Garbage Out - need to make sure you put as much information as possible on your own website, so distant librarians can help. Signs in doors when closed - "here's how to get help online"

[Image: http://www.library.wisc.edu/ask]

Info Lit Award Pic

Dave Dettman, UW Green Bay, accepting the information literacy award. Behind him is a Christmas pole from the Christmas Tree Ship.

Will You Be My Friend...On Facebook?

Julie Fricke and Ben Williard gave a thorough introduction to Facebook from both a historical and library perspective. They shared some of the capabilities, controversies, and social norms of the networking software from a librarian's perspective (Julie's) and from that of a former student (Ben's).

Even those of us that use Facebook regularly did discover something new here. I also learned from the audience questions that many of the library world are less familiar. My favorite question was someone wanting to know if the time spent with Facebook came back to users (I'm paraphrasing and interpreting, of course) in the form of enriched social lives!

Those of us who use Facebook and the like can easily answer that question.

Picture is of Julie showing one of the many Facebook applications, this one to show what areas of the world a user has been, lived, or to which she longs to travel.

Photo From Dave Dettman's Info Lit Session

WAAL 2008: Integrating and assessing information literacy

WAAL Information Literacy Award presentation

• Dave Dettman, Coordinator of IL and Outreach, UW-Green Bay
• UW System now looking at student learning assessment tools: iSkills, Project SAILS, ILT
• Assessing learning outcomes is more difficult for IL than subject areas
• How well is IL integrated into the curriculum at your campus?
• "Assessment Loop" - want to complete all steps (goals, measurement, etc.), and close the loop (set new goals) - funders want to see this
• Accreditation agencies starting to look at IL-related skills
• Faculty had been afraid of IL - confusing it with technology literacy - can student use x piece of software/hardware?
• We've been doing "one-shot" instruction sessions for a long time - faculty are used to this
• Needed to document students' poor understanding of IL concepts for faculty who think that students have these skills
• Need to approach library databases differently than the Wild West Web, not in same way that you'd ask one another a question
• Action plan: Make failure visible, in order to move on to more effective approaches
• Beyond one shot: librarian meets with students 2 times in computer labs where they can continue to research topics
• Standardized tests: can be powerful for communicating a need for more integration
• ETS iSkills ICTL test (Scale: 0-300) used at UWGB
• No library instruction = 156.5
• One-shot lecture = 164.4
• Lecture + ICT literacy exercises = 171.2
• National recommendation = at least 162
• What does this score mean? Don't know, but he started to get invited by admin to serve on many instruction committees
• UWGB revived freshman seminar concept, after ~15 years - beyond composition class
• 1st assignment: Watch movie, pick 5 themes, find scholarly article related to each
• Library e-guide - but faculty didn't promote, and complained about predominant website citations
• 1st year (2006) = Failure
• Would like to parse out data to an instructor level, but my data analyst isn't comfortable with that
• Self-assessment of learning: increased on most measures (exception: "how to use" information)
• People upstairs love this: "If the librarian's not doing much teaching right now, imagine the results if librarian was doing a bit more!"
• Unfortunately, some students get to see me multiple times in their classes, others don't see me at all
• Perception of what a librarian is the same, regardless of where they work - think the academic librarian is the same as their old kindergarten librarian
• Really opening doors to faculty, institutional admin
• Successfully advocated to expand freshman seminar in 2008-09 with IL to about 1/2 students
• Planning to integrate more with 8 instructors
• Want to convince 4 more instructors to require a similar assignment with one-shot, so not comparing apples to oranges
• Many librarians find that they aren't able to use the data they collect in the way that they think, because the wind up trying to compare very different experiences
• Now possible to make connections between IL scores (higher-level thinking) and post-grad hiring
• Students finally get something back from assessment - see real-time results = higher motivation
• We promoted campus interest in results, by some staff promising to shave their heads if score was higher than a certain level
• Need to build IL assessment into a course, with class time
• A different campus was offering $25 for students to take IL test - a student said "I'd rather give blood"
• Awarded an IL "Lesson Study" grant - seed money is powerful on campus
• Pre/post surveys, focus groups coordinated by Education students
• Now working on MLLO Project: Assessing mission level student learning objectives
• Faculty development - monetary rewards - make yourself visible there - with data, you'll become more welcome
• LibQual at UWGB in 2004, again in 2008 - can show gains
• UW System-wide assessment interest - we've been working in our own backyards for too long
• Dave: Better to organically roll into an existing class, than to have a stand-alone "library class" for credit
• Audience: Disagreement - our credit class is very popular among everyone

[Image: http://www.uwgb.edu/univcomm/news/insidearchive/04nov1.htm]

WAAL 2008: Adventures of the Roving Librarian: Morocco

Ripon College Librarian Valerie Viers talking about her trips to Morocco...

Language and gender issues

Cultural conflict between Arabists and Francophiles -- language use in higher education and elsewhere. Primary students learning both.

Coke and Sprite signs in Arabic

Colonial legacy very much in evidence in Moroccan schools -- French were there 130 years.

Independence movement meant many Arabs didn't want their kids to go to school.

Moroccan Arabic is very far from classical Arabic -- they weren't able to communicate effectively
with other Arabs. Arabist movement working to reverse.

Different languages: French (language of status, business, etc.), Arabic (language of religion and literature, Al-Jazeera), Berber -- each Berber has its own script, attempts to codify

Class differences become apparent in written culture.

Very high unemployment -- but people from Senegal come to Morocco looking for jobs.

Literacy rate among women: 11%
Some rural schools -- kids live up to 6 miles away, no motivation, especially for girls

Teaching academics along with trades make schools more acceptable.

6% of tribes don't have even basic rural schools.

Koranic schools -- where kids go to memorize the Koran. No critical thinking skills taught or encouraged.

Large numbers of people want to leave -- kids want to grow up and be emigres.

Al-Akhawayn University
Mohamed VI Library (named after king)
beautiful woodwork

Hand of Fatima: "don't touch my country" -- warding off terrorists

Moroccan scholars typically don't do leisure reading -- oral culture; they'd rather talk than read.

Fulla the Muslim Barbie -- with appropriate clothing

Bush Bin Laden game: Path Cra 911 (YouTube video)

Beyond the Veil
women going into public spaces causes chaos
concern about who sits next to whom
a woman's reputation is her most precious possession
avoid strange men

Food: really good organic, mint tea with lots of sugar, couscous on Friday

WAAL newbie

This is Brett Rohlwing chiming in. Just arrived this morning from Madison with my lovely wife in tow, I am attending the WAAL conference for the first time. I am a first-year student in the SLIS MA program at the UW, and a lucky recipient of one of the WAAL conference scholarships (for which I am thankful!) I attended my first meeting today, titled "Just Where Are We? Academic Librarianship in Wisconsin" with Kim LaPlante, Mary Rieder, Pete Gilbert, Pat Wilkinson, and Ed Van Gemert. Many of the things discussed were familiar to me from my class discussions. There was a lot of talk about changing needs in instructional services, the evolving needs and issues in academic libraries, and of course the influence of technology on the way patrons are helped and services are delivered. Still, one thing that hasn't changed, which Kim LaPlante touched on, is the necessity for enthusiasm in delivering library service. That will go a long way in keeping patrons coming into our libraries.

WAAL 2008: Where are we? Academic librarianship in Wisco

Panelists:

• Kim LaPlante, Northeast Wisconsin Technical College
• Mary Rieder, UW Colleges
• Ed Van Gemert, UW-Madison
• Pat Wilkinson, UW-Oshkosh
• Pete Gilbert, Lawrence University
• Moderator: Gretchen Revie, Lawrence University

Role of library in higher education today

• Kim:
• WI Tech Coll system served 400,000 students last year
• NWTC 43,000+ students, 6,000 FTE
• Education: what you want, how you want it, where you want it
• #1 teaching IL skills - find, evaluate, use - librarian is most important resource in the library
• #2 gather materials - not so much in-house, but provide access; currency (ex: nursing or computer tech within past few years); get copyright permission to put online; video streaming online; cover many counties so has to be widely available
• #3 fostering innovation; disseminate to admin and faculty re: trends, directions to take, grants
• Mary:
• Similar to Tech Coll, with multiple campuses/libraries (13) across state; 50 library staff (~3/library, not all FT)
• Lots to do, little staff time to do it
• Large and growing online student population (1,100 now)
• Undergrad support vs. faculty research
• Started online document delivery, use SCLS and UB forfor ILL
• Non-traditional students doing research from work - needed proxy server
• Online library support has been done from one campus, but will need to hire more
• Templates for course Library Course Pages - citation guides, databases, catalog, ILL, websites - faculty can customize if want
• Coursecasting - podcasting audio of lectures, campus activities (ex: poetry readings), access can be restricted to students
• IL - wide range of students; life-long skills
• Copyright education for instructors
• Pete:
• Googled phrase "role of library in higher education" - found article from 1982, Australian perspective
• Dependent upon educational objectives of institution
• WAICU - 19 private schools - Marquette to Nashoda Seminary - most 1000-2000 students - overall 57,000 students; 1/4 4-year students in state - more diversity and non-traditional students (25+ years old)
• Independent schools: Personal connections, innovate with faculty, mission-driven, about teaching and learning primarily for undergrads, individualized learning, undergrads doing research with faculty
• Pat:
• Utilitarian definition of academic librarian
• Means by which HE gets certain amount of scholarly information to students and faculty
• 11 comprehensive colleges within UW System (2,500 to 10,000 students)
• Academic libraries no longer have a near monopoly - once operated in information-scarce environment; now information-rich
• Grappling with having to demonstrate our effectiveness now that libraries didn't need to 30 years ago
• Admins contact me and ask about # of books in library to put in reports - that doesn't tell anyone anything
• Ed:
• We'll hear more about similarities than dissimilarities today
• We have an incredible wealth of educational opportunities in this state - marvel at how and why that came about
• Over 45 libraries on the UW-Madison campus [well...]
• UW-Madison started 2 years after statehood, library collections go back further than that
• Sister states benefit from multiple research universities
• Wisconsin Idea - Charles Van Hise 1904 - boundaries of university extend beyond boundaries of the state
• My grandfather's time: extension staff, lumbering - natural resources, Now: information technology
• Support for big science, and digital arts and humanities
• Important for quality of life in Wisconsin
• People think "grad students and faculty research" but it's also undergrad education
• Less about internal focus, than external - how library serves needs of campus, city, state
• Article in Chronicle from Monday - UW-Madison difficulty retaining faculty and staff, scary article

Changes made in past 3-5 years to accomplish mission in HE? Considering?

• Kim:
• IL - more guides, online tours, virtual ref, more lab staff, hired coordinator for 3 campuses, customized guides for 3 programs, video streaming
• for students who are used to doing their own Myspace and Facebook pages
• Increasing tools at regional centers so anywhere in district students can get what they need
• Cataloging learning objects alongside books, journals, etc.
• Using Delicious account to bring students to recommended sites
• Library blog with RSS feed
• In Facebook - not alot of fans, but we are there - incorporate resources within so if seen, they can use
• Innovation - joined a lot of committees, not just to market library, but to help out as researcher about new technology, trends; More integrated with curriculum dev process
• College-wide online discussion with reading lists, instructors discuss articles posted by librarians
• Want to increase team teaching of librarians and faculty
• Want to make our interfaces more user-friendly; nextgen wants easy, nontrad want intuitive; Voyager 7 this year
• Instructor development role - want to help train re: libraries, work with existing faculty, being added to search teams, so can market library before they're hired because so busy when they start
• Mary:
• Tried some of those things
• Wisco virtual ref consortium - dropped out - staff small, hard to cover shifts - started to get questions about resources we didn't have
• Tried chat and IM ref, our students tend to like email because you can get to it on own time
• New strategic plan - assessment is big - survey a few years ago re: user feedback on Voyager catalog, and lots of changes were made, more streamlined; more campus surveys; 1st LibQual only 118 respondents (not as many as hoped) - will put into report for Library Council
• Budget cuts - created our own licensed resource purchasing cooperative; more collaborative purchase decisions
• Some students want to talk, others to be quiet - customizing spaces
• Online social networking hasn't really gone big with us
• Some of our libraries have LibraryThing and Google Books lists
• May become a baccalaureate granting institution, and will need to support this
• Want to tell faculty what we have, so they can tell students what we have
• Want to digitize non-copyrighted materials
• Want to look at internal and external funding sources
• Pete:
• Wayne Wiegand was my advisor in grad school - key phrase was "the library in the life of the user, as opposed to the user in the life of the library" - to achieve ubiquity, we try to customize our resources/services for users
• Signs and business cards: "Ask us"
• We're also spending a lot of time asking them - formal through SurveyMonkey, and informal through flipchart in library with question: "What one change would you like to see in the physical building?" that users write on
• We ask ourselves "So what?" - what if we just stopped doing this? what would happen? because we have to stop something if we start something new.
• IL causes increased reference statistics - make appointments for reference conferences, allows us to prepare more than drop-in desk questions
• Going to where the students are, virtually - Moodle course management system on campus (free version of D2L, Blackboard) - created a library module to search catalog, will add federated searching, will be doing Delicious and RSS; working with faculty to use PURLs to link to articles
• Librarians and art faculty talking about digital image provision to studio students - work on things as people ask for them
• Senior experience - every department has to have a culminating experience; opportunity to integrate library across curriculum
• Building new campus center - "living room" - library is like that right now; what will new role of library be? Remote services? Domino effect on other buildings - incorporate learning commons into library?
• Pat:
• Sharper, more public focus on faculty research
• TOC service
• Desktop document delivery - Promised to faculty that we'd get anything they wanted as fast as we could - $10,000/year - BadgerCat helpful as discovery tool, some UW funding
• Less cumbersome for students - added MS Office suite, wireless, laptop checkout, allow people to do things from homepage
• Tried minor physical improvements - quiet study, group study, new archives area (work with classes doing research)
• More fun, fewer rules, no fines for overdues, murder mystery/IL, coffee/cookies during finals, custom-printed mousepads
• Not only tried to handle cuts well, but have tried to improve services - got through to admin, they were happier with us
• Not buried under IT in identity
• Stress one-system, one-library - role of UW-Madison as flagship very important, elsewhere that doesn't happen
• Reducing footprint of materials, to make room for information commons
• Conscious transition to digital resources
• Integrate with CMS
• Increased funding, strengthening cooperative collection development
• Ed:
• Started 1971 as student assistant in library
• Recent strategic planning exercise - not so important what directions and outcomes were - process on large campus (300 FTE) was interesting and informative - wouldn't hesitate to do again
• Strategic partnerships - with faculty, students, other system institutions on digital collections, highlight work by faculty, with Google - transformative work for libraries
• We can do big things, and we can change the world, that's part of our role - will continue to be
• Library space is a physical asset; over 1 million square feet at UW-Madison; reduction of print, want to repurpose, also landgrab on campus; how partner with faculty, centers, etc. or it will be taken from us
• Have lost 5 million dollars in journal collections from budget cuts; ILL/document delivery has done a great job
• Lorcan Dempsey - critical of libraries not "in the flow"
• NIH requirement of uploading publications to PubMed Central - libraries have taken central role, partnered with research admin
• Culture of Sharing workshop last weekend - 50 students, starting Students for Free Culture org on campus - told it was the 1st such symposium in U.S.
• Building collections based on buildings and people not appropriate; need to support multidisciplinarity
• Librarians designed learning outcomes for learning objects - instructors bring images, skeletons, etc. - how help them place into CMS, provide ubiquity

What skills and abilities help librarians thrive?

• Kim:
• Instruction skills with enthusiasm - they just have to share!
• Someone with imagination who has ideas they want to try
• Mary:
• Need IT skills because we're not that well supported, do our own web design
• Multi-tasking - reference in person, circulation, email reference, committee work
• Marketing resources, services, what we can do for faculty/admin/community
• Networking with community - Campus Reads, library boards, helps at budget time
• Ed:
• Social intelligence - build into position descriptions - work as team, partnerships with limited resources and time regardless of subject expertise
• Pat:
• Ability to work in ambiguous situations, take a risk, take initiative; 30 years ago, libraries were run top-down
• Business communication skills - we like academia, and we need to focus our communication on what people need to know, not what we want to show them
• Pete:
• Creativity - thinking energy - I have 9 pages of brainstorming from staff about better serving campus
• Responsivity - reference "house calls"
• Connectivity - knowing people by name, who's doing what

[Image: http://www.mywcpa.org/colleges_universities.php]