Guardienne of the Tomes

Have you had the chance to read Professor Gregory Petsko's open letter to the president of SUNY-Albany? If not, read the open letter here. If you have any interest in higher education at all, it is worth your time. Essentially, President Philip announced that due to budget strictures, SUNY Albany would be eliminating the French, Italian, Classics, Russian and Theater Arts departments. Reasons included that 'there are comparatively fewer students enrolled in these degree programs' and that, as Petsko writes, "the humanities were a drain on the institution financially, as opposed to the sciences, which bring in money in the form of grants and contracts." The letter goes on to detail the value of liberal arts as integrated into the university curriculum. Petsko is more eloquent than I am, and I leave you to read his letter for the rest of it. But what I want to return to is this: what is the mission of the university? Petsko states, "the word 'university...

I should have more sympathy for my campus's migration to Banner, which was finalized (mostly) in August. I should, particularly since I'm part of the ILS migration to WMS here at the library, and I know that bugs can be surprising, data can be unmungeable in teh short term, and that errors in migration occur. But I do not have much sympathy. This made me feel like a shabby person, so I am trying to tease out why. My reasons: User Disruption . The Library has been very careful to keep our old systems up and running with no interruption while we test the new system. Yes, you can test our sexy new WorldCat Local install, but there are big red letters over it saying that the availability info is only available and up to date in our current catalog (which most of our users are accustomed to). We haven't jacked up any accounts, we haven't fiddled with anything for the user, because we are busy kicking the crap out of the tires before we set it loose on our users. While I...

Most of the blog lately has been my notes on library conference sessions. Outside of libraryland, though, occasionally I accomplish other things important to me on a personal level. Making that list this month is that my latest book of poetry, These Terrible Sacraments , is finally in print and available for order from the publisher's online bookstore. (For the record, it is the same press that published my first book of poems, God in my Throat . For my first book, I was excited simply to get my work published. This time, though, I'm excited for all different reasons. The book is dedicated to my brother, Patrick, who served with the U.S. Marine Corps in the 3rd Battalion 3rd Marines with tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the stories in these poems are his. Some are mine. The poems are written from the perspective of our loved ones serving overseas, as well as from the points of view of those of us who remain home to wait and pray. It was a difficult collection to write, d...

This is my presentation slot, Mapping, Managing, and Improving Staff Performance. Wish me luck!

When Access Starts with Interlibrary Loan/ Document Delivery by James Harper Access starts with acquisition... Unless the library wont buy it, then it starts with interlibrary loan. Where is ILL going, where does it need to go, how do we ge there? i'Ll is playing a big role in collection development, serving larger percentage of population, leveragigpower of consortiums. Striving to close the gap between discovery and delivery, expand the types of services delivered, diminis heffect of location and or ownership and acess for between branches, enlist. Rest of ADS in these pursuits. Interesting statistics. 2001-2 was eleven percent of population. Last year, served twenty one percent of population, 6579 differetpatrons. Amount o fundergrads usigill and docdelivery growing in the same period. i'Ll used ot be only open to grad students and faculty through an oclc terminal and it took forever to get hints. Distance learners and extension personnel grown from 1084 to 4425 for use of ...

How May I Help You? The Semiotics of Superior Customer Support at the Library's Service Desks by Frances Anne Pici and Colin Bragg Purpose is to examine fundamental principles governing customer support by utilizing basic theories and analytical tools provided by semiotics. Thi approach can help define and improve customer support at service desks. Intro to semiotics, fundamentals of customer support, and signs of customer support at service desks. Semitoics examines how humans represent worked through system of signs. Used to examine phenoms interdisciplinary, art, language, lit, music, media, performance studies, etc. Central is notion of sign. Broadly, semiotics is science of signs or study of use of signs. All human comm and interaction is composed of signs, a. Dhuman experience sociocultural system created, mediated and sustained by signs. In almost all human cultures, signs carry some info that we use to describe, reposing a d evaluate world. Words, images, symbols, images, g...

You Want Us to do What? Practical, Data Driven Planning and Decisionmaking For Access Services by John Miller-Weels, Wendy Begay, and Robyn Huff-Eibl They restricture frequently. Access and info services is traditional stacks, microform, govdocs, but not reserves. Now reference, portions of interlibrary koan and doc delivery. 32 staff and over 100 students. University of Arizona Tucson. Many services in one unit across many sites. Staff always saying "you want us to do what?" why bit her with needs assessment, resources involved, technology used, sources of data, tools they use, how. All of this feeds into outcomes and create an environmental scan doc ument and how that kids into strategic plan document, how it ends up with happy users. Why data driven planning, why needs assessment? In the past decades with shrinking budgets, increased pressure om libraries ot maintain or cut costs while increasing variety and quality of services offered. Focus services that bring value wh...

access Services, Innovative Management in the Changing Era by Dell Davis and Amy Chang We need to think about management. Managers are busy people a d in mAnaging services we forget about internal piece. How change impacts access services, innovative management for change, some of the challenges. What causes change? Space,customer centered services, technology, administrative decisions, bottom up innovative ideas. How do we create and nmanage these spaces better? Customer based services through needs assessment. Checked through irb and questions were okay as long as they didn't want to publish, so started to ask students informally about services. Libqual Comments are best measure of services. Ex, deficient links in ere sources so folks now report through point of need through ticketing system. Srudents begging. For quiet spaces while we are focused on collaborative spaces, disconnect. Facilities issues. That management piece falls on. Access services in most environments. Also tec...

The customer comes first: implementing a customer service program at the university of minnesota twin cities By jerrie Bauer and (someone) Llewellyn. Why customer service, easily stages of the project initiated in 2006, customer service training from report, classes, measuring outcomes of good customer service. Process improvements and what they learned along the way, tips and tricks for implementing program. Jerrie: why customer service? Folks have a good conept of customer service and what it is. They wanted a statement of service philosophy for access services why they think it is important. People ask why the staff? We compete for user attention with any other methods of delivery, and they believed that if they don't get good customer service users will seek out alternatives. Pele will just leave and find it somewhere else that they can get help. Front line interaction, and they wanted high and consistenn level of service to sets. Prior, no unified service expectations. They ar...

Electronic reserves: change is our constant companion by Linda Fredericksen and Michelle (Chelle) Batchelor Brief history, current model, challenges, streaming, discussion. History of reserves. Short term access to instructor material has been logtermm tradition in us academic libraries as early as 1880s at harvard, uMich, johns hopkins. Has been around a long time. Mor ethan a nerd years later, is changing gin a number of levels. From one type of ereserves tech to another, or a more fundamental level in terms of electronic reserves environment. Old print reserve room was bustling place, lot of work wen tint getting print item moon reserve, a d a lot of work in maintaining, then taking off reserve. Back end part of print reserve room was busy. Very location bound. Library controlled all of the access in terms of what came in and what went out.practice of circ based on first sale for these historical hard copy reserves. Despite problems of space limitations and single use access, most A...

"Ending the Turf War: Circulation, Reference, and Instruction on One Team" by Ken Johnson and Susan Jennings from Appalachian State Circ ref and instruction on one team to address interteam issues. Approach is figure out way. To say yes as much as possible. Reducing service differences between teams helped them do that. Lot of folks have ventured down this path. How many have actively combined circ and reference in the library? How many people think it's intriguing, how many people think it's awful? Libraries differ organizationally and culturally. We think we were successful at it. Ken johnson is coordinAtor pf learning and research services team. Susan Jennings is lead librarian for desk services, teaks desk services for user centered services. True commons. Responsible for material delivery and delivery to faculty offices. Appalchiannstate in NW corner of NC. Has sixteen thousand five hundred students, part of unc system, new library in june 2005, gate count is ove...

Tim Daniels, Manager for Lyrasis Technology Services, formerly assistant state librarian for technology and infrastructure at Gergila Public Library Service. Cloud, content and discovery. Has had a lot of jobs, doesn't mean he cant keep a job :) he doesn't know a lot about access services other than coolest job in library that no one else gets to do, we get to say no! A great access services head is the one thing you must have because they mMs everything work. If someone is not willing to draw the line and enforce rules with some logic and balance, it can go bad fast, so critical to have that layer of folks on the desk. As he was looking at technologies and how we would apply them, better to talk about what he'll talk about, then discuss how it applies to our situations. Gartner Hype cycle. The gartner group studies technology, writes four page reports and charge five thousand dollars. One of things they developed was Gartner Hype cycle. Chart that shows for any given tech...

By Dr. Nan H. Seamans, Dean of Libraries, Georgia State University. Welcome to Atlanta. Why is Dean here to welcome us? From Georgia State University. Brand new football team, go Panthers! On Nov 18th playing Alabama, cheer for them as they get slaughtered. GSU very diverse campus, reflects student enrollments nationally more than anywhere else in the US. Has the best library learning space in the southeast. Vibrant, new, renovated three years ago. Copyright lawsuit involving GSU. Sued by camp bridge, oxford, and Sage, in litigation, they cant talk about it. Outcome of this case will affect what all of you do with ereserves. Thank the four organizers! Dean has lived in Atlanta for 2.5 years. Peachtree - there are many of them! Thirtyfour peach trees. Sometimes intersect, sometimes connect. Streets change name as you're driving along. Goal that you have to. Get to lightbefore anyone else, very NASCAR. Welcome to 2010 Access Services conference, second annual. As you look at the prog...

Copyright 0 to 60 in One Year by Kati Donaghy. Microcollege, small staff. Before writing copyright policy, description. In 2007, only paper reserves, no electronic reserves, no campus copyright policy, everything accepted for reserve. Reviewed policies of peer and aspirant groups, similar in size, demographic, budgeting. Groups had already been designated. Trilled admin and library sites looking for policies. Distributed to other staff in library for comments, met every two weeks, very collaborative effort. Also consulted college legal for the policy. Crew's copyright for librarians, Carrie Russel's Complete Copyright, see lipinski, Librarys Legal Answer Book. Made presentations to faculty an distaff, invited to fauculty retreat captive audience, conducted workshops. There had been no documentation or paper trail. Many staff and faculty didn't understand why extra step was needed, and workshops helped. Massive amount of feedback during first year of copyright policy and ere...

I presented on Managing the Multigenerational Library to a PACKED house! Great questions, gat interaction and discussion. Thank you so much to everyone who came to my session, I had a blast :)

To inventory or not: findings from inventory projects performed in two different academic libraries by Jan Sung and Nackil Sung. Six hundred years to open stacks. How many years until completely book less? Inventory is expensive, boring, and tiring. ;) Deans of major libraries say nobody is browsing the stacks. Future academic library is little more than special collections and study areas, says university provost of UC. Admin is fighting for facilities for rock climbing, and where do they get the money? Our budgets? Barbara fisted asks if we can sound real estate to house rarely used books. Easier in Midwest, but not in Hawaii. (anahouma bay?) Moldy books. 2004 flood. Rebuilt servers on second floor. But air circulation blocked leading to mold, so annotate have compact shelving because tousle with circulation when the stacks are closed. Can't say weeding in Hawaii, but can say retire :) Concept of inventory. Shelf list. Inventory should be like shelf reading. Inventory has been yo...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Catherine Pellegrino's "But what did they learn? What classroom assessment can tell you about student learning" The room is packed! Reference librarian and instruction coordinator at st marys college in noter dame, Indiana. Difference between traditional course evaluation tools and assessment of student learning, reasons for choosing one over another, looking at Minute Paper. Definitions. Course evaluations: how well did course reach intended goals, degree of satisfaction, did the session meet your needs, what new thing did you learn. Smple evaluAtion with five point likert scale - prepared, organized, helpful. Substantial body of research state that suck tools are neither valid nor reliable. Biggest problems are students who just mark one column all the way down, and that when they have free response, they're at end of form and folks leave those free responses blank. See her bibliography for the lit on this. If not valid or relaible, why? We love numbers, they're...