CRD of PaLA

Theme: Academic Library Collaborations: Working Together for Better

Description: Academic libraries are an integral part of their home institutions, engaging patrons through ever evolving services and resources. By collaborating with people and departments outside of the library, academic libraries can leverage the work done to engage students and have a greater impact within their campus communities. Collaboration can be initiated formally or informally, and partnerships can take a variety of forms between colleagues. Some examples (but not meant to be limiting): collaborating to design a new research project with a faculty member, programming an event for a campus partner, or curating a list of resources to support a student-led cultural event. On May 2, 2023, the College and Research Division of the Pennsylvania Library Association will explore how academic libraries partner with others in our home institutions to provide fulfilling experiences for our students and our campus communities.

To facilitate this exploration, we are seeking proposals that showcase your scholarship and/or your academic librarianship to showcase these collaboration efforts at your institution. CRD encourages librarians to think creatively and share their experiences with colleagues!

Proposals should broadly fit the theme of collaboration within higher education and may relate to instruction, programming, collection development, library processes, or any other area your library supports. 

Proposal Requirements: Proposals for 40-minute virtual sessions must include a title, an abstract of no more than 250 words, and 2-3 learning objectives. Please refrain from including identifiable information in your abstract and other materials to help ensure a blind evaluation. PaLA CRD members will be given preference in session evaluation and selection. 

Submissions are due by Friday, March 31, 2023.

Submit your proposal here: https://pennstate.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_1AMw2kXT6WoD5Wu 

Virtual workshop registration and additional conference information will be coming soon!

Questions? Contact Kristin Green at kristin.green@psu.edu

If someone had told me that three years ago that I would be working with clinical staff to help them support research in an effort to provide better clinical care, I would have not believed it would have been possible. However, here I am in the very beginning stages of learning how to better support clinical staff with their research. Little did I know that I would indeed be asked to support such rigorous and systematic processes as evidence-based synthesis research. In order to be in a place to help, I had to reach out for assistance with learning how to best do this. This blog post is a listing of resources that have helped me in me learning journey. I have to date, become more confident in my advanced searching abilities through these trainings  and have made some wonderful fellow librarian colleagues who are great support.

Happy Reading and feel free to reach out with any questions you may have!

Marlowe

bogino@rowan.edu

Networking and Learning  Opportunities

Medical library Association Caucus List servs

              Systematic Review, African American Library Alliance Discussion group, Evidence-based Practice

American Library Association – Interest Groups

              ALA Evidence Synthesis Interest Group

Training and Education

University of Minnesota Evidence Synthesis Institute

Duke University Evidence Based Practice training (freely available to view library guide but there is also a workshop)

University of Michigan Systematic Review Workshops

New York Medical College Critical Appraisal Institute

Presented by 

Carmen Cole, Emily Mross, and Andrea Pritt

Wednesday, March 22 at 2:00 pm EST

Registration Link

We may (incorrectly) assume that because most of our students were “born digital,” and have never known a time without computers in their classrooms, that they are innately digitally literate. However, interactions with students at all levels in a variety of settings have demonstrated that some students struggle with or are unaware of basic digital literacy concepts and skills. In this session, librarians will discuss how they have incorporated digital literacy objectives into their instruction. Participants may share their experiences with this challenge and how they have or would like to address it within their discipline’s curriculum.

Carmen Cole is the Information Sciences and Business Liaison Librarian at Penn State University Libraries, University Park. Emily Mross is the Business Librarian and Outreach Coordinator at Penn State University Libraries, Harrisburg. Andrea Pritt is the STEM Librarian and Data and Collections Coordinator at Penn State University Libraries, Harrisburg.

We will mute participants on entry into the Zoom room. Session will be recorded and available on YouTube after the session. We will enable Zoom’s Live Transcription feature during the session.

If you would like to present with C&CS, please contact the C&CS team.

This project is made possible by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries, and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, Governor.

Support is also provided by the College and Research Division of the Pennsylvania Library Association.

Like many people within higher education, I’ve been watching the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT tool with trepidation. The ChatGPT software is a marvel of software development. A few weeks ago, I prompted ChatGPT to write a one page essay about the life of George Washington, only to see it immediately write a paper that would receive a passing grade in most classes. While ChatGPT has been reported to sometimes give inaccurate statements, there were none in this essay. The writing, though simple in style, would be perfectly acceptable in most classes. The ease with which this could be used to cheat was my immediate concern. How would this affect student learning? Would there still be a point in assigning essays for students if they were merely going to use AI to write for them?

Those questions are still open to debate, but at least options to combat ChatGPT are starting to emerge. This morning I came across an NPR story that mentions a tool for detecting AI generated writing, it’s called GPTZero. GPTZero attempts to detect portions of a paper that are AI generated and render a score for how much of the document is AI written, which seems similar to how Turnitin delivers a score for content that is copied. While I haven’t tested GPTZero yet, I’ve already shared it with a few professors. As we get closer to finals I’m curious if we start to see papers appearing that faculty suspect are AI created. If so, this might be our best way to spot them.