It's Academic

https://library.uoregon.edu/digital-scholarship-services

Scholarly output today is not just text anymore. This statement may now seem axiomatic. If it is, however, libraries cannot afford to simply acknowledge it; they must embrace it. But not every library has access to all the latest tools for enabling digitally-oriented research, much less the capacity for such things as developing mobile apps designed to aid meta-analysis or to disseminate big data visualizations. What every library does have is the ability to consider the range of its activities, to ask what makes the most sense. Is it OA publishing? Is it makerspaces? What’s the scope of the disciplines to be served? Whose involvement is required?

A first step can be to begin a conversation around emergent forms of scholarly communication. Next discuss what service nodes should your library provide: teaching & learning, technology & tools, and/or spaces & expertise.  Then decide what resources need to be redistributed so that your library can meet the digital scholarship needs of the community you serve. And keep asking throughout: What do we want to do and why are we doing it? You may be community building by bringing disparate pockets of scholars together in new and interesting ways, or simply facilitating collaboration that exists to do more. Ongoing honest needs assessment is necessary.

Some libraries provide consultation services. Others host workshops and events. While still others build cyberinfrastructure for digital curation and preservation. There is no one correct path for every library when it comes to supporting digital scholarship. Examining what you have and what you do is critical. While simply ceding space, without committing some library involvement is a mistake.

It is essential to explain what you have and what you do. Be sure to keep a public list of activities or project involvement. Be clear about the relationship between mission and priorities. Be certain to foster stakeholder champions. Interest cannot be conjured. It needs to be intentionally fostered. Always be ready to answer the question: Why the library?

Here are a few nascent responses. If the mission of the library is to support research and promote scholarship, then today that must include e-research and digital scholarship. If the library is for everyone, then a culture of technical expertise is required given the pervasiveness of technology in our society, and not just electronic computing but even virtual reality. If we are to prepare our users for an increasingly globalized knowledge base, economy and ecosystem, then we must immerse ourselves and invest in shaping competencies and instilling best practices.

The entrée for a lot of libraries is still digital humanities. Some may still be mystified because the match seems star-crossed, and yet libraries cannot afford to ignore the signs. One short report that may help is “Building Capacity for Digital Humanities: A Framework for Institutional Planning” (https://library.educause.edu/resources/2017/5/building-capacity-for-digital-humanities-a-framework-for-institutional-planning).

Seton Hill University is observing its Centennial this year.   Although the origins of “the Hill” date back to 1885, 1918 was the year that it became a college.   Prior to that there were various educational institutions – an academy, junior college, and conservatories of music and art. There have been many events to celebrate this milestone, including the stories of our founders and their history.   However, at our Fall Workshop to open the current semester, the Provost stated, that although we look back to the Sisters of Charity who began the work here, in a sense we are all founders. We all bring our own gifts and talents to further the mission of the University.

This led me to reflect on my own time here and I wonder if this is something that all of us should do at our institutions. It is so easy for us to become isolated and not see ourselves as part of the bigger picture.   Institutions should not be static, but instead should be evolving.

Sr. Francesca Brownlee, a previous directress of Saint Joseph Academy and the “guiding spirit” and tireless foot soldier in the effort to move Seton Hill from secondary school to college, was named dean of the college in 1919, a position in which she served until 1929. Sr. Francesca is widely believed to be the author of an article in the 1919 Seton Hill Bulletin that contains a directive, which became one of the school’s guiding principles:

“If the management of Seton Hill find a way of doing things that is better than their present method they will replace all of that method or any part of it without scruple, for they are bound by no traditions and they fear nothing but God’s disfavor and the closed mind.” Seton Hill Then and Now (1919)

Rather than just furthering the mission of the library, I should want to help shape the future of the entire university. So far, I have been able to do this in several ways:

1. When choosing committee service, I try to select areas that are not directly related to my position, but which serve the university as a whole. This helps me to be part of the bigger picture.
2. When participating in program reviews, I don’t just provide information on library resources, but attend all meetings and contribute to other areas of the review.
3. In addition to the usual LibGuides for patrons, I have created guides on St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, Catholic Social Teaching, and the Catholic Intellectual Tradition. I have also created a private LibGuide for our Board of Trustees. This is helpful because although we are a Catholic institution, many of our students, faculty, and staff are not Catholic. This helps everyone to understand the foundation of our history and mission.

In a more intentional way, I plan to find other means in the future to continue to be a “Founder.” I think that this will also help me to be a better librarian.

When: October 26, 2018 from 10:00 AM to 3:30 PM

Where: Drexel University’s Learning Terrace

Theme:  Librarians as Advocates:  Leading Activism on Your Campus and Beyond

This program seeks to provide insight into the activism and advocacy work being done in libraries in higher education across the Delaware Valley region. In times of inequity, discrimination, and social injustice, libraries have the opportunity to be institutions of resistance, understanding, and hope. We are bringing together librarians who would like to share how they have incorporated democracy, equity, intellectual freedom, and privacy into their projects and collaborations to advocate for their communities.  Successful proposals will demonstrate an analysis of the underlying power structures that motivate their efforts. Whether your advocacy work takes the form of outreach projects, pedagogical techniques, systems or application development, cataloging practice, or collaborative projects, we would like to give you the opportunity to share your work and its impact with colleagues.

Topics should be related to library leadership in social change including:

·         Services for students with marginalized identities, including documentation status

·         Poverty, food insecurity, or homelessness

·         Voter registration and electoral issues

·         Social, mental, and health-related services

·         Access and textbook-related services

·         Library-related legislation

·         Privacy

·         Diversity, inclusion, and equity

·         Workplace fairness and rights issues

The deadline to submit is September 10 with notification by September 15, 2018.

Submission Information

Proposals must include the following information:

1.    Proposal title

2.    Names, affiliations, positions, and email addresses of the presenters

3.    Preferred presentation format

1.    Option A – 10-minute lightning round presentation only

2.    Option B – 10-minute lightning round presentation and roundtable facilitation.

4.    A 250-word summary of the topic you wish to present including the points you intend to make and the way(s) you intend to engage the audience, if applicable

To propose a session please visit here.

Questions? E-mail Jess Denke.

I posted a few months ago on this blog about a renovation project that was happening at my library. A lot of progress has been made and we’re getting close to the finish line BUT it’s not ready yet and we’re wrapping up our third day of class at W&J. I can’t say this has come as a total surprise – we’ve all watched HGTV and know that there are usually bumps in the road when it comes to construction. However, speculating the library wouldn’t be ready in time for the first day of class and having to communicate that it wouldn’t be ready were two very different things. We realized that we needed to decide what library services we could offer from our temporary location without our physical collection and other resources an actual building provides.

Over the summer we had been offering access to electronic resources, chat reference services, and Interlibrary Loan during regular business hours. We knew we needed to step up our game now that a new school year was starting. The first thing we decided on was expanding our hours. We didn’t feel it was a worthwhile use of staff to keep our temporary space open the same hours we would our regular library but we also wanted to make sure that we were able to serve our students in the evenings.  So, we decided to stay open until 9pm Sunday-Thursday which is when we’ve traditionally staffed our reference desk. This way students will still be able to find help from a librarian when they’ve been accustomed to finding it.

When we packed our library last spring we were proactive and asked faculty to identify items from our physical collection that they knew they would need at the beginning of the semester. A few faculty members took advantage of this offer and their items were packed separately from the rest of the collection in easily identifiable boxes. We were able to retrieve those items from storage and visit with the rest of our displaced collection while we were there. We also packed some of our ready reference items last spring, specifically the always popular CRC Handbook and citation style guides. Those items along with others that faculty have contributed make up our Reserves for right now. We have a book cart that can be wheeled out into the public space that is serving as our circulation/reference desk during the day and then wheeled back in to our lockable office at night.

As I mentioned we expanded our hours for offering chat and face-to-face reference services. Our temporary location happens to be on the first floor of the Tech Center, which is a computer lab/study space area that is open to students 24 hours a day. We have a little desk off to one side that is manned from 8am-9pm Monday-Thursday, 8am-5pm Friday, and 5pm-9pm on Sunday. Wednesday was the first day of class and I was the first librarian to take an evening shift. Normally we do not get many questions during the first week of school but because students are in this space and I was the only visible adult in the building, I got five questions! Two of which I would classify as honest to goodness reference questions, not just directions. We’ve considered the idea of having reference librarians work shifts in other locations on campus besides the library and my experience on Wednesday reinforced my convictions that this is a great idea. We know that not all students choose to study in the library and having a library preference somewhere other than library might help us reach those students. Once they’ve had a good experience with a librarian they will hopefully be more likely to take advantage of our services in the future.

We are also providing information literacy instruction services but without access to our library classroom we’ve had to get a little creative. We’ve been working with professors to secure other computer classrooms on campus, re-working activities to be able to be completed in groups so students can share devices, or coming up with sessions that don’t use devices at all. Looking on the bright side, this has opened a line of communication with the faculty when previously they might have just requested that we do, “…your normal library thing in the library”.  Working with faculty to determine what they actually want their students to get out of a session is beneficial to us for relationship building and ultimately beneficial to the students because their getting the information they really need. We’ve also been able to introduce students and faculty to more of our online resources, including our new discovery service. Communicating information to students about available library services has gotten us access to a few other classes where we may not have been invited to do a full information literacy session. Additionally, we worked with the Freshman Orientation to make sure that a stop at our temporary library location was part of their campus tours.

I don’t want to make it seem like everything is sunshine and roses; there is a lot of frustration about the library not being fully functional and our entire library staff is sharing one room for the time being. One of the faculty who came to visit us said we look like a public television fundraising phone bank (see picture below) and we agree with him. However, this renovation has given us a chance to prove to the skeptics that the “library” is more than just a building while at the same time reminding everyone how important it is to have access to the library building and physical collections.