It's Academic

Why I Attend Small Conferences

March 22, 2010

A recent post on Inside Higher Ed by Kevin Brown sums up nicely the value of attending a small conference, like the annual PaLA Conference. Brown, an English professor at Lee University, weighs the pros and cons of attending large conferences vs small conference:

Large, national conferences are important for a number of reasons… However,
for the rest of us, smaller local conferences make more sense and are more
enjoyable. They help us to build smaller communities within the discipline with
peers who hold similar values and who want to see everyone involved improve.

Read the entire post here.

SAVE THE DATE! June 15, 2010

March 17, 2010

by Bonnie Oldham

“Information Commons in the Wild: Lessons from the Field”

Where: DeNaples Campus Center, The University of Scranton, Scranton, PA

Keynote Speaker:
Scott Bennett, Library Space Planning Consultant, Yale University Librarian Emeritus, and one of the founders of Project Muse, will lead a session designed to promote active learning about the design of an information or learning commons. Conference participants will then be asked to work together on some key questions that Scott will pose about the design of information or learning commons, concluding with a reporting out session meant to share the wisdom of the group.

Panel:
Don Smith, Dean of the Library at the University of Louisiana at Monroe
Katherine Furlong, Associate Director for Access & Administrative Services at Lafayette College
Sally Kalin, Associate Dean for University Park Libraries at Penn State University
Anuradha Vedantham, Director of the Weigle Information Commons at the University of Pennsylvania

Watch the CRD Web site for further details and registration information: http://www.lehigh.edu/~inpla/CRD/
For more information, contact Bonnie Oldham. You can also find us on Facebook.

PaLA CRD: help newer librarians become leaders!

March 16, 2010

by serendipiTina

(Above: 2009 PALS Attendees)

The College and Research Division (CRD) of the Pennsylvania Library Association would like to sponsor two attendees to the PaLA Academy of Leadership Studies (PALS) to be held June 6-9, 2010 at the Radisson Penn Harris, Camp Hill, PA. We invite nominations and applications from academic librarians who have less than six years of experience and who have the potential to become the next generation of library leaders in the state of Pennsylvania. The CRD will pay for Academy registration for the two librarians chosen and will work closely with them as they continue to enhance their careers. Further information about the Leadership Academy can be found at:

http://www.palibraries.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=102

If you are interested in applying or in nominating someone to be sponsored by the CRD, please send the following by April 1, 2010 to Tina Hertel at tina.hertel@lehigh.edu:

• A letter of interest
• A letter of nomination from your supervisor
• Current resume of the nominee
• Statement indicating PaLA membership or intention to join at the end of the program

Nominees will be informed of the CRD’s decision by April 16, 2010.

Please call or email me with any questions or concerns about the process.

Thank you.

Tina Hertel
College & Research Division

Connecting Research and Writing Through Students

November 4, 2009

by CRD of PaLA

Connecting Research and Writing Through Students

Tuesday, October 20 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Speakers: Greg Skutches, Tina Hertel, Kenzie Bartlett, Deborah Streahle (Lehigh University)

Moderated by Christine Roysdon

The innovative TRAC (Technology, Research and Communication) Writing Fellows Program at Lehigh University is based on the “tried-and-true notion that collaboration among peers is one of our most effective and efficient methods of learning.” Greg Skutches described the evolution of the TRAC concept over his initial year as the Coordinator of Writing Across the Curriculum at Lehigh. He stressed that his rather unique placement within the Library and Technology Services unit, as opposed to the usual WAC placement within an academic college, enabled him to imagine a program that encompassed not only writing, but also the research process, the use of technology, and faculty development.

The program tests the idea that student writing mentors embedded in courses can knowledgeably and empathetically interact with peers on assignment drafts and research progress, and can even help faculty fine-tune assignments. Fellows chosen are talented undergraduate student writers from across the majors, nominated by faculty, and selected through a highly competitive application process. As a group, they are enrolled in a semester-long training course that encompasses not only writing, but also library research and instructional technology.

Tina Hertel has developed the library research aspect of the program. She noted that in the first year she presented the big picture of the information environment, but now has adopted a more practical focus. She has observed that the TRAC students tend to be good researchers who are sometimes surprised by the methods used by fellow students.

The two TRAC fellows, Kenzie Bartlett and Deborah Streahle, have been thinking about how the libraries can be better integrated into the student research process. They emphasized the importance of just-in-time librarian visits to courses with assignments, and the need to simplify and streamline the navigation of library systems.

Christy Roysdon

When Students Go Mobile: The Effects of Smartphones on Information Literacy and Academic Library

November 3, 2009

by CRD of PaLA

When Students Go Mobile: The Effects of Smartphones on Information Literacy and Academic Library
Featuring Kristen Yarmey-Tylutki, Digital Services Librarian, Weinberg Memorial Library, The University of Scranton and moderated by Erin Dorney

Smartphone – phone with computing ability

Over 50 thousand apps for iPhone as of last year

In 2008 smartphone sales in North America grew by 63%

Lost of apps are student-designed

Mobile librarians and libraries – Joe Murphy

How do these impact the research process? Information literacy?

It’s hard for students to find big blocks of time for research – mobile helps them break it up into chunks

Looking at 2000 ACRL standards for information literacy – 5 standards

What did mobile phones look like in 2000? Cell phones called people, stored contacts, could text but many people didn’t. A lot has changed since then!

Standard One: “The information literate student defines and articulates the need for information”

Free apps vs. authoritative, more costly apps (in terms of reference resources)
Talk to vendors about providing mobile interfaces
Think about subsidizing cost of authoritative mobile apps
Devices can be used to both collect and analyze data
Can confuse students – new set of formats (print, electronic, mobile, website, app, device specific?), third-party developers w/ somewhat sketchy documentation.
Cost and benefit – students pick free over pay, website over print, w/smartphones, they will probably choose mobile over computer-based.
It needs to be affordable and accessible to students in order for them to use it

Standard Two: “The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently”

New ways of searching – the ACRL standards assume word-based searching, but now we have different input types – pictures, barcodes, audio keywords, location
These options can make searching easier for students, but we need to know how to help them and incorporate this into information literacy
No extra typing – fewest keystrokes possible = no long search strings, Boolean, etc.
Mobile raises expectations – traditional services won’t be enough
On a smartphone, we only see the first 3/4 results in a Google search – will students scroll down or click to the next page?
Extracting information – lots of note taking tools out there and microphones built in (i.e. Margins, tools to convert spoken notes into written notes)
iPhone can’t run different applications at once – this is a problem but should be fixed (Palm Pre does it)

Standard Three: “The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.”

Ebook apps – more time for reading in their lives, but is it “deep reading?”
All in one devices are fabulous but also distracting
Students are going to want to use things that are designed well
Mobile research look at more items but spend less time on/with them
Discussing research with peers

Standard Four: “The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.”

Syncing mobile and computer applications

Standard Five: “The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally”

Privacy issues, personal information – outward flow of information, educate students about what they post to the web and how it can impact their future
“Collaboration has become a fact of life” – Kristen YT

Standards hold up well, but there are some new themes relating to smartphones

Is dividing literacy between information and technology helping or harming our students?

Continuous partial attention – we need to be informed – education, psychology, sociology

What’s next? Plans to talk with students about how smartphones are being used by students. Looking for collaborators!

Q: Tools for libraries to mobilize? SMS is first step, in terms of resources, haven’t seen it written about yet

Q: Multi-literacies? Kathleen Tyner

Q: What about faculty using smartphones? Mixed bag, some embrace, some still don’t want to talk about Google. New generation of faculty will help with this transition. We don’t have to push it, but some will be interested.