It's Academic

Using a Kanban board to manage work

December 1, 2022

Use of Project management and lean ideals to help guide my work has proven to be helpful. As a joint clinical and academic librarian, I find that my tasks are varied and plentiful! In my role as part of the Information Literacy Librarian team at Xavier University, we have all been introduced to the concept of working lean and agile. To institute this new way of working and thinking into our everyday workflows, we have been taking classes each semester to help us make the concepts more relatable to our daily tasks.

One of my biggest take- aways from this training has been the idea of using a Kanban Board. I have found this simple adjustment as made a world of difference for helping me plan and organize my projects and my daily routines. The idea is a simple one. Keep a tangible board in one place to list all the work that must be completed, that I am currently working on and what has been completed for the week.

The ideas behind the Kanban board are more complex than I am making it seem, but the outcome for me as been a positive one. This simple board has allowed me to see where I am on a given day on a task. I even try to reward myself for a job well done once I move my task to completed. You can find out more about this idea in many articles, and You tube videos. Here is a link to one that was shared during my training. Happy task managing!

Marlowe Bogino

Current Status of Library Space

November 30, 2022

by clblibrarian

As the semester winds down, I am finally finding time to tackle my professional development “To Be Read” pile: articles, books, blog post, and even webinars are related to my librarianship, but are chronically #11 on my list of 10 things to do on any given day. One of those was from April (yikes!): an EDUCASE article by Steven Bell “Moving to Mobile: Space as a Service in the Academic Library”.

It actually ended up being a happy accident that I waited until now to read the article. It especially rang true with the changes that I have seen in student library usage during this first real “post-pandemic” semester. Fall 2022 meant a relaxation of mask mandates, and a return to normal library hours and services, but it has not meant a return to the way students used the library before March 2020. Bell’s article focuses on the use (or lack thereof) of computer labs within the library space. He saw a decrease of desktop usage, and an increase in laptop checkouts. My library is seeing a similar trend, but even our laptop checkouts have decreased. It seems one result of the pandemic is an increase in students with their own laptops. Hopefully though, with continuing concerns related to digital divides, they are not relying on smartphones or tablets as their primary devices. Bell cites a EDUCAUSE poll from November 2021, stating that most (81%) use a laptop for their primary educational device.

My institution has not done similar survey, though I would be interested to see how our numbers compare. Our desktop computers have decreased usage, and even during instruction sessions, students would rather pull out their own laptop than log onto a public machine. We have had some informal feedback that some students are making do with Chromebooks or other devices that don’t meet requirements for many of the academic technology tools they need for coursework. Also, they often would rather struggle on their smartphones when searching for resources, or trying to use our cloud printing service, then logging onto a conveniently located desktop. I am not sure the motivation behind this: perhaps they are just unaccustomed to using desktops, or are concerned about the privacy of a public machine? It would be interesting to gather more data on this as well.

Aside from desktop computer use, Bell’s article also touches on the importance of the library’s space as a service or resource for students. During the pandemic we were often one of the few “public” spaces that remained open. Policies, hours, and occupancy numbers were amended to achieve as much access to the library space as possible. These adjustments, especially limits to groups and mask mandates, were not popular with our students. Though we were open, our library saw a decrease in gate counts during the pandemic. Even with the repeal of many of the pandemic restrictions, we have yet to see a return to pre-COVID numbers.

Again, I am not sure why, though I suppose I could speculate. I wonder if the lack of visits is due to something just as simple as a lack of practice. They just do not have the muscle memory of using the library’s space for group meetings and studying (and hopefully research help). Many of these students were not on campus pre-pandemic. For their last years of high school, and first years of college, they went to class and studied from their home or dorm rooms. They did not interact in-person with the classmates so there was no need for a public space to work in. Now even with the return to in-person classes and events, maybe they are still studying and meeting elsewhere just because that is what they have always done.

It kind of feels like we are having to “sell” libraries to students all over again. The value of libraries, and their spaces, has stayed the same, but the institutional memory of the library has been lost. I am having to find ways to tempt students into the library, so they can see all the awesome spaces, and services, we have there. I also wonder if, just as student knowledge and expectations for libraries has been “reset,” whether we need to reset our assumptions on the needs students have for the library. Just another angle to consider and evaluate. We may need to reintroduce ourselves to the students on our campuses, and I suspect that getting reacquainted will be a slow process.

Registration is OPEN for the Southeast Chapter Annual Workshop/Business Meeting

November 29, 2022

by Alex K.

Dear Pennsylvania Library Association members,

Registration is open for the 2022 Southeast (SEPLA) Chapter’s Annual Business Meeting and Workshop. This event will be held in-person at the Upper Dublin Public Library on Friday, December 2, 2022 from 9:00am until 2:00 pm.

Investment: $25 Member | $35 Non-member

Register now at:
https://www.palibraries.org/event/2022SEPLA_BIZ_WS
Registration deadline is Wednesday, November 30, 2022.

Workshop Details:

Presentation #1: “Intellectual Freedom: Lessons Learned from Collections and Meeting Room Controversies”

Learn how to handle library collection and meeting room conflicts with grace and confidence. Cathi Alloway will share her experiences and recommendations from thirty years of library administration, managing book, music and meeting room controversies from white supremecist activity to drag queen storytimes.
Bio: Cathi Alloway (AMLS, University of Michigan) recently retired as Director of Schlow Centre Region Library in State College, PA, after fifty years of library experience in three states. A Past President of the Pennsylvania Library Association, she currently serves as a library and non-profit consultant with Library Strategies and other partners.

Presentation #2: Intellectual Freedom Knowledge & Resources

How librarians, and library supporters can protect access to information and support the First Amendment while still maintaining the library’s identity as a welcoming and inclusive space that is an anti-racist, anti-homophobic, and social justice-based organization.

Bio: Sophia Sotilleo is currently serving as the Dean of the Library at Bowie State University in Maryland. She is also the Vice President of the Freedom To Read Foundation. She is a seasoned academic librarian with experience and strengths in collaborative grant writing, library programs, project management, and assessment.

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This message has been sent on behalf of Michael Celec, Vice-Chair, Southeast Chapter, Pennsylvania Library Association

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This project is made possible, in part, by a grant from the U.S. 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, Tom Wolf, Governor.

*****************************************Support is also provided by the College and Research Division of the Pennsylvania Library Association https://crdpala.org/

To TikTok or Not to TikTok?

November 17, 2022

tags: TikTok

by smartin592

One of the librarians that I work with shared this recent article from American Libraries about librarians who use TikTok, https://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2022/11/01/60-seconds-of-library-fame/.

As librarians in an Academic library, we’re always trying to figure out which social media platform we should use to reach our students. We currently have Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram. We know that we aren’t reaching students on our Facebook page, but we do reach a lot of college employees and alumni there. We aren’t reaching many of our students on Twitter and so we rely on Instagram to reach our students. Lately, we have been talking about TikTok and trying to figure out if it would be worth starting a TikTok account for our library. We know that some students are using the platform – likely more than are using Facebook or Twitter. In the article from American Libraries, it does seem that some librarians have been able to find a great deal of success using TikTok. However, there are concerns about the TikTok platform.

Their privacy policy shows that they are collecting A LOT of data, including information that you start composing but never save or post. You can review the entire privacy policy here: https://www.tiktok.com/legal/page/us/privacy-policy/en. Many social media companies collect a lot of information about their users, but what makes TikTok worrisome is that even though they are run by a US-based company, their parent company is a Chinese company called Bytedance. In the TikTok privacy policy, they state “We may share all of the information we collect with a parent, subsidiary, or other affiliate of our corporate group.” If employees of the parent company can access user data, could they be compelled to share that data with the Chinese government? This question is sticky enough that the US Military has blocked members from putting TikTok on government devices and members of legislature have been encouraged not to use it either. This article from Wired reviews how complicated this situation is, https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-nationa-security-threat-why.

At this point we’ve agreed that we don’t want to have a TikTok account for our library because of the privacy questions. Are we missing out on a great tool to reach patrons? Maybe we are. However, we think we’re getting enough student engagement on Instagram that we can push the TikTok decision down the road a bit.

Is anyone else using TikTok in their library and what are your thoughts on the privacy implications?

Connect & Communicate Seeks New Proposals

November 16, 2022

by Adam Balcziunas

The Pennsylvania Library Association’s College and Research Division Connect and Communicate Series provides programming that is relevant to and useful for academic librarians and paraprofessionals.

We are currently seeking session proposals for December. If you have a session you would like to share with our academic library community, we invite you to submit a proposal. If there is a speaker you would like to hear from, you are also welcome to include that information in our proposal form.

Please submit your ideas using our online form: https://forms.gle/LAjB7DBqudTgHfKF7

There’s more information at the Connect & Communicate webpage: https://crdpala.org/connect-communicate/

Recordings of the most recent recent sessions are available on the C&CS YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIdr724MhuZV7bh_iOOlc-Q

Thank you!

CRD Connect and Communicate Team