Continue reading »]]> Author: Felice E. Maciejewski, University Librarian, Rebecca Crown Library, Dominican University

Having worked in academic libraries for almost thirty years I have had many an opportunity to serve on search committees, both as Chair and committee member. I have also been a member of the audience as a candidate gets grilled and have been the grillee. I have hired many a student assistant, hourly staff, salaried staff, and academic librarians over the years. One of the joys of being a seasoned librarian is to be able to serve as a reference, and often times a mentor, to fledgling librarians. This joy has lead me to volunteer as a resumé reviewer at the ALA Job Placement Center at ALA, and participate in panels to guide soon-to-be- librarians on the dos and don’ts of the job search. Facing two back-to-back searches at my own institution recently made me reflect once again on the academic librarian search process. In this blog series I’d like to address the dos and don’ts of the search process, focusing on the newly minted librarian in search of employment. What is the hiring process at an academic library? Dissecting the job ad, pulling together a C.V. (or do they want a resumé? What’s the difference?) What to put in a cover letter? When will I hear? What to expect during a phone interview? Do you have any questions for the committee? You should! Making a list of questions for the committee. You have been asked to come for an on-site interview. What to do in preparation for the interview? You got the offer, now what? How do I negotiate a decent, fair salary without seeming too greedy? And finally, your first day. Making a good, positive, first impression on your boss and colleagues.

Continue reading »]]> Authors: Mary Axford, Elisabeth Shields, and Crystal Renfro

Libraries have been thought of as buildings that hold collections, conduits to the access of intellectual information, spaces for doing scholarship and places to find individuals with expertise in accessing those intellectual collections. Librarians have organized the knowledge itself, but haven’t been known for helping scholars organize their thinking, or as facilitators for those involved in handling the academic knowledge incubation process.

But if we are looking for new roles for ourselves, why not? We take on pieces of it, such as introducing reference manager tools; some of us are adding centers for digital scholarship, including visualization of information; we have always been in the knowledge organization business, through cataloguing. Librarians are well placed to become even more valuable advisors to faculty, busy administrators, and graduate students by helping with them manage personal knowledge, aka the academic workflow. We’re already involved with helping people create search strategies and track and learn from searches. Other parts of academic PKM include not just citation management but taking notes, keeping track of ideas for projects and articles, refining ideas, filtering material for current projects and spinning off future projects, integrating one’s own ideas with those from others, identifying patterns, and giving tangible form to ideas.

There are tools for these tasks, tools that can help librarians in our own work and tools that we can share with others in the academic world. Are you an expert at using Evernote or OneNote? Do you manage a Zotero group or use it in place of note cards? Can you teach students (or faculty) to use an iPad to take notes on pdfs? Can you help them make concept maps or argument maps to build articles? Can you show them how to relate these tools to each other? We have seen students and faculty members look at us in a new way as a result of showing them these tools.

Our work with faculty and students has clearly indicated that skill in finding information alone is insufficient. Instead, an understanding of the entire academic workflow process is crucial for success in academia. Students are not born with these skills and academic curricula is already so packed with content that coverage on this topic is often not covered in depth in the classroom either. Who better to fill this need than librarians who have made their career in organizing information?

About the authors:
Elisabeth Shields, Crystal Renfro, and Mary Axford have now turned their similar but complementary interest in personal knowledge management for academics into a blog, Academic PKM (http://academicpkm.org). It is designed to be a place to discuss the best strategies for academic workflow, the useful tools for achieving the most efficient setup, and the role of librarians in helping their users (and themselves!) be most productive. The blog is intended to be a conversation, so please take a look and dive in with your comments.

Continue reading »]]> The ACRL-ULS Current Topics Discussion Group seeks Presenters/Discussion Leaders for ALA Annual Conference 2013.

The charge of the ACRL-ULS Current Topics Discussion Group is “to organize informal discussion meetings and presentations on well-defined issues and problems of current interest to university libraries and librarians.” Last year, for example, the Discussion Leaders presented “Instructor-Librarian Transaction: Developing a Proactive Model of Library Service Delivery.” Other areas of interest may include but are not limited to: user experience, assessment, demand-driven acquisitions, information literacy, spaces and services, trends and forecasting, etc.

If you are passionate about academic libraries and would like to share ideas and lead a discussion at the ALA Annual Conference, please consider submitting a proposal. Submissions should be sent to Christine Tobias, Group Convener: tobiasc at mail dot lib dot msu dot edu by Friday, April 19th at 5pm EDT. Since the selection will use a blind review process, submissions should consist of a cover page with the presenter’s name, title, institution, and email address, and a second page containing the proposal only (title, topic, summary or proposed presentation/discussion). 500 words or less, please.

The selected presenter will be notified by Wednesday, May 1. The ACRL-ULS Current Topics Discussion Group meeting will convene on Saturday, June 30, 2013, from 10:30am – 11:30am.

Continue reading »]]>

ACRL 2013 will be here before you know it. Remember to add to the ULS Social to your calendar. We will gather at Champions Sports Bar & Grill in the Downtown Marriott on Thursday 11 April from 6:30 – 8:00 pm for free appetizers and a cash bar. After you get all pumped up listening to Henry Rollins speak, come mingle with your ULS colleagues. Black Flag t-shirts are optional.

Continue reading »]]> Author:  Stewart C Baker

Yet another Instruction Session

The problem of keeping students engaged during library instruction sessions is a common one.  Presentation software may only compound the problem: as slide after slide appears on the screen, with bullet point after bullet point, students’ eyes (as well as instructors’) may be at risk of glazing over.

The author of this blog post takes full responsibility for the exaggerated awfulness of this slide.

In large part, the eye-glazing qualities of slideshow based instruction can be blamed on presentation style (i.e. reading directly from the slide), and choices made while designing slides (e.g. poor color choice and too much text).

Nonetheless, the linear style of a slide show, while suitable for most presentations, may not be the best model for instruction, where questions from and interaction with students may force you to deviate from your planned presentations.

Breaking Out of Slides with Prezi

Prezi is a relatively new (2009) web-based presentation tool which does away with slides in favor of a large, editable white space commonly called an “infinite canvas” (Although Prezi’s learning materials use the term “Prezi Canvas” instead).

Prezi is an attractive instructional tool for a number of reasons, many of which also hold for library instruction in particular.

Among these are:

Infinite Canvas

Users can organize materials in any way they like on the canvas, grouping them together via visual cues like circular frames or simply placing them loosely on the page.  Items which can be placed on the canvas include:

• Text (hyperlinks, bullet points, headers, and body text)
• Images
• PDFs
• Video (files, or via links to Youtube)

One big benefit of the canvas as opposed to the slides is that it is possible to get an overview of the entire presentation at once.  This, coupled with visual grouping of related items, can easily show how a presentation is structured, as well as being used in other contexts to show the relationships between different groups of items.

The Prezi canvas allows you to show an overview of your entire presentation at once.

Another nice thing about the canvas is that you can actually use Prezi to organize your ideas, as well as just creating a presentation.  Since you can see all your ideas on the same page, it can be easier to spot commonalities and differences, and structure your presentation accordingly.

Presentation Path

Although Prezi’s canvas is a wonderful tool, it is best when supplemented by the system’s “presentation path” tool.  This allows users to give each item placed on the canvas a numeric value, turning the disparate items placed on the canvas into an easily clickable moving presentation.

Once all items have been given a number on the path, users can navigate through the presentation with the click of a button—either the left or right arrow on the keyboard, or by clicking on the on-screen equivalent with a mouse.

The path editing tool, showing numeric values assigned to various screens and items.

Nonlinear Presentations

Just because you’re using a path, however, doesn’t mean you’re limited to using it.  Unlike in a slideshow, in Prezi you can also freely zoom around the canvas of your presentation with the system’s “smart zoom” functionality.

The smart zoom is easy to use.  All you have to do is click on any item, frame, or section of the canvas, and Prezi will move the screen to focus on it.  You can then go back to you were by clicking the left arrow on your keyboard or the digital, on-screen equivalent.

What this allows you to do as a presenter is organize your talk in a sensible manner, and then deviate from your plan as circumstances dictate.  The combination of zooming and pathing represents a more dynamic, practical approach than the locked-in, static method of a slideshow, where the only way to move around within the presentation is through a cumbersome process of clicking the ‘stop’ button, scrolling around for the slide you want, discussing it, scrolling back to the slide you were on, and continuing your presentation.

Changing the Design

Much like Powerpoint and other slideshow software, Prezi does include the option to change the text and background color of your presentation through the use of pre-set themes.  For more tech-savvy users, there’s also the option to modify the CSS directly, without use of a wizard.

Although you can’t modify the shapes of the frames much, almost everything else is easy to change with either of these tools.

The Advanced Theme Editing Wizard also contains a link to manually edit the theme’s CSS.

Of course, if you do use custom colors or CSS, it’s important—as always—to make sure your presentation’s text is still legible!

Customization

Beyond the use of themes and CSS, there are a number of ways to customize your presentation.  Here are just a few:

• Fade-in animation – Text stays hidden until you click the “next” button.
• Insert images – If you’re artistically inclined, or have access to high-quality, usable images, the “canvas” of Prezi really opens up.  You can interweave uploaded drawings with the textual content of Prezi in interesting, novel ways.
• 3D backgrounds – Instead of inserting a flat background image, you can include several, and layer them using Prezi’s theme tool.  Then, the software will implement a parallax effect when zooming which makes the background pop out as though it were 3-dimensional.
• Insert flash files – Flash files (.swf) are one of the types of item you can include.  By placing them in the background behind your text, you can achieve sophisticated-looking results (see the fourth example at the bottom of the page).

Ease of Access

One of the best things about Prezi is that it’s freely available to anybody with Internet access and the right software plugins—the latter of which should be included by default on almost all computers.

No Cost

Anybody can create a Prezi account at no cost, although free accounts include a “Prezi” logo at the bottom of the screen and a limited amount of storage space, among a few other limitations.

For educators (anyone with a .edu address), the limitations are fewer:  you can replace the “Prezi” logo with another, and get more storage space.

Embeddable

You can give presentations from the Prezi website, or (with an Edu account) by downloading a SWF file that you can run from any computer with or without Internet access.

Prezi presentations are also very simple to embed (i.e. to place inside an external web page).  This means you can load a Prezi into your library’s instruction guides, or any other page on your site, and students will be able to look at the presentation any time—although they won’t be able to hear you speak, as Prezi has no real option to record or include voice.

Downsides

Of course, as with any program, there are a few drawbacks.

First, it’s not possible to print handouts of your presentation.  This is partly due to the nature of Prezi’s nonlinearity, which might make sensible handouts impossible.  It’s also a drawback of the web-based, flash-based nature of the software, which doesn’t allow for easy printing in any case.

Prezi’s zooming feature is very easy to over-use.  If you make a Prezi that’s too zoomy, or in which the items you’ve uploaded all face very different directions, you may end up making your audience sick—and you certainly won’t keep their focus.

Too much spinning and zooming will make your audience queasy.

Prezi has a rather steep learning curve.  It’s not what we’re used to seeing in presentation software, and so it can take quite a while to get used to how things are organized and where to find all the options (although see the addendum at the bottom of this post for an update on that).

While there may also be other drawbacks to the software as a presentation tool, overall its benefits seem to outweigh these costs.  Especially given that Prezi adds new features regularly, and is likely (at least for now) to be something students haven’t seen a whole lot of, Prezi should make any instruction session a more memorable experience.

Examples of Prezi in Use

Here are a few great examples of how Prezi can really make an instruction session memorable.  Some are simply more traditional slide-style presentations made more interesting through the use of the different visual cues in Prezi.  Others showcase the benefits of Prezi’s nonlinearity, infinite, zoomable canvas, and high degree of customization.

• RES104-Topic selection and narrowing – This Prezi from Becky Canovan at the University of Dubuque is a great example of how you can use Prezi’s nonlinear layout and frames to teach students how to select and narrow down a research topic
• Hunger Games Readalike – This Prezi (also by Becky Canovan) breaks out of the path altogether, using Prezi as a way to show relationships between items.
• The magical theory of relativity – This Prezi by Petra Marjai is an amazing example of what you can do with animation and extensive customization, as well as Prezi’s zoomable canvas features.

Addendum

While I was finishing up this blog post, I just got an e-mail from Prezi announcing that they’ve completely revamped their design.  Taking a look at the changes they’ve made, I think this newest change makes Prezi even more approachable.  They’ve removed the “bubble,” which was a big part of the learning curve, in favor of a simpler, more logical drop-down menu.

Prezi’s new, more simplified menu makes the whole process much easier.

If you’re new to Prezi, hopefully you won’t even notice, but if you’ve tried it before and got lost in the learning curve, now would be a great time to give the software another try.

by Stewart C Baker

Reference / Web Services Librarian

California State University, Dominguez Hills

Continue reading »]]> Author: Nastasha Johnson

Everywhere we turn there is talk about STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math disciplines. In February 2012, President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) issued a report, “Engage to Excel: Producing One Million Additional College Graduates with Degrees in STEM.” In the report, it advised that the U.S. needs more graduates than forecasted in order to remain economically competitive in a global market. As a boost of support, the Department of Education recently awarded $30.8 million in grants for high school student preparation for post-secondary education in the STEM fields.

Despite the initiatives and funding, we have not heard much about support units’ engagement with STEM fields. Let’s talk about 3 ideas for library engagement.

Within the University: Consider partnering with an academic unit on a grant. My university recently won a grant to pilot a developmental math project. It may not seem like the library had much to offer, but we did have space. Sure, space is a HUGE commitment but if we have one purpose, student achievement, then it is a little price to pay. Actually, the library gained a computer lab that is also a satellite location for math proctoring. Library faculty and staff do not proctor, but we do manage the space and computers. If there is an improvement in retention, decreases in the D and F grades, and Withdrawal rates are decreased, then the library has played a major role.

Outside of the University: Consider partnering with a vendor(s). Many of the online resources that academic departments rely on, like IEEExplore, have an outreach or training department that will come to your campus and conduct a training session. Be warned, it may also include a sales pitch for their latest product, but sometimes it does not. We partnered with our regional IEEE trainer to provide a session for our IEEE student chapter. It was an effort initiated by the library, but also coordinated with the Electrical Engineering department chair and IEEE student chapter advisor. The trainer shared information about the benefits of membership, scholarships and award contests that the students could participate. She also talked about conferences and networking opportunities. The IEEE trainer graciously bought pizza and brought freebies. Equally important, the librarian was able to get contact information of faculty and students for further engagement.

Regionally/Nationally: Consider traveling to partner. When you see that next announcement for a conference or workshop in the STEM disciplines, consider attending. Most recently I attended a Project Kaleidoscope meeting in a nearby city, where of the nearly 100 attendees there were only 2 librarians! Project Kaleidoscope (PKAL) is a unit of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, focused on strengthening STEM academic programs and learning. It is imperative that we librarians leave our building comfort zones and get out! I was able to answer that familiar question: “So, what do you do?” In this setting, they were eager to hear my answer and consider ways to collaborate. As a result, I was invited to the next departmental faculty meeting to talk about what I do and how I can help.

In closing, engaging STEM disciplines can be challenging, but it can also be rewarding for your library and for you individually. It does require thinking – and acting – outside of the box, but connecting with STEM fields can solidify that relevancy that academic libraries are seeking.

Nastasha Johnson is an Assistant Professor and Reference Librarian at F.D. Bluford Library at North Carolina A&T State University. She is Liaison for the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Liberal Studies, Computational Sciences, Computer Science, and Math Departments. She is also Chair of the Public Programs Committee of Bluford Library.

Continue reading »]]> Author: Beth Filar Williams

As a distance learning academic librarian, I am apt to find ways to virtually connect and collaborate. In the past year I have had some fabulous experiences with very distant, virtual librarianship. Last spring I hosted a completely virtual intern who lived in Uzbekistan through the Digital Libraries Learning Program (DILL) of the Erasmus Mundus (http://dill.hioa.no/), and this fall I am hosting another DILL student who lives in Germany. Knowing nothing about DILL beforehand, nor much about international librarianship, I simply said to myself when I saw the email asking for someone to host – “Why not try? How hard can it be?” Sometimes taking a risk can lead to unique, positive opportunities: This fall I was invited to travel to Italy to lecture f2f to the DILL students while they studied in Parma. Meeting, collaborating and engaging in discussions with 17 students and various guest lecturers from all over the world is an experience I would not have had without trying something new! Check out more about my experience & photos here: http://uncglibprofdev.blogspot.com/2012/10/dill-program-in-parma-italy.html

Beth Filar Williams is Coordinator of Library Services for Online and Distance Learning the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and also the current ULS Vice Chair/Chair-Elect. Find out more about Beth here: http://about.me/filarwilliams

Continue reading »]]> Many thanks to Gretchen Trkay, Instruction & Information Literacy Librarian, University of Texas at Arlington; Andy Herzog, Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Texas at Arlington; Rafia Mirza, Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Texas at Arlington; Boglarka Huddleston, Instruction & Information Literacy Librarian, University of Texas at Arlington; Jody Bailey, Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Texas at Arlington. This group shared information about their upcoming full-day ACRL preconference that will take place Wednesday, April 10, 8:30-3:30. For further details on the preconference or to register for it, please click on the link below.

Continue reading »]]> The ACRL ULS Executive Committee meeting is open to all ALA and ULS members.

Here are the meeting details:
January 26, 2013
8:30-11:30am
Hyatt at Olive 8, Room Azure

You can find a copy of the agenda at http://connect.ala.org/node/197370. Please let me know if you have any problems accessing the document.

Hope to see you in Seattle!

Stephanie Atkins
ULS Chair, 2012-2013