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Winter e-Learning from ACRL

January 26th, 2012 by Margot Conahan in eLearning

ACRL is offering a wide variety of online learning opportunities in winter 2012 to meet the demands of your schedule and budget. Full details and registration information are available on the ACRL website.

Registration for all online seminars and Webcasts qualifies for the ACRL Frequent Learner Program. Register for three ACRL e-Learning events and receive one free registration. Visit the ACRL e-Learning website for more information on the Frequent Learner Program.

ACRL online seminars are asynchronous, multi-week courses delivered through Moodle. Online seminars scheduled for winter 2012 include:

Developing a Comprehensive Critical Thinking Curriculum: From Goal-Setting to Assessment (February 6 – March 2, 2012): Even professional educators have a tough time designing learning experiences that help students develop authentic critical thinking skills. Learn to do more than just pay lip service to critical thinking by planning, developing, implementing and assessing a library instructional unit that fosters higher-order thinking.

Deciding with Data (February 13 – March 9, 2012): Learn about the lifecycle of library data from setting up its collection to making decisions using this information. Topics covered include plotting commonly-gathered statistics over time and on the same chart in order to visualize trends; an introduction to e-resources use statistics; in introduction to using Google Analytics in libraries; and an introduction to the analysis of library collections using ILS data.

Fundamentals of Management: Practical Approaches for Successful Managers (March 5-23, 2012): This course provides a practical approach to becoming a successful library manager, including strategies for planning, organizing, staffing and evaluating library departments and programs. Through a series of readings, discussions and exercises, gain real-world tools for improving your management skills and develop confidence in your ability to supervise and manage.

Humanities on the Map: Discovering Spatial Humanities (March 12 – 30, 2012): Because Humanities librarians are beginning to encounter students and faculty who want to include such geographic components to their papers and research they need to be aware of the different approaches to introducing geography and the study of space into other disciplines. Through a variety of readings, resource assignments, and project evaluations this course will provide an overview/awareness of, discussions on the role of the librarian in and useful resources for assisting students and faculty in the Spatial Humanities

ACRL also offers a variety of timely live Webcasts addressing hot topics in academic librarianship. Webcasts last from an hour and a half to two hours and take place in an interactive online classroom. Group discounts are available for all ACRL e-Learning Webcasts. Winter 2012 Webcasts include:

Say What You Mean: Professional Communication Skills for Librarians (January 31, 2012): Learn how to use different communication styles to interact effectively with people across several library settings.

From Idea to Publication Part One: Understanding the Research Question (February 7, 2012): Learn to formulate and define good research questions, select appropriate research methodologies and design the research study. Specific topics will include developing useful questionnaires, techniques used in conducting telephone interviews, working with focus groups and constructing surveys to get the information you need.

From Idea to Publication Part Two: Analysis and Writing (March 7, 2012): Quantitative methods necessitate certain kinds of analyses, while qualitative methods operate on different assumptions and different kinds of data.  It is essential to have an understanding of the appropriate forms of analyses (along with their possibilities and limitations).  Learn to express research in publishable form in the second part of this three part series.

The Library’s Role in Ensuring the Success of International Efforts on Campus (March 13, 2012): Libraries can play a critical role in connecting these foreign students, not only to our universities and colleges, but also to the information literacy skills they will need to succeed.  This webcast will explore who are international students and what makes them unique learners; best practices for outreach, orientation, and information literacy instruction to all international students and specifically to graduate students; and how can the library get international students themselves involved as partners in services, resources and peer mentors?

Shifting Sands: How Small Changes in Policy, Culture and Technology are Determining the Future of Libraries (March 27, 2012): Discover how changes in national and international policy, the growth of the free culture movement, and the rapid evolution of technology are having big impacts on libraries, and what you can do to help turn the tide.

Complete details and registration information for all winter 2012 e-Learning opportunities are available online. Contact Margot Conahan at mconahan@ala.org or (312) 280-2522 for more information.

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2012 ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award

January 25th, 2012 by Megan Griffin in Awards

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) announces the recipients of the 2012 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award – Seattle Central Community College (SCCC) Library; Champlain College Library, Burlington, Vt. and the Grand Valley State University (GVSU) Libraries, Allendale, Mich. Sponsored by ACRL and YBP Library Services, the award recognizes the staff of a college, university and community college library for programs that deliver exemplary services and resources to further the educational mission of the institution.

“This year’s award recipients exemplify the commitment of today’s academic and research librarians to providing quality, innovative student learning experiences,” said ACRL Executive Director Mary Ellen K. Davis. “Receiving an Excellence in Academic Libraries Award is a national tribute to each library and its staff for outstanding services, programs and leadership.”

The Seattle Central Community College Library, winner in the community college category, was chosen for its team support for student learning through innovative information literacy offerings.

“The award committee was impressed with SCCC’s online course, Research for the 21st Century, which is now part of the state’s online learning consortium, Washington Online,” said Lori Goetsch chair of the 2012 Excellence in Academic Libraries Committee and dean of libraries at Kansas State University. “Recognizing that community college students are often juggling busy schedules between school and work, they are making innovative use of the campus courseware system to provide ‘Info in Action’ one-credit courses that allow students to take advantage of information literacy instruction in smaller segments.”

“SCCC librarians have employed creative marketing and communication techniques such as posters and bookmarks that reflect their ‘Reflect-Learn-Connect’ research model that has been used by other libraries locally and nationally,” Goetsch continued.  “Through these initiatives and others, they have built a shared, collaborative culture with teaching faculty for student learning.”

“We are surprised and thrilled to receive this honor,” said Wai-Fong Lee, executive dean for instructional resources at SCCC. “Our library is a key resource to the college and our staff is passionate about providing the best library possible. Although we don’t have an excellent library facility, we make up for it with quality service, strong support for innovative teaching and learning and promotion of information literacy across the curriculum. We’ve also benefited from working closely with other libraries in the Washington state community and technical college system. We are humbled to share company with the great academic libraries that have received this award.”

The Champlain College Library, winner of this year’s award in the college category, impressed the selection committee with its nontraditional approach to instruction and positive student-driven environment.

“The library’s small but mighty staff  have a big impact on campus, and they have fun as well, fostering community through inventive social and cultural events,” Goetsch noted. “The campus has adopted technology and information literacy as a core competency, and the library provides leadership through an information literacy program that is incremental, inquiry-based, embedded in the core curriculum and assessed through established rubrics. Surveys indicate that students have come to recognize the technology and information literacy core competency as most important to their academic success. It is clear that these librarians love what they do and spark creativity by working as team.”

“The Champlain College Library is deeply honored to receive this award,” said Janet Cottrell, director of the library at Champlain College. “This recognition from ACRL is a tribute to the enthusiasm, creativity and hard work of everyone in the library, and to the collaborative spirit of our campus. Our work is — and will remain — challenging, and this honor is a testament to what a small group of people can accomplish through innovation and dedication as we aspire to embody Champlain College’s motto:  ‘Audeamus  — Let us dare!’ We are deeply grateful to ACRL and YBP.”

Grand Valley State University Libraries, winner in the university category, was selected for the collaborative and effective approach taken to restructuring the library organization and build an innovative, agile and flexible team-based organization that is responsive to changing user needs.

“Rather than succumbing to the very difficult economic conditions in Michigan, this ‘reinvented’ library has been successful in garnering the strong support of university administration for a $70 million project to build a new library and information commons that will open in 2013,” Goetsch noted. “Reorganization has also enabled librarians to focus on information literacy initiatives that have led to the development of core competencies and scalable rubrics for assessment. One of these rubrics, ‘Research Guidance Rubric,’ is directed at faculty to assist them in developing effective research assignments for their students. Based in its success at GVSU, this rubric has been adopted by other libraries.”

“When we first began to talk about applying for the ACRL Excellence in Academic Libraries Award, we considered whether to wait until our new building opens in 2013,” said Lee VanOrsdel, GVSU dean of university libraries. “But we didn’t want our application to be about a building—as fabulous as that is going to be. We wanted it to be about our organization and our staff and the ways we have learned to work together to serve our university in exceptional ways. We are honored to be recognized by our academic library colleagues for the work we are doing here at GVSU. We are proud to bring this award to the university that gave us the support and resources to dream big.”

Each winning library will receive $3,000 and a plaque, to be presented at an award ceremony held on each recipient’s campus.

Additional information on the award, along with a list of past winners, is available online at http://www.ala.org/acrl/awards/achievementawards/excellenceacademic.

About ACRL
ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing more than 12,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments. ACRL is on the Web at http://www.acrl.org/, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ala.acrl and Twitter at @ala_acrl.

About YBP Library Services
YBP Library Services, a Baker & Taylor company, provides books and supporting collection management and technical services to academic, research and special libraries in the Americas, Asia, Middle East, Australia and the Pacific Rim. GOBI, YBP Library Services’ online, interactive bibliographic information service, provides access to 4 million titles in an English language database. YBP is located in Contoocook, NH, USA. For more on the company, visit http://www.ybp.com.

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ACRL Endorses Guidelines for Assessment and Accountability

January 24th, 2012 by Kara Malenfant in Advocacy

ACRL endorsed Committing to Quality: Guidelines for Assessment and Accountability, released today by the New Leadership Alliance during the Council for Higher Education Accreditation’s Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.

Are students learning? Colleges and universities should expect to hear this question more often and more forcefully. They must act to ensure that their college degrees reflect a high level of student achievement — and to reaffirm the quality of these credentials. They can do so by gathering, using, and publicly reporting evidence of student learning. Committing to Quality: Guidelines for Assessment and Accountability gives colleges strategies they can use to take these critical steps. It has been endorsed by endorsed by 27 national higher education organizations, including ACRL.

The New Leadership Alliance, an advocacy-focused organization, has a mission of leading and supporting voluntary and cooperative efforts to move the higher education community towards gathering, reporting on, and using evidence to improve student learning in American undergraduate education.

Previously, ACRL was invited by the New Leadership Alliance to author an article for their December e-newsletter. The article “Exploring the Contributions of the Academic Library to Student Learning” highlights ACRL’s initiatives in this area.

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Paula T. Kaufman Named 2012 ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year

January 24th, 2012 by Megan Griffin in Awards

Paula KaufmanPaula T. Kaufman, Juanita J. and Robert E. Simpson Dean of Libraries and university librarian and professor of library administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is the 2012 Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ACRL) Academic/Research Librarian of the Year. The award, sponsored by YBP Library Services, recognizes an outstanding member of the library profession who has made a significant national or international contribution to academic/research librarianship and library development.

Kaufman will receive a $5,000 award at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, June 25, 2012, during the joint ACRL/ALCTS President’s Program at the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim.

“Paula Kaufman’s record of accomplishments is exemplary in many ways,” said John M. Budd, chair of the ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year Award Committee and professor

in the University of Missouri School of Information Science and Learning Technologies. “She has been a distinct leader at several organizations and has been influential in every venue in which she has worked. Nominees and supporters uniformly extol her abilities to build consensus, to develop multi-institutional groups and to work with diverse and sometimes opposing bodies. She also has an outstanding record of publications and presentations through which she clearly communicated managerial, organizational and development topics.”

“News of having won this award came as a total surprise,” said Kaufman. “Being recognized by my colleagues is the greatest honor I can imagine. In turn, I must recognize that any success I have achieved is due to the privilege I’ve had to work with talented and caring people. I am very humbled to be joining the list of my many outstanding colleagues who have received this prestigious award in the past.”

Over the course of her career, Kaufman has made a significant impact on the profession through her extraordinary leadership abilities, vision and strategic thinking for the future of libraries, along with the generosity with which she shares her inspirations and insights. Her leadership of some of the largest academic research libraries in the United States has positioned her to engage directly with a wide range of issues facing libraries of all sizes and missions. Her positive and energetic approach to problem solving has benefited not only the libraries in which she has worked, but also the larger library community.

Kaufman’s distinguished record of service to the profession includes serving as a member of the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Board of Directors from 1997-2003, including a term as president from 2001-02; a founding board member of the Consortium of Academic Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) since 2005; a member of the Center for Research Libraries Board of Directors from 1994-2000, including a term as chair in 1996; and as a member of the HATHI Trust executive committee since 2008. She has additionally been honored with the Illinois Library Association Illinois Academic Librarian of the Year Award (2011) and the Hugh C. Atkinson Award (2010), which is jointly sponsored by ACRL/ALCTS/LLAMA/LITA.

Her publications include seminal articles such as  “Library Value (Return on Investment, ROI) and the Challenge of Placing a Value on Public Services” in Reference Services Review (with Sarah Watstein, 2008); “The Library as Strategic Investment: Results of the Illinois Return on Investment Study” in LIBER Quarterly (2008); “It’s Not Your Parent’s Library Anymore: Challenges and Opportunities in the New Webs of Complexity” in the Journal of Library Administration (2007) and “Professional Diversity in Libraries” in Library Trends (1992). She has served on the Journal of Library Administration editorial board since 1995. Kaufman has additionally presented on topics including management, scholarly communication and library value at library and higher education conferences around the world.

Prior to joining Illinois as university librarian in 1999, Kaufman served as dean of libraries at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (1988-99) and in a variety of positions including director of the Academic Information Services Group, acting head of the East Asian Library and business and economics librarian at Columbia University from 1979 to 1988.

Kaufman received her A.B. in Economics from Smith College in 1968, her M.S. in Library Science from Columbia University in 1969 and an M.B.A. in management from the University of New Haven in 1979.

The award dates back to 1978, and recent award winners include Janice Welburn (2011); Maureen Sullivan (2010); Gloriana St. Clair (2009); Peter Hernon (2008); Lizabeth (Betsy) Wilson (2007); Ray English (2006); Ravindra Nath (R. N.) Sharma (2005); Tom Kirk (2004); Ross Atkinson, (2003); Shelley Phipps, (2002) and Larry Hardesty (2001).

For more information regarding the ACRL Academic/Research Librarian of the Year award, or a complete list of past recipients, please visit http://www.ala.org/acrl/awards/achievementawards/acrllibrarian.

About ACRL
ACRL is a division of the American Library Association (ALA), representing more than 12,000 academic and research librarians and interested individuals. ACRL is the only individual membership organization in North America that develops programs, products and services to meet the unique needs of academic and research librarians. Its initiatives enable the higher education community to understand the role that academic libraries play in the teaching, learning and research environments. ACRL is on the Web at http://www.acrl.org/, Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/ala.acrl and Twitter at @ala_acrl.

About YBP Library Services
YBP Library Services, a Baker & Taylor company, provides books and supporting collection management and technical services to academic, research and special libraries in the Americas, Asia, Middle East, Australia and the Pacific Rim. GOBI, YBP Library Services’ online, interactive bibliographic information service, provides access to 4 million titles in an English language database. YBP is located in Contoocook, NH, USA. For more on the company, visit http://www.ybp.com.

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Member of the Week: Lori Buchanan

January 23rd, 2012 by Mary Jane Petrowski in Member of the Week

Lori BuchananLori Buchanan is Coordinator of Research and Instruction at Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, TN. Lori has been an ACRL member since 1985 and is your ACRL member of the week.

1. Describe yourself in three words:  Learning, connecting, appreciating.

2. What are you reading right now? As a participant in the APSU Faculty Leadership Program this fall, I read Seth Godin‘s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? and Strengths Based Leadership by Tom Rath and Barry Conchie. For fun, I just finished Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks and Anne Patchett‘s State of Wonder.

3. Describe ACRL in three words: Librarians, scholarship, service.

4. Why do you value most about ACRL? The professional development opportunities such as the Women’s Leadership Institute that I just attended, as well as the many opportunities to network with other academic librarians that ACRL sponsors are greatly valued.

5. What do you value about academic or research librarianship? Making connections with faculty and students that enhance the teaching and learning process is what it’s all about.

6. In your own words: Working on a university campus affords me a myriad of opportunities to learn something new every day as I strive to contribute to the teaching and learning process. I enjoy being a part of shared governance on my campus, serving on Faculty Senate and various university committees. There are many ways that librarians can and should step up and lead.

Becoming knowledgeable about what’s going on around campus helps me to make connections which enable the library to play a larger role in various campus initiatives.  I can’t imagine any other career bringing me greater joy and I’m very appreciative of the Duke University reference and law librarians who first mentored me in pursuing this profession.

Editor’s Note: Are you an ACRL member? Would you like to be featured as ACRL Member of the Week? Nominate a colleague? Contact Mary Jane Petrowski at mpetrowski@ala.org for more information.

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E.J. Josey Spectrum Committee Seeks Mentors

January 19th, 2012 by David Connolly in Diversity, Leadership

What’s it About?
If you are interested in developing the next generation of academic librarians and ensuring a diverse workforce, consider mentoring a Spectrum Scholar through the ACRL Dr. E.J. Josey Spectrum Scholar Mentor Program.  The goal of the program is to link participating library school students and newly graduated librarians, who are of American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino or Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander descent, with established academic librarians who will provide mentoring and coaching support.

What’s Involved?
Mentors will serve as role models in academic librarianship and provide career guidance as well as helping mentees find opportunities for leadership in the profession. Because many of the Spectrum Scholars are part-time library school students, a mentor must make a commitment for a minimum of one year beyond the degree, or a maximum of three years.  Mentors must be academic librarians, have a minimum of ten years of professional library experience, and be active in ACRL.

Mentors will receive Web-based training from ACRL to assist them in building a successful mentoring relationship. Mentor responsibilities include:

  • Agreeing to contact the mentee monthly or on a regular basis.
  • Agreeing to attend a Dutch-treat lunch or dinner meeting with other Spectrum Scholars and mentors to promote networking when at ALA/ACRL conferences.
  • Agreeing to spend time with the scholar at library conferences when both are in attendance.
  • Submitting brief status reports and an annual report (one page form).

How to Apply
If you are interested in becoming a mentor for an ALA Spectrum Scholar through the ACRL Dr. E.J. Josey Spectrum Scholar Mentor program, please complete the application (PDF).

What Happens Next?
The ACRL Dr. E.J. Josey Spectrum Scholar Mentor Committee is developing a pool of ready and trained mentors, so that the best possible matches can quickly be made as Spectrum Scholars express their interest in participating in the program. If we are unable to assign you a scholar immediately, you will be notified and your paperwork will be kept on file.

Please apply today (PDF) to be an ACRL Spectrum Scholar Mentor! The profession needs you.

If you have additional questions about the ACRL Dr. E. J. Josey Spectrum Scholar Mentor Program please contact Committee Chair Nancy Allen at nancy.allen@du.edu or ACRL staff member Kathryn Deiss at kdeiss@ala.org.

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ACRL Endorses Forthcoming Code of Best Practices in Fair Use; Encourages Members to Learn More

January 19th, 2012 by Kara Malenfant in Events

ACRL recently endorsed the forthcoming Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Academic and Research Libraries, which will be issued later this month by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). Together with the Center for Social Media at American University and the Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property in American University’s Washington College of Law, ARL has been working since April 2010 to develop the code. The project is funded by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and now entering its third phase: extensive outreach to promote broad adoption of the code by research and academic librarians throughout the U.S.

We encourage ACRL members to attend a free webcast, offered by ARL, to learn more about the code on Thursday, January 26, 3:00–4:00 p.m. Eastern time. The Code facilitators—Patricia Aufderheide of the Center for Social Media at American University, Brandon Butler of ARL, and Peter Jaszi of the American University Law School—will deliver a brief presentation on the contents of the code, followed by a question-and-answer session. Find out more and register online in advance.

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Curriculum Materials Collections and Centers: Legacies from the Past, Visions of the Future

January 18th, 2012 by Kathryn Deiss in Publications

Curriculum Materials Collections and CentersACRL announces the release of Curriculum Materials Collections and Centers: Legacies from the Past, Visions of the Future. Edited by Rita Kohrman, education resources librarian at Grand Valley State University, the book provides practical applications for curriculum material center (CMC) operations that focus on the fundamental needs of students, faculty and current teachers.

Capturing the evolution of the education collections and services integral to teacher preparation, initial chapters focus on the foundations of place CMCs within theoretical and historical contexts—their original goals, purposes and services. Succeeding chapters discuss how curriculum centers are evolving to meet current and future changes in teacher preparation. Among the notable contributors are Nancy O’Brien, Penny Beile and JoAnn Carr, all recipients of the ACRL/EBSS Distinguished Education and Behavioral Sciences Librarian Award. Carr is also editor of the ACRL publication A Guide to the Management of Curriculum Materials Centers for the 21st Century. Additional chapters are written by other distinguished practitioners and leaders in the fields of education and curriculum centers librarianship. This volume is essential reading for education liaison librarians, curriculum materials center collections and librarians, library schools and general professional collections.

Curriculum Materials Collections and Centers: Legacies from the Past, Visions of the Future is available for purchase in print, as an e-book, and as a print/ e-book bundle through the ALA Online Store; in print and for Kindle at Amazon.com; and by telephone order at (866) 746-7252 in the U.S. or (770) 442-8633 for international customers. The title will also be available in the ALA Store at the upcoming ALA Midwinter Meeting in Dallas.

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ACRL Comments on Public Access to Digital Data Resulting from Federally Funded Research

January 18th, 2012 by Kara Malenfant in Advocacy, Scholarly Communication

Last week, ACRL submitted comments in response to the request for information (RFI) issued November 3, 2011, by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). ACRL recommended approaches for ensuring long-term stewardship and encouraging broad public access to unclassified digital data that results from federally funded scientific research. ACRL’s comments address the first nine questions posed in the RFI about policy for preservation, discoverability and access. This second set of comments follows our earlier comments to OSTP on December 21 about public access to the peer-reviewed scholarly publications that result from federally funded scientific research.

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C&RL News – January 2012

January 17th, 2012 by David Free in C&RL News

C&RL News - January 2012The January 2012 issue of C&RL News is now freely available online. Data curation, management, and preservation are increasingly becoming part of the academic and research library’s contributions to their institutions. Susan Wells Parham, Jon Bodnar, and Sara Fuchs outline methods used at the Georgia Institute of Technology to assess faculty data curation needs in their article “Supporting tomorrow’s research.” At the University of Texas-San Antonio, librarians reached out to their campus community by collaborating with human resources to add a library introduction class for professional and administrative staff to the university orientation process. Natasha Arguello and DeeAnn Green discuss the project in “You mean I can use the library, too?”

In this month’s ACRL TechConnect feature, Harry Glazer revisits his 2009 C&RL News article on library Facebook pages and poses the question “‘Likes’ are lovely, but do they lead to more logins?” The article discusses possible metrics for gauging Facebook page success. The trends of the mobile Web and apps continue to grow, especially as more smart devices become available. Stefanie Havelka and Alevtina Verbovetskaya present a call to arms for “Mobile information literacy” in their The Way I See It essay.

The new year means another round of ALA/ACRL elections. We take a look at this year’s candidates for ACRL vice-president/ president-elect, Board of Directors, and section officers in this month’s issue. Review the full statements by the vice-presidential candidates forthcoming in the February issue and vote in the election beginning March 19.

Make sure to check out the other features and columns this month, including Internet Resources on the bicentennial of the War of 1812 by Susan M. Frey, the newly revised ACRL Standards for Libraries in Higher Education, the index for last year’s volume of C&RL News, and our usual slate of departments including Internet Reviews and New Publications.

Thanks as always for reading the News!

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