January 20, 2015 (Tuesday)

Time: 10am-11am (1 hr)
Hours completed (IST): 5/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 4/15
Accumulated on-site hours:9/150

Today I attended the weekly meeting of the Instruction Services staff. These meetings are a way for the members of the department to touch base, to discuss the progress and outcomes of projects, and to disseminate important information. Attending today helped cement the complexity of the university system. Something like reorganizing or adding to a shared hard drive can involve discussions with several departments and still requires a huge investment on time by members of the department to "clean up" or organize shared resources.

Some of the conversation also revolved around the difficulty of implementing and maintaining Instruction Services projects and initiatives because of ideas and plans of other departments both within and without the library. In other words, negotiating and communication appear to be paramount when working in an academic library.

Another issue that arose was the plagiarism school program. Attendance for the program has ballooned creating a large workload for the librarians who work with students. It is a useful program but it may be impossible to keep up with the current demand. Conversations on how to address this issue considered working closer with students before they are sent to the program, either by working with faculty in the classroom or by offering classes or workshops at the library.