Time: 10am-11am; 11am-12pm(2)
Hours completed (IST): 11.75/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 4/15
Accumulated on-site hours:15.75/150
Today I attended two IST meetings. The first reviewed the current progress of a scavenger hunt to introduce first-year students to the library. The second meeting concerned "game night," an outreach project for students on campus.
During the first meeting we watched and discussed the videos that students will watch to get clues on where to go next. Students move through the hunt and during the process are introduced to locations and services in the library. The hunt itself is a shorter, more manageable version of the ARG (alternate reality game) developed by the Penn State libraries where their mascot has been kidnapped and the student is charged with finding them. The videos and the overall composition of the Kent State seems like it will do a good job of introducing the library and some basic information literacy skills to students.
The "game night" meeting was to further develop an outreach event that invited students to come to the library to play video games and board games and to socialize with each other and librarians. It is similar to the Library Late Night that is held at the beginning of each academic year. That event has music; food; drinks; along with several video game stations and other activities. The library owns several Nintendo Wii systems along with games. There are several official and unofficial gaming clubs on campus and, based on the popularity of Late Night, it is a great way to bring students into the library. The meeting considered adding more hardware or software, assessed how different areas might be set up, possibly making room for a LAN party, and attempting to contact Red Bull representatives who are often on campus. The plans for the event will be further solidified with the hopes of having the event next academic year.
Attending department meetings has helped to show not only how far out planning for events seem to being, but how important time management is with so many short and long-term projects coexisting.
Friday, February 27, 2015
January 22, 2015 (Thursday)
Time: 9am-11am; 12:30pm-2pm; 7pm-8:15pm (4.75)
Hours completed (IST): 9.75/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 4/15
Accumulated on-site hours:13.75/150
Today I attended three bibliographic sessions conducted by three different librarians. Each session was provided for different types of users: Tammy did an outreach session for a high school; Vanessa did a session for education majors studying to teach social studies; and Michael's session was for lower-division undergraduates in the School of Communications. Witnessing the different styles fo teaching for this diversity of groups was highly elucidating.
For example, the outreach session for the high school students was essentially the same lecture that we would provide for first-year students; however, Tammy seemed noticeably conscious of slowing her speech and spending a little more time than I had witnessed of her in other sessions. Of course, this is something she would probably do with college students if she had the same amount of time with them: she had two hours to lecture and then assist students with their searches compared to the more usual 50 minutes.
During my session with Vanessa I noticed that she like to regularly ask questions of the students or have them participate in small projects. This is known as formative assessment and I understand why so many instructors use it. The students did seem more engaged and Vanessa explained later that this helps her to modify parts of her lesson on-the-fly. If they seem to get how to conduct a search quickly but most do poorly on her citation exercise, then she knows to readjust her lesson plan to fit the students' needs.
Michael has a very rapid-fire delivery which makes his use of a more summative assessment a great choice for him. Because he is very prepared for his lesson he seems to have development mental section breaks where he will stop and ask for any questions, or if people have understood thus far, or just to make a quick joke to give everybody a breather. It works as a tool to say, "Okay. We're done with this and moving on to something new."
The one thing that made each of these BIs so successful was that each had a good relationship with the instructor for each class. It seems that having an instruction session that most benefits the students requires a good working relationship between the faculty member and the librarian. Additionally, it was helpful to see different styles of assessment in action and how both can be very useful tools for instruction.
Hours completed (IST): 9.75/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 4/15
Accumulated on-site hours:13.75/150
Today I attended three bibliographic sessions conducted by three different librarians. Each session was provided for different types of users: Tammy did an outreach session for a high school; Vanessa did a session for education majors studying to teach social studies; and Michael's session was for lower-division undergraduates in the School of Communications. Witnessing the different styles fo teaching for this diversity of groups was highly elucidating.
For example, the outreach session for the high school students was essentially the same lecture that we would provide for first-year students; however, Tammy seemed noticeably conscious of slowing her speech and spending a little more time than I had witnessed of her in other sessions. Of course, this is something she would probably do with college students if she had the same amount of time with them: she had two hours to lecture and then assist students with their searches compared to the more usual 50 minutes.
During my session with Vanessa I noticed that she like to regularly ask questions of the students or have them participate in small projects. This is known as formative assessment and I understand why so many instructors use it. The students did seem more engaged and Vanessa explained later that this helps her to modify parts of her lesson on-the-fly. If they seem to get how to conduct a search quickly but most do poorly on her citation exercise, then she knows to readjust her lesson plan to fit the students' needs.
Michael has a very rapid-fire delivery which makes his use of a more summative assessment a great choice for him. Because he is very prepared for his lesson he seems to have development mental section breaks where he will stop and ask for any questions, or if people have understood thus far, or just to make a quick joke to give everybody a breather. It works as a tool to say, "Okay. We're done with this and moving on to something new."
The one thing that made each of these BIs so successful was that each had a good relationship with the instructor for each class. It seems that having an instruction session that most benefits the students requires a good working relationship between the faculty member and the librarian. Additionally, it was helpful to see different styles of assessment in action and how both can be very useful tools for instruction.
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
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.
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.
Tuesday, January 27, 2015
January 15, 2015 (Thursday)
Time: 9am-10am; 11am-12pm; 12pm-12:45pm; 1:15pm-2pm; 2pm-3pm (4.5 hrs)
Hours completed (IST): 4/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 4/15
Accumulated on-site hours:8/150
Today I observed two instruction sessions (9am and 11am) classes being taught by the same professor (the former was a 20000 level and the latter was a 30000). Though the class was at two different levels the themes and structures of the classes were very similar. The sessions began with a general introduction to the library's main page and discovery layer searches. Discovery layer searches are the default on the main page which, because the discovery layer was recently implemented, makes showing how to search using discovery an important aspect of student instruction. Tammy then showed students various reference services and databases that would be helpful for the final paper that the students would be writing later in the semester. Along with the presentation of reference services was a discussion of resource authority to reinforce the difference between an appropriate resource that can be cited and, for example, Wikipedia.
Two major takeaways from observing these two bibliographic instructions were:
Hours completed (IST): 4/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 4/15
Accumulated on-site hours:8/150
Today I observed two instruction sessions (9am and 11am) classes being taught by the same professor (the former was a 20000 level and the latter was a 30000). Though the class was at two different levels the themes and structures of the classes were very similar. The sessions began with a general introduction to the library's main page and discovery layer searches. Discovery layer searches are the default on the main page which, because the discovery layer was recently implemented, makes showing how to search using discovery an important aspect of student instruction. Tammy then showed students various reference services and databases that would be helpful for the final paper that the students would be writing later in the semester. Along with the presentation of reference services was a discussion of resource authority to reinforce the difference between an appropriate resource that can be cited and, for example, Wikipedia.
Two major takeaways from observing these two bibliographic instructions were:
- That the librarians has limited control over the session. The timing worked better for the professor to have this instruction occur at the beginning of the semester. Many students seem confused or might not have got as much out of the BI since they had yet to even choose their topics. This made it more difficult to tell them specifics. Additionally, the professor wanted the students to be shown both the graphic novel collection and special collection. This limited the total "class time" of the BI to about thirty minutes.
- I took the opportunity to compare the instruction to the Information Literacy Plan for Undergraduate Education. The lecture touched on all the level one and most of the level two skills despite the small amount of time available. Tammy, in a meeting later in the day (2pm-3pm), explained that preparation and repetition helps in these situations. By having a good relationship with the professor and a copy of the syllabus for the class she was able to craft the BI so it could provide the most useful information possible.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
January 14, 2015 (Wednesday)
Time: 3pm-4pm
Hours completed (ISD): 1/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 2.5/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 3.5/150
Today I spent some time working on the collection development project for Kara. This initial phase consists of looking through the OPAC (KentLINK) and making note of books that I believe could be moved to off-site storage books and replaced with books that are currently off-site. The main criteria that I was told to be aware of was books published in the last five-to-ten years that are located in off-site storage.
For books currently on campus I am using the following basic criteria to determine if they should be moved to off-site storage:
Several librarians have commented that they wish that they had time to conduct a similar analysis of their own collections. The impetus of this project came from a recent large-scale weeding that was done with an algorithm. One of the complaints of this process is that newer books were sent to off-site storage, rather than staying on campus. I am certainly learning how complex and time consuming it is to develop and maintain a collection.
Below is a scan of one page of notes from the project.
Hours completed (ISD): 1/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 2.5/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 3.5/150
Today I spent some time working on the collection development project for Kara. This initial phase consists of looking through the OPAC (KentLINK) and making note of books that I believe could be moved to off-site storage books and replaced with books that are currently off-site. The main criteria that I was told to be aware of was books published in the last five-to-ten years that are located in off-site storage.
For books currently on campus I am using the following basic criteria to determine if they should be moved to off-site storage:
- Do we have a newer edition of the book.
- Multiple copies.
- Theses over twenty-five years old with copies in Special Collection, on-site microfilm, or both.
- Books that have free digital facsimiles available online (ex: Google Books).
- Books more than sixty years old which are not considered central to the field.
Several librarians have commented that they wish that they had time to conduct a similar analysis of their own collections. The impetus of this project came from a recent large-scale weeding that was done with an algorithm. One of the complaints of this process is that newer books were sent to off-site storage, rather than staying on campus. I am certainly learning how complex and time consuming it is to develop and maintain a collection.
Below is a scan of one page of notes from the project.
Monday, January 19, 2015
January 13, 2015 (Tuesday)
Time: 10am-11am
Hours completed (total): 2.5/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 1.5/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 2.5/150
I had a meeting with Tammy Eschedor Voelker, my on-site supervisor, and Feng-Ru Sheu, whom I will be assisting with a project during the my CE. The purpose of this meeting was to expand on some of the ideas that were talk about when setting up this practicum as well as to give me an introduction to the types of experience and projects I will likely have. One of the first matters of business, aside from introductions and pleasantries, was to be invited to attend the weekly department meeting (beginning 1/20/2015) as well as scheduling weekly meetings with Tammy (beginning 1/26/2015). The purpose of the meetings with Tammy is to discuss and assess what I had done the previous week, and also to plan which directions or assignments I may want to focus on.
Tammy reiterated that I would be "bouncing around" to many different librarians in Instruction Services because different departments operate with with library in unique ways. Further, she reminded me that I had the option to work both in traditional as well as online settings. I expressed my interest in doing both.
Tammy assigned me to familiarize myself with UL's Information Literacy Plan for Undergraduate Education as well as ACRL Framework that is currently under consideration.
Feng-Ru discussed five projects I may be able to assist with:
Hours completed (total): 2.5/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 1.5/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 2.5/150
I had a meeting with Tammy Eschedor Voelker, my on-site supervisor, and Feng-Ru Sheu, whom I will be assisting with a project during the my CE. The purpose of this meeting was to expand on some of the ideas that were talk about when setting up this practicum as well as to give me an introduction to the types of experience and projects I will likely have. One of the first matters of business, aside from introductions and pleasantries, was to be invited to attend the weekly department meeting (beginning 1/20/2015) as well as scheduling weekly meetings with Tammy (beginning 1/26/2015). The purpose of the meetings with Tammy is to discuss and assess what I had done the previous week, and also to plan which directions or assignments I may want to focus on.
Tammy reiterated that I would be "bouncing around" to many different librarians in Instruction Services because different departments operate with with library in unique ways. Further, she reminded me that I had the option to work both in traditional as well as online settings. I expressed my interest in doing both.
Tammy assigned me to familiarize myself with UL's Information Literacy Plan for Undergraduate Education as well as ACRL Framework that is currently under consideration.
Feng-Ru discussed five projects I may be able to assist with:
- A review of online skill modules
- Usability testing (sometime in March)
- Instructional material (possibly videos) for the nursing liaison librarian
- Developing a scavenger hunt for library instruction which will likely use a mobile app
- Development of a library website for international students
January 11, 2015 (Sunday)
Time: 12pm-1:30pm
Hours completed (ISD): 0/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 1.5/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 1.5/150
As part of a previous discussion with Kara Robinson she suggested that I could possibly contact the History Department to get their input on the collection development project. I spent some time considering the best method to implement this idea if we chose to follow this route. Electronic communication seemed the best delivery choice and, rather than simply using an email, decided to devise a form that could be filled out by the respondents. I was aware that Microsoft Word could be used to create such a form but had never attempted to do so. After reading a few web sites, I was able to complete the History Assessment form. I was especially cognizant to create the form in such a way where scope could easily be change, as Kara explained that she saw this as the first step in a larger collection assessment.
After completing the form I showed it to Kara. She liked the idea of the form and felt it was well-done; however, she did not believe that the faculty would respond in great enough numbers to really help the assessment. Instead, I will proceed with reviewing the catalog with the goal of locating books that can be removed from on-site and replaced with off-site resources.
Hours completed (ISD): 0/135
Hours completed (Kara Robinson): 1.5/15
Accumulated on-site hours: 1.5/150
As part of a previous discussion with Kara Robinson she suggested that I could possibly contact the History Department to get their input on the collection development project. I spent some time considering the best method to implement this idea if we chose to follow this route. Electronic communication seemed the best delivery choice and, rather than simply using an email, decided to devise a form that could be filled out by the respondents. I was aware that Microsoft Word could be used to create such a form but had never attempted to do so. After reading a few web sites, I was able to complete the History Assessment form. I was especially cognizant to create the form in such a way where scope could easily be change, as Kara explained that she saw this as the first step in a larger collection assessment.
After completing the form I showed it to Kara. She liked the idea of the form and felt it was well-done; however, she did not believe that the faculty would respond in great enough numbers to really help the assessment. Instead, I will proceed with reviewing the catalog with the goal of locating books that can be removed from on-site and replaced with off-site resources.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)