I'm currently participating in a Learning Company series of instruction on the Art of Teaching. At times pedantic, there have been many gems within the twelve week course that can be taken to heart for instruction, or group meetings.

Yesterday's session discussed how to ensure that students have the core skills needed to master the curriculum one is presenting. I was stunned by the assessment shown in the course of the video and saddened at the same time. Core skills such as reading aloud, comprehension of the written word and note taking were featured and it was stressed that college level students *do not have these skills.*

I have been blessed with natural curiosity and desire for learning. I have found systems that work well for me personally and that was only through life long example and learning instilled by teachers at a young age. I wondered to myself about the propensity for learning these skills in one's late teens and early twenties. I think of my older brother who at age 45 went to college for the first time after his high school graduation. School in his younger years was neither easy nor fun for him. He has the intellect, but the skills to discipline his studies did not come easy then. I strongly encouraged him to make use of his school's teaching resource center and tutoring services. And yet, I wonder at the basic skills outlined in the Learning Company video, and how well those skills were transmitted and mastered in his technical college.

The early training of these skills are overlooked as literature and arts fade from elementary and middle schools. The group of faculty who viewed the presentation together agreed that students made to stand and deliver in front of a camera on the first day of class might not perform excellently. And yet the signs of embarrassment and hesitance were obvious. I've witnessed young people feel put upon to stand and read. I saw the Learning Company instructor direct the student in pulling apart the text at hand. It was more invasive and brutally embarrassing than anything I experienced in school.

It's no wonder that when I read an article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education that I was reminded of the series presentation yesterday. The article and comments discuss alternative skills-based learning for adults. The group 180 Skills helps companies design training programs to educate employees in the skills needed to stay relevant and valued in the workplace. While altogether focused on manufacturing, this same model can be used in any workplace, it would seem. It does required the identification and build out of the needed  curriculum, but it can be self-driven. The Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative has extended this targeted learning to academe. It seems to be an enriched version of the Open Courseware concept which began at MIT but is now enriched by consortia partnerships. Open Courseware provides higher education learning materials. As I understand the Carnegie Mellon endeavor, there are instructors available as well to help guide and enrich the learning. Other similar groups are emerging at this time. Without direction or purpose, it seems that this curriculum may have little value. With application to the workplace or development program, much can be gained if the desire to learn is present, and if we can recapture and expand upon those core skills, the acquisition of which are being delayed or lost entirely.

In this time of economic maelstrom and vacuum for sustainable employment, perhaps it's time we as a society turn to other models of instruction that can expand on our foundations as they are and help to strengthen our workforce and higher education for the future.

Last week I attended the Indiana Library Federation - Annual Conference at the Grand Wayne Center, Fort Wayne, IN (November 14-16). Marcy Simons and I were selected to provide a poster session on our topic of study, appreciative inquiry. The session went well and while there, I took advantage of meeting colleagues and attending some other sessions. Here are some highlights. I think there’s a little something for everyone.

Keynote Day 1, Thomas Frey, DaVinci Institute
http://www.davinciinstitute.com/          

Frey is a futurist who helped to bring forward the questions about the library and the future. The framework used was a bit of a twist from past discussions. Frey asserted that, "If your next project doesn't address the needs of the future, the future will kill it." What followed was a series of small case studies, including the use of smartphone camera technology to imagine a see it-point-click-purchase future. Frey advised keeping an eye toward developments of Google Goggles, yet another factor which will continue to support the un-tethering of society.

The baseline example presented was the development of mathematics in the ancient world. When one thinks of great, ancient mathematicians we default to the Greeks. While assuredly the Roman world had math, one doesn't immediately think of Roman mathematicians. Why? Roman numerals as a system did not allow for direct computations the way other numbering systems did. The Roman numerals are themselves computations which prevented the systematic advancement of Roman mathematics. Frey asked the audience to consider what systems we have in place today that are the equivalent to Roman numerals, and further posed the question: Are libraries akin to Roman numerals.

Frey's tip of the day was reference to the animated media logo for DaVinci--he paid $5.00 for the short media marketing clip to someone who posted their willingness to do the work for the amount on fiverr.com. Fiverr is a service worth monitoring for similar needs in our library as we continue to move toward our strategic initiatives with limited budgets for marketing and communication.

Data Mining 101: Introduction to Data Mining Techniques, Tasks, Issues and Challenges
Presenter: Katherine Schilling - IUPUI SLIS Faculty

Note: This presentation is timely and relevant given our present focus on strategic planning and assessment.

Data Mining = Knowledge Discovery in Data

Librarians mine data to understand users and processes - we've done this for years, so we haven't missed the boat as a profession. Descriptive and Predictive are two types of data. Predictive is about using the data to make guesses about what might be whereas descriptive data talks about what is. Usage, content and structure mining are types of data mining.

Take advantage when designing your data collection. What questions are you trying to answer? This must be answered before you begin collecting data. Without knowing what questions you have to answer you may be collecting data without purpose or ability to use. The data and the questions define the tasks.

Open source programs exist but require A LOT of programming. There is a huge learning curve with any program for data processing, but the open source does require lots of programming as well. KNIME has been around for years. For purchase SPSS is numeric and has a text mining plug in. WordStat is text based, expensive, but so worth it.

Pointing Evaluation at Your Purpose: Designing a Library-Wide Evaluation Plan
Presenter: Rachel Applegate, Indiana University School of Library and Information Science

 I attended this session with an eye toward bringing back information for the Balanced Scorecard Team as well as my own unit and LTD. This session focused on getting perspective on what you're doing, getting to the why of doing what you're doing and ensuring that you're strategically collecting data about the how you're getting there.

Three methodologies were shared: DASHBOARD, Balanced Scorecard and the Mission Plan. Little emphasis was given in the one hour session for DASHBOARD and Balanced Scorecard. Dashboard provides a visual, updating view of how you're doing the things that change frequently. An example is available at the Indianapolis Museum of Art. A brief discussion of the Balanced Scorecard, which MPOW is using at present, was also given. The strength of the Balanced Scorecard is that it can reveal gaps and helps to balance initiatives against all facets of your strategic plan. The third methodology was most explored, and centers on the Mission Plan, the plan that pulls apart the different clauses in your mission statement which indicates what you do and how often evaluation occurs. Whether you approach the mission plan from the purpose or the evaluation end of the spectrum of activity, it is important that the purpose and evaluation meet to tell the whole story of how you are meeting the institution's mission.

The mission plan informs the types of data collection forms that will be needed, and those typically fall under the three facets of library: collection, services and facilities. Prior to determining the types of mechanisms for collecting data, it is imperative that one define the data that is needed to answer the questions. Some common methodologies include: Annual patron surveys, LibQual+ and circulation data.

Overall, it's important that one look to their mission and ensure it represents what you do. Once this is clear, the next step is to identify what data is gathered about those things, determine how best to measure the mission components and to determine when and how often one measures. It's possible (and likely) parts of the mission are orphaned, without data available or collected. Creativity can step in and help determine where to find the data to assess.

Keynote Day 2 – Gene Ambaum and Bill Barnes, Unshelved

Gene and Bill provided much needed levity and collegiality with interactive engagement and commiseration about our lives as librarians and how their art imitates life. If you’re not familiar with Unshelved take a few moments. I’m not a regular reader. Last week was particularly irreverent and eternally true in the depiction of gifts-in-kind: Begin at http://www.unshelved.com/2011-11-14 and use the “Next” navigation.

On Wednesday, October 19, 2011, I travelled from South Bend to the University of Chicago with seven of my library colleagues. We took a Professional Development Committee sponsored trip to visit the Regenstein Library and the Mansueto Library, with the purpose of sharing information and touring the new library repository with automatic retrieval system.

We met with David Larsen, head of Access Services for Regenstein Library at the first floor security entrance. The lobby had undergone recent renovation and had simple yet welcoming leather seating clustered on area rugs on the original flooring. The information desk had an LED display which beckoned visitors with a warm, yet simple and to the point, “Questions Wanted” advertisement.  Likewise, placement of the new IT collaboration for patron tech support was behind a service desk labeled with the catchy ‘TechBar’ moniker.

During our introductory meeting with key library staff, we received a print copy of the Fall 2001 edition of Libra (LIBrary Reports and Announcements) which featured the dedication of the Mansueto Library. The photos are stunning, yet even on a rainy day pictures do not do justice for the lighting and overall feeling within the new building. The dome houses the grand reading room and 2/3 of the preservation and conservation services. The dome itself tops the five story automatic retrieval system repository. Online requests are fulfilled within a target 15 minute timeframe. A full-time technician has been hired to maintain the robotic crane system, and the compact storage throughout several locations of the campus library system.

Following a brief break for lunch, we convened for a show and tell in which Eric and Rick shared work on the Catholic portal and the digital repository, respectively, and David Bietila from Chicago shared work on their year long pilot of the Ebsco Discovery Service instance which is locally called “Articles Plus”: http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/db/articlesplus.html  Access is restricted to campus users. Reviews seem mixed at this time.

We broke into small groups following the show and tell. At this time I met with Scott Perry, Acquisitions Budget, Vendor Relations and Gifts-in-Kind. He was helpful in providing a tour, an overview of policies and procedures and discussion of their twice a year sale. Their acceptance policy is comparatively more stringent, processing and the sale is managed by student workers (typically graduate students), and the unit functions well with specific, uniform decision making-guidelines for adds to and rejects from the collection, supported by pre-sale selector review of declined / withdrawn materials designated to the sale. They do not at this time use services such as Better World Books for disposal as the majority (if not all) materials are picked up by patrons and booksellers in their semi-annual sale.

Materials are sold twice yearly with a sliding price scale: Day 1=$20.00; Day 2=$15.00; Day 3=$10.00; Day 4=$5.00; Day 5=Free! The profits go back into the general materials fund and the library has been successful in helping donors see the benefit of serving the academic community when materials do not fit collection needs or duplicate materials already held.

Beware the Zombie Hoardes: Or, Know your escape plan.....

 One of my colleagues shared this great bib guide today from McPherson College Library: Library of the Living Dead: Your guide to Miller Library at McPherson College  It's a well done introduction to library orientation using a zombie attack story to get the reader engaged in the physical location of materials in the library. I'm a firm believer in bringing information to your community in their own language. This serves that purpose and helps to affirm value for libraries to a pop-culture generation.

I'm in the midst of an environmental scan for in-kind gifts policies. At risk of sounding ageist, I would love to see a graphical articulation of our own gift-in-kind acceptance policy. I think we're a long way off from this at present. Certainly I have the resources in small press / independent writers and publishers via connections with my spouse. Perhaps I can distill the information at a later date and share it graphically.

Shaking the Bedrock of Academic Libraries

This morning a colleague shared an editorial written by Rick Anderson in The Journal of Academic Librarianship. The article from the July 2011 issue is titled "The Crisis in Research Librarianship."

Rick is someone I love to hear talk at conference. He is articulate and bold in his statements, the insights he provides bring to the conversation context for thinking about who librarians are as a profession and what libraries will be as institutions. In this commentary, Rick had me at "Perception matters more than reality." The older I've gotten the more I have found this to be an universal truth. Perceptions are so important to any human interaction or assessment.

Rick brought his assertion about the crisis to bear through three points:

1. Perception matters more than reality;
2. Patrons genuinely do not need librarians as much as they once did;
3. Value that is not valued is not valuable.

Media and mastery, or at least functionally literate use of the media has brought more awareness of information to the masses. Finding value, determining what our value or the value of libraries is really becomes the key to success. I'm thankful for my own library education, and I don't mean my MLS. I was an early bloomer with research in libraries thanks to Mrs. Fleischer, my grade school librarian. We had bibliographic instruction from grade three through the end of middle school. My high school librarian, Mrs. Wolf, continued the education. Once I was off to my undergraduate experience, I was chagrined to find that the reference desk was no longer the welcoming place it had been for the ten years prior. I felt as though I was facing an Oracle each time I needed assistance to jump start my research. This was less than comforting, and it took some time to shift to meet the needs demanded by those librarians. I was determined to complete my research, so I plowed through.





Apparently most students are confident they can find the resources needed, and that confidence is a good thing--it signals they do know where to locate information. When it comes to identifying the value we bring to the table, there is opportunity. Opportunity to provide access. Perhaps the access we can provide is exposing our content and making it relevant and findable in a sea of vague search results. Opportunity to bring the library as concept to the researcher. Outreach is a term that I've found overused lately, probably because I'm not always clear what is meant by the term. So many ways exist for librarians to reach out to our communities.


I've been talking with a colleague at a community college lately about reading I've been doing on poverty and its effect on our society's access to a range of things, including education and health services (Payne, Ruby). The question of relevance for libraries may well be related to matters of privilege and entitlement. The very fact that the patrons we serve are enrolled in a research library program signals the likelihood of a privilege background. Rick made the point in his commentary that university students prefer comfort over resources. The media exposure, life-long focus on education and near ubiquitous access to technology these students have had brings to bear an entirely different perspective on their research needs, even from what I experienced as an undergrad not so long ago.

As these students become graduates and faculty themselves, the academic research library will need to flex and bend to meet the next generation's perceived needs. I've studied change management, and the first principle I hold to be true is that you cannot change others, change comes from within. The only change you can control is your own. How do we as librarians change our understanding of the value we provide to this generation of researchers?

Happy July 5th! I was off on the holiday enjoying some down time and 'stuff around the house' time. I live in a small town and enjoyed walking to our park for the fireworks display. My husband and I watched from the elementary school parking lot.

Most of my friends and colleagues have expressed a whole run of emotion about returning to work today after a long holiday weekend. My day began with a dental appointment--drill and refill old fillings. I don't have the dread of the dentist that I once had. I don't mind going to see my current dentist who is quite aware of my aversion to pain. Cleanings are a no-brainer--maintenance and upkeep, and no pain. The purpose of my appointment today was not cleaning: Rather the dentist was refreshing the material that is keeping my teeth from any additional decay. The appointment went well, no surprises and I was out the door a little over an hour after my appointment began. Before leaving for work I had to drop some things in the mailbox at the post office, and then I'd be on my way.

The post office boxes are on the street behind my town's public library. On my way to my appointment I'd passed by this way and seen the cleaning staff emptying the trashcans outside. A young boy in tow with his mother, helping her steady the bag as she replaced full with empty. I thought about what a great helper he was.

When I went past the same entrance to the library door, my clock in the car said 8:56. There were three teenagers waiting outside the door for the library to open. It was a great sight to behold. Had the kids been volunteer pages or employees, they would have been let into the library without waiting. Here, though, in front of the entrance, were three kids not sleeping in, and waiting to get to the Internet workstations, the book shelves, the video collection or some other service that the library offers on the day immediately following the holiday. They were not sleeping in after a long day of parade and picnicking, or a late night of watching fireworks explode over the park and golf course. They wanted access. They wanted information. They wanted to fill up their minds, or empty them through social networking or other online services.

I'm proud of our public library and its services. Since coming to our town in 1997 I have participated as a volunteer. I have advocated for our services and funding. I have shared thoughts with our library board and director. The board members aspire that the library will remain a center for our community. To do so we must continue to grow to meet the articulated and unstated needs for our users. We must anticipate where we as a community might need to go next. There is excitement as the board and director search for a new integrated library system. They are on the verge of selection and hope to bring a system with push technology to keep patrons informed of accounts and access within the library.

Regardless of where we are today, we do need to be cognizant of regular renewal. We cannot fix and forget, or implement and be done for always. We must continue to evaluate our services and be willing to remove anything that is past its usefulness. Indeed, taking things apart and rebuilding or restoring can help libraries preserve and extend information to users for generations to come.

ALA Annual Conference 2011, New Orleans, LA
June 24-27 2011

I spent five days in New Orleans for conference, with one day for personal vacation. Here's what I did with my time. My mileage varied greatly from my planned schedule. Still, I learned a lot, met new people and broadened my horizons.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Preconference:
ALCTS Acquisitions Section Preconference: Patron-Driven Acquisitions in Academic Libraries: Maximizing Technology to Minimize Risk

I served on the planning committee for this preconference session. The session went well and met its intended goals based on feedback I received from participants.

Preconference:

ASCLA Preconference: Assembling a Consultant Toolkit: What you need to know to become a successful library consultant (self-paid).

Speakers:

Nancy Bolt, Nancy Bolt Consulting and Sara Laughlin, Director, Monroe County (Ind.) Public Library

Description: 

The session provided overview of library consulting for attendees. Bolt and Laughlin provided exploration activities to allow participant to discover personal consulting potential through self-assessment. Participants engaged in lecture and group work to explore different roles that consultants play, services consultants may deliver to clients, marketing consulting services, managing a consulting business and finding clients.

ALCTS 101 – Evening meet and greet for new / old ALCTS members. A speed dating format was followed to allow more knowledge about the organization to be obtained.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Exhibits attendance (morning):

I met the art director from LittlePickle Press children’s publisher and we talked over coffee about civic engagement.

Picked up information for scanning workstation for Nappanee Public Library, Kodak.

Met with vendors: Action! DVD, YBP – discussed changed role and future responsibilities.

ACRL  - ULS/CLS – Academic Librarian Lightning Round! Innovative New Roles  - Auditorium size crowd received short panel discussions about new job initiatives and partnerships to maintain or further the presence of an academic library within the community.

LITA Transliteracy IG: Working Toward Transliteracy – practical aspects of what we can do to help our patrons become transliterate citizens. Presenters used real world examples of the impact of multiple platforms, tools and media on our ever-widening need for literacy across those platforms.

Sunday, June 26

ALA-OLOS, ASCLA-LSSPS: Library Services to Incarcerated People and Ex-Offenders: Models of Outreach – Saw half of the presentation which dealt with public library service to a prison library in Minnesota and a school library system in NYC which works with both secure and unsecured facilities for student residents in the corrections system. In both cases, to goal is to provide resources, such as the Hennepin Co. Public Library Freedom Ticket, that will help reconnect the patrons of the prison library with library services in the community upon release. Likewise, the NYC program helps to serve its students and provide for training and the normalcy needed.

NMRT Resume Review 9-9:45

ACRL Health Sciences Interest Group: Consumer Health Information: Library Partnerships that Serve the Community - Session which focused on connecting patrons in communities with resources available at academic and public libraries and on the web. Session presenters all mentioned the MLA CHIS (Consumer Health Information Specialization) a certificate program that is easily obtained.

Lunch and Exhibits Hall

ALA Poster Session – 3:00-4:30 - Exploring Appreciative Inquiry: Support for culture shift in an academic library during top level leadership transition, or Using Appreciative Inquiry to Support a Culture Shift in Transition.

ABSTRACT:

Marcy Simons, MLS, Organizational Development Specialist, Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame and Mandy L. Havert, MLS, Gifts-in-Kind Librarian, Hesburgh Libraries of Notre Dame will explore the appreciative inquiry (AI) framework and its potential value for supporting staff and faculty during the transition after the year period following the hire of a new University Librarian. The authors will: 1.) define the AI framework; 2.) provide a context for the current cultural environment and discuss major recommendations made at all employee levels during a baseline strategic planning process that pointed to the need for major culture shift in the Libraries; 3.) apply the AI framework to explore how the needed changes identified can be supported during the period of leadership transition; 4.) invite feedback from colleagues at other organizations who have tried or are considering AI to support change initiatives. The authors plan to propose a program at a future conference to discuss progress and outcomes that resulted in the AI experience at the University of Notre Dame.

As a part of our discussions with poster session attendees, Marcy and I were approached about publishing in LL&M once we have moved through our fourth phase of the Appreciative Inquiry model. Several directors and interim directors were interested in and took copies of our handouts.

Monday, June 27

I had a seamless trip to the airport and a great trip home. Flights were ontime and traffic from Fort Wayne to Nappanee was quick and easy, despite nearly missing my exit from I-69 to US-30. I was welcomed home by my dear husband, our kitten and a savory dinner of fish tacos. Nothing could be better. 

On Saturday, June 25, the ALA Annual meeting in New Orleans, the Library Information Technology Association (LITA) Transliteracy Interest Group offered two sessions that defined and presented issues related to transliteracy. 

In the first session, transliteracy was described in detail. I missed this session due to a scheduling conflict. However, transliteracy is defined loosely as the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks. 

I attended the second of the two sessions which spoke to matters related to transliteracy. The second session was a mixed public and academic library panel who focused on varying issues related to transliteracy. Speakers on the panel included: Amy Mather, Lily Ramin, Jamie Hollier and Matt Hamilton.

What I found most useful and informative was the emphasis on providing for literacy across platforms and formats in support of academic needs and recognizing that among demographics more and less effort may be needed to address matters related to change than the actual technology. One bright idea that emerged was the 30 Days of Creativity Project, http://30daysofcreativity.com/ and how the social learning construct could be borrowed and leveraged for expanding transliteracy among internal and external constituencies. The thirty days are at heart meant to help grow and extend creativity. Jamie Hollier argued that those 30 days could instead be applied to becoming transliterate.

Overall the panelists encourage thinking differently about how we approach learning, literacy and technology.  Above all, knowing that people have a need to know or to learn easily at the point of need means we must also include and acknowledge the change process as part of our skill set, particularly at the outset when we begin to help transition knowledge and skills into achievement for our patrons.

Here is a link that might be useful for learning more about the topic: http://librariesandtransliteracy.wordpress.com/  This blog is supported by leaders in research related to transliteracy, including Bobbi Newman who helped start and now chairs the LITA Transliteracy IG.

I've spent much of my unplanned time today working on polishing both the presentation slide and the handout for a team poster presentation at the ALA Annual Meeting in New Orleans this weekend. Our topic is "Exploring Appreciative Inquiry: Support for culture shift in an academic library during top level leadership transition," or "Using Appreciative Inquiry to Support a Culture Shift in Transition." I've got such a great partner to present with--she's done a lot of the heavy lifting due to my exceptional spring. I'm catching up, but she's the expert in the field now when it comes down to it.

Our discussion of the poster will explore the appreciative inquiry (AI) framework and its potential value for supporting staff and faculty during the transition after the year period following the hire of a new University Librarian. The authors will:

1. define the AI framework;
2. provide a context for the current cultural environment and discuss major recommendations made at all employee levels during a baseline strategic planning process that pointed to the need for major culture shift in the Libraries;
3. apply the AI framework to explore how the needed changes identified can be supported during the period of leadership transition;
4. invite feedback from colleagues at other organizations who have tried or are considering AI to support change initiatives. The authors plan to propose a program at a future conference to discuss progress and outcomes that resulted in the AI experience at the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame.

Today we're well on the way with our poster design, and the handout is in its near final draft stages. If you're at the convention center on Sunday between 3:00 and 4:30, stop by and see us. We'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas.

I was blessed to spend much of my afternoon planning for the upcoming ALA Annual Conference at New Orleans, focusing on the outputs for the poster session my colleague and I are presenting. It reflects the use of the Appreciative Inquiry model for analyzing the culture shift that is happening due to the change of top-level leadership here in our library. In the past months eight teams of faculty and staff have performed a benchmark to inform the writing of a strategic plan. The goal of our poster session is to explore the AI Framework and how it relates to the plan implementation over the coming year.

It's been a long year and no wonder the lag with my posts. So much change personally and professionally. Still, I remain positive that there is a plan and I am not actively seeking control. Everything happens in the right time.

I am now the Gifts-in-Kind Librarian at the Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame. This was a small portion of my prior duties and responsibilties. In the next three months I will be refocusing my efforts and visiting projects and activities that were backburnered due to competing priorities and insufficient resources, including my own human resources.

I met today with my staff member and we have begun planning on two major intitiatives:

1. Review, revision and restatement of the Gifts-in-Kind acceptance policy and procedures
2. Planning and implementation of an open source solution for tracking information about Gifts-in-Kind and their donors

Both initiatives are important for a teaching, research and learning institution such as ours. I hope to complete an environmental scan by mid-July and have the first pass at describing data we need in the software ready to go.

If you have any thoughts on these directions, I invite you to post here in the blogsite or privately to me.