CJARL Meeting Notes – 12/07/07

Location: Ocean County College Library Room 101D

In Attendance: Brookdale Community College – Amy Clark; Monmouth University – Lisa Coats, George Germek; Ocean County College – Catherine Pontoriero, Gary Schmidt; CJRLC - Amy Kearns

Announcements:

• CJRLC Fall Membership meeting is Wednesday, December 19 at the Peddie School in Hightstown.
• CJRLC is hoping to have "Gaming Kits" available for lending to all types of libraries by January 2008. See the CJRLC Newsletter for more information.
• There is a job opening for a Reference/Government Documents Librarian at Ocean County College. Application deadline: 12/12/07.
• The Reference Section of NJLA is sponsoring a tour of the Newark Public Library on Wednesday, 12/12 from 10 - 12.
• If anyone knows of someone who could speak on intellectual freedom within the context of Web 2.0, please contact Gary Schmidt.
• If anyone is interested in contributing to the CJARL blog - with interesting articles, blog posts, etc. to keep our discussion going between meetings - contact Amy Clark.
  
• If anyone is interested in taking over as chair of this group, effective summer or fall 2008, please contact Amy Clark.
  

Spring Meeting Dates:

March 7, 2008: Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative Headquarters, 4400 Route 9 South, Suite 3400, Freehold, NJ 07728-1383

May 23, 2008: Location TBA

Discussion:

The group discussed the recent NEA report on reading and several responses to it. Many in the group agreed with a number of the points Matthew Kirschenbaum makes in his December 7 essay in The Chronicle. The group also discussed a post and some of the comments about the NEA report, which referenced Kirschenbaum's piece, on the if:book blog, (A Project of the Institute for the Future of the Book). (For the physical-book lovers among us, here's another fun piece about reading from Laurence Musgrove, at insidehighered.com.) Nancy Kaplan, a contributor to the if:Book blog, also posted about some problems with how the NEA used and reported the data from the study. (The graphics provided (NCES (primary data source) vs. NEA interpretation/manipulation) are particularly telling.) This is definitely worth a look, and is a great lesson in information literacy! From here, the discussion segued into how to get students to read and think critically about texts and data such as this. We acknowledged that the reading and thinking involved in gaming is one example of this "reimagining of reading" exemplified by many of our students. But how do we teach students to transfer the kind of thinking and reading required by many video games across contexts, so that students might employ them in their coursework? No clear answers on this one yet, but here are a few citations for thought-provoking articles about critical thinking:

Halpern, Diane F. "Teaching Critical Thinking for Transfer across Domains: Disposition, Skills, Structure Training, and Metacognitive Monitoring." American Psychologist 53.4 (April 1998):
449-455. PsychArticles. Ebsco.
van Gelder, Tim. "Teaching Critical Thinking: Some Lessons from Cognitive Science." College Teaching 53.1 (Winter 2005): 41-46. Academic Search Premier. Ebsco.

Our next area of discussion centered around Steven J. Bell's article in the July 2007 issue of Library Issues, "Who Needs a Reference Desk?" Librarians from different institutions talked about the pros and cons of Bell's argument. The concept of having librarians available for on-demand consultations (instead of sitting at the reference desk) led to a discussion of the article in the November 2007 issue of College and Research Libraries, entitled "Assessment of Student Learning from Reference Service," which (in part) concludes that reference consultations better lend themselves to the type of deeper student learning we're trying to enable. This study was an interesting attempt at measuring student learning as opposed to materials' use and gate counts, (which is one of the points suggested in Danny Wallace's editorial in the September 2007 Journal of Academic Librarianship.) Might be worth some of our libraries giving it a try...

Other titles mentioned during our discussion:
Everything Bad is Good For You, by Steven Johnson
The Cult of the Amateur, by Andrew Keen
Also, somewhat related is: Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder, by David Weinberger, which is an interesting read (possibly for your winter-break reading lists:)

Other blogs mentioned during our discussion:
ACRLog
Annoyed Librarian
Gypsy Librarian (Angel Rivera is an academic librarian. He often blogs "Article Notes," which have led me to a lot of great journal articles.)
if:book
Library Garden

Next Meeting: December 7

Our next meeting is Friday, December 7 from 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon at Ocean County College. Light refreshments will be served. Please send suggested discussion topics to Amy Clark.

Other relevant details:

Driving Directions

http://www.ocean.edu/welcome/maps/maps_directions.htm
If you get lost on the way to campus, you may call Gary Schmidt at (973) 641-7886 or the OCC circulation desk at (732) 255-2247.

Parking

Visitors are welcome to park in Parking Lot 1. Special permission and/or a parking sticker is not required.

Meeting Location

The library building is situated right next to Parking Lot 1. It's is the building with the big clock tower. We'll be meeting in room L101D. The entrance to this room is located at the top of the stairs leading to the Library's main entrance.

Campus Map

http://www.ocean.edu/welcome/maps/campus_map.pdf

Food for Thought about the Reference Desk on a Rainy Thursday

As the chairperson of the Academic Reference Librarians group, it may be sacrilegious to post about an article entitled, "Who Needs a Reference Desk?", but hear me out. I just read this Stephen J. Bell piece from Library Issues (27.6, July 2007) about a whole host of issues surrounding the future of reference services. I found myself nodding in agreement with a number of the points Bell makes about why librarians no longer need a constant presence at the reference desk.

I realize this is not really a new area of discourse in librarianship, and I may not have even read this article if a colleague from the County College of Morris hadn't recently shared that librarians at her institution no longer spend assigned hours at the reference desk. While one of them is always "on call" for reference consultations, the desk is staffed by paraprofessionals trained in knowing when to call the reference librarian. Many of Bell's arguments are similar to CCM's rationale for the change to their reference model (as it was described to me). Still, the resistance to the idea from others at the meeting where she announced this was profound!

Tom Sanville, the Executive Director of Ohiolink, has this to say in Bell's article: ". . . old things and ideas that have been successful for us . . . will not keep us successful." I agree. And I think this idea sums up why, as a profession, we need to be hashing these things out.

I'd love to know what others think about the future of the reference desk, (or this article), and I hope we can discuss it some at our December meeting.

CJARL Meeting Notes – 10/12/07

Location: Brookdale Community College, Bankier Library Room 215

In Attendance: Brookdale Community College – Amy Clark, Jeanne Ostrowski, Karen Topham; Burlington County College – Dave Peterson; Mercer County Community College – Martin Crabtree; Monmouth University – Ma Lei Hsieh, Susan Kadezabek; Ocean County College – Beth Roszkowski, Gary Schmidt

Announcements:
The Documents Association of New Jersey is hosting its Fall Conference titled, Staying Digital: The Future of Government Information, on Friday, November 2 from 9:15 - 3:30 at the Friend Center, Princeton, NJ. Please register by October 18. Visit http://www.danj.org/ for more information.

Future Meeting Dates:

The next meeting is scheduled for Friday, December 7 from 10:00 - 12:00. Location TBA.
Academic Reference Discussion:
The group discussed some of the issues individual libraries are facing regarding print vs. electronic reference collections, including renovations/space issues; service to higher education centers away from the main library; cost issues; and quality and ease-of-use of the electronic sources. Mercer will be doing some reference collection assessment and trialing some e-reference products in the near future. We look forward to hearing what they find.

None of the libraries represented at the meeting currently use IM/Chat reference, although Brookdale will be piloting a chat reference program sometime this semester. The group discussed the importance of having a set of standard operating procedures for librarians who will provide chat reference service, as well as the importance of maintaining an instructional reference focus. Members shared concerns and possible pitfalls, (along with possible solutions to those pitfalls), about offering this service. Q&ANJ was identified by some members as a model program.

Most libraries represented said librarians handle a good deal of IT questions in addition to more reference-centered questions while at the reference desk. All agreed that the number and level of reference questions varies, depending on the time of the semester.

Brookdale is currently advertising for its first-ever library research award; Monmouth will also be offering an award this Spring. OCC has put its library research award program on hold for now. Mercer is looking to work with the newly formed Honors Council and possibly start a research award connected to this program at some point down the line.

There was a brief discussion of librarian office spaces. Members shared their office configurations and talked about the advantages and disadvantages.

The group shared IL instruction techniques and approaches, which led to a discussion of the quality of the database products and their contents. Danny Wallace's editorial in the September 2007 Journal of Academic Librarianship was mentioned, as was Barbara Fister's ACRL post, "Build It and They Will Build Another one."

Discussion Items for 10/12 meeting

Here are some possible discussion topics for Friday's meeting. (If you have others, please bring them with you!) Thanks everyone, for your input!

• What electronic resources are our libraries using to replace or supplement print reference sources? What has been the experience with these sources?
  
• IM Chat Reference: Best Practices
• What's Happening at the Reference Desk?: IT vs. Reference Questions
  
• Instruction Issues:
• Barbara Fister's ACRLog post, "Build It and They Will Build Another One"
• Incorporating More Critical Thinking into IL Instruction

As always, light refreshments will be available. See you soon!

Regarding: "Build It and They Will Build Another One"

I read this post on the ACRLog yesterday and thought it might make a good discussion topic for our upcoming meeting. With publications like the New York Times, Time magazine, and others making more of their archives freely available online, (while Lexis Nexis makes its interface more difficult to use), how are we "selling" the databases? I share Barbara Fister's "feeling [that] the old 'here’s how' instruction will get harder and harder to provide simply because the map of where it is and how to get there is constantly being redrawn." I think we might all benefit from sharing our thoughts and ideas about how best to approach this.

CJARL Meetings - Fall 2007

I can hardly believe the summer is over and it's time to get back into the swing of a new semester, but here we are. I plan to be blogging some more soon, but for now here are the dates of our fall meetings:

Friday, October 12 from 10:00 am - 12 noon at Brookdale Community College


Friday, December 7 from 10:00 am - 12 noon (location TBA)

Feel free to start collecting discussion items for our October meeting! And if you'd like to be a contributor to this blog, please let me know.

Save Small and Independent Presses...

On the May 18 episode of his new PBS program, Bill Moyers Journal, Moyers made a plea for viewers to save small and independent presses from the proposed postal rate hikes which will unfairly burden these presses. Today, CommonDreams.org posted the transcript of this plea. You can find out more and take action by sending an online letter to your Congressperson at FreePress.net.

The Reference Discussion, Continued

In this week's Chronicle, Todd Gilman writes about "The Four Habits of Highly Effective Librarians." These habits include openess, responsiveness, collaboration and communication. The piece is worth reading, and I'm including it here because the first two habits Gilman elaborates on address two of the issues we discussed at our last meeting: the future of the reference desk and instant message reference. Gilman also cites the Columbia Reference Debate while discussing the future of the reference desk. (The comments following the debate summary are worth reading, too.) Take a look for some food for thought.

"Google, Ken Burns, and Fractal Cognitive Engagement"

Take a look at this video about how the brain works while searching Google. Perhaps at our next meeting we can discuss implications of this for OPACs and other reference-related library services. Posted on behalf of Martin Crabtree.

Mark Your Calendars!

All are welcome at our next meeting on May 18, from 10-12 at the CJRLC Headquarters in Freehold. Directions are available on the CJRLC website. As always, light refreshments will be served.

The agenda is tentative at this point, but a few questions and ideas for discussion include:

Academic Reference Issues: How many hours are librarians spending on the reference desk?
What kinds of questions and challenges are students presenting at the physical desk?
What methods of e-ref are CJARL members using? How are these methods working? Have any best practices been established?

Library-sponsored research awards -- (Is anyone doing this?)

If you have ideas for discussion, or know of any resources related to tentative topics that may be of interest to the group, please respond to this blog post, email me at aclark@brookdalecc.edu, or bring them to the meeting!

Print & Electronics Resources Program Summary

For those who couldn't make it, Paul Schroeder has posted a summary of the March 27 program, Print vs. Electronic Resources, on the NJLA blog.

Link: http://blog.njla.org/

ACRL Conference, Information Literacy Assessment and More

There were countless sessions devoted to information literacy assessment at last weekend's ACRL conference. Here's an article from InsideHigherEd.com about a panel session that addressed challenges associated with effective information literacy instruction and some different IL assessment tools. There was also a poster session about "how librarians at Kent State are collaborating with the K-12 community to reduce anxiety about academic libraries and ease students' transition to college...using TRAILS."

Overall, I found the conference very inspiring. My head is full of ideas, some of which I hope to act on before the post-conference momentum is lost!

Article Link: http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/02/libraries

The Flawed Metaphor of the Spellings Summit

In his article, "The Flawed Metaphor of the Spellings Summit", David Chambliss argues that despite what Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings and others would have us think, "education is nothing like business." What a concept!

Read more at: http://insidehighered.com/views/2007/04/05/chambliss

CJARL Meeting Notes – 03/23/07

Location: Student Life Center Room 108, Mercer County Community College

In Attendance: Brookdale Community College – Amy Clark; Burlington County College – Dave Peterson; Mercer County Community College – Martin Crabtree, Martha Czop; Katta Koppel; Monmouth University – Lisa Coats; Ocean County College – Beth Roszkowski; Rider University: Nancy Wicklund

Meeting Notes

Group members were welcomed by the Vice President for Student & Academic Affairs.

Announcements:

CJRLC News: Refer to CJRLC website and calendar

NJLA Reference Section program: Print vs. Electronic Resources: What's a Librarian to Do? -- March 27, 10am - noon at Mount Olive Public Library (RSVP to kowalski@main.morris.org) **FYI: Lisa Coats plans to attend. She will share what she learns with the group.

NJLA early bird registration ends April 4, 2007

Discussion:

Information Literacy Assessment
Update on MCCC's experience with Tools for Real-Time Assessment of Information Literacy Sills (TRAILS), program as a joint effort between the English Department and the Library. Preliminary results of this "pre-test" in a small sample (~4 sections) of English 101 show that students were weakest in the areas of topic development and creation/revision of search strategies, but did better with questions about evaluating sources. The college will administer the TRAILS assessment at the end of the term with a small sample of the English 102 classes, in which students have received library instruction.

The group discussed the desire not to re-invent the wheel while insuring that questions on canned tests address what is taught, as well as how examining and selecting questions for assessment requires librarians to talk about/coordinate what concepts are presented to students. Several members present said their institutions have or are working on some kind of formal information literacy assessment.

Information Literacy
Members discussed the "one-shot" library workshop as problematic. A reference was made to Craig Gibson's Student Engagement and Information Literacy (ALA, 2006). A podcast of an interview with the author is available on ACRL's website. In this podcast, Gibson presents some interesting ideas and calls for somewhat of a paradigm shift in how we conceptualize and teach information literacy.

MCCC is working to build a partnership between the library and the Honors faculty, in which a one-credit library skills course would be attached to specific research-based Honors courses. The Honors program at MCCC is very new, as is the partnership idea, but we look forward to hearing about its progress!

Reference Services & Instruction at Branch campuses
Many of the institutions present have satellite locations to their main campuses. Many of this subset have libraries, staffed with at least one librarian, at the branch locations.

New Technologies in Reference, Instruction, Etc.
Several members attended the Technology & Library Services: Meeting Today's Users Need Symposium at Princeton University, 3/15/07. Those who attended gave a brief recap of the symposium. Several members shared what they've tried so far and demonstrated these on the computer/projector Martin provided. (Thanks Martin!) These Web 2.0 applications included: a library MySpace account; RSS feed aggregators Bloglines and Google Reader; link rolling del.icio.us links into a subject guide webpage; LibraryThing.com; and EBSCO RSS via the "My Account" feature.

Powerpoint slides and audio of the symposium are now available.

MCCC Library Tour

Martin, Martha and Katta gave the group a tour of the library.

Next Meeting: Friday, May 18, 2007, 10 am-12 noon.
Location: TBA

FYI: The book I mentioned, Never Check Email in the Morning: And Other Unexpected Strategies for Making your Work Life Work(2005), is a newer edition of Julie Morgenstern's book, Making Work Work: Strategies for Surviving and Thriving in the Office(2004). I have not read the book, but here's what PW had to say about the original, (from Amazon.com):

Publishers Weekly
(June 7, 2004; 0-7432-5087-7; 978-0-7432-5087-0)

Whether in the executive boardroom or a windowless cubicle, the key to a more balanced, productive existence, according to organizer extraordinaire Morgenstern, is PEP (physical health, escape and people), the four Ds (delete, delay, delegate and diminish) and a healthy dose of reality about what is doable, and what is impossible, at work. Written in the same to-the-point approach as her Organizing from the Inside Out, this volume espouses a combination of philosophies that not only makes a whole lot of sense but is practical and applicable to the real world, no matter what the job or office setting. Each "competency" (as the chapters are called) includes scenarios taken from actual clients, bullet-pointed tips known as "grab-and-go-strategies," from getting away from wasteful e-mails to planning your day better and always dancing "close to the revenue line." Morgenstern promises readers a significant change in their workload, productivity level and all-around confidence if they refrain from reading, replying to or even perusing e-mail in the first hour of the day. This may be a hard sell for some desk-based professionals, but it's clear that Morgenstern knows her stuff. The habits of workaholics and perfectionists, she argues, are impractical and will render one unproductive. In accessible, encouraging prose, Morgenstern helps readers learn their boundaries, limits, strengths and weaknesses. Agent, Joni Evans. (Sept.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Informatio

March Meeting Reminder & Details

Greetings! The next CJARL meeting is this Friday, March 23. Here are the details:

When: Friday, 3/23/07 from 10am - noon

Where: Mercer County Community College (West Windsor/Main campus)
Directions: http://www.mccc.edu/welcome_directions_wwcampus.shtml

We will be meeting in the Student Center (Room SC108). The Student Center is next to the Library building.

A campus map is available at: http://www.mccc.edu/welcome_directions_wwcampusmap.shtml

Parking: West Student Lot (See campus map.)

As always, refreshments will be served!

Read something interesting? Attend a thought-provoking workshop? Struggling with an particular issue or challenge at your library? Please share any items you'd like to discuss by emailing aclark@brookdalecc.edu, posting a comment to the CJARL blog, or bringing the topic to the meeting on Friday!

Some possible items for discussion at the March meeting include:

• How are libraries providing reference & instruction services to satellite/branch campuses?
  
• How are libraries/librarians using Web 2.0 technologies for reference and/or instruction?
  
• Print vs.Electronic Resources

As the agenda is fluid, we can visit the college library before, during, and/or after the official meeting as people wish.

See you on Friday!

Library Symposium at Princeton Public Library

The Princeton University Library and the NJLA College & University Section/ACRL New Jersey Chapter are sponsoring an academic library symposium entitled, Technology and Library Services: Meeting Today's Users' Needs, on Thursday, March 15, 2007 from 8:30am - 4pm in the Frist Campus Center. Registration for this free program is currently full, but there is a waiting list. I added my name to the waiting list about a month ago and a spot recently opened up for me, so if you're interested email Trevor Dawes at tdawes@Princeton.EDU.

March Meeting Details & Call for Discussion Topics

Our next meeting will be held on March 23 from 10 - noon at Mercer County Community College. Please post a comment or email ideas for discussion so that I may put together an agenda. One topic that has come up is how different libraries are handling reference services and instruction at their branch campuses or alternate sites. The group welcomes discussion topic ideas from all members, so please share the current issues, challenges and successes faced by your library.

Also, if anyone is interested in contributing to our blog -- by posting articles of interest, upcoming events, or commentary -- please let me know.

Print & Electronic Resources Program

Check out the program flyer for the NJLA Reference Section's upcoming program, "Print vs. Electronic Resources: What's A Librarian To Do?" The program is March 27 from 10 - 12 at the Mount Olive Public Library in Flanders, NJ. Panelists will include librarians from public, community college and university libraries. This looks like a great opportunity for discussion of this issue.

Journal of Information Literacy

Journal of Information Literacy - Volume 1, Issue 1 is now available. Journal of Information Literacy is an international, peer-reviewed, academic journal that aims to investigate Information Literacy within a wide range of settings. Papers on any topic related to the practical, technological or philosophical issues raised by the attempt to increase information literacy throughout society are encouraged. JIL is an open-access journal, published in electronic format only. (Source: Peter Scott's Library Blog)

It's del.icio.us!

I first heard about del.icio.us over a year ago when it was mentioned in a piece on NPR, but I've only just started to use this really handy "Web 2.0" tool. (It's been on my "tech to-do list" for awhile now, but the CJRLC Tech Challenge gave me the impetus to get started!)

What thrills me about del.icio.us is that is provides a really easy way to keep frequently-used web sites handy -- whether you're at home, at work or in the classroom. And once you have an account, you can add sites from wherever you are, too. Your sites are organized using tags, or words that you choose to describe them. Since you can use more than one "tag" to describe a site, tagging gives you more flexibility in categorizing (and remembering!) your favorites.
It's easy to create an account, and you can export the bookmarks currently saved on your desktop(s) into your del.icio.us account for future easy-access.

There are a number of other features/applications to del.icio.us as well -- including the ability to share sites with friends, family or colleagues -- but I have yet to explore them all. If anyone is using del.icio.us in other, innovative ways, please share!

NJLA Conference Programs - Reference Section

Take a look at the latest edition of the NJLA Reference Section newsletter for a list of the NJLA Conference Programs they are sponsoring this year.

Best Free Reference Web Sites

Check out this index of the Best Free Reference Web Sites: 1999-2006 from the Machine-Assisted Reference Section (MARS) of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of ALA.

Dawn Popoff Talks About Discussion Groups for Librarians

At the January 10, 2007 meeting of the NJLA Reference Section, Dawn Popoff, (creator of the CJARL group) spoke about librarians meeting in discussion groups. Paul Schroeder, Chair of the Reference Section, sent this summary of Dawn's talk:

Originally, Dawn set up the Academic Librarians' discussion group to meet once a semester, but she suggested that each group should decide on a meeting schedule that is best for its members. Also, the discussion group should agree not to take on any projects. Any ideas that come from the discussion are passed on to the appropriate group: school administration, NJLA etc. The group meets for two hours and is divided into four topic sessions: for example, technology, reference tools, current issues, etc. Again each group would choose the topics that suited them. One of Dawn's main messages is that discussion groups foster empowerment and support among librarians. You can find an article Dawn wrote about this in the Sept 2006 issue of American Libraries. Dawn will also be presenting a program on discussion groups at the NJLA Conference in April.

Thanks to Lisa Coats for alerting me to this information and to Paul Schroeder for sending the summary!

"Research Beyond Google: 119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources"

Happy New Year! This article was featured in the weekly newsletter of the Librarians' Internet Index in December and I thought I'd share it here for anyone interested. The list of "119 Authoritative, Invisible, and Comprehensive Resources" is presented by subject/topic area. Enjoy!