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."