Location: Ocean County College, Toms River, NJ.
In attendance:
1. Gary Schmidt Ocean County College
2. Pamela Dong Ocean County College
3. David Peterson Burlington County College
4. Valerie Bonilla Brookdale Community College
5. Amy Clark Brookdale Community College
6. Martin Crabtree Mercer County Community College
Our first meeting of the 2009-10 academic year began a few minutes after 10:00am with our usual announcements of upcoming events and programs. Of particular note is the upcoming CJRLC Fall membership Meeting on Tuesday, December 8 at the Battleground Country Club from 3:00pm - 5:30pm. The keynote speaker will be Andrew Sanderbeck who will speak on "Doing more with less.” Everyone is invited. To register, go to http://tinyurl.com/CJRLCFall09 or call The CJRLC offices at 732-409-6484.
Also of interest is the upcoming CJRLC Tech Group online meeting: Virtual Reference with Marie Radford on Tuesday, November 17 from 3:00pm-4:30pm. The program is free but you are required to register in advance at http://tinyurl.com/CJRLCvirtualtechgroupmtg.
Our discussion surrounding various events in the region and beyond quickly gave way to one about dwindling travel budgets. Most of those in attendance reported that they are not unique in so far as they too have had to reduce the number of events they attend as a result.
With budgets maintaining or reducing—rather than increasing—with each fiscal year given the current economic slowdown, it is natural to wonder how database providers will be able to sustain their current practice of charging 5%+ subscription increases each year.
Amy Clark of Brookdale Community College asked the group if anyone is currently subscribed to The Gale Group’s Academic ASAP. Brookdale has been waging an internal debate over whether they should cease its subscription to Academic ASAP and spend that money elsewhere. Although Amy likes how the database introduces novice searchers to the scholarly research experience, she questions the currency of some of the items the database normally retrieves. None of the attendees reported that their libraries subscribe to this particular Gale product.
During the course of the conversation about databases, the Chair was very interested to gauge reaction from attendees regarding the automatic citation generation functionality that many database providers have begun appending to their products over the past couple of years. The inability of the vendors to deliver a software tool that produces consistently accurate—and current –bibliographic citations is troublesome give our repeated message to students that subscription databases are synonymous with content authority. Everyone agrees that when the citation tool is demonstrated we are professionally obligated to do so with a caveat that the citation may not be accurate and that it serves primarily as a starting point.
This engendered a larger conversation regarding the role of the information professional in teaching citation styles. Given our familiarity to multiple citation styles, students commonly ask Librarians how to properly cite an information source. In most instances, however, our best practice is always to either (1) refer the student to an online or print resource that will address their need or (2) refer them to the writing center on campus. It is a narrow divide between providing a high level of customer service and trespassing on the professional obligation of teaching faculty.
The Chair also updated the group on the preparations underway at Ocean County College to begin offering a credit-bearing (3 credits) Information Literacy class in the Spring semester 2010. The Librarians at OCC are also considering the SAILS assessment instrument as a corresponding test out option. I am very grateful to Martin Crabtree for sharing his experience and familiarity with both the SAILS and TRAILS products.
I am also very excited to report that Mr. Crabtree has invited CJARL to the newly-renovated Mercer County Community College Library sometime during this academic year. Currently, we would like to schedule the next meeting for Friday, December 11, 2009. Confirmation will follow at a later date. In the meantime, however, HOLD THE DATE.
Meeting adjourned at 12:25pm.
Respectfully submitted on Friday, October 23, 2009,
Gary Schmidt
Chair, CJARL
Ocean County College
Toms River, NJ
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