Central Jersey Academic Reference Librarians' Blog

CJARLC is Back!

2011-07-27T15:11:00.002-04:00

So, like, it’s been a while, huh? Well, after all that exciting budget stuff -and the creation of LibraryLinkNJ- the CJRLC blog and meetings are back! So if you’ve been checking the blog and haven’t found anything exciting for a while well now, hopefully, you’ll find some exciting stuff. A couple of quick notes.

1. There will be a CJRLC meeting on Wednesday August 10th from 10am to noon. The meeting will be held at Mercer County Community College. Directions and parking information located here. If you’d like to come please RSVP to me. Our topic will be reference collection development and guides to selecting references resources.

2. The meeting minutes will still get posted here so if you miss a meeting you can read all about it here.

3. I’d like to update this blog semi-regularly with relevant articles, topics and “guest” posts about anything relating to academic reference. So, if you’ve got any ideas, know of an interesting article or want to write a post please feel free to contact me.

Also I’d like to thank Gary Schmidt of Ocean County Community College for helping with CJRLC and allowing me to take over the Chair. I look forward to meeting everyone hope we can really take off.

Meeting Outcome(s):

2010-11-01T20:24:00.001-04:00

I hesitate to refer to this blog posting as the minutes from our last meeting. That sounds entirely too formal—and, frankly, not particularly accurate either. I’d rather refer to what follows as, “The Meeting Outcome(s).” They’ll serve more as a brief synopsis of what was discussed and, more importantly, an outline from which we can evolve and grow our conversation.

Now with that out of the way, I’m very happy to report that CJARL convened last week for the first meeting of the Fall semester. Even though we get together right before Halloween almost every year, there was something special about this meeting because it was the first one to occur in a “post-CJRLC” world. In other words, it serves to signify our intent to continue our tradition, leverage our core principles, and grow our ranks.

Our agenda was, er, ambitious, as always. But we’re a discussion group, after all. One of our greatest assets is our ability to foster open and honest discussion, right?

The item on the agenda that was afforded the greatest amount of time and focus pertained to the future of CJARL. Two important items came from that portion of the conversation. First, the meetings should begin incorporating regular opportunities for resource sharing. Bring your toolbox and share what you’re learned and the resources you’ve developed to assist your students and patrons. Also, if you’re preparing a presentation or an article for publication or even if you just want to explore the boundaries of a research question, put it on the table for some good old fashioned peer review. In short, let’s leverage our collective experience. Secondly, the group should begin encouraging attendance from among the ranks of Librarians at 4-year institutions. Over the years, numbers of regular attendees from 4-yerars schools has decreased. It’s vital to keep them engaged in the conversation.

I’ve agreed to continue to serve as Chair until such time that some brave soul chooses to take my place. This will be my third year as Chair, so if anyone has any interest in taking on the duties of Chair, please don’t be shy.

Our next meeting will be in December. The exact date has not yet been set, but it will most likely be on a Friday from 10am-12pm.

Until then....

NJEDge Conference 7.0: Aligning the Ubiquitous Campus

2010-10-29T13:29:00.002-04:00

November 17 – 19, 2010

Register for attending this year’s NJEDge annual conference: http://njedge.net/conference/2010/

On Wednesday, Nov 17th, at 1:30pm we open with Google "From the Clouds: Google Digital Books and Education Apps in Large Classes" with Chris Palm, Manager of Strategic Partnerships for Google Books, Google Scholar, Google News Archive Search, and Google Magazines. This is a good opportunity to find out how Google’s digital books and research sources affect an institutional library. This session is for 1hr and 15mins for the purpose of allowing more Q&A.

Following the Google talk will be breakout session on Abilene Christina University’s initiative on "iPadin Every Student Hand...." Kevin Roberts who heads the program that seems destined for campuses adoption will talk ACU’s successful pilot program. In discussion will be issues that will affect you, the library, students and school policies.

Our keynote speaker on Thursday is Dr. Peter Smith, a renowned academic whose recent book "Harnessing America’s Wasted Talent: A New Ecology of Learning" brings up issues regarding digital libraries.

At the first breakout session on Thursday, 10:30, Cathy Kelley (FDU) and Mary Jane Clerkin (Berkley) will present on "E-readers & e-books: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly." Both schools have pilot programs, using Kindle, Sony Reader and iPad Touch this year. This session shows some of the advantages and shortcomings of e-texts and e-readers.

At 11:45, Ken Ronkowitz from Passaic County Community College weighs in on open text books. "It’s anOpen Book: Adopting Open Textbooks" is treatise on why this option is good for learning, good for teaching, and good for the pocket book.

The afternoon has a talk by Perry Samson, "Surprise! Laptops INCREASE Student Engagement in Large Classes." Be sure to stay for Sujay Daniel’s reveal of NJVid.Net.

President Crabill of Raritan Valley Community College will talk about the community college’s Big Idea Initiative.

Taras Pavlovsky, Dean of the Library at The College of New Jersey, and John Brennan, Digital Projects Coordinator for Rutgers University Libraries collaborate on Friday for their poster session on “Partnering Today to Manage Tomorrow’s Libraries.” Here’s your chance to talk directly to them about The VALE OLE Initiative, which brings together leading academic libraries within New Jersey in partnership to employ the Kuali OLE open source library management software.

The conference ends with fireworks! David Pogue of The New York Times will be speaking about "Web2.0, Social Media, and Other Buzzwards."

Meeting Agenda

2010-10-25T14:44:00.002-04:00

WHERE: Ocean County College Library (Room L101D) / Toms River, NJ
WHEN: Friday, October 29, 2010 / 10:00am – 12:00pm

Driving directions and campus map available here.

*optional lunch to follow the meeting at a local restaurant*

INTRODUCTION
I. Welcome & introductions
II. Upcoming event & program announcements
III. Update: Information Literacy Progression Standards Task Force
A. Recent “road show” presentations and endorsements
B. Next phase(s) in the project

PRIMARY TOPICS
I. The future of CJARL given the demise of CJRLC
A. What should the future of CJARL look like?
B. What is our most valuable asset?
C. What could we do better?

II. New models for reference desk coverage
A. “On Call”
B. “The Roaming / Mobile Librarian”

III. Evaluating Librarian faculty

IV. Update on credit bearing (3 credits) Information Literacy class at OCC

V. Front-end revisions to discovery software
A. EbscoHost
B. JSTOR
C. Likes? Dislikes? Quirks? Problems?

CONCLUSION
I. Reader's advisory for reference Librarians
II. Nominations for a new CJARL Chairperson

New Meeting Date Announced

2010-10-05T19:23:00.001-04:00

Save the date!

The next meeting of the Central New Jersey Academic Reference Librarians Group will be held on Friday, October October 29, 2010 (10AM - 12PM) at Ocean County College Library in Toms River, NJ.

We have a lot to discuss--due in large part to the drastic changes that have occurred across the New Jersey Library landscape over the past 6 months. Among them was the dissolution of our parenting agent, the Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative.

I'll post a detailed agenda at this blog in the coming weeks. Of course, if you have an item that you would like to add, please send me an e-mail and I will include it on the agenda.

NB: If your schedule allows, a post-meeting lunch at a local restaurant is always a welcome idea.

If you plan on attending, please RSVP to gschmidt [at] ocean [dot] edu. I'm looking forward to seeing you on the 29th.

Changes at JSTOR don't look good.

2010-08-26T10:49:00.002-04:00

I'm not sure if everyone has seen the changes to JSTOR's interface yet but if not its worth pointing them out. Basically the default setting will now searches JSTOR's entire collection whether you want it to or not. You have to use the advanced search to limit to just the things your library subscribes to.

Rather than reinventing the wheel, this blog post does a good job discussing what's at issue: http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2010/08/24/whats-the-deal-jstor/

And Now For Something Completely Different....

2010-06-08T20:01:00.002-04:00

...and by that I mean: good news!

The news lately has been more than just a little depressing. But my Director just informed his Librarians that, "Norma Blake of the State Library announced yesterday at the VALE Members Council that the state will underwrite the costs of state-wide access to ASP for FY11."

Academic Search Premier is an essential--and equally expensive--database. I can tell you that our budget would have taken a huge hit if we had to pay for the subscription ourselves.

2/26/10 Meeting Canceled

2010-02-25T20:48:00.000-05:00

Due to anticipated inclement weather on Friday, February 26, 2010, the next meeting of the Central New Jersey Academic Reference Librarians Group (CJARL) has been canceled.

The date for our Spring meeting will be determined shortly.

AGENDA - 2/26/2010 Meeting

2010-02-22T20:39:00.000-05:00

CJRLC Headquarters
Freehold, NJ
Friday, February 26, 2010
10:00am – 12:00pm

• Welcome & introductions

• Upcoming event & program announcements

• Information Literacy Progression Standards Task Force update

• Reactions to VALE Users’ Conference

• Christie Administration’s F.Y. 2010 budget reductions

• Increasing demand for information literacy instruction

• Reader's advisory for reference librarians

• Updates on new projects and innovative thinking at your library

• Nominations for new CJARL Chairperson

• Lunch at a local restaurant in Freehold following the meeting (optional)

Christie Proposes $721,000 Reduction to Library Programs

2010-02-16T17:31:00.002-05:00

This just in from Pat Tumulty, Executive Director of NJLA:

[begins]
To the members of the library community,

On Thursday Governor Christie announced he was “freezing” the current state budget. This will have an impact on the library community. Unfortunately, he is proposing a total of $ 721,000 in reductions to library programs. The reductions are in the following areas: NJ Library Network Aid $373,000; Knowledge Initiative $231,000; and Virtual Library Aid $117,000.

The New Jersey State Library is reviewing the implications of these cuts on current programs and will be sending further information to the library community.

NJLA is preparing a press release on these budget reductions and will testify at a budget hearing on Wednesday.
[ends]

A Webinar on Zotero: A Next Generation Research / Citation Tool for Firefox

2010-01-11T08:40:00.002-05:00

WHEN: January 13, 10-Noon
COST: $10.00
(CE Available)

ONLINE REGISTRATION

Library research tools have moved not only onto the web, but into the browser software itself.

Zotero (http://www.zotero.org) is a free Firefox add-on that allows students and researchers to save citations and create bibliographies.

It is as easy to learn and use as iTunes and more powerful than commercial competitors like EndNote and RefWorks. New features such as online storage and shared libraries help researchers collaborate online.

Open source browser plug-ins like Zotero can help library users at every stage of the research cycle, from search and discovery to writing and citation. By using free, open source tools, libraries can offer assistance and resources with little cost and foster skills that patrons can use throughout life.

Participants will learn to:

1) identify some of the advantages of using open-source software tools in library research

2) install the Zotero plugin for Firefox

3) save citations and build a personal citation library

4) synchronize your Zotero library and access it from any computer running Firefox

5) automatically generate bibliographies

6) share references and collaborate using Zotero's new groups feature

Intended Audience:

Library staff who assist researchers, students and anyone else needing to save citations and create bibliographies.

About the Presenter:

Jason Puckett is Librarian for Communication and Educational Technologies at Georgia State University Library. He blogs at http://jasonpuckett.netÂ and is co-producer of the Adventures in Library Instruction podcast (http://adlibinstruction.blogspot.com).

NOTE: This Webinar is being hosted on CJRLC's iLinc Webinar Platform Please follow this link for instructions on setting up your PC prior to the webinar.)

February Meeting - Save the date!

2010-01-06T08:47:00.000-05:00

The next meeting of the Central New Jersey Academic Reference Librarians Group will be held on Friday, February 26, 2010 (10AM - 12PM) at Central New Jersey Regional Library HQ in Freehold, NJ.

Directions to the Freehold office can be found here.

If you have an item that you would like to add to our discussion, please just send me an e-mail and I will add it to our agenda.

NB: Following our last meeting, many of us reconvened at a local restaurant for lunch. The event proved very popular and the suggestion to continue this practice was made by more than one participant. Certainly, the post-meeting lunch is obligatory, but all are welcome to join us.

As always, please don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Minutes from 12/4/2009 Meeting

2009-12-10T20:01:00.001-05:00

MINUTES
Central New Jersey Academic Reference Librarians Group (CJARL)
Mercer County Community College
West Windsor, NJ
Friday, December 4, 2009
10:00am – 12:00pm

Members present:
1. Pamela Price, Mercer County College
2. Martin Crabtree, Mercer County College
3. Dan Calandro, Mercer County College
4. Connie Paul, CJRLC
5. Valerie Bonilla, Brookdale Community College
6. Jeanne Vloyanetes , Brookdale Community College
7. Caitlyn Cook, Ocean County College
8. Gary Schmidt, Ocean County College
9. Olivia Nellums, Camden County College
10. Dave Peterson, Burlington County College
11. Lisa Coats, Monmouth University

Many thanks to the Mercer County Community College Library for hosting us. Their newly renovated Library looks wonderful. Let’s hope things settle down sooner rather than later; I’m sure everyone could benefit from a sense of normalcy after such a long period of transition.

We were also very happy to be joined by Connie Paul, Executive Director of the Central New Jersey Regional Library Cooperative. Connie’s experience and wisdom offers a priceless perspective on where we’re headed. In fact, Connie comments to the Committee offered a preview of what was in store for the upcoming CJRLC Fall Membership meeting the following week.

We also had the opportunity to discuss the process by which Librarian Faculty members are evaluated for tenure and promotion. It appears that each Institution addresses this process differently. Some schools use a more narrative model while others would prefer a more quantifiable method such as the one according to which teaching faculty have been traditionally assessed.

Our morning concluded with a very tour of the newly remodeled library. Pamela Price and Martin Crabtree provided extensive—and very entertaining—commentary.

Next meeting: Either February 12 or February 19. I’ll e-mail everyone for feedback.

Lessons Learned

2009-12-02T18:57:00.001-05:00

The iSchool at the University of Washington has recently published, "Lessons Learned: How College Students Seek Information in the Digital Age" as part of its "Project Information Literacy." It's a very intriguing report. The .pdf is available here.

EBSCOhost Mobile

2009-11-18T19:46:00.003-05:00

EBSCOhost Mobile is official—and has been for a while. So now I’m curious to know how many of us (or our users, for that matter) are taking full advantage of it.

For more information about EBSCOhost Mobile, I’ll turn you over to the very capable hands of Gary Price at Resource Shelf who has explained it much more intelligently than I ever could.

So, let’s hear from you…. Thumbs up? Thumbs down? Makes sense? Will your students use it or would they simply never dream of using their smart phone/app phone/whatever for educational purposes.

NEXT MEETING - Friday, December 4, 2009

2009-10-27T15:11:00.004-04:00

HOLD THE DATE

The next CJARL meeting will be held on Friday, December 4, 2009 from 10:00am-12:00pm at Mercer County Community College Library.

We'll be meeting in room LB106. It's located in the back of the library. Keep to the right and go all the way to the back of the library.

Mercer County Community College Library recently completed a very extensive renovation. For many of us, this will be out first chance to see it.

Driving directions to MCCC are available here.

CJRLC - Fall Membership Meeting

2009-10-26T19:18:00.003-04:00

HOLD THE DATE!

CJRLC is having its Fall membership meeting on Tuesday, December 8th at the Battleground Country Club (3:00-5:30pm).

The event is free, but you have to register in advance at: http://tinyurl.com/CJRLCFall09

Or you can also call the CJRLC office on (732) 409-6484.

The Keynote speaker is going to be Andrew Sanderbeck on "Doing More with Less."

This is a great chance to network, have some great food, and to hear updates on what's going on in the region and around the state.

Scientific American: Is it pricing itself out of the market?

2009-10-26T18:38:00.002-04:00

The publisher of Scientific American (Nature Publishing Group) has decided to raise the print subscription from $40 to $300. Online access is also increasing. That seems like quite a jump!

This article in The Chronicle details the reaction among Library Directors to the recent increase.

As Mentioned at Friday's Meeting...

2009-10-26T16:38:00.003-04:00

Here's "Manual Labor," Barbara Fister's post on ACRLog last week about citation style madness. Enjoy!

CJARL Meeting Notes – 10/23/2009

2009-10-23T14:50:00.001-04:00

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

Ooops... Mistakes in the style manual

2009-10-15T14:54:00.002-04:00

Inside Higher Ed is reporting that the recently-released 6th edition of the APA Style Guide was published with more than a few errors.

[read more here]

The article reports that, "A second printing, with corrections made, is already available at bookstores and online."

Next Meeting: October 23, 2009

2009-10-08T16:52:00.003-04:00

The next meeting of the Central New Jersey Academic Reference Librarians Group (CJARL) will be held at Ocean County College in Toms River, NJ on October 23, 2009 from 10:00am - 12:00pm in the Library's conference room # L101D.

Light refreshments will be served.

Agenda items include:
- Progression Standards Task Force project update
- Evaluation standards for Librarian Faculty
- Electronic reserves
- New, 3-credit IL class at OCC

If you have an item that you would like to add to the agenda, please e-mail it to: gschmidt [at] ocean [dot] edu

Directions to Ocean County College's Toms River campus can be found here.

5 Major Research Universities Endorse Open-Access Journals

2009-10-08T16:21:00.001-04:00

September 14, 2009. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that five institutions have signed an agreement to set up mechanisms for providing financial support for the free journals.

Read the full article [here].

CJARL Meeting Notes – 5/29/2009

2009-06-02T16:52:00.000-04:00

Location: CJRLC Offices in Freehold, NJ.

In attendance:
1. Amy Kearns Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative
2. David Peterson Burlington County College
3. Gary Schmidt Ocean County College
4. Caitlyn Cook Ocean County College
5. Steve Chudnick Brookdale Community College
6. Amy Clark Brookdale Community College

Our second meeting of the 2009 Spring Semester began a few minutes after 10:00am with our usual announcements of upcoming events and programs. Amy Kearns informed the group about a very interesting program called, “Pres4Lib: A Camp for Library Speakers and Trainers.” More information is available at their wiki page: http://pres4lib.pbworks.com/.

Amy Clark asked the group if anyone is using “Library a la Carte” (see: http://alacarte.library.oregonstate.edu/home) to create their pathfinders/subject guides. It’s an open source software out of Oregon State. Gary mentioned that OCC has been using Delicious for web guides as a template for our print guides. Brookdale has also been considering LibGuides (see: http://demo.libguides.com/).

The group’s conversation also benefited from a wonderful presentation at the CJRLC Membership Meeting at Monroe Township Library the day before. The presentation was a discussion about the future of LIS education by Claire McInerney, PhD (Rutgers, SCILS - see: http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~clairemc/) and Joseph Lucia, University Librarian at the Falvey Memorial Library at Villanova (http://www.library.villanova.edu/About/Director). The presentation was wonderful. If you ever have the chance to hear Mr. Lucia speak, do not miss it.

We also turned our attention to the Information Literacy Progression Standards Task Force Draft Document that was presented at the NJLA Conference in April, 2009. I wanted to use part of our meeting time to more deeply examine some of the questions that the Task Force addressed with the attendees at NJLA. The feedback was great and I will share it with Jacqui DaCosta and Eleonora Dubicki.

Respectfully submitted on Tuesday, June 2, 2009,

Gary Schmidt
Chair, CJARL
Ocean County College
Toms River, NJ

NEXT MEETING: October 23, 2009 10:00am-12:00pm at Ocean County College (Room L101D). Directions available at www.ocean.edu. Agenda to follow at a later date.

CJARL Meeting this Friday (May 29)

2009-05-27T20:58:00.000-04:00

The Spring meeting of the Central Jersey Academic Reference Librarians (CJARL) group will take place this Friday (May 29) from 10:00am-12:00pm at the CJRLC offices in Freehold, NJ.

Directions to CJRLC can be found here.

We've got a great agenda planned, including a discussion on the Information Literacy Progression Standards Task Force draft document that was presented at the annual NJLA conference last month.

Hope to see you there.

Spring 2009 Meeting

2009-05-08T15:23:00.001-04:00

Our Spring 2009 meeting will take place on Friday, May 29, 2009 from 10:00am - 12:00pm at the CJRLC offices in Freehold, NJ.

Directions to CJRLC offices in Freehold can be found here: http://catsatwork.net/joomla/directions#CJRLC

Feel free to e-mail agenda items to me at gschmidt [at] ocean [dot] edu.

-Gary Schmidt
Chair, CJARL

NJLA Conference Program - Information Literacy Progression Standards

2009-04-24T19:08:00.002-04:00

Are you interested in information literacy?

Are you planning to attend the NJLA Conference on Wednesday April 29?

If so, please arrive early so that you can come to the 9:00 a.m. Discussion Forum in Atlantic IV.

Over recent months, a Task Force of NJ librarians has been working on a set of progression standards for students in two and four year colleges. We would very much like to receive your feedback on the document, which can be found (until May 1) at: http://senduit.com/f16062

If you cannot attend the session, but would still like to contribute feedback, please email me with your comments by May 8.

Hope to see you at the NJLA Conference.

Jacqui DaCosta
Eleonora Dubicki
Gary Schmidt

Crowd Forms Against an Algorithm

2009-04-20T18:33:00.002-04:00

This weekend, the New York Times published a small article by Motoko Rich on another of amazon.com's algorithmic blunders.

I've always been interested in how our indexing and cataloging practices censor information--unintentional or not. What's really interesting in this example, however, is the extent to which the twittersphere allowed for the digital panic police to let this story burn like wild fire across the wooded plains of the interwebs.

Check it out: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/19/weekinreview/19rich.html

link

Agenda for our Meeting on Friday, February 13th (10am-12pm)

2009-02-07T11:27:00.002-05:00

Location: Ocean County College Library, Toms River, NJ (Room L101D)
Date & Time: Friday, February 13, 2009 (10am-12pm)

Welcome & Introductions.
Events & Programs Announcements.
Update on Progression Standards joint project with VALE_SIL and NJACRL_UE.
What I learned at VALE: VALE Users' Conference Reactions.
Shrinking economy and growing enrollment.
Reader's Advisory: Read any good books lately?
2009/10 CJARL Chairperson.
Electronic Reserves.
Database news.
Update on new projects and innovative thinking at your library.
April/May meeting.

Directions to the Ocean County College camous in Toms River, NJ can be found here.

Light refreshments will be served.

Looking forward to seeing you there.

Academic Library Research: Perspectives and Current Trends

2009-02-07T11:07:00.003-05:00

Marie Radford, PhD (Rutgers University) has a new book out called, Academic Library Research: Perspectives and Current Trends (2008). Co-edited with Pamela Snelson (Franklin & Marshall). In the interest of full disclosure, I am a former student of Dr. Radford's. For those of us who know her, this book is sure to be a very worthwhile read. I'm looking forward to getting my copy. For more information, go to: http://www.alastore.ala.org/detail.aspx?ID=2515

Notes from Joint Progression Standards Meeting

2008-12-16T18:39:00.006-05:00

The following is an account of the Joint Progression Standards Meeting held last Friday. Many thanks to Eleonora Dubicki (Monmouth University) for preparing these notes.

Progression Standards Meeting
Joint Meeting SIL, ACRL/NJLA User Education Committee, and CJARL
Held at Monmouth University
December 12, 2008 10am – 12pm

Participants: Jacqui DaCosta – session leader (TCNJ), Eleonora Dubicki (Monmouth), Gary Schmidt (Ocean CC), Amy Clark (Brookdale CC), Jesse Traquir (Berkeley College), Martin Crabtree (Mercer County CC), Caitlyn Cook (Ocean CC), Ellen Parker (Atlantic Cape CC), Daniel Calandro (Mercer CC), Pamela Price (Mercer CC), Pat Dawson (Rider U), Heather Huey (NJIT), Nancy Madacsi (Centenary), Anne Ciliberti (WPUNJ), Nancy Weiner (WPUNJ), Beatrice Priestly (LBPL and Monmouth), Ruth Hamann (Passaic CCC), Lynee Richel (County College of Morris), Lisa Coats (Monmouth)
VALE executive committee charge – Work together to develop progression standards for students progressing from two year to four year colleges, for the entire group of 52 NJ academic libraries.

Anne Ciliberti – In the recent changes in articulation standards, four year schools must accept credits from 2 year schools. In current definitions of standards, technology and Information Literacy skills are grouped together so that either one satisfies the category, but in reality students need both not just one of these skills.

Many session participants felt that we need to pursue our progression standards recommendations with the Council of Community Colleges, President’s Council (to seek NJ academic officers endorsement.)

Task force – meet in January, March and present at NJLA. Standards should be completed by this summer.

Brainstorming – entire group participated to identify issues and topics that should be addressed by the task force and the documents produced:
- What do we want these standards to be?
- Standards vs guidelines/mandates vs suggestions
- There are K-12 standards for IL, but they aren’t well disseminated. 4 groups. NJ Dept. of Ed. http://www.nj.gov/education/cccs/s8_tech.pdf
- If you get through Middle States accreditation, then school will have addressed IL articulation standards.
- How do you assess whether students have the necessary IL skills when they come to college?
- Heather – it helps to meet with classes multiple times. At NJIT IL is covered in humanities 101 , which meets 3 times – citations, book or articles, evaluate websites.
- Nancy - Focus on our freshman and sophomores to be at when they move to 4 year. What is the competency they should have at end of sophomore year and take this to governing body. Help differentiate between IL and Technology Literacy.
- 2 yr schools have open admissions, how do you address the needs of all types of students – those continuing those who are non-matriculating.
- Mark - Where should IL standards be enforced – librarians, faculty
- Pam - Should there be specific standards for people in professional programs – nursing, therapy.
- Ma Lei: ACRL – standards are the standards and objectives. That’s where should start. Merge with Middle States standards – give visions
- Lynee – needs will be diverse across so all types of students and schools, we should look at macro level which are relevant to everyone – evaluating information and ethical and legal uses.
- Is there a model we would like to follow? What type of wording? Go with simplicity.

Break-out group highlights:

Group 1:
- conceptualizing the document, macro
- Preferred Oswego format, focus on the degree of difficulty. Standards for 1) 1st yr 2) 2nd year
- Copyright only at upper division
- Prefer one page for presentation to groups, bullet point format for simplicity in presentations
- Outcomes assessments (by institution)
- Broad framework to cover difference student contexts, include non-traditional and DL learners

Group 2
- Progressive statements
- non-jargon language to communicate effectively to administrators/non librarians
- Use ACRL standards as a foundation- benchmarks, incoming proficiency, second level
- Assessment – where does it happen, how is faculty involved?
- IL should be embedded in the curriculum

Group 3
- Need to sell information literacy to admin, faculty – highlight IL failures that have been in the news. Context is very important.
- Ethical/Legal/economic issues important in lifelong learning (ACRL5)
- Important to understand “critical thinking” as many faculty see IL – IL not always addressed outside of library
- Need to have a broad foundation
- Simplicity (ACRL too detailed)
- Need to add another layer of experience to Bloom’s taxonomy to include active learning, significant, intentional learning

Group 4
- Accreditation – suggest models as a mandate
- Checklist for competency – simplify wording
- Role of the librarian
- Skills assessment/ outcomes
- Evidence
- Critical thinking

Group 5
- Simplicity in the document produced, eg. SUNY, Rochester
- What should be mastered by end of freshmen and sophomore years? Or expectations by credits – 30 credits, 60/64 credits
- Individual schools can contextualize our document
- Simplified ACRL standards 1-5 eg. SUNY, Eg. 1) Information need – one sentence explanation, then identify competencies needed
- Rows – Standards then competency (how you demonstrate)
- Columns – Level (1st and 2nd) and Upper
- Use a brief introduction to explain the proposed standards ½ - one page

Resources which were shared with participants prior to the meeting or mentioned during the session:
- Middle States IL: http://www.msche.org/publications/Developing-Skills080111151714.pdf
- Core Library and Research Skills Grad 9 – 14+ (Rochester Regional Library Council)
- Information Literacy Learning outcomes for SUNY Oswego Undergraduates
- Criteria for Information Literacy Competency (New Jersey City University)
- California State University Checklist of Information Competencies
- NJ skills assessment chart for K-12: http://www.state.nj.us/education/techno/techlit/tapin/2ci_skills_array.pdf
- NJ Dept of Education website: http://www.state.nj.us/education/techno/techlit/compare/
- NJ Dept of education, Professional and Educational standards: http://education.state.nj.us/cccs/?_list_cpi;c=8;s=1;g=12

December 12, 2008 Joint Meeting at Monmouth University

2008-12-03T15:12:00.003-05:00

Below are some excerpts from an e-mail distributed by Jacqui DaCosta (TCNJ) regarding our December 12 joint meeting with VALE_SIL and NJ_ACRL_UE.

[begins]
On Friday December 12, 10:00-12:00, we will be meeting at Monmouth University, Magill Commons Room 109 (for directions, please see below and on agenda). If you need any further information on the venue or parking, please contact Eleonora Dubicki (edubicki@monmouth.edu)

The purpose of the meeting is to start the process of producing some IL benchmarks/standards that would enable institutions to assess students in the transition from 2 to 4 year colleges, at different stages (e.g. First Year, Sophomore, etc.). It would be really helpful if you could take a look at some of the links and documents attached, prior to the meeting, as these might guide and help us to get off to a running start:
http://www.cccnj.edu/library/informationliteracy.cfm (Cumberland CCC)
http://www.oswego.edu/library/instruction/outcomes.pdf (SUNY Oswego)
http://www.msche.org/publications/Developing-Skills080111151714.pdf (See App. 1 - NJ City Univ)
http://www.topsy.org/ICAP/Standards&Outcomes.pdf (Bay Area Community Colleges)
http://www.fiu.edu/~library/ili/outcomes.html (Florida International University)
You might also want to look at:
http://www.bergen.edu/gened/Distribution_Policy_F7.pdf (Gen. Ed, Foundation Course Goal Categories)
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/objectivesinformation.cfm (ACRL generic objectives)
[ends]

Stephen Bell on Teaching Information Literacy Skills, from ACRLog 11/25/2008

2008-11-25T14:12:00.006-05:00

Here's an interesting post on today's ACRLog from Stephen Bell, in which he addresses the debate about how to best provide students with the information literacy skills they need: librarian taught for-credit-information literacy courses, or information literacy integrated across the curriculum. Bell references articles/blog posts by William Badke and David Watt, which are also worth a look.

CJARL Meeting - December 12, 2008 10am-12pm

2008-11-12T21:25:00.001-05:00

Information literacy is hardly a new concept among librarians. However, it now seems like the rest of the world is finally starting to catch up to us. Over the past few years, a growing number of non-Librarian faculty in high education have begun to realize that accessing and interpreting information is increasingly relevant to student success.

This is good news.

What’s even better news is that many of our academic Librarian colleagues throughout New Jersey are also noticing this trend. Just as we’ve been discussing information literacy competencies and standards during our CJARL meetings, our colleagues on the User Education committee of the New Jersey Chapter of ACRL and VALE’s Shared Information Literacy (SIL) committee have been doing the same.

The progression standards are currently being conceived according to two areas: (1) high school to collegiate progression and (2) 2-year college to 4-year college progression.

That said, it’s about time that we convene all three groups for a kind of “mini-summit” geared toward hashing out our thoughts and ideas on progression standards.

Eleonora Dubicki of the NJACRL-UE committee has graciously arranged accommodations for the joint meeting to take place in Magill Commons (part of the dining/conference facilities) at Monmouth University from 10am-12pm on Friday, December 12, 2008.

This meeting will take the place of our previously-scheduled meeting from 10am-12pm on December 12.

It promises to be a great meeting.

-Gary

"Panel Issues Guide to Using Copyrighted Material in the Classroom"

2008-11-11T15:52:00.003-05:00

This brief article from "The Chronicle of Higher Education" refers to a very interesting--and handy--report created at American University in D.C. on the subject of copyright. The report is written in easy-to-understand language that many teaching faculty will appreciate:

The guide argues that discussion of copyright in education has too often been shaped by copyright holders, "whose understandable concern about large-scale copyright piracy has caused them to equate any unlicensed use of copyright material with stealing." The authors say they hope their work will help professors understand their rights better under current law.

"Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth"

2008-11-04T14:19:00.002-05:00

I suppose we're still discussing wikipedia. Just when you thought the worst was over. Seriously, though, it really is still necessary to keep this on our radar screen. -Gary

"Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth: Why the online encyclopedia's epistemology should worry those who care about traditional notions of accuracy."

By Simson L. Garfinkel

With little notice from the outside world, the community-written encyclopedia Wikipedia has redefined the commonly accepted use of the word "truth."

Why should we care? Because Wikipedia's articles are the first- or second-ranked results for most Internet searches. Type "iron" into Google, and Wikipedia's article on the element is the top-ranked result; likewise, its article on the Iron Cross is first when the search words are "iron cross." Google's search algorithms rank a story in part by how many times it has been linked to; people are linking to Wikipedia articles a lot. [more]

CJARL Meeting Notes – 10/10/08

2008-10-13T19:25:00.002-04:00

Location: CJRLC Corporate Offices in Freehold, NJ.

In attendance (and in no particular order):
1. Amy Kearns Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative
2. Martin Crabtree Mercer County College
3. David Peterson Burlington County College
4. Gary Schmidt Ocean County College
5. Amy Clark Brookdale Community College
6. Carol Moroz Manchester Township High School
7. Valerie Tucci (via phone) The College of New Jersey
8. Jacqui DaCosta (via phone) The College of New Jersey
9. Susan Kadezabek

A note from the Chair:
Over the past year, Information Literacy (IL) has become a reoccurring—almost habitual—topic of discussion during group meetings. The conversations have always been highly engaging, thought-provoking, and stimulating. It has now evolved to the point that the group seeks to expand its scope to include input from High School Librarians as a means of more closely examining the issue and better enabling our understating of how IL is addressed at the pre-undergraduate level.

During a meeting with CJRLC’s Connie Paul and Amy Kearns in early summer 2008, CJARL member Amy Clark and I indicated the group’s current interest in IL and our desire to peruse collaboration with High School Librarians. Both Paul and Kearns have been highly supportive of our group and should be thanked for their tremendous insight, energy, and willingness to act as facilitators in support of our goals. During the meeting, Paul invited Clark and me to CJRLC’s Annual Executive Board meeting in August and encouraged us to pursue opportunities for collaborations (and further insight) there.

While attending that Executive Board meeting in August, I had the great fortune to meet Carol Moroz, the Librarian at Manchester Township High School. Carol expressed great interest in the group’s desire to collaborate with High School Librarians as a means of evaluating her school’s IL teaching curriculum and assessment strategy. Carol accepted my invitation to meet with us during our October meeting.

Given the presence of our distinguished guest, this month’s meeting was unique in so far as we dedicated our time exclusively to the subject of information literacy, thereby making the best use of our time. This was only the group’s fist salvo across the broadsides of collaboration between High School Librarians and Academic Librarians so the conversation tended to be fairly broad, focusing on how we can address the ever-widening divide that students must confront when the IL competencies that they acquired in High School come face-to-face with the expectations of their first year College Professors.

Bottom-up curriculum development and a lack of clearly communicated assignments on the part of teachers were cited as endemic problems at the High School level. The development of standardized assessment instruments to determine (and draw attention to the importance of) the IL competence of incoming freshmen were cited as goals that need to be addressed at the collegiate level.

One of the most interesting ancillary components to all of this, however, is that CJARL is hardly the only group in New Jersey that is currently having this conversation—and along these very same lines. The User Education Committee of the New Jersey Chapter of ACRL and the VALE Information Literacy Committee are both engaged in their own analysis. I encourage members of CJARL to get involved in these—and other—initiatives. I also invite committee members from other organizations to join our discussion group to hear some other voices on the issue. It’s all done in the name of further collaboration.

Respectfully submitted on Monday, October 13, 2008,

Gary Schmidt
Chair, CJARL
Ocean County College
Toms River, NJ

NEXT MEETING: December 12, 2008 10:00am-12:00pm at Ocean County College (Room L101D). Directions available at www.ocean.edu. Agenda to follow at a later date.

Chronicle arcticle: "Connecting Schools and Colleges"

2008-10-07T20:43:00.002-04:00

In preparation for this Friday's meeting, I thought I'd share a recent article (dated: October 10, 2008) from The Chronicle of Higher Education that relates to student preparedness for undergraduate work.

"Connecting Schools and Colleges: More Rhetoric Than Reality"

Permalink: http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i07/07a04001.htm

Constitution Day @ Ocean County College - Part II

2008-09-04T15:14:00.003-04:00

Please join us at Ocean County College on Monday, September 15, 2008 & Wednesday, September 17, 2008 for Constitution Day celebrations!

Constitution Day is on Wednesday, September 17th. In honor of this special, annual event, Ocean County College will be hosting a series of faculty lectures on September 15 & 17. Faculty and staff from neighboring institutions as well as the public are welcome to attend. No registration is required, but please RSVP by September 9 if you would like to join us for lunch on the 15th.

Monday September 15:
8:30 - coffee and light refreshments
9:00 - War Powers of the President Under the Lincoln Administration, Dr. Frank Wetta
9:30 - The Electoral College, Professor Bradford Young
[break]
11:00 - Your Right to Know: An Introduction to the Federal Depository Library Program, Librarian Caitlyn Cook
12:00 - Lunch
1:00 - Colleges, the Constitution and the Courts, Dr. Fran Polk

Wednesday September 17:
8:30 - coffee and light refreshments
9-11- Government Documents in the Classroom, a library-sponsored roundtable workshop introducing the breadth of government information available to students and instructors alike. This workshop will serve as an introduction to government material, but will cover greater depth and subject variety than the presentation on the 15th. Presented by OCC librarians Torris Andersen, Caitlyn Cook and Pamela Dong.

All presentations will take place in the Technology Building on the Ocean County College Campus. You can access a campus map and driving directions here:
http://www.ocean.edu/welcome/maps/maps_directions.htm
Visitors are welcome to park in Lots 1 or 2, additional (and closer) handicap parking is available next to the Information Technology Building (labeled #11) and in the faculty lot (labeled F1) on the campus map.

For more information or to RSVP, please contact Caitlyn Cook at ccook [at] ocean [dot] edu.

We look forward to seeing you!

October 10, 2008 Meeting

2008-08-27T14:35:00.001-04:00

The next meeting of the Central Jersey Academic Librarian group will be on Friday, October 10, 2008 from 10am-12pm at the Central Jersey Regional Library Cooperative (CJRLC) Headquarters in Freehold, NJ. For driving directions, click here.

Many thanks to CJRLC for hosting our meeting.

Constitution Day @ Ocean County College

2008-08-27T14:28:00.002-04:00

Save the Dates!

Monday, September 15, 2008 & Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Constitution Day is on Wednesday, September 17th. In honor of this special, annual event, Ocean County College will be hosting a series of lectures on September 15 & 17. Faculty and staff from neighboring institutions as well as the public are welcome to attend.

The first day (September 15) will feature a series of lectures from Ocean County College and Kean@Ocean Faculty on topics such as (1) The War Powers of the Executive, (2) The Electoral College, and (3) An Introduction to the Breadth of Government Documents Material Provided under the Federal Depository Program. This day will also include a debate between two members of local, Ocean County elected political office. More on that later….

The second day (September 17) will be geared more toward faculty and will include a roundtable workshop focusing on how Faculty can incorporate government documents into the classroom.

Many thanks to Caitlyn Cook, Ocean County College’s Government Documents Librarian, for her hard work and energy in planning this event.

For more information or to RSVP, please contact Caitlyn Cook at ccook [at] ocean [dot] edu.

From Insidehighered.com: Research Methods 'Beyond Google'

2008-06-18T08:49:00.003-04:00

This is an interesting article about the need for information literacy integration across the curriculum and the techniques a few colleges and universities are using to make it happen. Especially interesting is the Cornell Undergraduate Information Competency Initiative.

Follow Up Information about NJAC Title 9A (from May Discussion)

2008-06-03T12:07:00.003-04:00

From Laura Gewissler:

The following is excerpted from NJAC Title 9A: Higher Education posted on the Commission of Higher Education web site under regulatory postings: http://www.state.nj.us/highereducation/PDFs/Licensure_Mar08.pdf
See section 9A: 1- 1.9 (pages 7 & 8) for the changes proposed for August 2008. Bolded sections are the proposed changes.

Excerpts:
9A:1-1.9 Library
(a) At its most elementary level, the collegiate teaching and learning process cannot proceed effectively without the essential services, collections, computerized network access, and other resources that are provided and administered by an institution's library. For this reason, much emphasis is placed upon the adequacy of the library, its collections, and its staffing. In the 21st century, emphasis is also placed on information literacy for all students.
(b) Qualified library professionals, librarians, and support personnel in numbers sufficient to serve the needs of students and faculty shall staff the institution's library. Every institution, regardless of enrollment or number of academic offerings, shall provide access to at least one qualified library professional with the exception of institutions whose library collection is primarily in a language or languages other than English. Institutions whose collection is primarily in a language or languages other than English shall provide access to a qualified library professional, a librarian, or an individual qualified by way of disciplinary expertise (for example, an earned doctorate, extensive study in the discipline, demonstrated scholarly production, etc.). Each curricular area of the institution
should have a library liaison assigned who serves as that department or program's connection to library and research services. [There shall be an annual acquisition of books, journals, and other library materials, including software; appropriate systems for computerized access to other libraries' collections and to materials such as databases; and evidence of effective use of library resources by students and faculty.]
(c) (No change.)
(d) An institution shall demonstrate the development and maintenance of a collection that reflects and supports the curriculum. An institution should compile acquisition and classification data, documenting collection strengths and weaknesses, and have in place a plan to maintain strengths and remedy weaknesses though a combination of physical, virtual, and consortia materials. Institutions are advised to consult the Association of College and Research Libraries "RCL: Resources for College Libraries" or other recognized sources for core collection development.
(e) There shall be a program for continuous acquisition of materials including books, journals, databases, and other instructional materials.
(f) The institution shall catalog and maintain all library holdings appropriately, including providing a protective environment for its physical library material that adequately protects the collection from deterioration and damage.
(g) The institution shall provide clear and consistent methods for on-campus and remote access to electronic resources, and there shall be communication of that information to students in a manner to minimize barriers to usage. To the extent possible at individual institutions, there should be a consistent method for ensuring that electronic resources are archived so that access is possible for virtual library content over time.
(h) The institution shall document evidence of library education programming that encompasses both physical and virtual collections, and the existence of a plan to assess and document effective use of library resources by students and faculty.
(i) An institution should utilize library representatives in the curriculum development process to inform the administration of the library's ability to offer adequate support for materials and library education.
Page 8
40 N.J.R. 969(a)
(j) An institution may enter into contract with another library or libraries for the provision of collections and services, physical or virtual. Institutions shall demonstrate that the collections are appropriate for the curriculum of the institution, that students have convenient access to contracted library services, that there is adequate library instruction provided to students to use effectively the services of the contracted library, and that there are qualified library professionals or librarians available to assist students. The institution shall retain full responsibility for adequacy of resources available to students. Institutions are encouraged to participate in appropriate consortia that allow them to expand and more effectively deliver information resources and services.
(k) An institution shall have in place a plan that articulates how students will obtain information literacy skills as they progress through the curriculum. The plan shall identify outcomes for information literacy skill development, and how those outcomes are measured and assessed. Institutions are encouraged to use a combination of assessment methods to include formal testing, development of student portfolios, examination of research papers bibliographies, and/or other means. Institutions may use either a compartmentalized, or distributed, method of library education, or some combination that meets the needs of the institution. An institution shall provide evidence
of faculty and administrator involvement in the development, implementation and operationalization of
the information literacy plan. The institution has the responsibility, through its library or though other appropriate means, to make the information literacy plan available to the learning community. Within three years of initial licensure, an institution shall document how students are achieving information literacy outcomes.

FYI: Information Literacy & Instruction Blogs

2008-05-27T10:33:00.004-04:00

Lisa Coats passed these along and thought they might be of interest to the group. Enjoy!

Pegasus Librarian: http://pegasuslibrarian.blogspot.com/
InfoLit Librarian: http://danielrhood.com/blog/
Academic Librarian: http://blogs.princeton.edu/librarian/
Alkek Library Information Literacy Blog: http://txstateinfolit.blogspot.com/
Guardienne of the Tomes: http://guardienne.blogspot.com/
Please Be Quiet: http://genneaux.wordpress.com
Information Literacy at I[daho]SU: http://spencerjardine.blogspot.com/

2008-05-27T10:12:00.002-04:00

CJARL Meeting Notes – 05/23/08

Location: Georgian Court University, Lakewood, NJ

In Attendance: Brookdale Community College – Steve Chudnick, Amy Clark Jeanne Ostrowski; Georgian Court University: Mary Basso, Jeff Donnelly, Laura Gewissler, Barbara Herbert; Mercer County Community College: Martin Crabtree; Monmouth University – Lisa Coats; Ocean County College – Caitlyn Cook, Pamela Dong, Gary Schmidt

Announcements:

The ACRL-NJ/NJLA-CUS User Education Committee is sponsoring a program entitled, "Teaching as Performance" on May 30 at Monmouth University from 10:30 - 2:30. Registration deadline is May 23.
The FutureTech for Libraries Symposium will be held at TCNJ on June 13 from 9:30 - 3:30. Registration deadline is June 6.
The NJLA Reference Section is sponsoring a tour of the TCNJ library on Wednesday, May 28 at 3:00 pm. Contact Lisa Coats for more information: lcoats@monmouth.edu
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.
After today's meeting Gary Schmidt, Ocean County College, will be taking over as Chair of the group!

NEXT MEETING: October 10, 2008 ~ Location TBA

Discussion: Subject Research Guides In a follow up to the discussion about Portals from the March meeting, Georgian Court librarians shared via demonstration the subject/course-specific research guides they "house" in the university's course management system, Blackboard. GCU librarians have found that the relationships with faculty largely determine the extent to which the guides are used. The group discussed ways to organize and facilitate access to subject guides in the CMS or on library websites, logistical challenges to maintaining subject research guides, and philosophical questions surrounding subject guide content and students' abilities to find and select authoritative information on their own. Middlestates, General Education, and Information Literacy

Members shared experiences preparing for Middlestates visits with regard to general education and information literacy. Amy shared the work of the ACRL-NJ/NJLA-CUS User Education Committee in addressing the "Technological OR Information Literacy Competency" category in the new General Education guidelines associated with the new Lampitt bill and the comprehensive state-wide transfer agreement (community colleges to public colleges/universities in NJ). Laura mentioned NJ's Title 9, which requires that information literacy programs must be assessed/show that assessment is taking place. The group agreed that an information literacy program must exist before it could be assessed, and many agreed that such a comprehensive information literacy program do not exist at their institutions. Perhaps future revisions of the "Technological or Information Literacy competency" category associated with the state-wide general education model associated with the Lampitt bill will help to make such institution-wide information literacy programs a reality. Future of Print Encyclopedias The discussion came out of a New York Times column, (and it was commented upon in a number of places including recently on the Gypsy Librarian blog). Group members discussed advantages of having print encyclopedias and the need to have most subject-specific encyclopedias in print (due to lack of availability electronically), although it was noted that this is changing. Increasing online course offerings and multi-location campuses were cited as reasons whey electronic encyclopedias were preferable; making their existence known was cited as an issue. Someone mentioned "also available electronically" stickers for placement on print collection as a way to market the electronic collection. High School Partnerships/Collaborations This discussion topic grew out of the article: Burhanna, Kenneth J. "Instructional Outreach to High Schools: Should You Be Doing It?" Communications in Information Literacy (Fall 2007). Barbara Herbert discussed a working relationship she had with an area high school. The group members recalled that the region's Information Literacy group previously identified such collaborations as a project, but nothing lasting really came of it. The group discussed the need for students to establish "healthy" information-seeking habits before they get to college, but struggled with how to make this happen when less healthy ways of obtaining information are so quick and easy, (recall Gary's Whole Foods vs. McDonald's analogy). This led to a discussion of the "good enough" searching/finding so prevalent among our students, and what we can do to address it. It was noted that teachers at the high school level sometimes enable poor information seeking habits when they direct students to Wikipedia, (in ways not designed to teach them how Wikipedia works, which we discussed as a positive approach).

A few references came up in this discussion: Colbert's "Wikiality" clip New book: True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society, by Farhad Manjoo Movie:Idiocracy (also referred to in a blog post by Marc Meola on the ACRLog) ALSO: Ways folks are using - or might use -- Wikipedia as a teaching tool: Here's a lesson from factchecked.org (a wonderful lesson plan resource from the folks at the Annenberg Public Policy Center) that aims to:

Examine the ease with which Wikipedia entries can be altered (either innocently or maliciously).
Discuss the accuracy of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia and consider the usefulness of any encyclopedia as a source of information.
Search Wikipedia for specific factual errors.

Available at: http://www.factchecked.org/LessonPlanDetails.aspx?myId=19. Article: Badke, W.(2008). What to do with Wikipedia. Online 32(2), 48. Book: Broughton, J. (2008) Wikipedia: the missing manual. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly. (Apparently you can request a free copy of this book from the author if you're using Wikipedia for a class assignment.) Project Muse vs. JSTOR GCU and Monmouth librarians shared their experiences with Muse, which were mixed. Generally, Muse seems to be perceived as a good compliment to JSTOR -- especially for more recent scholarly material -- if the institution can afford it. Also, JSTOR is now linking directly to Muse articles (if the institution subscribes to both). Anecdotes that students found "everything" they needed within JSTOR suggest that students may not always understand JSTOR's historical emphasis (or its lack of the newest content in most cases). A Few Other Follow Ups: At some point during the meeting we touched on the idea of libraries sharing their space. After the meeting I came across this article note from the Gypsy Librarian blog about collaborations between libraries and writing centers. On Sunday morning I was listening to WNYC's On the Media, which was re-airing an episode about books. The segment I caught was the middle one: an interview with Bill Powers, author of a paper entitled, "Hamlet's BlackBerry: Why Paper is Eternal." An interesting follow up to the brief discussion we had about how Amazon's Kindle and other readers have a ways to go before they're truly usable.

Next Meeting: May 23 at Georgian Court University

2008-05-15T10:37:00.002-04:00

The next CJARL meeting will be held at Georgian Court University on Friday, May 23 between 10:00 am and 12:00 noon. Directions, parking information, and meeting location to follow.

Here are a few ideas for discussion. We certainly don't have to address all of them -- (or any of them, for that matter!) Please send your ideas (or weigh-in on those presented here) before the meeting and I'll put together a loose agenda.

Explore Georgian Court's Information Literacy shell in their course management system
(discussed at the March meeting)
- Related article: Developing Students' Information and Research Skills via Blackboard.
General Education/Lampitt Bill and the troublesome "Technological Competency or Information Literacy" category:
- The ACRL-NJ/NJLA-CUS User Education Committee is working on submitting a proposal that this be looked at in the Fall. If possible, I'd like to get some ideas and feedback from members of this group to share. (I'll bring copies of relevant documents for those who aren't familiar with the Lampitt Bill.)
What Happens to Your Research Assignment at the Library?
- This article appeared in Vol. 56/Issue 1 of College Teaching (Winter 2008), (full-text available through Academic Search Premier). It addresses the work that librarians do with students at the reference desk-- primarily in the area of topic selection/narrowing -- when assignments assume students have these skills, and it suggests techniques discipline-area faculty might use to build topic focus strategies into research assignments. Might be interesting to hear what experiences members have with this issue and what approaches work best -- with students and faculty.
Federated searching: your thoughts and experiences...
Does anyone have partnerships/working relationships with local high school libraries/academic departments? Should we? A few interesting pieces on this issue:
- Burhanna, Kenneth J. "Instructional Outreach to High Schools: Should You Be Doing It?" Communications in Information Literacy (Fall 2007).
- I also recently listened to the "Thinking Out Loud" podcast by George Needham (OCLC) and Joan Frye Williams, which reported on the University College of London CIBER group's report from January 2008 entitled, "Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future." While I haven't read the report, the podcast, referring to the report, mentions the importance of establishing good research habits early in students' lives, and suggests that by the time they get to college most students are set in their Google-ing ways. (This seemed to support the idea for a greater collaboration between college and high school and even elementary schools with regard to information literacy skills.)
NJLA/Computers in Libraries -- information sharing
YOUR DISCUSSION TOPICS HERE! :)

Interesting "Article Note" from the Gypsy Librarian blog...

2008-03-26T11:47:00.003-04:00

I feel like I take (or try to take) a pretty balanced view about the implementation of Library 2.0 stuff with regard to academic libraries, and I'm always interested in what people are saying about the future of academic libraries. I came across this "article note" on the Gypsy Librarian blog and thought others might be interested as well. Although I haven't read it myself, the article referenced is Jeffrey Gayton's article in the January 2008 issue of The Journal of Academic Librarianship entitled: "Academic Libraries: 'Social' or 'Communal?' The Nature and Future of Academic Libraries. Enjoy!

3.07.08 Meeting Notes

2008-03-10T08:57:00.004-04:00

CJARL Meeting Notes – 03/07/08

Location: CJRLC Headquarters, Freehold, NJ

In Attendance: Brookdale Community College – Amy Clark; Georgian Court University: Laura Gewissler; Mercer County Community College: Martin Crabtree; Monmouth University – Lisa Coats, George Germek; Ocean County College – Gary Schmidt; CJRLC - Amy Kearns

Announcements:

NJLA Conference registration is open. Early bird registration ends April 4.
CJRLC Spring Membership meeting will be Thursday March 8 at Battleground Country Club in Manalapan. Additional details forthcoming on CJRLC's website.
There is a program about open-source software at Princeton University on April 2. (I don't know the details about this....sorry!)
The region's School Group Open House is scheduled for April 23, 3:30 - 6:00 pm at Princeton Day School. Linda Braun, (an expert on technology and literacy) will be presenting.
"A Reference Renaissance: Current and Future Trends" Conference: August 4-5, 2008 in Denver, CO. Check out Library Garden for more details.
There is a job opening for a Systems Librarian at Mercer County Community College. Visit http://www.mccc.edu/welcome_jobs.shtml#job5 for more details.
The Reference Section of NJLA is sponsoring a program at Columbia High School on March 11 from 2:00 - 5:00 pm, on the Academic, School, and Public Library Collaboration Project. Contact Paul Schroeder or Lisa Coats for details.
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.

NEXT MEETING:

May 23, 2008: Georgian Court University, Lakewood, NJ

Discussion:
Information Literacy Assessment Efforts:
Monmouth University Librarians shared some information about their ongoing information literacy assessment project. Pre- and post-test data collected over 4-5 semesters (with sections of a required freshman-level information technology course) is now being compiled, and librarians are conducting a literature review. Some issues identified include that depending on the section of the course, an assignment may or may not have been required in relation to the library session. The pre- and post-testing did not occur during the library session; pre-testing typically occurred the week prior to the library session and post-testing typically occurred one or two weeks after the library session.

Mercer has piloted the TRAILS test with their English 101 and 102 courses, and is now in the process of adapting the questions to best meet their needs before moving ahead with a more formalized assessment project. At the beginning of the term, students in English 101 (Composition 1), a course in which there may or may not be a library introduction, will take the pre-test. After completing 101 and 102, a research-based composition course in which library instruction is strongly suggested, the students will take the post-test. We look forward to hearing the results as they unfold!

Several institutions are preparing for, or currently going through the Middle-States process. It was suggested that since compliance with Middle-States' recommendations is on all administrators' radars, librarians should highlight Middle States' emphasis on information literacy to get buy-in on administrative levels. Amy C., who is involved with the NJLA-CUS/ACRL-NJ User Education Committee, indicated that the committee used this tact to suggest changes to the proposed state-wide General Education changes in the Lampitt Bill. The General Education core competencies lump information literacy with technological competency, and the fulfillment of this competency is an either/or proposition. Drawing on Middle-States documents, the committee drafted a proposal to separate these two categories. The committee's proposal was endorsed by the ACRL-NJ executive board, and members of the committee will be meeting with the Chair of the NJ General Education Committee to discuss the proposed document in April.
Georgian Court University has re-vamped their general education program. GCU has instituted a first-year experience program, which requires two visits to the library: one for a general orientation, and one to gather research for an assignment related to a book all freshman are assigned to read. GCU is also initiating a transfer seminar to bring transfer students up to speed with information literacy and other skills.

Cameron, L., Wise, S. L., & Lottridge, S. M. (2007, May). The development and validation of the information literacy test. College & Research Libraries, 68(3), 229-236. This article discusses the Information Literacy Test (ILT) developed and used at James Madison University.

Scharf, D., Elliot, N., Huey, H. A., Briller, V., & Joshi, K. (2007, July). Direct assessment of information literacy using writing portfolios. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(4), 462-478. Retrieved from Science Direct database. This details the NJIT information literacy assessment project.

Sonley, V., Turner, D., Myer, S., & Cotton, Y. (2007). Information literacy assessment by portfolio:A case study. Reference Services Review, 35(1), 41-70. Retrieved from Emerald Insight database. doi:10.1108/00907320710729355. References a UK-based portfolio assessment project.

Determining Reference Collection Use:
Most members present keep count of the number of reference books re-shelved, without noting specific titles. Some fear that super-efficient weeding of the reference collection would open up space that might quickly be commandeered by the institution for office space. Mercer will be losing some space in the reference collection area. Martin is working with faculty to determine what can stay and what can go. Previously, Mercer would collect using Books for College Libraries, but this is no longer possible due to space constraints. Other members mentioned that so much of what was reference-book material in the print-only age is now readily available online.

Colson, J. (2007). Determining use of an academic library reference collection: Report of a study. Reference and User Services Quarterly, 47(2), 168-175. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier.

Portals:
The group discussed the concept of portals and subject guides. Some librarians are maintaining subject guide web pages; others are not. OCC tags websites with specific course codes in their del.icio.us account.
At GCU, librarians have created an IL course in Blackboard, their course-management system. All students, faculty, and staff are enrolled in the course. Librarians maintain subject-specific resource guides here, which include resources listed by course/course assignment. The IL course also provides general information literacy material, such as modules/tutorials about differences between scholarly and popular sources, etc. In the course management system, use can be tracked.
This approach was noted as a manageable alternative to actually embedding a librarian within every course in the online environment. Creating the IL course, and enrolling all students provides information literacy instruction materials to distance education students. It also serves as a supplemental resource for students in traditional face-to-face courses.
Jackson, P.A. (2007, July). Integrating information literacy into Blackboard: Building campus partnerships for successful student learning. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 33(4), 454-461. Retrieved from Science Direct.

Nichols, J. & Mellinger, M. (2007, Oct.). Portals for undergraduate subject searching: Are they worth it? portal: Libraries and the Academy, 7(4), 481-490. Retrieved from Project Muse.

Open Source and ILS vendors:
The group discussed the open-source movement and some of the upcoming programs about it. Laura raised the important question of who will support all of the open-source stuff? Logistically, this seems like a very big issue, although having librarians -- not the ILS vendors -- at the helm would certainly be advantageous to us.

Impact of Loss of NJKI Resources:
We closed with a discussion of how different institutions are feeling the impact of the NJKI databases. Several members' institutions have elected to pay, (through VALE), to continue coverage of some of the now-lost NJKI databases. Amy Kearns said that region directors are not concerned (at this point) that the $2 million will be cut from the budget. The state will have to determine which databases they will provide with the money available for next year. Here's an article about the "sting" of the NJKI shutdown from the Star Ledger on Friday. (Posted to the NJLA blog.)

Mark Your Calendars: March 7 next CJARL Meeting

2008-02-11T09:49:00.001-05:00

Our next meeting is scheduled for March 7, 2008 between 10:00 am and noon at the CJRLC Headquarters in Freehold. As always, light refreshments will be served and all are welcome to attend!

Please let me know what discussion topics you'd like to see on our "agenda" for this meeting!
Here are a few possibilities:

Lisa Coats forwarded an interesting essay by Ursula Le Guin that follows up on the discussion about reading we had at our last meeting. The essay is titled"Staying Awake: Notes on the Alleged Decline of Reading," and it appears on pages 33-38 of the February 2008 edition of Harper's Magazine.

I read a study in Reference & User Services Quarterly (Vol. 47, Iss. 2) entitled, "Determining Use of an Academic Library Reference Collection: Report of a Study" and I'd be curious to know how, or if, members go about determining the use of their print reference collections and/or how they determine what to buy, keep, weed, or take electronic. Martin, if you're planning to attend, this might dovetail with a follow-up discussion of your library's loss of reference-area space and the subsequent changes to the reference collection, (as discussed at the Oct. 12, 2007 meeting).

Two other possible items, both perhaps more IL-related, but certainly relevant to our work:
Steven Bell posted "Why Students Want Simplicity and Why it Fails Them When it Comes to Research" on the ACRLog earlier this month. This might also make an interesting discussion piece.
A colleague sent me an article by Michael Bugeja from the January-February 2008 issue of The Futurist entitled, "The Age of Distraction: The Professor or the Processor?" I have notes and questions all over the margins of my copy of this one; it too, might make for some good discussion. (If you're interested, The Futurist is available in Academic ASAP and Academic Search Premier)

Please, send additional ideas and issues in advance of the next meeting -- either as a comment to the blog, or via email to me. See you all soon!

2007-12-10T13:45:00.000-05:00

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

2007-11-19T15:27:00.000-05:00

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

2007-10-25T14:44:00.000-04:00

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.

2007-10-15T13:19:00.000-04:00

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

2007-10-10T09:34:00.000-04:00

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"

2007-09-27T15:54:00.000-04:00

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

2007-09-07T14:57:00.000-04:00

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...

2007-05-24T10:29:00.001-04:00

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

2007-05-23T13:42:00.000-04:00

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"

2007-05-05T10:19:00.000-04:00

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!

2007-04-27T12:21:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-09T10:24:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-05T16:18:00.000-04:00

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

2007-04-05T15:57:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-25T08:50:00.000-04:00

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

2007-03-19T10:37:00.000-04:00

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

2007-02-20T14:43:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-19T14:29:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-07T08:54:00.000-05:00

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

2007-02-02T08:49:00.000-05:00

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!

2007-01-27T11:56:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-27T11:44:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-25T10:23:00.000-05:00

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

2007-01-23T08:33:00.000-05:00

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"

2007-01-19T10:21:00.000-05:00

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!

New Look for our New Blog?

2006-12-11T11:22:00.000-05:00

What do you think of this new template for the CJARL blog? I can easily change it back -- or experiment with other templates or color schemes -- but I felt that this template had a more "academic" look than the others available. Feel free to post comments with feedback, or email me directly. Thanks!

December 8th Meeting Notes

2006-12-11T10:55:00.000-05:00

The notes from the December 8th meeting have been emailed to the membership list. (If you did not receive them, please let me know so that I can add your email.) We had a great turn-out and discussed a variety of issues such as: information literacy and information literacy assessment; plagiarism and citation help for students; library cafes; and blogs.

Our next meeting is scheduled for: Friday, March 23 from 10:00 am to 12 noon. The location is tentatively set for Mercer County Community College. Mark your calendars now!

VALE Registration Reminder

2006-12-08T16:22:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder that the deadline for registration for the VALE Users' / NJ ACRL/NJLA CUS Conference (January 5, 2007) is DECEMBER 13. According to the registration form, late registrants will be wait-listed.

Visit the conference information web site for more information: http://www.valenj.org/newvale/conference/2007/.

A Few Good Blogs...

2006-12-08T15:22:00.000-05:00

As requested at today's meeting, here is a link from Stephen Bell on using an aggregator (like bloglines.com) to manage your frequently visited blogs or websites: http://staff.philau.edu/bells/rss.htm.
Setting up an account will allow you to check for new stuff on all of your favorite sites and blogs in one place, at one time. It's quite handy!

Also, here are a few library blogs to get you started:
The Kept-Up Librarian: http://www.keptup.typepad.com/
NJ Academic Librarian: http://www.njacademiclibrarian.blogspot.com/
NJLA Official Blog: http://blog.njla.org/
ACRLog: http://www.acrlblog.org/
Library Garden: http://librarygarden.blogspot.com/
Some interesting items on this blog, but not always related to academic library issues. Robert Lackie is a contributor here.

And of course, don't forget to add http://www.cjarl.blogspot.com/ to your aggregator account!

Look for another post with the highlights of today's meeting, coming soon.

Mark your Calendars!

2006-11-22T10:13:00.000-05:00

It's that time again...

The next CJARL meeting will be Friday, December 8, from 10 am - 12 noon at Brookdale Community College. The meeting will be held in Bankier Library, Room 215. Light refreshments will be provided:)

Directions to the college may be found on the College's web site at: http://www.brookdalecc.edu/content.php?ID=114. Alternatively, you may use Mapquest or Google Maps for more specific directions. The College's address is: 756 Newman Springs Road, Lincroft, NJ 07738.

At our last meeting, information literacy assessment was mentioned as a future topic for discussion.
The group also expressed an interest in bringing in other speakers for future meetings, due to the success of Leslie and Curt's presentation.

Please post comments about the issues YOU'D like to discuss at our December meeting, and any ideas for future speakers we might invite.

Tell your colleagues and bring a friend! I look forward to seeing you all on December 8th!

Welcome to the New CJARL Blog!

2006-11-14T17:43:00.000-05:00

Welcome to the new CJARL Blog! This can be a place for information sharing about meetings and events; a place for discussions to blossom; and generally a great way to build our Central Jersey Academic Reference Librarian community online! Please feel free to post comments with ideas on how you'd like to see this blog function for our group. (We can talk more about that at a future meeting as well!) Stay tuned!

October 20, 2006 Meeting Recap

2006-11-14T17:37:00.000-05:00

Leslie Kahn and Curt Idrogo, from the Newark Public Library, gave a presentation on NPL's array of statewide services available to NJ libraries at our October meeting. The presetation was wonderfully informative!
The group also discussed...BLOGS! Some members are already using blogs internally, as staff communication mechanisms. We look forward to exploring this topic further at future meetings to learn how other academic libraries are approaching the issue.