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

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...

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

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

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!

CJARL Meeting Notes – 12/07/07

Location: Ocean County College Library Room 101D

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

Announcements:

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

Spring Meeting Dates:

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

May 23, 2008: Location TBA

Discussion:

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

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

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

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

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

Next Meeting: December 7

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

Other relevant details:

Driving Directions

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

Parking

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

Meeting Location

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

Campus Map

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