Academic Librarianship

Academic Librarianship - change - ebooks

Money Money Money

September 12, 2012 by 0 Comments

We all know it’s budget crunch time. It has been for years. Libraries are constantly evaluating budgets in order to find enough funds to keep resources that we have, buy new ones and support both existing and new services. We keep hearing the adage: “Do more with less”. We just can’t do this anymore. By doing more with less, we set up expectations we just can not continue to provide. We burn out our staff and impact our users.

In the face of budget cuts, libraries need to start saying “Do less with less”. This, of course, needs to be done strategically. We need to find areas we can cut reasonably and yes, this may be felt by all.

What are libraries doing? There have been some interesting cases of libraries taking a stand against the publishers and vendors and the crazy fees libraries are often forced into paying. The library system that I grew up with, a very small library system, took a stand against outrageous ebook prices and stopped buying Random House ebooks. SUNY Potsdam examined the outrageous fees that the American Chemical Society charges and decided to walk away and move to a more sustainable solution.

These examples show libraries looking at their budget and realizing they just can’t do it all. They examined options and went with what they felt was best, both for their budget and their users. There are other ways libraries can make the budget work: evaluate services, discover the actual needs of the community and focus on those. Open access is slowly becoming a better option for resources. But in the end, we just can’t do it all. Understanding your community, talking with them, as SUNY Potsdam did with their faculty, and making informed decisions is key. Tough decisions will have to be made, but less money can not mean the same level of resources or services any longer.

Update: Seems another vendor has dramatically increased their prices. Hatchette is increasing their ebook prices over 220%. I hope libraries make noise!

Academic Librarianship - learning2.0

Mobile Learning Sprint

May 2, 2011 by 0 Comments

Last week, Educause offered Mobile Sprint, 5 lunch time webinars over 5 days  on mobile learning. I must admit, I liked the continuing discussion that the 5 days allowed – it was more than just a webinar and it wasn’t as draining as a conference, but it was engaging.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – I love back channels during conferences/webinars. It adds an extra layer of discussion and engagement that sitting quietly in a presentation can never offer. The webinars offered a well used chat for participants. Despite the chat, I took my discussion to twitter as I enjoy taking the discussion to a wider audience – can’t make it to the actual webinar, you can still get the highlights on twitter. Edusprint, the hashtag for the webinars, provided for interesting discussion and I believe I had conversations with interest people who were not participating in the audio portion of the talk.

I’m still not sure how mobile learning is going to evolve – many of the issues raised, such as security, are issues for online learning generally. As it stands now, mobile learning seems to be centred on value-added options. I had an interesting conversation about qr codes in the classroom with one twitterer. Purdue is doing some really neat things with apps like Hotseat – a twitter like application for commenting during class. I’d love to try something like that in an info lit session, allow students to make comments and ask questions, appointing one student to monitor and raise appropriate issues for the whole class. On a whole, I think the webinars raised more questions than answers for me but we are in early stages of mobile learning. I’m looking forward to further discussions on mobile learning and I hope Educause continues the ideas of sprints for other topics. You can check out the recorded mobile sprint sessions here.

Academic Librarianship - info lit

Learning, not teaching

December 8, 2010 by 0 Comments

I recently read an article in University Affairs, co-written by my university’s new president that calls for more emphasis to be placed on learning than teaching. I think there is merit in this argument, but there are implications for library instruction as well as regular classroom instruction.

I’ve been lucky to be involved in inquiry courses (social sciences inquiry, arts and sciences inquiry) that place the emphasis on the learning and questioning process. Even the classrooms have been designed differently, so there is no front of the classroom, no sage on the stage. With the emphasis on questioning and research, I am able to do more with the students in terms of research skills – it’s not the standard rushed one shot library instruction session. While inquiry is not the only method to emphasis learning, it has offered me opportunities that other instruction librarians may not as easily achieve.

If universities moved to learning-based curriculums, rather than teaching-based curriculums, what would the impact be for library instruction, if any? What if all classes were inquiry based, problem based, or some new form of learning style? Would there be a huge impact? Many librarians already incorporate active learning in instruction, which would presumably align with learning-based curriculum ideals. I would hope to see more integration of research skills into programs and less one-shots, but librarians are actively moving in that direction as well. I believe that learning-based rather than teaching-based universities might offer us some new opportunities and am still trying to discern what these might be.

What are your thoughts ? I’d love to know!  Is your library instruction learning-based or teaching-based? How would you fit it into a learning-based curriculum? What would a learning centered library session look like? Do you see much difference for your instruction if the change were made?

 

Academic Librarianship

Renting Textbooks

January 11, 2010 by 0 Comments

I’m putting this out there more for discussion than anything, as I haven’t had a chance to put much thought to it. I’m interested in hearing what people think of this new move to rent textbooks. I think I would have liked to have this option available to me when I was a student. Textbooks have become increasingly expensive. Chegg allows you to rent textbooks and Barnes and Noble is moving that way as well.

I’m wondering what this means for libraries, if anything. I know my library policy is not to purchase textbooks – there is no way a library could have enough copies to allow this type of renting model. Textbooks change to quickly to make it a worthwhile investment when budgets are so tight. My guess is that this particular model – textbook renting – will have little impact for us. (for an interesting read on textbook publishing, check out this Boing Boing article)

This idea of renting books is what intrigues me. Could this become a bigger phenomenon than just textbooks? It certainly sounds like what libraries due, except the whole making money off the process.  As a librarian, I’m all for free access to information and this renting thing gives me a bit of a funny feeling. Is this a possible future for libraries though, as budgets get tighter?

Academic Librarianship - conferences - presentations

Roundup

October 30, 2009 by 0 Comments

Again, far too much time has passed since my last posting and far too much has happened. Here’s a roundup of just some of the things that are happening.

OLA is undergoing some strategic planning discussions at the moment. I love being able to take time to stop and look at the big picture, to figure out what it really is that we want to accomplish as individuals, an association, as a profession. We rarely have the chance to stop the daily routine to see where we are going. This scares a lot of people, or at least makes them uncomfortable but this isn’t a bad thing. Some of this comes down to a fear of change but that could be a whole blog post for another time. You can take part in the OLA discussion on  the ola site, facebook and twitter.

We launched the big project I was part of this summer. We made a series of 6 short, humourous videos promoting library services to new students. You can check them out on our youtube channel. One even made a top 5 list!

I just came back from presenting at Internet Librarian. This is one of my favourite conferences – amazing people with great ideas. You can find my presentation here – feel free to contact me with any questions. One of the highlights of the conference was the launch of Michael Porter and David Lee King’s video Library 101 – be sure to check it out!  I attended the unconference and my first preconference (on digital natives and digital immigrants) – both great events with amazing discussion. One of my favourite things about conferences is the chance to sit around with smart people and discuss the issues we all face as librarians. As usual, I came back from the conference full of ideas and energy – something I was in great need of. It feels like it’s been busier than usual with instruction this year, which is a sign of liaison success I suppose.

I recall thinking “ooh, I should blog about this” in the past few months but in the busy-ness of life, they have gotten lost. At least you’re a little more up-to-date on the state of things though!

Academic Librarianship

Library Day in the Life: wrap up and Floods

August 11, 2009 by 1 Comment

Better late than never.  This was an interesting exercise for me, as I hope it was for you. It’s been an eye opening experience as I got a chance to see what my colleagues in this profession are up to (a lot!).  I hope you’ve gotten a new appreciation for libraries, librarians, and all they do. For myself, it gave me a chance to reflect back on what I accomplished in the day – something I don’t often leave time for and something I should perhaps be doing more often. It does seem I’m rather all over the place in my day and while that may be expected during summer, a time full of committee work, projects and First Year Experience things, I don’t think it’s very productive. I think I need to work on scheduling my time better, when I can, in order to help my productivity move along. I know I work well under pressure and this may be hard fought battle, but I’ll keep you posted on how that scheduling goes. My days also show I like to be busy (yes) and I like to have variety (also very true). Trying to balance all of this may be a challenge.

On another note, many will have heard of the flood that hit the Louiseville Free Public Library. The Library Society of the World is trying to raise money to help out the library and you can find out more about it here and on Boing Boing. It’s great to see the library community, and others, coming together to help out!

Academic Librarianship

Library Day in the Life: Thursday

July 30, 2009 by 0 Comments

Here’s what today looked like:

  • in a surprising twist, the day did not start with checking email,etc. Instead, I was up and at work for 7am so that we could shoot our latest video. We need to be there early to shoot before the library opens. It went well – we had some great actors.
  • meeting to talk about consultation process/guidelines for blended service
  • finally catch up on email, etc
  • set up for group participation in Handheld Librarian Online Conference (#hhlib)
  • listened to keynote of the #hhlib
  • meeting
  • attended remaining sessions on #hhlib. Lots of info on using SMS/text for reference service and other mobile goodness, which of course, got me thinking about it. Canada is behind when it comes to cell phones and half decent plans. Unless you have a plan, and admittedly most people I know do, texting costs to both send and receive. While it would be nice to offer service through text, one of the dominant ways students communicate these days, I wonder if this service would create a digital divide. Not everyone may be willing to pay to use the service. Of course, we offer IM service and many are without computers still, but libraries also offer access to computers; we do not offer access to cell phones. I doubt that this line of thinking would affect too many, but it did make me pause and consider who it is we are trying to serve and what about the rest of our users?
  • 1 hour shift on email/im
Academic Librarianship

Library Day in the Life: Wednesday

July 29, 2009 by 0 Comments

I hope you’re not bored of my days yet. Here’s how today went:

  • catch up an emails, etc – you know the drill
  • met with colleague from First Year Experience Office to discuss library involvement in Welcome Day and let them know some of the cool things we’re doing (First Year Experience wiki, videos, etc). They will be linking to our resources from their own pages (yay!) and I’ll now be part of the first gen session on Welcome Day, as well as the Parent Panel (another yay!). Also arranged to work out some first year research/writing courses, partnering with a prof (one more yay!) for FYEO.
  • listened to latest Adventures in Library Instruction podcast
  • finalized high school instruction request form
  • attempted to participate in part of ACRL’s OnPoint Chat series, “Are Reference Desks Passé?” but it was full (I guess I need to sign in much earlier).
  • networking lunch with colleague in learning technologies. As always, a good time that got ideas flowing
  • researched guidelines for consultations/referrals for blended services and looked for good examples
  • picked up another liaison area (arts and science inquiry) and will have to look into instruction sessions
Academic Librarianship

Speed Dating

November 24, 2008 by 1 Comment

Just finished my first speed dating meeting. No, it’s not what you’re thinking, at least, not exactly. We had visitors from another university visit us. We used the prinicples of speed dating to coordinate the meeting. People were invited based on the interests of the visitors and we had equal numbers on both sides. Everyone from our institution had 5 minutes with one of the visitors and then we moved on. We then had two longer half hour sessions in small groups. It was great! I need to work on my networking skills and this was a great way to ensure I talked with everyone. The biggest problem – 5 minutes ran out far too quickly! I learned lots from the visitors, about what they were doing and their questions made me think about what we’re doing. I highly recommend the speed dating meeting – it was fun and informative.