PALS is housed in Mankato, 40+ years, shared by all MnSCU institutions. smaller libraries with smaller staff benefit.
Funding: Centrally from the Chancellor Office and privately.
Ex Libris. Alma (management software) discovery software is Primo. Implementation from Sept 2017 to 2019
value-added services? A value–added service (VAS) is a popular telecommunications industry term for non-coreservices, or, in short, all services beyond standard voice calls and fax transmissions. However, it can be used in any service industry, for services available at little or no cost, to promote their primary business.
one search point; phys + electr; integrated into central system; academic resources available in central index; analytics and reporting; library consortia
EZ Proxy – provides access to library resources off campus
Islandora – open source digital asset management solution tha preserves, manages, and provide access to docs, unique history (photos, publications); research, other resources
Islandora is considered for OER, link to course materials through D2L
Leganto – expensive ExLibris for D2L integration
+++++++++++++
Thurs, Nov 30 – continuation from Tues, Nov 28
Islandora. open source digital assessment tool. STCC is using Islandora
Primo is the discovery tool for campus only w subscription. PALS does not fund Primo. PALS does it through state-wide dbases.
ILL of electronic resources among campuses; the new system is making it easier.
your comments about the new system making electronic resources more available : does it mean that I will not have to go through my campus ILL persona can “borrow” directly? or it is too optimistic to expect that?
Stephen Kelly: Tim Anderson has shared with me some thoughts on how Islandora can assist with archiving Open Educational Resources (OERs), but could you comment further on that for the benefit of everyone on the call? Answer: safe place to save OER. Drupal-based front end. Customizable. What is the connection to Primo
Stephen Kelly: Could it facilitate easier sharing of resources between institutions? For instance, if an OER was created at one institution and uploaded to Islandora, could it easily be populated for every other institution to access the materials as well?
Piggybacking on Stephen Kelly: are the account permissions similar to the average social media tool, where faculty can decide how “wide” the permission of h/er OER product is? E.g. a blog or YouTube / Kaltura can have: private / unlisted / public levels. Does Islandora function the same?
2018 Special Focus: Education in a Time of Austerity and Social Turbulence 21–23 June 2018 University of Athens, Athens, Greece http://thelearner.com/2018-conference
Theme 8: Technologies in Learning
Technology and human values: learning through and about technology
Crossing the digital divide: access to learning in, and about, the digital world
New tools for learning: online digitally mediated learning
Virtual worlds, virtual classrooms: interactive, self-paced and autonomous learning
Ubiquitous learning: using the affordances of the new mediaDistance learning: reducing the distance
Theme 9: Literacies Learning
Defining new literacies
Languages of power: literacy’s role in social access
Instructional responses to individual differences in literacy learning
The visual and the verbal: Multiliteracies and multimodal communications
Literacy in learning: language in learning across the subject areas
The changing role of libraries in literacies learning
Languages education and second language learning
Multilingual learning for a multicultural world
The arts and design in multimodal learning
The computer, internet, and digital media: educational challenges and responses
++++++++++
PROPOSAL: Paper presentation in a Themed Session
Title
Virtual Reality and Gamification in the Educational Process: The Experience from an Academic Library
short description
VR, AR and Mixed Reality, as well as gaming and gamification are proposed as sandbox opportunity to transition from a lecture-type instruction to constructivist-based methods.
long description
The NMC New Horizon Report 2017 predicts a rapid application of Video360 in K12. Millennials are leaving college, Gen Z students are our next patrons. Higher Education needs to meet its new students on “their playground.” A collaboration by a librarian and VR specialist is testing the opportunities to apply 360 degree movies and VR in academic library orientation. The team seeks to bank on the inheriting interest of young patrons toward these technologies and their inextricable part of a rapidly becoming traditional gaming environment. A “low-end,” inexpensive and more mobile Google Cardboard solution was preferred to HTC Vive, Microsoft HoloLens or comparable hi-end VR, AR and mixed reality products.
The team relies on the constructivist theory of assisting students in building their knowledge in their own pace and on their own terms, rather than being lectured and/or being guided by a librarian during a traditional library orientation tour. Using inexpensive Google Cardboard goggles, students can explore a realistic set up of the actual library and familiarize themselves with its services. Students were polled on the effectiveness of such approach as well as on their inclination to entertain more comprehensive version of library orientation. Based on the lessons from this experiment, the team intends to pursue also a standardized approach to introducing VR to other campus services, thus bringing down further the cost of VR projects on campus. The project is considered a sandbox for academic instruction across campus. The same concept can be applied for [e.g., Chemistry, Physics, Biology) lab tours; for classes, which anticipate preliminary orientation process.
Following the VR orientation, the traditional students’ library instruction, usually conducted in a room, is replaced by a dynamic gamified library instruction. Students are split in groups of three and conduct a “scavenger hunt”; students use a jQuery-generated Web site on their mobile devices to advance through “hoops” of standard information literacy test. E.g., they need to walk to the Reference Desk, collect specific information and log their findings in the Web site. The idea follows the strong interest in the educational world toward gaming and gamification of the educational process. This library orientation approach applies the three principles for gamification: empowers learners; teaches problem solving and increases understanding.
Similarly to the experience with VR for library orientation, this library instruction process is used as a sandbox and has been successfully replicated by other instructors in their classes.
Media literacy. Differentiated instruction. Media literacy guide.
Fake news as part of media literacy. Visual literacy as part of media literacy. Media literacy as part of digital citizenship.
Web design / web development
the roles of HTML5, CSS, Java Script, PHP, Bootstrap, JQuery, React and other scripting languages and libraries. Heat maps and other usability issues; website content strategy. THE MODEL-VIEW-CONTROLLER (MVC) design pattern
Social media for institutional use. Digital Curation. Social Media algorithms. Etiquette Ethics. Mastodon
I hosted a LITA webinar in the fall of 2016 (four weeks); I can accommodate any information from that webinar for the use of the IM students
OER and instructional designer’s assistance to book creators.
I can cover both the “library part” (“free” OER, copyright issues etc) and the support / creative part of an OER book / textbook
“Big Data.” Data visualization. Large scale visualization. Text encoding. Analytics, Data mining. Unizin. Python, R in academia.
I can introduce the students to the large idea of Big Data and its importance in lieu of the upcoming IoT, but also departmentalize its importance for academia, business, etc. From infographics to heavy duty visualization (Primo X-Services API. JSON, Flask).
NetNeutrality, Digital Darwinism, Internet economy and the role of your professional in such environment
I can introduce students to the issues, if not familiar and / or lead a discussion on a rather controversial topic
Digital assessment. Digital Assessment literacy.
I can introduce students to tools, how to evaluate and select tools and their pedagogical implications
Wikipedia
a hands-on exercise on working with Wikipedia. After the session, students will be able to create Wikipedia entries thus knowing intimately the process of Wikipedia and its information.
Effective presentations. Tools, methods, concepts and theories (cognitive load). Presentations in the era of VR, AR and mixed reality. Unity.
I can facilitate a discussion among experts (your students) on selection of tools and their didactically sound use to convey information. I can supplement the discussion with my own findings and conclusions.
eConferencing. Tools and methods
I can facilitate a discussion among your students on selection of tools and comparison. Discussion about the their future and their place in an increasing online learning environment
Digital Storytelling. Immersive Storytelling. The Moth. Twine. Transmedia Storytelling
I am teaching a LIB 490/590 Digital Storytelling class. I can adapt any information from that class to the use of IM students
VR, AR, Mixed Reality.
besides Mark Gill, I can facilitate a discussion, which goes beyond hardware and brands, but expand on the implications for academia and corporate education / world
Instructional design. ID2ID
I can facilitate a discussion based on the Educause suggestions about the profession’s development
Microcredentialing in academia and corporate world. Blockchain
IT in K12. How to evaluate; prioritize; select. obsolete trends in 21 century schools. K12 mobile learning
Podcasting: past, present, future. Beautiful Audio Editor.
a definition of podcasting and delineation of similar activities; advantages and disadvantages.
Gender, race and age in education. Digital divide. Xennials, Millennials and Gen Z. generational approach to teaching and learning. Young vs old Millennials. Millennial employees.
Applications for the 2018 Institute will be accepted between December 1, 2017 and January 27, 2018. Scholars accepted to the program will be notified in early March 2018.
Title:
Learning to Harness Big Data in an Academic Library
Abstract (200)
Research on Big Data per se, as well as on the importance and organization of the process of Big Data collection and analysis, is well underway. The complexity of the process comprising “Big Data,” however, deprives organizations of ubiquitous “blue print.” The planning, structuring, administration and execution of the process of adopting Big Data in an organization, being that a corporate one or an educational one, remains an elusive one. No less elusive is the adoption of the Big Data practices among libraries themselves. Seeking the commonalities and differences in the adoption of Big Data practices among libraries may be a suitable start to help libraries transition to the adoption of Big Data and restructuring organizational and daily activities based on Big Data decisions. Introduction to the problem. Limitations
The redefinition of humanities scholarship has received major attention in higher education. The advent of digital humanities challenges aspects of academic librarianship. Data literacy is a critical need for digital humanities in academia. The March 2016 Library Juice Academy Webinar led by John Russel exemplifies the efforts to help librarians become versed in obtaining programming skills, and respectively, handling data. Those are first steps on a rather long path of building a robust infrastructure to collect, analyze, and interpret data intelligently, so it can be utilized to restructure daily and strategic activities. Since the phenomenon of Big Data is young, there is a lack of blueprints on the organization of such infrastructure. A collection and sharing of best practices is an efficient approach to establishing a feasible plan for setting a library infrastructure for collection, analysis, and implementation of Big Data.
Limitations. This research can only organize the results from the responses of librarians and research into how libraries present themselves to the world in this arena. It may be able to make some rudimentary recommendations. However, based on each library’s specific goals and tasks, further research and work will be needed.
Big Data is becoming an omnipresent term. It is widespread among different disciplines in academia (De Mauro, Greco, & Grimaldi, 2016). This leads to “inconsistency in meanings and necessity for formal definitions” (De Mauro et al, 2016, p. 122). Similarly, to De Mauro et al (2016), Hashem, Yaqoob, Anuar, Mokhtar, Gani and Ullah Khan (2015) seek standardization of definitions. The main connected “themes” of this phenomenon must be identified and the connections to Library Science must be sought. A prerequisite for a comprehensive definition is the identification of Big Data methods. Bughin, Chui, Manyika (2011), Chen et al. (2012) and De Mauro et al (2015) single out the methods to complete the process of building a comprehensive definition.
In conjunction with identifying the methods, volume, velocity, and variety, as defined by Laney (2001), are the three properties of Big Data accepted across the literature. Daniel (2015) defines three stages in big data: collection, analysis, and visualization. According to Daniel, (2015), Big Data in higher education “connotes the interpretation of a wide range of administrative and operational data” (p. 910) and according to Hilbert (2013), as cited in Daniel (2015), Big Data “delivers a cost-effective prospect to improve decision making” (p. 911).
The importance of understanding the process of Big Data analytics is well understood in academic libraries. An example of such “administrative and operational” use for cost-effective improvement of decision making are the Finch & Flenner (2016) and Eaton (2017) case studies of the use of data visualization to assess an academic library collection and restructure the acquisition process. Sugimoto, Ding & Thelwall (2012) call for the discussion of Big Data for libraries. According to the 2017 NMC Horizon Report “Big Data has become a major focus of academic and research libraries due to the rapid evolution of data mining technologies and the proliferation of data sources like mobile devices and social media” (Adams, Becker, et al., 2017, p. 38).
Power (2014) elaborates on the complexity of Big Data in regard to decision-making and offers ideas for organizations on building a system to deal with Big Data. As explained by Boyd and Crawford (2012) and cited in De Mauro et al (2016), there is a danger of a new digital divide among organizations with different access and ability to process data. Moreover, Big Data impacts current organizational entities in their ability to reconsider their structure and organization. The complexity of institutions’ performance under the impact of Big Data is further complicated by the change of human behavior, because, arguably, Big Data affects human behavior itself (Schroeder, 2014).
De Mauro et al (2015) touch on the impact of Dig Data on libraries. The reorganization of academic libraries considering Big Data and the handling of Big Data by libraries is in a close conjunction with the reorganization of the entire campus and the handling of Big Data by the educational institution. In additional to the disruption posed by the Big Data phenomenon, higher education is facing global changes of economic, technological, social, and educational character. Daniel (2015) uses a chart to illustrate the complexity of these global trends. Parallel to the Big Data developments in America and Asia, the European Union is offering access to an EU open data portal (https://data.europa.eu/euodp/home ). Moreover, the Association of European Research Libraries expects under the H2020 program to increase “the digitization of cultural heritage, digital preservation, research data sharing, open access policies and the interoperability of research infrastructures” (Reilly, 2013).
The challenges posed by Big Data to human and social behavior (Schroeder, 2014) are no less significant to the impact of Big Data on learning. Cohen, Dolan, Dunlap, Hellerstein, & Welton (2009) propose a road map for “more conservative organizations” (p. 1492) to overcome their reservations and/or inability to handle Big Data and adopt a practical approach to the complexity of Big Data. Two Chinese researchers assert deep learning as the “set of machine learning techniques that learn multiple levels of representation in deep architectures (Chen & Lin, 2014, p. 515). Deep learning requires “new ways of thinking and transformative solutions (Chen & Lin, 2014, p. 523). Another pair of researchers from China present a broad overview of the various societal, business and administrative applications of Big Data, including a detailed account and definitions of the processes and tools accompanying Big Data analytics. The American counterparts of these Chinese researchers are of the same opinion when it comes to “think about the core principles and concepts that underline the techniques, and also the systematic thinking” (Provost and Fawcett, 2013, p. 58). De Mauro, Greco, and Grimaldi (2016), similarly to Provost and Fawcett (2013) draw attention to the urgent necessity to train new types of specialists to work with such data. As early as 2012, Davenport and Patil (2012), as cited in Mauro et al (2016), envisioned hybrid specialists able to manage both technological knowledge and academic research. Similarly, Provost and Fawcett (2013) mention the efforts of “academic institutions scrambling to put together programs to train data scientists” (p. 51). Further, Asomoah, Sharda, Zadeh & Kalgotra (2017) share a specific plan on the design and delivery of a big data analytics course. At the same time, librarians working with data acknowledge the shortcomings in the profession, since librarians “are practitioners first and generally do not view usability as a primary job responsibility, usually lack the depth of research skills needed to carry out a fully valid” data-based research (Emanuel, 2013, p. 207).
Borgman (2015) devotes an entire book to data and scholarly research and goes beyond the already well-established facts regarding the importance of Big Data, the implications of Big Data and the technical, societal, and educational impact and complications posed by Big Data. Borgman elucidates the importance of knowledge infrastructure and the necessity to understand the importance and complexity of building such infrastructure, in order to be able to take advantage of Big Data. In a similar fashion, a team of Chinese scholars draws attention to the complexity of data mining and Big Data and the necessity to approach the issue in an organized fashion (Wu, Xhu, Wu, Ding, 2014).
Bruns (2013) shifts the conversation from the “macro” architecture of Big Data, as focused by Borgman (2015) and Wu et al (2014) and ponders over the influx and unprecedented opportunities for humanities in academia with the advent of Big Data. Does the seemingly ubiquitous omnipresence of Big Data mean for humanities a “railroading” into “scientificity”? How will research and publishing change with the advent of Big Data across academic disciplines?
Reyes (2015) shares her “skinny” approach to Big Data in education. She presents a comprehensive structure for educational institutions to shift “traditional” analytics to “learner-centered” analytics (p. 75) and identifies the participants in the Big Data process in the organization. The model is applicable for library use.
Being a new and unchartered territory, Big Data and Big Data analytics can pose ethical issues. Willis (2013) focusses on Big Data application in education, namely the ethical questions for higher education administrators and the expectations of Big Data analytics to predict students’ success. Daries, Reich, Waldo, Young, and Whittinghill (2014) discuss rather similar issues regarding the balance between data and student privacy regulations. The privacy issues accompanying data are also discussed by Tene and Polonetsky, (2013).
Privacy issues are habitually connected to security and surveillance issues. Andrejevic and Gates (2014) point out in a decision making “generated by data mining, the focus is not on particular individuals but on aggregate outcomes” (p. 195). Van Dijck (2014) goes into further details regarding the perils posed by metadata and data to the society, in particular to the privacy of citizens. Bail (2014) addresses the same issue regarding the impact of Big Data on societal issues, but underlines the leading roles of cultural sociologists and their theories for the correct application of Big Data.
Library organizations have been traditional proponents of core democratic values such as protection of privacy and elucidation of related ethical questions (Miltenoff & Hauptman, 2005). In recent books about Big Data and libraries, ethical issues are important part of the discussion (Weiss, 2018). Library blogs also discuss these issues (Harper & Oltmann, 2017). An academic library’s role is to educate its patrons about those values. Sugimoto et al (2012) reflect on the need for discussion about Big Data in Library and Information Science. They clearly draw attention to the library “tradition of organizing, managing, retrieving, collecting, describing, and preserving information” (p.1) as well as library and information science being “a historically interdisciplinary and collaborative field, absorbing the knowledge of multiple domains and bringing the tools, techniques, and theories” (p. 1). Sugimoto et al (2012) sought a wide discussion among the library profession regarding the implications of Big Data on the profession, no differently from the activities in other fields (e.g., Wixom, Ariyachandra, Douglas, Goul, Gupta, Iyer, Kulkami, Mooney, Phillips-Wren, Turetken, 2014). A current Andrew Mellon Foundation grant for Visualizing Digital Scholarship in Libraries seeks an opportunity to view “both macro and micro perspectives, multi-user collaboration and real-time data interaction, and a limitless number of visualization possibilities – critical capabilities for rapidly understanding today’s large data sets (Hwangbo, 2014).
The importance of the library with its traditional roles, as described by Sugimoto et al (2012) may continue, considering the Big Data platform proposed by Wu, Wu, Khabsa, Williams, Chen, Huang, Tuarob, Choudhury, Ororbia, Mitra, & Giles (2014). Such platforms will continue to emerge and be improved, with librarians as the ultimate drivers of such platforms and as the mediators between the patrons and the data generated by such platforms.
Every library needs to find its place in the large organization and in society in regard to this very new and very powerful phenomenon called Big Data. Libraries might not have the trained staff to become a leader in the process of organizing and building the complex mechanism of this new knowledge architecture, but librarians must educate and train themselves to be worthy participants in this new establishment.
Method
The study will be cleared by the SCSU IRB.
The survey will collect responses from library population and it readiness to use and use of Big Data. Send survey URL to (academic?) libraries around the world.
Data will be processed through SPSS. Open ended results will be processed manually. The preliminary research design presupposes a mixed method approach.
The study will include the use of closed-ended survey response questions and open-ended questions. The first part of the study (close ended, quantitative questions) will be completed online through online survey. Participants will be asked to complete the survey using a link they receive through e-mail.
Mixed methods research was defined by Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) as “the class of research where the researcher mixes or combines quantitative and qualitative research techniques, methods, approaches, concepts, or language into a single study” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2004 , p. 17). Quantitative and qualitative methods can be combined, if used to complement each other because the methods can measure different aspects of the research questions (Sale, Lohfeld, & Brazil, 2002).
Sampling design
Online survey of 10-15 question, with 3-5 demographic and the rest regarding the use of tools.
1-2 open-ended questions at the end of the survey to probe for follow-up mixed method approach (an opportunity for qualitative study)
data analysis techniques: survey results will be exported to SPSS and analyzed accordingly. The final survey design will determine the appropriate statistical approach.
Project Schedule
Complete literature review and identify areas of interest – two months
Prepare and test instrument (survey) – month
IRB and other details – month
Generate a list of potential libraries to distribute survey – month
Contact libraries. Follow up and contact again, if necessary (low turnaround) – month
Collect, analyze data – two months
Write out data findings – month
Complete manuscript – month
Proofreading and other details – month
Significance of the work
While it has been widely acknowledged that Big Data (and its handling) is changing higher education (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims?s=big+data) as well as academic libraries (https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/03/29/analytics-in-education/), it remains nebulous how Big Data is handled in the academic library and, respectively, how it is related to the handling of Big Data on campus. Moreover, the visualization of Big Data between units on campus remains in progress, along with any policymaking based on the analysis of such data (hence the need for comprehensive visualization).
This research will aim to gain an understanding on: a. how librarians are handling Big Data; b. how are they relating their Big Data output to the campus output of Big Data and c. how librarians in particular and campus administration in general are tuning their practices based on the analysis.
Based on the survey returns (if there is a statistically significant return), this research might consider juxtaposing the practices from academic libraries, to practices from special libraries (especially corporate libraries), public and school libraries.
References:
Adams Becker, S., Cummins M, Davis, A., Freeman, A., Giesinger Hall, C., Ananthanarayanan, V., … Wolfson, N. (2017). NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Library Edition.
Andrejevic, M., & Gates, K. (2014). Big Data Surveillance: Introduction. Surveillance & Society, 12(2), 185–196.
Asamoah, D. A., Sharda, R., Hassan Zadeh, A., & Kalgotra, P. (2017). Preparing a Data Scientist: A Pedagogic Experience in Designing a Big Data Analytics Course. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 15(2), 161–190. https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.12125
Bughin, J., Chui, M., & Manyika, J. (2010). Clouds, big data, and smart assets: Ten tech-enabled business trends to watch. McKinsey Quarterly, 56(1), 75–86.
Cohen, J., Dolan, B., Dunlap, M., Hellerstein, J. M., & Welton, C. (2009). MAD Skills: New Analysis Practices for Big Data. Proc. VLDB Endow., 2(2), 1481–1492. https://doi.org/10.14778/1687553.1687576
Daniel, B. (2015). Big Data and analytics in higher education: Opportunities and challenges. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(5), 904–920. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.12230
Daries, J. P., Reich, J., Waldo, J., Young, E. M., Whittinghill, J., Ho, A. D., … Chuang, I. (2014). Privacy, Anonymity, and Big Data in the Social Sciences. Commun. ACM, 57(9), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1145/2643132
De Mauro, A. D., Greco, M., & Grimaldi, M. (2016). A formal definition of Big Data based on its essential features. Library Review, 65(3), 122–135. https://doi.org/10.1108/LR-06-2015-0061
De Mauro, A., Greco, M., & Grimaldi, M. (2015). What is big data? A consensual definition and a review of key research topics. AIP Conference Proceedings, 1644(1), 97–104. https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4907823
Eaton, M. (2017). Seeing Library Data: A Prototype Data Visualization Application for Librarians. Publications and Research. Retrieved from http://academicworks.cuny.edu/kb_pubs/115
Emanuel, J. (2013). Usability testing in libraries: methods, limitations, and implications. OCLC Systems & Services: International Digital Library Perspectives, 29(4), 204–217. https://doi.org/10.1108/OCLC-02-2013-0009
Graham, M., & Shelton, T. (2013). Geography and the future of big data, big data and the future of geography. Dialogues in Human Geography, 3(3), 255–261. https://doi.org/10.1177/2043820613513121
Hashem, I. A. T., Yaqoob, I., Anuar, N. B., Mokhtar, S., Gani, A., & Ullah Khan, S. (2015). The rise of “big data” on cloud computing: Review and open research issues. Information Systems, 47(Supplement C), 98–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2014.07.006
Laney, D. (2001, February 6). 3D Data Management: Controlling Data Volume, Velocity, and Variety.
Miltenoff, P., & Hauptman, R. (2005). Ethical dilemmas in libraries: an international perspective. The Electronic Library, 23(6), 664–670. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470510635746
Philip Chen, C. L., & Zhang, C.-Y. (2014). Data-intensive applications, challenges, techniques and technologies: A survey on Big Data. Information Sciences, 275(Supplement C), 314–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ins.2014.01.015
Provost, F., & Fawcett, T. (2013). Data Science and its Relationship to Big Data and Data-Driven Decision Making. Big Data, 1(1), 51–59. https://doi.org/10.1089/big.2013.1508
Reyes, J. (2015). The skinny on big data in education: Learning analytics simplified. TechTrends: Linking Research & Practice to Improve Learning, 59(2), 75–80. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-015-0842-1
Schroeder, R. (2014). Big Data and the brave new world of social media research. Big Data & Society, 1(2), 2053951714563194. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053951714563194
Sugimoto, C. R., Ding, Y., & Thelwall, M. (2012). Library and information science in the big data era: Funding, projects, and future [a panel proposal]. Proceedings of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, 49(1), 1–3. https://doi.org/10.1002/meet.14504901187
Tene, O., & Polonetsky, J. (2012). Big Data for All: Privacy and User Control in the Age of Analytics. Northwestern Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property, 11, [xxvii]-274.
van Dijck, J. (2014). Datafication, dataism and dataveillance: Big Data between scientific paradigm and ideology. Surveillance & Society; Newcastle upon Tyne, 12(2), 197–208.
Waller, M. A., & Fawcett, S. E. (2013). Data Science, Predictive Analytics, and Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform Supply Chain Design and Management. Journal of Business Logistics, 34(2), 77–84. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbl.12010
West, D. M. (2012). Big data for education: Data mining, data analytics, and web dashboards. Governance Studies at Brookings, 4, 1–0.
Willis, J. (2013). Ethics, Big Data, and Analytics: A Model for Application. Educause Review Online. Retrieved from https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/idcpubs/1
Wixom, B., Ariyachandra, T., Douglas, D. E., Goul, M., Gupta, B., Iyer, L. S., … Turetken, O. (2014). The current state of business intelligence in academia: The arrival of big data. CAIS, 34, 1.
Wu, X., Zhu, X., Wu, G. Q., & Ding, W. (2014). Data mining with big data. IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, 26(1), 97–107. https://doi.org/10.1109/TKDE.2013.109
Wu, Z., Wu, J., Khabsa, M., Williams, K., Chen, H. H., Huang, W., … Giles, C. L. (2014). Towards building a scholarly big data platform: Challenges, lessons and opportunities. In IEEE/ACM Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (pp. 117–126). https://doi.org/10.1109/JCDL.2014.6970157
10. The Virtualized Library: A Librarian’s Introduction to Docker and Virtual Machines
This session will introduce two major types of virtualization, virtual machines using tools like VirtualBox and Vagrant, and containers using Docker. The relative strengths and drawbacks of the two approaches will be discussed along with plenty of hands-on time. Though geared towards integrating these tools into a development workflow, the workshop should be useful for anyone interested in creating stable and reproducible computing environments, and examples will focus on library-specific tools like Archivematica and EZPaarse. With virtualization taking a lot of the pain out of installing and distributing software, alleviating many cross-platform issues, and becoming increasingly common in library and industry practices, now is a great time to get your feet wet.
(One three-hour session)
11. Digital Empathy: Creating Safe Spaces Online
User research is often focused on measures of the usability of online spaces. We look at search traffic, run card sorting and usability testing activities, and track how users navigate our spaces. Those results inform design decisions through the lens of information architecture. This is important, but doesn’t encompass everything a user needs in a space.
This workshop will focus on the other component of user experience design and user research: how to create spaces where users feel safe. Users bring their anxieties and stressors with them to our online spaces, but informed design choices can help to ameliorate that stress. This will ultimately lead to a more positive interaction between your institution and your users.
The presenters will discuss the theory behind empathetic design, delve deeply into using ethnographic research methods – including an opportunity for attendees to practice those ethnographic skills with student participants – and finish with the practical application of these results to ongoing and future projects.
(One three-hour session)
14. ARIA Basics: Making Your Web Content Sing Accessibility
https://dequeuniversity.com/assets/html/jquery-summit/html5/slides/landmarks.html
Are you a web developer or create web content? Do you add dynamic elements to your pages? If so, you should be concerned with making those dynamic elements accessible and usable to as many as possible. One of the most powerful tools currently available for making web pages accessible is ARIA, the Accessible Rich Internet Applications specification. This workshop will teach you the basics for leveraging the full power of ARIA to make great accessible web pages. Through several hands-on exercises, participants will come to understand the purpose and power of ARIA and how to apply it for a variety of different dynamic web elements. Topics will include semantic HTML, ARIA landmarks and roles, expanding/collapsing content, and modal dialog. Participants will also be taught some basic use of the screen reader NVDA for use in accessibility testing. Finally, the lessons will also emphasize learning how to keep on learning as HTML, JavaScript, and ARIA continue to evolve and expand.
Participants will need a basic background in HTML, CSS, and some JavaScript.
(One three-hour session)
18. Learning and Teaching Tech
Tech workshops pose two unique problems: finding skilled instructors for that content, and instructing that content well. Library hosted workshops are often a primary educational resource for solo learners, and many librarians utilize these workshops as a primary outreach platform. Tackling these two issues together often makes the most sense for our limited resources. Whether a programming language or software tool, learning tech to teach tech can be one of the best motivations for learning that tech skill or tool, but equally important is to learn how to teach and present tech well.
This hands-on workshop will guide participants through developing their own learning plan, reviewing essential pedagogy for teaching tech, and crafting a workshop of their choice. Each participant will leave with an actionable learning schedule, a prioritized list of resources to investigate, and an outline of a workshop they would like to teach.
(Two three-hour sessions)
23. Introduction to Omeka S
Omeka S represents a complete rewrite of Omeka Classic (aka the Omeka 2.x series), adhering to our fundamental principles of encouraging use of metadata standards, easy web publishing, and sharing cultural history. New objectives in Omeka S include multisite functionality and increased interaction with other systems. This workshop will compare and contrast Omeka S with Omeka Classic to highlight our emphasis on 1) modern metadata standards, 2) interoperability with other systems including Linked Open Data, 3) use of modern web standards, and 4) web publishing to meet the goals medium- to large-sized institutions.
In this workshop we will walk through Omeka S Item creation, with emphasis on LoD principles. We will also look at the features of Omeka S that ease metadata input and facilitate project-defined usage and workflows. In accordance with our commitment to interoperability, we will describe how the API for Omeka S can be deployed for data exchange and sharing between many systems. We will also describe how Omeka S promotes multiple site creation from one installation, in the interest of easy publishing with many objects in many contexts, and simplifying the work of IT departments.
(One three-hour session)
24. Getting started with static website generators
Have you been curious about static website generators? Have you been wondering who Jekyll and Hugo are? Then this workshop is for you
But this article isn’t about setting up a domain name and hosting for your website. It’s for the step after that, the actual making of that site. The typical choice for a lot of people would be to use something like WordPress. It’s a one-click install on most hosting providers, and there’s a gigantic market of plugins and themes available to choose from, depending on the type of site you’re trying to build. But not only is WordPress a bit overkill for most websites, it also gives you a dynamically generated site with a lot of moving parts. If you don’t keep all of those pieces up to date, they can pose a significant security risk and your site could get hijacked.
The alternative would be to have a static website, with nothing dynamically generated on the server side. Just good old HTML and CSS (and perhaps a bit of Javascript for flair). The downside to that option has been that you’ve been relegated to coding the whole thing by hand yourself. It’s doable, but you just want a place to share your work. You shouldn’t have to know all the idiosyncrasies of low-level web design (and the monumental headache of cross-browser compatibility) to do that.
Static website generators are tools used to build a website made up only of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Static websites, unlike dynamic sites built with tools like Drupal or WordPress, do not use databases or server-side scripting languages. Static websites have a number of benefits over dynamic sites, including reduced security vulnerabilities, simpler long-term maintenance, and easier preservation.
In this hands-on workshop, we’ll start by exploring static website generators, their components, some of the different options available, and their benefits and disadvantages. Then, we’ll work on making our own sites, and for those that would like to, get them online with GitHub pages. Familiarity with HTML, git, and command line basics will be helpful but are not required.
(One three-hour session)
26. Using Digital Media for Research and Instruction
To use digital media effectively in both research and instruction, you need to go beyond just the playback of media files. You need to be able to stream the media, divide that stream into different segments, provide descriptive analysis of each segment, order, re-order and compare different segments from the same or different streams and create web sites that can show the result of your analysis. In this workshop, we will use Omeka and several plugins for working with digital media, to show the potential of video streaming, segmentation and descriptive analysis for research and instruction.
(One three-hour session)
28. Spark in the Dark 101 https://zeppelin.apache.org/
This is an introductory session on Apache Spark, a framework for large-scale data processing (https://spark.apache.org/). We will introduce high level concepts around Spark, including how Spark execution works and it’s relationship to the other technologies for working with Big Data. Following this introduction to the theory and background, we will walk workshop participants through hands-on usage of spark-shell, Zeppelin notebooks, and Spark SQL for processing library data. The workshop will wrap up with use cases and demos for leveraging Spark within cultural heritage institutions and information organizations, connecting the building blocks learned to current projects in the real world.
(One three-hour session)
29. Introduction to Spotlight https://github.com/projectblacklight/spotlight http://www.spotlighttechnology.com/4-OpenSource.htm
Spotlight is an open source application that extends the digital library ecosystem by providing a means for institutions to reuse digital content in easy-to-produce, attractive, and scholarly-oriented websites. Librarians, curators, and other content experts can build Spotlight exhibits to showcase digital collections using a self-service workflow for selection, arrangement, curation, and presentation.
This workshop will introduce the main features of Spotlight and present examples of Spotlight-built exhibits from the community of adopters. We’ll also describe the technical requirements for adopting Spotlight and highlight the potential to customize and extend Spotlight’s capabilities for their own needs while contributing to its growth as an open source project.
(One three-hour session)
31. Getting Started Visualizing your IoT Data in Tableau https://www.tableau.com/
The Internet of Things is a rising trend in library research. IoT sensors can be used for space assessment, service design, and environmental monitoring. IoT tools create lots of data that can be overwhelming and hard to interpret. Tableau Public (https://public.tableau.com/en-us/s/) is a data visualization tool that allows you to explore this information quickly and intuitively to find new insights.
This full-day workshop will teach you the basics of building your own own IoT sensor using a Raspberry Pi (https://www.raspberrypi.org/) in order to gather, manipulate, and visualize your data.
All are welcome, but some familiarity with Python is recommended.
(Two three-hour sessions)
32. Enabling Social Media Research and Archiving
Social media data represents a tremendous opportunity for memory institutions of all kinds, be they large academic research libraries, or small community archives. Researchers from a broad swath of disciplines have a great deal of interest in working with social media content, but they often lack access to datasets or the technical skills needed to create them. Further, it is clear that social media is already a crucial part of the historical record in areas ranging from events your local community to national elections. But attempts to build archives of social media data are largely nascent. This workshop will be both an introduction to collecting data from the APIs of social media platforms, as well as a discussion of the roles of libraries and archives in that collecting.
Assuming no prior experience, the workshop will begin with an explanation of how APIs operate. We will then focus specifically on the Twitter API, as Twitter is of significant interest to researchers and hosts an important segment of discourse. Through a combination of hands-on and demos, we will gain experience with a number of tools that support collecting social media data (e.g., Twarc, Social Feed Manager, DocNow, Twurl, and TAGS), as well as tools that enable sharing social media datasets (e.g., Hydrator, TweetSets, and the Tweet ID Catalog).
The workshop will then turn to a discussion of how to build a successful program enabling social media collecting at your institution. This might cover a variety of topics including outreach to campus researchers, collection development strategies, the relationship between social media archiving and web archiving, and how to get involved with the social media archiving community. This discussion will be framed by a focus on ethical considerations of social media data, including privacy and responsible data sharing.
Time permitting, we will provide a sampling of some approaches to social media data analysis, including Twarc Utils and Jupyter Notebooks.
According to the email below, library faculty are asked to provide their feedback regarding the qualifications for a possible faculty line at the library.
In the fall of 2013 during a faculty meeting attended by the back than library dean and during a discussion of an article provided by the dean, it was established that leading academic libraries in this country are seeking to break the mold of “library degree” and seek fresh ideas for the reinvention of the academic library by hiring faculty with more diverse (degree-wise) background.
Is this still the case at the SCSU library? The “democratic” search for the answer of this question does not yield productive results, considering that the majority of the library faculty are “reference” and they “democratically” overturn votes, who see this library to be put on 21st century standards and rather seek more “reference” bodies for duties, which were recognized even by the same reference librarians as obsolete.
It seems that the majority of the SCSU library are “purists” in the sense of seeking professionals with broader background (other than library, even “reference” skills).
In addition, most of the current SCSU librarians are opposed to a second degree, as in acquiring more qualification, versus seeking just another diploma. There is a certain attitude of stagnation / intellectual incest, where new ideas are not generated and old ideas are prepped in “new attire” to look as innovative and/or 21st
Last but not least, a consistent complain about workforce shortages (the attrition politics of the university’s reorganization contribute to the power of such complain) fuels the requests for reference librarians and, instead of looking for new ideas, new approaches and new work responsibilities, the library reorganization conversation deteriorates into squabbles for positions among different department.
Most importantly, the narrow sightedness of being stuck in traditional work description impairs most of the librarians to see potential allies and disruptors. E.g., the insistence on the supremacy of “information literacy” leads SCSU librarians to the erroneous conclusion of the exceptionality of information literacy and the disregard of multi[meta] literacies, thus depriving the entire campus of necessary 21st century skills such as visual literacy, media literacy, technology literacy, etc.
Simultaneously, as mentioned above about potential allies and disruptors, the SCSU librarians insist on their “domain” and if they are not capable of leading meta-literacies instructions, they would also not allow and/or support others to do so.
Considering the observations above, the following qualifications must be considered:
According to the information in this blog post: https://blog.stcloudstate.edu/ims/2016/06/14/technology-requirements-samples/
for the past year and ½, academic libraries are hiring specialists with the following qualifications and for the following positions (bolded and / or in red). Here are some highlights: Positions
digital humanities
Librarian and Instructional Technology Liaison
library Specialist: Data Visualization & Collections Analytics
Qualifications
Advanced degree required, preferably in education, educational technology, instructional design, or MLS with an emphasis in instruction and assessment.
Programming skills – Demonstrated experience with one or more metadata and scripting languages (e.g.Dublin Core, XSLT, Java, JavaScript, Python, or PHP)
Data visualization skills
multi [ meta] literacy skills
Data curation, helping students working with data
Experience with website creation and design in a CMS environment and accessibility and compliance issues
Demonstrated a high degree of facility with technologies and systems germane to the 21st century library, and be well versed in the issues surrounding scholarly communications and compliance issues (e.g. author identifiers, data sharing software, repositories, among others)
Bilingual
Provides and develops awareness and knowledge related to digital scholarship and research lifecycle for librarians and staff.
Experience developing for, and supporting, common open-source library applications such as Omeka, ArchiveSpace, Dspace,
Responsibilities Establishing best practices for digital humanities labs, networks, and services
Assessing, evaluating, and peer reviewing DH projects and librarians
Actively promote TIGER or GRIC related activities through social networks and other platforms as needed.
Coordinates the transmission of online workshops through Google HangoutsScript metadata transformations and digital object processing using BASH, Python, and XSLT
liaison consults with faculty and students in a wide range of disciplines on best practices for teaching and using data/statistical software tools such as R, SPSS, Stata, and MatLab.
In response to the form attached to the Friday, September 29, email regarding St. Cloud State University Library Position Request Form:
Title
Digital Initiatives Librarian
Responsibilities:
TBD, but generally:
– works with faculty across campus on promoting digital projects and other 21st century projects. Works with the English Department faculty on positioning the SCSU library as an equal participants in the digital humanities initiatives on campus
Works with the Visualization lab to establish the library as the leading unit on campus in interpretation of big data
Works with academic technology services on promoting library faculty as the leading force in the pedagogical use of academic technologies.
Quantitative data justification
this is a mute requirement for an innovative and useful library position. It can apply for a traditional request, such as another “reference” librarian. There cannot be a quantitative data justification for an innovative position, as explained to Keith Ewing in 2015. In order to accumulate such data, the position must be functioning at least for six months.
Qualitative justification: Please provide qualitative explanation that supports need for this position.
Numerous 21st century academic tendencies right now are scattered across campus and are a subject of political/power battles rather than a venue for campus collaboration and cooperation. Such position can seek the establishment of the library as the natural hub for “sandbox” activities across campus. It can seek a redirection of using digital initiatives on this campus for political gains by administrators and move the generation and accomplishment of such initiatives to the rightful owner and primary stakeholders: faculty and students.
Currently, there are no additional facilities and resources required. Existing facilities and resources, such as the visualization lab, open source and free application can be used to generate the momentum of faculty working together toward a common goal, such as, e.g. digital humanities.
Librarians in universities, colleges, and community colleges can establish, assess, and link
academic library outcomes to institutional outcomes related to the following areas:
student enrollment, student retention and graduation rates, student success, student
achievement, student learning, student engagement, faculty research productivity,
faculty teaching, service, and overarching institutional quality.
Assessment management systems help higher education educators, including librarians, manage their outcomes, record and maintain data on each outcome, facilitate connections to
similar outcomes throughout an institution, and generate reports.
Assessment management systems are helpful for documenting progress toward
strategic/organizational goals, but their real strength lies in managing learning
outcomes assessments.
to determine the impact of library interactions on users, libraries can collect data on how individual users engage with library resources and services.
increase library impact on student enrollment.
p. 13-14improved student retention and graduation rates. High -impact practices include: first -year seminars and experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, writing – intensive courses, collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, Value of Academic Libraries diversity/global learning, service learning/community -based learning, internships, capstone courses and projects
p. 14
Libraries support students’ ability to do well in internships, secure job placements, earn salaries, gain acceptance to graduate/professional schools, and obtain marketable skills.
librarians can investigate correlations between student library interactions and their GPA well as conduct test item audits of major professional/educational tests to determine correlations between library services or resources and specific test items.
p. 15 Review course content, readings, reserves, and assignments.
Track and increase library contributions to faculty research productivity.
Continue to investigate library impact on faculty grant proposals and funding, a means of generating institutional income. Librarians contribute to faculty grant proposals in a number of ways.
Demonstrate and improve library support of faculty teaching.
p. 20 Internal Focus: ROI – lib value = perceived benefits / perceived costs
production of a commodity – value=quantity of commodity produced × price per unit of commodity
p. 21 External focus
a fourth definition of value focuses on library impact on users. It asks, “What is the library trying to achieve? How can librarians tell if they have made a difference?” In universities, colleges, and community colleges, libraries impact learning, teaching, research, and service. A main method for measuring impact is to “observe what the [users] are actually doing and what they are producing as a result”
A fifth definition of value is based on user perceptions of the library in relation to competing alternatives. A related definition is “desired value” or “what a [user] wants to have happen when interacting with a [library] and/or using a [library’s] product or service” (Flint, Woodruff and Fisher Gardial 2002) . Both “impact” and “competing alternatives” approaches to value require libraries to gain new understanding of their users’ goals as well as the results of their interactions with academic libraries.
p. 23 Increasingly, academic library value is linked to service, rather than products. Because information products are generally produced outside of libraries, library value is increasingly invested in service aspects and librarian expertise.
service delivery supported by librarian expertise is an important library value.
p. 25 methodology based only on literature? weak!
p. 26 review and analysis of the literature: language and literature are old (e.g. educational administrators vs ed leaders).
G government often sees higher education as unresponsive to these economic demands. Other stakeholder groups —students, pa rents, communities, employers, and graduate/professional schools —expect higher education to make impacts in ways that are not primarily financial.
p. 29
Because institutional missions vary (Keeling, et al. 2008, 86; Fraser, McClure and
Leahy 2002, 512), the methods by which academic libraries contribute value vary as
well. Consequently, each academic library must determine the unique ways in which they contribute to the mission of their institution and use that information to guide planning and decision making (Hernon and Altman, Assessing Service Quality 1998, 31) . For example, the University of Minnesota Libraries has rewritten their mission and vision to increase alignment with their overarching institution’s goals and emphasis on strategic engagement (Lougee 2009, allow institutional missions to guide library assessment
Assessment vs. Research
In community colleges, colleges, and universities, assessment is about defining the
purpose of higher education and determining the nature of quality (Astin 1987)
.
Academic libraries serve a number of purposes, often to the point of being
overextended.
Assessment “strives to know…what is” and then uses that information to change the
status quo (Keeling, et al. 2008, 28); in contrast, research is designed to test
hypotheses. Assessment focuses on observations of change; research is concerned with the degree of correlation or causation among variables (Keeling, et al. 2008, 35) . Assessment “virtually always occurs in a political context ,” while research attempts to be apolitical” (Upcraft and Schuh 2002, 19) .
p. 31 Assessment seeks to document observations, but research seeks to prove or disprove ideas. Assessors have to complete assessment projects, even when there are significant design flaws (e.g., resource limitations, time limitations, organizational contexts, design limitations, or political contexts); whereas researchers can start over (Upcraft and Schuh 2002, 19) . Assessors cannot always attain “perfect” studies, but must make do with “good enough” (Upcraft and Schuh 2002, 18) . Of course, assessments should be well planned, be based on clear outcomes (Gorman 2009, 9- 10) , and use appropriate methods (Keeling, et al. 2008, 39) ; but they “must be comfortable with saying ‘after’ as well as ‘as a result of’…experiences” (Ke eling, et al. 2008, 35) .
Two multiple measure approaches are most significant for library assessment: 1) triangulation “where multiple methods are used to find areas of convergence of data from different methods with an aim of overcoming the biases or limitations of data gathered from any one particular method” (Keeling, et al. 2008, 53) and 2) complementary mixed methods , which “seek to use data from multiple methods to build upon each other by clarifying, enhancing, or illuminating findings between or among methods” (Keeling, et al. 2008, 53) .
p. 34 Academic libraries can help higher education institutions retain and graduate students, a keystone part of institutional missions (Mezick 2007, 561) , but the challenge lies in determining how libraries can contribute and then document their contribution
p. 35. Student Engagement: In recent years, academic libraries have been transformed to provide “technology and content ubiquity” as well as individualized support My Note: I read the “technology and content ubiquity” as digital literacy / metaliteracies, where basic technology instructional sessions (everything that IMS offers for years) is included, but this library still clenches to information literacy only.
In the past, academic libraries functioned primarily as information repositories; now they are becoming learning enterprises (Bennett 2009, 194) . This shift requires academic librarians to embed library services and resources in the teaching and learning activities of their institutions (Lewis 2007) . In the new paradigm, librarians focus on information skills, not information access (Bundy 2004, 3); they think like educators, not service providers (Bennett 2009, 194) .
p. 38. For librarians, the main content area of student learning is information literacy; however, they are not alone in their interest in student inform ation literacy skills (Oakleaf, Are They Learning? 2011). My note: Yep. it was. 20 years ago. Metaliteracies is now.
p. 41 surrogates for student learning in Table 3.
p. 42 strategic planning for learning:
According to Kantor, the university library “exists to benefit the students of the educational institution as individuals ” (Library as an Information Utility 1976 , 101) . In contrast, academic libraries tend to assess learning outcomes using groups of students
p. 45 Assessment Management Systems
Tk20
Each assessment management system has a slightly different set of capabilities. Some guide outcomes creation, some develop rubrics, some score student work, or support student portfolios. All manage, maintain, and report assessment data
p. 46 faculty teaching
However, as online collections grow and discovery tools evolve, that role has become less critical (Schonfeld and Housewright 2010; Housewright and Schonfeld, Ithaka’s 2006 Studies of Key Stakeholders 2008, 256) . Now, libraries serve as research consultants, project managers, technical support professionals, purchasers , and archivists (Housewright, Themes of Change 2009, 256; Case 2008) .
Librarians can count citations of faculty publications (Dominguez 2005)
.
+++++++++++++
Tenopir, C. (2012). Beyond usage: measuring library outcomes and value. Library Management, 33(1/2), 5-13.
methods that can be used to measure the value of library products and services. (Oakleaf, 2010; Tenopir and King, 2007): three main categories
Implicit value. Measuring usage through downloads or usage logs provide an implicit measure of value. It is assumed that because libraries are used, they are of value to the users. Usage of e-resources is relatively easy to measure on an ongoing basis and is especially useful in collection development decisions and comparison of specific journal titles or use across subject disciplines.
do not show purpose, satisfaction, or outcomes of use (or whether what is downloaded is actually read).
Explicit methods of measuring value include qualitative interview techniques that ask faculty members, students, or others specifically about the value or outcomes attributed to their use of the library collections or services and surveys or interviews that focus on a specific (critical) incident of use.
Derived values, such as Return on Investment (ROI), use multiple types of data collected on both the returns (benefits) and the library and user costs (investment) to explain value in monetary terms.
The 21st Century Skills of the Academic Librarian in Bulgaria
Applicant:
Plamen Miltenoff, PhD, MLIS, http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/faculty/
My experience and connections with the library organizations and professionals from Moldova, Bulgaria and Austria, as well as my 17+ years working at the St. Cloud State University library provides me with an opportunity for comparison and, consequently, proposal for collaborative practices with Bulgarian academic librarians.
Project Duration: one year
Problem Identification: Through the years, my work with faculty and librarians from Shoumen University (http://shu-bg.net/ ), Plovdiv University (https://uni-plovdiv.bg/), New Bulgarian University (https://nbu.bg/), the American University (https://www.aubg.edu/) and Sofia University (https://www.uni-sofia.bg/) helped me identify differences and similarities in the work of the Bulgarian educational institutions and academia from abroad.
The role of the academic librarian in the educational process is different/limited in Bulgaria compared to the United States. During a collaboration on gamifying library instruction (http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/bi/), the NBU librarians demonstrated their propensity to shift their campus role close to the campus role of American librarians, yet in general the Bulgarian library guild remains traditional in their view of their responsibilities toward the educational process on campus.
Project Objectives:
This proposal aims regular discussions among professionals from Bulgarian and American (possibly other nations) librarians to determine the framework regarding librarian’s responsibilities. Are academic librarians faculty members or staff? Do they have teaching or service (or both) responsibilities? What are 20th century academic librarians’ responsibilities are to be preserved? Updated? What are the 21st century responsibilities to be gained? What is the relationship between academic librarians and faculty? What is expected from an academic librarians to ensure learning happens? To benefit faculty’s teaching?
A comparison of academic library structures, job descriptions, models and discourses can lead to deep[er] analysis of existing structures and possible reorganizations to improve the role of the library in particular and the efficiency of the educational institution in general.
Comparisons of topics and syllabi: multiliteraices as successor of information literacy? Is the academic library the hub for technological innovations (e.g makerspaces, 3D printing, virtual reality/augmented reality) and if not, what is the academic library role in the process?
Other relevant topics / issues are expected to transpire during such discourse.
Project Description:
The project is organized in collaboration of synchronous and asynchronous character during the span of one academic year. Three synchronous sessions each semester (six sessions for the entire semester) will provide a forum through e-conferencing tools (e.g. Adobe Connect, WebEx, Skype, Google Hangout etc.) for live discussions and planning. Weekly asynchronous dialog through social media (e.g. blog, Facebook Group, Google Group etc.) will provide the platform/ hub/ forum daily/detailed preparation for the monthly synchronous meetings.
Most valuable feedback through the weekly asynchronous discussions will be voted by participants and three best weekly contributions will be awarded badges. At the end of the academic year, the three contributors with largest collection of badges will be awarded cost for registration fee, travel and lodging to an important European conference regarding libraries and education.
The experience and lessons from the process will be summed up, published and presented at local (Bulgarian), regional (Balkans) and international (European, U.S.) educational conferences and events. Similar cross-cultural experiences and studies will be research and comparison and future collaboration will be sought.
Impact:
The use of synchronous tools will provide technological and didactical practice for academic librarians; an experience they later can apply in their service to the campus community.
Same with the asynchronous tools / social media
The practice and experience of using social media for institutional purposes can help librarians figure out pertinent outreach to the recent and incoming students (Millennials and Gen Y)
The use of social media will provide transparency and participatory governing of the process.
Sustainability:
The lessons from such endeavor aim to bring closer collaboration and understanding between academic librarians and campus faculty. Such collaboration can be measured, as well as impact of improved teaching and improved learning. The measurements should convince university administration to further support the continues process of cross-cultural collaboration between academic librarians.
qualifications of the embedded librarian: is there any known case for an academic library to employ as embedded librarian a specialist who has both MLIS and terminal degree in a discipline, where he works as embedded librarian.
“I also think that we need to be more welcoming to people who may not have come through a traditional education program (i.e., the M.L.S.) but who bring critical skills and new perspectives into the library.”
The Changing Roles of Academic and Research Libraries – Higher Ed Careers – HigherEdJobs. (2013). Retrieved from https://www.higheredjobs.com/HigherEdCareers/interviews.cfm?ID=632
“Their engagement can be over two or more class sessions, even co-teaching the class in some cases. This model provides in-depth knowledge of student research projects during the research and revision process.” This is for first-year experience students.
Embedding with project teams in Business and STEM programs involves: “in – depth participation in short – term projects, aiding the team in their searches, literature review, grant preparation, data curation, or other specialized information aspects of the project. This level of embedment requires a heavy time commitment during the length of the project, as well as subject expertise and established trust with the research team.”
embedding in departments as a liaison.
“They are usually closely affiliated with the departme nt (maybe even more so than with the libraries) and might be paid out of departmental funds. These librarians learn the ways and needs of their patrons in their natural environment. They often work as finders of information, organizers of information, and taxonomy creators. Embedding within departments provides in – depth knowledge of the users of library services, along with potential isolation from other librarians. It involves a high degree of specialization, co – location and shared responsibility”
best practices, new opptunities (video, screencasts, social media. Adobe Connect) , Assessment
here is Kvenild 2016 article also
Kvenild, C., Tumbleson, B. E., Burke, J. J., & Calkins, K. (2016). Embedded librarianship: questions and answers from librarians in the trenches. Library Hi Tech, 34(2), 8-11.
utilizing technology tools; and providing information literacy and assessment. Technology tools continue to evolve and change, and most librarians can anticipate using multiple learning management systems over time. There is an ongoing need for professional development in online library instruction and assessment
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Tumbleson, B. E., & Burke, J. (. J. (2013). Embedding librarianship in learning management systems: A how-to-do-it manual for librarians. Neal-Schuman, an imprint of the American Library Association.
emphasis is on undergraduate. “a tremendous amount of literature published addressing library/faculty partnerships.”
“There will never be one golden rule when it comes to way in which a librarian networks with faculty on campus.”
++++++++++++++++
Bobish, G. (2011). Participation and Pedagogy: Connecting the Social Web to ACRL Learning Outcomes. Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 37(1), 54-63.
Cahoy, E. S., & Schroeder, R. (2012). EMBEDDING AFFECTIVE LEARNING OUTCOMES IN LIBRARY INSTRUCTION. Communications In Information Literacy, 6(1), 73-90.
attention must be paid to students’ affective, emotional needs throughout the research
process. My note: And this is exactly what comprise half of my service of. The relatively small amount of research into affective learning, as opposed to cognition, remains true to this day.
p. 78 As the 50-minute one-shot session is still the norm for library research sessions on the
majority of campuses, behavioral assessment can be problematic.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cha, T., & Hsieh, P. (2009). A Case Study of Faculty Attitudes toward Collaboration with Librarians to Integrate Information Literacy into the Curriculum. (Chinese). Journal Of Educational Media & Library Sciences, 46(4), 441-467.
Meanwhile, different attitudes were revealed between teaching higher order thinking skills and lower order thinking skills. Librarian Domain Knowledge, Librarian Professionalism, Curriculum Strategies, and Student Learning were identified as factorial dimensions influencing faculty-librarian collaboration.
two major concerns of “Students Learning” and “Librarian Professionalism” from faculty provide insights that understanding pedagogy, enhancing instructional skills and continuing progress in librarian professionalism will contribute to consolidating partnerships when developing course-specific IL programs.
COVONE, N., & LAMM, M. (2010). Just Be There: Campus, Department, Classroom…and Kitchen?. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2/3), 198-207. doi:10.1080/15228959.2010.498768
p. 199 There is also the concept of the ‘‘blended librarian’’ as described by Bell and Shank (2004) to merge the assets and abilities of a librarian with those of one versed in technology. Academic librarians are obligated and privileged to merge several strengths to meet the needs of their user population. No longer is the traditional passive role acceptable. Bell and Shank (2004) implore academic librarians ‘‘to proactively advance their integration into the teaching and learning process’’ (p. 373).
p. 200 first year experience
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dewey, B. I. (2004). The Embedded Librarian: Strategic Campus Collaborations. Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 17(1-2), 5-17.
p. 6 the imperative for academic librarians to become embedded in the priorities of teaching, learning, and research in truly relevant ways. Embedding as an effective mode of collaboration will be explored through examples relating to the physical and virtual environment. An analysis of current approaches and next steps for the future will be addressed, with the goal of providing food for thought as librarians assess programs and activities in terms of positive collaboration and effectiveness
p. 9 new academic salon,
p. 10 the pervasive campus librarian
The fact that we are generalists and devoted to all disciplines and all sectors of the academic user community gives us a special insight on ways to advance the university and achieve its mission
this contradicts Shumaker and Talley, who assert that the embedded librarian is NOT a generalist, but specialist
p. 11 Central administrators, along with the chief academic officer, make critical funding and policy decisions affecting the library
p. 11 librarians and teaching. In 2011, interim dean Ruth Zietlow “gave up” classes after the messy divorce with CIM. the library faculty poled itself to reveal that a significant number of the faculty does NOT want to teach.
p. 14 influencing campus virtual space this library’s social media is imploded in its image.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DREWES, K., & HOFFMAN, N. (2010). Academic Embedded Librarianship: An Introduction. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2/3), 75-82. doi:10.1080/15228959.2010.498773
p. 75 Literature about embedded librarianship is so diverse that the definition of this term, as well as related goals and methods when embedding services and programs, can be difficult to define. What are some characteristics of an embedded program? Is embedding only achieved through an online classroom? How did embedded librarianship first begin in academic libraries?
p. 76 adopted as a term because it is a similar concept to embedded journalism.
Embedded librarian programs often locate librarians involved in the spaces of their users and colleagues, either physically or through technology, in order to become a part of their users’ culture. A librarian’s physical and metaphorical location is often what defines them as embedded.
David Shumaker and Mary Talley (see bottom of this blog entry)
Highly technical tasks, such as creating information architecture, using analytical software, and computer and network systems management were performed by less than 20% of the survey respondents. Shumaker and Talley also report embedded services are often found in tandem with specialized funding. This study also confirms embedded services are not new.
p. 77 history and evolution of the role
p. 79 methods of embedding
In North America, one would be hard-pressed to find a library that does not already electronically embed services into online reference chat, make use of Web 2.0 communication applications such as Twitter and blogs, and embed librarians and collaborators within online classrooms. These are all examples of the embedding process (Ramsay & Kinnie, 2006). The name embedded librarian in this context is a double entendre, as the insertion of widgets and multimedia files into HTML code when designing Web sites is usually called the embedding of the file. My note: is this library actually is one that does not use Twitter and blogs in the hard-core meaning of library service
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Essinger, C. c., & Ke, I. i. (2013). Outreach: What Works?. Collaborative Librarianship, 5(1), 52-58.
Recommendations:
The authors distributed their findings at a half day workshop attended by nearly all liaisons. They made the following recommendations:
• Personalize outreach.
• Spend more time marketing and reaching out to departments, even though it might mean having less time for other activities.
• Find an alternative advocate who can build your reputation through word-ofmouth if your relationship with your assigned department liaison is not fruitful.
• Seek opportunities to meet department staff in person.
• As much as possible, administrators should commit to keeping liaisons assignments static.
p. 57 that faculty outreach is similar to other types of relationship building: it requires time to establish trust, respect and appreciation on both sides. Even a liaison’s challenging first two years can, therefore, be viewed as productive because the relationship is developing in the background. This phenomenon also signals to library administrators the benefits of maintaining a stable workforce. Frequent changes in academic assignments and staff changes can lead to a less engaged user population, and also make the outreach assignment much more frustrating.
+++++++++++++++++
Heider, K. L. (2010). Ten Tips for Implementing a Successful Embedded Librarian Program. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2-3), 110-121.
embedded librarian program in the university’s College of Education and Educational Technology
p. 112 Make Sure You Have Buy-in from All Stakeholders
Include College=Department Faculty in the Interview Process
Look for the Following Qualities=Qualifications in an Embedded Librarian
Have a Physical Presence in the College=Department a Few Days Each Week
Serve as Bibliographer to College=Department
Offer Bibliographic Instruction Sessions and Guest Lectures at Main Campus, Branch Campuses, and Centers
Develop Collaborative Programs that Utilize the Library’s Resources for College=Department Improvement
#9 Offer to Teach Credit Courses for the College=Department When Department Faculty Are Not Available
#10: Publish Scholarly Works and Present at Professional Conferences with College=Department Faculty. again, Martin Lo, John Hoover,
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Hollister, C. V. (2008). Meeting Them where They Are: Library Instruction for Today’s Students in the World Civilizations Course. Public Services Quarterly, 4(1), 15-27.
Faculty come to the world civilizations enterprise from a broad range of academic disciplines and world experiences, which has a significant impact on their interpretations of world history, their selections of course materials, their teaching styles, and their expectations for students. Moreover, faculty teach the course on a rotating basis. So, there is no single model of faculty-librarian collaboration that can be applied from section to section, or even from semester to semester. Faculty have widely differing views on the role of library instruction in their sections of the course, and the extent to which library research is required for coursework. They also differ in terms of their ability or willingness to collaborate with the libraries. As a result, student access to library instruction varies from section to section.
+++++++++++++++++
Kesselman, M. A., & Watstein, S. B. (2009). Creating Opportunities: Embedded Librarians. Journal Of Library Administration, 49(3), 383-400.
p. 384 embedded librarians in the blogosphere.
not even close to the local idea how blog must be used for library use.
p. 387 definitions
p. 389 clinical librarianship – term from the 1970s.
p. 390 Special librarians and particularly those in corporate settings tend to be more integrated within the company they serve and are often instrumental in cost-related services such as competitive intelligence, scientific, and patent research.
p. 391 Librarians Collaborating With Faculty in Scholarly Communication Activities
My note: this is what I am doing with Martin Lo and used to do with John Hoover. Attempts with the sociology department, IS department
p. 392 Role of Librarians With Multidisciplinary Collaborations
my note : my work with Mark Gill and Mark Petzhold
p. 393 social media
again, this library cannot be farther from the true meaning of Web 2.0 collaboration.
p. 396 organizational structures
Three different types of organizational structures are generally recognized—hierarchical, matrix, and flat. We suggest that each of these conventional structures promotes, to some extent, its own brand of silos—silos that inherently pose obstacles to the assumption of new roles and responsibilities. For example, we question whether the hierarchical organization structures that define many of our libraries, with their emphasis on line, lateral staff and functional relationships and the relative ranks of parts and positions or jobs, are flexible enough to support new roles and responsibilities. In contrast, matrix management offers a different type of organizational management model in which people with similar skills are pooled for work assignments. We suggest that, in contrast to hierarchical structures, matrix management allows team members to share information more readily across task boundaries and allows for specialization that can increase depth of knowledge and allow professional development and career progression to be managed. The third organizational structure mentioned—flat or horizontal organizations, refers to an organizational structure with few or no levels of intervening management between staff and managers
+++++++++++++++++
Kobzina, N. G. (2010). A Faculty—Librarian Partnership: A Unique Opportunity for Course Integration. Journal Of Library Administration, 50(4), 293-314.
my LIB 290 is such class. and I am the only one who is teaching it online by QM standards.
Can the administration encourage Global Studies to combine efforts with my LIB 290 and offer a campus-wide class?
++++++++++++++++++++
Lange, J. j., Canuel, R. r., & Fitzgibbons, M. m. (2011). Tailoring information literacy instruction and library services for continuing education. Journal Of Information Literacy, 5(2), 66-80.
McGill. p. 77 The McGill University Library’s system-wide liaison model emphasises a disciplinary approach, placing the impetus for outreach and service on individual librarians responsible for particular departments and user groups.
+++++++++++++++++
MCMILLEN, P., & FABBI, J. (2010). How to Be an E3 Librarian. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2/3), 174-186. doi:10.1080/15228959.2010.497454
Meyer, N. J., & Miller, I. R. (2008). The Library as Service-Learning Partner: A Win-Win Collaboration with Students and Faculty. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 15(4), 399-413.
millennials. p. 48 my note: the losing battle of telling the millennials the value of books
librarians need to emphasize that not all information
is found on the Web and that the information found there might not be
reliable, depending on its source
p. 49 The latest technology can be used for communication. Two examples of this modernization process are making podcasts of library lectures and using instant messaging to answer reference queries. Students need Reference Librarians to assist them in focusing their research, showing them appropriate sources and how to use those sources. The change is not how the librarians serve the students but how the service is delivered. Instead of coming to the reference desk Millennial students may choose to use e-mail, cell phones to send a text message or use a chat reference service to communicate with the librarian. Students want to have 24/7 access to library resources and librarians.
my note: and yet this library still uses 90ish communication – the facebook page is just an easy to edit web page and the concept of Web 2.0 has not arrived or shaped the current communication.
p. 50 Librarians should examine how they present library instruction and ensure that students know why it is important. Further, Lancaster and Stillman state that librarians need to “incorporate some computer-based instruction for Millennials as it allows them to go at their own speed and acknowledges their ability to manage information” (2003, 231).
and, once again, talking about inducing library instruction with technology: http://web.stcloudstate.edu/pmiltenoff/bi/
+++++++++++++++++++
Oakleaf, M., & VanScoy, A. (2010). Instructional Strategies for Digital Reference: Methods to Facilitate Student Learning. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 49(4), 380-390.
In the current climate of educational accountability, reference librarians should embrace the opportunity to align reference service with the teaching and learning missions of their libraries and overarching institutions
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Rao, S., Cameron, A., & Gaskin-Noel, S. (2009). Embedding General Education Competencies into an Online Information Literacy Course. Journal Of Library Administration, 49(1/2), 59-73.
online programs a 3-credit junior seminar course (JRSM 301) to assess general education competencies
p. 60 The 3-credit course titled LISC 260—Using Electronic Resources for Research has existed as a required course for this overseas cohort of students since the fall of 1999. The course was initially developed as a required course to introduce the Mercy College Libraries’ resources to this cohort of overseas students. Full-time librarians teach this course as an overload.
The course lasts for 8 weeks during fall and spring semesters and is divided into eight modules with five quizzes. Summer sessions are shorter; the summer version of the course runs for 6 weeks. There is no midterm exam, final exam, project, or term paper for this course. Sixty percent of the grade is based on the quizzes and assignments and 40% on discussion and class participation.
Each quiz addresses a specific competency. We identified the modules where the five competencies would fit best. A document containing the five general education competencies (critical thinking, information literacy, quantitative reasoning, critical reading, and writing) statements
Critical Thinking Competency This competency was placed in the second module covering the topic “Developing Search Strategies” in the second week of the course. In this module, students are required to select a topic and develop logical terminologies and search strings. This task requires a great deal of critical and analytical thinking and therefore lays the groundwork for the other competencies. The quizzes and assignments for this competency involve breaking or narrowing down the topic into subtopics, comparing two topics or ideas, and similar skills. It is hoped that students will be able to adopt Boolean and other search logic in clear and precise ways in their analyses and interpretations of their topic and use the search strategies they develop for continued assignments throughout the rest of the course.
p. 61. Information Literacy Competency The information literacy competency is introduced in the fourth module in the fourth week of the course. As part of the course, students are required to learn about the Mercy College Libraries’ indexes and databases, which this module addresses (“Information Literacy,” n.d.).
Quantitative Reasoning Competency
This seminar course is a library research course with no statistics or mathematics component. Many students enrolled in the course are not mathematics or statistics majors, hence some creativity was needed to evaluate their mathematical and computational skills. Students are given this competency in the fifth module during the fifth week of the course, which deals with subject-specific sources. It was decided that, to assess this competency, a quiz analyzing data obtained in a tabular format from one of the databases subscribed to by the library would fulfill the requirement. Students are given a choice of various countries and related data, and are asked to create some comparative demographic profiles. This approach has worked well because it gives students the opportunity to focus on countries and data that interest them.
++++++++++++++++++
Abrizah, A., Inuwa, S., & Afiqah-Izzati, N. (2016). Systematic Literature Review Informing LIS Professionals on Embedding Librarianship Roles. Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 42(6), 636-643. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2016.08.010
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Summey, T. P., & Kane, C. A. (2017). Going Where They Are: Intentionally Embedding Librarians in Courses and Measuring the Impact on Student Learning. Journal Of Library & Information Services In Distance Learning, 11(1/2), 158-174. doi:10.1080/1533290X.2016.1229429
p. 158 The concept of embedded librarians is not new, as it has antecedents in branch librarians of the seventies and academic departmental liaisons of the 1980s and 1990s. However, it is a way to proactively reach out to the campus community (Drewes & Hoffman, 2010).
There is not a one-size-fits-all definition for embedded librarianship. As a result, librarians in academic libraries may be embedded in their communities in a variety of ways and at varying levels from course integrated instruction to being fully embedded as a member of an academic department
p. 160 my note: the authors describe the standard use of LMS for embedded librarianship.
p. 163 they managed to fight out and ensure their efforts are “credited.” Assigning credits to embedded librarian activities can be a very tough process.
p. 165 assessment
the authors utilized a pre-module and post-module survey to assess the students’ performance using library resources. The survey also helped to determine the students’ perceived self-efficacy and confidence in using the library, its resources, and services. In addition, the researchers analyzed student responses to discussion questions, studied feedback at the end of the course in the course discussion forum, and conducted interviews with the faculty members teaching the courses (
In another study, researchers analyzed bibliographies of students in the course to identify what resources they cited in their research projects. More specifically, they analyzed the type and appropriateness of sources used by the students, their currency, and noting how deeply the students delved into their topics. They also looked at the number of references cited. The authors believed that examining the bibliographies provided an incomplete picture because it provided data on the sources selected by the students but not information on how they retrieved those sources.
p. 171 survey sample
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Wu, L., & Thornton, J. (2017). Experience, Challenges, and Opportunities of Being Fully Embedded in a User Group. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 36(2), 138-149. doi:10.1080/02763869.2017.1293978
Texas A&M University academic health sciences library integrating a librarian into the College of Pharmacy, approximately 250 miles away from the main library. preembedded and postembedded activities demonstrated the effectiveness and impact of
For this study, the fully embedded librarian is defined as one who is out of the traditional library and into an onsite setting to provide a full range of library services that enable collaboration with researchers or teaching faculty and support student learning. In this model, the embedded librarian is a team member of the RCOP rather than a service provider standing apart. The lines are not blurred as to the kind of services that should be embedded because the embedded librarian is 100% onsite. Very few reports in the literature describe fully embedded librarian models such as this. However, one similar model exists at the Arizona Health Sciences Library (AHSL), which is affiliated with the University of Arizona, where librarians relocated their permanent offices to the colleges of Nursing, Public Health, and Pharmacy. AHSL librarians spent close to 100% of their time in the colleges.
p. 144 The embedded librarian has gained recognition in the college and was appointed by the dean to serve on the Instructional Venues Ad Hoc Committee (IVC).
My note: This is what Tom Hergert and I have been advocating for years: the role of the librarian is not to find info and teach how to find info ONLY. The role of the librarian is to bring 21st century to School of Education: information literacy is only a fragment of metaliteracies. Information literacy is a 1990s priority. While it is still an important part of librarians goals, digital literacy, visual and media literacy, as well as technology literacy and pedagogical application of technology is imposed as integral part of the work of the embedded librarian.
p. 145 Challenges and Opportunities
Another challenge involved the librarian’s decision-making and effective communications skills, especially when deciding to implement library services or programs. Other challenges included speaking the client group’s language and knowing the information needs of each group—faculty, students, staff, postdocs, research assistants, and research scientists—to deliver the right information at the point of need. The following strategies were practiced to overcome these challenges: .
A positive attitude can increase connectivity, networking, and collaboration beyond a limited space. Proactively seeking opportunities to participate and get involved in library events, instructional programs, training workshops, or committee work shortened the distance between the remote librarian and those in main campus. .
As video conferencing tools or programs (e.g., Adobe Connnect, Webex, Skype, Google Hangout, Zoom) were the primary means for the remote at 18:19 24 August 2017 librarian to attend library meetings and teach in library instructional programs, spending some time learning to use these tools and embracing them greatly increased the librarian’s capacity to overcome the feelings of disconnection.
The willingness to travel several times a year to the main campus to meet librarians face-to-face helped in understanding the system and in getting help that seemed complicated and difficult via remote resources (e.g., computer issues). .
Actively listening to the faculty and students during the conversations helped understand their information needs. This served as the basis to initiate any targeted library services and programs.
Despite the challenges, the embedded librarian was presented with numerous opportunities that a traditional librarian might think impossible or difficult to experience, for example, attending RCOP department meetings or RCOP executive committee meetings to present library resources and services, serving on RCOP committees, co-teaching with faculty in RCOP credit courses, creating and grading assignments counting toward total course credits, and being given access to all RCOP course syllabi in eCampus. (the last is in essence what I am doing right now)
p. 147 Marketing Embedded Library Services
The “What’s in It for Me” (WIIFM) principle1 was a powerful technique to promote embedded library services. The essentials of WIIFM are understanding patron needs and ensuring the marketing effort or communications addressing those needs15—in other words, always telling patrons what is in it for them when promoting library services and resources. Different venues were used to practice WIIFM: .
RCOP faculty email list was an effective way to reach out to all the faculty. An email message at the beginning of a semester to the faculty highlighted the embedded librarian’s services. During the semester, the librarian communicated with the faculty on specific resources and services addressing their needs, such as measuring their research impact at the time of their annual evaluation, sharing grant funding resources, and promoting MSL’s resources related to reuse of images. .
Library orientations to new students and new faculty allowed the librarian to focus on who to contact for questions and help, available resources, and ways to access them. . Being a guest speaker for the monthly RCOP departmental faculty meetings provided another opportunity for the librarian to promote services and resources.
Casual conversations with faculty, students, researchers, and postdocs in the hallway, at staff luncheons, and at RCOP events helped understand their information needs, which helped the librarian initiate MSL service projects and programs.
The Facebook private group, created by Instructional Technology & MSL Resources @ Rangel COP, was used to announce MSL resources and services. The group currently has 256 members. The librarian is one of the group administrators who answers student questions related to library and MSL resources. (social media is my forte)
p. 148 This model would not have been successful without the strong support from MSL leadership team and the RCOP administration.
the next step would be to conduct a systematic assessment to get feedback from RCOP administrators, faculty, students, staff, postdocs, and research assistants. The integration of the library instructional program into the RCOP curriculum should be included in RCOP final course evaluations. Another future direction might be to conduct a curriculum map to get a better idea about the learning objectives of each course and to identity information literacy instruction needs across the curriculum. The curriculum mapping might also help better structure library instruction delivery to RCOP. Teaching content might be structured more purposefully and logically sequenced across the curriculum to ensure that what students have learned in one course prepares them for the next ones.
+++++++++++++++++++
Blake, L., Ballance, D., Davies, K., Gaines, J. K., Mears, K., Shipman, P., & … Burchfield, V. (2016). Patron perception and utilization of an embedded librarian program. Journal Of The Medical Library Association, 104(3), 226-230. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.104.3.008
The overall satisfaction with services was encouraging, but awareness of the embedded program was low, suggesting an overall need for marketing of services.
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Tumbleson, B. E. (2016). Collaborating in Research: Embedded Librarianship in the Learning Management System. Reference Librarian, 57(3), 224-234. doi:10.1080/02763877.2015.1134376
O’Toole, E., Barham, R., & Monahan, J. (2016). The Impact of Physically Embedded Librarianship on Academic Departments. Portal: Libraries & The Academy, 16(3), 529-556.
Agrawal, P. p., & Kumar, A. (2016). Embedded Librarianship and Academic Setup: Going beyond the library stockades. International Journal Of Information Dissemination & Technology, 6(3), 170-173.
India. p. 173 as of today, most of the users are not able to differentiate the library professional who have a bachelor degree, Masters degree and who are doctorate of the subject. My note: not in my case and this is my great advantage.
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Madden, H., & Rasmussen, A. M. (2016). Embedded Librarianship: Einbindung von Wissenschafts- und Informationskompetenz in Schreibkurse / Ein US-amerikanisches Konzept. Bub: Forum Bibliothek Und Information, 68(4), 202-205.
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Delaney, G., & Bates, J. (2015). Envisioning the Academic Library: A Reflection on Roles, Relevancy and Relationships. New Review Of Academic Librarianship, 21(1), 30-51. doi:10.1080/13614533.2014.911194
overview of the literature on embedded librarianship
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Freiburger, G., Martin, J. R., & Nuñez, A. V. (2016). An Embedded Librarian Program: Eight Years On. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 35(4), 388-396. doi:10.1080/02763869.2016.1220756
Wilson, G. (2015). The Process of Becoming an Embedded Curriculum Librarian in Multiple Health Sciences Programs. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34(4), 490-497. doi:10.1080/02763869.2015.1082386
Milbourn, A. a. (2013). A Big Picture Approach: Using Embedded Librarianship to Proactively Address the Need for Visual Literacy Instruction in Higher Education. Art Documentation: Bulletin Of The Art Libraries Society Of North America, 32(2), 274-283.
slide 8: vision of embedded librarianship:
customer centric not library centric; located in their workplace not our workplace; focused on small groups not entire populations; composed of specialists, not generalists; dependent on domain knowledge not only library skills; aming an analysis and synthesis not simply delivery; in context, not out of context; built on trusted advice not service delivery
all of the above is embodied in my work with the doctoral cohorts
slide 9: why study? because traditional library service model is in decline
slide 11: broad analytical research on successful implementation is lacking slide 20: large institutions more likely to offer specialized services
slide 21: domain knowledge through continuous learning, not always through formal degrees.
slide 39: what matters most
slide 40: strong leadership by library managers is critical (I will add here “by deans of other colleges)
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bibliography:
Abrizah, A., Inuwa, S., & Afiqah-Izzati, N. (2016). Systematic Literature Review Informing LIS Professionals on Embedding Librarianship Roles. Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 42(6), 636-643. doi:10.1016/j.acalib.2016.08.010
Agrawal, P. p., & Kumar, A. (2016). Embedded Librarianship and Academic Setup: Going beyond the library stockades. International Journal Of Information Dissemination & Technology, 6(3), 170-173.
Andrews, C. R. (2014). CUNY Academic Works An Examination of Embedded Librarian Ideas and Practices: A Critical Bibliography. An Examination of Embedded Librarian Ideas and Practices: A Critical Bibliography. Codex, 3(1), 2150–86. Retrieved from http://academicworks.cuny.edu/bx_pubs
Blake, L., Ballance, D., Davies, K., Gaines, J. K., Mears, K., Shipman, P., & … Burchfield, V. (2016). Patron perception and utilization of an embedded librarian program. Journal Of The Medical Library Association, 104(3), 226-230. doi:10.3163/1536-5050.104.3.008
Bobish, G. (2011). Participation and Pedagogy: Connecting the Social Web to ACRL Learning Outcomes. Journal Of Academic Librarianship, 37(1), 54-63.
Cahoy, E. S., & Schroeder, R. (2012). EMBEDDING AFFECTIVE LEARNING OUTCOMES IN LIBRARY INSTRUCTION. Communications In Information Literacy, 6(1), 73-90.
Cha, T., & Hsieh, P. (2009). A Case Study of Faculty Attitudes toward Collaboration with Librarians to Integrate Information Literacy into the Curriculum. (Chinese). Journal Of Educational Media & Library Sciences, 46(4), 441-467.
COVONE, N., & LAMM, M. (2010). Just Be There: Campus, Department, Classroom…and Kitchen?. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2/3), 198-207. doi:10.1080/15228959.2010.498768
Delaney, G., & Bates, J. (2015). Envisioning the Academic Library: A Reflection on Roles, Relevancy and Relationships. New Review Of Academic Librarianship, 21(1), 30-51. doi:10.1080/13614533.2014.911194
Dewey, B. I. (2004). The Embedded Librarian: Strategic Campus Collaborations. Resource Sharing & Information Networks, 17(1-2), 5-17.
DREWES, K., & HOFFMAN, N. (2010). Academic Embedded Librarianship: An Introduction. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2/3), 75-82. doi:10.1080/15228959.2010.498773
Essinger, C. c., & Ke, I. i. (2013). Outreach: What Works?. Collaborative Librarianship, 5(1), 52-58.
Freiburger, G., Martin, J. R., & Nuñez, A. V. (2016). An Embedded Librarian Program: Eight Years On. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 35(4), 388-396. doi:10.1080/02763869.2016.1220756
Heider, K. L. (2010). Ten Tips for Implementing a Successful Embedded Librarian Program. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2-3), 110-121.
Hollister, C. V. (2008). Meeting Them where They Are: Library Instruction for Today’s Students in the World Civilizations Course. Public Services Quarterly, 4(1), 15-27.
Kesselman, M. A., & Watstein, S. B. (2009). Creating Opportunities: Embedded Librarians. Journal Of Library Administration, 49(3), 383-400.
Kobzina, N. G. (2010). A Faculty—Librarian Partnership: A Unique Opportunity for Course Integration. Journal Of Library Administration, 50(4), 293-314.
Lange, J. j., Canuel, R. r., & Fitzgibbons, M. m. (2011). Tailoring information literacy instruction and library services for continuing education. Journal Of Information Literacy, 5(2), 66-80.
Madden, H., & Rasmussen, A. M. (2016). Embedded Librarianship: Einbindung von Wissenschafts- und Informationskompetenz in Schreibkurse / Ein US-amerikanisches Konzept. Bub: Forum Bibliothek Und Information, 68(4), 202-205.
MCMILLEN, P., & FABBI, J. (2010). How to Be an E3 Librarian. Public Services Quarterly, 6(2/3), 174-186. doi:10.1080/15228959.2010.497454
Meyer, N. J., & Miller, I. R. (2008). The Library as Service-Learning Partner: A Win-Win Collaboration with Students and Faculty. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 15(4), 399-413.
Milbourn, A. (2013). A Big Picture Approach: Using Embedded Librarianship to Proactively Address the Need for Visual Literacy Instruction in Higher Education. Art Documentation: Bulletin Of The Art Libraries Society Of North America, 32(2), 274-283.
Niles, P. (2011). Meeting the Needs of the 21st Century Student. Community & Junior College Libraries, 17(2), 47-51.
Oakleaf, M., & VanScoy, A. (2010). Instructional Strategies for Digital Reference: Methods to Facilitate Student Learning. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 49(4), 380-390.
O’Toole, E., Barham, R., & Monahan, J. (2016). The Impact of Physically Embedded Librarianship on Academic Departments. Portal: Libraries & The Academy, 16(3), 529-556.
Rao, S., Cameron, A., & Gaskin-Noel, S. (2009). Embedding General Education Competencies into an Online Information Literacy Course. Journal Of Library Administration, 49(1/2), 59-73.
Summey, T. P., & Kane, C. A. (2017). Going Where They Are: Intentionally Embedding Librarians in Courses and Measuring the Impact on Student Learning. Journal Of Library & Information Services In Distance Learning, 11(1/2), 158-174. doi:10.1080/1533290X.2016.1229429
Tumbleson, B. E. (2016). Collaborating in Research: Embedded Librarianship in the Learning Management System. Reference Librarian, 57(3), 224-234. doi:10.1080/02763877.2015.1134376
Wilson, G. (2015). The Process of Becoming an Embedded Curriculum Librarian in Multiple Health Sciences Programs. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 34(4), 490-497. doi:10.1080/02763869.2015.1082386
Wu, L., & Thornton, J. (2017). Experience, Challenges, and Opportunities of Being Fully Embedded in a User Group. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 36(2), 138-149. doi:10.1080/02763869.2017.1293978
The New Media Consortium (NMC) has released Digital Literacy in Higher Education, Part II: An NMC Horizon Project Strategic Brief, a follow-up to its 2016 strategic brief on digital literacy.
But what does it really mean to be digitally literate, and which standards do we use?” said Dr. Eden Dahlstrom, NMC Executive Director. “This report sheds light on the meaning and impact of digital literacy using cross-cultural and multi-disciplinary approaches, highlighting frameworks and exemplars in practice.
NMC’s report has identified a need for institutions and thought leaders to consider the ways in which content creation is unequally expressed throughout the world. In an examination of digital literacy within European, Middle Eastern, and African nations (EMEA), research has surfaced unequal access to information technology based on inequalities of economics, gender, race, and political divides.
2020
2015
1.
Complex Problem Solving
1.
Complex Problem Solving
2.
Critical Thinking
2.
Coordinating with Others
3.
Creativity
3.
People Management
4.
People Management
4.
Critical Thinking
5.
Coordinating with Others
5.
Negotiation
6.
Emotional Intelligence
6.
Quality Control
7.
Judgment and Decision Making
7.
Service Orientation
8.
Service Orientation
8.
Judgment and Decision Making
9.
Negotiation
9.
Active Listening
10.
Cognitive Flexibility
10.
Creativity
Digital tools themselves are merely enablers, pushing the envelope of what learners can create. No longer is it acceptable for students to be passive consumers of content; they can contribute to the local and global knowledge ecosystem, learning through the act of producing and discussing rich media, applications, and objects. In the words of many institutional mission statements, students do not have to wait until they graduate to change the world.
Using readily available digital content creation tools (e.g., video production and editing, web and graphic tools), students are evolving into digital storytellers,
digital literacy now encompasses the important skills of being able to coordinate with others to create something truly original that neither mind would fathom independently.
The ability to discern credible from inaccurate resources is foundational to digital literacy. my note: #Fakenews
A lack of broad consensus on the meaning of digital literacy still hinders its uptake, although a growing body of research is helping higher education professionals better navigate the continuous adjustments to the field brought about by emerging pedagogies and technologies.
Information literacy is a nearly universal component within these digital literacy frameworks. Critically finding, assessing, and using digital content within the vast and sometimes chaotic internet appears as a vital skill in almost every account, including those published beyond libraries. In contrast, media literacy is less widely included in digital literacy publications, possibly due to a focus on scholarly, rather than popular, materials. Digital literacies ultimately combine information and media literacy.
United States digital literacy frameworks tend to focus on educational policy details and personal empowerment, the latter encouraging learners to become more effective students, better creators, smarter information consumers, and more influential members of their community.
National policies are vitally important in European digital literacy work, unsurprising for a continent well populated with nation-states and struggling to redefine itself… this recommendation for Balkan digital strategy: “Media and information education (with an emphasis on critical thinking and switching from consumption to action) should start at early ages, but address all ages.”
African digital literacy is more business-oriented. Frameworks often speak to job skills and digital entrepreneurship. New skills and professions are emphasized, symbolized by the call for “new collar” positions.
Middle Eastern nations offer yet another variation, with a strong focus on media literacy. As with other regions, this can be a response to countries with strong state influence or control over local media. It can also represent a drive to produce more locally-sourced content, as opposed to consuming
Digital literacy is a complex phenomenon in 2017, when considered internationally. Nations and regions are creating ways to help their populations grapple with the digital revolution that are shaped by their local situations. In doing so, they cut across the genealogy of digital literacies, touching on its historical components: information literacy, digital skills, and media literacy.
Students are not all digital natives, and do not necessarily have the same level of capabilities. Some need to be taught to use online tools (such as how to navigate a LMS) for learning. However, once digital literacy skills for staff and students are explicitly recognized as important for learning and teaching, critical drivers for pedagogical change are in place.
Pedagogy that uses an inquiry based/problem solving approach is a great framework to enhance the use and practice of digital skills/capabilities in the classroom.
The current gap between students’ information literacy skills and their need to internalize digital literacy competencies creates an opportunity for academic librarians to support students in the pursuit of civic online reasoning at the core of NMC’s multimodal model of three digital literacies. Academic librarians need a new strategy that evolves information literacy to an expanded role educating digitally literate students. Let’s build a new model in which academic librarians are entrepreneurial collaborators with faculty,55 supporting their classroom efforts to help students become responsible sharers and commentators of news on social media.
“Digital literacy is not just about ensuring that students can use the latest technologies, but also developing skills to select the right tools for a particular context to deepen their learning outcomes and engage in creative problem-solving”
There is a disconnect between how students experience and interact with technology in their personal lives and how they use technology in their roles as students. Yes, students are digitally savvy, and yes, universities have a role in questioning (insightfully of course) their sometimes brash digital savviness. We have a situation where students are expecting more, but (as I see it) cannot provide a clear demand, while faculty are unable to walk in the shoes of the students.
