I’m not sure if I’ve become more cynical or just more observant, but lately I feel like I’ve been seeing things through new eyes. We make so many assumptions in this profession, often based on the idea that we know what students need and want. Time and again, research has shown that we’re usually wrong. …
I mentioned in my most recent post that our VPAA (Vice President of Academic Affairs) recently gave me the green light to form an information literacy committee chaired by myself and made up of faculty representatives from each of the six academic Schools and a representative from Academic Computing. It took me a while to …
I was really excited when I saw the title of In the Library With the Lead Pipe’s post “Rising through the Ranks: On Upward Mobility in Librarianship” from last month. They always provide a comprehensive and thoughtful treatment of the issues they choose to write about. And this is an issue I think about quite …
I was thinking about writing a post reflecting on recent posts about the myth of the graying of the profession (and the coming librarian shortage) and Peter Brantley’s post about involving young’uns in discussing the future of libraries, but Colleen Harris beat me to the punch. And because she really knows how to tell-it-like-it-is, I …
I’ve written some posts in the past about vendors that have done some pretty slimy things in the name of making a profit. At least that makes sense to me. That’s their model — they’re profit-driven. Then there’s JSTOR. JSTOR is not an EBSCO or an Elsevier. JSTOR is a non-profit. JSTOR is a “service …
Wow, what can I say about Immersion? First of all, you have to be there to really understand what a profound experience it is. My in-laws were visiting when I got back from Immersion and I found it very difficult to explain the experience. What I told them is that it was an intensive program …
Forgive this less-than-well-thought-out post. I’ve been thinking a lot about assessment lately and the librarianly love of numbers in assessment, and I’m a troubled by the way that some academic libraries tend to measure how well they are supporting the academic mission of the institution. Librarians keep a lot of statistics and measure a lot …
Day 2 was just as full and wonderful as Day 1. I continued my mostly staying offline during the conference and I think it really helped me to keep focused on what was going on in front of me. While I do like Twitter in a lot of ways and think it’s great for conferences, …
In the Fall, I wrote a post about my own thoughts on who should teach information literacy in academic libraries. In theory, I don’t care who teaches information literacy as long as it’s taught by someone (faculty member, librarian, etc.). In practice, I still struggle with this in my own mind, mainly because of how …
Don’t worry, Walt, I won’t apologize for being away and I won’t promise that I’m going to post more often (though I have a lot of ideas for posts, something has been preventing me from getting them out of my head and onto the screen). Wayne Bivens-Tatum recently wrote a very interesting post questioning who …
Yes, I knew I’d have to teach people how to use email. And unjam printers. And help people use copiers. But I don’t think I ever understood in library school how important sales and marketing would be to the success of our profession. Within a month of starting work as the Distance Learning Librarian at …
Last April, I started in my new position as Head of Instructional Initiatives, though for the first four months, I was also still doing the job of Distance Learning Librarian. Since taking this on at the end of July as my only job, it’s been a wild ride. I took a lot of risks, tried …
I just love that feeling of serendipity when I find that people are thinking about the same things I am at the same time. Karin Dalziel made an impassioned case for every librarian to learn how to program. Dorothea Salo responded to it and described how she thinks technology should be taught in library school. …
Last week, my students in the Web 2.0 and Social Networking class I teach (at San Jose State) presented their fantastic proposals (via web conference) for implementing a specific social tool at a specific type of library. I was so impressed with their creativity and professionalism. Each of them made a very good case for …
A few weeks ago, I posted a survey to Survey Monkey to get people’s views about their library school education and what they think should be taught in library school that isn’t (or wasn’t when they were in school). The 91 responses I got were really interesting and I wanted to post them so everyone …
The part of my still new-ish job that causes my the most worry is assessment. I’d hoped to have time this summer to do some serious research on information literacy assessment and get some good ideas for how to best assess library instruction this Fall. However, I got too busy with other, more pressing, tasks …
Last week was one of the most stressful, but also most satisfying, weeks I’ve had at work. That week, we did our “rook tours” which are orientations to the library for the new Freshmen entering the Corps of Cadets (our school’s population is around 50% ROTC). For three days a week before classes start, we …
It’s amazing how I manage to delude myself year after year. Every spring I make a list of projects I want to get done in the summer when I “have more time.” And every year, I barely get through any of them. This year I was really optimistic about what I could accomplish and I’m …
I got this email about LOEX 2008 Encore from Catherine Pellegrino at Saint Mary’s College and wanted to spread the word: The annual LOEX conference is trying something new as an experiment this year: three of their breakout sessions will be presented as live, interactive webcasts a few weeks after the conference: http://www.loexconference.org/2008/virtualsessions.htm I think …
In spite of the fact that I’ve had one of those all-day sinus headaches, I’m walking on a cloud. Starting April 1, I’m going to be the Head of Instructional Initiatives here at Norwich, which means that I will lead and coordinate all instruction (and most assessment) work at the library. I’m also going to …