LOEX 2008 - Elmhurst Library

The pre-conference for LOEX was an introduction to and tour of the Elmhurst College Library, about 15 minutes from the conference site.

Designing Library Spaces with a Focus on Information Literacy

In 1999 the Elmhurst College Library got funding to redesign the main floor of the library. They spent 2000-01 planning, writing up the project, working with an architect and in the summer of 2002 the library was closed and construction was done.

The requirements that were passed on to the architect centered around information literacy – focus more on instruction, than print resources, so most of the books and bound periodicals were cleared out of that floor. They weeded out 10% of the material and all bound periodicals went to other two floors.

The resulting space is unlike any I have seen before:

As you walk into the library, there is the check-out desk on one side and the café on the other. The café is an elegant crescent with tables and chairs and serving simple fare of coffee, soda, cookies, chips, granola bars. They wish they had pulled in a water source, so a more extensive menu could be offered. This is popular with students and even professors use the space for conferences with students.

The central space is the classroom with 30 work stations in clumps of 4 or 6 computers, each on a 60x27 table, so more can gather around it. The room is non-rectangular, somewhat fan shaped with two glass walls, so students can see when instruction is being done, and when there is no instruction, they can go in and use the computers. The students have named it the Fishbowl, so for library week, they went and decorated the windows with fish.

The reference desk has been much reduced – it has two chairs, two computers, but open to the room, so students come and sit down to ask for help or just talk, or get a piece of candy. The desk is staffed by paraprofessionals, as the 6 librarians spend most of their time teaching (250-300 sessions a year). Reference is just an extension of the instruction.

The computers are set up in configurations of 4, back to back, with extended tables for each, where four people could easily gather around.

There is a comfy chair reading area and about a quarter of the floor is still bookshelves, but low ones to open up the space and let the art be seen. The shelves contain current periodicals and the much reduced reference collection. The library had money at one time to purchase art from a group of Chicago artists, who graduated from the Chicago Institute of Art in the 70’s to early 80’s. These are displayed on the walls throughout the library and add a wonderful touch of color and interest.

The architect talked about the process. After the library had written up the specifications of what they wanted – to think young and that it had to be multi-use, they drew a bubble diagram of the different zones they planned for the library.

The library was not a badly used building to begin with, but with the renovation it is now a super used building (they haven’t kept actual data). Circulation has stayed the same (instead of dropping) and the number of reference questions and instruction sessions has gone up a lot. The teaching faculty participated in the weeding process, so they had no complaints about the weeding, but a few had fits about circulating videos, so they backed off on that innovation.

What they do with the staff they have is quite amazing. They have 6 librarians, 13 paraprofessionals and 20 student workers for a population of 2800 students, 10% grads. Librarians do all the teaching and have divided liaison responsibilities differently. Each has a science, a big department, a hard to work with department, an easy to work with department. Each is also the head of some department in the library, like access services, tech services or reference/instruction. They also provide much of the tech support for the university. They administer Blackboard and teach instructors to use it. They help faculty and students with most software related technical problems. They offer a credit course “Chicago’s great libraries.”

Another interesting factor is that the public library is right across the street, so they collaborate on collection building, and have only about 20% overlap. I wish Kalamazoo Public was closer to us, so we could send students down for some of the things they need.

Latvia trip March 2008

This was a whirlwind of a trip, where I had to take care of some personal business, but I got to see quite a few relatives, friends and colleagues in a short amount of time.

Professionally my goal was to visit the Bibliographic Institute of the National Library of Latvia to gather information for a presentation I have to give at a Slavic studies conference this fall. When I first visited Latvia as a librarian for the Latvian Studies Center in 1990, it took me quite a while to understand their library set-up and the role of the Bibliographic Institute (BI). It maintains statistics on publishing throughout the republic, later country and publishes the national bibliography - an index of all publications and all articles in periodicals published in the country and about the country. In 1990 the BI was independent, but it is logical that it is now a division of the National Library. The descriptions created for this national bibliography are modified for the catalog and our Library of Congress considers their cataloging qualitative enough that they use these records for their catalog.

Lots of interesting topics arose in our conversations, for instance the issue of authority files. Latvians tend to butcher non-Latvian names by writing them as Latvians would pronounce them, for example Dzeimss Dzoiss (James Joyce) and Ijans Makjuens (Ian McEwan). Now in the days of electronic databases and non-Latvian users, they have to add the original spelling authority files.

Of course they have tried to keep up with the explosion of technological advances, but have entered the game a little late. They have been creating the indexes with the help of computers since the late 1980's and, but do not provide access to the international databases we use regularly. Full text is minimally available - mostly from a company providing full text for pay to newspapers from 1994 and some journals from recent years. They have moved from a print index to online and CD-ROM, but with the availability of Internet connections throughout libraries in the country (thanks to the Bill Gates Foundation), they will be dropping the CD-ROM version this year.

Another fascinating project is to retrospectively convert all the old bibliographies and indexes. I remember being amazed at the extent of indexing done in the Baltics - all on catalog cards in rooms full of card catalog cabinets. The main reading room in the National Library today has only one room of computers, the other is still the card catalog. It didn't look like they would ever be converted, but with advanced scanning and character recognition programs, they are beginning to convert this mass of bibliographic information. They have the book descriptions entered back to 1920. The old orthography and hand written cards are a special challenge.

Since Latvia still does not have a single building for their National Library, it is scattered throughout the capital city of Riga. I left the Bibliographic Institute in Old Town and went to meet Director Andris Vilks in the main building that also houses the administrative offices. He gave me the background I needed for my research on the changes in the National Library over the late 1980's and early 1990's.

The new building project for the library - The Castle of Light has taken so long to start, that people have lost enthusiasm and are now opposed to the government wasting money on the building. Some question the need for a building in today's online information world, others don't like the architectural design, created by Gunars Birkerts, a Latvian architect from the Detroit area. (It seemed more appropriate when it was first proposed over 10 years ago.) Others are upset that some interesting old buildings were razed to clear space for the new library.

I enjoy the way traveling abroad gives me glimpses of other lives. On the long flight there I sat next to a man from LA who was going to Uganda to distribute Bibles for the Gideons. (They have already provided Bibles to all the new hotels that have been built in China for the Olympics.) In Sweden I had an Iranian taxi driver, that had lived there 20 years. He asked what city I was from and I had to tell him that Kalamazoo was near Chicago. "Oh, gangsters!" Still. Another man was returning to visit his sick father from Italy, where he has taught English for the last 28 years. A young woman from Germany was visiting her boyfriend, who had an internship at Princeton. All interesting lives.

My friends and relatives were very interested in who we were going to elect as our next president. One thought that if we elected Obama, it would mean an end to our racial problems. Others were intently watching the dollar and our economic woes. Though I have seen incredible progress in Latvia, especially in living conditions, they too seem to be in a building slump. Banks are no longer lending money for building projects, and some have over-borrowed to build their dream homes or projects.

Michigan Academy Annual Meeting 2008

Not only was this year's Michigan Academy meeting conveniently located on our own campus, I thought we had some very interesting presentations. It was great there were a lot of presentations from Western, as I learned about new things happening in my own institution.

An Improved OpenURL Resolver Menu System. George Boston and Deborah Mouw, WMU - George and Deborah talked about the way they redesigned the SFX system to work for us, and I think it was a very worthwhile process to be shared with others.

Reordering the Ordering Process and Workflow in Acquisitions. Randle Gedeon, WMU - We don't really get to find out what others are doing in their units, and this was a good overview of the changes down in Acquisitions.

Using CONTENTdm at Central Michigan University Library. Ruth M. Helwig, CMU - Very interesting to hear about the process (I am obsessed with processes) of getting an institutional depository going at CMU.

How Can Using an Online Storage Material Request Form Facilitate Document Delivery? Birong Ho, WMU - Again a very useful process to share with others.

Beyond Access: Transformation of Primary Source Materials. Sheila Bair, WMU - Totally fascinating. I knew our Civil War diaries were cool, and that a lot of work went into digitizing them and adding metadata, but Sheila just made this snippet of history come so alive. She got a lot of questions, which showed that her topic and presentation were very engaging.

Institutional Functional Analysis of Archival Records: A Practical Application at Northern Michigan University. Marcus C. Robyns, NMU and Jason Woolman, University of British Columbia - This presentation made me realize how little I know about archive work. I don't even know how Sharon and her crew organize all of our institutional archives. Marcus addressed ways to keep track of the ever changing university structure and important records, a daunting task.

Principles and Practices for Library Outreach to First Year Students. Jane P. Currie, Hope College - Jane reviewed programs to first years. What I liked best was their flexibility at Hope. For a while they tried one thing, then when that wasn't working as well as they would have liked, tried something else.

First Year Experience at Western Michigan University Libraries. Dianna E. Sachs, Western Michigan University - Dianna had a nice overview of the programs we are offering FYE students.

Learning Outcomes, Instructional Design, and the 50-Minute Information Literacy Session. Sara D. Miller, Michigan State University - Sara's presentation had the most implications for my own work. I admire her undertaking instruction in this manner - dividing the class into 5 groups, each finding a different type of resource for the class (a scholarly article, background information, opinion piece, book and website) without instruction. Then each group presents what they found and she gently guides them to better tools. She said it was a real eye opener to see how they really search.

Women Library Leaders as Trailblazers: Mary Spencer and Loleta Fyan. Sharon Ladenson and Portia Vescio, Michigan State University. - Interesting to hear about early Michigan State Librarians and the challenges they faced. One had little formal education, while the other was the first professionally trained state librarian. Michigan has had women State librarians from 1869 to 1968. Laurel has studies these ladies herself and her questions afterward were about the use of archival materials.

On the Family Track: the Effect of Motherhood on the Tenure and Promotion of Library Faculty in Higher Education. Elizabeth Bucciarelli, Eastern Michigan University - Elizabeth had found almost no research on the effects of motherhood on library faculty, so the research she did find was mostly about faculty at universities in general. She plans on doing an in depth research study on this topic. One interesting factor came up in discussion, that librarians might be more supportive of each other than other faculty, as we work together more closely.

Research Behavior of Graduate Engineering Students as Evidenced by Citation Patterns in Master’s Theses and PhD Dissertations. Edward J. Eckel, Western Michigan University - I hadn't seen this aspect of Ed's citation analysis. His results weren't surprising, that PhD dissertations use more scholarly resources than Master's Theses, but there was interesting information on the type of resources used by engineers.

Using Toolbars to Deliver Library-Related Information. Michael C. Sensiba, Wayne State University - Mike talked about toolbars that can be customized to provide links to library users without them having to go to the library home page. It wasn't clear to me why students would download this toolbar, but it it definitely cool and great alternative for library resource users - including ourselves.

Data Curation: A New Frontier in Faculty-Librarian Collaboration. John M. Potter, ITT Technical Institute - This was the last presentation in a long day of presentations, but it is an interesting idea - that librarians could help teaching faculty manage the data sets they create. In the beginning I thought this was just an extension of an Institutional repository, but it is actually a lot more, and there is now a degree available in data curation.

Samuel Tietse from France and Carol A. Zeile from Alma College did not present.

ACE Internationalization Collaborative Annual Meeting

Faculty Engagement in Comprehensive Internationalization
February 1 - 2, 2008, Washington, DC

Comprehensive Internationalization
Though this has been the focus of the last few ACE meetings, I think I really understood this concept better this time. I think WMU is striving for comprehensive internationalization, but I now see that it needs a much more organized effort to really make it happen. The process involves the following:

1. Select a leadership team
2. Articulate global learning outcomes
3. Conduct an Internationalization Review
4. Develop an Internationalization Plan

Why do we need to do this?

• Small number of our students get abroad
• Non-traditional students have even less time to study abroad
• Faculty may still be lukewarm about internationalization in the curriculum
• We are not always good at connecting things we are already doing

Learning Outcomes
It is important to get internationalization into the whole fabric of the university, so it is not considered an add-on, but part of what we all do, with outcomes in:

• University mission statement
• General education
• Departmental and class outcomes
  

Internationalization Review - Self Study
This is an important piece of the comprehensive internationalization process and it was suggested not to rush this process, and involve as many people on campus as possible in the conversation.

• Environmental scan – compare to other universities
• Internationalization inventory – what doing already
• Survey & do focus groups with faculty, staff & students

Faculty Involvement
Internationalization needs to be faculty driven, because when faculty members are not on board, internationalization will not be implemented effectively. Some ideas from the meeting:

• Fund for international initiatives
• Mini-grants for developing short term study abroad, or internationalizing course
• Survey faculty
• Hold conferences and workshops
• Visit departments with a small group
• Send faculty overseas
• Encourage applying for Fulbright & other grants in unusual places
• Work on professional organizations to encourage teaching global perspective
• Have proactive leadership leading discussions, providing examples
• Create a support and reward structure
• Include in tenure and promotion considerations
• Work on current grad students – they will be future faculty members
• Explain initiatives to faculty advisors, so they can inform their students

Staff and Administration
Get all players involved – administration, faculty, staff, and students

• Student affairs, admissions, budget, career services
• Open programs to staff too
• One school has staff (including custodial, cafeteria, office) accompany freshmen on trip to UK
• Have staff do logistical planning and then come on trip

Students

• Internationalization linked to improved student retention and engagement
• Parents and students come in with expectations of study abroad, but few do
• Innovative advising techniques – “Picture Yourself Global”, “Get Global!”
• First year experience – live and learn together, go abroad first semester, etc.
• International Café (Hawaii)
• Support international clubs
• Involve international students in classes and co-curricular activities

Other issues

• International and Multicultural – more institutions are integrating these, ACE is holding a symposium in June
• International service learning – can be major draw

Internationalization Across the Curriculum
To give those students who don’t have the opportunity to study abroad, and even those that do, to experience and reflect on international and global issues. Some ideas and issues:

• Designate certain courses as “international” – some don’t like the “I” designation
• Some go abroad, some explore an ethnic, cultural group in the area
• Use the knowledge of international faculty, staff and students, multiculturalism in class
• Draw on global issues –global warming, health, environment
• Create courses that fulfill various requirements – program, ethics, internationalization
• Parallel to writing across curriculum – don’t want people saying “someone else will teach that” – involve in everything
• Co-curricular events – international education weeks, festivals, community involvement

Study Abroad
So that it can’t be said that this is just partying in a different time zone, goals must be clear for the study abroad experiences. Students must be adequately prepared.

• Articulate outcomes
• Debrief – K-College does an overnight retreat afterwards
• Ask them to reflect, write papers
• Ask questions about how their discipline handled in other country
• Have students do workshops for others
• Assess
• Goal could be at least one study abroad program for each department (Juniata)
• Work with financial aid

Projects

• Global Connections Experience (Arcadia, PA) – must spend a semester in a community other than their own.
• Global Design Studio (IUPUI) – an architectural service learning project throughout the world, but currently focused on New Orleans and Indonesia – helping to rebuild after disasters. Involves, engineers, journalists and other departments and local communities and businesses.
• Global Learning for All (Kennesaw State University, GA) - A Quality Enhancement Plan project for accreditation affected the whole campus and made all the international efforts more cohesive. Impressive changes in five years.
• Global Learning Certification -(Kennesaw State University, GA) – some may choose to get this additional certification, which should be useful in getting jobs.
• Ground water project in Bangladesh (Wagner, Staten Island, NY) – project involved chemistry, environmental studies, biology.

Internationalization Laboratory
ACE Internationalization Collaborative offers this opportunity to 8 institutions every year, to go through an extensive process to move to the next level in internationalization. Timing is important and this might be a good time for WMU with new president and dean. Doing this with ACE gives more weight to our actions. The lab includes:

• A site visit
• Meeting with cohorts at beginning and after 6 months
• Monthly meetings with Barbara Hill
• Meetings with leaders throughout campus
• Writing a report including a plan for the future

Some definitions:

Global – denoting the systems and phenomena that transcend national borders

Global learning – international, global, and intercultural learning

Globalization – avoid, because it has negative connotations

International – focusing on the nations and their relationships

Intercultural – focusing on knowledge and skills to understand and navigate cultural differences

Internationalization – process by which institutions foster global learning

Comprehensive internationalization – strategic and integrated approach to internationalization – articulate internationalization as institutional goal, develop internationalization plan, bring together the different aspects of internationalization

Co-Curricular activities - previously known as Extracurricular Activities are activities that education organizations in some parts of the world create for school students. They serve to promote a variety of activities which all school students must attend alongside the standard study curriculum. (from Wikipedia)

“Inter” Framework – intergenerational, inter-cultural, international, interdisciplinary, inter-institutional

Internationalizing in DC

I’ve just gotten back from a great conference in DC. I love to travel and go to conferences, especially when I’m “in the flow” and I keep meeting interesting people or things happen. First of all, I missed the snow storm by hours and got out of Kalamazoo and Detroit more or less on time. Then I had a great conversation on the plane to DC (no middle person), with a guy who spent most of his career in mental health, used to lead the drug and alcohol abuse programs in Maryland, now is evaluating health programs throughout the country. Since my first job was in a state hospital in Ohio, we had lots to talk about. My favorite story of his was about a group of dispirited vets, and the problem of foster care kids needing a place to stay between homes. He had gotten an old house for the kids that needed a lot of repairs, but had no funds. The vets stepped in and fixed and painted the house, just asked that it be called Rainbow Beginnings. He told me to look out for the George Bush Center for Intelligence (CIA) sign on the drive to my friends’ house. Made me smile each time I passed it.

The conference was the American Council on Education (ACE) Internationalization Collaborative annual meeting. I know it’s another absurdly long title. But WMU is part of this collaborative of higher education institutions that are trying to work towards better international programs. The buzzword this time was “comprehensive internationalization.” Western has some pretty impressive programs going, but we are still looking at how to make sure every graduate is ready to function in the ever changing global environment, even if they don’t do study abroad or don’t hang out with our international students.

I attended one of the pre-conferences that was focused on doing an Internationalization Review, and extended process of evaluating where you are and where you want to go. I am in an International Education Council (IEC) working group trying to review the state of Western’s internationalization across the curriculum, but I think we might need to think more broadly about reviewing all of our internationalization efforts and seeing how they interconnect or could connect. I also found myself thinking how we could apply this to the library. We are doing this with our strategic planning, various task forces, LibQual and other initiatives, but I’m not seeing where we are going clearly. Maybe it’s just me.

The conference itself consisted of plenary sessions with panels, and breakout discussion groups on the topic presented either by discipline or type of institution we represented. Many interesting projects and initiatives were presented. Some stick out in my mind:

Global Design Studio (IUPUI) – an architecture professor works with his students on real life situations throughout the world and has students design appropriate housing for people who have lost their homes in disasters like Katrina in New Orleans and the tsunami in Indonesia. They work with local communities as well as local companies to make sure they are fulfilling actual needs. This has expanded way beyond architecture into an interdisciplinary project, where students and faculty from other university departments are involved - environmentalists, health workers, social workers, journalists, and more.

Arcadia University (PA, outside Philadelphia) has a couple of amazing things they do with their freshmen. First of all they take every freshman, 500 of them, to the UK during spring break. This 8 day trip is often their first outside the country, so there is a lot of preparatory work, lots of hand-holding, debriefing, etc. and they only charge the students $300. Arcadia also houses the Center for Educational Abroad, which is a service providing study abroad opportunities for students from many universities, so they have the staff and facilities in place overseas. The other part of this project that was really exciting was that to chaperone the students, they ask staff to come along – and not just staff from the international office – this includes all staff – custodial, cafeteria and office workers throughout the campus. The second freshmen project is that they have some freshmen do their first semester abroad. They actually get much more individual attention that they would on the US campus, and the experience solidifies a cohort that stays together through graduation, an event that happens at a much higher rate than usual.

The most library oriented thing I did was my meeting with the head of the European Reading Room at the Library of Congress. I am going to be on his panel about the changes in book chambers in the post-Soviet republics at the Slavic studies conference in November. We will look at how many of these national bibliography agencies have been incorporated into the national libraries. After discussing our panel, we had a wonderful Indian dinner prepared by his French wife. (He specializes in Romania.) Is that international enough?

During a break on the second day, I just had to stretch my legs and went outside to find a beautiful sunny day. As I walked down the block I came upon the Society of the Cincinnati, with a sign that their museum was open for a couple of hours on this day. I couldn’t resist peeking in. The guide swooped down on me and asked how much time I had – 15 minutes – OK, she’d give me a 15 minute tour. And here I was going to stretch my legs and cool my brain, but got an intense lecture on Larz and Isabel Anderson, who built this house by 1905, to have a place to entertain when the Congress started sessions –I guess it was THE place to be. He was an ambassador, she the richest woman of her time – her father controlled the Boston Harbor for a while. When Mr. Anderson died in 1937, the building and most of its contents was donated to the Society of the Cincinnati – an exclusive club of male descendants of officers of the American Revolution - both Lafayette’s and Washington’s men. The Society is an historical and educational organization that promotes knowledge of the Revolution. The house was amazing, as could be expected. Marble floors, paintings including a massive painting by Villegas that no museum wanted and was brought to town on their yacht, choir stalls taken out of some poor European church – for decoration, not religious reasons. Of course I was a few minutes late to my next session.

After the conference was over, I needed to air my brain, before heading to an evening with my friends. I went to see the Vietnam Memorial. It definitely has a reverent aura around it, especially in light of the ongoing loss of American lives overseas. I hadn’t climbed up to see Lincoln’s memorial since my parents took me there as a child. That huge, gleaming white sculpture also left me in awe. I was there just at dusk, so I saw the incredible view from the Lincoln Memorial, down the reflecting pool towards the Washington Monument transform in the changing light. I seem to remember quite a few movie moments occurring here. On the way back to my car I saw Einstein’s memorial. I loved the clumpy sculpture (I am sure there is a more sophisticated term for this) of this brilliant man, in his rumpled sweater and sandals, casually sitting with one foot up, papers in his hand. Though the sculpture is substantially larger than life, it looks like he was a short man. At his feet is a celestial map.

To end my delightful experience, at my friends, we played Cranium – I was partnered with my 10 year old goddaughter, and we had fun guessing each other’s charades, songs, drawings, spelling words backwards, running around the house finding things, figuring out words in categories. We tried to do most of it in Latvian, but some of the word games had to stay in English.

The Regan National Airport was also a new adventure, as I have always driven to DC, never flown in. I somehow didn’t realize how close it was to downtown and the main mall – just across the river in Virginia. It was strange to be greeted by the Washington Monument as I was driving away from the airport. Leaving this morning I had my first experience with a new safety contraption that shot bursts of air from head to toe. This was looking for explosive chemicals on me. Ah yes, we must be especially vigilant for terrorists in the capital. But as we were taking off above the city, and I saw all those government buildings, I realized that there is a lot of power concentrated in one area that could be vulnerable to attacks by those who hate us. Though we have given them plenty of reasons why, it was still a bit disconcerting.

Reading as an addiction

Great quote from Diane Setterfield in the back of her book The Thirteenth Tale. (see my review) Setterfield is answering the question:
Margaret says on page 4 that reading can be dangerous. In what ways do you think that is true, besides falling off of stone walls while wrapped in a story?

an excerpt of Setterfield's answer:
... about whether reading could be considered an addiction. It is, after all, mind altering. (I'd be interested to know what what happens inside the brain, chemically and structurally, when someone reads. It might shed light on the reading addiction question.) I know there are people who don't read fiction at all and I find it hard to understand how they can bear to be inside the same head all the time. ... I find it so soothing to have another mind I can just hop into by opening a book. In fact if I have to get a train and I don't have enough reading with me, I can feel quite panicky. So am I addicted? And is it dangerous?
...
Is reading dangerous? I don't know. But I know one thing that is always dangerous, and that is not living. So I resist the lure of the kitchen/library. For now, at least.

IUPUI Library

While visiting Indianapolis, I stopped by in the IUPUI (Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis) Library It serves a mostly commuter population of 21,000. The main library is five stories, the lower level containing the archives, an auditorium and student lounge with vending machines. The first floor has the Teaching & Learning Cetner and the IUPUI Office for Professional Development, Library administrations and some meeting rooms. The second floor is the main floor of the library with circulation and the reference area, which includes an Academic Commons, reduced reference stacks, current periodicals, micorforms, and government documents in compressed shelving. The Academic Commons consists of numerous computers - regular single service stations, an area for multi-media, and a couple of areas with wavy partitions, tables with computers for groups, with movable tables, chairs, and white boards for working. This was largely funded by local businesses interested in technically savvy workers. There was also a special philanthropy library on this floor and the grad student at the reference desk had gotten a MA in philanthropy studies and showed me that they are offering the first PhD program in the field. The third and fourth floors were quiet areas with book stacks, four areas of 28 computers each with a computer consultant on the fourth floor. There were faculty offices (library and university), banks of carrels, all having electrical outlets and various other connections available. Grad carrels were out in the open, but had lockable cabinets. Every floor had comfy seating areas. Almost all the computer needed login access.