2007 Annual Faculty Reports
2007 Report
User Education Committee
October 24, 2007
Lisa Hinchliffe
Thank you for this opportunity to report to the Library Faculty about the User Education
Committee.
Members of the User Education Committee for all or part of 2006-2007 were Melody Allison, Susan
Avery, Paula Carns, Dawn Cassady, Lori Carroll, Christpher Hamb, Merinda Hensley, Lisa Hinchliffe
(chair), Karen Hogenboom, James Kelly, Emily Love, Lori Mestre, Joe Straw, Ellen Swain, and Nikki
Wright.
I wish to particularly acknowledge Lori Carroll who has completed her term of service and
welcome Bernice Harrington who has joined for 2007-2009, as well as the many members who requested
re-appointment.
The User Education Committee met ten times in 2006-2007 and was quite active. The following list
highlights some of the activities:
- Established the use of Working Groups to undertake specific projects and expand the
activities of the User Education Committee. Groups included:
- Community Outreach Working Group - Explored opportunities for developing instruction programs
that reach beyond campus courses and groups. The group recommended focusing on outreach to local
high school teachers and librarians and a new working group is exploring options for specific
programs in 2007-2008.
- Graduate Student Information Literacy Needs Assessment Working Group - Explored the
information literacy needs of graduate students. The work of this group is still ongoing.
- Professional Development for Teaching and Learning Working Group - Pursued support to sponsor
librarian participation in the Illinois Immersion Program from the ACRL Institute for Information
Literacy.
- Online Tutorials Working Group - Articulated the integration of online educational materials
in the context of course-integrated instruction and identified short online games that can be used
to reinforce specific information seeking concepts.
- Awards Working Group - Provided ideas for librarian teaching awards in the context of the
campus faculty teaching awards program and discussed possibilities for student research process
awards modeled on other research library student award programs.
- International Education Week Working Group – Coordinated Library participation in the campus
International Education Week.
- Worked with the Staff Development and Training Committee to review the software supporting
Event Calendaring and Registration and purchased an upgrade for the software system.
- Conducted a committee self-review as requested by the Executive Committee.
- Identified technology for instruction currently supported by Library IT as well as identified
areas of need for information technology for information literacy, which were conveyed to Library
IT as part of the IT Review process.
- Provided Scott Walter, AUL for Services, a briefing on committee activities, areas of focus,
and processes.
- Encouraged Library proposals for the campus Graduate Academy for College Teaching and
Online Learning Symposium (a Library-sponsored proposal was competitively accepted for each).
- Discussed possible contributions to the "@ Your Service" blog.
- Provided Snag-It and Camtasia software to library units developing instructional
materials.
- Explored the possibilities of LibGuides from SpringShare to support the development of
subject pathfinders and course support library guides.
- Reviewed and proofread the original 130+ webpages that comprise the new Gateway.
The User Education Committee looks forward to continued productivity in the coming year,
building on its past successes. The Committee will be continuing its practice of utilizing working
groups for specific projects and I am grateful to all who have agreed to contribute to one or more
of these projects. To foreshadow some of the projects that I will report to you on a year from now,
2007-2008 activities will include: contributing to the campus student learning outcomes assessment
process related to the 2009 re-accreditation visit; a more robust set of professional development
offerings related to information literacy, teaching, and learning; and an information literacy
portal for teaching librarians.
