January 10, 2000 Meeting of User Education Committee

Time and Location of Meeting

January 10, 20009:00 am - 10:00 am

Agenda Details

Agenda

Agenda not yet available.

Minutes Details

Attendees

Members Present: Lori DuBois, Ruby Jahr, Chris Quinn, Mary Schlembach, Sue Searing – Chair, Dee Shonkwiler, Helen Sullivan, Sarah Reisinger, Beth Woodard

Members Absent: Jim Cotter, Lynne Rudasill, Jane Wiles

Minutes

1. Housekeeping

A. Minutes of 12/16/99 were approved

2. Announcements

Sue Searing reminded division representatives to gather the names of people who are involved in (or interested in) user education. “We are defining the audience for continuing education and training related to instruction and user education, and will direct our needs assessment toward these people.” So far, lists from 3 divisions have been received.

Paula Kaufman has asked Sue Searing to meet with the University Librarian’s Student Advisory Group on January 27 to talk about what User Ed does. Sue is also hoping to get ideas about what students need and how to get the word out about the programs we do offer. She will bring workshop brochures with her.

3. Review of the Action List

Recall Working Group: Helen Sullivan is working with a group on recall procedures and other options for obtaining materials. The group has prepared 2 handouts (one for users and one for staff) with information about other options beside recall (using WorldCat, CICVEL), how long it takes to get materials from the other sources and through recall. The group has given drafts to Lynn Wiley for review then they will have another meeting to finalize. It will go to ISCC for final approval. User Ed would also like to see a draft of the documents before final approval.

GEN Documents: Lori DuBois has compiled a list of GEN documents on file at Graphic Services. The list contains many duplicates and out-dated documents. At the last meeting we tried to figure out what way would be the easiest way to figure out who produced or are using these documents. Lori will contact Mike Cinker.

Sending representatives to LOEX: three people expressed interest in going to LOEX, one person graciously bowed out to allow Sarah Reisinger and Lori DuBois to go.

Sue Searing is still working on a recommendation that all libraries put a logo or identifier on their user education materials.

Training subcommittee: Beth Woodard has contacted Deb Gilchrist about doing a workshop on assessment in the summer. Deb is interested, but wants more information about what we want her to cover. Beth and Sue will get together to talk about specifics.

Helen Sullivan continues to work on a database of instructional materials.

WIG: Helen Sullivan has taken over working on the visitors pages.

Preparing handouts for the web interface: Ruby Jahr is incorporating changes into the Quick Guide.

Graduate Assistant: Sue Searing has interviewed 3 people for the position and will interview another person today. She hopes to make an offer by 1/11/00.

New FirstSearch Interface: Still much confusion about when we are switching over to the new interface to FirstSearch. Sue Searing will e-mail Paula Watson. [after the meeting: Sue got e-mail from Paula indicating that we will NOT be switching over until June.]

Clean up of Notes in PAC: Mary Schlembach brought up the problem of confusing information in serials notes (e.g. for later volumes enter dsc/., b=). Beth Woodard indicated that there used to be a “wish list” of problems to be fixed, but didn’t know if it still exists, if this problem is on the list, and what its priority is. Sue Searing will send a note to PAC, Barb Henigman, and ISCC about this problem. How can this problem be fixed (retrospective conversion of the serial record, global change of dsc to search by call number)? We want to know where this problem falls on Technical Services’ priority list.

4. Review of Committee Charge

Composition: Sue Searing will remain the chair of the committee, but in the future, the chair will be elected from the members. Members will have staggered, two year terms with possibility of one successive term. Questions raised: Will the chair of the committee be the Central User Education Coordinator when this person is hired? Will there be permanent members of the committee (i.e. Undergrad and Reference’s instruction coordinators, or other units as they develop their instruction programs, for example ACES) to provide consistency?

Staff Training: the new charge includes designing and coordinating “Library-wide instructional programs and workshops for both end users and library faculty/staff.” Questions raised: How does the staff development person who is supposed to be hired fit into this charge? We agree that the committee needs to provide professional development in instruction-related issues so that faculty/staff can participate in our user education goals, but we do not have the resources to do training on every new database that comes along-there should be a staff training plan for each new database EIRC recommends. There needs to be more coordination with other committees (e.g. EIRC) and library services (e.g. Interlibrary Loan). We can create scripts with general information on searching, but to be applicable to departmental libraries’ needs, we need to have examples that are subject specific. GA training shows general searching techniques, but during the practice time, the GAs can work on examples specific to their library or division. Maybe User Ed can use the GA training as a model for staff training.

What’s missing from the charge: No mention of the committee serving as advocates to promote awareness at the university level of librarians as teachers. We need to start doing some groundwork for the Central User Education Coordinator. Also no mention of facilities planning-even if we don’t currently have space for a classroom, we should investigate ways of using existing spaces more effectively for instruction purposes-need a mounted projector and workstation for Undergrad, 428, and Slavic Conference room. Slavic and 428 need a mounted screen, too. This equipment could be used not only for instruction, but for the many meetings held in these rooms. Sarah Reisinger will look into equipment costs.

Recap of Action List and Adjourned at 10:30.