January 12, 2009 Meeting of User Education Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Members Present: Susan Avery (ex officio), Paula Carns (09), Bernice Harrington (09), Merinda Hensley (ex officio), Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe (ex officio) – Chair, Karen Hogenboom (09), Emily Love (ex officio), Lori Mestre (ex officio), Yoo-Seong Song (10), Ellen Swain (09), Nathan Yarasavage (10)

Members Absent: Melody Allison (10)

Additional Attendees: Melissa Bowles-Terry (Information Literacy GA)

1. 2008-2009 Meetings Remaining

• February 9, 10-11
• March 9, 10-11
• April 13, 10-11
• May 11, 10-11
• June 8, 10-11
• July 13, 2009 (This meeting will not be held because it conflicts with ALA)
• August 10, 2009

2. User Education Lunches – “Teaching Toss”

One successful toss was held this fall. The location of the next toss will be announced at a later date (428 is already booked). Two different topics were proposed for upcoming “Teaching Toss” discussions:

1. Assessment of Instruction (discussion to be led by those who attended Assessment Immersion)
2. Digital Learning Objects (discussion to be led by Lori Mestre).

The dates for which Teaching Tosses are planned are:

• Tuesday, February 24
• Tuesday, April 21

3. Updates from Working Groups

• Active Learning – No activity to report since the fall Teaching Toss. The working group has created a LibGuide on active learning that can be found at: http://uiuc-training.libguides.com/activelearning. This LibGuide will be sent to all library staff through LibNews and is also posted on the group’s website as a work product: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/committee/usered/workgroup/08_09/al.html.
• Graduate Student Information Literacy – This group is currently working on a literature review to begin a research project. The group will be going through the relevant literature on graduate student information needs, identifying similarities and differences, and devising focus group/interview questions and scripts. The literature review should be done by mid-February and survey design done by the end of the semester.
• “Library in a Box” – Emily Love, Ellen Swain, and Karen Hogenboom will begin work on this project, discussed in October 13, 2008 User Education committee meeting. Link to minutes: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/committee/usered/minutes/08_09/13oct08.html.
• Professional Development for Teaching and Learning – Chip Bruce from GSLIS and Lisa are working with CTE liaison Mary-Ann Winkelmas to develop workshops for LIS faculty and librarians. Two workshops will be offered this spring; the workshop that will most appeal to librarians is on teaching in the one-on-one situation and assessing student readiness to learn. The other workshop that will be held this spring will be most useful for those who teach semester-length courses and will focus on creating assignments that encourage learning.
• High School Outreach – This group is composed of Emily Love as chair, Karen Hogenboom, Ellen Swain, Jim Hahn, and Susan Avery. The group will be holding an in-service day for teachers at local high schools and also helping with a career fair. The in-service will be focused on online resources that are freely available on the web to teachers and students.

4. New Working Group: Career Services and Support

This new group has been created at the request of Paula Kaufman.

• Charge: Investigate career services and support for current student and alumni. Identify current library services and resources for career services and support at Illinois and create LibGuide highlighting these for students and alumni. Review practices at other research libraries. Recommend additional services and resources.
• Membership: Rudy Leon (chair), Yoo-Seong Song, Laura Hanson, Mary Beth Allen, Nikki Wright

Merinda Hensley and Bernice Harrington will be added to this working group. Merinda has been talking  with the Graduate College about bringing together career services and resources into one cohesive portal. This group will draft a LibGuide that will bring together services and resources and will have a published (though not necessarily comprehensive and complete) version out by April.

5. Announcements/Discussion

• Merinda reports that new workshops have been added to the Savvy Researcher workshop series. View the workshop schedule online at: http://www.library.uiuc.edu/learn/instruction/workshops.html.
• The ORR interface is being redesigned. Comments and requests are welcome and may be sent to Lori Mestre, who is on the interface redesign committee. One request that came up in this meeting is to have a way to pull out “free resources.”
• Due to budgetary woes, graduate assistantships will now be offered for nine months rather than twelve. Units will be able to request hourly summer work, but not all GAs will be able to work over summer semesters. This will present some challenges for planning fall instruction, when there are very few GAs working through summer.

Respectfully submitted,

Melissa Bowles-Terry