June 12, 2000 Meeting of User Education Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Members Present: Lori DuBois, Angela Cannon, Jim Cotter, Ruby Jahr, Sarah Reisinger, Lynne Rudasill, Dee Shonkweiler, Beth Woodard

Additional Attendees: Jo Kibbee (Guest)

Lynne Rudasill volunteered to take minutes of the meeting.

1. ANNOUNCEMENTS

Members of the Committee welcomed Angela Cannon as the new member from the Area Studies Division. Angela will be filling out the remainder of Helen Sullivan’s term.

The next meeting of the committee has been scheduled for July 17, 2000 at 9:00 a.m. in Room 428 Main Library.

At this time, about twenty individuals are registered for the workshop on assessment with Deb Gilchrist. The arrangements for her lodging have been made, and the workshop will be held in Grainger Library Commons on July 13.

Sue has contacted planners of the fall graduate student orientation concerning our participation in the program.

Statistics on instruction presentations from last year’s annual departmental reports were shared. A discussion of the lack of consistency in definition of what is needed, and resultant lack of usefulness for our purposes ensued. Lori remembered that Sue had sent a memo to Bart Clark concerning the changes we discussed last year. She will forward the memo to members and see if changes can be made for next year.

2. ACTION LIST

• Julie Veazie has reserved a room at the Illini Union for the informal instruction librarian get together for the next two months. The next meeting of this discussion group will be on June 22nd.
• Lori has ordered pencils for the orientation program she is working on. She will use about 400 for the program, and will have the rest available to distribute on Quad Day. Other suggestions for promotional materials included mouse pads, magnets, and brochures. The money currently does not exist for the purchase of these items. It was suggested that the Committee, as a whole, work on a budget for this type of materials for next year.
• Sarah Riesinger has contacted the Office of Instructional Resources and expects to have some concrete information concerning workshops in the near future.
• Beth has announced the meeting with Deb Gilchrist on LIB-NEWS. Some details such as those pertaining to equipment needs still need to be settled.
• Lori DuBois has finished compiling a list of “gen docs” and is waiting to hear back from Rich Palmer. Jim Cotter indicated he will also try to talk to Rich.
• Comments on the instruction web pages can always be sent to Lori DuBois

3. PARTNERING WITH LEARNING COMMUNITIES

Sarah Reisinger and Jo Kibbee met with Brian Rainer in LAS to learn more about the Learning Communities Program. Learning Communities are groups of 20 to 25 freshmen who attend two classes together each semester during their first year at U of I. The class pairings fulfill general education requirements. Meetings are held for the community on a weekly basis. The program depends heavily on peer interaction with undergraduate “learning leaders,” two graduate students, and Brian Rainer as the individuals involved. It does not really provide for a close relationship with faculty outside of the classroom, and it may be difficult for us to regularize our interactions with these groups since they are meant to be very unstructured. Our challenge, according to Jo, is to let them know essential information about the library, even if they don’t have to use it. She also indicated that since most of the contacts within the group are with peers, mentorship is not seen as desirable. The number of communities is currently undetermined and will be so until after registration ends. It appears at this time that October or November, around term paper time, would be the optimum time to approach these communities.

Jo indicated the involvement of the Reference Department in the development of an overview of the library for students in the honors program. Bruce Michaelson, the advisor, does not want the contacts here to be extremely formalized either. He would prefer something along the lines of “meeting over pizza.” The Discovery Program and residential libraries were also discussed. Sarah indicated that she sees the different initiatives as very positive. She added that she doesn’t feel we can wait for a user education coordinator to be in place before we take the initiative here. Jo would like to work with these initiatives and see what happens. If these work out, the initiatives can be expanded. Lori DuBois noted the lack of input from anyone in the Library on any of the curriculum and instruction committees. Jo echoed that it is very difficult to get a handle on where the “go ahead” for these initiatives resides. Lynne Rudasill suggested that the committee review the results of this work at its November meeting, and in the meantime, try to keep up-to-date on any new initiatives on the horizon. Jo agreed to come speak to us again at that time.

4. DEB GILCHRIST PROGRAM

Beth Woodard suggested that invitations to the program include librarians and staff from the Library, graduate assistants at the Library, and faculty and students at GSLIS. If any room remains, we would then open it up to off campus participation. Beth indicated that we already have 20 people signed up. She will contact Deb to see if Deb would like to suggest a limit on the number of attendees. Beth indicated that more than 40 participants might be difficult to handle in the Commons. She also wanted to know if there are candidates on campus who we would like to invite to the second session. Paula Kaufman and Bob Burger have received invitations. In addition, committee members who would like to go to dinner with our guest should contact Sue Searing to let her know. The final details will be discussed during the luncheon at on June 22. We should have a better count on interested attendees for the conference at that time. Julie will be asked to send out the attendee list once again.

5. HANDOUTS

The new build of the web interface to the catalog is due for release in July. Although the interface is not yet available to librarians, we need to think about how our handouts might need to be changed, added to, or eliminated. Lori DuBois indicated that it appeared to her the only one that would need serious overhaul would be the first one listed below. Other assignments are as follows:

• Differences between Browse and Keyword Searches
• Lori DuBois Quick Guide
• Diane Schmidt/Ruby Jahr Remote Access
• Lori DuBois Borrower Information and Requesting
• Sue Searing Printing and Emailing
• Beth Woodard Finding and Requesting Journals
• Sue Searing Searching for Reserve Materials
• Lori DuBois Advanced Search Functions
• Sarah Reisinger

Sarah and Lori will let us know when the new version is up so we can adjust the handouts accordingly. Since training for the interface is tentatively scheduled for the last week in July and the first in August, there will only be about a two week window of opportunity to get the handouts updated. Those responsible for the handouts should bring suggested changes to the July 17 meeting. The changes will have to be made in Photoshop according to Lori, but perhaps Julie Veazie can do it since Lori will be out of the office on vacation.

6. REPORT ON LOEX

Lori DuBois and Sarah Reisinger attended the LOEX conference this year. A packet of materials is being routed to the committee members at this time. Sarah indicated it was very helpful to talk to others about common problems. She indicated there was a particularly good session on working with honors students. Lori also indicated she learned a good deal from conference attendance. Both suggest we recommend continued attendance at the conference in the coming years.

7. ALA PREVIEW

Beth Woodard indicated the Instruction Section will be offering a pre-conference on learning through the web. Lori DuBois is participating in a session on evaluating student learning on the web. In addition, there is a session scheduled from 2:00-4:30 on Sunday which deals with instruction for first year students. LIRT will offer a program on presentation skills.

The meeting was adjourned.