March 11, 2002 Meeting of User Education Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Members Present: Linda Ackerson, Cindy Ashwill, Paul Callister, Lori DuBois, Frances Harris, Karen Hogenboom, Christopher Quinn, Lynne Rudasill, Sarah Reisinger
Julia Spann (GA)

Members Absent: Bob Burger, Sue Searing – Chair, Jane Wiles

Additional Attendees: Julia Spann (GA), Tom Teper (Preservation Librarian, UIUC Library)

Lori called the meeting to order at 9:05am. Nothing was added to the agenda.

1. Preservation Issues: Efforts to Raise Awareness

Guest Tom Teper, Preservation Librarian for UIUC Library was introduced and spoke to the Committee about raising user and staff awareness of preservation issues.

2. Key points raised and discussed included

Integrating preservation concepts in class and campus life through

• Posters in the library (i.e., “Please Don’t Break My Back”)
• Bookmarks
• Plastic bags to protect books on rainy days
• Handouts (i.e., “Are You a Book Batterer?” quiz)
• Exhibits

ALA is in the process of producing a poster on proper handling and care of library materials.

The Preservation Committee is sponsoring a poster competition to highlight food and drink policies. This competition will be open to anyone in the library including student workers and library staff. Will promote participation through library listserv and GSLIS.

The Committee brainstormed ideas for raising awareness. Lori asked whether the Preservation Committee was considering doing any exhibits to highlight preservation concerns. Tom indicated that they would be putting up an exhibit in September to coincide with a Library Friends event to show how Friends money is being used. He also described exhibits at other institutions where they put cockroaches in a display case with garbage found in the library to graphically illustrate the food and drink problem. Cindy offered Tom helpful resources to cut printing costs. Julia suggested sending clear messages to students that drive home reasons students should care about preservation.

Lastly, Tom mentioned that it is critical for everyone to see their role in preservation.

3. Housekeeping

Committee members should re-submit their changes/edits to the February 11, 2002 minutes to Julia by Friday, March 15th.

4. TA Workshops

Social Sciences and Law: Lynne reported that the feedback from students was “great.” There were 17 students that showed up. The focus points were to show TAs 1) that we are here and can help them; 2) how to create assignments without always doing a scavenger hunt; and 3) abundant resources available to them. All in all, Lynne said this was “fun” and that she would like to see about doing this again next semester (Fall 2002) but more toward the earlier part of the semester.

Humanities: Sarah and Chris reported that out of the 5 people that had signed up only 1 person showed up. They had sent a survey the week before, but no one had cancelled at that point. Their workshop focussed on MLA and SDI sources. Suggestion for next time would be to push subject librarians to publicize these sessions to their graduate students. Also, to encourage attendance the idea of marketing these sessions as an “easy credit” for the additional workshop hours required for the Graduate Teacher Certificate was put forth.

Sciences: Linda reported that she did 2 workshop sessions with Lura Joseph and Kevin Messner. They had also sent a questionnaire prior to the workshops asking things like what classes the TAs were teaching and what the learning objectives were for students. The first session had poor attendance (5 came out of 12 that signed up) — most likely due to the snow storm. The second session was better attended, with 12 in attendance. The participants were shown 2-3 undergraduate databases and some higher-level databases. Suggestions for the next sciences TA workshops would be a concentration on more student databases and demonstration of how TAs can incorporate database use into their classes and student assignments.

The overall feedback from the Committee was that it is best to keep the TA workshops broken down by discipline because it is more effective.

Since none of the groups gave evaluations to the participants, Lori suggested that if they still had the list of participants that they contact them and ask for feedback. She also asked instructors to provide Sue with an outline of what they covered, so that we will have a full record of what we did during these sessions for next time.

5. User Ed Luncheon

The February 28th luncheon with Mike Twidale was very good. The information he shared on interface design and its effects on the user and library services was really helpful. The Committee agreed that a format where there is a presentation by an expert followed by an open discussion was very appropriate for a specialized topic such as this. Members also were happy that this luncheon reminded us of the expertise we have at hand within GSLIS (Graduate School of Library and Information Science). The luncheons are also distinctive from the Teaching Alliance in that it is relatively short, logistically simple and informal.

The Committee then proceeded to brainstorm ideas for the next luncheon (March 27th, Wednesday). Ideas included:

• Preservation education
• Learning styles
• Lesson planning
• Information challenges that graduates will face (how will use in “real world”)
• Departmental topics such as “What everyone needs to know about government documents” or “What to do with legal questions?”
• How to evaluate user education programs.
• How to evaluate the levels students are at (needs assessment)
• Learning objectives-what are they?

The Committee selected the topic of preservation education and will invite Tom Teper and Jennifer Hain to present. Lori will follow up with invitation and seek confirmation from Sue before Julia sends out the invitations.

6. Announcements

Lori mentioned that Bob Burger sent a note about the progress of the Information Literacy Coordinator position search. An offer has been made and letters have been sent to external evaluators for tenure. Those letters are due back on March 15, at which time the Library’s Promotion and Tenure and Faculty Review Committees will review the materials and make a decision. Then the papers will be forwarded to the campus level. Hopefully this process will be completed around April 1st.

Lori registered for the LOEX conference (to be held in Ypsilanti, Michigan in May). Lynne is on the waiting list (registration filled up in 40 minutes).

TeachIT will be coming up April 12th. This forum is discussing how technology can be used in teaching. Lori is considering doing a session and encouraged others on the Committee to attend or present.

Lynne is pulling together a focus group to evaluate the Library Gateway interface design project. She is looking to get undergraduate students involved for the March 26th and 29th focus group sessions. Lori is working with the interface design group on the usability study.

The meeting adjourned 10:15 a.m.