May 10, 2004 Meeting of User Education Committee

Agenda not yet available.

Members Present: Phill Johnson (05), Allison Sutton (04), Cindy Shirkey (ex officio), Joe Straw (ex officio), Helen Sullivan (05), Lynn Wiley (05), Greg Youngen (05), Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe (ex officio) – Chair, Melody Allison (ex officio)

Additional Attendees: Chad Fennell (User Education GA)

1. Old Business

Fall Library Festival

Lisa reported a great deal of interest in participation among library staff regarding the event. She indicated that fourteen people or more have already volunteered to help out. Lisa also reported that the Library Friends will fully fund the requested $4,500.

TILT

The committee continued its discussion of the Texas Information Literacy Tutorial and related products.

MiniLibs

Cindy submitted her report: “MiniLibs: Purpose, Development and Future” to the committee for review. In addition to MiniLibs, the committee discussed ways in which WebCT use could be more thoroughly investigated as an instructional assessment tool.

2. New Business

Strategic Plan

The committee first discussed point number three of the plan objectives: “To provide library-controlled instruction spaces and equipment across campus.” Because instructional demand is heavy in the Main and Undergraduate libraries and library plans have continuously specified the need for instruction space in these two buildings,the committee recommends revising this point to read “In the Undergraduate and Main Libraries.”

Outreach to Faculty and Students

Another topic raised within the meeting dealt with how new faculty are appraised of library services. The committee will seek to gain a better understanding of current practices and to investigate ways in which to improve this linkage. It was also observed that featuring subject librarians and service contact information on the library gateway would likely improve this connection as well.

Lisa suggested that the library send out informational mass emails to student and faculty once a semester in order to tell them about library services. She observed that an initiative such as this would fall to either the User Education or Services Advisory committees. The messages would promote library services and could even promote specific services at specific times. Given the current rates for campus massmail distributions, this service would cost approximately $400.00/semester. The committee will continue discussing this idea at a future time.

Respectfully submitted,
Chad M. Fennell
User Education GA