October 16, 2014 Meeting of Area Studies

Agenda not yet available.

IAS Staff Meeting

October 16, 2014

Present: Jan Adamczyk, Lisa Renee Kemplin, Urszula Lechtenberg, Joe Lenkart, Laila Hussein Moustafa, Xiaoping Qi, Toshiko Ryu, and Steve Witt

Guest: Karen Hogenboom

Announcements: 

Awards & Accolades: 

1. October 29 is the staff recognition breakfast at ARC from 8:30-10. This year there is also a pumpkin carving contest for individuals and groups. Let Lisa Renee know if you would like to participate in an IAS entry.
2. The Chai Wai event on October 14 was a success. The total count for the event was 47.

News:

1. Information was distributed earlier by Laila on the upcoming Diversity Breakfast on November 14.
2. Sweeps Week is next week—Monday, October 20-Sunday, October 26. Please make sure that you enter all stats. Spring dates are March 9 – March 15.
3. The new IAS Desk Tracker Interface will begin soon. Instructions will be sent to all staff when it is ready to go live. Roll out will take place after Sweeps Week.

Discussion: 

1. Karen Hogenboom demonstrated the Data Planet database, specifically the Statistical Data Sets. You can sort by subject and export data. The cost for a year is over $16,000. Karen will be contacting other departments in hopes of identifying contributing sponsors. The current version is available through ProQuest until December.

2. Now that the new IAS Website has been launched, it is time to think about updating other pages. We should identify other resources we want to add/update. Antonio sent the following suggestion to Steve:

“As for the discussion, I wanted to say about the second state of website redesign, that we should have a good description of our Library/Department in the about us link, or in the homepage. The description would address everything we do here, not only in our Librarianship, service, and staff specialists, but also in our involvement in research and education as faculty members. We could add some wording from the iTEC statement on IAS teaching and outreach. I think we can highlight better ourselves as faculty and APs. Then, I would encourage all of us in the faculty and staff page to update (or create) our bio pages. We have a column that indicates our Area of Specialization, but we need to provide more information as to what we specialize in and the many things we do, not only a dry Area.”

Reports:

1. iTEC’s last meeting focused on the October 14 event— the first of the Chai Wai series. The second event will be held on Wednesday, November 5 from 2-3. We are seeking topics for the two Chai Wai events for spring. Joe volunteered to assist with a Ukrainian topic for the month of February. We also want to do a program in conjunction with the Mortenson Center and will discuss when Susan is in attendance. We also want to find a way to record all outreach efforts of IAS.
2. Reference and User Services has a draft of suggested guidelines for LibGuides that will soon be distributed. The next meeting will be October 23. There was discussion about having information about IAS in various languages available for patrons.
3. E-Research—Laila reminded about the RDS talk at 1pm in 428 today with Heidi Imker