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October 27, 2008
Skillshare: Nerea Llamas and Harriet Teller
Nerea Llamas
To share: Reference desk, assisting patrons with their research needs. Collection development for Latin American & Iberian Studies, including selecting materials print from approval plans and evaluating electronic resources for purchase. GL Collection Coordinators, participate in weekly meetings and address any work with International Studies selectors on issues related to collection development. Instruction, provide orientation for coursed working on research projects in Latin American & Caribbean Studies. And depending on the timing, there may be other projects or activities to observe.
In my role as collection coordinator, I am now working with gift and trust funds more often. As a result, I am thinking more about how these funds have come about. So, through this program, I hope to learn more about development activities which are typically far removed from my daily activities. I would like to understand the challenges involved in working with donors and find ways to work more closely with development in general. On the flip side, I would greatly enjoy sharing my work with Harriet.
Harriet Teller
I gather information used to produce the annual reports sent to donors of endowed and other Library funds. To do this, I need to gather information from selectors regarding materials purchased using these funds during the past year. I also work with donors who make in-kind gifts to the Library. I collect the relevant information, often including qualified appraisals, and submit the necessary paperwork to the U-M Office of University Development. In addition, I field calls from prospective donors regarding materials they may wish to donate to the Library. I organize Development events and arrange for campus and community groups to hold events at the Library.
I am interested in observing a librarian at the Graduate Library who has responsibility for selecting materials in a specific area. I think this will help lead to improved communication between Development and the selectors.
I look forward to learning more about the day-to-day work of the selectors. I hope to gain a better understanding of their jobs so I can coordinate my work with them.
Posted by dueberb at 09:18 AM | Comments (0)
Skillshare: Gillian Mayman and Nicole Scholtz
Gillian Mayman
To share: Teaching a 3-credit course at the School of Public Health on using Social Technologies for Health Communications which involves prepping for class, reviewing student work, teaching class. / Working on a outreach grant with two Public Health Departments to integrate web 2.0 technologies into their work. This involves giving presentations and teaching classes (and prepping for them), exploring 2.0 solutions to department problems, brainstorming, implementing projects, meeting with the health departments in Flint and Monroe. / Proposing a mini-course to be taught at the School of Public Health in the spring on information resources for graduating students which will involve figuring out what exactly I want to teach and writing up a proposal.
Nicole Scholtz
Some daily work activities that I could share with a colleague are developing workshop materials and lesson plans on data sources and GIS software. Another kind of daily work is working with students and faculty on finding and using data. I do this in the SAND-Central lab in the Graduate Library for at least a few hours a week, and the SAND-North lab in the Art and Architecture building on North Campus for 4 to 8 hours a week, as well as sometimes by email, although the nature of the questions we get is usually best dealt with in person. Other daily work includes updating tutorial content to be current with the versions of software likely to be used by our constituents, and developing content for our blog on various data related topics.
I am interested broadly in two areas. 1. Collection development and department liaison activities of subject specialists or affiliated staff, in any field. I have worked as an Info Resources Reference Specialist with serials and website work, as well as with some circulation and cataloguing functions, so someone doing something different would be preferable. 2. Development and administration of things such as SearchTools, Aleph, Verde, products produced by DLPS, from the more technical (develop/programmer or systems) standpoint.
In the 1st area I am interested in, observing a colleague doing collection development and/or department liaison activities would help me better understand my role as a non-collecting (at least not in terms of traditional bibliographic materials), non-directly-liaising public services librarian, of which there are not many! I would also better understand the relationship between department and subject specialist (or affiliated staff member), which is key to understanding how the library serves its constituents all over campus. I think this would help me better achieve my own goals as a multi-disciplinary public services librarian by allowing me to make more informed decisions about how to collaborate with subject specialists. / In the 2nd area I am interested in, observing development and administration of one of our large sets of data would help me further understand some of the skills needed to handle such large datasets in either open or proprietary systems.
Posted by dueberb at 09:15 AM | Comments (2)
Skillshare: Darlene Nichols, Jennifer Exum and Mei Wang
Mei Wang:
I perform technical processing of Chinese language materials in all formats and subject fields. In line with Asian Library procedures and cataloging rules, assign access points and classification numbers; provide bibliographical description and heading forms; perform editing of usable bibliographic records found on the Connexion database.
I wish to match with a colleague who may share her/his working knowledge of doing Original Cataloging. I am interested in the following: 1. Print (Original)Cataloging Unit 2. Electronic cataloging Unit 3. Description Unit.
I am looking forward to enrich my knowledge of Original Cataloging from a skilled cataloger, which will definitely bring a positive impact on my work.
Jennifer Exum
I do mostly original cataloging for rare materials from Special Collections. Some work is done at my desk, but I also will be starting to go up to Spec and catalog large and fragile items on the spot. Generally the items I handle are pre-19th century books and ephemera. In a typical day I use Aleph to catalog, OCLC connexion to search records, and a variety of print and online sources. I would like to share with a colleague the complexity of the work of a cataloger, and the access I have to rare and unusual materials.
I would like to observe a colleague in public services, as that is an area I have very little experience. Ideally I'd like to work with a reference specialist and get an idea of the type of how they use the records we create in tech services, as well as how library users see them and what sort of questions they might ask.
I would expect to gain a greater understanding of how the very specific work I do is used in the library at large, and just what a typical day is like for a public services librarian. Because I have very little interaction with my colleagues in public services, and next to none with libary users, it can be easy to forget the role of the end user in our work. At the same time, I would love for someone in public services to get a closer look at cataloging and start to understand the process and the work that goes into creating a record. I think we would come out of the experience with a greater understanding for the interconnectedness of public and tech services in the library, which often can seem like two completely different and unrelated worlds.
Darlene Nichols
My first interest would be to observe in cataloging with any cataloging position. I know that cataloging is a complex process and I would be interested in knowing more about how it's done as well as unique activities that go on here at U-M.
I would like to have a deeper understanding of cataloging processes and procedures. I am certain it will broaden my understanding of the library as a whole and give me something to share with users and colleagues.
Posted by dueberb at 09:05 AM | Comments (6)
October 24, 2008
Coffee Break: Open Access
The conversation at this term's first Forum coffee break focused on what the Library is doing to support faculty publishing in Open Access journals. Some of these journals require faculty to pay a publication fee of as much as $3,000. It was asked what the Library can do to help them. Societies behind the journals sometimes waive or reduce these fees if there is an institutional membership. Should the Library pay for this membership? Or should research grants pay for these publication fees? The talk then turned to University researchers interested in conducting natural language processing research with electronic resources the Library provides. It's not clear if the licenses for the resources we provide, including Open Access titles, prohibit the type of data mining they want to conduct or if they are allowed under Fair Use. We also talked about the role of publishers in academia and the difference (if any) between non-profit and for-profit publishers. I'm sure we'll cover these topics again at another talk.
Posted by amuro at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)
October 22, 2008
Coffee Break Schedules
Due to popular demand, the monthly coffee breaks are back again this year! The first of these will be this week--Thursday, October 23 from 3:30-4:30pm and Friday, October 24 from 10:30-11:30am.
Like last year's breaks, these meetings will be held at Beanster's in the Michigan League. Paul Courant is expected to attend these sessions again, and he's picking up the tab - just tell the staff at the counter that you're with the Library. Conversations will be free-ranging, so come ready to discuss anything that's on your mind: librarianship, technology, politics, or whatever. As usual, all library staff are welcome to attend.
Other coffee break dates are listed below:
November 21 3:00 – 4:00
November 24 3:30 – 4:30
December 15 9:00 – 10:00
December 17 3:0 – 4:00
Posted by kfolger at 11:59 AM | Comments (0)
Forum Surveys
To help with program planning for this year, the Forum Board conducted two surveys of Forum members. The first survey was done at the July Forum meeting using the Quizdom clickers. Based on the results of that survey and feedback we got from participants, we did a second web-based survey. The results of both surveys indicate communication is an area of interest. Other areas of interest identified in the two surveys include librarians' salaries and funding for travel. The membership has spoken, so the Board plans on focusing attention on these three areas during this year. Any comments, ideas or suggestions are welcome!
Posted by kfolger at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)
2008/09 Forum Board
The members of the Librarians' Forum Board for 2008/09 are:
Kathleen Folger, Chair
Martin Knott, Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
Scott Martin, Secretary
Ken Varnum, Vice-Secretary
Deb DeGeorge, Member-at-Large (Term ends 2009)
Renoir Gaither, Member-at-Large (Term ends 2009)
Loyd Mbabu, Member-at-Large (Term ends 2010)
Jeff Pearson, Member-at-Large (Terms ends 2010)
If you have questions or comments for the Board, feel free to contact any of us individually, or send us an email
Posted by kfolger at 11:38 AM | Comments (0)