ACRL New Members Discussion Group (NMDG) is planning its 2011 ALA Annual Program and we’d like your help to choose the topic.
What do you think is most important to new librarians and new members of ACRL? Take our online survey at http://bit.ly/fx3ne7
New Members Discussion Group is dedicated to helping new ACRL members navigate both professional organizations and their careers.
Note: this is really just the conference writeup from MPOW. I’ll try to say something else soon. 
I gave my talk Wednesday night on options for engagement and professional development within ACRL. This was the biggest audience I’ve ever addressed, with about 500 people in attendance. There aren’t any slides or handouts that accompanied my talk, but it was basically about how to get involved at either the division, committee, or individual level (nationally, for the most part) and what the benefits of such engagement might be. I encouraged attendees to think critically about their goals personally and professionally and to make strategic moves within the association that would aid in meeting those goals.
Thursday
Ask Them – They’ll Tell you! Eliciting Student Perspectives to Improve Services
[ article | slides]
Library web pages provide the main access points to many of the library’s services and resources. But how well do they really serve students? In this session, find out how a small college uses quick and inexpensive methods to grab student perspectives in order to help revise web pages and provide follow-up assessment. Insights gleaned additionally highlight gaps in learning better addressed by teaching and other services.
Delivering a WOW User Experience: Do Academic Libraries Measure Up?
[article | handout]
The annual Great Retail Shopping Experiences survey identifies the qualities that contribute to a WOW experience, a user experience that is extraordinary. This paper closely replicates the survey to determine the extent to which academic librarians and their user communities agree on whether the library delivers a WOW experience. Attendees will learn how engagement, executional excellence, brand experience, expediting and problem recovery come together for the academic library WOW experience.
Five qualities of a WOW experience
Research Overview
Examined Nine Attributes
Key Findings
Takeaways
User Experience as Professional Development: Transforming Services Through Collaborative Assessment
[article | handouts 1, 2, 3]
How do patrons experience the services we deliver? In 2008, a team of academic librarians explored this question in the context of virtual reference through a process of transcript analysis and discussion. Their findings (or discoveries) challenged perceptions of quality reference services, and resulted in an innovative model of professional development grounded in engagement and self-reflection. Literature related to critical reflection and transformational learning validates this ‘discovery’ process for adult learners.
E-Science, the Next Step in Information Literacy: The What & How of E-Science for Librarians
[handout]
Scientists and librarians discuss the emerging area of e-science, what it is, how it is used, how librarians can support scientists’ efforts, and how librarians can teach users to make better use of the resources that are available.
I left this session early as it was very high level and seemed to be a discussion of favorite collaborative e-science web spaces. My basic takeaway was: “e-science is networked data-driven science”
Taming Lightning In More Than One Bottle: Implementing a Local Next-Generation Catalog Versus a Hosted Web-Scale Discovery Service
[article | slides]
This session will compare implementing the VuFind “next-generation catalog” and Serials Solutions’ Summon “Web-scale discovery service” at an academic library. Different though complementary, and both positively disruptive, these systems each offer easier searching for users through leveraging metadata. The session will focus on aspects of each implementation including purpose, function, architecture and development model, faceted interface, metadata management and interoperability, governance and project management, and differing perceptions and feedback from librarians and users.
I had hoped this session would talk about the experiential differences between these types of products, but was largely a case study explaining the migration process within one library. Bottom line: library faculty and staff had relatively low trust because they did not understand how the indexing and retrieval functions worked, which lead to less willingness to teach the product in instruction sessions. Students behaved more or less the way students do, with less impetus to search multiple discreet collections unless somewhere in the process they were told explicitly that there’s merit in searching multiple sources. These types of tools bring “ever-quickening change cycles” and this requires adaptation, emphasis on communication to build trust and manage expectations. “Discovery can solve more problems than it exposes.”
When User Research meets Software Development: the eXtensible Catalog
[slides | website]
The eXtensible Catalog (XC) provides a fully-customizable open source discovery layer that enables a library to serve the unique needs of its users without heavily investing in custom programming. This presentation will showcase the XC User Interface, describe how its design was informed by user research, and explain how XC software empowers libraries to take control of how they present library resources to their users online.
More excellent work from the University of Rochester (in partnership with Cornell University, Ohio State University, and Yale University), building upon The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester (yanno, that big study they did that we all reference from time to time) to put control of the discovery environment into the hands of the library itself by building a homegrown discovery tool (eXtensible Catalog, called XC). XC is a highly configurable, modular open source catalog built on standards and protocols.
The presenter spoke quite a lot about the user research that went into developing the catalog and what the implications of those findings were in terms of development (see slides for more). I was really impressed with the quality of the discovery tool and the user research that went into the development of such. I don’t think for even a second that we’re ready for this sort of solution at PCC, but it was very interesting and I will definitely make a report to the Alliance.
The Librarian as Situated Educator: Instructional Literacy and Participation in Communities of Practice
[slides]
Whether or not “instruction” appears in our job titles, librarians in the academy are increasingly in the position of teaching our users, colleagues, and peers. Despite this reality, faculty and student perceptions of librarians often do not adequately reflect an awareness of this changing role. At a time of massive transition in higher education, the library’s pedagogical mission must be integrated more meaningfully into the learning and research communities that comprise our institutions. This process is inhibited in part by the collective challenge of developing on-the-ground instructional literacy: library professional education has not kept pace with the escalating need for preparation in pedagogy and instructional design, creating widespread demand for viable, on-the-ground instructor development strategies. At the same time, we seek outreach and integration strategies to cultivate awareness of our ability to participate in and contribute to learning communities.
This talk by Char was definitely one of the most well attended of the entire conference (I’d hazard a guess she easily had more folks listening than did Raj Patel). It’s relatively hard to distill the content of a high level talk about being an effective, reflective teacher into takeaway notes.
In a nutshell:
Whereas librarians in higher education
1) are uniquely suited to facilitating academic growth through objective interpersonal and intellectual mentorship,
2) are unequivocally equipped to observe, understand, and reflect our academic communities,
3) and possess an unassailably strong conviction of our enduring purpose and value,
we can become situated educators, melding to our contexts, leading our efforts with instructional literacy, and engaging our constituents with critical inquiry. <http://infomational.wordpress.com/>
Essentially, this was a talk about the importance of communities of practice in developing reflective practice : a flow from communities of practice > situated learning > instructional literacy, couched in the understanding of when “good enough” is appropriate.
Char talked a lot about the tendency toward anxiety when developing presentations and instructional design, stressing that skill, design, and knowledge all come together to create effective practice. Effective instruction is often developed by managing expectations and assumptions. Char refers to a lecture by Dr. Diamond of UC Berkeley as an informative and positive example of how to set expectations and manage assumptions at the outset of a class (watch first 2 minutes). Librarians are particularly subject to “psychotic ego ideal” – the idea that you’re never going to get comfortable with the idea of “good enough” at your skill set.
Char asserts that what this is all really about is “instructional literacy”. Instructional literacy is the intersection of reflective practice, educational theory, teaching technologies, and instructional design. She suggests that the more we hone these skills the better poised we are to promote the livelihood of libraries. Librarians are, as Char suggests, the indicator species of our environments – when libraries are threatened it tends to be because something is weakening in the fabric of the intellectual democracy.
Instructional Literacy
So, as we start to line up our outcomes in terms of tangibles (feedback, collaborators, tools, resources) and intangibles (knowledge, skills, insight, confidence) for our reflection and assessment, we have to always consider the library in terms of environment, culture, and context. There is no one size fits all approach here. Traditionally, impact is measured in a top-down fashion, at various levels, which include institutional/external, organizational, departmental, and individual. In many cases, the biggest impact we have is absolutely intangible and immeasurable, and if we shift our perspective to include the same facets from a bottom-up style of assessment we can more easily see the “situated impact” focusing on the individual.
It’s all about individuals. Char would have us embrace the idea that librarians are “research therapists” – we support people when they are most vulnerable with their idea insecurities and give them academic moxie to press on.
“Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself” –John Dewey.
Keynote: Raj Patel
I guess I was supposed to be really jazzed about this talk but found it mostly trite,
but enjoyable and entertaining. My takeaway was that “common good”
of public education is about creating good citizens. When this becomes
“privatized good” it becomes about creating good workers.
I suppose by this point I had also gotten the word about the MHCC librarian layoffs and was thinking about global economy in quite different terms.
Friday
Going the Distance: A Closer Look at Uniting with Remote Users
[slides]
Distance learners are a growing user population in libraries. This presentation discusses three academic libraries’ attempts at “uniting” with distance users. Determining their needs, implementing services specifically for distance users, and assessing the success of such services are ways to “reinvent” the user experience for our distance learners.
This session was quite disappointing so I left. The panelists spent the time reading survey results from their slides.
Reserve It with Google
Libraries have limited rooms and equipment available to a student population that demand our services and assistance. For many libraries, a commercial product is cost prohibitive, but the Google Reservation System, which uses Google Apps, is easy to adopt and adapt to fit your library’s needs. The Reservation System allows for immediate confirmation to the patron and a posting to a Google Calendar with a single keystroke. Limited programming skills are necessary.
This talk was really cool. The presenter, Sharon Whitfield, Emerging Technologies Librarian at College of New Jersey ran through the development of her project which uses Google Docs, Google Calendar, and some JavaScript. (It’s adapted from freely available code by Martin Hawksey, E-learning Advisor [Higher Education] at JISC RSC Scotland N&E.) Whitfield didn’t have any handouts or slides available, but did indicate she’s willing to provide advice to colleagues interested in trying this solution.
More in the vein of Google from Columbia University librarians Jeffrey Carroll, Colleen Major, and John Tofanelli in their poster:
“E-Resource Renewal Awareness: Using Google Calendar to Bring Selectors on Board [PDF],” which was about using Google Calendar to track e-resource subscriptions. They tracked on expenditures and renewal dates, which, as they mention, “are typically buried in acquisitions modules.”
Reference Desk Renaissance: Connecting with Users in the Digital Age
[article | slides]
ARL members have reported steady declines in reference desk transactions over the past decade and are closing staffed service points in response. USC is bucking that trend. Upon reopening the Doheny Library reference desk after seven years, demand for personalized service—in addition to e-reference support—has proven even greater than anticipated. This paper will describe a hybrid reference model—revealing a persistent demand for the high touch as well as the high tech.
Interesting talk about the changing role of reference desks in library literature at large and about the reference desks of USC’s Doheny library in specific. Totally beautiful library, not so much applicability to PCC at this point.
S. Thompson: “reference services should be format agnostic.”
C. Quinlan: As librarians providing [reference] services the challenge is “in addition to rather than instead of” (format)
Are All Reference Interactions Created Equal? How Gender Might Matter to Our Users
[slides]
How does the gender of a user influence her or his experience at the reference desk? What patterns of user behavior might emerge by applying a gender perspective to better understand reference transactions? This study recorded over 400 user-librarian interactions at the reference desks of a large research library in the quest to answer these questions. The results of this study may have implications for how librarians interact with users while staffing the reference desk.
Basic conclusions are that patrons are 3x more likely to approach female librarians, especially when they are sitting on the left side of the desk (from patron perspective). Patron gender not statistically significant. Presenters freely acknowledge that there are many things for which their highly theoretically based study did not account. Any future study should account for nonverbal communication + desk placement + gender. In general attendees seemed to echo a sentiment of “wow, I can’t believe anyone spent time researching this.”
Apparently it’s a “known fact” that there are a disproportionate number of left-handed librarians in the workforce.
Re-inventing Reference Service
[article | slides]
Grand Valley State University (GVSU) has been considering the shifting nature of reference services in the contemporary academic library. Re-inventing reference involved thinking about who delivered service and how. This included evaluating statistics; discussing trends; re-evaluating and re-locating the print reference collection; revising the Reference Desk Assistant (RDA) training; and increasing the use RDAs. This program will discuss GVSU’s experience in redesigning reference and the process employed in the move to a single-service point.
Outreach, marketing & digital literacies: using social media to blur the differences
The media has long been abuzz about the myriad ways social media blurs our personal & professional lives, the public & the private, friends & family. Less has been said about the potential this subversion of boundaries creates for eliding other distinctions.
This paper discusses the ways the inherent boundary-shifting nature of social media (including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and whatever comes next) can be successfully bent to disambiguate outreach, marketing, and 21st century literacies.
This can be boiled down to two key themes:
The rest is about specific methods, most of which we’re already engaged in (hooray!).
Borges Envisions the Library’s Future
Have you ever wondered why librarians and archivists quote Jorge Luis Borges but rarely analyze his fiction? In fact, two of the Argentine librarian’s stories reveal the dynamics of the archive articulated in Jacques Derrida’s “Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression.” Both speaker and attendees will explore ways in which fiction and theory intersect to predict emerging practices that are transforming the researcher’s relationship to the materials, procedures, and products of research in the library environment.
I have to confess I have no idea what this woman was attempting to explain, nor apparently did most of the other attendees who began leaving almost immediately. There was a delightful discussion about Tolkien fanfiction, fan-based research, and “the death of the death of the archive” (I think). The presenter argued that fanfiction doesn’t actually have any research and was unrelated to her talk, the person at the mic was insulted by this assertion and issued a retort. There were only about 7 people present by this point.
Saturday
Intellectual Curiosity and Engagement: Creating a culture of community, knowledge creation, and learning
[slides]
This panel will explore how the need to update our lobby triggered new thinking and inspired us to re-imagine how we create and support a culture of community, knowledge creation, and learning. We will share trends in the changing nature of student work, a sample of programmatic changes made in response, and how we have transformed library spaces to support new learning models.
This was a fascinating session. They considered the remodel of the undergraduate library lobby (Bert’s Study Lounge) at University of Michigan (and building of a café) from the perspective of Arum & Roksa to consider how much students are learning in contemporary higher education and how space design can facilitate better/increased learning and also considered the work of Turkle to understand the (sometimes competing and conflicting) roles of technology, public space design, and “presentation anxiety.” They next considered the work of Kuh to consider practices that would increase student engagement and retention.
The lobby space they redesigned is both beautiful and highly functional. It’s evident that they conducted a lot of student focus groups and library user research to blend technology and space in a highly effective way. I’d love to pull together more images of their space, it’s phenomenal.
Keynote: Clinton Kelly
Lots of dissent among the librarians as to whether this was an appropriate closing keynote choice. The logic from ACRL is that in his show What Not to Wear Kelly confronts people who are in the midst of change, so perhaps he’s adept at talking to librarians about change. I’d suggest the verdict was: not really, but it was amusing to listen to librarians pleading for fashion advice.
7 rules for change from Clinton Kelly: 1. Admit it, style matters. 2. Stop making excuses. 3. Honor your body. 4. Get out of fantasyland. 5. Lose the haters. 6. Shut up. 7. Shop with purpose.
ACRL New Members Discussion Group Program: Personal Branding for New Librarians
Date: Saturday January 8
Time: 10:30 AM – 12 PM
Location: HIL-Aqua 304
Join us for the exciting, informal, and lively panel discussion about personal branding and digital identity for new librarians at ALA 2011 Midwinter at San Diego!
Many new and budding librarians make personal branding attempts online by setting up and maintaining a professional blog and/or using other social media tools such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. for networking and to learn more about librarianship. However, not many librarians succeed in creating their distinct digital identities, continuing the efforts at personal branding, and establishing their own personal brands online. What is and should be the purpose of personal branding? What are some of the benefits and pitfalls of engaging in personal branding activities? How can you successfully establish and manage your digital identity and personal brand online? How do you draw a line between your public identity and your privacy? How do you find time to continuously develop your personal brand along with your professional growth?
The four panelists who have been actively managing their personal brands will discuss their thoughts on personal branding and offer strategies, tips, and advice for new librarians. At the program, helpful guides and further information for new and budding librarians to start their own personal brands will also be provided.
Panel Moderator:
- Bohyun Kim, Digital Access Librarian, Florida International University (Twitter: @bohyunkim, Blog: Library Hat)
Panelists (in alphabetical order):
- Brett Bonfield, Director, Collingswood Public Library (Co-founder and blogger at In the Library with the Lead Pipe)
- Kiyomi Deards, Subject Librarian for Biological Sciences, Chemistry, Biochemistry and the Cedar Point Biological Station, University of Nebraska Lincoln
(Twitter: @KiyomiD, Blog: The Library Adventures of Kiyomi)
- Lisa Carlucci Thomas, Digital Services Librarian, Southern Connecticut State University
(Twitter: @lisacarlucci, Columnist at the Journal of Web Librarianship)
- Andromeda Yelton, Recent Library Science Graduate/Budding Librarian
(Twitter: @thatAndromeda, Blog: Andromeda Yelton)
There’s all this hype in libraryland about hiring and diversity. I’m not really entirely sure what diversity means to most people, it seems that it was a huge ALA buzzword that I started really noticing around the time of Loriene Roy’s election. So far as I can tell it’s being used to mean “more brown folks”, which to my thinking is kind of missing the mark.
The trend toward intentional diversification in libraries is interesting and important, particularly in academia I would say, however often misses the most important level of diversity for libraries today…era of education/skillset (which often involves age but doesn’t have to). The truth is that recent library grads will come out with an entirely different collection of skills and a different (notice I didn’t say more valid) understanding of the shifting paradigm inherent in the world of electronic information.
You can see this trend very evidently in the shift from known item searching to discovery-based searching. I would absolutely favor a candidate with the following skillset over a candidate with a “traditional” skillset: digital learning object creation; information architecture; user experience design; usability testing; interface and interaction design; web content development; instruction skills grounded in an asynchronous, online environment and more of the same…It’s really just about marrying the new with the old; we’re still user-centered, we just have evolved the science of understanding those users.
Libraries have had a longstanding practice of hiring the same exact librarian over and over again…those librarians will more-or-less become irrelevant at the same time (unless we get serious about continuing education and tech competencies for librarians), retire at the same time (well…sorta, if we can ever get them to let go), balk at many of the same change-related fears, and provide similar perspectives. Yes, I am grossly and wildly generalizing for the purposes of making this point. Yes, I know LOADS of awesome librarians who have been at it for 20+ years, understand current interface design, and speak from a place of impassioned comfort with technology, but they are a minority (see, we’ve come full circle to diversity again).
So, like every other librarian blogger out there who actually attends ALA Midwinter Meeting, I have to write my conference recap.
This year I’m not going to tell you about the fancypants programs I attended and the fabulously organized content I sucked up. Why? Because I didn’t and there wasn’t. [a quick shout out to the Set Sail for Fail folks from NJ for throwing down an unsession during Midwinter, that part was fabulous]
My big realization about ALA this year was that I’ve graduated. I was a fledgling ALA member and I did fabulous things like Student to Staff, during which I interned for RUSA; I was an Emerging Leader and worked on a project for ACRL; I showed up to a lot of discussion groups and asked a lot of vague and half-assed questions.
I became more established while serving as an ACRL MAC committee member; I started speaking for ACRL at events like ACRL 101 and took over as convener of the ACRL New Members Discussion Group, where we have launched a new discussion group presentation style (No-Tech Talks, CV opportunities for all).
After these experiences I’ve become a semi-veteran ALA member and conference attendee and spent much time wreaking general havoc and running amok, amongst many other activities. This is where I’m at now and I realize I have two primary options.
Although it really, oh man I mean really pains me to do it, I’m going to strive for option 2. I’ve joined the task force of many names (young turks, young librarians, young professionals…yadda yadda) and am going to try to help ALA figure out what the eff we want from them. If I just bail out now, I’m only doing what countless librarians and ALA members before me have done (and I don’t blame them at all) — ”…drunk all, and left no friendly drop to help me after?” Yes, I know that’s about poison and death. Right now, if I am honest, that’s what being an ALA member feels like… like these a-holes who came before could have at least left me a memo telling me to find my own damn poison.
So although I probably sound a little bitter, and am in fact a little bitter about all the money I have to come up with to help ALA not brontosaurus their way through the future, I’m a little posicore as well.
p.s. I like this tweet:
@pbromberg @kimll #youngturks think beyond What Can ALA Do For YOUYOUYOU. I just gave $ 2 RedCross. What do they do 4 MEMEME? Yet I support them.
Going to Midwinter? Want a chance to present and boost your CV? Here’s one!
The ACRL New Members Discussion Group invites the submission of proposals for presentation at its meeting at the 2010 ALA Midwinter Conference in Boston, MA on Saturday, January 16, 2010.
Proposals are due by Monday 12/28/2009.
The ACRL New Members Discussion Group is for new (and aspiring) academic librarians. We meet twice a year–at both ALA conferences–to chat about whatever is on our minds. It’s an opportunity for networking and a friendly place to ask any questions you have about succeeding in ACRL. Presenters at this meeting have the opportunity to contribute to the professional development of other academic librarians, gain conference presentation experience, and build their CV. Students are welcome to submit proposals.
This Midwinter conference we want to hear from you on themes relating to Incorporating Technology Tools in Library Instruction. How do you perceive the role of technology in library instruction and how do you handle teaching about technology? We are interested in presentations that share personal experiences with incorporating technology tools, such as customized browser toolbars, screencasting, citation management software, and podcasting into library instruction. The goal of these presentations is to familiarize new and aspiring academic librarians with effective uses of these tools and effective methods of teaching about technology topics. We seek proposals for presentations that address this topic from a variety of angles, including (but not limited to):
The ACRL New Members Discussion Group meeting will take place on Saturday January 16, 2010, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. at the Westin Copley Place Essex Center. Presenters should plan to speak for 10 minutes and allow 5 minutes for questions/discussion. There will be three presentations. Following the presentations, we will open the floor for discussion on the topic, or we can answer your questions about getting involved in national activities and/or academic librarianship in general.
Proposals are due by Monday 12/28/2009. Notification of acceptance will be made by Tuesday 01/05/2010. Please include the following information in your proposal:
Please submit proposal by email to Allie Flanary (ACRL NMDG convener) at aflanary@gmail.com.
OK, I have to force myself to sit down and write a conference wrap-up now or it will never get done. Much of my thinking about this conference has to do with socializing, cliques, and professional development. Hit me up in the socialsphere if you just want to know what I thought was a great program. Or better yet, go read #ala2009 or Library Journal.
This conference was epic for me on a lot of levels. I was directly involved in two programs: ACRL 101 (my first speaking gig at ALA Annual) and ACRL New Members Discussion Group (of which I am now the convener). 101 was awesome and I had a lot of fun, more fun than I expected to. Preparing my remarks on how to get the most out of conference really caused me to do some reflecting about my first Annual (2007) and what that experience was like for me.
My first Annual was different because I was a student-to-staff participant, interning to RUSA. So when I got really overwhelmed (frequently) I had someplace to go—the staff office. Anyway, thinking about that had an impact on my conference this year, I think. I always feel hyper aware of the social dynamics of conference, I’ve spent a lot of time wondering how those cool kids came to be those cool kids (not a specific set of people, I think your cool kids may be different than mine, but whoever they are, you know them when you see them). How did they break in to their clique? How did the clique become a clique? Do those people even know that we see them that way? Continue reading…
Going to ALA Annual? Join us for the ACRL New Member Discussion Group on Saturday, July 11, 2009, 10:30 am – noon, the Hotel InterContinental—Exchange Room, 505 North Michigan Avenue
Our topic is “The Publication Process—Getting Published in LIS Journals.” We will hear the following presentations:
Writing to Write: Kickstarting the Publication Process
Emily Drabinski, Electronic Resources and Instruction Librarian, Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus
Best Practices for Beginners: Getting Published – From Inspiration to Publication
Lisa Carlucci Thomas, Digital Collections Librarian, Yale University
Karen Sobel, Reference & Instruction Librarian, University of Colorado, Denver
Targeting Teaching Faculty for Collaborative Publications
Linda Hofschire, Research Consultant, University of Colorado, Boulder
We will also have time to share experiences and lessons learned, and to discuss your questions about publishing. The ACRL New Member Discussion group is for new (and aspiring) academic librarians. We
meet twice a year–at both ALA conferences–to chat about whatever is on our minds. It’s an opportunity for networking and a friendly place to ask any questions you have about succeeding in academic libraries.
Questions? Interested in getting involved? Contact Merinda Hensley, Convener, ACRL New Member Discussion Group, mhensle1@uiuc.edu (or you can contact me, as the incoming convener).
The ACRL New Members Discussion Group invites the submission of proposals for presentation at its meeting at the 2009 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, IL on Saturday, July 11, 2009.
The ACRL New Members Discussion Group is for new (and aspiring) academic librarians. We meet twice a year–at both ALA conferences–to chat about whatever is on our minds. It’s an opportunity for networking and a friendly place to ask any questions you have about succeeding in ACRL. Presenters at this meeting have the opportunity to contribute to the professional development of other academic librarians, gain conference presentation experience, and build their CV.
Our meeting topic for the conference is “The Publication Process: Getting Published in LIS Journals.” We are interested in presentations that share personal experiences with the publication process, that will help new and aspiring academic librarians gain a better understanding of the various steps that are involved in this process. We seek proposals for presentations that address this topic from a variety of angles, including (but not limited to):
-Planning a systematic research program
-The publication process: Generating topics, writing up and submitting the manuscript, working with an editor, responding to reviewers, etc.
-Targeting various journals for publication
-What to do if your manuscript is not accepted
The ACRL New Members Discussion Group meeting will take place on Saturday, July 11, 2009, from 10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Presenters should plan to speak for 10 minutes and allow 5 minutes for questions/discussion. There will be three presentations. Following the presentations, we will open the floor for discussion on the topic, or we can answer your questions about getting involved in national activities and/or academic librarianship in general.
Proposals are due by June 8, 2009. Notification of acceptance will be made by June 15, 2009. Please include the following information in your proposal:
1. A cover sheet with your name, title, institutional affiliation, mailing address, phone number, and email address.
2. A second sheet that contains no identifying information and includes the title and a 200-300 word description of your presentation. The description should clearly identify the topic of your presentation, your personal experience with this topic, and how your presentation will contribute to new and aspiring librarians’ understanding of the publication process.
3. Keep in mind that there will be no use of technology for these presentations. Feel free to bring handouts if you’d like to provide a list of further reading, etc.
Please submit proposal by email to Merinda Hensley (ACRL Convener) at mhensle1@illinois.edu
{I’ll talk more about this in a future post, but I hope you’ll consider submitting a proposal. We’re trying to shake things up and get new blood involved in ACRL–the only way to do that is to participate.}
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