Robyn Hall» Librarianship (misc)

Social Scholarship, MLA Style

Robyn — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 21:48:05 +0000

I noticed an interesting post about citation pop up on the RDC Library Facebook wall today. Apparently, MLA has created a standard format for citing tweets. Learn more here.

APA has this covered as well (explained here).

Of broader interest, “social scholarship” is a really interesting concept that embraces the act of scholars using Web 2.0 to both conduct research and share their research findings with others. For more information about this, take a look at Social Scholarship on the Rise, a blog post by Laura Cohen written back in 2007. This post had a big impact on me while I was in library school learning about both information literacy and social software; I even wrote a paper on it that I have saved… somewhere. In any case, back then I thought, “How great would it be to hold a session on this topic for graduate students and faculty researchers?” And I still feel that way. (Makes mental note, and public blog declaration, to make this happen.)

You Are What You Read

Robyn — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 21:48:19 +0000

Source: ppdigital

A few weeks ago I led a session with RDC Library co-workers Yvonne Phillips and Lisa Wakefield entitled “You Are What You Read.” The hour-long session was done as part of a Wellness Day event held for faculty and staff over the mid-term break. It was a fun way to promote the Library and our services.

The following is a list of some of the resources we sent out to the 13 people who attended our session.I just thought I’d share these since there is some great stuff out there to promote to both book works and ‘not-so voracious’ readers like myself.

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You Are What You Read Session Resources

Find:

www.earlyword.com: A blog with links to many, many review sites, award winners, books to movies, and more. Lisa’s fave!

www.librarybooklists.org: A compendium of book lists, including “Murder By Toaster: Mysteries With Surprisingly Lethal Weapons”, “Quilting Fiction”, and several pages devoted to Read-alike fiction lists for all genres.

www.webrary.org/rs/rslinks.html: The Morton Grove Public Library Web Sites for Booklovers page… a smorgasbord of links to explore!

www.yournextread.com: Enter a book title, and this site generates suggestions for your next read in a fun & visual way.

www.kirkusreviews.com: Billing themselves as “the world’s toughest book critics”… but we think the NY Times will give them a run for that title!

www.nytimes.com/pages/books/index.html: Reviews, articles, columns: everything a booklover needs to kill a Sunday afternoon!

www.publishersweekly.com: News and reviews from the world of publishing.

http://www.salon.com/topic/books: The literary section of Salon features book reviews, interviews, columnists and publishing news.

Do:

Some websites to help you decide which e-reader is best for you

Share:

Create bookshelves, share with friends, join a group, chat with authors

www.bookmooch.com: Take your old books off the shelf & trade them online with other bibliophiles on this no-fee site. Your only cost: postage!

www.onlinebookclub.com: An online community for book lovers.

Ready, set… WILU 2012!

Robyn — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 05:36:29 +0000

The Workshop for Instruction in Library Use (WILU) is an annual conference that highlights the latest research, education, and innovations in the areas of information literacy, library instruction, and research skills. http://sites.macewan.ca/wilu2012/about-2/

Registration is now closed [edited May 8] for WILU 2012 happening May 23-25 at Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton Alberta. This year’s theme is “Vigour, Thrift, and Resourcefulness.” And I am presenting… twice (on Open Access, and on Human Libraries with a professional development twist).

Why WILU is my favourite conference:

It’s small so there is lots of time to network, share, and interact with others.
It’s very focused; if you’re interested in library instruction then there’s lots and lots of interesting sessions to attend.
The event features “dine arounds” where you can explore local restaurants with other delegates.
The conference is hosted by a different Canadian institution of higher learning every year; it’s a great excuse to see Canada. On that note… Edmonton in the spring will be a fantastic place for WILU this year. The city caught me by surprise when I moved to Alberta: great music, delicious food, beautiful scenery, good people… and Grant MacEwan itself has a great campus in the heart of the downtown core. It’s well worth the visit!

Library Day in the Life: Wed/Thurs

Robyn — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:43:17 +0000

In further documenting my days as a librarian at Red Deer College Library, as part of the Library Day in the Life project, here is how the last two days went.

Wednesday

Wednesday morning I headed to the Black Knight Inn to discuss details about the upcoming RDC Faculty Association social (the Sizzler) I am helping to coordinate for a second year. After, I went to a doctor appointment then rolled into work at 1:30PM. After some class prep, a brief meeting with the Library Chair to discuss what I am up to, and doing a very quiet virtual reference shift, I went to the night class I teach each week. It was a work period so only a few students attended with questions about a project they have to do researching Web 2.0 applications.

Thursday

Today I taught an education assistant class all about researching exceptionalities, so much of the morning was devoted to creating a handout and PowerPoint for them. We covered evaluating websites, finding books, and finding articles. Most of the class was hands on, with students needing to explore various resources while answering questions on the worksheet I prepared, followed by a review of what they had learned. It felt rushed, but went well overall.

After my class, I met another librarian who had been showing some of his art work in the Library. Together, we took down his pieces and replaced them with some prints of photos I have taken from across Canada. (These images are available on Flickr.) I am a very amateur photographer and am very happy to have the opportunity to show my work.

I ended my work day by attending the General Meeting for the RDC Faculty Association then attending the faculty pub the association hosts following each meeting. It was a good time to relax, and sell tickets for the Sizzler. I then went shopping for decorations for the event (including fishing twine to hang decorations, and organza bags) before calling it a day.

Library Day in the Life, Round 8

Robyn — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 14:22:47 +0000

… started yesterday (January 30) and goes until February 5.

Take a look at how librarians around the world are documenting their days using social media by visiting the Library Day in the Life Project Wiki. Or check back here for my own daily updates.

To catch up, here is how my Monday-Tuesday of this week went down.

Monday

I got a drive to work, still basking in the afterglow of a great few days in Edmonton, where I attended the Forum for Information Professionals at the library school at the University of Alberta, as well as Canmore and Banff, where I enjoyed a much needed weekend getaway filled with music, food and friends.

I am teaching classes for the Computer Learning @ the Library program at Red Deer College this year, so I started my day by doing my office hours. A few students dropped by to ask questions. I then marked a few assignments, prepared for my Tueday classes, and worked a shift at the Information Desk in the Library.

The highlight of the day was receiving an email letting me know my conference presentation proposal for WILU 2012 had been accepted. The presentation will report findings from a survey I intend to send out to health sciences librarians about the degree to which they educate students about open access resources. I will be using Canadian-based Fluid Surveys to create the survey and am really excited to move forward with this project.

Tuesday (today)

I woke up around 8am, sent a few emails, walked to work, and prepared for a class I was teaching on creating PowerPoints using principles taken from Presentation Zen, as well as editing images using copyright-friendly photography sites and picnik.com (which will unfortunately be shutting down in April).

After a quick lunch, I made my way to the two other computer courses I teach every Tuesday. I’d given both classes a work period to complete their projects–one on Web 2.0 and another on basic Word Processing–so these were pretty laid back.

At 4:30pm, my classes wrapped up and I headed to my office to drop off my things and join my co-workers at the Long-Term Service Awards ceremony the college holds annually to recognize staff.

On arriving home, I signed in to the virtual reference chat service offered by AskOntario. I am in my second year of volunteering for this service, and do a shift for an hour every Tuesday night. Usually I get one or two reference questions but tonight it was dead quiet so I used the time to email an instructor back who had a copyright question.

And now I am catching up on trashy TV shows and intending to add myself to the Library Day in the Life Wiki before bed.

*BIG thanks to librarian Bobbi Newman for coordinating this bi-annual initiative. It is always a great opportunity to share experiences, and reflect on my own practice and that of others.

PD in 140 Characters or Less

Robyn — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 22:27:43 +0000

“Social is just one part of what we do. We think of it as an information utility,” he said, describing Twitter as a personal news service as much as a social network. (Twitter is much more than social: co-founder Dorsey)

Twitter is a social networking site I am not ashamed to check routinely throughout the work day. I primarily use it to follow other librarians and people/organizations in similar fields. It’s a great way to find out about tech news, conferences, job postings, interesting websites and articles, etc.

Twitter feeds to follow (my recommendations):

Mashable: Independent news covering tech, social media and web culture
Open Access Hulk: Open Access news as delivered by the Hulk
mgeist: Keep up with Canadian copyright by following Micheal Geist’s Tweets
sparkcbc:Feed for the CBC’s tech news radio show Spark
LISNews.org: News for librarians updated regularly
Awfullibbooks: Find out about new posts to the weeding-wonders blog Awful Library Books
librarianmer:Librarian, writer & avid blogger Meredith Farkas’ tweets
AMSciForum: Open Access advocate & scholar Steven Harnad’s Twitter
SPARC NA: Feed for the Scholarly Publishing & Academic Resources Coalition
Very Short Story: Not really library-related but still great Twitter sized fiction

Directories of Library Twitter feeds to follow:

ALA Twitter feeds: Follow the activities of a variety of American Library Association units
American & International (including Canadian) library feeds: Many examples of libraries using Twitter for promotion, outreach and overall communication with users

Can Wikipedia Improve Students’ Work?

Robyn — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 05:33:37 +0000

I was on the plane to WILU 2011 in Regina last week when the woman sitting beside me, also headed to the conference (I am pretty sure the plane was full of library folks), handed me a newspaper article in the National Post entitled Can Wikipedia improve students’ work?

It’s a good read. It discusses the merits of Wikipedia as a jumping off point in research, and how it can be integrated into course assignments in a way that challenges students to think about evaluating information and the rigorous work that goes into producing scholarly research articles.

While librarians are not mentioned in the article, it sheds light on the type of assignment design we could be assisting faculty with in our efforts to become increasingly more involved in helping students develop information literacy skills.

Just some food for thought.

Don’t Discard the Librarians

Robyn — Sat, 21 May 2011 04:11:50 +0000

Check it out! Don’t Discard the Librarians is an article by Ian Brown appearing in the Globe and Mail. It will warm your heart.

Some key quotes:

“Here is the case for human librarians: You, the information consumer, don’t want to go insane.”

“Librarians know what’s available in a field, where to find it, whether to use it. You, on the other hand, have to write a paper about the self in Hamlet. Try Googling that without the help of a professional librarian: 12.3 million results.”

“Nearly 19 million people visit its [Toronto Public Library's] 99 branches every year, and borrow 32 million items (which means every item goes out about three times). Nearly 90 per cent of recent immigrants stop by the library. Many can’t speak English.

None of that works without human librarians in the equation.”

“‘I think it’s a very exciting time,’ Ms. Moore insisted, contradicting the stereotype of the librarian as a backward-looking shusher who is happiest dusting book jackets. (I have yet to meet an actual librarian who fits it.)”

“There’s only an under-allocation of money, and the digital technocracy’s strange distrust of human beings sitting in a public room while communally enjoying the freedom of their own minds.”

Who will speak for the librarian?

Robyn — Thu, 19 May 2011 07:03:11 +0000

Take a listen to Jian Ghomeshi’s eloquent plea for the survival of school librarians in his opening essay for Q on CBC Radio 1 today. Bravo!

Digital & Media Literacy @ RDC

Robyn — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:14:54 +0000

On Thursday, April 14, I helped lead a workshop (turned webinar thanks to bad weather) at the Annual General Meeting- Spring 2011 of the Alberta Association of Academic Libraries (AAAL) in Calgary, Alberta.

Digital & Media Literacy @ RDC
PRESENTERS: Kristine Plastow, Robyn Hall & Teneil Vuori, Red Deer College Library

The ability to interact with information across a variety of technological platforms, tools and media is a vital skill for students and faculty to possess in contemporary learning and workplace environments. This session will address challenges and opportunities academic librarians and staff at RDC Library have experienced in seeking to foster patrons’ digital and media literacy skills.

Learn more about Digital & Media Literacy:

Digital & Media Literacy: A Plan of Action: http://www.scribd.com/doc/41889496/Digital-and-Media-Literacy-A-Plan-of-Action
White paper by Renee Hobbs; a project of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute outlining steps to improve digital and media literacy education.
The Horizon Report 2011: http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/HR2011.pdf
Describes six areas of emerging technology that will have significant impact on higher education and creative expression over the next one to five years.

RDC Library Guides:

Research Guides: http://rdc.libguides.com/browse.php?o=s
Library staff have created subject guides to help students & faculty find resources, including books, articles & websites.
Copyright: http://rdc.libguides.com/copyright
Information for students & faculty about using copyrighted materials at RDC.
Open Resources: http://rdc.libguides.com/open
This guide will help you find copyright-friendly resources online, including scholarly literature, multimedia, teaching objects, and software.
Information Fluency: http://rdc.libguides.com/info_fluency
Learn how to book an instruction session with a librarian. This guide provides an overview of resources, services, and programs designed and delivered by librarians to support students and instructors at RDC.
RDC citation guides:
APA: http://rdc.libguides.com/apa
MLA: http://rdc.libguides.com/mla
Chicago: http://rdc.libguides.com/chicago