Tag Archives: May 15 09

AD Notes from May 7th Meeting

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Present: the usual suspects (Backus, Cutter, Peddie, Rehbach, Roy, Sax, Simpkins)

1) LIS Announcements – The group reviewed and edited emails to be distributed to LIS regarding ERP participants, “stopping things” and about the Segue sunset.  We agreed these will be sent as  separate emails.  Mike will also send a separate email to ERP participants to let them know that a general announcement will be distributed.

2) ERP celebrations – The college will be holding a college-wide celebration for ERP folks sometime in May or early June.   We discussed perhaps having some smaller LIS gatherings as well, since the larger one may feel slightly impersonal. Timing is an issue, since retirements are happening anytime from June to November.  Carol will be coordinating.

3) Goals/Projects – We talked more about what should happen to ideas coming out of the advisory group meetings, how we can keep faculty informed, and how we process them internally.  Shel will meet with Carrie Macfarlane and Bryan Carson to review the list of items compiled from this year’s advisory group meetings and discuss plans for tracking these ideas and their outcomes.  Jim Beauchemin should also be invited to this meeting.

4) Project Directory – Mike and Chris Norris are beginning work on this.  We talked a bit about the difference between a goal and a project, with a fair amount of semantic wrangling over nomenclature, but eventually we all came to the common understanding that for each LIS goal, there will be a series of projects and or other discrete steps enacted in support of achieving the goal.

5) MIIS/Midd new programs – Jeff is gathering information on  frequency and types of formal (as well as occasional/informal) communications between Midd and MIIS library and IT staff, at the request of Dave Donahue (who is tracking this for all areas across campus).  As Monterey and Middlebury explore joint academic program offerings, we’ll need to be assess how these will be supported by and/or otherwise impact LIS.

Library Massage Parlor

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Submitted by Joseph Watson

massage parlor
“Did you see the massage parlor in the library?” a colleague asked…
In coordination with the Gus Jordan, Dean of the College, two students, Mariella Saavedra and Ann Selvadurai, working as volunteers for a nationwide group promoting wellness called Active Minds http://www.activeminds.org/ sponsored stress breaks with massage therapists in the Harman Periodicals Reading Area during exams  this week. The two local professional massage therapists were kept quite busy!

The future of everything…

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As part of my work as an editor at Academic Commons, I’ve been working on a new issue that we’re calling The Future of Everything. You can read more about the plans for the issue on-line.

As part of the run-up to the publication of the issue, which will take the form of an anthology of the best writing and resources that contemplate the future of various topics, we’ve set up a delicious account and are crowdsourcing the collection of readings.

If you happen to use delicious and have bookmarked particularly good readings and resources on topics such as the future of reference, the future of the book, the future of the web, and so on, please feel free to suggest materials by tagging them for:academiccommons. (There is a brief description of how this works also on-line.)

Thanks so far to Mike Lynch for suggesting some good materials on the future of reference.

— mike

Information Behavior of Researchers – Myths of a Google Generation

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Submitted by Judy Watts

A January 2008 report by a research team (CIBER) at University College London for the British Library and JISC, the Joint Information Systems Committee that promotes the use of academic IT in the UK, shows that while most young people in the US and UK are completely at home with computers, they rely on the most basic search tools and do not possess the critical and analytical skills to assess the information they find on the web. The report ‘Information Behavior of the Researcher of the Future’ also shows that traits commonly associated with younger users – impatience in search and navigation, zero tolerance for any delay in satisfying their information needs – are becoming the norm for all age-groups, from young students through undergraduates to professors. The study warns that young people are dangerously lacking in informations skills and presents the challenges for library and information services in meeting the needs of researchers.

The Executive Summary of  the report is a good read (and worth a look just for the cover graphic). You can find the full report here, and more recent publications of the JISC group, e.g., Higher Education in a Web 2.0 World, are listed here.

New WordPress Theme

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ShadowBox - Overview

I have been working on a new WordPress theme for use at Middlebury. I wanted to create a flexible theme that could be used for a variety of sites or could be used to evolve a small simple site into a larger more complex one. I also wanted to create a theme with options similar to those found in Segue, to encourage Segue users to try out WordPress.
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