NELIG Meeting - 11/16/2001

NELIG Minutes
11-16-01
10 a.m. – 1 p.m.
Worcester Polytechnic Institute – Worcester, Massachusetts

Esme DeVault, Chair of NELIG, welcomed new and old attendees and introduced the Steering Committee: Anna Litten, Chair-elect; Kendall Hobbs, Webmaster; Mary MacDonald, Past-chair. Julie Whelan, NELIG secretary was unable to attend today’s meeting. MacDonald will take minutes. 

Esme introduced Dr. Kwasi Sarkodie-Mensah, Manager, Instructional Services at Boston College Libraries.

Kwasi’s presentation, “Bringing Information Literacy to Our World Population and Beyond”, was a discussion/conversation that covered many issues and barriers that international students must deal with while they do library research in the United States.

He discussed how librarians could help this population by being knowledgeable of their circumstances and situations that confront them. He suggested various methods of outreach that can help international students become information literate library users.

Following Kwasi’s presentation, Esme asked everyone to do a general introduction by name and institution. Twenty-eight librarians attended today’s meeting (detailed list follows these minutes). 

We then embarked on NELIG famous “open information exchange”. Here is a brief listing of the topics that were discussed:

• Web Usability

• Assessment/Accreditation/NEASC

• 24/7 “Online All the Time” Reference Services

• Student Issues with Info Lit Courses

At this point the group broke for a brief respite of refreshments and conversation.

Following this, three subcommittees met for a short time and reported back to the larger group.

 Web Site Group:

• Looking to establish a page listing scholarship, (papers, presentations, and articles) among NELIGers. Kendall will provide information to the group on how to send information for this page. 

Assessment Group:

• Began project of doing peer-observations of teaching this fall. It was decided that spring semester may be a less difficult time to schedule these evaluations.

• Interested in having NELIG find a presenter to talk on library assessment and accreditation, particularly in light of NEASC standards.

Annual Program Group:

• Patty Durisin of Simmons College Library will be this year’s Annual Program Chair.

• Possible date (to be investigated) is June 7, 2002

• Theme discussed : Creativity

• Looking for keynote speaker suggestions

• Working on timeline for proposals

• Scouting out possible program location/host