NELIG Meeting - 3/13/2007

 

Association of College and Research Libraries - New England Chapter
New England Library Instruction Group
Wentworth Institute of Technology
Boston, MA
March 13, 2007

NELIG co-chairs Kendall Hobbs and Susan Herzog welcomed 22 attendees from Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire to the March meeting and thanked Kari Mofford for hosting the meeting.  Kendall noted that this was the last meeting of the year prior to the NELIG annual conference to be hosted at Assumption College on Friday, June 8, 2007.  He also mentioned the upcoming ACRL/NEC conference to be held at Brandeis University on June 1, 2007.  

Announcements from the NELIG co-chair:

Kendall Hobbs announced that NELIG was looking for a volunteer for the chair-elect position or two volunteers to act as co-chair elects.  He noted that the current co-chair arrangement with Susan Herzog has worked well.

Collaboration @ Your Library: Getting Our Message Heard Outside the Library World 

Collaboration at the University of New Hampshire - Manchester:

  • Carolyn B. White – Library Specialist, University of New Hampshire- Manchester, carolyn.white@unh.edu
  • Dr. Susanne F. Paterson – Associate Professor of English, University of New Hampshire - Manchester, sfp@cisunix.unh.edu

Carolyn White and Susanne Paterson spoke about how their initial collaboration with “one-shot” bibliographic sessions developed into an ongoing collaboration over the course of a semester by teaching critical reading and evaluation techniques through library instruction and writing assignments directly related to Susanne Paterson’s courses.  These efforts grew out of a need that both saw to expand the program because the current structure was not working well.  They focused first on making sure that students, faculty, and administrators were all stakeholders in these information literacy initiatives.  Their efforts to publish in academic journals about their experiences were directed specifically to general teaching journals or English journals since so much information literacy literature already existed in library journals.  In addition to coauthoring two journal articles so far, they have presented at several international conferences.  They offered five areas of advice:

  • The overall project must come directly from the pedagogy within the classroom

  • The effort should start out small and should be planned to include incremental steps to create a record of success

  • Use this record of success to gain administrative support and be able to expand the initiative on a larger scale

  •  Don’t wait to be asked; librarians should work with an instructor they already closely collaborate with or they should target a specific instructor to work with

  • Be careful when looking for conference opportunities to present such examples of collaboration to make sure your presentation will be a good fit

 

Journey to a Non-Librarian Conference: How We Escaped Preaching ONLY to the Choir

Kari Mofford and Marilyn Steinberg talked about their experiences at the 2006 Teaching Professor Conference (a non-library conference) http://www.teachingprofessor.com in Nashville.  They attended the 2006 conference after creating the proposal “Those Silent Librarians!” and having it accepted.  This workshop, which covered the difference between bibliographic instruction and information literacy, attracted 25 attendees.  They made this presentation practical-based and teaching oriented by including active learning exercises.  It was so successful they have been invited back, all-expenses paid, to the 2007 conference.  They believe their own teaching has been enhanced by collaborating with faculty.  To locate appropriate conferences, they target specific organizations or use online resources.  They also worked with the Teaching Professor staff to produce a newsletter article that was successfully published in December 2006.  They indicated that being a good fit for a conference was a key component to their success.

 

Student Awareness of Facebook/MySpace Consequences

  • Susan Herzog – Information Literacy Librarian, Eastern Connecticut State University, herzogs@easternct.edu

  • Dr. Meredith James – Assistant Professor of English, Eastern Connecticut State University, jamesm@easternct.edu

Susan Herzog and Meredith James collaborated together on a project to study the use of Facebook and MySpace by college students.  Their interest was sparked by graduate student discussions outlining the potential damage of posting embarrassing material to Facebook and MySpace as prospective employers use them as character references.  They issued a survey to 400 students to determine undergraduate understanding of the delineation between public and private space and its appropriate use.  This survey included questions to find out how often undergraduate students used either Facebook or MySpace, if subscribers were aware of the privacy policies administered by these sites, if they had read the privacy policies, and student awareness of the consequences when they shared too much information online.  This project appealed to both faculty and professional librarians as behavior of college students has changed due to the use of social software and the Internet.  Choosing a topic that is important to faculty and can bring positive publicity to an institution is a win-win situation.  Susan and Meredith have presented their findings to regional library programs, and it has generated a lot of interest.   

 

Respectfully submitted,
Diane Klare
NELIG Secretary
2006/2007

 

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