Hopefully a Library Unconference at Rutgers Newark in March 2011

Yesterday, I met with two colleagues at the Dana Library of Rutgers-Newark and discussed the possibility of holding a library unconference there. I discussed many of the points covered in:

Lawson, Steve. Library Camps and Unconferences. [S.l.]: Facet Publishing, 2010.

They seemed to be receptive to the idea and will discuss it with their director. We did feel that the date would be in March 2011 during the spring break week. It would have to be at a time when there is minimal activity on campus. It is too late to plan something for the summer and there is a large meeting of New Jersey academic librarians (VALE) in January.

Let's hope we can pull this off.

Report from the NJIT Library Retreat on Friday May 21

On Friday May 21, the NJIT Library had its annual staff retreat in the Campus Center with Steven J. Bell, Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services at Temple University, as the speaker. We were joined by about 10 colleagues from other New Jersey academic libraries.

Steven spoke on design thinking as it can be applied to designing a future-proof library. His talk was based on several of his publications on this topic. We received copies of:

Design Thinking. By: Bell, Steven J.. American Libraries, Jan/Feb2008, Vol. 39 Issue 1/2, p44-49, 6p

'Design Thinking' and Higher Education http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2010/03/02/bell

Some of the points that were made during the talk:

--The IDEO method of design thinking in five steps
--The user experience can be improved through a design process.
--We can design a future-proof library by using a design thinking approach to make it happen.

There are strategies that academic can use to keep their libraries thriving and relevant in times of turbulent change. I am thinking about the reference function and how the number of transactions have diminished greatly over recent years. How can we revitalize reference and show management that we are still relevant?

In the afternoon the NJIT library staff had a meeting to discuss:

--The results of recent focus groups to assess how we can improve our services to users
--How can we link library goals to the NJIT goals as outline in the strategic plan for 2010-15.
--We were joined by Ian Gatley, the new Provost at NJIT. He was concerned about issues that we presented to him and hope that he will be supportive of the library’s role in the university’s strategic plan.

Why Some Conferences are not worthwhile

A very well known library organization held a free web conference today on mobile computing in libraries. It was scheduled from 1 - 4 PM, but I left the conference about 2:15. It was poor for the following reasons:

1. Mobile computing in general was discussed. If library aspects were considered at all, it was done after I left.
2. Most of what was discussed in the first hour was now general knowledge. What is the sense of going to a conference if new facts are not presented.
3. The first presenter was from a predominant telecommunications company who told the audience that his organization will be offering the first 4G network later this year. His competitors will not be able to get to 4G for another year. In essence this talk was a sales pitch.

At least I didn't have to pay for registration or travel.

New Jersey Chemistry Olympics 2010

Yesterday the 25th New Jersey Chemistry Olympics was held at NJIT with 16 high schools participating. Most of the schools were represented by 2 teams.

I have run the Information Search at least since the late 1990s. (I really should remember the exact year). Students in this event were required to bring a model of a molecule of a antiviral drug to be evaluated for accuracy and aesthetics of the model. Students were given a set of questions about antivirals where they had to find the answers from the Internet. They could either use Google of a list of databases that I provided. For this event:

1st Place - Riverdell Team B
2nd Place - Tenafly Team A
3rd Place - South Brunswick Team A

For the entire olympics Bergenfield High School was the winner. Congratulations to Coach Ara Kahyaoglu and his students.

Congratulations for all the students who particpated. There were no losers at this olympics.

Web site for the event is at http://sites.google.com/site/njchemistryolympics/home

Returning to work tomorow

For the last two days this blog has received zero hits. I will be returning to work tomorrow for the New Jersey Chemistry Olympics. I will have a detailed report on it later in the week. I should have enough people helping me out for the information search. The issue is always that I have to complete the grading in a very short time frame. It is hard to grade while the students are still in the computer lab. More later.

Starting Staycation Tomorrow

I have scheduled 4 days away from the NJIT library. Since we get 20 vacation days and 3 personal days, I feel I should take them when the reference desk is slow. There are two days of final exams left, but there is very little demand for reference service. I will return on Wednesday May 19 for the Chemistry Olympics. I will have a detailed entry of it next week.

Planning a Library Unconference - First Hurdle

I had a nice conversation yesterday with Stephen Francoeur of Baruch College who helped organize a library camp in 2007. He highly suggested that there be no registration fees. The first thing would be to find a place for it. I thought of possibly having this at NJIT. I checked with the events coordinator here who said if outsiders come to a conference, there would have to be a charge. This would have to be paid by the attendees or the NJIT Library. In this era of bad budgets there is no way the NJIT Library could pay for this. Would people from NYC come to Newark for a conference?

I will have to ask around to see if a university would be willing to offer space for free. I am guessing that about 100 people would attend such a conference. If anyone can help out, please contact me at Bruce.Slutsky@njit.edu .

Thanks

Presentations by Chemical Engineering Students

In ChE 472 students are given a term long assignment to report of the design of a plant to manufacture monoclonal antibodies. I attended the presentations by 3 of the groups last night.

All of them were excellent since they understood the principles involved in designing a plant to manufacture monoclonal antibodies. The grading rubrics were quite detailed. I did see an attribute called “demonstrated use to find information”. I did not see any references to usage of the journal literature in their design process. There were photos of certain plant equipment, but none stated where they obtained the photo. Perhaps students did use the journal literature, but did not document it. This is a disappointment to me since these students were given an exercise earlier in the semester to use Scifinder Scholar and Scopus to find information about monoclonal antibodies.

I suggest that in the future students be required to find some of the information they need through a database search and document that in their presentation? The major aim of our in promoting information literacy is to teach students how to properly use the journal literature in their projects.

Thinking about an Unconference in NYC later in 2010

I attended library camps or unconferences in 2007 (Baruch College) and 2009 (Brooklyn College). These events unscripted as the program for these meetings is arranged at the beginning. There is a list of recent unconferences at http://liswiki.org/wiki/Library_Camp . These events have been popular in Australia and Canada

I am interested in organizing an event for late 2010 in NYC. If anyone wants to serve on an organizing committee, they may contact me at Bruce.Slutsky@njit.edu . One of the major issues that has to be resolved is should there be a specific theme or should "anything go." Some possibilities are:

• Web 2.0 initiatives - what works and what does not
• Library Careers
• Information Literacy
• Coping with budget cuts
• Virtual Reference
• The Future of Libraries
• Staff Development

Don't hesitate to contact me.