InsideOCULA

I think everyone who is part of OCULA needs to attend at least one AGM. Hey if you are part of the group you might as well see how it is run. Many stood up and gave their reports for the various groups. I think the nitty gritty details are all posted on the OCULA website.  Appartantly this year we have 36 OCULA sessions at OLA, this tied the record for most session with the 2004 session. Way to GO!!! Maybe next year we can top it.  Great job OCULA council and all its croonies for all your work this year. =)

This session shared with the audience how approval plans can be introduced into a college type environment where they are not the norm.  Their experience was with University of Guelph-Humber, Bibliocentre and Blackwell’s book services.  University of Guelph-Humber is an integrated approach to post secondary education. The same blended approach was initiated to efficiently build the library collection.  The right material needed to be selected and made shelf ready in an acceptable time line.  Which was apparently short.

Bibliocentre already had an established relationship with Humber College for its acquisitions and this made it a reasonable choice for using it for Guelph-Humber’s cataloguing and processing of material. The other part of the venture was provided by Blackwell’s Book services to provide profile developments and e-approval.  This new workflow that was developed also led to a collaborative collection development between University of Guelph-Humber and Humber College and collaborative academic liaison model.  Their experiences showed that approval plans can be applied to college type libraries and collaborative process work well.

There was a good size crowd for this session, filled with a combination of academic librarians and highschool librarians Despite the size of the group Sophia managed to make the session interactive. I guess it is part of those IL presentation skills she is willing to share with us.

She shared her quest to find meaningful examples of IL that her college students would understand. Some tips she had included comparing database searching to finding the latest songs on itunes. Another tip was showing students how Bell and Rogers though different companies provide same services just the same way EBSCO and Proquest look different but are both databases.  She gave many more good tips and she promises to post them up on the OLA superconference website after soon (she is going through some house renovations). If you are looking at a way to relate to these Google kids check out her tips.  If nothing else it gives you an excuse to go check out itunes.

D.S.

Ethan Zuckerman. Where to start? Very articulate speaker; thought-provoking talk. Very exciting to see how far the Internet has come in the past way-more-than-twenty-five years since its humble beginnings. Imagine the then USSR announcing in 1984 that they ‘knew’ about the Internet. Imagine being one of the first to see that email?! Could that have been an ‘eureka’ moment for the rest of the world? Or maybe it was they who realized that, just as their virtual walls had been breached, their political walls would come down sooner or later. Imagine that the buzzing interconnectivity of billions of electronic cables might have played a part in breaking down those barriers? Imagine how China is buzzing with bloggers who are conviced that it is merely a small matter of time before their blogs are ‘river-crabbed’ into non-existence just because they are there and so must be a threat to the nation. Incredible then to think how much we –or should I speak only for myself?– take our freedom for granted. To summarize Mr Zuckerman, but only partially in his own words: “Resist homophily, embrace serendipity, and be a xenophile.”

If we define “flat” as a lack of layering (physical), as a lack of definition (artistic/aesthetic), as uneventful or without excitement (emotional), or as unidimensional (physical, again), then, in all the ways that Zuckerman has described the Internet, and in all the ways that we have definedthe word flat, the Internet could not be said to bear any resemblance whatsoever to that word “flat.” hg

Sophia Apostol gave a near capacity crowd a real treat this morning at Session 305.  The session, titled “Coming up to their level: Engaging Students on their own terms during Library Instruction”, brought a fresh new spin to teaching.  Sophia advocates picking no more than three main ‘things’ to get across to students.  In the context of teaching journal article searching, her three things were: 1. I’m available to help you, 2. Look for full-text resources, and 3. Email articles to yourself.  The ‘three things’ will change with the topic being taught (or at least the last 2 things will change). 

 Sophia used a very effective tool in the session.  She had 12 envelopes distributed throughout the audience.  At key points, audience members were asked to read the student/faculty comment in the envelope. 

 The session was lively, informative, and gave us all the opportunity to think of ways we can better reach the ‘younger generation’ with our varied messages.  I really liked her suggestions to keep sessions lively and relevant (use of videos, facebook, etc).

I was suppose to be better at keeping everyone informed but there was so much to do and so many people to see. I guess that is the story for every OLA conference. So here is the quick catch up.

Wednesday night: Opening Plenary session (my first time attending the Wednesday night event, and I plan to do it again)

Stephen Heppell was fantastic. Thank you to the organization committee for inviting him back. He talked about many inspiring things and made you look at the future in new ways. One funny thing that I will share with you (there really was so much) was a question that he put out there…What makes you literate? The answer was defined by how students would find you literate. Things included were being able to upload a video to Youtube; being able to subscribe and unsubscribe to a podcast, managing a group on Flickr (being able to spell FLICKR), being an administrator for a Facebook group, editing a Wikipedia entry, and my favourite being able to turn on and off predictive texting (T9) on your cell phone. Sadly I have been trying to remember since last night with still no luck. I will have to look at my manual when I get back home.

After the Stephen was a great social event. ‘Tis the time to Network. Catch up with old acquaintances and meet new ones. The cheese was great the talk even better. If you never have attended the Wed night event put it on your calendar for next year.

This session was a great start to the 2008 OLA Super conference.

Understanding what users want out of your library’s services is probably one of the most important tasks one should be involved in when developing services or programs.

Terry Constantino, Melanie Rodney and Patricia Eastman do an excellent job presenting on this topic.

Terry, Principal and Information Architect for Usability Matters focuses primarily on the conceptual ‘Why we want to understand users?’ She states that we want to understand what users need in order to develop products and service that they will benefit from.

Melanie, Director of Research at Macadamian Usability outlines ‘How we go about understanding users’ in her section. She states that we can do this by engaging users, not by guessing what they need but through some quantifiable measures: Focus Groups, Surveys, ethnographic research (figuring out what users do, not what they say they do), usability walkthroughs and usability testing.

Patricia, Manager, User Experience Project at the Toronto Public Library ties these two discussions to a real life example from her experiences at TPL. She describes some examples of user collaborations that they have engaged in when developing the TPL website. She also describes some of the problems they have encountered through their experiences.

In reflection, it was a great session! The User Centered Design model they discussed will be beneficial to my own work at my library.

The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2008 Excellence in Academic Libraries Award. Sponsored by ACRL and Blackwell’s Book Services, the award recognizes the staff of a college, university and community college library for programs that deliver exemplary services and resources to further the educational mission of the institution. Hamilton’s McMaster University Libraries, winner of the university category, was selected for its focus on user-centered innovations and services. “McMaster University Libraries exemplifies a successful transformation from a traditional research library to an innovative, user-centered library using technological advances to accomplish its goals,” said Camila Alire, chair of the 2008 Excellence in Academic Libraries Selection Committee and Dean Emerita, University of New Mexico & Colorado State University. “Receiving this international recognition stands as tribute to the hard work and dedication of the staff here at the McMaster University Libraries,” said Jeffrey Trzeciak, university librarian at McMaster University. “Its commitment to excellence and innovation is evident in all it does to advance the mission of the university. By winning this award we can proudly say to our faculty, students and the entire campus community that you have -and deserve -the very best!” Each winning library will receive $3,000 and a plaque, to be presented at an award ceremony held on each recipient’s campus. The winners also will receive special recognition at the ACRL President’s Program during the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference at 1:30 p.m. Monday, June 30, in Anaheim, Calif.

Submit your name to become an OCULA blogger during the 2008 OLA Super Conference and you could win an iPod Nano!

To qualify, you must:

• be an OCULA member in good standing
• be attending the 2008 OLA Super Conference

Submit your name to the editor at: jennifer.peters-lise@senecac.on.ca

All blog entries will appear on this blog. While in the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, bloggers can use their laptops or on-site computers to freely access the OCULA blog so that they can blog the conference as it happens.

McGuinty Government Supports Students And A Strong Economy TORONTO — Ontario is investing in a new library and student centre at Ryerson University. The new Student Learning Centre will feature the new technologies and tools students need to help Ontario compete globally. Ontario will invest $45 million in the project. “Ontario’s highly skilled people make our province one of the best places in the world to invest,” said Premier McGuinty. “By investing in the skills and knowledge of students at Ryerson and across Ontario, we can help Ontario compete and win.” This project is part of the $1.4-billion infrastructure investment outlined in the government’s fall economic statement. The investment will help improve Ontario’s competitiveness and stimulate job creation and economic growth. “Ryerson’s new student centre is a perfect fit for this neighbourhood — it will give the school an exciting gateway to Yonge Street and help revitalize Toronto,” said Toronto Centre MPP George Smitherman. Ryerson’s new student centre will be located at the corner of Yonge and Gould Streets. Once built, the new centre could help more students attend the university. The demand for first-year spots at Ryerson is increasing faster than the provincial average. More than 30,000 students attend Ryerson in over 95 PhD, master’s and undergraduate programs.