When: June 2, 2010

Where: Edmonton, AB

Blurb: “The program is designed to identify opportunities where Canadian academic librarians at all levels and at all stages in their careers can lead change at the local, provincial, national, and international level. Individual sessions will serve as a call for both individual and collaborative action on the issues of vital importance in academic libraries.”

More info…

It’s a reality that academic libraries are being closed, consolidated and merged as a result of shrinking budgets, changing user behaviour and material becoming available digitally. Faculty and students don’t seem to mind this as they don’t see a closed library a barrier to their information seeking needs, but why would they, most material is available online right? Print material seems to be the only reason to keep libraries open.

Antoher phenomenon is that as reference desks become less busy with real reference questions our libraries are still so busy and packed with students. But why?

Amanda studied these issues in a Master in Environmental Studies degree. Her major research paper focused on successful public space. She found that successful spaces are democratic, responsive, and meaningful. For her research on libraries she asked people to write about memorable library experiences, then interviewed library users, and did some observational seating sweeps (where you document what people sitting in the library are doing, what they have with them, etc.).

The research showed that the top 5 activities for people in the library are: academic reading in paper format, talking, academic reading on a computer, writing on paper and writing on a computer. Most students had in their possession textbooks/course kits and a laptop. Drinks came third and library books fourth.

Users don’t seem to be using library material and systems in the library. When students were asked abot this they said they didn’t even think about reading library materials in the library. They just got the material and left the library.

When asked about memorable library stories, half of the stories were about negative/stressful situations, such as it being too noisy, not being able to drink coffee, or not being able to find a space to study.

When asked “what if we closed the library?” most students were horrified. They see the library as a place to study, a place for refuge, a place for enlightenment, learning and social interaction. While some librarians may find this depressing, because it removes us and library materials from the equation, it’s a reality that the library has always served this purpose and this is a very important function for students.

One observation that arose from the research was how important it is to have differentiated study areas - some communal, some solitary, some private. Students need different types of study areas at different times for different reasons. Sometimes students use the different space for different purposes than what they were intended for, such as solitary space for social functions. This may affect our policies in the future, we may have to give up control of what these spaces are or it may affect how students value the library space.

The speaker advised us to recognize the primary role of library as a place for learning and engagement, it’s not what’s in the building but what students do when they get there. We should talk to students to see what they want, maybe have a student advisory board, and make sure we assume nothing. Create a responsive space, let go of our assumptions and let the space evolve into what the students want it to be.

Jennifer Peters-Lise

Andrew Graham an archeologist and professor at UTM teaches the course “Introduction To The Classical World”. He wanted to introduce maps and geography concepts into the course as students have very little understanding of place and proximity. He also wanted his students to be able to visualize history.

One of the assignments in the course introduced his students to RefWorks and Google Earth. He wanted them to review a variety of resources, academic and non-academic (YouTube, Flickr, etc.) and build maps of historical sites. The GIS/Data Librarian at UTM, Andrew Nicholson, gave an introductory tutorial on Google Earth in preparation for the assignment. Resource links were posted on the Blackboard page.

Results were mixed, some were amazing, others were not. Some students felt overwhelmed by the project, sometimes there was an imbalance of content and creativity, as well as some technical issues with the transfer of projects, some students also felt there was an imbalance between the value of the assignment and the work required. But, feedback was very positive overall.

They re-invented the assignment a couple of years later:

• they brought in more structure around learning the technology and access to e-resources, there were 4 weekly tutorials and practice time as well as a “Using Google Earth Guide” created by the library, students were given specific e-resources to use (such as the Pompeii datasets and The Pompeii Artifacts Database), Google Earth was also loaded onto all library PCs
• GIS Librarian and TAs provided dedicated time to teaching the tutorials to prepare them for the assignment
• they also helped them develop a focused research question to students

This modified approach worked very well and they had fewer technical problems and a greater understanding of the concepts. Although students would benefit from more support for Google Earth, such as step-by-step videos that focus on the classical theme.

Jennifer Peters-Lise

She was already supporting students from 5 GIS courses, but wanted to be able to reach those students in non-GIS programs.

Before she began her indirect outreach program she typically visited about 5 non-GIS classes a year for about 20 minutes each. Student evaluations showed that her visits were way over their heads and too technical and covered too much information. She would also run GIS workshops and would draw about 20 people per session but these were catered to those specifically interested in GIS.

Based on previous results and the desire to increase her user base and to extend usage past the typical GIS users she implemented an indirect outreach program that would “teach GIS in a subtle way”. Basically she would introduce a GIS concept without letting them know it’s GIS.

She ran multiple Google Earth workshops. She would introduce users to popular features of Google Earth and demonstrate the “wow” features, such as historical imagery, videos, and archaeological sites. She would also compare library data imagery to Google Earth imagery (library has much higher resolution images), and would demonstrate mapping features (e.g. paths).

These workshops became a great success and drew many students from outside GIS, especially those in engineering.

She then offered more advanced sessions, such as creating KML from scratch.

Other general sessions included:

• researching your property using historical maps and air photos
• introduction to map making
• turn your lists into maps

She also increased the amount of class visits she was doing and would try for at least 5 minutes in non-GIS classes.

As a result her usage increased 3-fold, averaging 15 classes a year for non-GIS students

Another part of Eva’s indirect outreach efforts including hosting events dealing with GIS and maps. Three of the events included:

• a week long historical map exhibit - maps, cakes and door prizes - which drew over 200 people
• an art show called GeoAbstract - it’s easy to manipulate GIS data and software to create artistic images, and often GIS can look like abstract art. The cost was about $1000 and drew about a hundred people in a week. The pieces are now being displayed at the architecture library. It’s hard to measure whether the exhibit brought more users to the library but it definitely brought hype and press coverage
• during frosh week she hosted a scavenger hunt using GIS

Additional advice she had for indirect outreach:

• try to piggy-back on other librarians presentations, take 5 minutes of their presentation to discuss maps and GIS
• network (of course)
• the GIS collection has it’s own library space at Waterloo so she offers the library space as a place to study to students, she does her guest lecturing in her library, and offers the library’s instruction space to other classes
• highlight your perks - it’s the only place to scan in the building, there is cheap photocopying, wireless internet, and all computers have MS Office, a valuable commodity

Eva’s numbers were increasing steadily with outreach to GIS students but when she used the indirect approach her numbers increased even more.

This was a really interesting session with advice and suggestions that could easily transfer to other types of collections and services outside of GIS. Sometimes you have to think beyond the linear and obvious approach when trying to connect with your students.

Jennifer Peters-Lise

Aimee’s inspiring talk spoke of “The Potential of the Human Will” and how it is a strong determinant of how a person will live their life. The doctor who delivered her as a newborn even teaches this to his med students with the warning, be careful what limits you put on a child. What you tell a child may shape how they approach life which can, in turn, shape their life.

Of course, when she was born with well-formed legs and feet everyone automatically wrote her off at someone who will never acheive great things in her life. But Aimee wasn’t buying it.

She, like many atheletes, saw adversity differently. While most people face adversity, most don’t like it and try to avoid it. She says that we must welcome it and embrace it because change is growth. She states that “”Adversity” is just change we haven’t adapted to…yet”.

She quite plainly informs us that everyone has disabilities. There is no such thing as “persons with disabilities” because we all have them. Most are hidden though and most involve our minds and will, not our bodies. She feels her disability has never been her legs, it’s other, no so obvious things.

We should also not overlook the benefits of being different. You may have perks that other people don’t, for example: her feet don’t get cold when she’s playing winter sports, she can be as tall or as short as she wants to be (a definite plus for a model/actress), she never has to shave her legs, and her legs will never age, unless she wants them to (but who would want that?!).

There is no magic formula to being as successful as she is. She wasn’t born with super powers to overcome adversity, it was a choice she made. It is a fact that she is an amputee, it is an opinion that she is disabled.

Her advice to those of us facing adversity and challenges? So what if you fail, so what if you look stupid or embarrass yourself? If you don’t at least try then you’ve failed already.

A really inspiring talk by a truly incredible woman.

Jennifer Peters-Lise

Check out Aimee’s TED talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/aimee_mullins_prosthetic_aesthetics.html

In a nutshell, Open Access is the ability to access research journal and magazine articles through a free repository. While the issue is much more complex than this, this is its essence.

Open Access has many implications for libraries, scholars, research and really, all aspects of our lives. Heather spoke about how scholars often create ideas and questions long before they are ever fully realized. Think of the great philosophers and scientists and how their ideas were never fully realized in their own time. It was only years later, sometimes hundreds of years later, that their ideas were made reality.

Now think of the publishing figures Heather presented - currently 1.5 million articles are published each year globally (not including China), in China there are 2.5 million articles published annually. These numbers may seem high, but they are actually low. In reality, if there were enough publishers and publications to handle all of the entires there could be as much as 31.5 million articles published worldwide each year!

Think of the amount of knowledge, data, and research that is being missed just from not being published. Now think of the new ideas and questions that are not being shared today that could be building blocks for knowledge and innovations in years to come.

Really, Open Access make sense for a number of reasons.

To read the full article, see the Spring 2010 issue of InsideOCULA…

Jennifer Peters-Lise

What I enjoyed most was that it wasn’t a stodgy discussion of their greatest work or actions, no, the discussion was centred around their fashion obsessions, relationships, vices, and their inherent unhappiness.

The panel featured some of Canada’s most prominent writers, including Jane Urquhart, Nino Ricci, Mark Kingwell and John Ralston Saul, dishing about Lucy Maud Montgomery, Glenn Gould, Bethune, and Trudeau. Almost all authors have recently released books about these extraordinary Canadians in a series of the same name.

Did you know L.M. Montgomery was a fashionista? Or that she was married to someone she didn’t love and who was crazy as a loon? Or that Trudeau thought of himself as shy? That Glenn Gould more identified with Linus’ security blanket than with Schroeder’s piano? Or that Bethune never had sex with the only woman he ever truly loved?

There’s nothing like a bit of gossip!

The speakers were very amusing and made it a great start to what will be a great conference.

Jennifer Peters-Lise

For more information about the Extraordinary Canadians series: http://www.extraordinarycanadians.com/

The OCULA annual general meeting will take place at the OLA Super Conference this Thursday (February 25) at 5:15pm in room 204 of the MTCC (North Building).

The agenda is posted on the OCULA website: http://accessola.com/ocula/bins/content_page.asp?cid=61-1478-3703

The OCULA awards ceremony will begin after the AGM (6pm) in the same room. The agenda for the awards ceremony and this year’s recipients are posted on our website: http://accessola.com/ocula/bins/content_page.asp?cid=451-3718

We look forward to seeing you there!

Sincerely,

Nathalie Soini

______________________________________

Nathalie Soini

2009 OCULA President

Queen’s University Library

Kingston, Ontario

K7L 5C4

613-533-6000 x75566

soinin@queensu.ca

When: April 21 - 22, 2010

Where: online - it will take place in an online conference community

More info…

A Journey in Progress: Been there! Done that! What’s next!

Registration is now open!

The Queen’s Learning Commons at Queen’s University (Kingston, Ontario) is hosting the 5th Canadian Learning Commons Conference, June 16-18, 2010.

To register for the conference go to the CLCC5 website

Kingston, Ontario is a world heritage destination in the heart of the 1000 Islands, rich in history, culture, critically acclaimed attractions and cuisine. Come for the conference, stay for awhile!