Don’t Forget to Renew!

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Katy Mathuews, Ohio University, Membership Chair

Spring is an exciting time for ALAO Workshops. If you’re like me, registering for events such as conferences and workshops reminds me  to renew my professional memberships. If you haven’t renewed your ALAO membership lately, visit www.alaoweb.org to renew today.  Encourage your coworkers to renew or join for the first time, too! We currently have 346 active regular members, 3 active retiree members, and 27 active student members. However, our expired memberships have reached 500! We’d hate for everyone to miss out on the great benefits of ALAO, so encourage your coworkers to renew today!

Membership affords you many benefits including a discounted annual conference fee and access to online materials.  You are also eligible to apply for research grants, continuing education grants, a diversity scholarship, and various other awards.  Your membership dues help fund these opportunities and help ALAO maintain its vibrant network of library colleagues and professional development. These benefits can be particularly valuable to those just embarking on library careers. We are currently offering free student memberships. If you know a full-time student enrolled in an MLIS/MLS program, please encourage them to join. You may contact Katy Mathuews, Membership Chair, at
mathuews@ohio.edu to learn more.

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Committee News

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Professional Development Committee

ALAO Professional Development Committee Hosted a Successful ACRL Webcast Viewing and Discussion
Julia Chance Gustafson,  The College of Wooster, Professional Development Committee  Co Chair

Every year, ALAO’s parent body, ACRL, allows us to host group viewings of 2 different ACRL Webcasts without the usual costs to attendees. This year, the ALAO Professional Development Committee (PDC) chose to host the following two Webcasts on May 22, 2015, at the Franklin University campus:  

We had 13 librarians from all over the state participate in this event. After viewing each webcast, we had a discussion leader lead a discussion about the webcast. Many thanks to Moriana Garcia (Denison University) and Katherine Blocksidge (Ohio State University, Newark Campus) to leading some very useful and engaging discussions with the group. ALAO PDC is particularly grateful to Franklin University for hosting this event as well.

The Pilot Mentoring Program Moving Along Successfully

The ALAO Professional Development Committee is hearing some very good, informal feedback from those who are actively engaged in the two-year ALAO Pilot Mentoring Program. Some mentor/mentee pairs began their relationships right away and some are just beginning to connect this summer, now that they have time after their busy academic year. Soon, the PDC will be sending out an evaluation survey to participants so they can incorporate the feedback as they decide how to proceed into the second year of the pilot program.

If you missed participating in the program this year, no worries. Keep an eye out on the ALAO Listserv for announcements for the second round of mentor/mentee pairing, which will happen towards the end of 2015.

Diversity Committee Workshop Recap

Judith Cerqua, The Ohio State University

On June 5th the Diversity Committee held a workshop dedicated to veterans on campus: Serving Our Veterans: A Call to Action at Columbus State Community College Conference Center.

The workshop centered on how campuses can serve veterans and what veterans need from libraries. All of the 35 individuals registered attended the workshop, coming from 20 colleges and universities plus the Ohio Board of Regents, with both librarians and non-librarians in attendance. Several attendees traveled more than 50 miles and one attendee came from the University of Illinois/Urbana-Champaign. Many indicated that this was a priority topic on their campuses and glad that ALAO was addressing this need for Ohio colleges and universities.

The day began with a keynote on veterans in Ohio from Danny Eakins, Military and Veteran Policy Director of the Ohio Department of Veterans Services, discussing the current veteran population in Ohio. Mr. Eakins was followed by a presentation on veteran’s services by Major Jay Favuzzi, James Gilchrist-Elliot and Terry Worst from Columbus State’s Military & Veteran’s Services Department.

The day continued with three presentations from libraries on current services:

  • Outreach to Our Student Veteran Populations, Krista McDonald & Mike Farmer from Miami University, Hamilton
  • Best for Vets? Walking the Talk, Eileen Bosch & Elizabeth Wood from Bowling Green University
  • Rules of Engagement: Creating an Online Information Literacy Course for those Returning to Learn and Actively Serving, Thomas Atwood, University of Toledo

And finally the day wrapped up with a facilitated group discussion on the topic of What are you doing at your institution?

Some of the takeaways from the workshop were:

  • A better understanding of veteran population demographics
  • Need to coordinate with vets center and community organizations
  • Need to be part of the orientation for new student veterans
  • Have office hours where veterans are – in locations that work for them
  • A veterans needs assessment since veterans needs differ from traditional students
  • Work with disability services and vet. Services to evaluate the library building
  • Copy successful programs from other universities
  • Empowered to begin conversation on campus

Research & Publications Committee Grant Winner
Heidi Gauder, University of Dayton, Research & Publications Committee Chair

The winner of the 2015 Research & Publication grant is Jane Wu, Systems Librarian & Associate Professor, from Otterbein University.  Her project, titled A  Comparative Study of Information Experiences in U.S. and Chinese Academic Libraries, received the full $2,000 funding.

The RPC would like to take this opportunity to sincerely thank all of the applicants for participating in this year’s program. We look forward to hearing more about her exciting research in the coming months. Thanks very much to everyone!

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2015 Continuing Education Award Honorable Mention Award Report

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Kelly Kobiela, Ohio Northern University, TEDSIG Co-Chair

The Continuing Education Award allowed me to attend IUG (Innovative Users Group) 2015. I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend IUG this year. Though OhioLINK and ALAO offer me a lot of opportunities locally to meet with and talk to other librarians, IUG is the only conference I have been to that has as many sessions specifically for Systems Librarians.

Sessions like the Systems Forum and Load Profile Forum are extremely important for finding out what other libraries are doing. For example, this year there was a great discussion about hosted vs turnkey vs software only for the system. Even though we are already on a hosted system, I found the discussion very informative for the reasons libraries choose what they do. It also reinforced that my decision to go hosted was the right one for us. Continue reading →

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Assessment Interest Group Workshop a Success

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Sarah Murphy, The Ohio State University, Assessment Interest Group Chair

The Assessment Interest Group’s spring workshop “Communicating  Library  Value Through Assessment” was a resounding success. More than 45 ALAO members gathered at the State Library of Ohio on April 16, 2015 to hear Anastasia Diamond-Ortiz, Director of Strategy and Innovation at the Cleveland Public Library, deliver her keynote presentation on “Authentic Innovation for Libraries.”  After lunch and a brief business meeting, our colleagues throughout the state shared innovative assessment practices, experiences, and successes through four presentations:

•    “Using Library and Institutional Data to Initiate Collaborative Outreach toward Institutional Mission” – Katy Mathuews, Ohio University, and Zachary Lewis, Shawnee State University
•    “Captivate and Communicate: Nontraditional Ways to Communicate Your Value” – Alyssa Darden, Franklin University
•    “Small Samples, Broad Applications: Using Bibliographies to Support Instruction, Collections, and Budgets” – John Kromer, Miami University
•    “Using Visual Literacy to Demonstrate the Impact of Technological Space” — Eric Resnis and Jennifer Natale, Miami University

Mandy Shannon, Wright State University, will serve as Chair of the Assessment Interest Group for 2015-2016. In this role she will serve as the primary liaision with the ALAO Board. Eric Resnis has volunteered to serve as Vice-Chair and will lead the 2016 AIG workshop planning committee. Planning committee members for 2015-2016 include Alyssa Darden, Franklin University, Jeff Gates, Cedarville University, Rares Piliou, Otterbein University, and Laura Ponikvar, Cleveland Institute of Art

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Collection Management Interest Group Spring Workshop Recap

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Kathleen Baril, Ohio Northern University, CMIG Co-Chair

CMIG just completed a very successful spring workshop at the State of Library of Ohio.  In the morning, we learned about two very practical and useful tools for collection management: the Weeding Helper and an Electronic Resources Evaluation Rubric. Ken Irwin of Wittenberg University who developed the Weeding Helper software (which is open source, and free for anyone to use), demonstrated and highlighted its many useful features.  David Green from OhioNET and Kristin Cole from Muskingum University both described how they had implemented Weeding Helper.  We ended the morning by hearing from Wade Lee, Sheryl Stevens and Julia Martin from the University of Toledo about the development and implementation of their Electronic Resources Evaluation Rubric, an extremely useful tool.

The afternoon began with a quick CIRM update from Dan Gottlieb, bringing us up to date on all things CIRM-related.  Next, we listened to presentations from Hannah Levy at Case Western Reserve University and Jessica Hagman from Ohio University about marketing library resources and services.  Hannah Levy works full-time at the Kelvin Smith Library as the Marketing and Communications Officer and provided many examples of ways to get our message across in appealing and attention-grabbing ways.  Jessica Hagman is the Social Media Coordinator and Subject Librarian for Scripps College and provided workshop attendees with hints, tips, websites and software to aid librarians who want to work marketing into their busy schedules.  The day ended with the sharing of marketing ideas in roundtables.

As I rotate off this Interest Group, I want to thank my co-chair Jessica Grim and my three workshop committee members: Calvin Cleary (OSU-Lima), Phil Flynn (Wright State) and Mark Eddy (CWRU) for all their hard work in putting together a successful workshop.

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Curriculum Materials Center Interest Group Spring Workshop Recap

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Deidra Herring, The Ohio State University and Sharon Kerestes, Cedarville University, CMCIG Co-Chairs

On April 20, the CMCIG Spring Workshop,
“Novel-Ties: Classics and Comics in cmcigthe Classroom” was hosted at the Thompson Library at The Ohio State University, Main Campus. Twenty were in attendance including the presenters. PowerPoints are available upon request (herring.44@osu.edu).

Stephanie Bange, Director of Educational Resources Center, Wright State University, presented a session on “An Insider’s Look at
the Newbury Medal Process”. She walkedcmcig3
attendees through the rigorous and detailed
process required for selecting the John
Newbury Award winners. Her audience was enlightened by the amount of dedication it takes to contribute to this prestigious award. Along with “Stephanie’s Top Dozen Picture Books from 2014,” she provided every attendee with a complimentary DVD and book of their choice. For More information see the ASCLA website.

During lunch, roundtable discussions continued based on several topics of interest on instruction, technology, marketing, collection development, and organization and use of space.cmcig3

Anita Gonzalez, English Language Arts Specialist, Ohio Resource Center, The Ohio State University, presented “It’s More Than Just a Comic…Using Graphic Novels to Engage Readers of all Levels”. She explained that “graphic novels provide a new way to help students learn…graphic novels do not fit into a genre.” A wide variety of suggested titles were shared along with her experiences as a teacher and researcher.

Caitlin McGurk, Curator, BICLM, The Ohio State University, presented on “The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum: Exploring Teaching and Learning with Comics in the Classroom”. She provided the audience with an amazing history and purpose of the
institutional collections and many useful references including “Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art” by Scott McCloud, and Will Eisner’s “Graphic Storytecmcig5lling and Visual Narrative”. At the end of the sessions, Caitlin offered a tour of the museum and archives.

Congratulations to Desiree Fuerst, The Ohio State University, Newark Campus! She was selected to co-chair the CMCIG with Deidra cmcig 4Herring in 2015-16.   cmcig2

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Distance Learning Interest Group Spring Workshop Recap

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Carrie Girton, Miami University, DLIG Co-Chair

DLIG WorkshopThe DLIG spring workshop “INNOV8: Elevating Engagement for Students Online” was held on Friday, May 15, 2015 at Miami University’s Voice of America Center in West Chester, Ohio (just outside of Cincinnati). The 49 attendees had a great time networking, learning from colleagues, and eating delicious food (of course!).  A high-energy playlist greeted attendees during the registration period with interspersed DLIG videos, like this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPoRuzF9qTc, to promote our interest group.

The 2015 Distance Learning Visionaries, John Burke and Beth Tumbleson, started the workshop off with their presentation “Embedded Librarianship: Communicating our Crucial Value”. Then Karla Aleman and Tocarra Porter demonstrated how easy it is to create GIFs that will spice up online instruction during “Reaching Visual Learners: Incorporating GIF Graphics into Online Instruction.”

After a lunch break that included a nature walk around the pond at the Voice of America Park, Mandi Goodsett discussed the benefits of using open access resources to make instruction more interactive. The last presentation of the day was “Using LibGuides 2.0 and Video Creation Tools to Provide Distance Learning” with Jennifer Bazely and Jennifer Natale. The entire day was informative and enjoyable; 38 of 41 attendees noted that they were “Highly Satisfied” with the workshop and many unsolicited comments included anticipation about attending again next year.

Carrie Girton is rotating off as co-chair this year. Jennifer Natale, Academic Resident Librarian at Miami University will be joining Kathleen Pickens as co-chair.

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Instruction Interest Group Workshop Recap

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Sara Klink, Stark State College
Melissa Bauer, Kent State University at Stark, Instruction IG Co- Chairs

On Friday, June 12, 2015 our instruction group held our annual spring workshop, “Making Connections: Embedding Information Literacy Across Your Curriculum” at Columbus State Community College. Our event was attended by 30 guests from 22 schools, consisting of degreed librarians, library staff and library students from around the state.

The theme of our workshop was fairly focused this year with the focus on integrating information literacy and library resources into curriculum across campus. There was also a good bit of discussion on how the library is able to use its resources and expertise to build very fulfilling and sometimes unique partnerships both on and off campus. A multi-step approach was discussed which included working with your library team to set common goals, targeting a specific population and building partnerships on campus that will help you reach your goals.

We want to thank our two wonderful presenters, Dr. Joe Salem who is the new Associate Dean for Learning, Undergraduate Services and Commonwealth Campus Libraries for the University Libraries at Penn State and Ann Marie Smeraldi who is the Head of Library Teaching and Learning Services at Cleveland State University. Both of our presenters shared valuable information and engaged guests with hands on activities and discussion. Please check our blog for a full recap and presenter content to be added soon.

https://alaoinstructionig.wordpress.com/

I would also like thank this year’s co-chair Melissa Bauer and planning committee which includes Dana Knott, Kristen Peters, Mark Eddy and Janelle Hubble for helping plan and host our workshop.

Additionally, we are still moving forward with our instruction blog and are still accepting guest posts.  The deadline for the next cycle is July 17th.

Topics we are looking for include:

–Innovative uses of instructional tools (particularly those related to new technologies)—-

–One-shot instruction ideas

–Keeping instruction interesting

— Collaborating with departmental faculty

— Assessment (of one-shot sessions, of the program, of librarian teachers)

— Impact of the revision of ACRL’s IL competency standards on instruction

— Teaching and learning with web scale discovery

Interested parties may submit proposals through this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1ncWdHPW_9-Wx9xhGSaOwJE4Hi0x0vQorgk0SVcuMGBI/viewform

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Big Turnout for Special Collections and Archives IG Spring Workshop Recap

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Kathleen Medicus, Kent State University, SCAIG Co-Chair

scaig48 people from all around the state attended SCAIG’s spring workshop on June 3, 2015, held at the Kent State University Library. The morning included three informal presentations about current issues affecting the daily work of three special collections librarians and archivists, an “open house” visit in Kent State’s special collections work areas, and time to view the current exhibit from the
University Archives and meet with its scaig 2curator.  Following lunch, we held successful World Café style small-group conversation sessions on topics such as Finding Aids, Project Management, and Outreach, to name a few. We were pleased to have a diverse mix of people representing different regions and sizes and types of institutions and found we sharescaig 3 a lot of common interests and challenges in this Ohio academic special collections and archives community!

scaig 4

scaig 5

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Technical, Electronic, and Digital Services IG News

Posted on June 11, 2015 by anitaslack

Kelly Kobiela, Ohio Northern University
Aimee DeChambeau, The University of Akron, TEDSIG Co-Chairs

TEDSIG Spring Workshop Recap
The TEDSIG spring workshop “Escaping EBook Purgatory,” was on May 29, 2015. We had 20 attendees and 7 speakers. At the end of the day we did an expert panel and opened it up to everyone for questions and discussions; we came away with a lot of great ideas of workshop, training, and webinar ideas.

Richard Wisneski, Assistant Director, Digital Resources & Discovery Services at Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, has been elected as the incoming TEDSIG Co-Chair. Kelly Kobiela will remain as Co-Chair and Aimee DeChambeau will end her term in July.

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