ALAO Newsletter

Rob Snyder, Bowling Green State University

Do you know a “Distance Learning Visionary”?
The Academic Library Association of Ohio (ALAO) recognizes the need to encourage and spotlight pioneering individuals, particularly those who offer their colleagues new and innovative practices that can be adapted and implemented in their home institutions. As such, ALAO’s Distance Learning Interest Group (DLIG) is excited to announce that nominations are now being accepted for the 2014 “Distance Learning Visionary.” Benefits of winning include:

• Honor of being named the 2014 Distance Learning Visionary.
• Recognition at the 2014 ALAO Annual Conference Luncheon, as well as on the ALAO Website, ALAO Newsletter, & the DLIG Blog.
• Award of $150.00 presentation grant for sharing distance learning strategies, applications, or research with attendees of the 2014 DLIG Spring Workshop. Please note that the funds are contingent upon the grantee presenting in person, remotely, or via pre-recorded session.

Nomination applications should include a 250-500 word essay that demonstrates the nominee’s contributions to e-learning, as well as a short presentation proposal that suggests what the nominee might share with colleagues striving to succeed in the technology-driven environment of online learning. Links to relevant supporting materials are encouraged; self and group nominations are permitted.

For complete details and submission guidelines, please see the DLIG blog at http://distancelibrarians.wordpress.com/dlig-visionary/ or email the DLIG Co-Chairs at ohiodlig@gmail.com.
Applications are due by December 20th, 2013.

Diane Kolosionek, Cleveland State University, Diversity Committee Chair

ALAO Annual Conference
The Diversity Committee sponsored a successful session at the 2013 ALAO Annual Conference titled Programming Prowess: Transform Your Library with Engaging Events. Katy Kelly, Communications and Outreach Librarian at the University of Dayton, presented the session. Katy shared many great ideas for engaging the diverse intellectual, cultural, and social interests of your community. Her presentation is available at: http://ecommons.udayton.edu/roesch_fac_presentations/19/

During the Awards Program at the Annual Conference, I acknowledged this year’s Diversity Scholarship winners, Robert Millspaugh and Conrad Pegues. I also recognized Diana Nichols, Cataloger/Journalism Librarian at Ohio University, for serving as the ALAO mentor to last year’s Diversity Scholarship winner, Carissa Thatcher.

The Diversity Scholarship award includes a year of mentoring by an ALAO member. Kathleen Baril, Collections and Electronic Resources Librarian at Ohio Northern University, will serve as the ALAO mentor to Robert Millspaugh. Allen Reichert, Electronic Access Librarian at Otterbein University, will serve as the ALAO mentor to Conrad Pegues. Thank you to Kathleen and Allen for graciously agreeing to serve as mentors!

Joseph Straw, Marietta College, Government Relations Liaison

The ALAO website has been updated to include an advocacy section. This portion is the last item at the top of the page and has a menu option for “Legislative Updates” where the latest updates on issues of importance for academic libraries will be posted. The main part of the site has basic information about the ALAO Government Relations Team and a link describing the Legislative Day Travel Award. In updating the website, I would like to again invite ALAO members to become part of the Legislative Advocacy Network across Ohio. Advocates serve as grassroots voices for legislation that impacts academic libraries. For any interested members please contact:

Joseph Straw, Government Relations Liaison
Marietta College
js001@marietta.edu

Sara Klink, Stark State College

The Instruction Interest Group is focusing on creating an active online community this year. Our planning committee has decided to include additional projects in their charge rather than just focusing on the spring workshop. Our first project is to make our current IG blog more dynamic. We recently put out a call asking ALAO members that showed interest in participating in the Instruction Interest Group, to submit proposals to develop and write instruction focused blog posts. 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

In other IIG news, we are currently in the planning stages for our spring workshop which will be held at Stark State College, in North Canton this May. Please stay tuned for details.

As our group works to develop new activities and programs we encourage you to keep an eye on our blog, participate in discussions and share your instruction ideas with the community!

Mark Eddy, Case Western Reserve

The ALAO Research and Publications Committee celebrated our 2013 RPC Research Grant Program at the 2013 Annual Conference luncheon. Our single award of $944.50 went to a cohort of three Ohio University researchers in support of a project entitled, Informed Instruction: A Needs Assessment Model for Library Workshop Implementation. Certificates were awarded at our luncheon to each co-researcher,

Hilary C. Bussell
eLearning Librarian / Subject Librarian for Political Science & Public Administration
Ohio University

Christopher S. Guder
Reference & Instruction Librarian
Ohio University

Jessica Hagman
Reference & Instruction Librarian
Ohio University

The committee would like to thank the ALAO Executive Board for their continuing support of our program. Special thanks also from the committee to Alisa Mizikar for designing and providing us with award certificates and RPC conference flyers. THANK YOU!!!!

The committee recently announced our 2014 Research Grant program, and will begin reviewing applications after December 17th. Additional program announcements will go out very soon, and here also is further information on the 2014 program – http://www.alaoweb.org/committees/researchpub/2014-research-grant

The RPC also provided a discussion panel session event at the 2013 Annual Conference entitled, Got IRB?: What to Know When Planning Human Subject Research Projects. The program was well attended, and we received high marks in our session evaluations. All evaluators marked the session as “Excellent” or “Outstanding” for presentation quality, with many comments indicating that our audience learned a great deal about the IRB process, and that they very much appreciated our session. The committee would like to take this opportunity to thank very sincerely our panelists for a truly wonderful session, and the time each of them took to help us plan, travel to, and execute this session. It was a great group, and I think we all had a really good time!

Stefanie Hunker, Bowling Green State University

The SCAIG had a productive annual conference! We had a visited table, an outstanding impromptu brainstorming session (about the next year’s activities, our online presence, and a little bit of focus group-ishness) with some of our members/interested parties who happened to stop by our table and stayed to talk. We also had a possible joint spring workshop idea(s) discussion with TEDSIG Co-Chairs, Sharon and Aimee.

In addition, we sponsored a very interesting session, Outreach and Engagement for Special Collections through a Gallery Exhibit by Melanie McGurr and Mary-Allen Johnson from OSU, which was a nice follow-up to this year’s spring workshop.

We also noted that there were several presentations/roundtables on special collections/archives topics at conference this year. We are very happy about that!

Ginna Witte, Cincinnati State
Derek Malone, Ohio University

Thank you to everyone who made it to the 2013 annual conference. The co-chairs really enjoyed speaking with (and meeting) all of the SSIG members who stopped by our interest group table. SSIG was thrilled to sponsor the session, “Better Together: Reimagining Library Social Media Content Through Student Collaboration” presented by Jessica Hagman and Janet Carleton of Ohio University. These two presenters gave a wonderful overview with lots of concrete examples of the many ways they’ve used students to generate, post and guide library social media content.
We’d also like to congratulate the winner of our 2013 Support Staff Presenter Grant. Donald Pearson is the Knowledge Management & Information Technology Specialist at the Mount Carmel Heath Sciences library. He offered an extremely helpful session on the use of cloud computing in academic libraries. Congrats, Donald!

The co-chairs are currently investigating topics and locations for a Spring workshop. Details will be announced as they come available.

Sharon Purtee, University of Cincinnati

TEDSIG sponsored a well-attended session at the annual meeting presented by Susannah Cleveland, Nancy Down and Elizabeth Hertenstein of Bowling Green State University. Their talk was titled Enacted metadata: using video to highlight special collections. They demonstrated and discussed their work on an exhibit from the popular collection and how they embedded videos into the description to enhance the visitors’ experiences.

We also staffed a (beautifully decorated) table at the conference and engaged with attendees.

We would also like to acknowledge and congratulate the winner of the 2013 Teddy award, Jeanne Langendorfer, Coordinator of Serials & Government Documents at Bowling Green State University. Jeanne was presented with a lovely plaque and our signature Teddy Bear.

TEDSIG and SCAIG are collaborating on a spring workshop. Details will be announced early in 2014.

Library Leadership Ohio offers participants the opportunity to develop leadership skills, network and collaborate with their peers, and discuss issues important to the future of Ohio libraries. This unique program is facilitated by the nationally recognized consultants Ivy Library (a division of The Ivy Group). This immersive three day program will shape future leaders for Ohio libraries, assist Ohio library staff in becoming leaders in the communities they serve, and provide the chance to work collaboratively on projects of important to Ohio libraries.

Library Leadership Ohio recognizes that individuals can “lead from any position.” For that reason we would like to stress that any library staff member in any type of library is eligible to apply. All that’s required is the desire to lead. We expect many individuals will be ready to take the next step toward becoming an Ohio library leader. To assist in getting the word out about this opportunity we would appreciate if you could share information about this program with your members. Please feel free to reproduce and redistribute this information through any and all communication channels at your disposal.

Library Leadership Ohio
When: July 22 – 25, 2014
Where: Holiday Inn Worthington
Facilitators: Ivy Library
Cost: $425.00
Applications are due: December 16, 2013

You can find all of the details about Library Leadership Ohio, including the application, on the website at: http://www.libraryleadershipohio.org.

You won’t want to miss this exciting opportunity. So, start working on your essays and request your letter of support from your supervisor or director today.

Questions about Library Leadership Ohio 2014 can be directed to Missy Lodge, mlodge@library.ohio.gov.

The State Library of Ohio, OHIONET, and OLC are collaborating to bring you Library Leadership Ohio, with additional support from ALAO. LLO 2014 is funded in part by LSTA funds awarded to OHIONET by the State Library of Ohio.

Betsy Blankenship, The Ohio State University Marion

I am always amazed at how giving library staff are – they give their time, their talents, their money, and most importantly, their wisdom and suggestions. At the annual conference, we asked attendees to visit several Expression Walls we had set up. Each was different and we asked them to post their thoughts, suggestions, ideas. I thought I would share them with everyone – there are some great tips and suggestions we can all use!

Tips for enjoying the conference

• Introduce yourself to at least three new people
• Don’t be afraid to share your new skills with experienced librarians – they can learn from you, too!
• Get enough sleep!
• Don’t be afraid to skip a presentation to talk to someone you miss or just met. Ideas are born there.
• Ask questions at presentations
• Attend sessions on topics brand new to you
• Step outside your com fort zone
• Talk to people! There are so many “AHA” moments & opportunities for collaboration that you can find
  out about . . . just by saying hi to someone!

Don’t just go to presentations where the topic is something you are already doing – you learn a lot from sessions w/brand new topics

• Eat cookies, drink coffee and talk to the many awes me librarians!

Suggestions for new Librarians

• Smile – and often!
• Learn something new everyday
• Go to conferences & join groups /committees!
• Meet as many people as you can & network!
• Learn to code!
• Love what you do. Do what you love
• Sit with people you don’t know and talk to them, don’t play/use your phone
• Meet faculty – they think you’re smarter than you think they do!
  Try to get involved even at a basic level. It helps you meet folks at other libraries and learn new things.
  Be a good co-worker! Teamwork is essential to success.
• Get out from behind your desk & into the classroom/lab/President’s office at your institution!
  Be enthusiastic about teaching!
• Don’t hesitate to speak-up. New ideas are welcome!
• What Buildings lie between the pathway that students use to get to
  take note of real time current treads (sic) of discussion
• Make the “3C’s” your go-to words: Collaborate, collaborate, collaborate!

Looking at ALAO in 2020

• More virtual content
• Hands on programs (preservation?)
• OHIO ACAD LIBRNS are the best! Reach out to your statewide peers anytime you have a Q!
• More cat videos (Upvote!)
• Wear comfy shoes!
• More about distance ed librarianship
• More sessions w/ideas for small schools w/small staff & budgets [Betsy’s note: this was marked with yes! and this!]
• New formats, new resources, new questions, new problems!
• Mentoring program
• Have presentations online in one place
• Streamlined Discovery & Smart Search
• We’ll have our own maker workshop
• Streaming sessions for those who can’t physically attend [Betsy’s note: this was marked with +1 and I agree!]
• Create writing & research groups