ALAO Newsletter

Brian Hickam, Benedictine University

My time as President of the Academic Library Association of Ohio is coming to an end this summer. At the executive board’s annual retreat I’ll welcome Sue Polanka as our new President and transition into Past-president, a position which entails work on various committees, including chairing the Nominating Committee. More on that below. I have met many of you over the years and others at November’s Annual Conference in Toledo. Thank you for helping to make ALAO a very viable and enjoyable association. As you know, ALAO has been in the process of applying for recognition as a not-for-profit since the dissolution of the Ohio College Association. The Internal Revenue Service confirmed the receipt of ALAO’s application on March 16th. Since their estimated response time is ninety days, we should receive news in June.

The LOEX conference that took place May 3-5 in Columbus was an impressive event. Betsy Blankenship (who is President-elect of ALAO) did a fantastic job as a member of the LOEX Planning Committee. Thanks to her invitation, the ALAO Board voted to sponsor the conference in the amount of $500. This allowed ALAO to include a promotional flyer in each attendee’s packet. It was in color and looked great. An ALAO brochure was available at the registration table and was picked up by many. Katie Gibson and Peggy Rector deserve a big pat on the back for a job well done. Brad Sietz, Director, LOEX Clearinghouse, mentioned ALAO’s sponsorship during the “First-time attendees” session, which was attended by approximately 130 people. 425 people from 42 states and two Canadian provinces attended LOEX’s 40th national conference. The 2013 event will take place May 2-4 in Nashville. The next national conference to hit Columbus will be the 2012 LITA National Forum on October 3-7. The theme is: “New World of Data: Discover. Connect. Remix.”

ALAO supported two representatives, Alison Ricker and Stephanie Bange, at the National Library Legislative Day. According to American Libraries magazine, “More than 350 librarians and library supporters from across the country converged on Washington, D.C., from April 23–24, to meet with members of Congress to discuss key library issues during ALA’s 38th annual National Library Legislative Day. The event focused on supporting federal funding for the nation’s libraries.” National Library Legislative Day 2013 will be held May 6 & 7 at the Liaison Hotel in Washington, D.C.: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/advleg/nlld

I had a nice phone conversation with Michael Bradshaw, OLSSI Chair Emeritus and OLSSI Vice-Chair of Programming, on Friday, April 6th. They are very supportive of establishing a liaison relationship with ALAO. Kathryn Venditti, Interest Group Coordinator, will continue the negotiations. This relationship will assist ALAO in addressing the needs and interests of support staff while our Support Staff Interest Group is on hiatus. Melanie Blau-McDonald, Director of SWON (which acts as Fiscal Agent for ALAO), is working with the Schwartz Manes Ruby & Slovin law firm to compose a new contract between ALAO and SWON. Board Members will be given opportunities to review it and offer comments and suggestions. Ideally, a final version will be voted on at the retreat. The Task Force to Investigate Organizational Web Content, Policies and Workflow will continue its work this summer and present recommendations at the July 16-17 Board Retreat at Deer Creek State Park Lodge & Conference Center.

In recent years ALAO has been successful at bringing several new voices into our executive board. I would like for this trend to continue. Please consider running for a position as Board member-At-Large, Membership Chair, Treasurer, Secretary, President-elect, Public Relations Coordinator, or an Interest Group Chair. Some of these positions will become available this year; others next year. Please also give thought to an appointment as Webmaster, Communications Editor, or member of the ALAO Government Relations Team. If you have any questions or comments before the invitations go out later this year, please feel free to contact me at brianhickam@yahoo.com. I had a wonderful experience learning how to help plan a large regional conference. One result of my service to ALAO has been an invitation to serve on the planning committee for the 2013 LITA National Forum. ALAO is a great association to work with and can lead to career-building opportunities.

Sue Polanka, Wright State University

The 2012 ALAO Conference planning is going very well thanks to a very active committee. The conference will be held on Friday, October 26, 2012 at the Roberts Centre in Wilmington, Ohio. Our theme is Impact Factor, the Value of Academic Libraries. Lisa Hinchliffe, former ACRL President and coordinator for information literacy services at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will deliver the keynote address. Lisa is co-chair of ACRL’s Value of Academic Libraries Committee. We hope to offer two preconferences on Thursday, October 25th as well. Details will be forthcoming this summer along with conference registration.
The 2012 ALAO Board Retreat will be held on July 16-17th at the Deer Creek State Park.

Former ALAO President-Elect Erica Lilly passed away on May 22. Erica was most recently Head of the Chemistry/Physics Library at Kent State University and had worked previously in positions at Kent State and Miami. Erica had published in Electronic Library, Reference and User Services Quarterly, and Reference Librarian. She is survived by a husband (North) and daughter (Rowan). The family asks In lieu of flowers, donations may be made to a charitable organization of your choice. For Erica’s full obituary, see The Akron Beacon Journal.

Alison Ricker, Oberlin College

Two ALAO representatives, Alison Ricker and Stephanie Bange, joined the Ohio contingent at ALA’s National Library Legislative Day (NLLD) this year. We thank ALAO for supporting each of us with a Legislative Advocate Travel Award.

The Ohio group included 11 individuals representing school, public, and academic libraries, plus INFOhio and the State Library, and a wide distribution around the state. Over 350 participants took part from around the nation. William Morris of the State Library served again as state coordinator, preparing an individualized packet of legislative updates for each advocate, scheduling group events and arranging meetings with members of congress and/or their staff.

The ALA Washington Office provided an excellent series of briefings on April 23, with presentations from Molly Raphael, president, ALA; Maureen Sullivan, incoming
president, ALA; Keith Michael Fiels, executive director, ALA; Eva Poole, chair, Committee on Legislation, ALA. We also heard from Emily Sheketoff, executive director, ALA Washington Office, Vic Klatt, partner, PennHill Group; Danica Petroshius, partner, PennHill Group; and Stephanie Vance, Advocacy Associates, followed by a plenary session on the appropriations process. The briefings did not fill us with false optimism about increasing funding for libraries or library related initiatives (or even achieving flat funding in this very divisive legislative session). We were filled with facts and arguments, however, about essential connections between literacy, libraries, and socioeconomic indicators (e.g., increased literacy equaled with decreased crime and increased rates of employment). Supporting the Library Services Technology Act (LSTA) was a primary talking point throughout the day.

We also heard presentations on e-books and access issues, privacy concerns, school libraries, Telecom and copyright, open access to federally funded research results (Federal Research Publications and Policy Act, or FRPPA), and support for the Government Publications Office. Find all of these issues well-documented at the ALA Washington Office website: http://www.ala.org/offices/wo.

Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island was feted for his work as a library champion, with an honorary membership in ALA and words of gratitude from Molly Raphael. She noted that Reed had sponsored every major piece of library legislation as a Rhode Island member of the U.S. House of Representatives and as a U.S. Senator for the past 22 years. As member of the Appropriations Committee, Reed overcame efforts to zero out library funding and delivered $28.6 million in competitive grants for school libraries and literacy programs in the 2012 Appropriations law.

April 24 was devoted to visits on Capitol Hill, preceded by a strategizing breakfast meeting for Ohio advocates. Many of us met with Marjorie Glick in Senator Brown’s office and then went in small groups or individually to speak with members or aides in thirteen different offices, including Senator Portman’s.

NLLD 2013 is scheduled for May 6-7. Plan now to be a part of this event. ALAO has wisely budgeted travel support for legislative advocates for many years; representing the concerns of academic libraries and scholarly communication issues will continue to be of great concern in the Congress of 2013.

Distance Learning Interest Group
Kathleen Pickens-French, Miami University Hamilton

ALAO’s Distance Learning Interest Group (DLIG) Spring Workshop, “INOV8: Strategies & Models for Distance Library Services”, was held on May 11th at Miami University’s Voice of America Learning Center in West Chester, Ohio. The workshop boasted 44 attendees representing a variety of institutions from across the state of Ohio. Our 2012 DLIG Visionary, Ken Burhanna, kicked off the day with “A Strategic Action Plan for Distance Learning Support”. He was followed by an engaging session on Quality Matters that was led by Janet Hurn, the Interim Director of E-Learning for Miami University Regionals. During lunch, many attendees joined Miami University Middletown’s Beth Tumbleson in taking advantage of the sunshine by stretching their legs on an optional nature walk through the adjoining park. After returning from the short hike, attendees settled in for the concluding Best Practices session, facilitated by Jessie Long (Miami University Middletown) and led by panelists Lauren Wahman (University of Cincinnati Blue Ash), Rob Snyder (Bowling Green State University), Rob Zai (Northern Kentucky University), and Ken Burhanna (Kent State University). The collaborative character of the workshop led to the creation of a starter “Best Practices” list, viewable from the DLIG blog at http://distancelibrarians.wordpress.com.

Diversity Committee
Diane Kolosionek, Cleveland State University

Diversity Scholarship Award
The ALAO Diversity Committee is pleased to award the 2012-2013 Diversity Scholarship to Carissa Thatcher. Carissa is a student in the Master of Library and Information Science program at Kent State University. She earned a Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Franklin University. Carissa is the Learning Resources Center Manager for the South Campus of Southern State Community College. She previously managed Southern State’s Fayette Campus Learning Resources Center. The ALAO Diversity Scholarship awards Carissa $1,500 towards her tuition, free registration for the ALAO annual conference in October, and a year of mentoring by an ALAO member.

The Committee appreciated the quality of this year’s scholarship applicants, but Carissa’s demonstrated commitment to diversity and her collection development work at Southern State Community College were especially impressive. In her application, Carissa described how she took the initiative in her position as Learning Resources Center Manager to acquire materials on different countries, cultures, religions, governments, and sexual orientations and to promote these materials to the campus community. Now she is developing an African-American section of the Appalachian collection. Carissa stated that “African-Americans played a significant role in Appalachian culture and our collection does nothing to celebrate that fact. Hopefully, this section will be the start of a rich collection that is devoted to the world of diversity.”

Congratulations to Carissa! The Committee is confident that she will be a strong leader and advocate for diversity and inclusion in libraries.

Instruction Interest Group
Lauren Wahman, University of Cincinnati, Blue Ash College

Spring Workshop
The Instruction Interest Group’s (IIG) spring workshop, Energizing Library Instruction: Pedagogical Voodoo to Animate Classroom Zombies, took place on Monday, June 4 at Ashland University.

John Burke and Beth Tumbleson from Miami University Middletown presented Inside Job: Embedding Librarianship in the LMS, an informative and thoughtful presentation that provided workshop attendees with encouragement and great ideas to take back to their home institutions.

Sara Klink and Mary Beth Messner from Stark State College presented Check Your Librarian’s ID: Instructional Design Basics for Library Instruction. Their project clearly demonstrated how collaboration with colleagues can produce some amazing modules that will definitely enhance student learning.

From The Ohio State University, Anne Field and Brian Leaf’s presentation Active Learning on the Go: Digital Storytelling Using Mobile Devices gave workshop attendees the opportunity to engage and participate in the topic while learning from each other.
Overall, we had a great turnout (approximately 50 attendees) and great presentations! We also announced the debut of the IIG Blog, which can be found here: http://alaoinstructionig.wordpress.com/

New IIG Co-Chair, 2012-2013
We are happy to announce that Katie Foran-Mulcahy, University of Cincinnati, Clermont College, will be our new co-chair starting July 2012. Kathryn Venditti, current senior co-chair, has completed her appointment and will now be the Interest Group Coordinator.

Research and Publications Committee
Mark Eddy, Case Western Reserve University

The RPC is very pleased to announce awards for the 2012 research grant program. We are delighted to provide research support for our four recipients and wish to extend hearty congratulations to each of them! Our award winners are,

Ann Marie Smeraldi (Cleveland State University) – $200
Project Title: Conducting a Usability Study to Uncover the Best Way to Teach Discovery Tool Searching

Stacy Brinkman (Miami University) – $250
Project Title: Next-Generation Collection Management: Using Augmented Reality Mobile Applications to Automate Shelf Reading and Inventory Control

Maureen Barry (Wright State University) – $350
Project Title: What is the subject librarian’s role in a service-learning course?

Jacqueline Johnson (Miami University) – $200
Project Title: Cephas Burns: Bridges of Hope

Our committee was thrilled this year to receive an unprecedented number of proposals (nine in all!), each of which represents important contributions to library and information science research. The RPC would like to sincerely thank each of our applicants for their participation in the grant program, and we look forward to hearing more about their exciting research projects!

TEDSIG
Elías Tzoc, Miami University

On Friday, May 11th 2012, the Technical, Electronic, and Digital Services Interest Group (TEDSIG) hosted its Spring Workshop at OhioNET. The workshop was on “Technical & Cataloging Skills” and was attended by 31 librarians in total.
The first presentation “From Cataloger to Metadata-er, training library staff for today’s projects” by Diane Kajganich, Jacob Koehler, and Catalina Oyler. The presenters talked about professional development activities at the Five Colleges of Ohio to help technical/cataloging staff adapt to new technology and digital projects. They offered the perspective of librarians coordinating development efforts as well as from a library staff member who took part in the training for two recent projects at the Five Colleges, the Next Generation Library grant, which created over 30 digital collections, and the adoption of Summon discovery service.
The second session “From Microfilm to Digital Images: The National Digital Newspaper Program” by Jenni Salamon and Phil Sager. Jenni talked about the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) and the Ohio’s contribution to the project. Phil discussed the nuts and bolts of the training, workflow, technical specifications and metadata requirements that transform microfilmed newspaper pages into dynamic digital objects available on the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America and Ohio Memory -a CONTENTdm-hosted digital library.
The third session “Batch Cataloging: Improving Access to Your Collection” by Roman S. Panchyshyn. Roman began talking about the primary causes of the shift in batch loading MARC records into the local catalog at Kent State, main reasons included the increasing number of electronic resources purchased locally with available MARC records packages and the need for redeployment of systems staff for other projects. He also talked about the training they did for technical services staff in learning new skills such as batch processing software and scripting language. Last, he shared a checklist process that they developed, which provides the library with a consistent framework for managing individual batch cataloging projects.

The presentations files are available at:
http://www.alaoweb.org/Default.aspx?pageId=776286

TEDSIG is also pleased to announce that our incoming co-chair for 2012-2014 for TEDSIG will be Sharon Purtee, from the University of Cincinnati Health Science Library.

Bowling Green State University

Joshua Vossler is the new Coordinator of Library Instruction in the Library Teaching and Learning Department of the University Libraries. Joshua comes to BGSU from Costal Carolina University where, as the Information Literacy/Reference Librarian, he developed and coordinated a one-credit information literacy lab course; served as project manager for a series of instructional videos; acted as coordinator of student learning outcomes; and worked in collaboration to design and implement information literacy curricula and assessment measures. In addition, Joshua has held positions at the University of Texas Arlington, University of North Dakota, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Dakota State University.

Colleen Boff has been appointed to the position of Associate Dean effective July 1, 2012. In her new position as Associate Dean, Colleen will supervise the NW Ohio Regional Book Depository Supervisor and Library Information and Technology Services; coordinate the UL Department Chairs in the absence of the Dean; coordinate the assessment of library operations and services; collaborate with campus constituents to develop and enhance programs and services for students, faculty, and the community; assist with developing, implementing, and assessing the annual and strategic planning initiatives as well as policies and plans that support the research and curricular needs of the University community; plan and oversee UL capital improvements and other operations-related projects; and other duties as appropriate.

Kent State University

The School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at Kent State University announces the appointment of Tomas A. Lipinski, J.D., LL.M., Ph.D., as its new director. Lipinski will join the department in January 2013 to replace Richard Rubin, Ph.D., who left in 2010 to become Kent State’s associate provost for extended education.

Lakeland Community College Library

Emily Szymanski has been hired as a full-time reference librarian at Lakeland Community College Library. Emily is coming to Lakeland from the Eshleman Library at Henry Ford Community College in Dearborn, MI.

Northeast Ohio Medical University

Heather McEwen presented two papers at the Medical Library Association meeting in May. She presented “Theory and Practice à la Yogi Berra: The Interprofessional Education of Medical and Pharmacy Students in Evidence Based Medicine” with Michelle Cudnik, Lisa Weiss, Rienne Johnson, and Beth Layton. She also presented “The Research Ironman: Collaboration, Outreach, and Evidence Based Mental Health” with Rienne Johnson and Beth Layton.

Ohio Library Support Staff Institute

OLSSI will be holding its 11th annual conference July 22 – 24 at Wright State University.
The same price for 11 straight years: $225.00
A complete list of classes and the registration form can be found at:
http://www.olssi.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=97&Itemid=55

Shawnee State University

Connie Salyers Stoner, the director of Clark Memorial Library, retired at the end of April. Having previously worked as a librarian at both Antioch and Urbana, Connie joined the SSU staff as a reference librarian in 1988, served as Associate Director from 1990 – 2008, and assumed the position of director in 2008. Connie may well be best remembered for her interest in politics; she participated in and organized many activities for Shawnee State’s Women’s Center, the local and Ohio League of Women Voters (State Board of Directors), ALA’s Legislative Day, and the Law and Political Science Section of ACRL (Chair).

University of Toledo

In January, Bridget Faricy-Beredo, RN, MLIS, became the Clinical Medical Librarian at the Mulford Health Science Library at the University of Toledo. Previously, she worked as an information literacy lecturer at the Carlson Library at UT, Beaumont Hospitals of Michigan, and other academic libraries. Having a background in nursing and experience with direct patient care, Bridget hopes to pilot projects to engage medical students on the units as well as in the traditional classroom and library settings.

Bridget Faricy is the winner of the 2012 ALAO Continuing Education Grant. This grant is awarded is awarded each year to support the cost of participating in professional development opportunities.

Wright State University

In May, Maureen Barry was awarded Wright State University’s Staff Award for Excellence in Service-Learning and Civic Engagement.