Another conference come and gone

While our friends and colleagues from across the state have left Geneseo and the activities of SUNYLA 2006, there is still much to do back in Geneseo as we wrap up what appears to have been a very successful event. The Conference Planning Committee, Local Arrangements Committee, and the entire staff at Milne Library thank you for all of your positive comments and helpful suggestions. Keep them coming on our online evaluation form. We also thank you for your participation in this year's conference, because without you, there would be no conference.

Although Sue Ann and I have introduced you all to our individual planning committees and other essential helping hands, I would like to mention those names again so that you are well aware of the amount of effort that goes into implementing this annual event. I encourage you to consider an active role in SUNYLA, whether that be helping to plan next year's conference, a position on the SUNYLA Executive Council, or serving as a general cheerleader and advocate for our organization and our profession. This is your SUNYLA! Keep it strong. Keep it active.

Conference Planning Committee Members

Kim Davies (Geneseo), Second Vice-President & Conference Chair
Sue Ann Brainard (Geneseo), Local Arrangements Chair
Dawn Eckenrode (Fredonia), Library School Liaison & Web Site
Debby Emerson (RRLC), Keynote Speaker Coordinator
Lisa Forrest (Buffalo State), Library School Liaison
Cindy Francis (Genesee CC), Poster Sessions & Presentations
Jeanne Galbraith (Stony Brook HSC), Conference Program
Alice Harrington (Monroe CC), Pre-Conference Workshops
Colleen Kenefick (Stony Brook HSC), Conference Program
Nicki Lerczak (Genesee CC), Poster Sessions
Kate Pitcher (Geneseo), Web Site
Violet Price (Downstate HSC ), Past Conference Chair
Charlene Rezabek (Monroe CC), Session Moderators
Anita Whitehead (Genesee CC), Presentations

Local Arrangements Committee Members

Sue Ann Brainard, Local Arrangements Chair
Barbara Clarke, Coordination of flowers, assisted with door prizes
Joan Cottone, Coordination of door prizes
Kim Davies, Second Vice-President & Conference Chair
Nancy Greco, Organized the Wednesday night membership event and dinner/entertainment at the Glen Iris, arranged for art display "A Celebration of the Oak"
Donna Hanna, Registration database and overall registration process
Coleen Hopkins, Coordination of door prizes, organized tours to the Abbey
Melissa Jadlos, Coordination of library vendors
Sonja Landes, Organized the string quartet at Glen Iris, assisted with food coordination
Kate Pitcher, Designed and maintained conference web site, coordination of classroom details
Harriet Sleggs, Scheduled and trained staff for Registration Desk procedures
Bonnie Swoger, Coordination of classroom details and technology

In addition to the outstanding work accomplished by the above individuals, they were always on hand to help out with any small tasks that needed to be completed. Sue Ann and I are also blessed with an amazing staff (and of course our wonderful students!) at Milne Library, who, even if they did not officially join a committee, worked tirelessly to make this conference a success. And then there's Ed Rivenburgh, our Library Director who could not be more supportive of our efforts, on huge projects such as this conference and on smaller triumphs that we accomplish in the library, on campus, and in the region. Additional thanks go to President Chris Dahl, Dean of the College Susan Bailey, Coordinator of Campus Scheduling and Events Andrea Klein, our amazing keynote speaker Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan (I can spell his name; I just have trouble pronouncing it in large public forums! :-) ), Professors Becky Glass, Tom Greenfield, Gregg Hartvigsen, the entire staff of Campus Auxiliary Services, but in particular Sue Mallaber, Technology Specialist Joe Dolce . . . the list goes on and on . . .

I hope that, by this point in my post, you can see that hosting the Annual SUNYLA Conference is no small feat and that each new Conference Chair needs your assistance. Please help us continue to make this a great organization with an extremely beneficial, informative, and always very entertaining annual conference.

More final details on SUNYLA 2006 to come . . .

Remembering Dan Kissane

I'm sure all of us who knew Dan, even in passing, have stories to share. Dan was certainly someone who, once you met, you would never forget. As Alice Harrington mentioned in her very poignant address at Thursday's luncheon, I also remember meeting Dan at my very first SUNYLA Conference (at Adirondack Community College), and yes indeed, he was wearing one of those mesh football jerseys, cut half-way from the bottom (I think it was purple). I also thought, "this guy is a librarian????" Without a doubt, he changed my opinion of what a librarian "would/should" look like. But as a newcomer to SUNYLA, my friend and colleague, Heather Munger, and I felt very out of place at the conference . . . until we met Dan, of course. What was a casual meeting at one of Lake George's local watering holes (after a wonderful dinner and boatride on the Minne-ha-ha) between Heather, myself, Dan, and Mark Smith has become a long lasting bond. Heather is no longer in SUNY, and of course, sadly, we know that Dan is no longer with us. But the memories of that very first conference and the fact of being welcomed so warmly to SUNYLA by Dan Kissane have made a huge impression on my time as a librarian and my tenure within SUNYLA.

Through the years, I got to know Dan more, through conferences, discussions on the SUNYLA list, a professional visit to Oneonta (Jeff Liles and I presented a workshop to the librarians of SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College), and strangely enough, a coincidental Louisiana connection. He used to date a former University of New Orleans librarian, who I have met a few times after working a short stint in New Orleans. Dan came to refer to me as "Kimmy" (a distinction I have allowed to only a few! :-) ) and I began calling him "Danny." I think he once signed an e-mail as "Danny" and it stuck. I remember hearing from Dan just a week or two before his fateful basketball game, and it is still hard for me to grasp that we will never be able to enjoy his company at our annual SUNYLA conferences.

DSpace w/Jenica Rogers

Jenica's presentation is available at www2.potsdam.edu/rogersjp/SUNYLA06

DSpace is open-source software used to build your online repository
Here are issues:
Open access
Preservation
ownership
Reputation
Repositories are addressing ownership/access issues
Repositories are searchable
Repositories allow reduced access time

Why would we want an institutional repository?
we want online content!
we have unique collections
Our users want to access, use, and retrieve online

What will you put into an institutional repository?
faculty scholarship --> don't have enough? You probably do!
collaborative work between faculty and students
Electronic portfolios --> both students and faculty
Our library collections, both administrative as well as public
Unique campus resources

SUNY Potsdam has some great projects in the works -- faculty research, student theses, Crane School of Music recordings

OLIS is providing DSpace for SUNY libraries

Checklist at DSpace to Build an Institutional Repository

1. Need to ask "why do I want an institutional repository?"
2. Write a mission statement
3. Tackle copyright issues (do you want a copyright statement? a campus copyright statement? should you ask the authors involved for permission? who will educate your faculty about copyright?)
4. What will your information architecture consist of? then, work with OLIS to set it up
5. Load your first collection
6. What will the process be like? One administrator, multiple people submitting content?
7. What metadata will I use? DSpace uses Dublin Core with qualifiers
8. Outreach--> education will be key to get people to your institutional repository; outreach to faculty on campus --> check out Dorothea Salo's blog post, Marketing an IR
9. Evaluate the process and the collection.

Question about statistics --> can OLIS provide statistics --not for each institution, but perhaps SUNY-wide.
Mary Beth Bell asked whether access is limited to just SUNY students or just campus?
Jenica answered that they are searchable (metadata), but not accessible outside SUNY. Choice each institution gets to make on their own.
Carey mentioned that, beginning in 2007, a clause will be added to the copyright release form for PhD dissertations to allow for Open Access copies.

info literacy & web 2.0

Session KK
Teaching Info Lit with Web 2.0
w/Ken Fujiuchi

Ken commented on the need for librarians to worry about what we are using the tools for, not to worry about the creation of these tools (leave these to the developers who design them)
Characteristics of Web 2.0
--web as a platform
--a social participatory tool; collaborative and designed for contribution
Amazon: good example of Web 2.0
--organized & categorized but not in the cataloging sense --> tagging for browsing

Some common tools
blogs
wikis
RSS
Folksonomies (del.icio.us, Flickr)
social software (MySpace, Facebook)
web-based applications (Writely, iRows)

Blogs
Key point: content first!
You can create a social atmosphere and market your library to people who normally wouldn't go to a library site. Become an access point.
Ken's blog

Wikis
The ideal wiki includes collaborative content creation, with minimal need learning lots of code -- again, the content is most important!
Students can edit content, too!

RSS
Is an open XML format and gives you quick access to content -- here at Geneseo we use RSS to distribute the new books list generated from ALEPH. RSS is confusing to explain, but once you get the concept, it has a lot of potential for eliminating the need for Current Awareness Services.

Folksonomy aka Tagging
Can be simple to use and encourages students to catalog content, albeit with their own keywords and terms.

Social Software
"Identity to identity" interaction -- our students' social space online. Don't post bibliographies! But students appreciate advice! Ken shows us his profile on Facebook -- privacy can be an issue, use a cartoon or an avatar as your public face

Web-based applications
Usually free or low cost. Access is available anytime, anywhere. But -- Keep It Simply Simple (KISS)!

Academic Library 2.0 Concept Model

Library Camp 2006 --> opportunity to get together and talk about Library 2.0
Ken showed everyone the blog -- yay!! Most people didn't know about it :(

Great session -- Ken needed more time!

dateline: a new journalism program at Stony Brook

Aimee deChambeau's presentation on devising an information literacy component to a journalism program at Stony Brook:
Aimee defined some opportunities to promote info literacy
-- SCLD's initiatives to promote info lit competencies across the curriculum
-- survey of the literature
-- journalism program needed a lot of resources, since it was getting started right from the beginning

Some observations:
-- consult with the faculty of the department, in this case journalists and journalism faculty
-- very busy!
--become visible, go to department meetings
--Project Sails --> Kent State's assessment tool for info literacy programs

Team teaching research modules for the journalism program:
-- collaborate with faculty
--look at ACRL standards
-- lecture and lab
5 modules --> bio info, demographic info, legal & court info, business info, school districts & related local info
--midterm related to the research component of the journalism class
--BlackBoard was used --> handouts from librarian and postings by students (chat room or discussion board part)

Develop info lit curriculum for the skills classes which precede this one:
--pursue integration of skills into more classes
--create tutorials w/Camtasia
--develop stand-alone research modules which instructors can use

Collaboration is key! This was evident by Aimee's presentation -- a lot of what was done was a collaborative effort between interested faculty and the librarian(s). A second key point was the idea of integrating the information literacy into the curriculum of the department, not just standalone, one-shot, 50 minute session, once a semester.

Collection development policies need to be written to justify money for the new collection; work with the department faculty to create a core list

Media literacy programs (or, News Literacy) programs in Higher Education --> what is going on nationally? Should information & news literacy be merged in this way?

This all requires time and attention (much like farming organically)!

wiki session w/ the hawaii crew

Wikimania is here -- with the SUNYLA Tech Wiki and the session currently running on wikis by librarians from New Paltz, another one tomorrow w/Ken and a Library 2.0 poster session, wikis are high profile this year.
Some ideas to consider:
using a wiki farm
Features to consider:
ability to post via email
having a page history or recent page changes
RSS feeds or email notification
editing of the wiki w/html tags vs. WYSIWYG
Colleen makes a technical recommendation: experiment w/one or two wiki farms to see what you like.
Stephan gives us some feedback:
some librarians didn't see the need for a wiki -- some people didn't want to play
too much to do --> users forgot to login
ads on some of the pages
in the free version of the wiki software, you can't play with the template
taxonomies and folksonomies problematic --> some librarians want controlled vocabulary
quirky html
make student assistants part of the wiki
need a "wiki gardener"

(Seems like the potential for RSS is there, but not being used -- why use mass emails when you can create one RSS and people get notified automatically when they check their feeds? )

Lessons:
good collaborative tool
hosting in a secure environment a must
cleaner reference desk? not necessarily!

Bill asks an interesting question about a SUNY-wide wiki -- do we want that?
Darren Chase mentioned MediaWiki and TWiki being used at Stony Brook HSC -- they are housed on their servers, you can have more control locally and no ads
Stony Brook using their wiki as a staff intranet

Some other examples of wikis used in libraries:
Biz Wiki (instructional wiki used by Chad Boeninger at Ohio University Libraries)

Final Version: A Resolution in Support of Equity

The following resolution was passed unanimously at the SUNYLA Executive Board and Council Meeting yesterday.

SUNYLA Ad Hoc Equity Committee
A Resolution in Support of Equity
June 14, 2006

Whereas, SUNY librarians achieved faculty status over forty years ago with the support of SUNY library directors, the SUNY Faculty Senate, and the SUNY Board of Trustees;

Whereas, Such support called for equal treatment as to academic year obligations, equal compensation, and additional remuneration for service beyond the academic year;

Whereas, Such faculty status still does not include contract year obligations equal to
those of classroom faculty, regardless of similarities in appointment, service, scholarship, promotion, and review; and

Whereas, Such faculty status still does not include equal rates of compensation, with
individual discrepancies in the many thousands of dollars; now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the State University of New York Librarians Association declares equality to be its goal, including equal contract year obligations, equal compensation, and the option of equal professorial titles; and be it further

Resolved, That the State University of New York Librarians Association accepts the arguments, facts and points of action detailed in the report Equity:A Call to Action; and be it further

Resolved, That the Secretary ofthe State University of New York Librarians Association be, and hereby is,directed to forward this Resolution and the report Equity: A Call to Action to Chancellor Ryan, UUPPresident Dr. William Scheuerman, and any and all other interested parties; andbe it further

Resolved, That the StateUniversity of New York Librarians Association requests that Chancellor Ryanreview and respond to the report Equity:A Call to Action and on SUNY’s treatment of its librarians and on the academic standing and relative worth of SUNY librarians; and be it further

Resolved, That the State University of New York Librarians Association declares its intention to work with Chancellor Ryan and with the leadership and negotiators of United University Professions for redress; and be it further

Resolved, That the State University of New York Librarians Association declares that it will remain actively engaged in these matters.

Technorati Tags:SUNYLA

Executive Board and Council Meeting

The executive board and council met from 4:15 PM to 6 PM today, Wednesday June 14,2006.
All reports have been sent out via the SUNYLA Council list and will be available on the web site sometime after the conference. Perhaps the most important item was the Ad Hoc Equity Committee report and resolution. The final resolution will be posted as soon as it is available. It was passed unanimously. Contact Ronald Foster [ronald.foster@SUNYIT.EDU] for a copy of the report.

Bill Drew
drewwe@morrisville.edu

Technorati Tag:SUNYLA

SUNYLA New Tech Wiki

The SUNYLA New Tech Wiki: http://sunylanewtechwiki.pbwiki.com/

This wiki is a place for all SUNY libraries to look to see how their colleagues in SUNY are using blogs, RSS, Instant Messaging, and other technologies to enhance their interaction with their patrons. The list would be a place to learn the following:

• Which libraries are using these new tools to enhance their interaction with their patrons.
• How are they using these technologies.
• What are the latest new technologies and how may they apply to my library.

We welcome all SUNY librarians using these technologies to add/edit their entries with feedback on how well the technology works for them, what problems were encountered and what solutions (if any) were able to overcome problems.

This wiki would be a great resource for any SUNY libraries who have not yet used any of these newer tools, or those who would like to see some examples of how it is done, how it is working before they take the plunge into blogging, rss, etc.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The password to edit the blog will be published on various SUNYLA lists.

If you need assistance, contact:

· Peter Barvoets : barvoepd@cobleskill.edu

· Bill Drew: drewwe@morrisville.edu

A project of the

Technorati Tags: SUNY SUNYLA

powered by performancing firefox

Welcome to the conference and to the blog

Most of you know me by now if not in person already. I am the current president of SUNYLA. I volunteered to post on the blog and hope to do so frequently. Say hello and enjoy the conference.

Technorati Tag:SUNYLA

Final Conference Program

The final conference program is almost ready for the printer! Sue Ann and Kim are feverishly putting the final touches together. A .pdf file of the latest revision is available, with room assignments for Conference sessions, Vendor Showcase events, parking information and more!