Steve's report on ACRL 2015

Available from https://liaisonlife.wordpress.com/2015/04/09/acrl2015/. --sc

Representing World War I: Perspectives at the Centenary

On October 30, 2014, Kathelene Smith, Jennifer Motszko, and I traveled to Toronto to present at an international conference on the centenary of World War One.  Upon our arrival at our downtown hotel, we were met with cool fall temperatures, overcast skies, and Canadians wearing red poppies on the lapels of their winter jackets.  It was a somber sight.  But, it was also a striking reminder of how Canada and the other member states of the Commonwealth of Nations commemorate and mourn the fallen of the “Great War” and subsequent conflicts.  We were struck by this very public and collective act of remembrance.

The three day conference, Representing World War I: Perspectives at the Centenary, was jointly sponsored by Toronto’s International Festival of Authors and the Humber School of Liberal Arts and Sciences.  The conference drew historians, political scientists, literary scholars, and archivists from France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Hungary, Canada, Australia, and the United States.  Presentation topics addressed such issues as: war and national identity, life on the home front, state propaganda, gender and armed conflict, race relations and modern warfare, memorialization and mythmaking, and European colonies and their role in a global war.  With a field of inquiry long dominated by military historians, it was refreshing to see how new research questions and methods have broadened the scholarly discussion of this bloody war.

Each day of the academic conference began with a keynote speaker who pointedly addressed emerging research trends and ongoing scholarly debates.  These opening sessions sparked a great deal of discussion amongst attendees.  The first keynote speaker, Dr. Michael S. Neiberg, challenged the way scholars have explained and taught the causes for the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1914.  Neiberg argued that the scholarly focus on a small number of decision-making elites is terribly misplaced.  While acknowledging the influence of military alliances and critical political decisions, Neiberg provocatively suggested that most Europeans did not blindly follow their leaders nor did they desire war.  The keynote speaker for the second day, Dr. David Stevenson, addressed the origins of World War One through the lens of a prewar arms race and a breakdown of international diplomacy.  Additionally, Stevenson explored the “war aims” of each of the combatant countries.  Through this study of war aims and their impact on the postwar settlement, Stevenson sought to draw connections to the outbreak of World War Two, and the development of the Cold War, as well as the current military tensions in Europe.

Drawing on the rich holdings in Special Collections and University Archives at UNCG, Kathelene Smith, Jennifer Motszko, and I assembled a panel on American women and propaganda during World War One.  We were the sole panel that was made up exclusively of archivists.  In her talk entitled “We Need You: Portrayals of Women in World War I American Red Cross Posters,” Jennifer discussed how women were being actively recruited for service with the Red Cross.  Through an examination of the visual imagery in wartime Red Cross posters, Jennifer argued that the posters themselves reflected the changing position of women in society, from supplicant to participant.   

In the presentation entitled “Every Girl Pulling for Victory: Sacrifice and Social Consciousness during the Great War,” Kathelene examined the ways students and faculty at the State Normal (now UNCG)  responded to the American declaration of war and the mobilization of the home front.  Students took an active role in buying liberty bonds, sewing socks, preserving food, and meeting a labor shortage.  Additionally, Kathelene discussed how the experience of the war energized and rallied students around the issue of suffrage, a natural consequence of the war effort. 

My presentation was based on the large World War One pamphlet collection that resides in Special Collections and University Archives.  Specifically, I was very interested in how American propaganda mobilized women to assist in the cultivation and preservation of food.  The title of my presentation was “’Doing Their Bit’: Food, Propaganda, and the Mobilization of the American Home Front.”   I explored how gender specific representations of “patriotism” and “duty” were used to mobilize women in the private and public spheres that constituted the home front.  I looked at pamphlets that promoted the cultivation of “war gardens,” the preserving of food, and the adoption of new recipes to address wartime shortages of wheat and meat.  I also looked at the state’s efforts to recruit women for commercial agricultural work through the Woman’s Land Army. 

Our session was well attended.  There was a lengthy question and answer session.  Audience members were very interested in how race and class may have impacted American propaganda efforts on both the national level and local level. 

As we were preparing to return to North Carolina, I was listening to a news commentator discuss the upcoming Remembrance Day activities in Canada.  While noting the centenary of the outbreak of World War One, he declared that this year’s commemoration (and the wearing of a poppy) took on extra meaning due to a recent terrorist attack at Canada’s National War Memorial and to the fact that the nation was beginning airstrikes on the Islamic State in Iraq.

IASSIST Conference

Here are my notes from the IASSIST 2013 data conference in Cologne, Germany if you are interested. Some interesting tools and ideas for data support. My attendance was partly funded by the International Programs Center.

IASSIST and ALA 2012

I attended two conferences in June. IASSIST is the International Association for Social Science Information Services and Technology, a data professionals organization, and you can read about some sessions. I also attended ALA Annual Conference and read a summary if you wish.

ACRL 2011 Summary

Finally getting around to posting my notes from the great ACRL 2011 Confernce in Philadelphia in late March/early April. I was excited to present twice at ACRL this year - Fostering Library as Place for Distance Students: Best Practices from Two Universities by Beth Filar Williams & Heidi Steiner. (Presentation ppt | Summary of session) and Going the Distance: A Closer Look at Uniting with Remote Users by Beth Filar Williams, & Lizah Ismail of Marywood University Library & Angela Whitehurst of East Carolina University(Presentationppt). There was a virtual conference track as well where two of our awesome librarians presented On the Front Lines: New Opportunities for Embedded Librarianship by Jenny Dale & Lynda Kellam - but unfortunately going first, ACRL didn't have their act together for the recording and thus you cant hear their session! View other sessions materials. Here are the key sessions I attended worth sharing:

Value of academic libraries session
Presentation on The Value of Academic Libraries: A Comprehensive Research Review and Report, released in September 2010. By Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, University of Illinois
Mary Ellen Davis, Association of College and Research Libraries
Megan Oakleaf, Syracuse University Meganoakleaf.info

If you cant read it all, just read these sections:

• Checklist in back of report
• Pages 94-10
• Page 20-57

Demo-ing Value:

• Value= use, commodity, competing alternatives, library impact, roi.
• How can we demo our value to others? Key - value of library to overarching institution. With tight budgets everywhere now, need to promote value even more impt otherwise, "why should we give you money?"
• Use is not enough! We need to show outcomes,impacts, benefits, etc.
• Think about the shift from collections to service. Access is important too, but more so how to help the users makes sense of it and use it better. What do libraries do to enable people to do? What do they use the info for?
• Little medical packets at a hotel that say things like: "help, I have a headache" or "help, I have a blister" ...can we apply this to libraries?
• Librarians are very concerned about privacy (which is great but …) and have trouble gathering needed data sometimes. But we have to know who is using our services/resources and for what purpose - if you don’t know what people do or use how can you determine impact? Find ways to gather info.
  

Recommendations-

• Define outcomes. What are your needs of institution and of library and where do they intersect? All librarians feel they contribute to students learning and outcomes but Can you explain why?
• Use existing data. Data audit - what do we have? Gather from campus.
• Develop systems to collect data on behavior but keep privacy.
• Assessment management systems. Do libraries have this in place? Ex: Weave
• Determine how the library contributes to the research agenda on campus.
• Key- share results and needs w/ stakeholders!
• What if you find out it's not valuable? Don’t just dump it... Determine why it's not, tweak it, maybe replace it, rejuvenate it, usability test it, or is it a marketing problem?
  

Also Read this report too “Futures thinking for Academic Librarians: Higher Education in 2025” and check out the Toolkit on using the value of academic libs report

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To the Cloud! Exploring Tools to Enhance Teaching and Learning
Diane Schrecker, Curriculum Librarian, Ashland University Library
Sara Klink, Assistant Director, Stark State College

• Animoto - to create videos, use free video styles, preloaded your pictures, add text, add music.
• QR code generator
  
• Voki.com - Create personalized talking avatars free. Can upload your own backgrounds. Type text and it's generates voice or record your own voice.
• Twitter uses - Use in place of discussion, assess/learn key concepts or questions, use w students to follow current events

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Bibliobouts session
http://bibliobouts.si.umich.edu/ (demo version: demo@bibliobouts.org and password demo)
Karen Markey, Professor, University of Michigan School of Information
Chris Leeder, School of Information University of Michigan

A web-based game that enables game players to gain valuable practice using online library
research tools and library collections while they work on their assignments. Uses zotero. Various rounds by various players. topics chosen by the instructor. First do searches on your own...then see others searches. People donate their searches and players review, rate, tags the given sources.Used in classes or in a class w instructor involved. Librarians can come into the class too.

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Connecting through Course Guides Session
By Jacqui Grallo, Cal State Monterey Bay

• Learner centered teaching
• Teach less, they will learn more
• Instruction vs learning
• Use Course Guides during person sessions.
• Instead of doing it on a whiteboard, use their course guide, and students comment in there, they can see it immediately, and you can review it later.
• Use polls through their course guides too they see immediate feedback and poll results
• Check out: http://todaysmeet.com/ for open source idea instead

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Building Relationships through Embedded Librarianship session
By three librarians from McMaster University

Poll: Which works best for which - Building campus relationships and improving student learning? (conclusion: they all do, various methods combined to reach various students!)

• Embedding into a program- librarian co-creating and co-teaching the curriculum, deeper the embedding the greater the improvement in learning. Participate in organizational actives for both program and library. located in the program facilities, but also they have space in the lib. Discipline specific example: Science literacy - co-teach w science prof 2 hours a week. Students blog formal science writing, others comment. Pros: deep embedding but doesn't have to be full-time. Con: not a large reach.
• Embedding virtually - embed in your LMS using quizzes, discussion forums, pathfinders, learning objects, chat. Course by course level rather than larger community. Pros: reach multiple learning styles, asynchronous reviews, point of need help, anonymity. Cons: not accessible to all (some of their course arent in BB); not as deeply connected w/ students.
• Embedding into Teaching and Learning Support Center - salary paid by the t&l center! Librarian created a digital media literacy course. Outcome based learning. Curricula level mapping of program level learning outcomes. Teaching Metaliteracy - 21st c skills/fluencies. Con: will you T&L pay for a librarian to be w/ them?

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The Unconference (10 min sessions)
Kim Leeder, Boise State U - connecting w teaching faculty

• Be confident. Be bold
• Make the Connection. Get out there. Ask them about themselves
• Reinforce the Connection. Follow up w people. Be multidimensional
• Build the relationship
• Go Collaborate
  
• Be - make - reinforce - build - go

Read more about this session on her recent Blog Post :Collaborating W/ faculty: A 5-Step Program

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Also view the recording or view the slides from the Technology in University Libraries Lightening Round Up session on ACRL conference.

Non Librarian Conferences

This Fall I attended and presented at 2 non-library conferences which I found worthwhile, seeing trends, gathering ideas and connecting with people beyond the library walls.

In October I headed west to Denver, CO for AASHE - the Association of Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. My presentation - No Money, No Travel, No Problem! UNC Focus Forward 2010 - was about the virtual UNC system wide best practices in sustainability conference I helped plan and run last spring. The best part of this conference for me was the greenest of it (of course) - no paper handouts, compost bins by all trash cans, no water bottle (refill stations only), veggie/vegan meals way more than others, all compostable box lunches, etc (read more about the greening here). I enjoyed sessions though some not directly related to libraries:

• Lots of green student run initiatives on campus like park(ing) day where they take over parking spots and make them a park; student led groups to bring campus beyond climate neutral; green RAs; Green Spring Break trip (have fun in Florida but service learning cleaning up and fixing up state park); one student group offers plate rentals for anyone having an event on campus for free!
• Northwest Earth Institute in Portland creates and offers self directed, active learning, community based discussion guides.
• There were some sessions on embedding green messages through campus garden, freshman sustainable read, sustainable play/theater, painted rain barrel contests.
• A bike check out program was cool idea - students get one for 7 days, w/ helmet and lock - on campus where all parking is off campus w/ shuttles encourage pedestrian/biker friendly atmosphere.
• There were presentations on the toxins in art materials in art programs on campus, creating a greener student theaters, a campus ban of "no idling on campus" (cars idling emit so much more CO2 so turn off your car when waiting), and student push to ban bottled water on campus (learn more about the marketing gimmick the water bottle industry wants you to believe) who's blind taste test show people prefer tap vs bottled which is unregulated, often from your own tap and costs $8/gallon vs free!
  
• An interesting panel of administrations of campus discussed how to get your admin on board with a sustainability message from 4 very different campus.
  

In November I traveled to Wilmington, NC for UNC Cause 2010 - an ITS conference for mainly UNC system schools. I presented with Jenny Dale: Going the Distance Without Leaving Your Desk discussing the library's new Elluminate virtual room and the workshops and orientations we hosted online. Being an IT conference, the wireless was great (well except the morning we presented when it was down!), no handouts were given (yea! save a tree!), people had their tech of choice to take notes and engage with the twitter feed and all presentations were online. I tended to go to the social media and instructional technology sessions than the heavy IT sessions:

• Yammer Time - a microblogging platform that is a cross between Facebook and Twitter used at ECU for cross campus collaboration and communication;
• UNC-CH's session on Poll Everywhere, which I have used for a polling groups via twitter, the web or txting, but learned a lot more about its functionally and users needs as they shared their survey of students and faculty (presentation);
  
• Delivering Digital Classroom Content: The Hybrid Theory of Classroom Capture where a panel discussed Mediasite, Podcast Producer with iTunes U, Camtasia Relay, and Podcast Producer for classroom capture possibilities - a lot of discussion was on video recording faculty issues & legalities, and back up & storage issues of large video files but interesting to learn about other possible capture products;
• Video Games as Instructional Tools session discussed using videos for training, education, problem solving, quizzes, staff development, etc. Zach offered the Library Adventure Games files free to use too (created by Scott Rice).
  
• Zaneta Summers of WCU, discussed their new management of multi-format software education for students by students (unconf discussion, no presentation to share). They build a software system to help more efficiently manage services: their students who are there to support other students when they need assistance with various software can now be managed through this system with allows students works to add their available schedule times, testing them on skill level by software and thus can link up student needing help with one who is available and knowledgeable; and these students workers can co-teach with staff and take training themselves to learn better how to teach and how gain skills they are lacking.
• Learning Space Smackdown panel discussed how each of their campus improved and expanded their learning spaces . Some had lots of staff, some utilized student tech help, some went high end, some built their own desks but all offered some ideas in planning learning spaces (hope their presentation will be online soon!)
• Alternative Reality Games (ARGS) on Campus was presented by UNC-CH folks (including librarians) about their spring ShBANGE who's goal was toe help undergrads learn to communicate better in relationships while playing a game with lots of clues and puzzles. Read more about it here.
• I really enjoyed listening and learning from the last presenter Tim Jones from NCSU(sorry but yea many ITS people can be dry when presenting :) Where U At? Location Based Services for Higher Education. Based on Fouraquare and Gowalla, they created their own location based mobile app to personalize the campus tours (get facts and history via phone), collect and share student geo-tagged info (involved the students, then they will get interested), and offer incentives for attendance at events (let students know there is an event nearby). Even their chancellor got involved!