Finding health information online

Ever needed to see an image of an episiotomy? Wanted to learn about different approaches to treating lower back pain? Without using a medical dictionary to look up every other word?

The Consumer Health Complete database has encyclopedia articles, images, videos, and many other easy to understand materials on a wide range of health topics. Off campus access is restricted to current UNCG students, faculty, and staff with active Novell accounts. Consumer Health Complete is featured as the top subscription on the University Libraries' guide Consumer Health Information Online

By the way, if you have non-UNCG friends or family who would like to use Consumer Health Complete from home, just point them to this page on the NCLive site (Consumer Health Complete is the 3d db listed). They can contact their local NC public library for a password :)

Cheers,
Lea

SD Institute webinar on demonstrating value

Thanks to Terry for forwarding notice of this afternoon's webinar We can count 'em...But do they count?

Ulla de Stricker discussed traditional library methods for demonstrating value (how much/how often we provide help/materials) versus making a business case for the library (why do we make these provisions/what impact do they have).

Some of the more interesting slides were text-heavy, but here were a few points that I liked...

Don't just report metrics, tell a story. Investigate the context of information needs

• What is the universe of clients and needs?
• What typical activities are they undertaking?
• At what points and how often do they experience information needs (this can inform services that we should increase/develop)?

If we count attendees at events, do we segment by demographics and follow up to measure impact? We have lots of recent activity on this front in library instruction assessment :)

If we count reference questions, do we measure size/complexity of question, trace questions to dept, requestor, or even project?

For chat questions, do we follow up to ask why they use this medium and whether there are any difficulties in using this or other library services?

de Stricker emphasized the need to p/r (probe/realign) before undertaking traditional PR (public relations). She also listed steps that should accompany p/r such as investigating the market (context of clients and info needs).

The presenter suggested a number of PR activities. Overall she suggested that we "have the stakeholders/clients tell the story of library value" for us, though this requires that we reach out to get then deliver these stories. One example was a permanent "library value track" on the website/wikiyoutube (I believe that we currently have this in the library newsletter :)

The recording of the presentation and the ppt should be on the SirsiDynix Institute website in a week.

Thanks,
Lea

Upcoming campus presentations/workshops by Library Staff

11/10/09
Getting the Word Out: Alternatives to Traditional Scholarly Article Publication
Today's community-engaged researchers have many options for presenting their work to the global community. Tim Bucknall will discuss subject repositories, institutional repositories, Google Scholar, local journal hosting, and other nontraditional ways to present research to a global audience. Sponsored by the Office of Leadership and Service Learning... a brown bag lunch series - bring your lunch, drinks and desert will be provided.
Presenter: Tim Bucknall, Assistant Dean of Electronic Resources and Information Technology, Jackson Library
When: Nov. 10, 12–1 p.m.
Where: Faculty Center
RSVP: alkeith@uncg.edu

11/16/09
Introduction to Creative Commons
The goal of this workshop is to introduce the concept of creative commons, how it relates to copyright, how to use a cc license, and how to find creative commons materials. Creative Commons licenses allow you to use and share materials such as music, pictures, videos, and other examples like the library's info literacy game and FIRST research tutorial. You can check it out on your own here or stop by the workshop and find out more!
Presenters: Lynda Kellam and Beth Filar Williams
When: Nov 16, 3-4pm
Where: CITI Lab/Jackson Library
REGISTER

11/19/09
Educating Yourself in Basic Herbalism: Be Your Own Medicine Man/Woman!
Jackson Library staff member, Stacey Krim, has been using and producing herbal remedies as her primary form of healthcare for about 15 years. With increased health care costs and a growing emphasis on preventative medicine, many consumers are turning to herbal remedies and dietary supplements to meet their health and nutrition needs. Stacey will discuss herbalism basics, varieties of information sources available, and how to educate yourself on finding good information, making intelligent choices when selecting herbal preparations, and using them safely. Sponsored by Staff Senate: Professional and Personal Development Committee
Drinks and Dessert Provided Seating Limited Reservations Required
Presenter: Stacey Krim
Where: Bryan School of Business, Room 416
When: Thursday, November 19, 2009
Time: 12:00 to 12:50 p.m.
REGISTER

Southwest Days Conference in Colorado

I recently attended the Southwest Days in Durango, CO on Oct 8-9. Being a place I use to live and a workshop I use to help organize, I was thrilled to be back and enjoyed presenting both days of the conference on Creating a Green Environment @ your library. We had some great discussions as a group and found some new tips and ideas (such as libraries lending Kill-a-watt devices to patrons) all within the gorgeous new LEED certified gold, Durango Public Library.

I attended a few other sessions as well. Norice Lee - Head of Access Services @ NMSU Libraries - presented on library leadership, based on Daniel Goleman's Emotional Intelligence ideas. She offered ideas on how to be a highly succeessful organization - some non librarian-y ideas worth considering. Norice also mentioned a book worth reading called Change Your Questions, Change Your Life by Marilee Adams of Brookings Institute.

Going Social and Two Point Woah sessions with Michael Cox (Youth Services Librarian at pueblo city-county library) and Victoria Peterson (Technology Manager at Mancos Public Library) used the cool prezi presentation software to offer a jumping off place for the group to talk about any of the many subtopics such as Twitter, facebook, friendfeed or any other free online tools. As a group we jumped around to various tools, websites and apps, offering suggestions to each other and sharing since there are always new tools to explore. I discovered zamzar for free online file converting, National Geographic's Wildlife filmmaker/video mashup and animoto - a way to make quick, cool videos w/ music from your images. Irma Minerva also made an appearance as her facebook page was shown as a great example of a library (not a building or librarian) on facebook reaching users in a fun way.

Future of Libraries session was facilitated by Sharon Morris, Library Development Director of the Colorado State Library. Sharon led a wonderful group discussion first asking us what we loved about our job and then what we wondered about the future of libraries. Being a group of school, public and academic libraries, comments ranged but the overall realization was that librarians and libraries provide lots of benefits to users from teaching information literacy skills to providing unique gathering spaces in our buildings or online. One of the big issues is that we don't promote what we do or could do for people (for free!) well enough so people are not aware of the benefits of their libraries. We also need to be willing to shift, change and rethink what libraries are in order to stay relevant in the future. In thinking about the future of libraries, we determined a few ways we can strive to become more relevant to our communities:

• We are the aggregators and creators of information; lets create ways to make it easier for our users to find what they need and start digitizing more unique resources we own.
  
• Schools may be about teaching but libraries are about listening and self directed learning. Lets build our collections and create spaces that engage our community with ideas and stories.
• We are the leaders in our communities; lets model behavior and ideas to guide us into the future.
  
• Advocacy! we may think we are relevant and important but are we telling - and showing - this to our patrons ... or our non patrons?
• Take time to look at your future: analyze stats, assess your needs (such as what are you demographics?); research changes over time, patterns and/or cycles; and most importantly stayed tuned in to new disruptive or revolutionary technologies to determine where the world might be headed and how libraries can play an important role.

Library's Instructional Tech Team: annual summary of activities

The library's instructional tech team was created in summer 2008. The initial meeting involved a number of library staff working in areas of technology and instruction, in which we defined instructional technology, generated goals for the team, listed current projects, brainstormed various ideas, and created high/low matrix to prioritize all these possibilities. After this meeting the team consisting of Beth Filar Williams, Lynda Kellam, Amy Harris and Hannah Winkler, began meeting every other month and have accomplished a number of items - with help of others - over the past year:

• Created and maintaining a weekly podcast blog of events, news, interviews - and now including videos created by BFW's LIS practicum student over the summer - relating to UNCG library called Irma Minerva's Audio Magazine. So far we have created 31 podcasts (or blog posts).
  
• Shift Jackson Leaks from PDF newsletter format to blog format with 51 posts as of today.
  
• Started the UNCG library's Professional Dev blog with 50 posts as of today.
  
• Training and assisting librarians w/ Blackboard portal push of resources.
• Netopschool software now installed in citi lab (thanks ERIT!) and has been used by several librarians for workshop/classes.
• Clickers have been borrowed from TLC and used now in several classes and presentations
• Worked with Terry & BethB to make sure the AskUs! icon, link and/or widget is embedded/available from a failed search in our catalog and in some of the major databases.
• Created a blog for the instructional tech team to post links, ideas and cool tools.
• Pre and post tests in Blackboard have been tested and now promoted with other librarians.
• Tutorials: tested numerous tutorial software packages, and finally due to budget cuts, decided on using the free Jing software. Created over 20 new tutorials - mainly Flash screencast type with audio. Created a best practices guide for using Jing to create library tutorials. Also created a tutorial web page to better organize and make accessible these library tutorials. Tutorials are being disseminated through course guides and blogs as well.
• Created a library Slideshare account to post presentation slides in blogs. (see Lynda for more info)
• Facebook and twitter are now being used actively by the team to promote and inform others about library resources, services, and events.
• Before budget freeze in spring, the team researched and purchased a video camera, tripod and wireless mic, for video tutorials & video podcasts.
• Creating video introductions for librarian liaisons to use throughout the website/Blackboard. (Example on Steve's Econ Page)
• Met with WFU and NCSU libraries for a multi-library instructional technology sharing day, which will be repeated each semester.
• Assisted (Danny & Richard) with content for the creation of an assignment calculator which will assist students in planning their research papers, which is now available (eventually will also be available in blackboard)
• Taught a few library instructional tech workshops such as on Zotero (w/ Lea!) and Intro to Creative Commons.
• Created form & guide for planning an online class using Elluminate software. Taught one online class (BFW & MaryK), and are now promoting this service with all disciplines. The library now has its own "room" w/ Elluminate to teaching online workshops not connected to a specific course. (see BFW for details)

Lilly Conference 2010

The 2010 Lilly Conference will be February 5-7, 2010 with the theme "Evidence-based learning and teaching." It will be held at the Joseph S. Koury Convention Center in Greensboro. The call for proposals is out now, due by Nov 9. There are also mini-grants available through the TLC for UNCG faculty but there may be a limit on how many are awarded this year.

Notes from Liaison Brown Bag Meeting

Liaison Brown Bag
Brainstorming about Liaison Qualities

From Stephen Dew:

On August 20, the Library Liaisons gathered in Jackson 574 for a Brown Bag Luncheon to discuss ideas and mutual concerns as the new academic year approached. Steve Cramer facilitated the discussion, and the brainstorming session resulted in the following list of qualities that are desired for liaisons, as well as the additional lists of actions that would support four of the desired qualities.

Q: What qualities would faculty like in their liaisons?

A: The liaison should be…

1. Proactive
2. Able to listen
3. Flexible
4. Informed about the department
5. Responds to questions promptly
6. Involved with teaching
7. Informed about the discipline
8. Open to change
9. Communicates new trends in libraries
10. Not annoying
11. Available but not pushy
12. Informative

Q: What can a liaison do to exhibit each quality?

We discussed the following four qualities:

Staying informed about the discipline:

• Get a degree in that field
• Read professional listservs and blogs; read library specialty listservs
• Peruse the core journals
• Work with student groups
• Learn what the PhD students are working on – they are often more cutting edge than the faculty
• Read the syllabi, especially for seminar classes
• Ask
• Join the academic (not librarian) professional association

Informed about the department

• Go to faculty meetings
• Review curriculum changes we learn about through Undergraduate Curriculum Committee
• Keep up with Information Literacy mandates and plans, and info lit ideas
• Use the Statement of Needs forms
• Stay in touch regularly
• Read their publications/listen to their performances: These are often posted on the departmental web site and NCDOCKS
• C.V.’s posted online; Research projects (don’t always become peer-reviewed articles); Web of Science
• Research assignments: Ask about; Talk to T.A.’s about; Get added to Blackboard; Bulletin; Look for syllabi posted online
  

Being available but not pushy

• Have office hours
• Reminders of your availability
• Leave things in the student lounge / utilize those spaces
• Attend receptions, events, special lectures – be seen, especially outside of normal business hours
• Cold calls to teachers
• Short visits
• Use the Blackboard library interface; use liaison chat widgets

Don’t be annoying:

• Limit your communication to important things
• Don’t go to all events
• Ask how you should communicate
• AA = Avoid Acronyms
• Stress positivity (remain realistic)
• Remain user-centered, not library-centered