Special Libraries Association Arabian Gulf Chapter Annual Meeting       

 

Conference title:  The Internet and the Positive Change to Librarians and Information Professionals:  Creating Real Future Impact

Report from Mary Krautter

On March 2015, I traveled to the Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates to present a pre-conference workshop and also a conference presentation with Mary Scanlon and Mary Beth Lock of Wake Forest University Libraries (we have billed ourselves as the 3 Marys).  We were invited to attend based on the book on entrepreneurial librarianship which we co-edited in 2012 and most of our expenses were covered by the Arabian Gulf Chapter.    The Arabian Gulf Chapter includes members from the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and Oman.  Many of the librarians working there are  expatriates from Canada, Great Britain and the United States or have received a library degree in one of those countries, but there are also many native to the region who are eager for new information and training.  Approximately 300-400 people attended the conference.

One of the particular challenges faced by libraries in this region includes the lack of a strong Arabic catalog that is equivalent to WMS.  Some of the libraries own large ebook packages, but they have challenges with discovery applications.  We particularly enjoyed seeing the library at the Petroleum Institute – which has nearly 2000 undergraduate and graduate students studying engineering and other fields related to the energy industry.  Vanessa Middleton, Head of the Library, is a former colleague of Mary Beth Lock when both were at Wayne State University Library. 

While a few of the presentations were in Arabic, almost all were either translated or were delivered in English.  There were many vendors present that we’re very familiar with – Thomson Reuters, EBSCO, and Springer, among others.  I particularly enjoyed meeting one of the representatives from Press Reader, a company with whom I wasn’t familiar.  They have a news database with strong international coverage. 

The three Marys were all impressed with the connections between our presentation and workshop and the themes in other conference presentations.   Keynote speakers included Dr. Eesa Mohammed Bastaki, President of the University of Dubai, and Professor Sherif Kamel Shaheen of Cairo University.  In both of their presentations the importance of higher education in their region was a central theme.  Dr. Bastaki in particular talked about leadership and innovation and the importance of human capital.   Creating an economy in which knowledge creation is an essential element was another theme that he stressed as critical for the region.  Keynote speaker Paula Kaufman spoke about translating ideas into action and creating an environment in which libraries in higher education collaborate  and build integrated services that support faculty and students.  Dr. Kaufman also participated in a second session on  ROI and assessment of the value of library services.    

One of the speakers whose presentation I attended was Rick Anderson, who was a reference librarian at UNCG even before I came here.  He has been at the University of Utah for many years, and  sent greetings to those he worked with – particularly Mark, Kathy Crowe and Nancy Ryckman.  He discussed PDA ebooks as essential to modern collections, which was a new concept for some at the conference.  He emphasized the need for patron driven acquisition, replacing the concept that libraries exist to preserve physical objects. 

Lisa Hinchcliffe, a very well-known expert on information literacy who has co-published with Amy Harris,  was part of a panel and presented on the Horizon Report on Information Literacy.  

Overall, I found many common themes and concerns among librarians from very different backgrounds and cultures.  The sessions were thought provoking and illuminating,  and the conference gave us plenty of opportunities to interact with others.  We were very grateful to the conference organizers for the opportunity to share our ideas of using entrepreneurial techniques in creating and promoting library services and giving us the chance to learn about librarianship in a different part of the world.  I’m also grateful to UNCG Libraries for encouraging me to pursue this opportunity. 

ILLiad International Conference

March 18 and 19, I attended the ILLiad International Conference in Virginia Beach.  ILLiad is the software we use to manage Interlibrary Loan functions.  The conference is sponsored by Atlas Systems.

The key note speaker was Eric Miller of Zepheria. Zepheria and Atlas Systems are partners, with several other organizations, on the Libhub initiative which seeks to use BIBFRAME and the Linked Data in Libraries Movement to make library data integratable with the web in a way that makes it easy for search engines to find it.  An example used was an attempt to expose materials related to the Unsinkable Molly Brown owned by the public library in her home town.  Presently, the library’s holdings have no presence in the Google search results for Molly Brown.  Eric showed us the results of a test that used Libhub which put their holdings close to the top of the results and scattered them throughout.

Genie Powell, Chief Customer Service Officer for Atlas Systems, gave an ILLiad update.  Version 8.6 of ILLiad is due for release on May 26.  Version 8.4 support ends on 7/1. Fortunately, we are on 8.5. New features in 8.6 include the ability to customize the request statuses on the patron ILLiad accounts. For example, when we have requested that a book be sent to us by another library the patron account now says “Request Sent”; we could make it say “On Order” or something else that is more commonly understood.  In ILLiad, however, it would still say “Request Sent”.  Also in 8.6 patrons wanting notifications by text message will have to re-enter their mobile phone number into a newly provided mobile phone field in the Personal Information section of their ILLiad accounts.

One of more fun and interesting session each year is the OCLC Update given by Katie Birch.  Each year Katie presents the list of the top 10 requested ILL books from the previous year.  Of course, the audience tries to guess what’s number 1 on the list before it’s revealed…”Fifty Shades of Grey, Fifty Shades of Gray, Fifty Shades of Gray” has been the usual audience response for the past couple of years.  This year, Divergent was also a popular response.  We were wrong.  The most requested book was Dead Doctors Don’t Lie, which is about maximizing genetic potential for health and longevity.  Divergent made the list at number 8 with Allegiant and Insurgent at numbers 4 and 9 respectively. None of the Grey books were on the list…but everyone surmised that they will be back next year with the recent release of the movie!

Steve's report on ACRL 2015

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

Society of North Carolina Archivists Conference

This year's annual meeting for the Society of North Carolina Archivists (SNCA) was held on March 11-13 in Greenville, North Carolina.   Archivists from across the state gathered to hear presentations on the theme "Removing Barriers: Diversity and Outreach in Action."

UNCG was well represented among the presenters at the conference, including presentations by Stacey Krim, David Gwynn, Jada Jones (LIS student) and me.  On Thursday afternoon, I presented on the Diverse Approaches to Collection Development panel.  My talk, "Where are all the donors? In-reach and outreach as a means of building and growing collections at UNCG," focused on my efforts to increase collecting of creative writing collections, neighborhood organizational records, and women's organization organizational records.

At the plenary session, Wesley Hogan, Director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, delivered a presentation entitled "Framing Stories from the Inside-Out: Piloting a Fresh Approach to Collaborating with Groups on the Margin."  She discusses her work with SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee) and how she and her colleagues at Duke were able to bring members from this group together to tell their history through the website One Person, One Vote: The Legacy of SNCC and the Fight for Voting Rights.  Wesley also talked about the challenges in fostering collaboration between Duke and SNCC; ownership of the materials being a deal-breaker for earlier talks of a project between the groups.  If successful, the collaboration methods used during this project could become a model for future collaborations with underrepresented groups.

Other highlights from the presentations included "Outreach With a Purpose" from Tom Flynn, Winston-Salem State University Archivist.  His efforts to increase the holdings of the archive through the capture of micro oral histories are unique and effective.    Pam Mitchem from Appalachian State University gave a lightning round presentation on experimenting with treatment methods for mold and insects.  They used CO2 fire extinguishers to quickly kill insects in infected collections before bringing them to the archives for processing.

The conference included the annual business meeting, which was presided over by SNCA President Kathelene Smith.  Sean Mulligan gave a rousing treasurer's report and I, as Nominating Committee Chair, presented the slate of candidates for next year's SNCA executive board.

Overall, a busy and informative conference.  Looking forward to meeting next year in Charlotte.

Empirical Librarians Symposium

A few of us recently attended the first Empirical Librarians Symposium hosted at NC A&T. If interested, you can read my notes and thoughts on my blog.

Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) Meeting

From Rosann:

CNI Fall Membership Meeting 2014, Washington, DC—Notes and Musings

Clifford Lynch says that digital scholarship centers seem to be on the minds of many CNI members. They will likely hold a pre CNI spring membership meeting session for those libraries who are investigating the development of these centers. 

Clifford Lynch says his next big question is how to get a handle on how we are providing access to and archiving cultural heritage.  He claims this is a very big issue and area of concern.

Lynch recommended that everyone should read OCLC’s “Evolving Scholarly Record” report.

Ex Libris (Christine Stohn) said they will have automated holdings updates in 2015. 

Marshall Breeding:   Libraries and vendors need to collaborate to shift everything to comprehensive secure page delivery.  There needs to be a defined audit methodology for assessing the privacy and security of library technical infrastructure. 

Eric Hellman (Gluejar): Remove tracking systems from library websites. NYPL was able to do that after a visit from Eric Hellman to their library. With current tracking systems, it can be determined the books our students and faculty are reading, their friends, geodata, websites visited, purchased data –from advertiser networks who are picking up books that students have searched and/or checked out from our library catalogs. One easy fix:  change your library catalogs to https.  Install “ghostery” to see what information is being tracked. 

Northwestern University (Geoffrey Swindells):  He is their new User Experience Department Head.  The department is made up of the following units:  Assessment, Outreach and Learning Services, Undergraduate Services and User spaces, Web and Mobile Services.

Ohio State University (Beth Warner): She is their AD for Information Technology. Their IT division has been restructured. It contains:  Infrastructure (7 staff), Applications Development and Support (8 staff), Digital Initiatives (1 staff).  They moved servers and storage from central IT back to the library. They wrote “Guiding Principles” and “Digital Preservation Policy Framework” documents.

Wake Forest University (Chelcie Rowell): She is their Digital Initiatives Librarian. They have created three tiers of service for faculty digital project proposals:  Provision-Customization-Creation.

Berkeley, Bancroft Library (Mary Elings): She is their Head of Digital Collections.  They did a Hackathon –humanities focus, included students, explore APIs to expose digital archives, develop new infrastructure for digital archives site, selected on collection for the Hackathon, included mentors and coding support, prizes were awarded, offered work spaces in the library, students did final presentations. 

University of Iowa (Tom Keegan): He is their Head of Digital Research and Publishing.  He developed “IDEAL”. Iowa Digital Engagement and Learning. One project used WWII letters – worked with students – their project was to transcribe the content.

International Librarianship Presentations 12/5/14

Value of Travel: IASSIST Version from Lynda Kellam
 

International Librarianship Experiences from Beth FilarWilliams

Developing an international perspective on librarianship from Mike Crumpton