From the President

Hello RUSA members! I’m very excited to start my year as President of RUSA and to build on all the wonderful work that was accomplished in the past year under the leadership of 2015-16 RUSA President Anne Houston. Thank you to the committees, sections, members and RUSA staff for a successful conference in Orlando, FL. We offered a variety of section sponsored programs, pre-conferences, and socials. The Membership Committee, chaired by Ann Brown, offered RUSA 101 to a full room of library professionals interested in all that RUSA has to offer in the way of engagement, service, and community. The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Fiction and Nonfiction celebration, sponsored by Novelist, was both moving and joyous. Duncan Smith, Co-founder & General Manager of Novelist, has let RUSA know that Novelist will continue to support the Medals by donating $15,000 over a 3 year period for the event which celebrates the best in adult literature. I was unable to attend but I heard that the Literary Tastes Breakfast had an unmatched author’s panel which Leighann Wood, RUSA Senior Program Officer, has written about in this issue of RUSA Update. It was also my great honor to help recognize the recipients of the RUSA Achievement Awards at our annual reception. I appreciate the continued support and sponsorship of the awards reception by Credo Reference and a big thank you to all of RUSA vendor sponsors and supporters. Lastly, there was a full house for the RUSA President’s Program with energetic speaker, Dave Cobb of the Thinkwell Group, who spoke about creating immersive guest experiences in the library through storytelling. There is a great write-up in RUSA News http://rusa.ala.org/blog/2016/07/08/be-our-guest-create-your-own-pixie-dust-at-the-library
There were other key accomplishments this past year:

  • Under the leadership of the Organization and Planning (O&P) Committee, chaired by Beth German, RUSA successfully piloted interest groups and three out of the four interest groups will continue as part of RUSA. O&P will make a recommendation to RUSA Board regarding how to integrate interest groups into the RUSA organization on a permanent basis. The interest groups are: Copyright (Faithe Ruiz ruizf@cf.edu), First Year Experience (Douglas Hasty douglas.hasty@fiu.edu), and Shared Collections (Tina Baich cbaich@iupui.edu). The Entrepreneurship IG (Steve Cramer) decided to sunset at the end of the pilot.
  • Anne Houston, RUSA Past President, created the Name Change Task Force, co-chaired by Ed Garcia and Nancy Cunningham, which surveyed RUSA members about their views on the RUSA name and brand. We’re expecting a report from the Task Force by Midwinter 2017.
    The Learning Opportunities and Knowledge Coordination (LOKCS) task force, co-chaired by Mary Popp and Shannon Jones, issued an excellent report on RUSA Learning and Publishing http://connect.ala.org/files/1608_RUSA-LOKCS-FinalRpt-Feb2016.pdf which includes a vision and value statement for RUSA Learning. I will be working closely with the Chairs of Publications & Communications, Professional Development, and Standards & Guidelines to begin implementing the recommendations
  • Under the leadership of Susan Hornung, RUSA Executive Director, the Executive Committee and Membership Committee brainstormed a value proposition statement for RUSA members as we consider a dues increase to stabilize the RUSA budget.
  • RUSA’s ALA Emerging Leaders project led by Catherine Damiani, Digital Services Librarian at East Providence Public Library and RUSA’s Emerging Leader, developed a library publishing services toolkit which will be stewarded by the Publications & Communications Committee
  • Patty Valdovinos, RUSA’s Spectrum Scholar, worked with Kirk McLeod, incoming chair of the Publications & Communications, to create and host the IAMRUSA podcast series which, so far, has featured interviews with Anne Houston and Joe Thompson, now RUSA past-past president.
  • The RUSA Trends Team was formed and will blog about trends in library user services

Turning to the year ahead, in collaboration with the RUSA Executive Committee and Board, I will continue to work on the strategic goals and objectives of RUSA as outlined in our strategic plan with a particular focus on the following:

  • Working with Organization & Planning as the they review the structure of RUSA and the RUSA review process
  • Adopting a more flexible pathway for volunteer member engagement (i.e. streamlining ways to get involved with RUSA)
  • Implementing the recommendations of the LOKCS task force
  • Continuing to develop and deliver timely and engaging conference programming, professional development offerings and a variety of publication channels and venues
  • Consider proposal to make RUSQ open access
  • Evaluate the effectiveness of RUSA Awards events working closely with the Celia Ross, our new Vendor Relations liaison.
  • Offering the successful RUSA 101 and 201 programs and hold more online Town Hall meetings

Please feel free to contact me any time at alemcmanus@ucdavis.edu. I welcome your questions and comments.
Alesia McManus
RUSA President 2016-17

RUSA News/Announcements

A recap of the Literary Tastes author panel in Orlando:
While attendance was not as high as past events, the caliber of this year’s author panel went unmatched. Award winning authors spoke candidly on themes of folklore, Polish culture old and new, child behavior, injustice, racism and fear. Literary Tastes is an opportunity to hear from noteworthy authors whose books are among their annual selections and also celebrate the art and craft of writing with fellow book lovers.

Naomi Novik, author of Uprooted, (Del Rey Books), was the 2016 Fantasy category winner of RUSA’s Reading List. Novik said, “Uprooted is, underneath, how people are connected and how people need one another.” She spoke of her Polish roots and how they influenced her story’s mythological aspects.

Jim Shepard spoke of his book, The Book of Aron (Alfred A. Knopf), which was name the 2016 winner of RUSA’s Sophie Brody Medal for excellence in Jewish Literature as well as a finalist for the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Shepard said “I’m interested in fictions that dismantle.” We read this chilling story from Aron’s perspective, a child in the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII, who uses his willful, limited capacities to survive and to understand the world around him.

James Hannaham, author of Delicious Foods, (Little, Brown and Company) was named a 2016 RUSA Notable Book for Fiction, which has since won the 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. In a frank discussion about how we perceive and portray context, he says he liked the idea that “the book could move forward with information rather than plot.” Hannaham has many conversations about racism and slavery, but “part of it is that it’s not over.” He left the captivated audience yearning for more.

Lastly, Karin Slaughter, author of Pretty Girls (William Morrow), who was the 2016 Adrenaline category winner of RUSA’s Reading List, spoke of her growing up in the south as the youngest of her sisters. Her stories are influenced by the fear her father instilled in her, “the last time a child left the refrigerator door open, they died,” she said jokingly and “children who read are quieter,”. The room was full of constant laughter as if we had transported to a late night comedy club. Her famous departing words, “I’ll leave you with urine and fear.”

The audience took a wild literary journey through past and present. Authors were there signing books immediately following the presentation where attendees could share their enthusiasm and take the occasional selfie. This annual RUSA event is quickly becoming a conference highlight for readers of all types. We are looking forward to next year!

RUSA’s 2017 Achievement Awards nomination period opens September 1 and runs through December 9, 2016. Nomination and submission instructions can be found on each of the award pages here: http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/achievement. Librarians and library staff that work in reference and user services, instruction, readers’ advisory, business reference, historical research and genealogy, interlibrary loan are encouraged to apply!

The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction longlist will be announced in in the fall! The winners will be announced at RUSA’s Book and Media Awards ceremony on Sunday, January 22, 2017 at ALA’s Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta.

Welcome to Jennifer Cross! Jennifer Cross has been hired as the new web services specialist for ASCLA and RUSA. Jennifer has her Master’s in Library Science from Texas Woman’s University, and a B.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Illinois. Most recently she has been a Programming and Web Design teacher in Caracas, Venezuela. In past positions, she has been a technology teacher, school librarian and web developer. Please direct any web services, RUSQ, and appointment database questions to her at jcross@ala.org.

RUSA Vendor Relations
From achievement awards, travel awards, receptions and more, our sponsors enhance the ALA Annual experience for RUSA members. Thank you, RUSA sponsors, for your continued support!

ABC-CLIO
Atlas Systems
Credo Reference
DPE AFL-CIO
Ebsco
Emerald Publishing
Gale Cengage
Global Financial Data
HarperCollins
Little, Brown and Company (Hachette Book Group)
Mergent
Mintel
Morningstar
NoveList (Ebsco)
OCLC/WorldCat
Penguin Random House
ProQuest
ProQuest
Reference Service Press
Reference USA
S&P Global Market Intelligence
SimplyMap/Geographic Research
Springshare

Celia Ross
Vendor Relations Liaison

BRASS Notes

Elizabeth Malafi, Editor

Message from Past BRASS Chair

Thank you all for another spectacular and productive year that has seen the forward movement of BRASS.  Looking back BRASS gained the support of two new sponsors: Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship Award and the SimplyMap Student Travel Award.  The 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando contained numerous outstanding BRASS events (& meetings) like the well-attended and received Friday Pre conference (Business Data for Librarians) and the Monday morning program (Changes in Latitude, Changes in Attitudes: Travel and Hospitality Landscape and Library Resources). The BRASS Education Committee established a web badge with the BRASS logo for the Best of the Best Business web sites.  This activity will bring more well-deserved exposure to BRASS.  These are just a few highlights looking through the rear-view mirror.  Unfortunately, there are many other achievements not mentioned here that have been brought to fruition by our BRASS colleagues.  All of these add to the success of our section. In closing, I want to extend a special thanks to the members of the BRASS Executive Board and for all BRASS members who have worked diligently this past year in continuing to uphold BRASS to its’ level of excellence.

Paul Brothers
BRASS Past Chair

Message from Current BRASS Chair

Hi BRASS Members! I just wanted to say hello.  I will be serving as BRASS Chair over the next year with my term ending after ALA Annual in Chicago.  It’s an honor to serve as Chair and I look forward to working with everyone.  A big thanks to Paul for his service as Chair and to all the folks who served on Exec, Board, and committees this past year and a huge thank you to those who volunteered to serve on committees this year. You all make BRASS the wonderful organization that it is.

Please make sure to follow BRASS-l to stay current on BRASS activities during the year.  As you are making your travel plans this next year, just a reminder that BRASS does not have any required meetings at Midwinter.  We have an all-committee meeting on Sunday morning during the conference from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. for those who are attending.  Of course, at Annual, we have a full slate of meetings and events.  Stay-tuned for more information on those in the spring.

Please feel free to contact me if you have questions about BRASS!

Louise Feldmann
BRASS Chair 2016-2017
Louise.Feldmann@colostate.edu

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Lightning Talks Forum, entitled “Innovation and Risk Taking in Business Academic Librarianship,” was held at the Annual Conference in Orlando.  The program was well received and well attended—we counted 95 in the audience.  The forum featured seven presentations by academic librarians on topics and experiences related to academic business library instruction, consultations, and information needs assessment.  Evaluation forms showed that 96% of responding attendees felt BRASS should hold more “Lightning Talks” forums and 100% felt that the information provided at this session was interesting and/or relevant.  Committee members worked hard on arrangements throughout the year, however, special acknowledgements go out to Ilana Barnes Stonebaker who coordinated much of the planning.

The committee is sponsored a Virtual Forum on the same topic open to all BRASS members on Friday, August 12 at 2 p.m. EST.  Amanda Howell coordinated arrangements and moderated the question and answer session while Jared Hoppenfeld introduced the speakers and moderated as well.  Another Virtual Forum will be scheduled for October.

Karen Chapman and Janet Franks are the new co-editors of Academic BRASS.  They will be sending out a request for submissions in the near future.  Special thanks to Charles Allen who served as editor of BRASS and Van Houlson who just stepped down as chair of our committee.  We appreciate their collegiality, hard work, and commitment to service.

Susan Norrisey and Jared Hoppenfeld, 2016 – 2017 Co-Chairs

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
We had a great meeting at Annual and welcomed 5 guest attendees who are interested in joining the committee… which brought up the issue of both participation as well as the size of our committee which is rather small. We discussed this and some ideas that came up regarding how the committee is marketed and maybe we need to look into improving that to garner more interest. One idea was to set up a dedicated Facebook page; we are also looking into the idea of creating an online forum or knowledge base, separate from the listservs, that provide public librarians with access to information about what we do as well as a means of marketing BRASS to nonmembers.

We also discussed potential forum topics for our committees program next year. Based on the fact that many of our guests were there because they wanted to pick our brains on how we are providing services to local small businesses and entrepreneurs, we think a program on creating services and building resources for the local business community would be a great topic.

Sal DiVincenzo, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Membership Committee
The ReferenceUSA BRASS Member Reception at Cuba Libre Restaurant in Orlando was a success, with 75 attendees.   A big thank you to ReferenceUSA for their continuing sponsorship of this very popular kick-off to the conference.

The Membership Committee is scouting locations for next year’s reception in Chicago.  Send your recommendations to Cynthia Slater and Greg Tong.

At the Membership committee meeting Sunday, June 26 we discussed outreach and retention. We’re looking for your ideas!   Send them to Cynthia and we’ll include them in our next committee meeting.

Cynthia Slater, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Nominating Committee
The BRASS Nominating Committee is in the process of recruiting candidates for the next election to run for BRASS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and BRASS Member at Large.

Todd Hines, 2016 – 2017 Chair

Program Planning Committee
Our face-to-face meeting at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando was very productive.  We had a lively discussion and brainstorming session to better shape our program proposal, with a valuable feedback from Katrina Stierholz, Director of Library and Research Information Services at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Our program proposal “Demystifying the Federal Reserve” was approved by RUSA and planning and preparation for the 2017 BRASS program is in full swing. We hope to see you in Chicago!

Natasha Arguello, 2016 – 2017 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee

  • Elizabeth Malafi is our new BRASS Notes editor.
  • Downloads for the BRASS ALA Schedule of events remained strong, so the committee will continue to publish it next year.
  • The committee continues to have extensive conversations around the topic of better promoting BRASS members, their resources, and their accomplishments
  • Genifer Snipes compiled the #bizref posts from ALA Annual into Storify – https://storify.com/rusa_brass/brass-ala-best.  Thanks to all who were active on social media during the BRASS events at ALA annual.  We continue to work to increase our social media participation
  • Annette Buckley has done extensive work on the BRASS website in order to get the site to a point where it is much easier to maintain

Chad Boeninger, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Vendor Relations Committee Report
BRASS is fortunate to have sponsors that support the section activities and awards.  Longtime friends of BRASS include, S&P Global Market Intelligence, Emerald, InfoGroup/ReferenceUSA, Morningstar, Global Financial Data, and Springshare. BRASS was happy to welcome Mergent, the new sponsor of the Excellence in Business Librarianship, and SimplyMap, now sponsor of the Student Travel Award at ALA 2016.   

The Vendor Relations Committee works with sponsors to support BRASS awards and activities.  Thank you to outgoing member Lydia Lafaro, 2014-2016.  Continuing committee member is Rebecca Smith, 2015-2017. New members are Jason Dewland, 2016-2018 and Leticia Camacho, 2016-2018.

BRASS Awards Link http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/brass/awards

Ann Fiegen, 2015 – 2017 Chair

Award Committees

Emerald Research Award Committee
I am updating the documentation for the committee. In September, a timeline will be sent out to committee regarding review applications and deciding the winner. We will use emails to exchange ideas, and use ALA Connect to comment on applications.

Chubing Tripepi, 2016 – 2017 Chair

Morningstar Librarian Support Award Committee
The nomination form has been updated for the Morningstar Librarian Support award! I’m preparing nomination campaign materials to review with the committee in September. We might use ALA Connect rather than scheduling a virtual meeting.

Ed Rossman, 2016 – 2017 Chair

SimplyMap Student Travel Award
The BRASS SimplyMap Student Travel Award will begin soliciting nominations soon.  The deadline for submission is January 29, 2017.  Congratulations again to the 2016 recipient Katherine Glasoe and to SimplyMap for their support.

Bobray Bordelon. 2016 – 2017 Chair

CODES

Barry Trott, Editor

CODES was well represented in Orlando at the ALA Annual Conference.  The program “Harnessing Research and Data to Advance Readers’ Advisory Services, ” the annual “Literary Tastes” breakfast, and of course the annual Achievement Awards Ceremony and Reception all highlighted CODES and other RUSA activities.

Summer and fall are a busy time of year for CODES book and media awards committees!  CODES members are hard at work reading, listening and evaluating books, reference works, and other resources across all genres and formats in anticipation of the RUSA Book and Media Awards ceremony next January 2017 at the ALA Midwinter Meeting in Atlanta, Georgia.  Membership in the book and media awards committees run February through January.  CODES leadership will be making appointments to these committees in late fall and winter.  Are you interested in serving on one of the book and media awards committees?  Check out the list of CODES committees at http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/codes/section/rosters, click on a committee name to read about its charge, and volunteer via the RUSA Online Volunteer Form at http://www.ala.org/rusa/volunteer.

CODES has several other committees in addition to the book and media awards.  Appointments to these committees are made in the early spring.  It’s not too late to be thinking about joining!  Again, take a look at the list of committees at http://www.ala.org/rusa/volunteer and volunteer at http://www.ala.org/rusa/volunteer.

If you have questions about the purpose, composition, or work of any committee, contact Dan Mack, CODES Chair, at dmack@umd.edu.

Emerging Technologies Section (ETS)

Geoffrey Morse, Editor

We at the Emerging Technologies Section send our thanks to all our hard-working committee members, committee chairs, and those in elected positions who produced a great slate of programming for 2015-2016.

We’re looking forward to the coming year! Questions or suggestions? Interested in being involved? Contact our Chair, Courtney McDonald (crgreene@indiana.edu), Vice-Chair, Beth Boatright (beth.boatright@ipfw.edu) or Past Chair, Donna Scanlon (dscanlon@loc.gov).

Those who wish to be considered for a committee appointment can feel free to fill out the RUSA online volunteer form anytime; the appointment process for 2017-2018 will kick off in spring, but you can toss your hat in the ring anytime.

Awards

This year we recognized Beth Boatright with the 2016 ETS Achievement Recognition Award.  This award is given annually to recognize excellence in service to ETS.  Beth has been an active member of ETS for some time, she is a RUSA Emerging Leader, and this year she was on our panel for the program Emerging Technologies Librarians: Changing Roles for Changing Times.  Congratulations Beth!

Programs at ALA

ETS sponsored a number or programs in Orlando including:

Emerging Technologies Librarians: Changing Roles for Changing Times [Conference attendees, log in for session materials]
About 60 people attended this session where Beth Boatright (Emerging Technologies Librarian and Business Librarian, Indiana University- Purdue University, Fort Wayne),  Tara Radniecki (Engineering Librarian at University of Nevada, Reno, and author of the IFLA Study on Emerging Technology librarian roles)  and Jane Martin (Library Director, Winterhaven Public Library and their SEEDLab with a focus on  Science, Education, Exploration and Design) discussed how they stay abreast of the latest trends and new technologies.  The three speakers and ETS member Matt Terrence arranged interactive questionnaires that allowed active audience participation in the session.

Promoting Subject Specialists and Enhancing Visibility of Library Reference [Conference attendees, log in for session materials]
Over 90 people attended this session where librarians from several institutions discussed their library liaison programs and how they have enhanced visibility of their subject librarians as well as provide liaison and reference services to their constituencies. Additionally the presenters discussed how they are assessing these efforts.

Socially Acceptable: Communicating with Users Through Social Media Networks
The Hot Topics discussion group went back to their roots in this session.  Rather than having presenters, the attendees broke into groups and discussed the possible uses of various social media outlets (e.g., Yik Yak/Twitter, MeetUP) and how they might be used to communicate with our users/patrons.  After brief discussions each group reported back to the larger group.

Fact or Fiction: What Virtual Reference Training Works and What Holds Promise
Six discussion leaders provided an overview of virtual reference training that is conducted at their respective institutions. Information included who is trained, how training is conducted, and difficulties or successes that have been observed. Participants were also given the opportunity to share their own experiences and ask questions of speakers and fellow attendees.

The Library as Publisher: Emerging Service for Storytellers and Scholars [Conference attendees, log in for session materials]
On Saturday, two library innovators and RUSA’s team of Emerging Leaders shared about the projects, technologies, and resources for helping support patron publishing. The session was based on research done by the 2015 RUSA Emerging Leader team, available at bit.ly/RUSAEL15.

  • Jonah Magar discussed Michigan State University’s Espresso Book Machine, which allows for on-demand book printing. They offer design and other assistance, and the service is popular with authors and students. A grant covered the cost of the machine, the university pays for the staff, and materials costs are passed along to the patrons.
  • Sarah Lydon described the Rochester Public Library’s outreach to immigrant populations through a collaboration with StoryCorps. Equipped with recording equipment and interview prompts, Sarah gave visitors the opportunity to interview friends and relatives, recording and sharing their stories.  The program was extremely popular and led to a recurring series in the local newspaper. A portion of one touching interview can be heard in the audio of this session.

Audio and slides from the session are available in the ALA Scheduler – look for the “Assets” button. If you’d be interested in joining an interest group about library publishing services, please be in touch! If there is enough interest, we will try to get something started.

Happy Hour

Twenty one people attended the RSS/ETS happy hour in Orlando. All who attended enjoyed good conversation and the opportunity to meet other members of RSS and ETS.

History

Laura Hibbler, Editor

The History Section held a number of successful events at ALA Annual in Orlando. The Genealogy Pre Conference, sponsored by ProQuest, is always a popular event and registration was full by April. This year’s All Committee Meeting and Open House included a Connection Breakfast with the goals of connecting new history librarians with each other and with experienced history librarians. The History Section also held a program, Partnering for the Common Good: Libraries, and Genealogical Societies. Two Discussion groups, the Genealogy and Local History Discussion Group and the History Librarians Discussion Group, also met at ALA.
Sixteen History Section members met for dinner at Café 34 Istanbul. The group included several librarians who are new to the Section.

RSS

RSS-logoDenise Wetzel, Editor                                      

Message from the Chair

Hello all,

I’m so happy to begin my term as RSS Chair!  Crystal Lentz deserves a big thank you for her leadership of the section during 2015-2016.

RSS had a very busy Annual Conference. The RSS Open House and All-Committee Meeting was well attended. We were happy to welcome some new members to RSS, and some visitors who are considering joining our section. The section also participated in RUSA 101, held on Friday at the beginning of Annual, in order to meet with potential members. The Joint ETS/ RSS Happy Hour was a great way to catch up with our ETS colleagues. Committees held meetings, programs, and discussion forums during Annual.  To learn more about all of the work our committees did during Annual, please check out the committee reports.

There are a few projects RSS hopes to work on this year including a revision of both our RSS Handbook and the RSS Bylaws.  Additionally, RSS hopes to revise our webpages to reflect the work of our committees and the section.  We will also be working to institute changes that came from our Section Review, completed this past spring.

RSS is still hoping to fill just a few remaining spots on committees; we are seeking members for both the Discovery Services Committee and the Young Adult Reference Services Committee.  Please contact me if you would like to volunteer for either of those committees.

Please feel free to contact me with any questions. I’m looking forward to a great year for RSS!

Amy Rustic,
RSS Chair, 2016-2017
aer123@psu.edu

RSS Honor Roll

It’s that time of year! We want to recognize you and your contributions to RSS!

The RSS Honor Roll gives recognition to active RSS members who have served the section in three different capacities since its inception.

If you have been a member of three or more committees or discussion groups since RSS was established in 2004 and have not previously been added to the honor roll, please send your name and a list of the three ways you have served RSS to Ellen Keith at keith@chicagohistory.org

Not only will you become a member of this esteemed group, you will also be recognized at ALA Annual in Orlando!

Join the RSS Honor Roll today!

RSS COMMITTEE REPORTS

Education & Professional Development for Reference Committee
Our panel event, Educating for the Future of Reference,  for Annual 2016 in Orlando built upon earlier discussion forums around the topic of how well (or not) the professional degree prepares us for the current “reference” environment. The program explored whether “reference education” in library schools currently helps provide librarians with relevant skills and materials for the current “reference” marketplace as seen from the perspective of library administrators/librarians who hire and train, and also from the perspective of library educators.

Panelists included Jason Coleman (Kansas State University), Wendi Bost (Orange County Public Library System), Dr. Linda Lillard (Library Science Department at Clarion University), and Dr. Eileen Abels (Dean of the Simmons School of Library and Information Science).

Panelists were asked to address the following questions:

1) Should a reference/information services class be a required element of an LIS program?  Why or why not? Here the consensus was generally, “yes” (although not resoundingly so). The content of such a class should focus more on the communication and instructional skills needed to effectively work with library users. Being “in tune” with what users need and want is important. Technology skills are also critical.

2) In your opinion, does “reference education” in library schools currently help provide librarians with relevant skills and materials for the current “reference” marketplace? What is working/what is not? Again, the consensus is that “finding facts” is a rarity in the current reference environment. Reference/public services do add value to the array of services a library offers by directing users to quality information where that is desired. Often “just enough” is O.K. with users, though – “satisficing.”

3) What are the most important skills students need to learn in order to provide high-quality reference assistance?  Are there differences in this answer based on whether you are in a public or academic environment? Needed: communication skills, technical skills, understanding of how databases are constructed, and how search engines and services are constructed and operate.

4) Thinking of the different “reference” models and formats that are employed in different types of libraries, can there be a set of competencies broad and flexible enough that it would be valuable across multiple situations? If so, how does this affect reference education? Much of this is covered in the answers above.

5) How do library/information schools determine whether changes are needed in curriculum/coursework? Through attendance at conferences and information from graduates. It was conceded that detecting the changes are not easily accomplished.

6) If practitioners detect that adjustments are needed/desired, how would library school professors/deans advise us to most effectively get this information to library schools who wish to keep coursework relevant? (See #5)

Audience participation followed the panelist talks. About 40 people attended the session and written evaluations were largely positive.

Bryna Coonin, Chair 2016-2017

Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee (ERUS)
ERUS received hundreds of responses to our survey, “How are reference data collected and used in 2016?” Thank you!  You’re amazing!!!  We will be analyzing results for the foreseeable future.

Rebecca Graff, Chair 2016-2017

Health and Medical Reference Committee
Since the last report, the Committee primarily worked on collaborating with ACRL’s Health and Science Interest Group to create the content for a Discussion Forum at ALA. On June 25, 2016 in Orlando, the two committees presented: Implementing Health and Medical Reference Guidelines: Training librarians, Paraprofessionals and Part Time Staff.

Chair of HMRC, Laura Haines, presented a brief PowerPoint presentation curriculum, entitled Quick Start Guide to Providing Excellent Health Reference, to a group of 25 attendees. This Quick Start guide was created using RUSA’s Health and Medical Reference Guidelines, and is intended to be used by those training others how to provide high quality health and medical reference service. The curriculum gives examples of best practices and suggested reference behaviors, and references the specific RUSA Health and Medical Guidelines for each behavior. All attendees who wished to have a copy of the Quick Start Guide to adapt to their own training needs in their own libraries left their email addresses. Shortly after the meeting, the Chair emailed this PowerPoint to all interested attendees.

After the presentation of the Quick Start Guide and a brief discussion, attendees were divided into four tables and given a reference scenario and discussion prompts. Each group used the Health and Medical Reference Guidelines (provided) and the Quick Start Guide to discuss the best practices for that particular scenario. After a lengthy and engaged discussion, the individual tables presented their reference scenarios and highlights from their discussion to the larger group. Themes and common topics were identified.

The response to the Quick Start Guide, RUSA’s Health and Medical Reference Guidelines, and the reference scenarios was overwhelmingly positive. Many attendees praised the succinct nature of the Guidelines and appreciated the Quick Start Guide’s “translation” of the Guidelines into practices and behaviors. Many remarked that they had been unaware of the Health and Medical Reference Guidelines existence, and encouraged the HMRC and ACRL’s HSIG to do further promotion of the Guidelines. No doubt, future endeavors of the HMRC will focus on this promotion.

Laura Haines, Outgoing HMRC Chair
Ann Glusker, HMRC Chair, 2016-2017

Library Services to an Aging Population Committee
The Library Services to an Aging Population Committee met at the 2016 ALA Annual Conference on Saturday, June 25th, from 8:30-10:00 a.m. The group discussed the completion of guidelines, a program proposal for ALA 2017, the reframing of aging, and participation in future workshops, conferences, etc.

The committee has been asked to assist with revamping the “Keys to Engaging Older Adults@ your library.”

Update: 2017 ALA Annual program proposal was approved. Conference attendees may look forward to the following program:

Aging – A new frontier: Implications and Opportunities for Libraries and Librarians:  Growing old – it’s not what it used to be. The panel will explore the new frontier of aging with an emphasis on how libraries and librarians can better understand, as well as embrace, the myriad of opportunities that come along with serving mature adults. From hosting benefits access programs to jump starting business endeavors, participants will explore how to surf the “age wave” and all that it offers.

Fatima Perkins, Chair 2016-2017

Research and Statistics Committee
This year, the Research & Statistics Committee hosted the 22nd Annual Reference Research Forum on Sunday, June 26th from 10:30-11:30 a.m. at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, FL.  The event was attended by close to 100 people.  Three research teams, selected through a double-blind review process, presented their findings.  Laura Hibbler from Brandeis University presented findings from a study that involved interviewing first-year students at three different points while they were working on a research paper.  Tarin Tobin Cataldo from the University of Florida presented findings from a three-year, IMLS-funded research project exploring how students from students from 4th grade to graduate school determined the credibility of digital resources.  Finally, Amanda L. Folk from the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg discussed patron motivations for asking questions to librarians based on Dweck’s theories of intelligence.  The committee also reviewed and posted an annotated bibliography of articles relating to reference research for the 2015 Reference Research Review available at: http://connect.ala.org/node/254571.

Cynthia Levine, Co-chair 2016-2017
David Ward, Co-chair 2016-2017

Virtual Reference Committee
The Virtual Reference Services Committee and the Virtual Reference Discussion Forum Group held a joint Discussion Forum during ALA Annual. Fact or Fiction: What Virtual Reference Training Works and What Holds Promise was considered successful, as there was a lively discussion among the attendees.

The committee submitted our revised and updated guidelines, “Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services,” to the RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee. They are currently being reviewed and our committee will be receiving feedback from the RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee in the coming months.

And finally, the RSS and ETS Boards approved the dissolution of duplicate committees. Specifically, the Virtual Reference Discussion Group and the Virtual Reference Services Committee were merged into one joint ETS/RSS group, whose charge is “to identify and study issues relating to virtual reference services, and to evaluate and promote technological and service standards, guidelines, and best practices” for these services in all types of libraries.

Hillary Kraus, Co-chair 2016-2017
Karen Reiman-Sendi, Co-chair 2016-2017

STARS

Kerry Keegan, Editor

Letter from the Chair

Hi, everyone!

My name is Heidi Nance and I’m delighted to be your STARS Chair for 2016-17. I am currently the Head of Interlibrary Loan and Document Delivery Services at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle, WA. Prior to that, I worked in Interlibrary Loan at Seattle Pacific University and in the Marketing/Image Library at Callison Architecture. I’ve been involved in resource sharing for more than eleven years now, and am daily awed and inspired by the dedication and creativity of the ILL community. There is something truly unique about our niche of the library world. Internally, Resource Sharing operations touch nearly all parts of the library – access services, cataloging, acquisitions, preservation, systems, and financial services. Externally, we depend on the generosity and spirit of cooperation among our networked web of libraries around the globe. This deep interdependence means that we must daily hone our skills of diplomacy, creativity, innovation, leadership, and service. I was drawn to STARS because our membership works tirelessly to create best practices, guidelines, training opportunities, and forums for open discussion among members. We share far more than just library materials!

The 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando was full of exciting STARS-related programming. We had a lively presenter panel for “Resource Sharing in Tomorrowland,” (standing room only!), and a thought-provoking “Not Your Average Consortia” presentation. Our ILL Discussion Group and Hot Topics Discussion Groups continued to be well-attended and sparked spirited discussions about loan periods, the newly-revised ALA Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States (http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/interlibrary), and more. Our special thanks to the STARS Outreach and Promotion Committee who organized the STARS Social on Friday night. And last, but very far from least, I send my gratitude to Tom Bruno for his work this past year as STARS Chair and to Tina Baich for her ongoing service as Past-Chair.

Programming for Midwinter and Annual 2017 is not yet confirmed, but we have a number of great offerings in the works. At Midwinter, the Education and Training Committee  will reprise their ever-popular ILL 101 workshop (aka “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about ILL”) presented by Kristen Palmiere, Megan Gaffney, Karen Janke, Cindy Kristof, and the award-winning Collette Mak. At Annual, we’ll have “I am not a lawyer: providing copyright services in libraries” also presented by Collette Mak and Cindy Kristof. I’m told there might even be a brand-new “Vendor Bingo” event/game!

In addition to our conference-related events, we’re working on a number of projects for this coming year. Watch for a newly-revised “Guidelines for Resource Sharing to Natural and Man-Made Disaster,” ILL-friendly model licensing terms, a possible STARS Twitter account, and more!

As I look back at the past year, and forward into the next, I remain humbled and inspired by the incredibly dedicated STARS members. Amid all your plentiful daily work at your home institutions, you remain committed to donating your time and effort to the wider ILL and library community. It’s an honor to work with you this year and I’m excited to see what it will bring!

Thank you, fellow STARS!

Heidi Nance
STARS Chair 2016-2017

Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
The Sharing and Transforming Access to Resources Section (STARS) of ALA recognized Kimberly Steiner during ALA 2016. Kimberly Steiner is the Interlibrary Loan Technician from Messiah College and is pictured with John Brunswick from Atlas Systems.

stars

Amy Paulus, Chair

Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee has been busy preparing and presenting new materials for the ALA community. Updates include:

  • Edits for the “ALA Library Fact Sheet 8 on Interlibrary Loans” have been submitted to RUSA.
  • The “Guidelines and Procedures for Telefacsimile and Electronic Delivery of Interlibrary Loan Requests and Materials” has seen its sunset and has been removed from the RUSA guidelines web page.
  • “Top Ten Changes to the ILL Code and Supplement” was presented at the ILL Discussion Group in Orlando. Its complementary handout has been shared on major ILL listservs.
  • A free webinar on the newly revised ILL Code had 1,092 registrants from 632 library locations logged in across all 50 states! Join the ever-increasing number of viewers from the YouTube recording, which is available at https://youtu.be/Q7DTgjYf1-4.
  • Preparations are being made for the review and & revision, as needed, of the Guidelines for Resource-Sharing Response to Natural and Manmade Disasters (2010).

      Margaret Ellingson, Chair

Vendor Relations Committee
The Vendor Relations Committee reported on some of these activities before ALA Annual, but is still happy to include updates on its latest accomplishments. These include:

  • The preparation of “Vendor Bingo” for Midwinter Atlanta, which aims to encourage members to visit participating vendors/sponsors.
  • A scanner survey was sent out for completion between July 12 and July 29, 2016. Information gathered is being using to prepare a best practices ShareILL page.
  • The ShareILL pages are being reviewed, with the goal of working with the Licensing and Legislation Committee on developing a template for borrowing e-books.
  • Plans are being developed for the possible co-hosting of an article delivery forum with the ILL Discussion Group and pertinent vendors.

      Robin Moskal, Chair

President’s Note

Hello, RUSA members!  This is my last column as RUSA President and I want to say how much I have enjoyed serving in this position.  As I turn over the reins to Alesia McManus, our president-elect, I’d like to thank all of our volunteers and members, as well as the RUSA office staff, for their support and engagement over the past year.  I’d also like to congratulate our newly elected president-elect for 2016-2017, Chris LeBeau, as well as newly elected Directors at Large Jenny Presnell and Jennifer Boettcher, and all the new section leaders.  My heartfelt thanks go out to everyone who ran for office.

As I cycle off as RUSA president, I’m turning over several important initiatives to Alesia.  One of these is our pilot implementation of Interest Groups.  Under the guidance of the Organization & Planning Committee and its chair, Beth German, the pilot project has gotten underway with four interest groups for Copyright, Shared Collections, First-Year Experience and Entrepreneurship.  I’ve enjoyed watching the groups get started, and look forward to making Interest Groups a permanent part of RUSA, as soon as details and specifics can be worked out.

Another important initiative is our Name Change Task Force, which has been charged with looking at how we can best brand ourselves for the future and ensure that our association name speaks to the needs of current and future members.  I am deeply grateful to co-chairs Nancy Cunningham and Ed Garcia, as well as all members of the task force, for addressing this important issue.  The task force includes RUSA members from public, academic and special libraries, representing all of RUSA’s sections and a range of interests.  The complete roster is available here.  In this issue of RUSA Update you’ll find some more information from the co-chairs about how they will be proceeding with their work, and how you can give input.

One opportunity for you to weigh in about the Name Change Task Force or any other RUSA-related issue is coming up at our virtual Town Hall Meeting on Wednesday, June 15 at 4 pm ET.  Details for how to connect to the Town Hall can be found on the RUSA News blog, along with a link to submit questions ahead of time.  I and other members of the RUSA leadership will be present at the Town Hall to answer questions or hear your concerns.  I hope you can join us!

If you’re able to come to the ALA Annual conference in Orlando, we have several RUSA signature events that you may want to put on your calendar, including Friday’s RUSA 101, where you can learn all about RUSA and how to get involved; the free Literary Tastes breakfast on Sunday morning with name authors; and the RUSA Achievement Awards reception on Sunday evening.  I’d like to especially put in a plug for these two events:

  • RUSA President’s Program
    Be Our Guest: Creating Immersive Guest Experiences in Libraries
    Saturday 06/25/2016
    4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
    Our keynote speaker for the President’s Program will be Dave Cobb, Vice President for Creative Development at the Thinkwell Group and an expert on designing immersive educational experiences for museums and theme parks.  Joining Dave will be two responders:  John Blyberg, Assistant Director for Innovation and UX at the Darien Library; and Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian at Temple University.
  • Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Celebration
    Saturday 06/25/2016
    8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
    This year’s Carnegie winners were Sally Mann’s Hold Still for nonfiction and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer for fiction.  I am looking forward to hearing from both winning authors at our Carnegie event, which will also feature a keynote talk from poet Billy Collins.  Last year’s event was one of the highlights of the Annual conference for me, and I expect this year’s event to be just as exciting.

Please check the ALA Scheduler for the most current times and locations of all RUSA’s events.

Finally, I would like to note that one of RUSA’s current goals is to increase continuing education and engagement offerings throughout the year, recognizing that many of our members cannot attend ALA conferences and would like more opportunities for virtual learning.  To that end, the RUSA Board and Executive Committee are reviewing the recommendations of the Learning Opportunities and Knowledge Coordination Task Force, which has recently issued its report about how RUSA can best bring continuing education opportunities to all of its members.  The task force was ably chaired by dedicated members Shannon Jones and Mary Popp.  Stay tuned for more information about our future directions in this regard.

Please feel free to contact me any time at annehouston2@gmail.com.  I welcome your questions and comments.

Anne Houston
RUSA President 2015-2016

Emerging Leader

In just about one month’s time myself and the RUSA Emerging Leaders team will be presenting our “Library as Publisher” toolkit at the Emerging Leaders Poster Session during ALA Annual in Orlando. How time flies! The past few weeks have been an interesting process of finding resources, mapping out how the toolkit will look, putting together our team’s final report, and deciding on a final presentation format. As the team and myself work with the RUSA Publications and Communications Committee to get the toolkit completed and ready for use, add the “Emerging Leaders Poster Session and Reception” to your ALA Annual schedule! We will be presenting the final toolkit on Friday, June 24th from 3pm to 4pm in OCCC S320 A-C.

Look out for my next update where I will be reflecting on my time as RUSA’s Emerging Leader and be sure to connect with me on Twitter @BiblioCatherine or in-person at ALA Annual in Orlando.

Catherine Damiani

RUSA News/Announcements

“IAmRUSA” Podcast
RUSA’s very first “IAmRUSA” podcast!
This podcast was created by Patty Valdovinos, our 2016 RUSA Spectrum Intern. Patty will be creating more podcasts profiling RUSA members as part of her Spectrum project for RUSA, continuing the “IAmRUSA” conversations created by our previous Spectrum Intern, Kirk MacLeod, last year (see the past conversations here).  We hope these podcasts will help us all learn more about each other as RUSA members. Thanks to Patty for this great initiative and a special acknowledgment to her for conducting the interview. Listen to it here.

2016 Election Results
Congratulations to the winners of the 2016 RUSA elections!
Thank you to those who stood in for election and to all the RUSA members who voted. Your votes help guide the leadership of RUSA and contribute to the success of the organization and its mission. The election results can be found here.

Town Hall Meeting

Make your voice count! The Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) is hosting a virtual Town Hall meeting on Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 1 p.m. (PST) / 2 p.m. (MDT) / 3 p.m. (CDT) / 4 p.m. (EDT) to give all RUSA members (and prospective members!) a chance to ask questions about the organization and give input on our current and future directions.  We invite you to submit questions and suggestions ahead of time or ask them during the Town Hall.
You can submit your question here up until June 10:  http://goo.gl/forms/7pHP8S4Yy3.

RUSA President Anne Houston and RUSA Vice-President Alesia McManus will be present at the Town Hall to answer questions. To attend the meeting, you can either call 1-866-717-7547 with participant code: 72620830# or click on this link on June 15.

New Vendor Relations Liaison
Celia Ross appointed as new vendor relations liaison

headshot of Celia Ross
Celia Ross


RUSA President, Anne Houston, has appointed Celia Ross, Associate Librarian at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan as RUSA’s newest position, Vendor Relations Liaison.

The Vendor Relations Liaison’s role is to facilitate communication between RUSA, including its staff, members, committees, sections and Executive Board, and database providers, publishers and other research resource vendors in order to ensure the continued support of RUSA’s awards, events, learning opportunities and strategic plan. The Liaison will also work to highlight the value and impact produced by this collaboration.

“Celia has had a direct impact on the professional development of many librarians, drawing them into business reference services and research. Celia is the ideal candidate for this position in that she has been one of RUSA’s greatest assets in advocating for our profession, creating and maintaining relationships with industry vendors and securing sponsorships for many of RUSA’s awards and events. Her rapport within and without the library community goes unmatched and we are beyond excited to have her as the face of our vendor relations liaison,” said RUSA President, Anne Houston.

In collaboration with RUSA, vendors gain unique access to a targeted audience of RUSA members, including reference and acquisitions librarians, collection development specialists, and other information professionals, resulting in a mutually beneficial partnership.

Annual Conference events:

RUSA’s President’s Program
“Be Our Guest”: Creating Immersive Guest Experiences in Libraries
Saturday, June 25
4:00 PM – 5:30 PM
Orange County Convention Center, Room W110B

Join us for RUSA’s President’s Program, a thoughtful discussion on how to create an effective “guest experience” in your library that teaches and inspires your users. Keynote speaker Dave Cobb, Vice President for Creative Development of Thinkwell Group, is an expert on designing immersive educational experiences for museums and theme parks. He’ll talk about how libraries can tell stories with space and create emotional resonance with their users–drawing on examples from the library world as well as theme parks. Responders are: John Blyberg, Assistant Director for Innovation and UX, Darien Library; and Stephen Bell, Associate University Librarian, Temple University. Add it to your schedule!

photo of Dave Cobb
Dave Cobb

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Celebration
Saturday, June 25
8:00 PM – 10:00 PM
HILTON Orlando, Room Florida Ballroom 1-4

The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction are co-sponsored by Booklist and RUSA and supported by a grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York. This year’s program, sponsored in part by NoveList, will include featured speaker Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the U.S., as well as remarks from fiction medalist Viet Thanh Nguyen (The Sympathizer) and nonfiction medalist Sally Mann (Hold Still). The speakers will mingle with attendees and publishers at a drinks and dessert reception following the award presentation on Saturday, June 25, 8-10p.m. Our Gold sponsors include Grove Atlantic and Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Group. Individual tickets and tables are available for purchase.  Add it to your schedule!

Carnegie winners with sponsor logos

Literary Tastes: Celebrating the Best Reading of the Year
Sunday, June 26
8:00 AM – 10:00 AM
Rosen Centre, Room Grand A

Listen to some of the year’s best authors discuss their work and the craft of writing, while enjoying the company of other book lovers. All Annual Conference registrants are invited to participate in this free event. Light refreshments will be served. Book signings to follow. Add it to your schedule!

Featured speakers include:
Naomi Novik, author of Uprooted. Published by Del Rey. Winner of the 2016 Fantasy category of RUSA’s Reading List.
Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron. Published by A.A.Knopf. Winner of the 2016 Sophie Brody Medal and finalist for the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
James Hannaham, author of Delicious Foods. Published by Little, Brown and Company. 2016 RUSA Notable Book for Fiction.
Karin Slaughter, author of Pretty Girls. Published by William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins. Winner of the 2016 Adrenaline category of RUSA’s Reading List.
Joy Harjo, author of Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems. Published by W.W. Norton and Company. 2016 RUSA Notable Book for Poetry.

LiteraryTastes_Annual Poster

RUSA 101
Friday, June 24
3:00 PM – 4:00 PM
HILTON Orlando, Room Florida Ballroom 1-2

If you’re a first time conference attendee, new to RUSA or a longtime member looking for an opportunity to connect and ways to get involved, make sure to put RUSA 101 on your calendar! Spend an hour with us on Friday from 3-4p.m. before heading off to the opening of the exhibit floor for a chance to win some fantastic door prizes! Sponsored by Springshare. Add it to your schedule!

Springshare logo

Achievement Awards Ceremony and Reception
Sunday, June 26
5:00 PM – 6:30 PM
Rosen Centre, Room Grand A

Join RUSA colleagues and celebrate this year’s award winners for their outstanding accomplishments in reference and user services! Add it to your schedule!

BRASS Preconference: Business Data for Librarians
Friday, June 24
8:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Orange County Convention Center, Room W303 A/B

As the business world embraces data and analytics, so do business librarians. The focus of this interactive full-day pre conference program will include: conducting a data reference interview; delving into the issues of data validity and data information literacy; and, working with data tools and datasets. We will look in-depth at locating and manipulating financial and marketing data in particular. Designed for academic, public, and special librarians and all interested in this topic. Tickets available here.

RUSA meetings can be found here.

RUSA programs can be found here.

RUSA discussion and interest groups can be found here.

Online Learning
Courses

Please scroll down for pricing

Readers’ Advisory
101
(Live chats on Thursdays at 3 p.m. CST)
July 5 – August 12, 2016

Through practice sessions, participants will learn from instructor and RA expert Joyce Saricks how to use RA tools, craft annotations, read in genres, articulate appeal, and experiment with methods to offer RA services. The topics covered are introductory in nature. Read more here. Register here.

Learner-Centered Reference and Instruction: Science, Psychology, and Inclusive Pedagogy
July 18 – August 28, 2016

This course will introduce library practitioners to empirically sound approaches to learner-centered teaching that can be applied to creating effective reference and instruction services that maximally facilitate student learning. Read more here. Register here.

Introduction to Instructional Design for Librarians
(Live chats on Mondays at 5 p.m.CST)
September 12 – October 23, 2016

Learn to use the Instructional Design Process and apply it effectively to library instruction. Read more here. Register here.

Interlibrary Loan (ILL) 101
(Recorded Live Sessions on M/W, Time 1-2 p.m. CST)
October 3 – 30, 2016

The course will be separated into four separate modules that cover the ILL process from both the borrowing and lending perspectives, copyright law and licensing impacts on ILL, and ILL resources and systems. This course will cover both policies and procedures. Read more here. Register here.

Business Reference 101
October 3 – 30, 2016 or October 31 – December 4, 2016

This four-week, Web-based professional development course is designed for academic, special or public librarians and other researchers and library staff who have a basic understanding of some business resources but who do not work with them often enough to build expertise. Read more here. Register here.

Genealogy 101
October 31 – December 4

This course is designed for reference staff with little to no experience in genealogy. Using a case study to frame the coursework, participants will learn about tools and techniques they can use to confidently assist patrons with family history research. Read more here. Register here.

Pricing for the listed courses:
$130 for RUSA members
$175 for ALA members
$210 for non-ALA members
$100 for student members and retired members

Webinars
Stay tuned for future webinars with RUSA and get the most out of your membership!

Do you have an idea for a course or webinar that we are not currently offering?
Learn more about submitting proposals for RUSA online learning.

RUSA Committee Reports

RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee
Proposals for programs and pre-conferences at ALA Annual 2017 in Atlanta and for pre-conference institutes at ALA-Midwinter 2017 in Chicago are due to CPCC by the end of the day on May 16, 2016. Section chairs and chairs of RUSA-level committees have access to the proposal form. Individuals who are planning programs for those conferences and who have received formal approval from a RUSA-level section or RUSA-level committee need to submit the proposal form by attaching it to an e-mail addressed to Jason Coleman, CPCC’s chair, at coleman@ksu.edu.

CPCC and RUSA’s Office had initially planned to release the program submission form to leaders of RUSA’s sections and leaders of RUSA-level committees in early March. They had advertised a submission deadline of May 1, 2016. Unfortunately, ALA’s Conference Services encountered difficulties with the conference software they use to create the submission forms. This has resulted in a delay in their release of the draft version of RUSA’s program submission form to RUSA’s staff. As a consequence of these delays, CPCC extended the submission deadline to May 16, 2016 and worked with RUSA’s Executive Director, Susan Hornung, to develop a MS Word version of the form. RUSA’s President, Anne Houston, distributed the form to chairs of RUSA’s sections and to chairs of RUSA-level committees.

Early this year RUSA CPCC developed an extensive list of suggested modifications to the conference program submission form that was used last year. RUSA’s Office had planned to implement as many of those requested changes as the software used for the form would allow. Given the delay in the creation of the form, RUSA’s Office and RUSA CPCC have agreed to wait until next year to implement the majority of these modifications.

Jason Coleman
RUSA CPCC Chair, 2015-201
6

RUSA Publications and Communications Committee
The RUSA Publications and Communication Committee is currently accepting volunteer applications from RUSA members to lead the transition and future directions of the RUSA Voices (http://blog.rusa.ala.org/ ).
The focus of the RUSA Voices will be for contributors to share, discuss, and
promote current trends in reference and user services. The Blog will be written
by a team of columnists with a publishing schedule facilitated by a coordinator.

We are currently looking for:
●       A blog coordinator
●       A blog website coordinator
●       columnists to contribute to the blog

Applications
should be submitted no later than
June 17, 2016.  Apply online: http://goo.gl/forms/frpDLFtp2UWuhie63

Available Positions:
RUSA Blog Coordinator:

●      Coordinator is responsible for recruiting and selecting
four or more columnists with a variety of perspectives and sets
publication schedule to ensure regular postings that represent a broad
spectrum of ideas relevant to RUSA members and potential members. The
coordinator establishes columnist recruitment plan, to be shared with RUSA
Publications and Communications Committee.
●      Edit articles for content, style, format and correct
grammatical usage.
●      Accepts, solicits, and selects requests for guest posts
as needed
●      Collaborates with Blog Website Coordinator,
Publications and Communications Committee, and RUSA staff to ensure Blog
meets RUSA branding standards.
●      Serves ex-officio on RUSA Publications and
Communications Committee
●      Works with RUSA Publications and Communications
Committee to create marketing plan for blog, to promote blog to readers
within RUSA and also to a general professional audience.

RUSA Blog Website Coordinator:
●      Website Coordinator is responsible for maintaining,
updating, and securing WordPress blog.
●      Provides technical support to Blog Coordinator and
columnists.
●      Solicits improvements and plugin suggestions from RUSA
members for RUSA Voices
●      Coordinates with RUSA Webmaster on the technical
specifications and the integration of the RUSA Blog with RUSA News, RUSA
Website, and social media.
●      Collaborates with Blog Coordinator, Publications and
Communications Committee, and RUSA staff to ensure Blog meets RUSA
branding standards.
●      Serves ex-officio on RUSA Publications and
Communications Committee

Columnists:
●      Writes and posts 6+ articles per year
●      Serves as peer reviewer for other columnists as needed
●      RUSA Member

Recruitment  Process:
The committee will accept applications from RUSA members for all positions thru June 17,
2016. The committee will conduct interviews for the RUSA Blog and Website Coordinators.
Once the Blog Coordinator is selected, that individual will lead the selection
process for columnists.

Background:
In 2013, an Emerging Leader’s project created the blog “Chasing
Reference”. This blog was a great way for members and new librarians to create
content, share their experiences, and highlight trends within the profession.
The Publications and Communications committee began RUSA Voices, and would like
to see the blog continue. Additionally, the current RUSA Blog has been
rebranded as RUSA News with the RUSA office as the content creators which
allows for the opportunity for a member driven blog.

Amy E. Rustic, Chair

RUSA Learning Archive Task Force
The Learning Archive Task Force has completed an environmental scan of sources of information about those webinars, courses, programs, pre-conferences, institutes, and workshops RUSA has offered since 2011. This scan revealed that the combination of reports from RUSA’s Office, RUSA Update, RUSA News, and the conference programs for ALA Annuals and ALA Midwinter Conferences were the most fertile sources of metadata about those learning opportunities. Task Force member Stephanie Atkins has created a spreadsheet summarizing information obtained from RUSA’s Office and from the conference programs. In the near future the Task Force will augment the spreadsheet by culling information from RUSA Update and RUSA News. Once the spreadsheet is complete, they will create a Google Form to serve as the front end of the Learning Archive. They will then work with RUSA Board to develop a mechanism to share the data in the archive and to create a procedure for keeping the archive up-to-date in the future.

Jason Coleman
RUSA Learning Archive Task Force Chair, 2015-2016

RUSA Name Change Task Force
RUSA Members: Are we ready for a name change?

The word Reference is the first word in our association acronym.  For many of us with years working in library public services, the word is both meaningful and identifiable, even comforting.  Yet the very nature of reference service has changed.  In many libraries, units formerly called the “Reference Department” have been renamed, as early as fifteen years ago, “Information Services” or “Research Services.” Also, print collections once labeled “reference” have been stored and replaced by online resources for greater accessibility by all.  As pointed out in a recent article by RUSA President Anne Houston, “What’s in a Name?” (Reference and User Services Quarterly, Spring 2016) reference may be only a small part of what we do on a daily basis.  Perhaps the word is not a part of our job assignment at all. Yet, RUSA is our home within a very large national association.

In February, the RUSA Name Change Taskforce was assembled with members representing a wide variety of roles within our profession.  The crux of the charge is to both to “determine name change possibilities” and, consider “larger issues of rebranding within RUSA and library public services.”  The guidance in the charge counsels us to recognize that “reference is changing radically” and that we should think deeply about ALA’s Libraries Transform campaign as we envision transformations within RUSA itself.  Moreover, we need to re-envision a name which speaks to not only current members but to potential members whose job titles we cannot yet imagine.  In short, a new name should be relatable and recognizable, encompass the very large scope of our activities and service, and defines us among other ALA divisions.   The feedback we collect from members and non-members and a short list of name change possibilities are due to the RUSA board by the end of this year.

As our annual conference in Orlando approaches, the task force is planning to use social media (Hashtag namerusa#), flyers, email blasts, an online survey, and other onsite venues to gather as much feedback as possible before and during the conference.

How do you relate to the RUSA name and brand?  Does ‘reference’ represent what you do?  What about the word ‘service’ and ‘users’?  Should the name be a pronounceable acronym? What collection of words would speak to potential new members?  How do we represent RUSA values in a name?

Responses to these questions and more, in addition to informal conference discussions will guide the task force toward the creation of a list of name possibilities and brand issues for consideration by the RUSA board.

What do you think?  Are you ready for a name change?

Nancy Cunningham
Co-chair,RUSA Name Change Taskforce

BRASS Notes

John Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

The election results are in—congratulations to our new office holders!
RUSA
-President-Elect – Chris LeBeau
-Director at Large – Jennifer Boettcher

Jennifer was also elected as an ALA Councilor! Jennifer, way to go!!!
BRASS
-Vice Chair/Chair-Elect – Greg Fleming
-Secretary – Ilana Stonebraker
-Member-at-Large – Annette Buckley

We are grateful for your investment of time, energy and effort to BRASS and RUSA…and for making our section and division a great place to serve and grow professionally!

I hope everyone is getting ready for the Annual Conference (AC) in sunny Orlando, FL (Friday, June 24 – Tuesday, June 28, 2016).  BRASS has some great activities, programs, meetings, and, of course, the Monday night BRASS Dinner planned to make for a great conference.

If you have never been to a BRASS Pre Conference BEFORE then try to make this one your FIRST! Business Data for Librarians will be held on that Friday. You can still register in advance and save some money from the on-site registration! I recently registered and I hope to see many of you there.

The RefUSA BRASS Membership Reception will be on Friday night at Cuba Libre Restaurant & Rum Bar.

The BRASS Forum (Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee) on Saturday will feature “Lighting Talks” on a variety of intriguing and innovative topics.

The Sunday morning BRASS Discussion Group will meet, as usual, and this will be an excellent opportunity to learn many new and wonderful things happening in Business Librarianship as well as being informed of recent job openings and other important items.  There will be a coffee and refreshment break sponsored by MINTEL and then feel free to stick-around and meet some of our new colleagues at the BRASS New Business Librarians’ Discussion Group gathering.

The Monday morning BRASS Program will be a great opportunity to learn about the hospitality and tourism industry resource information landscape. I plan to get into the spirit by wearing a Hawaiian shirt, Crocs and shades! Come join the laid-back, enlightening experience!  S&P will be graciously providing coffee, juices and refreshments, as in the past.

Be sure to make your flight reservations to leave on Tuesday and NOT Monday!  You don’t want to bypass the Monday night BRASS Dinner immediately after the BRASS Exec. Committee meeting which will be from 4-6PM. This dinner is a great opportunity to catch-up with colleagues, meet new ones, and network in order to increase your professional capabilities to better serve your patrons back at your libraries.

Take a look at the BRASS website for more details and continue to monitor BRASS-L to keep up with RSVPs for the BRASS Dinner at Cafe Gaugin (first one going out around May 9) and other important scheduling email related to this fantastic upcoming AC!

These are just several of the many happenings—can’t name them all here!—coming up at the AC and I hope you book your reservations accordingly to not miss any of the great things planned!

Best regards and I hope to see you all in Orlando,

Paul Brothers
BRASS Chair 2015-2016

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated a virtual discussion on March 25th. 27 BRASS members were in attendance for this lively discussion about a myriad of topics, including RUSA Voices, the Springshare blog functionality and the new S&P interface. For more details, check ALA connect for the recording and the chat transcript. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the discussion.  The next virtual discussion will be at 2pm EST on May 13th with an open agenda.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
For the past 6 months our committee has been actively engaged in preparing for the BRASS Academic Forum that will be held at ALA Annual: “Lightning Talks on Innovation and Risk Taking in Business Academic Librarianship.” We collaborated in many ways—holding virtual meetings, using Google tools, creating a sub-group, and email—to determine criteria, draft messages, solicit presenters and evaluate finalists. Our committee reviewed 24 proposals and selected 7 for the BRASS Academic Forum. Because there were many good proposals that could not fit into the Lightning Talk format, we will sponsor a Lightning Talk webinar after annual to include several more by innovative academic librarians. I look forward to this risky new event for BRASS at ALA Annual!

Van Houlson, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is in the process of nominating and selecting reference resources that will be reviewed in an upcoming issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.

The Business Reference Sources Committee has also selected its program to present at the annual Publisher’s Forum which will take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. The title of the forum will be: “One Part Social, One Part Commercial: A Recipe for Supporting Social Entrepreneurship.” The publishers will include Berrett-Koehler, Emerald, and Greenleaf.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee continues to pursue our goals to provide for the educational needs of business reference librarians and other librarians involved in business reference services. The Committee Teams continue to work on individual projects:

  • Pre Conference Planning Team
    • Work continues on developing the 2016 BRASS Preconference “Business Data for Librarians” at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando June 24 from 8:30am – 4:00pm. Our speakers are working on their individual presentations and the Team will continue to work on logistical details as well as facilitation for the Q&A portion of the event. Advertising for the Pre Conference has met with considerable success and we anticipate a hearty group of participants this year. Join us if you can! (http://brass.libguides.com/2016brasspreconference)
    • The Committee has decided not to offer an in-person Preconference at ALA Annual 2017, instead focusing our efforts on a possible webinar series as an educational offering of similar depth with the benefits of lower cost and increased flexibility to potential participants. Emerald Group Publishing is interested in offering a Preconference at ALA Annual 2017 and the Education Committee will continue our involvement with member Bridget Farrell serving as a liaison (as well as Vendor Relations liaison Ann Fiegen) to this symbiotic venture.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Tom Ottaviano, Peter McKay, Charles Allan and Eimmy Solis.
  • Best of the Best Business Websites Award Team
    • Award winners were announced at Midwinter. The team continues to explore the possibility of changing the award from a print certificate to a web badge; the proposal is pending consideration by the Executive Committee.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Monica Hagan, Cara Cadena and Bridget Farrell.
  • Webinar Team(s)
    • Originally the Committee had two webinar teams – the Free Webinar Team and the Paid Webinar Team. It is likely that the 2016-2017 season will see these teams combined, however, as the Education Committee pursues the possibility of a webinar series offering. This will be discussed along with the report the Paid Webinar team will give at ALA Annual 2016 regarding the results of their environmental review for webinar offerings in the business reference space.
    • The Webinar teams benefit from the efforts of Phebe Dickson, Robbie De Peri and Christina Sheley, Kelly LaVoice, Hiromi Kubo and LuMarie Guth.

The BRASS Education Committee is further pleased to announce that Robbi De Peri has accepted the role of Co-Chair of the Committee for the 2016-2017 term. The Committee welcomes this additional leadership and looks forward to her continuing ideas and insights. The Committee looks forward to ALA Annual 2016 and the year ahead!

Ashley Faulkner, 2012-2015 Chair

Membership Committee
The ReferenceUSA BRASS Member Reception, generously sponsored by InfoUSA, will be held at Cuba Libre Pointe in Orlando at 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. on Friday June 24. Pointe Orlando is conveniently located near the Orange County Convention Center and conference hotels.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet BRASS members and network over appetizers and drinks!

RSVP at http://evite.me/P6PT8wpNEZ

Jennifer Boettcher and Cynthia Slater, 2015-2016 Co-chairs

Vendor Relations Committee
BRASS is fortunate to have sponsors that support the section activities and awards. As annual approaches be sure to thank our long time BRASS friends S&P Global Market Intelligence, Emerald, InfoGroup ReferenceUSA, Morningstar, Global Financial Data, and Springshare. New in the last year are Mergent, the sponsor of the Excellence in Business Librarianship, and SimplyMap, sponsor of the Student Travel Award.

Ann Fiegen, 2015-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
The BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship Award committee is looking forward to officially recognizing this year’s recipient, Jared Hoppenfeld of Texas A&M, at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony during ALA Annual in Orlando. Congratulations, Jared!

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

CODES

Barry Trott, Editor

CODES will be active in Orlando at ALA Annual!  On Saturday, June 25 at 10:30 am, check out our program “Harnessing Research and Data to Advance Readers’ Advisory Services” in the AM Orange County Convention Center, Room S330 C-D.  On Sunday morning at 8 am start your day with “Literary Tastes: Celebrating the Best Reading of the Year” in the Rosen Centre, Room Grand A.  This annual event has become a favorite for readers everywhere.  And you certainly won’t want to miss the Achievement Awards Ceremony and Reception at 5 pm on Sunday in the Rosen Centre, Room Grand A.  Congratulate your colleagues from CODES and other RUSA sections as we recognize their outstanding achievements.

You may be interested in a couple of other CODES committee meetings as well.  The CODES All Committee Meeting at Midwinter in Boston was so successful that we are repeating it in Orlando.  Any CODES group that does not have its own specific meeting time and place can meet during the All Committee Meeting on Saturday, June 25, at 10:30 am in the Hyatt Regency Orlando, Room Plaza BR F.  It’s also a great venue to meet colleagues and introduce yourself to other CODES members.  The Reference Publishing Advisory Committee will meet on Saturday, June 25, at 4:30 pm in Orange County Convention Center, Room W307B.   This brainstorming session is open to all and will identify trends in reference publishing to serve as future topics.  Please join us for the conversation!

It’s not too late for appointment to a CODES committee.  A few committees still have available positions.  If you’re interested in serving or have questions about CODES committees, please contact Daniel Mack, CODES Vice Chair/Chair Elect, at dmack@umd.edu.

History

Laura Hibbler, Editor

Here are just a few of the great events coming up for History Librarians at ALA Annual in Orlando!

All Committee Meeting and Open House (RUSA_HS)
Saturday, June 25, 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
HYATT Regency Orlando, Room Celebration 05

Partnering for the Common Good: Libraries, and Genealogical Societies
Saturday, June 25, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Orange County Convention Center, Room W109A

Genealogy and Local History Discussion Group (RUSA HS)
Saturday, June 25, 4:30 PM – 5:30 PM
Orange County Convention Center, Room W310

History Librarians Discussion Group (RUSA_HS)
Sunday, June 26 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
Orange County Convention Center, Room W209C

Executive Committee Meeting (RUSA HISTORY)
Monday, June 27, 8:30 AM – 10:00 AM
Rosen Centre, Room Salon 06

Also of note, the Genealogy Pre Conference will take place Friday, June 24, from 9:00 AM – 4:00 PM, at the Orange County Convention Center, Room W304 A-B. The Genealogy Pre Conference has been full since early April–congratulations to the planning committee for organizing such a popular event! The committee is maintaining a waiting list for lunch, in case people who are already registered drop out. A few may be added to a waiting list for sessions only (no lunch).

To be added to the waiting list, please contact Rhonda L. Clark.

Stay tuned for more information about History Section programming at ALA!

From the History Librarians Discussion Group
During the History Librarians Discussion Group at Midwinter 2016, attendees were interested in learning more about the metadata standards used by different digital scholarship sites. Kara Long, Metadata and Catalog Librarian at Baylor University, has kindly composed an incredibly helpful piece for the History Section. She explains metadata and relates metadata to formats librarians will understand. The introduction to Kara’s piece is provided here, with the full text available on the History Section site.

“An Entirely Too Brief History of Library Metadata and a Peak at the Future, Too”
Even if you feel unfamiliar with metadata, you may have heard the definition, “metadata is data about data.” This is technically true but not very illuminating. The title of a book is metadata. The length of a feature film is metadata. The date of a treaty is metadata. Metadata is information about other data, and in the case of libraries the “other data” is usually an information object – like a book, film, or government document. So, you may feel unfamiliar with metadata, but the truth is that we all rely on metadata all the time in our daily lives. If you work in a library (and you probably do), then you use metadata every time you search for a book or article. In fact, metadata probably plays a big role in a lot of what you do.

A conversation about metadata can get very theoretical very quickly. So, in honor of the History Librarians’ discussion group, I will present an entirely too brief history of library metadata as a way to contextualize our current metadata challenges. In libraries, many of these challenges originate in library data models developed in the nineteenth century and early twentieth centuries. Our choice of data models and standards has proliferated since then, and I hope this brief history makes the sea of library metadata a little less overwhelming.
Continue reading

Emerging Technologies Section (ETS)

Chanitra Bishop, Editor

Get Involved with ETS!
Great news – we are still accepting volunteers to fill a variety of ETS committee appointments.  If you are interested in serving, please contact Vice Chair/Chair-Elect Courtney McDonald directly at crgreene@indiana.edu for more information about opportunities.  Follow the link here for a listing of the ETS committees

Have questions about our committees? The All Committee Meeting on Sunday, June 26th from 10:30-11:30am (HYATT Regency Orlando, Room Bayhill 23) is a great place to meet ETS members and have your questions answered!
Attending the full conference in Orlando?
Join us for some or all of our sessions!!

Happening on Sunday at 1:00pm (Orange County Convention Center, Room W109A)

Emerging Technologies Librarians: Changing Roles for Changing Times (RUSA_ETS)
Are you bemused by the range of new literacies deemed critical for future citizens/students?  Has your University or Community recently stressed the importance of digital, visual, design, and statistical, and/or entrepreneurial literacy?   Do you struggle to keep up with new technologies when you haven’t finished learning the last ones yet?

Join us for an afternoon of conversation with three Emerging Technologies librarians who discuss how their roles continue to evolve as once “emerging” technologies become part of the library’s operational fabric, and as new expectations for successful citizens and students lead libraries to continue to expand partnerships and opportunities for their patrons to engage with new waves of emerging technologies.

Beth Boatright (Emerging Technologies Librarian and Business Librarian, Indiana University- Purdue University, Fort Wayne),  Tara Radniecki (Engineering Librarian at University of Nevada, Reno, and author of the IFLA Study on Emerging Technology librarian roles)  and Jane Martin (Library Director, Winterhaven Public Library and their SEEDLab with a focus on  Science, Education, Exploration and Design) will share their experiences as they juggle day-to-day operational aspects of their jobs with trying to stay abreast of the trends, working with their colleagues as they learn new technologies (are we all emerging technologies librarians now?), and engaging with “ever emerging” new technologies to continue to harness their potential to provide the best opportunities for the populations we serve.

A listing of all ETS programs and meetings is available in the ALA Scheduler.

Some other highlights include:

Saturday Sessions:

  • The Library as Publisher: Emerging Service for Storytellers and Scholars
    Do you have patrons that are trying to publish books, build websites, or record podcasts? Are you prepared to provide services that will help them in their publishing endeavors? This session is for you!
    Over the last two years, RUSA’s Emerging Leader teams have investigated trends and tools for libraries involved in patron publishing. You’ll learn about four distinct ways your library can support would-be authors and hear from libraries providing innovative services including print-on-demand self-publishing and audio recording with StoryCorps. You’ll leave equipped with a toolkit for providing the publishing services that are most in demand in your community, university, or school.
  • Promoting Subject Specialists and Enhancing Visibility of Library Reference
    Academic library reference continues to go through transformation, as users increasingly rely on the web for their information needs. Traditional library liaison and subject specialist roles are changing, as librarians attempt to realign services with university-wide goals, including an increased emphasis on undergraduate student success. How does your institution market, brand, and promote its reference services on the web? How are library subject liaisons and specialists presented online? In this session, we will explore what various institutions are doing to increase the visibility of their subject librarians and how they are formalizing and assessing their new and existing efforts. We will feature a panel of 3-4 presenters, as well as an active discussion and interaction with audience members.

Sunday’s sessions include:

  •  Fact or Fiction: What Virtual Reference Training Works and What Holds Promise
    Is your library currently training staff on virtual reference services? Are you looking for ideas on how to approach training or make your training efficient? This program allows the librarian to learn about current training programs, the ideal methods of assessment, and identify best training practices. As a topic that will interest all types of libraries, librarians are encouraged to share their experiences and acquire helpful tips from others. Sponsored by the Virtual Reference Discussion Group, ETS/RSS Virtual Reference Services, & Virtual Reference Companion Subcommittee.

Hope to see you in Orlando!

RSS Review

Amy Rustic, Editor

RSS logo
Message from the Chair:

Hi everyone,

I hope you all are having a nice spring.
Amy Rustic, our Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect, has been hard at work on committee appointments.  Thank you, Amy, and thank you to all of you who agreed to be committee members or chairs for another term, or for the first time.  Your active participation in our section is very much appreciated.

If you are venturing to Orlando for Annual, I hope you will attend the RSS All Committee Meeting and Open House on Saturday, June 26th from 8:30 – 10:00 a.m. in ROS CENTRE (Rosen Centre Hotel) Salon 09/10.  It’s a great chance to meet fellow and potential RSS members and find out what the difference committees are up to, plus there will be yummy food.

We will be publicizing other RSS session via email and Facebook closer to the conference.

The RSS Election results are in:
VICE-CHAIR/CHAIR-ELECT – Rebecca Jackson
SECRETARY – Jessica Hagman
MEMBER-AT-LARGE – Colleen Seale
Thank you to those who volunteered to run for positions within RSS and Congratulations to the winners!

Crystal Lentz
crystal.lentz@sos.wa.gov
RSS Chair, 2015-16

RSS Honor Roll
It’s that time of year! We want to recognize you and your contributions to RSS!

The RSS Honor Roll gives recognition to active RSS members who have served the section in three different capacities since its inception.

If you have been a member of three or more committees or discussion groups since RSS was established in 2004 and have not previously been added to the honor roll, please send your name and a list of the three ways you have served RSS to Ellen Keith at keith@chicagohistory.org

Not only will you become a member of this esteemed group, you will also be recognized at ALA Annual in Orlando!

Join the RSS Honor Roll today.

RSS COMMITTEE REPORTS

Committee on Multilingual Services
The Committee on Multilingual Library Services is currently reviewing and revising the Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Multilingual Collections and Services http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/guidemultilingual. The work started this year and will continue into the following year. The sections have been split up evenly amongst the members of the committee, and we are hoping to have some headway on the draft by ALA Annual. Another set of guidelines under the purview of the committee includes the Guidelines for Library Services to Spanish-Speaking Library Users (http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/guidespanish). The committee initially discussed combining the two guidelines, but have decided to just move forward with the one set and address the other set upon completion of the Multilingual guidelines.

To accompany the guidelines, the committee has discussed creating an online resource guide for library staff that will include strategies, advice, and tools for working with multilingual populations. This goes beyond the somewhat “ideal” guidelines to offer practical resources that can be used or implemented immediately. This work will continue into next year as well.

The committee will be facilitating a discussion forum at ALA Annual on Sunday, June 26th, from 3:00-4:00 pm at the Hyatt, in Bayhill 31 & 32. The discussion forum will be an opportunity for attendees to explain how they use the current guidelines, what they would like to see in the guidelines, and to share practical strategies for best serving multilingual populations in their libraries. The committee is considering compiling discussion notes into a Google Doc and sharing it with conference attendees, which will serve as the basis for the resource guide.

Margaret Bly, Co-Chair 2015-2016
Erin Hvizdak, Co-Chair 2015-2016

Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
The Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee will be sponsoring a discussion forum at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando on assisting patrons at the point of need through social media. Details are below:
“Please Throw Me a Vine! Assisting Patrons at the Point of Need through Social Media”
Given the large and growing percentage of the American population that is now using social networking sites for communication, it’s likely that your patrons will pose questions and research challenges on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Join us for a discussion on how we can best communicate at this developing point of need.

When: Sunday, June 26, 3:00-4:00 pm
Where: Orange County Convention Center, Room W202A

Lightning Round Presenters:
Using Instagram: Lauren Wallis, University of Delaware
Using Twitter: Paige Alfonzo, University of Denver
Using Vine: Cindy Craig, University of Florida
The Committee’s Selected Bibliography on Point of Need Reference and Instruction is available here: http://connect.ala.org/node/233262

Colleen Seale, Chair 2015-2016

Discovery Services Committee
The Discovery Services Committee plans to hold their Annual Forum titled, “Exploring Engagement between Discovery and the Catalog , 2016 at 3:00 to 4:00 pm, Orange County Convention Center, Room W107. This forum will provide an opportunity to librarians and others who are involved with reference services to discuss what platform they choose to use when engaged in reference services. To learn more about this event visit the ALA Scheduler.

Anne Larrivee, Chair 2015-2016

Education & Professional Development for Reference Committee
“Educating for the Future of Reference” at Annual 2016 in Orlando.
Our panel event for Annual 2016 builds upon earlier discussion forums around the topic of how well (or not) the professional degree prepares us for the current ‘reference’ environment.  “Educating for the Future of Reference” is planned for on Sunday, June 26 from 1:00-2:30, Orange County Convention Center, W104.

The program explores whether ‘reference education’ in library schools currently helps provide librarians with relevant skills and materials for the current ‘reference’ marketplace as seen from the perspective of library administrators/librarians who hire and train, and also from the perspective of library educators.  Panelists include Jason Coleman (Kansas State University), Wendi Bost (Orange County Public Library System), Dr. Linda Lillard (Library Science Dept. at Clarion University), and Dr. Eileen Abels, Dean of the Simmons School of Library and Information Science.

Bryna Coonin, Chair, 2015-2016

Health and Medical Reference Committee
The Health and Medical Reference Committee (HMRC) supports the specialized needs of library staff members who answer health-related reference questions in a variety of settings, including, but not limited to, public libraries, academic libraries, health care institutions, and special libraries. Topics that the committee addresses include legal and ethical issues, resource evaluation, health literacy, cultural differences, library programming, and health reference interview skills. The committee also maintains the Health and Medical Reference Guidelines (http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/guidelinesmedical), updated last in 2014 and 2015. Finally, this committee manages MEDREF, a health and medicine oriented listserv available to anyone answering health related reference questions.

HMRC has recently been working to promote MEDREF and increase the number of subscribers. The aim of the listserv is to be an open and welcoming environment for library workers from all types of libraries to discuss all questions or issues related to health and medical reference. In the last few months a press release announcing MEDREF have gone to many listservs including RUSA, RSS, ACRL, ALA, MLA and CAPHIS. Subscribe to MEDREF by going to http://lists.ala.org/sympa/info/medref.

HMRC has joined forces with ACRL’s Health Sciences Interest Group (HSIG) in offering a Discussion Forum at ALA in Orlando this June. The forum, entitled Implementing Health and Medical Reference Guidelines: Training librarians, paraprofessionals and part time staff, will highlight how the new Health and Medical Reference Guidelines can best be implemented in any type of library, including how to train professional and non-professional staff regarding what are often sensitive reference questions. This Discussion Forum will take place on Saturday, June 25th at the Hyatt Regency Orlando in Barrel Springs II from 1:00-2:30 pm. We hope all interested in learning more about providing excellent health reference will join us. It promises to be an engaging conversation!

Laura Louise Haines, Chair 2015-2016

Recognition Committee
Join RSS members on Sunday, June 26, 5:00-6:30 PM, in Rosen Centre, Room Grand A, at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony and Reception to recognize Sarah J. Hammill, winner of the RSS Service Achievement Award.

Ellen Keith, Chair 2015-2016

Research and Statistics Committee
Save the Date: 22nd Annual Reference Research Forum ALA Annual Conference

Learn about notable research projects conducted in the broad area of reference services!
Sunday, June 26th from 10:30-11:30 am in the Orange County Convention Center, Room W104
The Reference Research Forum continues to be one of the most popular and valuable programs during the ALA Annual Conference.  The following projects were selected using a blind review process by the RUSA RSS Research and Statistics Committee.
The Research Process of First-Year Students, Brandeis University, Laura Hibbler
As librarians, we often provide instruction to students at the early stages of the research process and do not have the opportunity to see the steps that students take next. Even when we do have the opportunity to see the end product of a student’s research, the student’s paper or project may reveal little about ways that the student’s research focus shifted over time and which parts of the research process caused frustration. This presentation will describe findings from a study that involved interviewing first-year students at three different points while they were working on a research paper. By interviewing students over the span of the time that they were working on their research essays, the librarian was able to ask students to reflect on the steps they had taken and students were able to provide a more complete picture of their research process.
Container Collapse! : How Students Determine Identity and Credibility of Digital Resources, University of Florida, Tara Tobin Cataldo
What does it mean to be format agnostic and what role does it play in a student’s determination of credibility of digital information? Our three-year, IMLS-funded research project explores this phenomenon with students from 4th grade to graduate school using age-appropriate science inquiry examples. The research team has created a new methodology for observing and studying information-seeking behavior in a simulated online environment. This presentation outlines our project, demonstrates the simulations, and discusses the study’s implications for all librarians, educators and online information providers. We seek your feedback and welcome lively dialogue.
Research Consultations and Dweck’s Theories of Intelligence, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Amanda L. Folk
Reference interactions, particularly research consultations, are informal teaching and learning opportunities in which librarians aim to help patrons develop information literacy skills and locate relevant information. Few studies, however, focus on understanding patrons’ motivations for consulting a librarian for help in order to explore whether or not these patrons are simply seeking to locate the relevant information or if they want to learn about the research process more generally through interactions with a librarian.  Carol Dweck identified the fixed and incremental theories of intelligence, which could affect how patrons navigate the research process, including if they will seek help from a librarian and what they intend to take away from that interaction.  This study seeks to determine if students who make appointments for research consultations with a librarian at small regional campus of a public research university subscribe to a particular theory of intelligence as defined by Carol Dweck, in order to provide evidence that can be used to inform reference practice and information literacy instruction.

Cindy Levine and Liz Kocevar-Weidinger, Co-Chairs 2015-2016

Virtual Reference Committee
The ETS/RSS Virtual Reference Services Committee is co-sponsoring a discussion forum with the ETS Virtual Reference Discussion group and the Virtual Reference Companion Subcommittee. The forum is titled “Fact or Fiction: What Virtual Reference Training Works and What Holds Promise.” The session will be a discussion of virtual reference training in both academic and public libraries. Two committee members will do a short (5 minute) presentation on the Virtual Reference Companion, and two other members will share their experiences with training programs at their libraries. The guided discussion will take place following the presentations. The forum will be held Sunday, June 26th at 4:30-5:30pm at the Hyatt Regency Orlando, Room Bayhill 20.

The committee has also recommended to the RUSA Standards and Guidelines committee that the Guidelines for Cooperative Reference Services be sunset. In other guideline news, the committee is currently revising the Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services.

Qiana Johnson, Chair 2015-2016

Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
Virtual Reference (VR) Companion Subcommittee will be co-sponsoring the Virtual Reference Discussion Forum at ALA Annual, along with the VR Discussion Group, and is preparing for that meeting, which will focus on training for virtual reference.
Fact or Fiction: What Virtual Reference Training Works and What Holds Promise, Sunday, June 26, 2016, 4:30-5:30 PM, HYATT Regency Orlando, Room Bayhill 20.
Work is being done on the companion to make navigation more intuitive and to include more content in some of the modules.

After the RUSA/RSS committee review process, a decision was made to merge the various VR committees, so the work of maintaining the VR Companion Subcommittee will be taken on by the new merged Virtual Reference Committee.

The VR Companion is accessible at http://www.ala.org/rusa/vrc, as well as in the Hot Links section of the RSS Virtual Reference Committee page, the Professional Tools section of the RUSA Resources page, and in the Web Resources section of the ALA Library Fact Sheet 19: Virtual Reference: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. Tips and Best Practices to include in the VR Companion module of the same name are always welcome! These can be directed to either co-chair, Laura Friesen (lflynn@umflint.edu), or Neal Pomea (neal.pomea@umuc.edu) or by leaving a comment on ALA Connect: (http://connect.ala.org/node/225501).

Laura Friesen, Co-chair 2015-16
Neal Pomea, Co-chair 2015-16

RSS Review is the newsletter of the Reference Services Section of Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association. Please send suggestions for future issues to Amy Rustic (aer123@psu.edu).

STARS

Kerry Keegan, Editor

Letter from the Chair

Greetings and salutations, my fellow STARS!  It’s hard to believe that ALA Annual is only a few weeks away. Our section will be offering several different programs during the Annual conference:

  • STARS Social, Friday June 24th from 8pm to 11pm at B.B. King’s Blues Club (9101 International Drive, Suite 2230) – Kick off ALA Annual with friends, food, and some jazz!
  • STARS All Committee Meeting, Saturday June 25 from 8:30am to 10am in HYATT Regency Orlando, Room Celebration 06. This is an open meeting, so if you’re curious about serving on a RUSA STARS committee please join us.
  • Interlibrary Loan Discussion Group, Saturday June 25 from 10:30am to 11:30am in Orange County Convention Center, Room W202B
  • Resource Sharing in Tomorrowland- A Panel Discussion about the Future of Interlibrary Loan, Saturday June 25 from 1pm-2:30pm in Orange County Convention Center, Room W206C
  • Not Your Average Consortia- A Panel Discussion about Consortial Partnerships and Resource Sharing, Saturday June 25 from 3pm to 4pm in Orange County Convention Center, Room S330 C-D
  • Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee Meeting, Sunday June 26 from 8:30am to 11:30am in HYATT Regency Orlando, Room Celebration 06
  • Hot Topics Discussion Group, Sunday June 26 from 3pm to 4pm in Orange County Convention Center, Room W202B

I hope to see many of you at these events in sunny Orlando- in the meantime, safe travels to all…  and don’t forget your Mouse Ears!

Tom Bruno
STARS Chair 2015/16
Director, Knowledge Curation and Innovation
The Westport Library

LLAMA SASS / RUSA STARS Consortial Borrowing Joint Committee
Please join us Saturday, June 25 at 3pm (OCCC, room W232) for the program “Not Your Average Consortia,” brought to you by the LLAMA SASS / RUSA STARS Consortial Borrowing Joint Committee. As library partnerships and collaborations are needed more than ever, library consortia are being relied upon more as resources and tools in a library’s future. This presentation will focus on what years of consortial development and participation has taught us. The panelists provide decades of experience with consortia partnerships and will be able to touch upon the “best of” practices in these partnerships. They will also guide a discussion on future developments and opportunities for all consortial cooperation.

Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee

Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
The Sharing and Transforming Access to Resources Section (STARS) of ALA has selected the winner of the 2016 Atlas Systems Mentoring Award, Kimberly Steiner, interlibrary loan technician at Messiah College (Pa.).  Steiner was chosen because as the sole person in interlibrary loan at her library, attendance at the ALA Annual Conference would allow her to learn skills necessary to support users from Messiah College, an institution that is continually expanding their graduate programs; better understand the profession; and also network and learn from colleagues. This award, sponsored by Atlas Systems, Inc., offers $1,250 to a library practitioner new to the field of ILL and resource sharing to fund travel expenses to ALA Annual Conference in Orlando.

Amy Paulus, Chair
Boucher Award Committee

Boucher Award Committee
The Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award has been awarded to Tina Baich, associate librarian and head of resource sharing and delivery services, bibliographic and metadata services, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis. Baich is honored for her outstanding and sustained contributions to the resource sharing community both nationally and internationally, her leadership on the Indiana Shared Print Project, her willingness to share her expertise with colleagues through a strong publication record and an impressive array of conference presentations and online courses, and an unflagging commitment to enhancing the teaching and learning mission of academic libraries throughout the State of Indiana. Sponsored by OCLC, this award offers $2,000 and a citation to a librarian showing outstanding professional achievement, leadership, and contributions to interlibrary loan and document delivery.

Please join me in congratulating Tina!

Collette Mak, Chair

Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
After a two-year highly deliberative and consultative process, the new ILL Code was approved by RUSA S&G, STARS Exec, and the RUSA Board of Directors at ALA Midwinter in January 2016 and immediately took effect.  The revised text can now be found on the RUSA web site, and publication in Reference and User Services Quarterly is scheduled for the summer 2016 issue.  In February, our committee entered the promotion and publicity phase of our work which began with email listserv and Facebook postings about the new Code and Supplement.  In March, our committee began hitting the spring conference circuit to give presentations and conduct Q&As with practitioners across a wide variety of regions and groups:

  • In March, we did a presentation at the ILLiad conference in Virginia.
  • In April, we addressed the resource sharing folks at the GWLA conference in Colorado.
  • May was ACRL New England in New Hampshire.
  • June included the Great Lakes Resource Sharing Conference in Indianapolis, and we will also be part of the ILL Discussion Group at ALA Annual in Orlando, Florida.
  • The big marquee event comes July 19 when our committee will be offering a free online webinar on the new ILL Code with OCLC’s logistical and technical support.  This webinar will be open to all ILL practitioners at any library of any type or size and regardless of ILL system used.  The recording will also be free and available to anyone anywhere to watch and listen afterwards.  Publicity for this event will begin around June 1.
  • When the IFLA conference comes to Columbus, Ohio, in the month of August, Document Delivery and Resource Sharing delegates from around the world will be invited to a presentation on the U.S. ILL Code as well.

Brian Miller, Chair

STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Committee
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee is busy publicizing the STAR Checklist and we already have a few dozen libraries that have submitted their checklists and become STAR libraries. An expanded STAR Checklist -Version 2 (https://tufts.qualtrics.com/SE/?SID=SV_cXPd0QGKjgCXHyB) is now ready…please fill it out and submit it to join the list of STARS (http://rethinkingresourcesharing.org/star-libraries/)!

Beth Posner, Chair

From the President

President’s column

Greetings, RUSA members!  I was thrilled to see so many of you at the Midwinter meeting in Boston.  The conference was both productive and enjoyable for RUSA.  The Book and Media Awards ceremony on Sunday evening was a great success, thanks to the efforts of the RUSA staff and volunteers.  For the first time we announced the winners of the Carnegie Medal alongside our annual “best of” book and media lists.  This year’s Carnegie winners were Sally Mann’s Hold Still for nonfiction and Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer for fiction.  I am looking forward to hearing from both winning authors at our Carnegie event at the Annual Conference in Orlando, which will be held Saturday, June 25.  The winners of our other BMAs can be found on our RUSA News blog at http://rusa.ala.org/blog/category/awards/.  I’d also like to once again thank our award committees for their dedication and tireless work.

In other news from Midwinter, the RUSA Board approved the formation of a task force to propose a new name for our association.  I recently emailed my call for volunteers to the RUSA membership:

The task force grows from concerns that the name Reference & User Services Association no longer accurately describes the dynamic quality of the work that we do.  RUSA comprises a wide variety of interests and activities, including readers’ advisory, interlibrary loan, genealogy, user experience and all kinds of library public services.  Many of us once identified as reference librarians but recognize that reference is changing radically, and find ourselves wondering how best to brand ourselves and the services we provide.  As we consider ALA’s current Libraries Transform campaign, we are thinking about the transformations within RUSA’s membership and wanting to make sure that we as an association continue to support and represent our members’ needs and interests.  It is also important that our name speak to potential members.  The charge of the task force will be to determine name change possibilities and make a recommendation to the RUSA Board by the end of 2016.  In the course of recommending a new name for RUSA the task force will be considering larger issues of rebranding within RUSA and library public services generally, and will be invited to think beyond the standard library lingo.

I received a large number of volunteers in response to this message; I believe this is because these questions are pertinent not only to RUSA but to all of us in our everyday jobs.  I’ll be putting together the task force very soon and will be excited to see the results of this effort.  Any name change would need to be approved by the RUSA membership during the annual election, so everyone will have a chance to weigh in.

As a division president, I was invited to attend an all-day information policy workshop on Thursday at Midwinter.  The workshop was organized by Alan Inouye, Director of ALA’s Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP), and focused on how ALA’s leadership can be advocates for key information policy issues on the national and local scale.  During the day we heard from an impressive lineup of speakers including Marjory Blumenthal, executive director of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, who described the “information policy triangle” comprised of the three key issues of freedom of speech, privacy and intellectual property/copyright and discussed how these play out in the areas of telecommunications and media policy, education and research funding.  Donna Scheeder, President of IFLA, spoke about the effects of globalization and how treaties and IGO policies impact information in the US.  Alan Fishel, senior counsel for the Policy Revolution! initiative managed by ALA OITP, described the qualities needed for effective advocacy, including confidence, clarity and concision.  We reviewed ALA’s National Policy Agenda and spent time in small group discussions to identify key issues and strategies for advocacy.  I found the day both informative and stimulating, and it has me thinking about how RUSA can provide advocacy and how advocacy should be a part of all of our jobs.

In my last RUSA update I wrote about our initiative to start interest groups in RUSA, with an invitation to propose an interest group as part of our pilot phase.  I’m happy to report that four pilot interest groups were proposed, approved and are underway.  If you are interested in being involved in any of these interest groups, please contact the convener:

Copyright, Faithe Ruiz (ruizf@cf.edu)
The focus of the Copyright IG is on providing a forum for the RUSA community to exchange ideas relating to copyright law and its application, to strengthen communication and cooperation among RUSA members on issues relating to copyright, and to provide opportunities for growth and improved reference services.

Entrepreneurship, Steve Cramer (smcramer@uncg.edu)
Entrepreneurship has been a hot topic of reference and adult services librarians for some time now. The concept includes self-employment, starting a business, and starting a nonprofit (also called social entrepreneurship). For libraries, support of entrepreneurship can involve outreach, research support, providing spaces for innovation and collaboration, and connecting entrepreneurs to other local resources and support services.

First Year Experience, Douglas Hasty (douglas.hasty@fiu.edu)
The purpose of this group is to share ideas and develop new connections for future collegiality and support. Topics for discussions include but are not limited to retention improvements, introduction to higher education research skills development, outreach, first generation students, international students, students enrolled simultaneously in high school and college (dual enrollment programs), reference services, etc.

Shared Collections, Tina Baich (cbaich@iupui.edu)
This Interest Group will focus on the topic of Shared Collections, which can encompass shared print initiatives, shared storage facilities, and prospective sharing of collections through cooperative collection development.

I’m excited by these interest groups and look forward to hearing about their work.  Thanks to the conveners for their efforts and visionary thinking, and to the Organization & Planning Committee, chaired by Beth German, for facilitating this process.

Please feel free to contact me any time at annehouston2@gmail.com.  I welcome your questions and comments.

Anne Houston
RUSA President 2015-2016

Emerging Leader

Greetings from RUSA’s 2016 Emerging Leader

I consider myself an expert email watcher. Of course in October 2015 my iPhone Mail app just about had enough of my checking and refreshing. But all for a very good reason! The phrase “Congratulations!” had never meant so much to me as it did when I opened the Emerging Leaders email with that exact phrase. I will admit I had to read that email a few times just for it to sink in and then I could celebrate.

My name is Catherine Damiani and I am honored to be RUSA’s 2016 Emerging Leader. I recently graduated from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Library and Information Studies and currently work as East Providence Public Library’s full-time Digital Services Librarian. I was introduced to RUSA when I was a library school student through ALA’s Student-to-Staff program at ALA Annual in 2014. I was very lucky to have experienced working with such a fantastic organization through the S2S program. I continued working with RUSA as a Voices blogger during ALA Annual 2015 and became very interested in serving on RUSA committees during that time. Within RUSA, I currently serve on the President’s Program Planning Committee and the ETS Hot Topics in Electronic Reference Discussion Group. My involvement with RUSA and ALA as a whole has lent an enormous amount of experience and value to my professional career. I am so excited to be serving RUSA in this capacity.

To give you a little background: the Emerging Leaders program was developed to help new librarians hone leadership skills and work with other librarians from around the country on projects for the American Library Association. This year’s fifty Emerging Leaders will be working on projects for AASL, ACRL, ALA-APA, ALCTS, ALSC, APALA, IRRT, MAGIRT, PLA, YALSA, and of course RUSA.

Last year’s RUSA Emerging Leader, Beth Boatright, worked on the RUSA “Library as Publisher” project. I am thrilled that myself and 4 other Emerging Leaders will be continuing this project and developing a toolkit for libraries interested in publishing. After our day-long workshop at ALA Midwinter in Boston I am confident when I say that the RUSA project project team is a dream team and that we are all incredibly excited to be working on this project.

Stay tuned for more updates as I will be posting to both RUSA Updates and RUSA News during my time as RUSA’s Emerging Leader. I also love to tweet and if you do too be sure to connect with me on Twitter @BiblioCatherine.

Catherine Damiani

RUSA News/Announcements

Don’t miss out on Early Bird Registration rates, which end at 12 p.m. (CT) March 16, 2016. You can register for the conference using this link: ALA Annual Conference registration.

RUSA’s Annual Conference Line-up:

President’s Program
“Be Our Guest”:  Creating Immersive Guest Experiences in Libraries

Join RUSA for a thoughtful discussion on how to create an effective “guest experience” in your library that both teaches and inspires your users.  Keynote speaker Dave Cobb, Vice President for Creative Development of the Thinkwell Group, is an expert on designing immersive educational experiences for museums and theme parks. He’ll talk about how libraries can tell stories with space and create emotional resonance with their users–drawing on examples from the library world, as well as local Orlando theme parks.

Preconferences
Business Data for Librarians –
Ticket purchase required
As the business world embraces big data, so must librarians. The focus of this full-day workshop will include: conducting a data reference interview; delving into the issues of data validity and data information literacy; and, working with data tools and datasets. Participants will look in-depth at locating and manipulating financial and marketing data in particular. You’ll hear from experts through interactive sessions on data and microdata in libraries and business reference work, the types of financial data and the primary sources for obtaining it, and how to employ skepticism in assessing marketing and consumer data.  Register here.

A Spoonful of Data-Driven Sugar: Using Big Business Research to Improve Customer Satisfaction in Easy-to-Implement, Single-Serving Packets  Ticket purchase required
USAA, Amazon, Zappos, Trader Joe’s, and Starbucks are among companies ranked highest in customer service and they spend millions of dollars identifying ways to make their users happy. Learn how our panelists have tested and incorporated specific communication techniques into their workflows and patron interfaces, improving customer satisfaction and their own understanding of user needs, wants, and stress behaviors. Attendees will receive access to a digital toolkit of tips and tools. Register here.

Genealogy Preconference Free, but registration is required*
This free workshop will help librarians of all types learn techniques. This can include better understanding of genealogy research methods and sources. It can also include how libraries can leverage their unique holdings to become more relevant to genealogists, who tend to be passionate in their support of libraries that have useful materials. Register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/Q7RCDJT.

Annual Conference Programs
(Dates and times have not been confirmed yet. Please stay tuned!)

The Library as Publisher: Emerging Services for Storytellers and Scholars
More information to come. Stay tuned!

Educating for the Future of Reference, sponsored by the RSS Education & Professional Development Committee
What do reference librarians need from library school coursework to best prepare them for the current marketplace? To help answer this question we have assembled a panel that includes reference/public services librarians from both academic and public libraries, a library school professor, and a library school dean, to explore whether existing coursework as currently taught meets these needs, and if not, how those working in the profession can best inform library schools as they make strategic decisions about curriculum.

Partnering for the Common Good: Libraries, and Genealogical Societies
Interest in family history (genealogy) is at an all-time high across the nation. In addition, Technology is making possible partnerships between libraries and societies that would not have been possible a few years ago. Come hear stories of successful collaboration between all types of libraries (Public, Academic, School, and Special), and genealogical societies. Learn how you can leverage these partnerships to the benefit of your library. Participants will learn how to identify opportunities for their own libraries to partner with a local genealogical society.

Not Your Average Consortia
As library partnerships and collaborations are needed more than ever, library consortias are being relied upon more as resources and tools in a library’s future. This presentation will focus on what years of consortial development and participation has taught us. The panelists provide decades of experience in consortial partnerships and will be able to touch upon the “best of” practices in these partnerships. They will also guide a discussion on future developments and opportunities for all consortial cooperation.

Emerging Technologies Librarians: Changing Roles for Changing Times
We’ll take a look at the day in the life of Emerging Technologies Librarians, the trends in job descriptions, tips for successfully juggling competing priorities, and advice and strategies for keeping up. Our panel will delve into the discussion regarding what preparation library schools should be providing for reference practitioners. The panel will bring together LIS reference educators and reference practitioners – which makes this a unique program. At the end of this program, participants will be able to describe several different variations of job descriptions and responsibilities of emerging technologies librarians.

Book and Media Awards Ceremony & Reception

Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction
“The Sympathizer,” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, published by Grove Press, an imprint of Grove Atlantic, was selected as the winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and “Hold Still: A Memoir with Photographs,” by Sally Mann, published by Little, Brown, and Company, Hachette Book Group, was selected as the winner of the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

This is the first time the Carnegie Medal winner announcements were made during the Midwinter Meeting & Exhibits, reflecting a new calendar for the awards, with the shortlist announced in October, the winners in January and the popular celebratory event continuing at ALA Annual Conference each year. During the celebratory event, both Nguyen and Mann will receive a medal and $5,000. The four finalists will each receive $1,500. To attend the celebratory reception, purchase tickets for the event here.

TheSympathizer_NguyenHoldStill_Mann

 

CODES Awards

Notable Books List
Reading List
Listen List: Outstanding Audiobook Narration
Sophie Brody Medal
Dartmouth Medal
Outstanding Reference Sources
Zora Neale Hurston Award
Louis Shores Award

BRASS Awards
Outstanding Business Reference Sources
Best of the Best Business Websites

History Awards
Best Historical Materials

ETS Awards
Best Free Reference Websites

Annual Conference

Uprooted book cover Book Of Aron book cover Delicious Foods book cover Pretty Girls book cover Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings book cover

Literary Tastes: Celebrating the best reading of the year
Featured speakers include:
Naomi Novik, author of Uprooted. Published by Del Rey. Winner of the 2016 Fantasy category of RUSA’s Reading List.
Jim Shepard, author of The Book of Aron. Published by A.A.Knopf. Winner of the 2016 Sophie Brody Medal and finalist for the 2016 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.
James Hannaham, author of Delicious Foods. Published by Little, Brown and Company. 2016 Notable Book for fiction.
Karin Slaughter, author of Pretty Girls. Published by William Morrow, a division of HarperCollins. Winner of the 2016 Adrenaline category of RUSA’s Reading List.
Joy Harjo, author of Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings: Poems. Published by W.W. Norton and Company. 2016 RUSA Notable Book for Poetry.

ALA Annual Conference
Sunday, June 27, 2015, 8:00am-10:00am, hotel TBA
Orlando, FL

Naomi Novik headshot
Naomi Novik

Jim Shepard headshot
Jim Shepard

James Hannaham headshot
James Hannaham

Karin Slaughter_headshot_Photo by Alison Rosa
Karin Slaughter

Joy Harjo headshot
Joy Harjo

 

RUSA Achievement Awards ceremony and reception
Sunday, June 27, 5-6:30pm, hotel TBA
Orlando, FL

DIVISION AWARDS:

Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award
This year’s winner is Cheryl LaGuardia, research librarian at the Widener Library of Harvard University.
The Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award was established in 1958. It presents a cash award of $5,000* and a citation to an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to reference librarianship.

Award for Excellence in Reference and Adult Services
The 2016 winner is San Jose Public Library, San Jose, CA, for the Virtual Privacy Lab (sjpl.org/privacy), a free, encrypted online learning tool for all libraries to share with patrons.
Established in 1990, the Award for Excellence in Reference and Adult Library Services is a citation and $1,000* award presented to a library or library system for developing an imaginative and unique resource to meet patrons’ reference needs.

John Sessions Memorial Award
This year’s winner is The Center for Labor Education & Research, University of Hawai‘i – West O‘ahu
Established in 1980, the John Sessions Memorial Award recognizes a library or library system which has made a significant effort to work with the labor community and by doing so has brought recognition to the history and contribution of the labor movement to the development of the United States. Such efforts may include outreach projects to local labor unions; establishment of, or significant expansion of, special labor collections; initiation of programs of special interest to the labor community; or other library activities that serve the labor community. The winner receives a plaque.

NoveList’s Margaret E. Monroe Library Adult Services Award
Dr. Mary K. Chelton, retired professor, Graduate School of Library and Information Studies, Queen’s College, CUNY, was selected as this year’s winner.
Established in 1985, the Margaret E. Monroe Award is $1,250* and a citation presented to a librarian who has made significant contributions to library adult services. The individual may be practicing librarian, a library and information science researcher or educator, or a retired librarian who has brought distinction to the profession’s understanding and practice or services for adults.

Reference Service Press Award
Denise Adkins, associate professor at the University of Missouri School of Information Science and Learning Technologies and C. Sean Burns, assistant professor, University of Kentucky School of Information Science, authored the winning article selected for the 2016 Reference Service Press Award. The article, “Arizona Public Libraries Serving the Spanish-Speaking Context for Changes,” was first published in Fall of 2013, (Vol. 53, No. 1) of Reference and User Services Quarterly
Established in 1985 and sponsored by Reference Service Press, this award constitutes a plaque and $2,500*. It recognizes the most outstanding article published in RUSQ during the preceding two-volume year.

SECTION AWARDS:

Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS)

BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
Jared Hoppenfeld, Business Librarian/Assistant Professor, Texas A&M University was selected as this year’s winner.
Established in 1989, the Excellence in Business Librarianship Award presents a citation and $4,000* cash award to an individual who has made a significant contribution to business librarianship.

BRASS Emerald Research Grant Award
Lisa O’Connor, associate professor, School of Library and Information Science, University of Kentucky, for her study, “Why Aren’t Millennials Taking Stock?:  Assessing the Role of Information Literacy in Market Avoidance.”
The Emerald Research Grant Award will be awarded to individuals seeking support to conduct research in business librarianship. The funds may be used at the discretion of the award recipients.

Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award
This year’s winner is Ruth D. Terry, business and government information librarian, assistant professor at the University of Alaska-Anchorage
This $1,250* award recognizes a librarian new to the field of academic business librarianship in order to support attendance to the ALA Annual Conference.

BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award
Susan Wolf Neilson, librarian, Wake County Public Libraries (N.C.) was selected as the 2016 winner.
This award, $1,250*, is to support the attendance at Annual Conference of a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the ALA Annual Conference.

BRASS SimplyMap Student Travel Award
The 2016 winner is Katherine Glasoe, student at the School of Library and Information Science, Simmons College.
This award consists of $1,250* and is given to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited master’s degree program to fund travel to and attendance at the ALA Annual Conference and a one-year membership in the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA.

Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES)

Louis Shores Award
Multimedia & Technology Reviews
was selected as the 2016 winner.
Established in 1990, this award recognizes an individual reviewer, group, editor, review medium or organization for excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries.

Zora Neale Hurston Award
Dr. Florita Bell Griffin, Creative Director of ARC Communications, LLC, a Texas-based Visual Art Communications and Publishing Company is the 2016 winner.
This annual award, founded in 2008, provides $1,250 for funds to travel to the ALA Annual Conference, tickets to the United for Libraries’ Gala Author Tea and two sets of  Zora Neale Hurston books published by Harper Perennial, to an individual ALA member who has demonstrated leadership in promoting African American literature.

Emerging Technologies Section (ETS)

ETS Achievement Recognition Award
Beth Boatright, information services and instruction librarian, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, was selected as the 2016 winner.
The ETS Achievement Recognition Award is given annually to recognize excellence in service to MARS. This award, presented at the annual ETS Chair’s Program, is given to an individual who is a current member of ETS, and has been an active member for the past two years.

HISTORY Section (HS)

Gale Cengage History Research and Innovation Award
The 2016 winner is Thomas Padilla, Digital Scholarship Librarian, Michigan State University.
Established in 2012, the Gale Cengage History Research and Innovation Award winner will receive a citation and up to $2,500* which may be used at the winner’s discretion.  This award will be granted to an MLS degreed librarian from an ALA accredited school to facilitate and further research relating to history and history librarianship.

Genealogy / History Achievement Award
Michele C. McNabb, Library Manager, Genealogy Center, Museum of Danish America was selected as this year’s winner.
Established in 1992 and sponsored by ProQuest, this award presents a citation and $1,500* cash to a librarian, library or publisher and recognizes professional achievement in historical reference and research librarianship.

Reference Services Section (RSS)

RSS Service Achievement Award
The 2016 winner is Sarah J. Hammill, Business & Online Learning Librarian, Florida International University.
This annual award, founded in 2010, is given to an RSS member who has made either a sustained contribution towards attaining the goals of the Reference Services Section or a single significant contribution that has resulted in a positive impact upon the work of the section.

Sharing and Transforming Access to Resources Section (STARS)

STARS-Atlas Systems Mentoring Award
The 2016 winner is Kimberly Steiner, interlibrary loan technician at Messiah College (Pa.).
Sponsored by Atlas Systems, Inc., this award offers $1,250* to fund travel expenses associated with attending ALA’s annual conference. The recipient will be a library practitioner who is new to the field of interlibrary loan/document delivery or electronic reserves, and who has daily, hands-on involvement in the areas of borrowing, lending, document delivery, electronic reserves, material delivery, or resource sharing.

Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award
Tina Baich, associate librarian and head of resource sharing and delivery services, bibliographic and metadata services, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis was selected as this year’s winner.
The Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL (Interlibrary Loan) Librarian Award is an annual award consisting of $2,000*, sponsored by OCLC, and a citation. It recognizes a librarian for outstanding professional achievement, leadership, and contributions to interlibrary loan and document delivery through recent publication of significant professional literature, participation in professional associations, and/or innovative approaches to practice in individual libraries.

RUSA COMMITTEES:

RUSA Membership
Jason Coleman, Chair of Conference Program Coordinating Committee joined RUSA 201 on January 20 for a great session. If you’re interested in knowing more about what this committee looks for, we’ve posted the session and presentation here: http://connect.ala.org/node/250217

RUSA 101 is an orientation to RUSA, it’s sections, and the work done across the division.

RUSA 201 provides more in-depth content for RUSA members about what is done at the division level and opportunities to get involved.

Watch the listserv for updates and meeting information!
If you or your committee are interested in being featured, please drop me a line at agbrown@gwu.edu.

Ann Brown
Chair, RUSA Membership Committee

agbrown@gwu.edu

RUSA Publications and Communications
Consider blogging for RUSA Voices, the new blog for RUSA members and those who support the mission and goals of RUSA.

We are looking for folks (RUSA members or interested parties) to blog during ALA’s Annual Conference this coming June in Orlando about interesting sessions, discussion groups, and happenings.

If you’re not attending Annual, but have other things you’d like to share, consider blogging about items or interest or things that really grind your gears throughout the year. Can’t do it then, but still interested?

Going to other library conferences and want to share what you learned? Bring it on! No topic is taboo and since this is a user generated blog, we want to hear what you think. RUSA wants to hear what you think. ALA wants to hear what you think.

Please check out RUSA Voices at http://blog.rusa.ala.org/

Questions?  Interest?  Contact David Midyette (dmidyette@roseman.edu)

Amy Rustic
Chair, RUSA Publications and Communications Committee

BRASS Notes

John Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

The BRASS Board will be having an online meeting on Tues. Feb. 23 from 1-3PM CST.

I also want to thank everyone for all the time and devotion they have committed to making BRASS the best section in RUSA! I’m looking forward to the Annual Conference in Orlando and I hope you all are as well. We have a great selection of programs, forums, meetings and social gatherings to look forward to as that time approaches.
Warm regards,
Paul Brothers, BRASS Chair 2015-2016

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated a virtual discussion on November 13th. In attendance were 43 BRASS members. Topics included changes in SLA, the formation of RUSA interest groups, and much more. There was also an in-person discussion held at Midwinter in Boston on January 10th. Roughly 15 members were able to attend this discussion, which was focused around collections. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in these discussions. The next virtual discussion will be on March 23th at 2pm EST. It will be an open agenda.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Our committee has been holding virtual meetings the last few months in order to plan for our Academic Forum at Annual in Orlando: “Innovation and Risk Taking in Business Academic Librarianship:  Lightning Talks”. The Forum will feature up to seven academic business librarians discussing innovative practices, products or services. The Committee will select seven librarians to make 5-7 minute presentations with time after for discussion. We are willing to consider proposals with an element of risk, and even those describing a project that did not succeed. A call for proposals has been sent out, but we encourage all business librarian to submit their proposals using the form linked here: https://goo.gl/kv64mJ

Van Houlson, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The committee continues to work on updating the Public Libraries Briefcase and adding informative articles. The latest entry, “Understanding Financial Ratios for Small Business,” is a fascinating article written by Ray Cruitt. We will be meeting shortly to discuss new ideas to make it easier to exchange information about business reference resources with business librarians who support small businesses and budding entrepreneurs. Looking forward to Orlando…our committee will meet on June 25th at 3pm.

Salvatore DiVincenzo, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is in the process of nominating sources that will be selected for an upcoming issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.

The Committee has also selected the program to be presented at the annual Publisher’s Forum, which will take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. The title of the forum will be “One Part Social, One Part Commercial: A Recipe for Supporting Social Entrepreneurship.”

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee continues to pursue a variety of exciting goals.  In addition to ongoing work to continually update BRASS Business Guides, four committee teams have been working on completing their individual projects:

  • Pre Conference Planning Team
    • Work continues on developing the 2016 BRASS Preconference “Business Data for Librarians” at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. Our speakers have provided us with brief descriptions of their intended content, and we have used this information to send out advertising text to relevant listservs, social media outlets, ALA Connect and others. We will continue to advertise over the coming months, as well as working out the details of our interactive presentations. This looks to be an amazing Preconference! If you haven’t already, consider joining us on June 24th, 2016.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Tom Ottaviano, Peter McKay, Charles Allan and Emmy Solis.
  • Best of the Best Business Websites Award Team
    • After running another successful nomination and voting process, the Team is now completing the process of contacting Award winners. In addition, the Team developed and submitted a proposal to consider changing the award from a print certificate to a web badge; this proposal has been submitted to the Executive Committee.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Monica Hagan, Cara Cadena and Bridget Farrell.
  • Free Webinar Team
    • Having facilitated a very successful 2015 RUSA Free Section Webinar “Supporting Entrepreneurship: The Kauffman Foundation’s Research and Resources”, the team is currently responsible for soliciting ideas and speakers for a possible 2016 free webinar.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Phebe Dickson, Robbie De Peri and Christina Sheley.
  • Paid Webinar Team
    • The Team continues to investigate whether there is any need for further business reference webinars and whether this would be an appropriate or feasible undertaking for the Education Committee. Plans are to discuss this issue in greater depth at our Committee Meeting at ALA Annual 2016.
    • This team benefits from the efforts of Kelly LaVoice, Hiromi Kubo and LuMarie Guth.

The BRASS Education Committee has had a wonderful year learning and exploring ourselves, and we hope the business reference community feels we have provided similar opportunities to all of you!

Ashley Faulkner, 2012-2015 Chair

Nominating Committee
The BRASS Nominating Committee is excited to announce a slate of strong candidates for BRASS office:

  • BRASS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:
    Chad Boeninger
    Greg Fleming
  • Secretary
    Jared Hoppenfeld
    Ilana Stonebraker
  • Member at Large
    Annette Buckley
    Ed Rossman

Many thanks to the candidates, and to those who submitted nominations. BRASS will be in good hands.

Andy Spackman, 2015-2016 Chair

Program Planning Committee
Over 865 hotels with 103,230 rooms are scheduled to open in 2016, according to hotel research firm STR (http://www.hospitalitynet.org/performance/us/147000409/4073575.html). Want to learn more? Come to the BRASS ALA Annual Program “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes: Travel and Hospitality Landscape and Library Resources,” which will be held Monday, June 27th 8am to 10am at the ALA Annual Conference in beautiful Orlando, Florida. Breakfast sponsored by S&P Capital IQ.

Ilana Stonebraker, 2015-2016 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
The P&C Committee will be holding a virtual meeting in February where we will discuss the following:

  • Social Media Policy
  • Appointing a new BRASS Notes Editor
  • Using RUSA Voices for BRASS
  • Discussion of BRASS-L content policy
  • Update of BRASS website projects

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2016 Chair

Vendor Relations Committee
There have been several changes in sponsorships for BRASS awards:

  • We are pleased to announce that Mergent is the new sponsor of the BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship Award. The award is increased to $4000.
  • SimplyMap is now the sponsor of the BRASS Student Travel Award.
  • ReferenceUSA has confirmed they will continue to sponsor the BRASS members’ reception at ALA Annual in Orlando 2016.
  • Our long-time friends S&P Capital IQ continue to sponsor the BRASS continental breakfast prior to the BRASS program.
  • Mintel will once again sponsor the BRASS Discussion Group coffee.
  • Emerald has reached out to BRASS again about continuing the popular Emerald event as part of Annual, and early planning has started for 2017. We continue to thank Emerald for their sponsorship of the BRASS Emerald Research Award.

Be sure to let all our sponsors know how much we value their commitment to BRASS activities!

Ann Fiegen, 2015-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

BRASS Mergent Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
The BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship committee is pleased to announce that Jared Hoppenfeld, business librarian at Texas A&M University, has been selected as this year’s recipient. A longtime BRASS member, Jared has published widely on topics relevant to academic and public business librarians, including “Information-Seeking Behaviors of Business Faculty,” the most-downloaded article of 2014 in the Journal of Business & Finance Librarianship. A 2015 article, “Engaging with Entrepreneurs in Academic and Public Libraries,” was selected to be included in a special entrepreneurship-themed issue of Reference Services Review.

Business students at Texas A&M University also benefit from Jared’s expertise and creativity. After identifying a gap in the business information literacy schedule, Jared proposed a new program targeting first year students and now nearly all business students receive instruction starting their freshman year. Additionally, his current work with the national Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities (EBV) has impacted not just his constituents at Texas A&M University but EBV programs across the country. He was the driving force behind the creation of the EBV Info Portal which coordinates among a growing number of database vendors, as well as staff, faculty and librarians at other EBV institutions.

For these contributions and other efforts, the committee is pleased to name Jared this year’s winner of the BRASS Mergent Excellence in Business Librarianship award. This award is generously sponsored by Mergent and consists of $4,000 and a citation. An award ceremony is planned for ALA Annual in Orlando. Congratulations, Jared!

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Katherine Glasoe is the recipient of the 2016 BRASS Student Travel Award. Katherine plans to graduate from Simmons College with her MLS in May 2016 and intends to pursue a career in business librarianship. She has gained practical work experience with her position as a Technical Services Assistant at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library, an internship with The Brattle Group, and with her position as a Graduate Student Library Assistant at Draper. While maintaining a busy work and academic schedule, she serves as the current President of the Simmons College student chapter of SLA. One of her goals is to become an active member of BRASS.

Diane Zabel, 2015-2016 Chair

Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarian Award
Ruth D. Terry, Business and Government Information Librarian at the University of Alaska Anchorage, is the recipient of the Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award. Projects in her first year as a business librarian include using assessment results to shape library instruction, a mini-grant project to embed information literacy into specific courses, and using metrics and input from faculty to improve the collection. She has also been active as the co-chair of the new BRASS business librarians group, as secretary for the Anchorage chapter of the Alaska Library Association, and as a member of the Alaska Governor’s Council on Libraries. We wish Ms. Terry all the best in her new career and hope that this travel grant for the ALA annual meeting will help her to enhance the development of her career and to further contribute to the profession of business librarianship.

Julia Martin, 2015-2016 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The Morningstar Award committee met through email and publicized this award through various listservs, state association websites, and ALA Connect. We received 3 outstanding candidates and chose Susan Wolf Neilson as our recipient of the $1250 award to help with travel to this year’s Annual ALA Conference.

The committee worked well together and did a good job in selecting the award winner.

Committee members:

Patricia Hull
Kelly Jeanne Evans
Edmund A Rossman
Cynthia H Slater
Janet Tom

Patricia Hull, 2015-2016 Chair

CODES

Barry Trott, Editor

ALA Midwinter saw another great round of book and media awards. Be sure to see the spring copy of RUSQ for a listing of all the award winners. Please mark your calendars for the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony 5-6:30 p.m. on June 26. This event is a great opportunity to the book award winners, as well as network with colleagues.

Appointments for 2016 CODES awards committees are just about complete, and CODES vice-chair, Dan Mack is getting set to start appointing members to other CODES committees as well as CODES representatives to RUSA level committees. Volunteers should fill out the form at http://www.ala.org/rusa/volunteer, or email me at dmack@umd.edu.  If members have a question about what membership on a particular committee may entail, please feel free to email Dan at dmack@umd.edu.

The CODES executive committee is working on their section review. Done every 5 years, the section review is a chance to look at the structure and operations of the section and see what is working well and what might be changed to improve CODES. The section review will be submitted to the RUSA Board later this spring.

History

Laura Hibbler, Editor

The RUSA History Genealogy Achievement Award committee met (in person at ALA Midwinter and virtually). The Committee finalized the citation for their award winner, Michele C. McNabb, Library Manager, Genealogy Center, Museum of Danish America.

RUSA History Genealogy Pre Conference Planning committee had a successful pre-conference with about 100 attendees. The speakers and topics were:

  • “Seventeenth-Century New England Research,” Lindsay Fulton, from the New England Historic Genealogical Society
  • “Migrations Out of New England,” Christopher C. Child, from New England Historic Genealogical Society
  • “Learning about ‘Good’ Genealogy: Educational Opportunities and Testing,” Elissa Scalise Powell, CG , CGL

The New England Historic Genealogical Society invited all attendees to a tour of their facilities, followed by a reception.

History Section members enjoyed an informal meet-up during ALA Midwinter, at Jaho Coffee Roaster and Wine Bar.

Approximately 18 people attended the History Section’s tour of the Boston Athenaeum at ALA Midwinter.

RUSA History Librarians Discussion Group held an excellent session during ALA Midwinter. Eileen M. Bentsen, Baylor University Libraries, writes with the following notes about the discussion:

The Discussion Group (DG) focused on two topics of interest to members: digital tools for history, and the ACRL Framework and RUSA IL Guidelines for UG History Students: Beyond the Classroom. Both topics generated lively and useful discussion among the attendees who represented public, academic, and special libraries, historical societies and museums, and individuals from tech start ups wanting to work with history librarians to better promote services, collections, and tools.

Eileen Bentsen (convener of the DG) opened the digital tools portion of the discussion by sharing the “Tools” page from her colleague’s LibGuide on digital scholarship tools – chosen because they are all freely available on the web and most don’t require a long learning curve (Megan Martinsen. Digital Scholarship: Tools, http://researchguides.baylor.edu/c.php?g=399080&p=2712185). Discussion followed on what each tool could do, who might have used them, and a list of other tools and sites recommended from the attendees.

Many of the institutions present did not have a digital humanities librarian working within or with their institution and the website The Programming Historian (http://dhcommons.org) was recommended as a good starting place for independent learning. It was also suggested that the links provided during this discussion be added to the existing Library of Congress and/or Digital Public Library of America web site. Eileen agreed to follow up on this.

The group next moved on to a discussion of the ACRL Framework, ACRL IL Guidelines, and RUSA IL Guidelines for UG History Majors and how to move the use of these tools beyond the traditional classroom. Copies of all three documents were shared among those present. Attendees focused on the “scholarship as conversation” portion of the ACRL Framework and how this aspect would be most useful in non-academic settings as a way to address several common issues. Issues included:

  • incorporating these items (esp. the RUSA IL Guidelines) in the teacher training workshops that many of the institutions participated in
  • introducing these documents into discussions with educators, board members, and other stakeholders as a means of demonstrating the authority and ownership librarians, archivists, and library staff have in the educational mission of the institution
  • could the Guidelines be used as the design principle in designing an institution’s website
  • use the Guidelines and Framework with State History Day organizers to provide a more realistic time schedule for the research involved in these projects

Among the topics which generated the most discussion was the use of these documents as a tool to explain the ethical issues involved when working with primary source materials.

A full list of links is posted on ALA Connect at http://connect.ala.org/node/249210 and will be mailed to attendees. Other methods of dissemination are also being considered.

Emerging Technologies Section (ETS)

Chanitra Bishop, Editor

ETS Helps to Make Inaugural Midwinter “Deep Dives” a Success
ETS helped to launch the inaugural round of “Deep Dives” – small, half-day professional development workshops – at this year’s Midwinter meeting in Boston.  The program, “We Are All User Experience Librarians: Creating Change from the Trenches” aimed to provide attendees with an introduction to why user experience design matters in libraries, what it is, and how librarians can take simple, sustainable steps to implement it.  The sold-out session heard from Heidi Steiner Burkhardt [University of Michigan], Pete Coco [Boston Public Library], Deirdre Costello [EBSCO], Courtney McDonald Greene [Indiana University] and Lauren McKeen [Northwestern University] about creating user-centered content, developing a content management strategy, simple ways to begin doing usability testing, and how to do “flash” – quick, inexpensive – ethnographic research on library users, as well as receiving a capsule introduction to user experience design.  Talks were accompanied by audience-participation exercises that allowed attendees to begin thinking about how to practically apply the concepts and strategies discussed in their own libraries, and they concluded with a lively Q&A period.

The session received uniformly positive evaluations, and the User Experience Design Committee hopes to expand in into a pre-conference to be held at Annual 2017 in Chicago.  Slides, tweets, and other media from the Deep Dive are available at: http://bit.ly/1P4OPz6

ETS updates, changes and call for volunteers!
Updated Bylaws have been posted to the ETS website. Our handbook, forms and policies & procedures are currently undergoing revision.

The ETS Executive Committee recently approved the merger of two committees (Products & Services and Local Systems & Services) to form a new committee: Services for Systems & Discovery.

 The charge for the Services for Systems & Discovery committee is ‘To create, collect, analyze, evaluate and disseminate information and materials on the development, and implementation of a variety of products, both locally and vendor created;  coordinate the concerns of individuals or organizations involved in selecting, acquiring, and evaluating electronic reference products and services; and to gather and share with the library profession information on new technologies and ethical issues relating to such systems and services. These services and products can include provision of electronic reference services; document delivery; expert systems; locally developed databases; public access catalogs; non-bibliographic databases, discovery systems.’

Check out the list of all committees for the Emerging Technologies Section (ETS).  Please email Courtney Greene McDonald (Vice-chair) or Donna Scanlon (Chair) if you have any questions about any of our committees.  Visit our website to learn more about ETS and to volunteer.

If you plan to attend the Annual conference in Orlando, join us at our All Committee Meeting on Sunday, June 26th from 10:30-11:30am for an opportunity to meet ETS members and have your questions answered!  Watch the ALA Conference Schedule for room information.

ETS at Annual

Saturday, June 25th

  • 3-4pm – Promoting Subject Specialists & Enhancing Visibility of Library Reference (ETS/MERS)

Sunday, June 26th

  • 1-2:30pm – Emerging Technologies Librarians: Changing Roles for Changing Times (ETS) Join us and our speakers as they share their thoughts in areas such as the day in the life of Emerging Technologies Librarians, the trends in job descriptions, tips for successfully juggling competing priorities, and advice and strategies for keeping up.  Our speakers:  Beth Boatright, most recently chair of our Hot Topics Committee, Business Librarian and Emerging Technologies Coordinator at Indiana University/Purdue University, Fort Wayne (IUPFW), and a 2015 Emerging Leader; Tara  Radniecki, author of the paper, ” Study on Emerging Technologies Librarians: How a new library position and its competencies are evolving to meet the technology and information needs of libraries and their patrons”  (http://library.ifla.org/134/1/152-radniecki-en.pdf).

Are you working in an emerging technology role at a public library (past or present)?  Would you be interested in participating in our panel?  If so, please contact Debbie Bezanson with your interest or with any questions you might have.

  • 3-4pm – Beyond Metrics: Data-Drivers in Library Decision-Making (ETS/Hot Topics)
  • 4:30-5:30 – “Fact or Fiction: What Virtual Reference Training Works and What Holds Promise” (ETS/Virtual Reference). Is your library currently training staff on virtual reference services? Are you looking for ideas on how to approach training or make your training efficient? This program allows the librarian to learn about current training programs, the ideal methods of assessment, and identify best training practices. As a topic that will interest all types of libraries, librarians are encouraged to share their experiences and acquire helpful tips from others.

RSS

Jane Daugherty, Editor        RSS logo                  

 

 

Message from the Chair:

Hi everyone,

I hope all of you who attended Midwinter in Boston enjoyed yourselves and that your in-person and virtual meetings were productive.  The RSS Pancake Breakfast was a lot of fun and the discussion forums and deep dive that were sponsored or co-sponsored by RSS committees were well attended.  I’m sure our events in Orlando will be just as successful.

Committee chairs and some RSS Executive Board members have been hard at work over the last few months on the RSS Section Review.  The review is a two part process comprised of individual committee reviews completed by the committee chairs and an overall section review based on the committee reviews.  Thank you to all of the committee chairs for completing their committee reviews and an extra special thank you goes to Ann Brown, Liz DeCoster, Cynthia Johnson, and Amy Rustic for helping me write the section review.  The completed document, with an appendix containing all of the committee reviews, will be posted to ALA Connect after it is submitted.

Committee appointments are underway and we are looking for volunteers to fill spots on RSS and RUSA committees.  Amy Rustic, RSS Vice Chair, has started the appointment process and has been in touch with many of you already.  If you have not been contacted by Amy and you’re interested in volunteering for a committee, fill out the RUSA volunteer form here: http://www.ala.org/CFApps/Committee/volunteerform/volunteerform2.cfm?group1=RUSA

If you have questions, or would like to learn more about RSS and its committees, please feel free to contact me at crystal.lentz@sos.wa.gov or Amy Rustic at aer123@psu.edu

Be on the lookout for information about the programs, discussion forums, and other RSS sponsored events at Annual as the conference draws nearer!

Crystal Lentz
crystal.lentz@sos.wa.gov
RSS Chair, 2015-16

 

RSS Honor Roll
It’s that time of year! We want to recognize you and your contributions to RSS!

The RSS Honor Roll gives recognition to active RSS members who have served the section in three different capacities since its inception.

If you have been a member of three or more committees or discussion groups since RSS was established in 2004 and have not previously been added to the honor roll, please send your name and a list of the three ways you have served RSS to Ellen Keith at keith@chicagohistory.org

Not only will you become a member of this esteemed group, you will also be recognized at ALA Annual in Orlando!

Join the RSS Honor Roll today

RSS COMMITTEE REPORTS

Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
The Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee will be sponsoring a discussion forum at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando on assisting patrons at the point of need through social media. Details are below:

“Please Throw Me a Vine! Assisting Patrons at the Point of Need through Social Media”

Given the large and growing percentage of the American population that is now using social networking sites for communication, it’s likely that your patrons will pose questions and research challenges on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Join us for a discussion on how we can best communicate at this developing point of need.

When: Sunday, June 26, 3-4pm
Where: TBA

The Committee’s Selected Bibliography on Point of Need Reference and Instruction is available here: http://connect.ala.org/node/233262

Colleen Seale, Chair 2015-2016

Discovery Services Committee (Formerly Catalog Use Committee)
The Discovery Services Committee has been meeting virtually to discuss plans for the year and for ALA Annual.  As a committee we completed the RSS Self Study/ Section Review. Within this review we reflected on our purpose within the Reference Services Section and within the American Library Association. The Discovery Services Committee is the only one that specifically focuses on how cataloging and discovery service trends impact reference services.

Over the past several years we have hosted a bibliography of relevant reference/discovery & cataloging citations on ALA Connect. The committee decided that it would be best to conduct a review of the literature annually and explore ways to post the bibliography to the RSS website.

The committee also discussed plans to hold and RSS Forum at the 2016 ALA Annual Conference. The theme of this year’s forum is “Exploring Engagement between Discovery and the Catalog. This forum will focus on how the Library Catalog still an essential presence on most library websites and explore how it’s being used by reference librarians.

Anne Larrivee, Chair 2015-2016

 Evaluation of Reference and User Services
ERUS is working on our research project via survey.  We will:

  • Request screenshots or pdfs of their data collection forms to ascertain what info is collected and extrapolate what has changed from the hash mark days.
  • Get basic background info, such as type of library (academic, archive, medical, public, school, special, &c.) and how they use data (reporting, staffing decisions, hours, training, etc.).
  • Ask a few open questions such as: what’s the most useful thing you do with your data; what would you like to learn about your service, but do not currently measure; etc.
  • Code the submissions into categories and analyze the results.

Rebecca Graff, Chair 2015-2016

Health and Medical Reference Committee
On January 12, 2016 the Health and Medical Reference Committee (HMRC) held its virtual Midwinter meeting. In attendance were six current committee members and one new person who attended in hopes of learning more about the committee. Much of the time was spent preparing for the RSS section review, and the HMRC’s report to the RSS Chair. The committee discussed answers to proposed questions and Laura Haines, HMRC Chair, wrote and submitted the report to the RSS Chair shortly after the meeting. The Committee also discussed future leadership and membership. HMRC is happy to announce that member Ann Glusker has agreed to be the chair starting July 2016. The committee also has many members who will be leaving the group at that time. We encourage anyone who has any interest in health reference to check out this committee; exciting work and programming is continuing! If you have any questions about the work of the committee, please do not hesitate to contact Laura Haines at Laura.Haines@uvm.edu or Ann Glusker at Ann.Glusker@spl.org.

HMRC continues to work to promote our recently revised Guidelines as well as Medref, a health and medicine oriented listserv available to anyone answering health related reference questions managed by the Committee. The aim of the listserv is to be an open and welcoming environment for library workers from all types of libraries to discuss all questions or issues related to health and medical reference. Member Toni Holbrecht presented a “press release” about Medref to the Committee during the virtual Midwinter meeting that will be used in various venues to promote this exciting listserv.

HMRC has joined forces with ACRL’s Health Sciences Interest Group in offering a Discussion Forum at ALA in Orlando this July. The forum, entitled “Implementing Health and Medical Reference Guidelines: Training librarians, paraprofessionals and part time staff,” will highlight how the new Health and Medical Reference Guidelines can best be implemented in any type of library, including how to train professional as well as non-professional staff regarding what are often sensitive reference questions. More details to follow, but we hope all interested in learning more about providing excellent health reference will be able to attend.

Laura Louise Haines, Chair 2015-2016

Services for Job-Seeking Patrons
In the January 15, 2016, meeting the RSS Board approved changing the name of this committee from the Job and Career Reference Committee to Services for Job-Seeking Patrons. This change should clear up some confusion about the purpose of this committee.

On January 9, 2016, our committee held a discussion forum at the ALA Midwinter Meeting. The discussion focused on assisting low-skill workers and non-Internet users with job searches. We had 23 attendees and a very lively discussion. Keyboarding, computer skills and access to computers remain an issue for many patrons. Limited literacy and English language skills are also commonly observed. The local government job center can often be a partner. In addition, it can be effective to be present at a multi-agency fair where multiple services are present.  Examples include kindergarten sign-up and registering for government assistance. A more detailed summary of the discussion is posted on ALA Connect for anyone who is interested.

Arlene Weismantel, Chair, 2015-2016

Virtual Reference Committee
The committee has been reviewing guidelines under its purview. The committee has recommended to the RUSA Standards and Guidelines committee that the Guidelines for Cooperative Reference Services be sunset. The committee is currently updating the Guidelines for Implementing and Maintaining Virtual Reference Services. The committee is also co-sponsoring a discussion forum at Annual with the Virtual Reference Discussion Group.

Qiana Johnson, Chair 2015-2016

Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The Virtual Reference (VR) Companion Subcommittee has been working on ideas for making the companion more useful and intuitive, suggested by new members of the committee. These include different formatting, for example including Tips and Best Practices as part of the main menu in the left margin of the page; and additional content, for example, distilling some of the articles listed in the bibliography in the Assessment module to create useful guidance in that module. The Subcommittee participated in the committee review process for RUSA/RSS, a process that happens every four years to ensure the effectiveness and ongoing usefulness of RUSA sections and committees. The Subcommittee has been discussing the possibility of co-sponsoring, with the VR Services Committee, the Virtual Reference Discussion Forum at ALA Annual coming up in June. The VR Companion is accessible at http://www.ala.org/rusa/vrc, as well as in the Hot Links section of the RSS Virtual Reference Committee page, the Professional Tools section of the RUSA Resources page, and in the Web Resources section of the ALA Library Fact Sheet 19: Virtual Reference: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. The Subcommittee continues to welcome suggestions for its Tips and Best Practices module; these can be directed to either co-chair, Laura Friesen (lflynn@umflint.edu), or Neal Pomea (neal.pomea@umuc.edu) or by leaving a comment on ALA Connect: (http://connect.ala.org/node/225501).

Laura Friesen, Co-chair 2015-16
Neal Pomea, Co-chair 2015-16

STARS

Kerry Keegan, Editor

Message from the Chair

My Fellow STARS,

The ALA Midwinter Meeting has come and gone and I hope you were able to join us in Boston for some of the fun and excitement. Our members were busy and highlights include two very interesting panel discussions hosted by STARS: at the ILL Discussion Group we had a thoughtful assessment of the 2005 Task Force on Qualifications for Interlibrary Loan Operations Management and the Hot Topics Discussion Group featured a presentation about shared print collections in Maine.

Behind the scenes, STARS and RUSA board members worked tirelessly to secure approval of the revised Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States, shepherding the proposal through THREE separate votes in just 24 hours! Many thanks, again, to Brian Miller and the Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee for seeing this monumental task through to completion.

Now, our attention turns to the Annual Conference in Orlando, Florida – just four short months away! In addition to the ILL Discussion Group and Hot Topics, RUSA STARS will be hosting several events during Annual:

  • A Spoonful of Data-Driven Sugar: Using Big Business Research to Improve Customer Satisfaction in Easy-to-Implement, Single-Serving Packets. A pre-conference workshop on Friday June 24, from 8am-12noon
  • Not Your Average Consortia. A panel presentation co-sponsored by RUSA STARS and LLAMA-SASS on Sunday June 26, from 10:30-11:30am
  • Resource Sharing in Tomorrowland: A Panel Discussion about the Future of Interlibrary Loan on Sunday June 26, from 1-2:30pm

Also, mark your calendars for the STARS Social on Friday June 24, from 7:30-10pm (Location: TBA).

I hope to see you all in June!

Your Chair,

Tom Bruno
Chair 2015-2016

Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The RUSA Board of Directors approved the revised Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States at ALA Midwinter and it was mounted, with the new Explanatory Supplement and ALA ILL Request Form, on RUSA’s website.  On February 15, 2016, the Codes Committee publicly announced the updated documents on a variety of listservs and on Facebook. Publication in RUSQ is expected to appear in the summer of 2016.

The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee is now planning additional publicity for the new documents. There will be presentations at the ILLiad International Conference in Virginia Beach, in March 2016, and at the Great Lakes Resource Sharing Conference in Indiana, in June 2016.  The Committee is tentatively working on presentations for GWLA’s annual conference and for ACRL New England, as well. Committee members Nora Dethloff and Tina Baich will be working on an article for The Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery, & Electronic Reserves. The committee is also exploring the possibility of recording a live webinar with OCLC, this summer, which will be free to all ILL practitioners.

Committee chair Brian Miller is also pursuing a presentation opportunity for delegates to the IFLA Conference in Columbus, Ohio, this summer.

Brian Miller
Chair

STARS Education & Training Committee
Over the summer of 2015, ShareILL.org migrated to a new platform that is hosted by DreamHost. Linda Frederiksen, Jake Kubrin, and Kristen Palmiere transferred information from the former platform to the new one and the new ShareILL.org was announced on listservs in October 2015. Thank you to all the STARS committees who are currently updating sections of the new site. All users of the site are encouraged to submit any updates or suggestions for new pages to ShareILL4All@gmail.com.

On January 8th, 2016, the 9th annual Everything You Always Wanted to Know about ILL workshop took place at the Boston Public Library. Thank you to the Boston Public Library, OCLC, and Atlas Systems for sponsoring the event, and special thanks to Megan Gaffney, Karen Janke, Cindy Kristof, and Collette Mak for their excellent presentations. The event was well-attended and well-received. Planning for next year’s workshop in Atlanta is underway.

Kristen Palmiere
Chair

STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Committee
The live link to the STAR Checklist (Version 2) of best practices in interlibrary loan/library resource sharing is now available at http://rethinkingresourcesharing.org/star-checklist-2!

Please review these checklist items and join our growing list of STAR Libraries. Together, we can start valuable discussions about library practices and keep rethinking resource sharing to even better serve users.

Thank you to Broward County Public Library, The Frick Art Reference Library of The Frick Collection, and Kansas City Public Library, who are our first participants!

Beth Posner
Chair

STARS Nominations Committee
The STARS Nominations Committee has just confirmed the final slate of candidates for the upcoming ALA elections. The 2016 elections will open on March 15 and close on April 22.  Results will be announced on April 29, 2016.  Eligible members will be emailed their voting credentials between March 15 and March 18, 2016.  Everyone should remember to vote!

Nora Dethloff
Chair

LLAMA SASS / RUSA STARS Consortial Borrowing Joint Committee
The Joint Consortial Borrowing Committee has been hard at work planning our program for ALA Annual 2016. Please make sure to join us for:
Not Your Average Consortia
Sunday 10:30 -11:30 am

Description: As library partnerships and collaborations are needed more than ever, library consortias are being relied upon more as resources and tools in a library’s future. This presentation will focus on what years of consortial development and participation has taught us. The panelist provide decades of experience in consortial partnerships and will be able to touch upon the “best of” practices in these partnerships. They will also guide a discussion on future developments and opportunities for all consortial cooperation.

We’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Heather Weltin
Co-Chair

From the President

President’s column

Hello RUSA members! I recently returned from Chicago where I attended the ALA fall leadership meeting along with the vice-presidents of other ALA divisions (and RUSA’s new vice president, Alesia McManus). I enjoyed getting to know the other division leaders and ALA incoming president Julie Todaro, and seeing the offices of our RUSA staff. I also found the meeting worthwhile in two other respects: I learned a great deal about ALA’s structure and governance, and in working with other division leaders, gained a better sense of how RUSA fits into ALA as a whole. I came away inspired to think about how RUSA can collaborate more closely with other divisions. RUSA has already established a rapport with LITA’s leadership; how can we translate that into more cooperative projects? What other divisions are our natural partners? We should remember that while ALA is compartmentalized into many different pieces and parts, our interests overlap. Working with other divisions, can we co-sponsor programs, discussions and other learning opportunities on topics where our interests intersect? While many ALA members feel most the most sense of connection with their subgroup– a division or round table– ALA as a whole offers vital support for its subgroups and helps set the course for libraries in ways that we can all tap into.

In my last column I discussed our plans to create a proposal for establishing Interest Groups within RUSA. I’m happy to say that our Organization & Planning Committee has developed the Interest Group proposal which has been approved by RUSA Board, and which we will now test through a pilot phase. The call has gone out for pilot interest groups to be established in the coming months. In case you missed it, here is the announcement that went out to RUSA members:

Call for Interest Groups!

As a response to the RUSA Review Survey where 88% of respondents indicated a support of the formation of Interest Groups, RUSA is pleased to announce a pilot for Interest Groups within our organization.

Interest Groups give RUSA the ability to offer a wider spectrum of professional topics beyond what the current Sections and their committees offer. They provide cross-sectional engagement of RUSA members, attracting participation from any number of RUSA Section members.

We are seeking 3-5 interest groups for this pilot test and the pilot period will run November 2015 through June 2016. Interest groups created in the Pilot project will have the option of continuing while bylaw changes are made or they may choose to disband.

In order to form an Interest Group you will need:

The name of the Interest Group

  • Name and contact information of the group leader
  • Names and email for 10 additional RUSA members who have agreed to be a part of the interest group
  • A brief description of the focus area for the interest group,
  • A brief statement describing how the Interest Group is relevant to the mission of RUSA.
  • A deliverable for the Interest Group for the pilot project.

(This could be anything that the Interest Group members will work on during the pilot phase– it can be as simple as holding a certain number of meetings, holding a virtual discussion forum, a publication, etc.)

To apply please complete the web form by December 13, 2015. For questions please contact Beth German (egerman@library.tamu.edu).

If there’s an intriguing current topic that crosses over RUSA divisions, be thinking about whether it could become the basis for an interest group.

Please feel free to contact me any time at annehouston2@gmail.com. I welcome your questions and comments!

Anne Houston
RUSA President 2015-2016

RUSA News/Announcements

RUSA INSTITUTES

Reference Interview Institute – Ticket Purchase Required
Friday, January 8, 9:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
BCEC 101

This live and in-person all day workshop will provide you with some techniques that will enable you to better assist your users-and help you figure out what it is that they really need when they ask a question. Two expert reference librarians (one public librarian and one academic librarian) will give you tips that will make you more approachable, a better communicator and help make your users more willing to return. Register here.

Ticket Prices:

Category Early Bird –

11:59 a.m. (CST)

November 11, 2015

Advance –

11:59 a.m. (CST)

January 4, 2016

Division Member $199 $199
ALA Member $219 $219
Other Member

(Retired, Student, Trustee,

Non-Salaried, Support, and Staff)

$149 $149
Non-ALAMember $259 $259

 

History Genealogy Institute – FREE, But Registration is Required
Friday, January 8, 8:00 a.m. – 4:00 p.m.
BCEC 151B

This free workshop will help librarians of all types learn techniques. This can include better understanding of genealogy research methods and sources. It can also include how libraries can leverage their unique holdings to become more relevant to genealogists, who tend to be passionate in their support of libraries that have useful materials. Lunch provided and sponsored by ProQuest. Must register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/QWZP6WG.

BRAND NEW! Deep Dive Session
We are all user experience librarians: Creating change from the trenches
Saturday, January 9, 1:00 p.m.- 4:15 p.m.

This Deep Dive workshop will focus on user testing and understanding your users’ experience through a mix of discussion, presentations, and interactive experiences. Our five presenters will offer design strategies and tools from throughout the lifecycle of a user experience design project, and they will also join together as a panel to provide a spirited, entertaining look at pitfalls to avoid and lessons learned. Unlike other sessions about user experience design, the proposed workshop will focus on providing attendees with concrete skills and techniques they can apply at their home institutions with relatively little expense or pre-planning. “Deep Dive” half-day education sessions for active, participatory learning in a workshop-style setting, CEUs will be available, with registration for each session capped at 25. More information here.

Location: TBD
Cost: TBD

RUSA Meetings

Executive Committee Meeting
Friday, January 8, 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
BCEC 203

Meeting of the Executive Committee where discussions will consist of current and planned activities of the RUSA Division. This is an open meeting and all registered attendees are welcome. Come meet some of RUSA’s key players; President; Anne Houston, President-Elect/Vice-President; Alesia M. McManus, Past President; Joseph A. Thompson, Secretary; Kathryn J. Oberg, Councilor; Sarah Hammill and RUSA Executive Director; Susan Hornung.

Board of Directors Meeting I and II:

  • Board I – Saturday, January 9, 1:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m., BCEC 205B
  • Board II – Monday, January 11, 2:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m., BCEC 153C
    RUSA Board of Director meetings are open and any individual registered for the Midwinter Meeting may sit in on the meetings. The meeting’s topics are set aside for visitors and board members to use as an ‘open forum’ where anyone can share information, ask questions, etc. The agenda and documents are completed prior to the conference. Anyone interested in viewing the agenda for the meeting, as well as the documents that accompany the agenda items, may view or download them from ALA Connect. If you or your constituency develops a document for board consideration, please give it to the RUSA staff at least two hours before a board meeting. RUSA Board of Directors’ Meetings are open and all registered attendees are welcome!

Budget and Finance Meeting
Sunday, January 10, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Westin, Faneuil

Meeting to review, recommend and plan goals, objectives, and priorities for the division as they relate to the RUSA’s budgetary matters.

Network, Socialize & Celebrate

RUSA Speed Mentoring Session
Saturday, January 9, 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.
Park Plaza, Arlington, Berkeley

Join a group of experienced RUSA leaders to engage in a fun, interactive “speed mentoring” session. Similar in format to “speed dating”, MLS students, new librarians, and mid-career librarians are invited to participate in this session where they will have the opportunity to gain leadership advice from a number of senior librarians and RUSA leaders.

Membership Social
Saturday, January 9, 5:30 p.m. – 7:00 p.m.
Hyatt, Grand Ballroom B

Join members of RUSA for an opportunity to eat, drink, network, win door prizes and learn more about our division and its sections. The social is open to past, current and those interested in becoming members. All attendees are welcome!  

Book & Media Awards Ceremony and Reception
Sunday, January 10, 5:00 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Park Plaza, Grand Ballroom A

For the first time, the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction will be announced during this Midwinter Meeting event, reflecting the new calendar for these awards. As always, RUSA will also unveil the winners of the Reading List, Notable Books and Listen List selections, the Dartmouth Medal, the Sophie Brody Medal for Jewish literature, the Zora Neale Hurston Award for achievement in promoting African-American literature and the Louis Shores Award for book reviewing. All Midwinter attendees are invited to this event. Light refreshments provided. The event is sponsored in part by NoveList.

RUSA Committee Reports

Emerging Leader

An Update from RUSA’s Emerging Leader

It has been a privilege to serve as RUSA’s Emerging Leader over the past year. Although the Emerging Leader program only runs from January through June, my experience as an “emerged” leader is ongoing. Here are a few updates:

  • RUSA’s Emerging Leader team presented our project about library publishing services at ALA Annual. (Read our report here) With the support of the RUSA board, we are developing plans for a program about publishing services in libraries for ALA Annual 2016. Many thanks to RSS for sponsoring this program! We also hope to develop a publication for RUSQ or another appropriate venue, ensuring that the insights from our research are available and discoverable in the future.
  • I have been bitten by the leadership bug! One of the biggest takeaways of my time as an Emerging Leader is the understanding that leadership is an option for everyone, whether or not you have an official administrative role in an organization. Applying leadership principles to my own career and life has helped me become a better librarian and a more satisfied, purposeful person. My research and reading about leadership in libraries and in business led to a recent publication called “How to Lead Your Library (When You’re Not In Charge)” in College and Undergraduate Libraries, and I had the opportunity to share these insights at a regional conference as well. I look forward to researching (and implementing) more insights about leadership in the future.
  • An important part of the Emerging Leaders program is helping early-career librarians find a niche in ALA. My niche is right here in RUSA! I love this organization and what we accomplish together – fostering excellent public services in every library. This year I have the opportunity to support our mission as a part of RUSA’s Professional Development Committee. Keep your eye out for some amazing webinars and courses this year! I’m also serving on ETS committees for professional development and planning, and I’m looking forward to running for office on next year’s ETS ballot.

Once again I’d like to thank the RUSA board for their sponsorship and the entire RUSA community for your support of my year as an Emerging Leader. I look forward to serving alongside you for years to come. The 2016 class of Emerging Leaders has just been announced, and I’m excited to see that RUSA will be sponsoring Catherine Damiani! Look for updates from Catherine here in RUSA Update next year.

Beth Boatright

RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee
RUSA’s Conference Program Coordinating Committee (CPCC) held an open online meeting on Oct. 28, 2015. During the meeting, the committee established four goals for the 2015-2016 year:

  1. Work with RUSA staff to revise the program submission form to ensure it: (1) provides the committee with the information it needs to make its selection decisions; and (2) provides individuals filling out the form with the information they need to bolster the chance that their submission will be approved.

Update: The committee has developed a mock-up of the previously used form. By Nov. 30, each member will provide recommended changes.

  1. Work with RUSA staff and RUSA Board to make sure the submission and approval process is clear to RUSA members and to RUSA’s sections. Pursue this by communicating clearly with RUSA Board and RUSA sections, by clarifying the call for proposals and by adding information to the proposal form itself.
  2. Work with RUSA’s Professional Development Committee and RUSA’s staff to develop a database of RUSA Learning Opportunities.

Update: RUSA’s Learning Archive Task Force has been created to meet this goal.

  1. Carefully evaluate program submissions and, when necessary, work with submitters to     improve the quality of the submissions.

Jason Coleman
RUSA CPCC Chair, 2015-2016

RUSA Membership Committee
RUSA 101 and 201 are starting up again!

  • RUSA 101 is an orientation to RUSA, it’s sections, and the work done across the division.
  • RUSA 201 provides more in-depth content for RUSA members about what is done at the division level and opportunities to get involved.

Join us for RUSA 201 on Wednesday, November 18, and RUSA 101 on Wednesday, December 16. All will be helded at 4pm Eastern/3pm Central/2pm Mountain/1pm Pacific/12pm Alaska/11am Hawaii.

If you or your committee are interested in being featured, please drop me a line at agbrown@gwu.edu.

Thanks!

Ann Brown, chair
agbrown@gwu.edu

RUSA Learning Archive Task Force
In October, 2015 RUSA created a Learning Archive Task Force and charged it with creation of an archive of performance data about RUSA’s face-to-face and online learning-related programming. The task force held its first meeting on November 11, 2015 and set a tentative goal of presenting RUSA’s Board with a detailed proposal before the end of January, 2016 and completing the archive by the end of May, 2016.

Jason Coleman
RUSA Learning Archive Task Force Chair, 2015-2016

BRASS Notes

John C. Gottfried, Editor

Message from the BRASS Chair

Hello everyone,

If you are attending the ALA Midwinter in Boston, please join us at the All Committee Meeting.

Best wishes to all of our BRASS members during the upcoming holiday season!

Paul Brother
BRASS Chair 2015-2016

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated a virtual discussion on September 18th. 40 BRASS members were in attendance for this lively discussion about consultation and instruction data (what you collect, how you collect it, how you use it) and collections (new vendors and databases). Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the discussion. The next virtual discussion will be on at 2pm EST on November 13th, with an open agenda.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is in the process of nominating sources that will be selected for an upcoming issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.

The Business Reference Sources Committee is also in the process of selecting a program to present at the annual Publisher’s Forum which will take place at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee would like to report that we have been hard at work on a number of exciting projects. As well as continual improvement to the BRASS Business Guides, the Committee has broken into Teams focused on completing four major projects this year:

  • Preconference Planning Team

We have found three excellent speakers for the 2016 BRASS Preconference “Business Data for Librarians” at the ALA Annual Conference in Orlando. Bobray Bordelon will be presenting an overview of ‘Data in Libraries’, Todd Hines will be exploring ‘Financial Data’, and Andy Spackman will discuss ‘Marketing Data’. There will also be a panel Q&A so all who attend will have an opportunity to dive into issues of particular interest in-depth. With expert speakers and an emphasis on interactivity, this Preconference promises to be extraordinary! (June 24th, 2016 – Save the date!)
This team benefits from the efforts of Tom Ottaviano, Peter McKay, Charles Allan and Eimmy Solis.

  • Free Webinar Team

The 2015 RUSA Free Section Webinar “Supporting Entrepreneurship: The Kauffman Foundation’s Research and Resources” was a great success! At peak, the webinar had 39 participants. Wendy Torrance, Director, Entrepreneurship, and Alex Kraus, Research Assistant in Research and Policy at the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, delivered an engaging overview of the many resources the Kauffman Foundation provides for both entrepreneurs, and the librarians who serve them. They also provided a brief look at the research the Kauffman Foundation spearheads and supports. Librarians who participated in the webinar returned to their work with new ideas not only to help their patrons, but to potentially continue to grow their own understanding of entrepreneurship and related research.
This team benefits from the efforts of Phebe Dickson, Robbie De Peri and Christina Sheley.

  • Best of the Best Business Websites Award Team

Nominations were solicited, votes tallied, and the Education Committee has our winners! They will be announced at ALA Midwinter’s RUSA Book & Media Awards Reception. In the meantime, the Team is exploring alternate possibilities to print certificate awards.
This team benefits from the efforts of Monica Hagan, Cara Cadena and Bridget Farrell.

  • Paid Webinar Team

We did not sponsor a proposal for a RUSA Paid Webinar this year because we did not feel we had a strong proposal in hand in time for the submission process. Instead, the Team is investigating the webinar landscape and current continuing education options for librarians with an interest in business reference services and resources and exploring if there is any area of need the Education Committee might be able to address further.
This team benefits from the efforts of Kelly LaVoice, Hiromi Kubo and LuMarie Guth.

BRASS Education Committee is excited to continue providing for the educational needs of business reference librarians and all librarians involved in providing business reference services.

Ashley Faulkner, 2012-2015 Chair

Membership Committee
We are working on with a special sponsor to make the party at Orlando magic. Stop by Reference USA and let them know BRASS is looking forward to it.

We also want to know why members are leaving BRASS. What makes members decide to join BRASS, and what makes them stay? Please go to our Poll and let us know:
http://connect.ala.org/node/246773

Jennifer Boettcher, 2014-2016 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS Publications & Communications have had conversations about working with the editor of RUSA Voices to blog about BRASS member activities, accomplishments, and events. We have reached out to the editor of RUSA Voices, and he is quite amenable to the idea of us working together.

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

Emerald Research Award Committee
The Emerald Research Award Committee is currently seeking nominations for the $5000 award described below. Please let colleagues know about the award. Feel free to distribute the announcement to your local listservs.

Are you a librarian in need of funding for a business research project?

The Emerald Research Grant Award, sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing Limited offers one award of $5,000 and a citation to an individual or team seeking support to conduct research in business librarianship. The awards will be presented at the RUSA Awards Ceremony at the 2016 ALA Annual Conference in Orlando, FL. Recipients will be required to attend the RUSA Awards Ceremony.

Candidates must submit a detailed proposal outlining their proposed research project; methodology, scope and timetable; how this project fits into the existing literature; and projected outcomes, including a statement outlining how this research will benefit the library profession. Proposals will be reviewed for thoroughness, potential to positively impact the library profession, and potential to provide a useful addition to the existing library literature. Proposals will be accepted from both individual researchers and those working collaboratively. At least one member of a collaborative team must be a member of ALA. The recipient(s) may be asked to present their findings at a public BRASS event within two years of receiving the award (at the discretion of the BRASS Executive Committee). The recipient will also be required to acknowledge the Emerald Research Grant when publishing or presenting their research.

The deadline for proposals is December 4, 2015.

Please send your proposals to leticia_camacho@byu.edu

For complete information about the criteria for this grant award, please visit: http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/emeraldgrant

Leticia Camacho, 2015-2016 Chair

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award
The BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship committee continues to solicit nominations through December 4th, 2015.

After learning earlier this year that Gale Cengage Learning would unfortunately no longer be supporting this and other awards the RUSA Board and staff, the BRASS Executive Board, and our committee have been working together to find alternative funding for the award. Funding will be available through RUSA for the coming year, regardless, although we hope to be able to announce a new sponsor soon.

Funding issues aside, the BRASS Excellence in Business Librarianship award itself remains as prestigious as ever. The award recognizes a business librarian who has made a significant contribution to our field. Take a look around you (or in the mirror!) and if this sounds like you or someone you know, then please take a look at this page for more information on how to submit a nomination:
http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/businesslib

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarian Award
Global Financial Data is now sponsoring the new academic business librarianship award. The committee looks forward to hearing about all the great things new business librarians are doing. Please consider applying yourself or recommending a colleague:
http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/gfd_academic_business_librarianship_travel_award

Thank you GFD for this opportunity!

Julia Martin, 2015-2016 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
BRASS Members. Please nominate a public librarian for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. This is for a deserving public librarian who serves the business community with great reference service. This can be through programming, website development, or other business help. I am sure you know some great public librarians who serve the business community and who need financial help to get to ALA.

Let’s spread the word to all our chapters, systems and libraries.

Patricia Hull, 2015-2016 Chair

CODES

Barry Trott, Editor

Chair’s Note
CODES conducted a “Town Hall” meeting for members on 11/18/15. The discussions will continue at the ALA Midwinter conference in Boston.

We encourage all CODES and RUSA members to make plans to attend RUSA’s Book and Media Awards Reception on Sunday evening during ALA Midwinter. Award winners will be announced for numerous awards that CODES committees are currently working on, including Notable Books, Sophie Brody, Reading List, Dartmouth, Best Reference Books, and others.

Anyone interested in getting involved in CODES should fill out the committee volunteer form to indicate their interest in serving. Many CODES committees are now virtual, so opportunities may exist for participating that were not available in the past. Anyone with questions about appointments to CODES committees should check with Dan Mack, CODES Vice Chair/Chair-Elect if you have any questions (dmack@umd.edu). More information is available on the CODES web site: http://ww.ala.org/rusa/sections/codes/section.

Ed Kownslar, CODES Chair, 2015-16

History

Laura Hibbler, Editor

A sub-committee of the History Section’s Instruction and Research Services Committee has created an updated version of the Using Primary Sources on the Web page:
http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/history/resources/pubs/usingprimarysources

The previous version will be archived at:
http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/history/resources/pubs/usingprimarysources_2008
until December 18, 2015.

Send comments regarding the content on the new page to rusaprimarysourcespage@gmail.com.

Stay tuned for news about events at Midwinter, including:

  • Genealogy Institute on Friday from 8:00am-4pm
  • Genealogy & Local History Discussion Group from 4:30pm-5:30pm on Saturday
  • History Librarians Discussion Group from 1:00-2:30pm on Sunday
  • Plus a History Section dinner and a field trip!

Emerging Technologies Section (ETS)

Chanitra Bishop, Editor

Upcoming programs & spirited discussion forums from the Emerging Technologies section!
The Emerging Technologies Section (ETS) is happy to be part of the inaugural “Deep Dive” sessions planned for the midwinter conference in Boston. The session “We are all user experience librarians: Creating change from the trenches” is co-sponsored by ETS’ UX Design committee, ETS’ Professional Development committee, and RSS’ Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee. The workshop will be a mix of discussion, individual presentations, panel presentations, and interactive experiences. The workshop will focus on user testing and understanding your users and will be beneficial for participants with no or limited experience in user testing and with limited budgets.

[EVENT CODE: DIVE4 – Saturday, January 9th 1:00 – 4:15pm. For information about how to register for this ticketed event see http://2016.alamidwinter.org/ticketedevents”]

ETS committees are hosting some spirited discussions:

Optimizing the web for reference: Best practices for usability, accessibility, and responsiveness
User-friendliness of library services is an important consideration in the development of a library’s web presence. As the format and delivery of reference continue to change to accommodate user expectations and behavior, the library’s home page has become an extension of the institution’s in-person public services. In addition, an increase in distance education courses and online programs has contributed to the fact that a large number of users experience the library almost exclusively online. This poses questions regarding the usability, accessibility, and responsiveness of web reference services.

In this discussion group, we will feature panelists from institutions which have innovated their approach to web reference (email, chat, FAQs, etc.) and/or conducted usability studies on how their users get answers through their library’s web portal. The audience will benefit by: 1. an overview of current trends regarding reference services on the web, such as user-responsive chat, and new developments in accessibility; 2. a review of the literature regarding best practices for conducting web usability of library service pages; 3. Case studies and tips from panelists. This discussion is hosted by the Management of Electronic Reference Services (MERS) Committee of the Emerging Technologies Section (ETS) of RUSA. [Saturday, January 9th 1:00 – 2:30pm, BCEC (Convention Center) 258B]

Pay No Attention to the Librarian Behind the Curtain: Virtual Reference and Privacy in Libraries
Join the ETS Hot Topics Discussion group for an exploration of virtual reference and the role of privacy. While chat services give patrons another layer of anonymity, libraries are still exploring new ways to ensure their patrons’ privacy. Anonymous Internet browsing through TOR is at the forefront of the Library Freedom Project, but what does that mean for your library? Join us to discuss how digital tools promote and protect patron privacy with guest speaker Alison Macrina from the Library Freedom Project. [Sunday, January 10th 1:00 – 2:30pm, SEAPORT Plaza Ballroom C]

Transitions from traditional OPACs to discovery systems: how has this had impact on use and instruction – This session will provide the opportunity to discuss both advantages and drawbacks to working with a discovery system as opposed to a traditional OPAC and the impact discovery systems have had on instruction and research. [Sunday, January 10th 3:00 – 4:00pm, BCEC (Convention Center) 205B]

STARS

Kerry Keegan, Editor

Message from the Chair

Dear STARS,

I hope everyone is having a wonderful fall — can you believe that the Midwinter Meeting is already less than two months away? If you are coming to Boston this January and are currently serving on a STARS committee, don’t forget to attend the All Committee Meeting on Saturday (January 9th) morning from 8:30-10 am in Room 158 of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. This is an open meeting, so if you are interested in serving on a committee for the 2016-2018 term, feel free to join us and see what it’s all about!

We have two exciting discussions planned as well:

Discussion Forum I – At 10:30 am on Saturday (January 9th) the ILL Discussion Group will revisit the Task Force on Qualifications for Interlibrary Loan Operations Management, which was convened in 2005 and presented its guidelines at the 2008 Midwinter Meeting. Should an ILL librarian be a professional position? How important is the MLS to the business and practice of resource sharing? Is it time for us to come up with a new set of qualifications and guidelines? Let’s discuss what the Task Force had to say back then and whether or not the same holds true for today.

Discussion Forum II – At 4:30 on Saturday (January 9th) the Hot Topics Discussion Group will kick off a new format where we will feature discussions at both our Midwinter and Annual conferences around a new theme, which will be selected every fall. This discussion theme for 2015-2016 will shared collections- we hope you can join us and “share” your own library’s experiences and best practices in collaborating strategically with other libraries.

Both Discussion Forums will take place in Room 205A of the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center.

Safe travels to all of you who will be attending the Midwinter Meeting, and all the best during the upcoming holiday season. As always, thank you for the contribution of your time, effort, and enthusiasm in making STARS the wonderful community that it is!

Best,

Tom Bruno
Chair 2015-2016

Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee has submitted drafts of changes for the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States, its Explanatory Supplement, and the ALA ILL Request Form to the resource sharing community for review and comment via anonymous survey or email response. The public comment period ends on November 15, 2015 and the committee will then review feedback in December to see if additional changes to the documents are warranted.

Brian Miller, Chair

Outreach and Promotion Committee
The Outreach and Promotion Committee (formerly known as Membership) is currently working with our next STARGazer and plan on promoting this before Midwinter! We’re also continuing to work on the STARS Digital Timeline and will be putting a callout for people to share pictures and documents from past conferences since the birth of STARS. We’ve completed our annual review of the “Five Things” document this year and will be sharing it with STARS Members, asking for feedback and input on the future of this document and type of information sharing.

Micquel Little, Chair

STARS Nominations Committee
The STARS Nominations Committee has wrapped up our work for the year. The STARS slate for ALA elections includes excellent candidates for Vice Chair, Secretary, and Member at Large. They are:

For Vice Chair:
Charla Gilbert
Krista Higham
Micquel Little

For Secretary:
Ken Carriveau
Naomi Chow
Carol Kochan

For Member at Large:
Peter Bae
Leila Smith

Nora Dethloff, Chair

STARS Legislation and Licensing Committee
The Legislation and Licensing Committee has revised the charge for the committee. The revised charge will be presented to the STARS Executive Board at the Midwinter meeting. Once the revised charge is accepted, the committee will be developing a strategic plan.

Ryan Buller, Chair

Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
The RUSA STARS Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee has promoted this scholarship and 2 applications have been received, with several other inquiries made. We expect to do another round of publicity before the December 4th deadline. Please share this award with potential nominees. More information is available at http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/mentoring.

Amy Paulus, Chair

STARS Update on the RUSA Professional Development Committee
The RUSA Professional Development Committee has reviewed the online course and webinar proposals for the next year. The committee is still waiting on some revisions before we will have an exact count of accepted proposals. Once I have the exact count, that information will be communicated to the STARS Board.

Ryan Buller, STARS Representative

STARS Update on the RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee
The RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee has just begun their work. We have been asked to look over the documents from the previous year and report any problems no later than November 30, 2015. In particular, the committee is to review last year’s proposal submission form and provide suggested changes. The goal of this review is to revise the form, ensure clarity, and confirm that responses will give the committee enough information to make an informed decision.

Martha Yancey, STARS Representative

From the President

President’s column

Greetings, RUSA members! In my first column as President, I’d like to talk about some possible new directions for RUSA. But first, I want to acknowledge and thank all the committees, sections and members, as well as the RUSA staff, who contributed to the success of RUSA’s programs and events at the Annual Conference in San Francisco. We have much to be proud of. Among other events, we held the RUSA 101 session to educate new members about our organization, honored the recipients of RUSA awards at our Awards Ceremony, and celebrated great writing– while enjoying a talk by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar– at the Carnegie Medal celebration.   RUSA sections sponsored many stimulating programs and discussions, and 2014-2015 RUSA President Joe Thompson brought us an outstanding President’s Program featuring danah boyd. (See Joe’s recap below for more on that.)

So now that the conference is wrapped up and we’re all back at our “normal” jobs and lives, where do we go from here? I’d like to use this column to talk about a major new initiative for RUSA. One of our big tasks in the coming year will be to develop a proposal for the formation of Interest Groups within our association. What do we mean by an “interest group”? Interest groups can be defined in different ways, but the basic concept involves a group of members coming together around a current topic of common interest or concern. Enthusiasm for the idea of Interest Groups within RUSA was clearly expressed by members in responses to the survey done by the RUSA Review Task Force in 2014. The RUSA Review survey asked members this question:

We are considering a new kind of community within RUSA, called Interest Groups. These Groups would be RUSA-wide communities that are organized around popular, current topics, enabling members from across RUSA to connect with others who have shared interests. These groups can hold discussions, email forums, programs and other events. Some topics for Interest Groups may include but are not limited to: Marketing/Outreach, Programming, Library Spaces, and Usability. Are you in favor of adding Interest Groups?

Of the 395 RUSA members who responded to the question, 89 percent answered “yes.” Interest groups are obviously an intriguing idea. Why? An interest group model offers several advantages. Interest groups are formed at the grassroots level, and are relatively bureaucracy-free. They can be formed quickly in response to pressing needs which members may be encountering in their daily work. They offer an easy way for members to get involved. And they can evolve or be disbanded easily when no longer needed, so that members can move on to other Interest Groups or types of involvement.

The RUSA Review survey also asked members for their top choices for possible Interest Groups. In addition to some of the topics mentioned in the survey question–marketing, outreach, programming and space planning– other choices were readers’ advisory and assessment. Many other topics could be proposed, including more specific topics in response to current issues or questions.

In order to move the Interest Groups idea forward, we will need to create some structure with specifics for how Interest Groups should work within RUSA. The Organization & Planning Committee has been tasked with this work, starting with looking at how Interest Groups have been implemented in other ALA divisions. Key questions to be answered include:

  • How many members are needed to form an Interest Group? How do they go about forming the group?
  • Can non-RUSA members join a RUSA Interest Group?
  • Can Interest Groups sponsor programs and discussions at conference?
  • How much support from the RUSA office can Interest Groups request? Can they make budget requests?
  • How and to whom do Interest Groups report out?
  • How is leadership assured from year to year? How are leaders elected or appointed?
  • How would an Interest Group be disbanded and how would a decision to disband be made?

As the Organization & Planning Committee investigates these questions, they will work on wording defining Interest Groups to be placed in the RUSA Bylaws (which will require a vote of the membership in the 2016 election cycle) as well as additional details to be included in the RUSA Guide to Policies and Procedures. Please stay tuned for more details on these proposals over the coming months.

The formation of Interest Groups does have a potential downside: it will add further complexity to an already complex organization. Like many ALA divisions, RUSA is highly structured. It already comprises six sections and over 200 committees, including both RUSA-level and Section committees. So as we contemplate Interest Groups, we also need to decide what RUSA can do less of to make time and resources available for Interest Groups. We know that our members are becoming less interested in volunteering for administrative tasks, and more interested in volunteering to be a part of interesting projects and conversations. Along with implementing Interest Groups, can we also streamline and downsize our administrative work? This is a key question that we will have to answer.

I welcome your comments on these questions and proposed changes. Please feel free to contact me any time at annehouston2@gmail.com.

Anne Houston
RUSA President 2015-2016

RUSA President’s Program

Reflections on the RUSA President’s Program 2015

On Saturday, June 27 from 4-5:30 we were able to welcome danah boyd, Founder and President of Data & Society to present, “It’s Complicated: Navigating the dynamic landscapes of digital literacy, collapsing contexts, and big data.” We had close to 700 people in attendance to hear danah speak. She provided a rapid-fire presentation packed with content, so I do strongly encourage everyone to watch the video recording! It’s available to all ALA members. Simply go to http://www.ala.org/rusa/rusa-presidents-program-2015 and log in with your ALA membership ID. One of the themes that danah focused regarded the consequences of information in all its forms being reflected in contexts that it was never originally intended. The effects can be devastating, especially for a young person who posts comments in a social media environment intended to preserve their own safety and relationships within their peer group, but then these comments are viewed very differently as they shift into college and career environments. Young people have also come up with very innovative ways to manage their own identities and privacy in online environments, such as deactivating and reactivating a Facebook account, with the intention of asserting control over their presence and allowing comments by others to only take place when they themselves are also online. Another theme of danah’s presentation focused on the algorithms that drive advertising in web environments. These algorithms have a definite impact on what we see on the web and greatly influence how we perceive the world. What can librarians do? Be active champions of information literacy and information access. Fight for the rights of the people in your community and be their advocate.

I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg on what danah covered, so in addition to watching the video I do encourage you to be on the lookout for a column that will appear in the next issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ) authored by Cathay Keough, member of the RUSA Just Ask Task Force. I want to share my personal thanks to the members of the RUSA President’s Program Planning Committee, the RUSA Just Ask Task Force, the RUSA staff, and members of the RUSA Board of Directors for their support. I’m especially grateful to our president’s program committee chair Peter Bromberg, who maintained our great relationship with danah and her agent, created our Facebook event page, and led our awareness campaign so that ALA’s conference attendees could be ensured to know about the program. I also very much appreciate the work by Cathay Keough for writing the forthcoming RUSQ column, Marianne Braverman for her promotional efforts, and Andrea Hill for handling the editing work and getting the video posted.

Thanks again to each of you and everyone who helped make the program a success!

Joe Thompson

RUSA Past President

RUSA News/Announcements

RUSA Achievement Awards Call for Nominations and Submissions
Beginning Sept. 1, 2015 RUSA is seeking nominations for its annual series of awards and grants. Nominations and supporting materials for most awards must be submitted by Dec. 4, 2015.

RUSA encourages members to nominate their colleagues whose work has influenced their thinking and performance and whose contributions merit recognition by the profession.

Achievement awards for individuals and groups:
Isadore Gilbert Mudge Award
, RUSA’s highest honor, recognizes an individual who has made a distinguished contribution to the field of reference librarianship. $5,000* and a citation.

Award for Excellence in Reference and Adult Library Services is given to a library or library system for developing an imaginative and unique resource to meet patrons’ reference needs. $3,000* and a citation.

NoveList’s Margaret E. Monroe Library Adult Services Award recognizes a librarian who has made significant contributions to library adult services. Sponsored by NoveList; $1,250* and a citation.

John Sessions Memorial Award recognizes a library or library system that has made a significant effort to work with the labor community and by doing so has brought recognition to the history and contribution of the labor movement to the development of the United States. Sponsored by the Department for Professional Employees, AFL-CIO, the winner receives a plaque.

Reference Service Press Award recognizes the most outstanding article published in Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ), RUSA’s research journal, during the preceding two-volume year. Sponsored by Reference Service Press; $2,500* prize and a plaque.

BRASS Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship is presented to an individual who has made a significant contribution to business librarianship. $3,000* and a citation.

Louis Shores Award recognizes an individual reviewer, group, editor, review medium or organization for excellence in book reviewing and other media for libraries. The winner receives a citation.

Zora Neale Hurston Award honors an individual ALA member who has demonstrated leadership in promoting African-American literature. Sponsored by HarperCollins Publishers; the winner receives $1,250* supporting travel to the ALA Annual Conference, a beautiful plaque, two tickets to the United for Libraries author events: The Gala Author Tea and The Laugh’s On Us, and two complete sets of Zora Neale Hurston’s books and audiobooks.

History Genealogy Achievement Award Award is presented to a librarian, library or publisher who is a RUSA member, and recognizes professional achievement in historical reference and research librarianship. $1,500* and a citation.

ETS My Favorite Martian Award is a citation presented annually in recognition of excellence in service to the Emerging Technologies Section of RUSA. The winner receives a citation.

RSS Service Achievement Award is presented annually to a member of the Reference Services Section (RSS) of RUSA in recognition of exceptional contributions to the section. The winner receives a citation.

Virginia Boucher/OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award is given to an individual for his or her outstanding professional achievement, leadership, and contributions to interlibrary loan and document delivery. Sponsored by OCLC; $2,000* and a citation.

Travel awards to the ALA Annual Conference:
BRASS Student Travel Award
presents funds to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited master’s degree program to fund travel the ALA Annual Conference. $1,250* and a citation. This award’s nomination deadline is Jan. 15, 2016.

BRASS Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award is presented to a new librarian in the field of academic business librarianship in order to support attendance to the ALA Annual Conference. Sponsored by Global Financial Data; $1,250* and a citation.

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award offers funds to a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the ALA Annual Conference. Sponsored by Morningstar, Inc.; $1,250* and a citation.

STARS/Atlas Systems Mentoring Award offers ALA Annual Conference travel assistance funds to a library practitioner who is new to the field of interlibrary loan/document delivery or electronic reserves, and who has involvement in the areas of borrowing, lending, document delivery, electronic reserves, material delivery or resource sharing. Sponsored by Atlas Systems; $1,250* and a citation.

Research grants:
RUSA History Section Gale Cengage History Research and Innovation Award
is granted to an MLS degreed librarian from an ALA accredited school to facilitate and further research relating to history and history librarianship. Sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning; $2,500* and a citation.

BRASS Emerald Research Grant, is presented to an individual or group seeking support to conduct research in business librarianship. Sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing; $2,500* and a citation.

*Monetary award amounts are subject to change without notice and are contingent upon donor funding supplied at the time the award is presented. Questions about these awards should be directed to the committee chairperson. You can access committee contact information by logging in at www.ala.org/rusa then clicking on Committee Rosters under the Committee Tools drop down.

More information about these awards, including nominating instructions, can be found on RUSA’s awards webpages.

Online Learning Opportunities

Upcoming RUSA Courses

  • Introduction to Instructional Design for Librarians
    September 7 – October 18, 2015

    Students will learn to use the Instructional Design Process and apply it effectively to library instruction. This course will utilize the Morrison, Ross, and KEMP Instructional Design Model. Learn more and Register 
  • Readers’ Advisory
    September 7 – October 18, 2015

    Participants will learn from instructor and RA expert Joyce Saricks how to use RA tools, craft annotations, read in genres, articulate appeal and experiment with methods to offer RA services. Learn more and Register
  • Business Reference 101
    September 28 – October 25, 2015 or November 2 – December 6, 2015
    The course will provide students with a framework for understanding the business reference process, as well as an overview of business reference sources specific to each of the course modules. Learn more and Register
  • Interlibrary Loan 101
    October 5 – November 1, 2015
    This online course will provide new interlibrary loan (ILL) practitioners and those that need a refresher with a broad overview of interlibrary loan (ILL) policies, procedures, and practices. Learn more and Register
  • The Reference Interview
    September 13 – October 22, 2015
    This comprehensive course covers such reference interview topics as cultivating an approachable reference environment, successful questioning and listening techniques and appropriate follow-up methods. Learn more and Register

RUSA Committee Reports

RUSA Membership
RUSA 101 at annual went really well! We had around 40 people at the session about 30 of whom had never attended conference before. Thanks to all the section members who made the session go so smoothly! And thank you to Leighann Wood, who IS the calm in the storm. We couldn’t have done it without you!

As chair for next year, I want to plug RUSA 101 and 201, yet again. If you or your group would like to participate in either RUSA 101 or 201, please let Ann Brown (agbrown@gwu.edu) know. We’re always looking for special guests!

Thanks!

Ann Brown, chair
agbrown@gwu.edu

Emerging Leader

An Update from RUSA’s Emerging Leader

What is going on with Libraries as Publishers?
Last January, I sat with a group of Emerging Leaders as we tried to figure out how to answer this question. Luckily, this particular team of librarians lacked neither ideas nor in enthusiasm. Several poster-sized sticky notes later, we had refined the question and made a plan. What are library publishing services, how are they supported, and what can RUSA do to help? We were determined to find out.

Over the next five months, RUSA’s team of Emerging Leaders met weekly to discuss our research. We developed a definition of library publishing services, found examples from around the world, and inventoried related resources and learning opportunities offered by ALA and other organizations. With this information in hand, we surveyed RUSA members and other librarians to find out what they think about library publishing services, learning opportunities, and RUSA’s involvement.

We discovered that libraries both within and outside of academia are offering many kinds of patron publishing support. Most of our survey respondents were interested in learning more about these services, especially through workshops, webinars, and standards or guidelines. Although ACRL provides ample support for academic library support of publishing, there is very little cohesive support for non-ACRL librarians. In fact, nearly 20% of our survey respondents indicated that they have never learned how to provide library publishing services. We determined that there is a need for resources and services that support library publishing beyond academia, and that RUSA could use this focus are to support its strategic agenda for recruitment, collaboration, and virtual participation. Our research culminated in an extensive report and a poster presentation at ALA Annual in San Francisco.

I had the privilege of presenting our report to RUSA’s Executive Board at Annual. The leadership will be moving forward our recommendations. Among them are opportunities for RUSA members to learn more about successful library publishing services – look for learning opportunities both online and face-to-face in the coming year. RUSA also hopes to engage a future team of Emerging Leaders in the task of developing a toolkit for libraries that want to support patron publishing.

It was a distinct pleasure to serve RUSA both as a sponsored Emerging Leader and as the first Emerging Leader team to work on a RUSA-sponsored project. The success of this project was only possible because of the dedication and talent of my teammates: Crystal Boyce, Sarah Espinosa, Angela Kent, and Rebecca Marrall. Elizabeth German and Linda Friend provided invaluable help as project sponsors. We’re also grateful to the entire RUSA Executive Board for their support and feedback, especially as we developed our survey.

I look forward to sharing more about my Emerging Leaders experience through RUSA Voices, and I would be happy to entertain questions about the program or our project. You can reach me at Beth.Boatright@ipfw.edu. You might also look for me at an upcoming conference – I hope to continue serving RUSA as an “emerged” leader for many years to come.

Beth Boatright

BRASS Notes

John C. Gottfried, Editor

Message from the Outgoing BRASS Chair

Dear BRASS members:

The reports below provide specifics about the current BRASS committee activities. Thanks to everyone who was able to attend ALA Annual San Francisco. We held a Preconference, Public Librarian Forum event, Publisher’s Forum, BRASS Discussion Group and the successful BRASS Program—Not Elsewhere Classified: Different Approaches to Researching Emerging Industries.

I’ve enjoyed serving as BRASS Chair. As of the end of Annual, Paul Brothers has assumed the Chair duties. We’re looking forward to another engaging year from BRASS under Paul’s leadership.

Todd Hines, Chair 2014-2015

Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group facilitated an in person discussion at ALA Annual on June 28th. Many BRASS members were in attendance for this lively discussion about resources, data services and instruction practices. Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the discussion.

The next virtual discussion will be on September 18th at 2pm EST with topics to be determined.

Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair

Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Our committee began planning the BRASS Academic Forum for 2016 in Orlando next year and currently are interested in soliciting ideas from the BRASS membership. We are strongly considering a series of “lightning talks” that would feature the experiences of academic librarians. These could be examples of collaboration, database usage metrics, programming, outreach, research, collaborative tools, software, video tutorials, student consultations, or any theme that might fit the business landscape in Orlando (hospitality, tourism). We are interested in creating a forum that would give more librarians an opportunity to make a professional contribution than would be the case with the usual panel format.

Van Houlson, 2015-2016 Chair

Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee identified 10 sources to be reviewed for its outstanding business reference resources 2015 column. Of these ten sources, two were identified as outstanding, seven as notable, and one significant new edition. The reviews will be published in the winter 2015 edition of Reference & User Services Quarterly.

The Business Reference Sources Committee also presented the annual Publisher’s Forum at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. The title of the program was “Money Smart, Sources for Promoting Financial Literacy to Your Community, and included presenters from Mergent, Morningstar, Standard and Poors Capital IQ, and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. There were 39 attendees at the forum.

Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair

Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is happy to report that we have reached several major milestones:

  • We completed a migration to LibGuides 2.0 platform (thank you, Springshare, for your generous support!) and merging former Best of the Best Business Websites and Selected Core Resources guides into single topical BRASS Business Guides. This year we implemented editorial review process and project planning documents to keep track of our progress. Teams of two reviewers worked with individual authors to provide comments and suggestions for each guide. The committee developed a style guideline checklist to ensure a unified look and feel of the Business Guides. One of the goals was to convert all URLs from Text to Links to support automatic link checking. Maintaining quality BRASS Business Guides is the top responsibility of our committee.
  • The 2015 preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs” was a success, even though John Schlipp from Northern Kentucky University, one of the presenters on using patents for business analytics, didn’t arrive in San Francisco due to inclement weather. Fortunately, he was able to present over an impromptu WebEx session, and Linda Kocis from Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, his co-presenter, filled in the blanks on site. The San Francisco-area IP attorneys Alex Feerst and Genevieve Rosloff offered an engaging discussion of common IP issues facing startups. It was a valuable perspective outside the library realm. Finally, Jason Dewland and Cindy Elliott from University of Arizona shared their experiences collaborating with the university commercialization office and contributing to the local innovation ecosystem. The feedback from 19 participants was very positive. The preconference was featured in the next day’s issue of ALA Cognotes on p. 4: http://alaan15manual.heiexhibitors.com/sites/default/files/alaan15manual/Cognotes_Saturday.pdf. It was the first half-day preconference offered by BRASS, and the committee will consider this year’s outcomes in future planning.
  • The committee brainstormed a few topics for the next year’s preconference in Orlando and voted for a full-day workshop on business data for librarians which will focus on sources of data, data information literacy, data interview, and more. After the approval by the RUSA Executive Committee in July-August, we expect to issue a call for speakers and continue planning this much-requested workshop.
  • The committee also worked on the internal BRASS Education Committee guide to preserve institutional knowledge for future members. If other BRASS committees are interested in having an internal LibGuide to manage committee’s work, please contact Peter McKay pzmckay@ufl.edu.

BRASS Education is looking forward to an exciting new year of service under the leadership of new Chair Ashley E. Faulkner, Texas A&M University.

Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair

Membership Committee
Let’s spread the news. BRASS is the best community for anyone interested in educating, presenting, collecting, and sharing business information. We are looking for BRASS members to volunteer to speak at library school programs, state library associations, local library groups, and an mentoring events. Please contact co-Chair Jennifer Boettcher if you want to know how.

Some of us were lucky enough to meet and greet at the Thirsty Bear, generously sponsored by RefUSA. We all had such a fun time RefUSA agreed to sponsor the BRASS reception in Orlando. THANK YOU RefUSA and Greg Tong for working the door. If you know a good place for the reception around the Orlando Convention Center, please contact co-Chair Cynthia Slater.

Meanwhile, the Membership Committee is in full swing with new members. We are going to start sending welcome letters again. We will be working more with social media. If you know anyone who is willing to tell us why they dropped out of BRASS membership, please direct them to Jennifer, Cynthia, or the committee at http://connect.ala.org/node/65991

Jennifer Boettcher and Cynthia Slater, 2015-2016 Co-Chairs

BRASS 2015 ALA Annual Program Planning Committee
Presentations from the ALA 2105 Annual Conference:

“Not Elsewhere Classified”: Researching New and Niche Industries
The program attracted around 120 attendees, and of those, over 75 turned in their written evaluations which were overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic about our two speakers and their presentation:

Laura Young | Founding Partner + CEO | Bizologie
Business Research Simplified

April Kessler | Partner + Chief Research Analyst | Bizologie
Feedback from the remarks of attendees afterward, and the evaluations, is that people really appreciated the practical approach of this BRASS program, with all of the specific tips, strategies, resources, and real-life scenarios. Slides are available at the scheduler node: http://alaac15.ala.org/node/28603 Video will be posted later.

Committee members: Mark Andersen, Anne Bradley, Annette Buckley, Monica J. Hagan, Lauren Reiter, Penny Scott, and Todd Hines, BRASS Chair 2014-2015

We’d like to once again thank S&P Capital IQ for their generous support in providing the breakfast.

Diane Campbell, 2015 Chair

BRASS 2016 ALA Annual Program Planning Committee
During the ALA Annual conference, RUSA approved the BRASS 2016 annual program, titled “Changes in Latitudes, Changes in Attitudes: Travel and Hospitality Landscape and Library Resources.” The speakers will be Jack Plunkett, of Plunkett Research, Ltd., and Tim Bottorff, Head Librarian at Universal Orlando Foundation Library at Rosen College of Hospitality Management (University of Central Florida). Over the next year, BRASS Program Planning will work to coordinate and market this exciting program which will take place Monday, June 27, 2016 from 8-10 AM.

Ilana Stonebraker, 2015-2016 Chair

Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS P&C committee met at ALA annual and discussed the following:

  1. The committee will reach out to the editors for the RUSA Voices blog to see how/if we can contribute BRASS content
  2. We are looking at the possibility of creating an official BRASS Twitter profile, rather than just exclusively relying on the #bizref hashtag.
  3. We are looking at ways to engage more members via Twitter, as the statistics indicate our reach and engagement with Facebook is very limited.
  4. Our webmaster has reorganized some content on the BRASS page, as well as removed an outdated sidebar.
  5. Our webmaster will update the publication submission guidelines for the website.
  6. The P&C committee will study the practicality of publishing a BRASS Schedule of Events for every ALA annual, and will determine whether to continue this publication or not.

Chad Boeninger, 2014-2016 Chair

AWARD COMMITTEES

BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award
Peter Z. McKay of the University of Florida received the BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony held at the Westin St. Francis in San Francisco on Sunday, June 28th, 2015. In addition to the award committee and other BRASS members, some of Peter’s UFL colleagues and his wife, Gene Anne McKay also attended the ceremony. Congratulations, Peter!

Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair

Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sara F. Hess, the recipient of the 2015 Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award, was recognized at the RUSA Awards Ceremony and Reception in San Francisco. This generous award, sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, provided travel funds to the ALA Annual Conference and a one-year BRASS membership. Sara is a recent graduate of the University of Michigan’s School of Information. She earned a Master of Science in Information in May 2015. While enrolled in the master’s degree program she worked as a reference assistant at the Kresge Business Administration Library at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. She continued at Kresge as a reference assistant through the end of July. In August 2015, she began her position as a business reference librarian at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. Congratulations to Sara on her academic achievements and exciting new position.

Diane Zabel, 2015-2016 Chair

Global Financial Data Academic Business Librarian Award
The committee looks forward to offering a travel award under the new sponsorship of Global Financial Data. Thank you GFD!

Julia Martin, 2015-2016 Chair

Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
We asked Barbara Alvarez (Barrington Area Library. IL), the recipient of the 2015 BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award, to send us a brief statement about her experiences at the ALA Annual Conference. Here is her response:

When I received the 2015 BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award, I was thrilled to be honored for my contributions to my library’s business community and, of course, to receive Morningstar Investment Center’s generous funding to attend the American Library Association 2015 Annual Conference. What I did not realize was the tremendous impact that this award would have on me not only at the conference, but also leading up to the conference and into the future.

To begin with, as the award recipient I have formed invaluable relationships with librarians, both locally and nationally, who want to discuss the embedded services that I provide to the library’s local business community. In turn, I have also learned practices and concepts that other public libraries use and how I might be able to incorporate them into my role at my library. This alone has been a major advance to my career.

At the conference, there were several events that allowed me the opportunity to continue to form relationships with other professionals, learn more about the work that BRASS and other committees do and how I can participate, and also recognize other library professionals and the range of work that they do. In particular, the RUSA 101: Network, Get Oriented, and Get Involved allowed me to meet members of the BRASS Committees and learn more about the various engaging responsibilities that they provide to business librarians. I found these committee members to be genuinely interested in the development and enrichment of business library staff in all types of libraries. Additionally, Literary Tastes: Celebrating the Best Reading of the Year, Advocating For a Library Future, and the RUSA Award Ceremony were networking sessions and workshops that were unique and innovative.

Moving forward, I have joined a committee and am looking forward to connecting with the librarians that I met before and during the conference, especially with the RUSA and BRASS members that I met. If you are a librarian, or know a librarian, who works with business resources and the business community in a public library, I highly recommend applying for the next BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. The conference experiences, networking sessions, and professional opportunities make this award one that will continue to impact you beyond the annual conference.

Patricia Hull, 2015-2016 Chair

History

Laura Hibbler, Editor

 

History Section Field Trip to U.S. Immigration Station at Angel Island
Members of the History Section participated in a field trip to Angel Island during this year’s ALA Annual Conference. Tens of thousands of immigrants entered the United States through the Immigration Station at Angel Island between 1910 and 1940. David Murray, chair of the History Section, reports “I found the experience both educational and a lot of fun. I enjoyed the boat ride to the island, walking up the trail and road to the immigration center (w/ spectacular views), and getting to know a number of History Section members I’d never met in person. The historical highlight for me was the Chinese poetry written on the walls of the immigration center.” David also notes that Helene LaFrance deserves a great deal of credit for organizing such a spectacular field trip.

Pacific Link, the KQED Asian Education Initiative, provides images and additional information about the poetry written on the barracks wall at Angel Island:

http://www.kqed.org/w/pacificlink/history/angelisland/poetry/

Instruction and Research Services Committee
RUSA HS IRS Committee Revisions to “Using Primary Sources on the Web” Page

RUSA’s current web page Using Primary Sources on the Web is being revised by a working group of the Instruction and Research Services Committee. We plan on having the new page live in time for September, when statistics show use of the page more than doubles with over 6600 clicks. The group is working on updating information, expanding the list of reliable sources by using LibGuides (thanks to Michelle Baildon, former Past-President of the History Section) and expanding the section on “Citing Websites” to include ways to successfully incorporate primary sources in writing a paper.

Currently there are two LibGuides of selected primary sources – American History and World History. Future plans include a LibGuide for primary sources on Canadian History, and breaking out the World History guide into distinct area guides (Asia, Africa, Europe, South America, etc.).

Committee members Shelley Arlen, Eileen Bentsen (co-chair), Julie Higbee, Melissa Gonzalez, Joel Kitchens, Olga Perkovic (co-chair), and Julienne Wood, have been working together with Laura Hibbler as our web designer. We hope the changes and enhancements will improve the page and make it appealing to a wide range of users from junior high through graduate students. Look for the announcement of the launch date and provide us with feedback when you start using the new web page. Send questions to Eileen_Bentsen@baylor.edu.

Eileen Bentsen, Co-chair

Emerging Technologies Section (ETS)

Chanitra Bishop, Editor

Congratulations to our newly elected members:

VICE-CHAIR/CHAIR-ELECT
– McDonald, Courtney Greene
Head, Discovery & Research Services, Indiana University Libraries, Bloomington, IN
MEMBER-AT-LARGE
– Coleman, Jason
Undergraduate and Community Services Librarian, Kansas State University Libraries, Manhattan, Kansas

ETS: Emerging Technologies Section is dedicated to the intersection of technology and library services.

Our New Name
Our section has a new name – recently confirmed by vote in the recent ALA election. Over the course of the next year we will be transitioning from MARS: Emerging Technologies in Reference Section to simply Emerging Technologies Section (ETS). Watch for programming and news with our new acronym of ETS.

ETS, the Emerging Technologies Section of RUSA (formerly known as MARS), represents the interests of those concerned with attaining the highest possible quality in planning, developing, managing, teaching, or conducting all forms of computer-based reference information services in libraries. The possibilities for professional and personal growth are enormous!

Learn more at: http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/mars

ALA Annual Conference Wrap-Up
ETS hosted a suite of wonderful programs and events at ALA Annual 2015 in sunny San Francisco. Check out the recaps below.

ETS/MARS Achievement Award
Congrats to Debbie Bezanson, this year’s recipient of the ETS (MARS) Achievement Recognition Award. Debbie has dedicated countless hours to the goals and promotion of MARS. She was recognized at the RUSA Awards ceremony during ALA Annual Conference and during the ETS Chair’s program.

Saturday, June 27
Library Guides in the Era of Discovery Layers (ETS Chair’s Program)
Over a 100 folks attended the annual Chair’s program to learn about the intersection between library guides and discovery systems. Two speakers from universities in Singapore and one representative from Brigham Young University shared their ideas on integration of guides into the discovery environment on the library sites. It was a wonderful presentation with lots of great ideas.

Lessons Learned: Libraries, Course Management Systems and Future Directions (MERS Discussion forum)
This discussion will encapsulated key findings, trends and future directions of the role of libraries in Course Management Systems (CMS). The discussion will highlight developments in library systems compatibility with CMS, such as Moodle, Blackboard, Canvas Instructure, and others.

On Sunday, June 28
ETS All Committee Meeting
ETS members and visitors discussed the future direction of ETS. We discussed the types of programming that members want to see, what new emerging technologies might influence the future of libraries, and how we could support ETS members between conferences.

Hot Topics: Drones and Robots for Reference?
A presentation and hands-on demo of drones and robots took place at ALA Annual in San Francisco from 3-4 PM on June 28, 2015. Two speakers were selected based on research into libraries that are doing interesting projects with these technologies. The session was well-attended. At least 75 people came, and many people were standing in the back of the room by the end. The speakers have been asked to share their presentations on the scheduler page which is linked above.

Now You’re Talking: Tools to Utilize for Virtual Services
Attendees discussed various tools that libraries can utilize in implementing virtual reference services that include IM, texting, email and video products.

RSS

Jane Daugherty, Editor   

RSS_Logo

RSS has had an active year. The various committees held several discussion forums and programs over the course of the year, including a very well attended discussion forum on reference education for librarians, a program on the effect of the Common Core on librarians, and the 20th Reference Research Forum. The coming year promises to be an equally exciting programming year. The Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee along with the ETS UX Committee will be holding a “Deep Dive”, a new ALA programming initiative, at Midwinter. RSS is also collaborating across ALA. The section is co-sponsoring a program proposal with the Continuing Resource Section in ALTCS on the topic of a conversation between public services and technical services staff. At this time, we are awaiting word if the program has been approved. The committees have also provided alternative programming outside of the conferences. The Management of Reference committee hosted an e-forum on “broadening of library services by building relationships with campus units and cross-training staff to create a synergistic combination that redefines the research experience of our community by meeting them where they are.” In the summer, the joint ETS/RSS Virtual Reference Services committee is hosting an e-forum on the current state of virtual reference.

The committees have also worked in areas outside of programming. The Health and Medical Reference committee has updated the guidelines for the provision of health and medical reference which were approved by the RUSA board at Annual. At the request of the Library Services to the Spanish Speaking, the RSS Board voted to change the committee’s name to the Committee on Multilingual Library Services. In the coming year, the committee will be working to update its guidelines. The section as a whole will be going through section review in the 2015-16 year and will use this opportunity to review the work of the sections.

Qiana Johnson

Chair, Reference Services Section, 2015-2016

Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
The Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee held a one-hour discussion forum at the ALA Conference in San Francisco. The forum included an overview of the results of Committee’s recent survey on point of need service and instruction that identified both challenges and opportunities. Dr. David Schwieder, Political Science Liaison Librarian and Coordinator of Humanities and Social Science Data Services at the University of Florida, followed with a brief presentation on one of the challenges identified in the survey, “Frameworks for Data and Statistics Reference.” Table discussions on this and other topics were held during the remaining time.

Colleen Seale, Chair 2015-2016

Virtual Reference Companion Subcommittee
The Virtual Reference (VR) Companion Subcommittee will hold its first meeting of 2015/16 on August 5, 2015. The committee has five new members this year, and will be reassigning responsibilities for keeping all the modules of the VRC up to date and useful.

The Subcommittee got approval through the RSS Board for changing its name to the Virtual Reference Companion Subcommittee on July 20, 2015. The name change should be reflected soon on the ALA web site.

The Subcommittee once again this year will be soliciting tips and best practices to be incorporated into the “Tips and Best Practices” section of the Virtual Reference Companion from all librarians who provide virtual reference. RSS members may submit suggestions for this content by leaving a comment on ALA Connect (http://connect.ala.org/node/225501) or by sending an email to one of the co-chairs, Laura Friesen (lflynn@umflint.edu), or Neal Pomea (neal.pomea@umuc.edu).

The VR Companion is accessible at http://www.ala.org/rusa/vrc, as well as in the Hot Links section of the RSS Virtual Reference Committee page, the Professional Tools section of the RUSA Resources page, and in the Web Resources section of the ALA Library Fact Sheet 19: Virtual Reference: A Selected Annotated Bibliography.

Laura Friesen, Co-chair 2015-16
Neal Pomea, Co-chair 2015-16

Health and Medical Reference Committee
The Health and Medical Reference Committee (HMRC) chair, Laura Haines, attended the RSS All Committee Meeting and Open House on Saturday, June 27th at ALA Annual 2015 in San Francisco. While no other Health and Medical Reference Committee members were able to attend, it was a good chance to get updates on RSS, to meet other chairs and members of RSS, and to be able to put a few faces to names!

On Sunday, June 28th, HMRC members Laura Haines, Karen Vargas and Qiana Johnson introduced the new Health and Medical Reference Guidelines during the HMRC’s Discussion Forum: Get to Know the New RUSA Guidelines for Health and Medical Reference Services. Karen and Laura introduced the Guidelines, and then a conversation followed. Most attendees were academic librarians, and all believed the new Guidelines would be helpful for assisting those who work at the reference desk, especially student workers who are sometimes reluctant to field health-related questions. It was noted that the trend in academic libraries is to have para-professionals or students staff reference desks, or to close reference desks and move reference interactions to a circulation or main desk. This trend puts a fair bit of responsibility on paraprofessionals and students, and support from guidelines such as these may become quite useful, attendees thought.

On Monday, June 29th, at ALA Annual 2015 in San Francisco, the Health and Medical Reference Guidelines were approved by the RUSA Board of Directors. They can be found on the RUSA Website here: http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/guidelinesmedical/

Laura Louise Haines, Chair 2015-2016

Discovery Services Committee
This year’s RSS Discovery Services Forum, titled “Examining Discovery Systems within the New Information Literacy Framework” featured three informative speakers and welcomed over 100 attendees. The session was held on Sunday, June 28th, from 3-4pm and was co-sponsored with the Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT). The featured speakers included Holly Luetkenhaus of Washington State University Libraries with the presentation “Teaching Strategic Searching Practices in Discovery Systems,” Elise Ferer of Drexel University Libraries with the presentation “Discovering that Authority is Constructed,” and Cody Hennesy of UC Berkeley Libraries with the presentation “The Universal Library & the Economics of Discovery: Teaching Discovery.” The first half of the forum included brief presentations that were followed by Q&A. Next, tables of 4-8 people were encouraged to discuss a set of discussion questions related to the theme of the forum. Feedback ranged from good to excellent and included comments such as, “Thank you so much for addressing this important topic!” and “We all seem to be green with the Framework and Discovery- let us keep discovering it.” To review the PPT slide presentations from the forum visit the RSS Discovery Services Committee’s ALA Connect page (http://alaac15.ala.org/node/29473). The Discovery Services Committee welcomes the members Cynthia Johnson and Lesley Looper and welcomes back members Steve Brantley and Sue Dittmar.

Anne Larrivee, Chair 2015-2016

Research and Statistics Committee
This year, the Research & Statistics Committee hosted the 21st Annual Reference Research Forum on Sunday, June 28th at the Moscone Conference Center in San Francisco. After a double-blind review process, the committee selected 3 research teams to present their results. Frans Albarillo from the City University of New York presented the results of a survey of immigrant and international student research habits to investigate common patterns and to explore how these students experience the academic library. Marianne Colgrove and Annie Downey from Reed College presented the results of a needs assessment to address the gap between faculty and student perspectives on the research process, focusing on the critical sophomore and junior years. The result of a collaborative project between IT and the Library, their presentation shared the fruits of collaboration and assessment that can in turn be used to develop new research curricula and services. Finally, Jean Amaral from the Borough of Manhattan Community College presented the results of a year-long ethnographic study, likening the library to an endangered species and revealing the environmental conditions affecting the change and survival of the community college library. Each presentation garnered a number of interesting questions. The committee also reviewed and posted an annotated bibliography of articles relating to reference research for the 2014 Annual Reference Research Review. – See more at: http://connect.ala.org/node/242913

Ava M. Brillat, Chair 2015-2016

Committee on Multilingual Library Services (formerly the Library Services to the Spanish Speaking Committee)
I am happy to report that the RSS Board approved changing our committee name from Library Services to the Spanish Speaking Committee to the Committee on Multilingual Library Services at Annual. A change in charge accompanies the change in name and next up is updating guidelines.

Crystal Lentz, Chair 2015-2016

STARS

Kerry Keegan, Editor

Message from the Chair

Hi, everyone!

My name is Tom Bruno and I am your STARS chair for 2015-2016. I am currently the Associate Director for Resource Sharing and Reserves at the Yale University Library; before that I worked as the Head of Resource Sharing at Widener Library at the Harvard College Library. I have been working off and on in the field of resource sharing for almost twenty years, and was drawn to volunteer as a member of RUSA STARS on account of our section’s strong sense of community. The outward-facing nature of interlibrary loan means that cooperation beyond the walls of one’s own library is a basic requirement- the work done by STARS and our members helps foster that spirit of cooperation by sharing best practices, knowledge, and a sense of mutual obligation and trust. Over the years I have served RUSA STARS as webmaster and chair of the International ILL Committee, and I consider it an honor to continue that service now as section chair.

STARS had an exciting series of programming available at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. Many thanks to the Research and Assessment Committee and their panel of speakers for their preconference “ILL Datastorm: Practical Assessment,” as well as the ILL Committee and their panel presentation “Acquisitions, Collection Development, Electronic Resources and ILL, Oh My!: Connecting Users to What They Want.” Both offerings were well-attended and well-received! We also saw our ILL and Hot Topics discussion groups use previous attendee feedback to experiment with new formats and topics. Both experiments were a success and we will continue to reinvent these forums to keep them exciting and relevant to our membership. Speaking of Membership, thanks to Micquel Little and the Membership Committee for another successful STARS Social on the Friday night of the Annual Conference. And, of course, my heartfelt thanks to Tina Baich for all of her fantastic work over the past year as STARS chair.

While the final list of STARS programs for Midwinter and Annual 2016 has not yet been confirmed, we are looking forward to supporting another year of great offerings, including the Education and Training Committee’s perennial favorite, ILL 101 workshop (aka “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about ILL”). This will be held at the Boston Public Library during the ALA Midwinter Meeting in, next January. And, of course, since Annual 2016 will be in Orlando, I will be planning the very first ILL librarian flashmob on the Jungle Cruise at Disney World!

In addition to supporting our events at the conferences, we have a lot of ongoing committee projects. Look out for updated bylaws, a new and improved International ILL survey, and ShareILL’s move to a new home. To say that none of this work would be possible without all of your help may seem a cliché, but it really is true. STARS is only as strong as our membership and I’m happy to say that, based upon the activities of the past year and those we have planned for the upcoming year, we’re looking very strong, indeed. Thanks again to everyone for your time and energy – let’s make this another great year for STARS!

Tom Bruno
STARS Chair 2015-2016

Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee completed revisions for the first drafts of the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States, its Explanatory Supplement, and the ALA ILL Request Form in April. The drafts were presented to the STARS Executive Committee in May, where they were unanimously approved. The RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee discussed the drafts and approved them with comments at ALA Annual. The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee will be discussing RUSA S&G’s feedback over the summer and hopes to share the documents during a public comment phase in late summer or early fall with a goal of promulgating a final version by early 2016.

Brian Miller, Chair

STARS Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
Congratulations to Karen Thomas, who was this year’s award winner. She currently serves as the Access Services Librarian at Krauskopf Library at Delaware Valley College. She was joined by Committee Mentor, Megan Gaffney, at ALA San Francisco.

This year marked a change in the procedure for the RUSA awards ceremony in that a representative from STARS presents all the STARS awards, rather than having a different presenter for each award. Tina Baich served this role.

Bethany B. Sewell, Chair

RUSA STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee
The RUSA STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee has continued to work on Version 2 of the ALA RUSA STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing STAR Checklist. Version 2 has been entered into Tufts University’s Qualtrics site and the scoring mechanism has been tested. We expect to have it available on the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative website for libraries to use by September 2015. We spent the rest of our meeting at the ALA Annual Conference to plan promotion and training events.

Sue Kaler, Chair

President’s Note

Our RUSA Strategic Plan, July 2015 – June 2018

Please see the section directly below for information on the RUSA Strategic Plan.

Headline events for RUSA members at ALA Annual in San Francisco!

Planning your schedule for ALA Annual 2015? I find the official conference scheduler to be an invaluable tool, available at http://alaac15.ala.org/scheduler.  For one thing you don’t need to worry about any time changes that might otherwise cause problems if you used your everyday electronic calendar.  You can also easily create your own personal appointments.  On your smart phone you can navigate to the mobile site http://alaac15.ala.org/m and save a shortcut to your home screen. This essentially creates an app.  You then have access to your schedule wherever you go!

If you’ll be in San Francisco on Friday, June 26, 2015 you’ll want to take advantage of these special pre-conferences, with discounts still available to RUSA members.

Also on Friday we’ll be holding our annual RUSA 101 from 3:00 – 4:00 in the afternoon at the Westin St. Francis, Tower Salon A & B.  This is a fantastic opportunity for all conference attendees to learn about RUSA, connect with established members, and enjoy some free refreshments.  See http://alaac15.ala.org/node/29504. Ann Brown and I have been hosting monthly RUSA 101 sessions online since last summer, and I know that we are both looking forward to seeing people in-person for this one!

Saturday, June 27, 2015

  • 1:00pm to 2:30pm
    RUSA Board of Directors Meeting #1
    Hilton San Francisco Union, Continental 2
    Visit this open meeting to learn about the work of our association!
    http://alaac15.ala.org/node/29507
  • 4:00pm to 5:30pm
    RUSA President’s Program featuring speaker danah boyd, – It’s Complicated: Navigating the dynamic landscapes of digital literacy, collapsing contexts, and big data
    danah is a prolific blogger and speaker with big ideas about how librarians can make a difference in the data deluge!
    Moscone Convention Center, 3014-3016 (W)
    http://alaac15.ala.org/node/28619
  • 8:00pm to 10:00pm
    The Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction Announcement and Reception
    Hotel Nikko, Nikko Ballroom
    Join us for ALA’s only single-book award for adult fiction and nonfiction, followed by a chance to mingle at the dessert and drinks reception. I’m incredibly excited that we’ll get to meet Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, who is serving as our keynote speaker!  Tickets are $25 for RUSA Members, $35 for others.
    http://alaac15.ala.org/node/28669

Sunday, June 28, 2015

  • 8:00am to 10:00am
    Literary Tastes
    Moscone Convention Center, West Exhibit Hall, 1st Floor
    Hear from some of the year’s best authors and enjoy light refreshments. #literarytastes
    http://alaac15.ala.org/node/28616
  • 10:30am to 11:30am
    21st Annual Reference Research Forum
    Moscone Convention Center, 2014 (W)
    At this popular event you are able learn about notable research projects and meet the people who are changing the way that we think about the future of reference services.
    http://alaac15.ala.org/node/28620

Monday, June 29, 2015

  • 2:00pm to 4:00pm
    RUSA Board of Directors Meeting #2
    Moscone Convention Center, 200-212 (S)
    Visit this open meeting to learn about the work of our association!
    http://alaac15.ala.org/node/29506

Please make sure to use the scheduler to find all of the other great programs and discussions that have been organized by our RUSA sections!

Congratulations and THANK YOU to our elected officers

Serving in a leadership role for our association is a significant commitment of energy and for many of us is volunteer work accomplished on our own free time.  Please thank the following individuals for their dedication!  Their terms officially begin at the conclusion of the ALA Annual Conference 2015 in San Francisco.

RUSA
Vice-President/President-Elect:  Anne Houston
Secretary:  Kate Oberg

Division Councilor:  Sarah J. Hammill
Director-at-Large:  Ed Garcia & Mary Mintz

BRASS
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:  Louise Mort Feldmann
Member-at-Large:  Penny Scott

CODES
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:  Daniel C. Mack
Member-at-Large:  Emily Hamstra & Matthew J. Wayman

HISTORY
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:  Christina Thompson Shutt
Member-at-Large:  Melissa Finley Gonzalez
Secretary:  Jennifer Eileen McElroy

ETS (MARS): EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES SECTION
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
:  Courtney Greene McDonald
Member-at-Large:  Jason Coleman

RSS
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:  Amy Elizabeth Rustic
Member-at-Large:  Ellen Keith

STARS
Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect:  Heidi Nance
Member-at-Large:  Kerry Keegan

As this is my final column as RUSA President, I absolutely must take this opportunity to express my gratitude to all of our fantastic RUSA member volunteers across the association, as well as our dedicated RUSA staff:  Susan Hornung, Leighann Wood, Marianne Braverman, and Andrea Hill.  All of the webinars, courses, programs, discussions, articles, events, and awards only happen because of your great efforts.

It’s been a great privilege to serve you over this past year.

Joe

Joseph Thompson
RUSA President 2014-2015

Senior Administrator – Public Services
Harford County Public Library
1221-A Brass Mill Road
Belcamp, MD 21017
thompson@hcplonline.org

RUSA Strategic Plan

In my previous RUSA Update column I reported on the RUSA Board’s facilitated strategic planning session that took place on the Friday of ALA Midwinter in Chicago, which was led by Paul Meyer of Tecker International Consulting. Since that time the Strategic Plan Coordinating Task Force, chaired by Anne Houston, has met regularly by telephone conference and has exchanged roughly 200 emails to continue the work. One of our main tasks over February and March was to incorporate the priorities that had already been identified by our members in the RUSA Review Task Force Report, http://connect.ala.org/node/229140. By the end of March we were able to share a draft of the Strategic Plan with the Board for review and comment, which can be found at http://connect.ala.org/node/237537. Some of the questions that came up during this time related to how we will identify overlaps and move toward a more streamlined structure, how we should maximize the role of our publications as a key member value, and how to emphasize the importance of conference programming and the face-to-face experience. These questions and ideas were then able to be incorporated into the final draft, available at http://connect.ala.org/node/238939. At its regular online meeting on May 15th the RUSA Board approved the RUSA Strategic Plan: July 2015 – June 2018.

As you review the plan available on ALA Connect you will notice that the action Items are the one piece that are still draft as of this writing in late May. Our next steps are to finalize our action items and agree upon who within the organization is responsible for achieving the success of each. This work will take place during RUSA’s Board meetings at ALA Annual in San Francisco.

The document itself is fairly brief and focused, so I’d like to include it here. Please think about the active role that you can play to help take each of these goals and objectives forward! I’ve offered a few comments for explanation.

Core Purpose: (JT: Why we exist; Similar to a Mission)
RUSA is a member community engaged in advancing the practices of connecting people to resources, information services, and collections.

Core Organizational Values:

  • Building relationships among members from all types of libraries
  • Encouraging openness, innovation, and idea sharing
  • Promoting excellence in library services and resources

Vision: (JT: Also known as the Big Hairy Audacious Goal)
RUSA is an influential and authoritative organization, essential to the work of anyone engaged in the practices of connecting people to resources, information services, and collections.

Vivid Description of a Desired Future: (JT: Gives us direction on how we move toward the Vision)
RUSA is known for signature products made available through a variety of innovative formats.
The association’s services are relevant, accessible, and clearly contribute to the success of its members at all stages of their careers. RUSA members benefit professionally through relevant programming featuring the newest trends, technology and services. Participation in the association’s programming is considered essential to professional growth and to advancing libraries to meet new user needs. The strength of RUSA is reflected in its diversity of collaborative, innovative and engaged members who participate in collegial mentoring and networking. RUSA is renowned as a leading advocate group for library resources, information services and collections, and is recognized throughout ALA and beyond for its expertise.

Operating principles:

  • Maximize time of RUSA staff and volunteers by operating as efficiently as possible
  • Manage our financial resources responsibly
  • Cooperate and collaborate with other divisions and groups in ALA
  • Enable virtual participation whenever possible
  • Emphasize the importance of marketing and communication to ensure that members are aware of all opportunities

Goals and Objectives:

GOAL #1: Create an organization with greater flexibility in structure, enabling members to pursue their areas of interest in a variety of ways with minimal barriers to involvement.

  1. Create a proposal to transition RUSA to a new organizational structure based on interest groups with a goal of reducing the complexity of the organization and better serving the members’ needs.
  2. Create a process that allows members to become more easily involved in RUSA
  3. Offer more flexibility in programming so that opportunities are accessible to all librarians regardless of their ability to travel to conference

GOAL #2: Offer services, programs and products that maximize the value of membership, making RUSA a good return on investment for its members and encouraging member engagement, recruitment and retention.

  1. Develop and expand educational resources and experiences that are of high value to many members, including education on cutting edge and advanced topics
  2. Respond to changes in ALA conference structure to ensure excellence in conference programming and delivery
  3. Maximize impact of RUSA publications and communications
  4. Increase opportunities for members to network with colleagues with similar interests
  5. Maximize the exposure and prestige of RUSA through awards
  6. Increase recruitment activities
  7. Boost retention strategies through member engagement

Please take a moment to look back at our current Strategic Plan for 2012 – 2015, available on our RUSA web site at http://www.ala.org/rusa/sites/ala.org.rusa/files/content/about/rusa-strategic-plan.pdf. You will notice that key language in our previous Vision statement has made its way into our new Core Purpose. Our primary reason for being is our act of making connections. Our previous plan also focused a great deal of attention on how we deliver content and communicate and recognized our need to move activities online. We have made definite progress in this area (and some of these efforts continue), but you will notice that a significant focus of our new plan is on maximizing the value of the content itself. By providing high-value content and engaging experiences for our members we clearly support a good return on investment.

I again want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who played a part in the completion of this project, including all of our RUSA members who participated in the RUSA Review survey last summer, the Board members who have been engaged in providing constructive input and feedback, and especially the members of the Task Force – Anne Houston, Chris LeBeau, Erin Rushton, Jennifer Boettcher, Kathleen Kern, and Liane Taylor – for their hours of dedication to ensure that we defined the right priorities for our association. When you see Anne in San Francisco, please thank her for sacrificing at least two spring weekends to make much needed changes to the document!

Joseph Thompson
RUSA President 2014-2015