Cooperative Collection Development/STARS and RUSA CODES

What Does Cooperation in Libraries Mean?  Tools and Pitfalls in Creating Successful Resource Sharing and Collections Agreements
Sunday, June 26th, from 10:30 am – 12:00 pm; Morial Convention Center, Room 333

What Does Cooperation in Libraries Mean?  Tools and Pitfalls in Creating Successful Resource Sharing and Collections Agreements, a program sponsored by the STARS/CODES Cooperative Collection Development Committee.

Most libraries are involved in cooperative projects on a daily basis.  These vary from resource sharing agreements to shared purchases and innovative collections projects.  Some are informal or proof of concept pilots.  Others have long term goals requiring formal documents, policies, oversight, and staff.  Panelists will offer best practices and case studies to explore successful strategies and highlight potential pitfalls.  Questions such as cost sharing, necessity of legal agreements, staffing, and keeping the cooperation alive will be discussed.

Speakers

  1. Lars Leon, Head of Resource Sharing and Delivery Services, University of Kansas, and Carol Kochan, Head of Interlibrary Services, Utah State, will be speaking about successful cooperative ILL agreements in GWLA (Greater Western Library Alliance).
  2. Leslie Button, Associate Director for Library Services, University of Massachusetts Amherst, will speak about her Five Colleges and  Boston Library Consortium experience with cooperative collection projects, reducing monographic duplication, and patron driven acquisition of e-books.
  3. Kristine Hammerstrand, Director, CARLI User Services, will focus on the CARLI consortium and talk about managing cooperation in a changing organization.  She will focus on how her consortium has successfully integrated new members.

 
Kathryn Leigh, Chair
kathrynr@library.umass.edu

Interlibrary Loan

Working Smart: Managing the Increase in Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing
Saturday, June 25, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm; Morial Convention Center, Room 344

The ILL Committee will present Working Smart: Managing the Increase in Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing.  Speakers will address classification, staff workflow, alternative methods of compensation, and cost effectiveness.  The program will include sample models of academic, public, and special libraries.  We will compare previous organizational charts and review procedures required to implement organizational changes.  Speakers will focus on current challenges as well as measureable output.

Confirmed speakers include Robyn Huff-Eibl, Head of Access Services, and Jeanne Voyles, Team Leader, Document Delivery, from The University of Arizona Libraries; and Jan Ezkovich Barnes, Interlibrary Loan Librarian from the New Orleans Public Library.

Candice Townsend, Co-Chair
ctow@loc.gov

RUSA-STARS/LLAMA-SASS Cooperative Remote Circulation

Panel Discussion
Sunday, June 26, 10:30 am –12:00 pm, Marriott at Convention Center, New Levee room

Join the RUSA-STARS/LLAMA-SASS Cooperative Remote Circulation Committee for an informative panel discussion about challenges and opportunities in consortial borrowing. Our panelists will kick off the session by introducing their broad perspectives, and then they will engage in a discussion with the audience to allow further sharing of ideas and solutions. Please bring your questions, and your expertise!

Randy Dykhuis, Executive Director, Midwest Collaborative for Library Services
MeLCat is a project of the Library of Michigan, which contracts with Midwest Collaborative for Library Services (MCLS) to provide implementation, support, and training for participating Michigan libraries.  Dykhuis has been involved with MeLCat since it was first proposed, and he will discuss MeLCat’s organization, management of the central MeLCat database, and training and support for MeLCat participants. MeLCat uses an INN-Reach group catalog that works with all sorts of ILS systems.  Bibliographic data is loaded, records are added, items are withdrawn, and the Direct Consortial Borrowing (DCB) client data is updated daily.  Non-INN-Reach libraries use the DCB client to check books out in the group catalog as well as in their own local ILS.  Dykhuis will share his experience with NCIP and other communication protocols and also with encouraging communication between vendors.  Other possible topics are issues in physical delivery such as selecting a delivery mechanism, turnaround time expectations, and challenges.

Panelists
Melissa Trevvett, Executive Director Boston Library Consortium (BLC)
As the recently appointed executive director of the Boston Library Consortium (BLC), Trevvett has facilitated the implementation of WorldCat Navigator for unmediated borrowing. She will talk about factors that played into the BLC’s decision to use WorldCat Navigator for their consortial borrowing system, including the WorldCat Local discovery layer, interoperability with ILS systems, and the need to maintain a two-day turnaround time, which is a big priority for the BLC. The BLC brings together public and private academic institutions of all sizes, which has presented the group with challenges in implementation. Their next steps will be in working together to continue the process of making policy decisions about circulating collections among such diverse collections.

Peter Collins, Assistant Project Manager BorrowDirect
Collins has been leading the implementation of a new unmediated borrowing platform that has had a huge impact on the University of Pennsylvania and their Borrow Direct partners.  He will talk about workflow efficiencies that have been achieved by allowing work to be more fluidly distributed across departments.  He will also explain how the Borrow Direct system, through compliance with NISO Circulation Interchange Protocol (NCIP) and other circulation standards, has created seamless borrowing for both the partner libraries and their patrons. The partner libraries use different Integrated Library Systems (ILS) systems, making the ILS vendors’ support of remote circulation standards such as NCIP fundamental to their success.

Kristina Eden, STARS Co-Chair, keden@umich.edu
Chelle Batchelor, SASS Co-Chair

Hot Topics Discussion Group

Saturday, June 25, 4:00 – 5:30 pm; Loews New Orleans, Louisiana II

Come join your resource sharing colleagues on, for an informal, lively, and informative discussion about the “ILL hot topics” of the day.  We look forward to seeing you there.

Planned Discussion Topics

  1. Using email only to send and receive ILL requests vs. using Ariel
    or Odyssey
  2. Getting It System Toolkit (GIST): sharing, Q & A, of current
  3. users/adopters
  4. ILL statistics: what data do you save and how is it used?
  5. ILL books on self-help shelves: yes or no?
  6. ILL requests for e-content:borrowing and lending – effect on
  7. resource sharing
  8. ILL borrowing and/or lending down and why?
  9. Using Kindles, iPads, etc. for ILL: are any doing this and
  10. how?
  11. Obtaining/purchasing online "prepublished" article requests
  12. Experience using OCLC Knowledge Base?
  13. Handling multiple ship-to addresses with a single OCLC symbol
  14. Other?  Feel free to raise your own “hot topic” of the
  15. moment.

 
Julia Gustafson, Chair
jgustafson@wooster.edu

Interlibrary Loan Discussion Group

Saturday, June 25, 10:30 am – 12:00 pm; Loews New Orleans, Louisiana II room

Join us for an exciting presentation and discussion with Gerrit van Dyk, Interlibrary Loan Manager, and Jared Howland, Electronic Resources Librarian, at Brigham Young University.  Confused about what to do when your only holdings are electronic?  Don’t know if you can lend them?  Come learn more about lending ejournal and ebook pdfs—you might be surprised that you could have been lending all along!

Open discussion will follow the e-resources presentation.  If you have more topics to suggest for the ILL Discussion Group, please contact Megan Gaffney (gaffneym@udel.edu).  See you in New Orleans!

Megan Gaffney, Chair
gaffneym@udel.edu

President’s Note

With Midwinter being in early January, 2011 got off to a quick start. RUSA had a variety of events at Midwinter, including a very well-attended RUSA Social. I’d like to pass on my thanks and congratulations to Liane Taylor and the RUSA Membership Committee and to Liz Markel and Susan Hornung in RUSA Office for coordinating such a wonderful event. We had over 200 attendees, both RUSA members and potential members. It is always great to see so many librarians coming together to celebrate their passion for reference work.

This Midwinter also featured our first virtual Town Hall meeting. For RUSA members who could not attend the Town Hall in person, we opened up three chat rooms where they could post questions or comments and get live feeds on the meeting. Thanks to RUSA Councilor Kathleen Kern and our Emerging Leader Kate Kosturski who worked the chat rooms during the meeting. We had about a dozen virtual participants at the meeting. I am hopeful that this model offers members expanded opportunity to participate in RUSA without having to be there in person. At the Town Hall and at the RUSA Board Big Think that followed, there was much discussion about where RUSA should be in the future. In 2012, RUSA enters a new strategic planning period, and as a start to that process, I will be working with the Board and Sections to set up a taskforce to look at the future of RUSA. This taskforce will help to shape RUSA’s directions.

While at Midwinter, I also had the opportunity to see firsthand one of RUSA’s many projects that support libraries and librarians across the country. RUSA is the administrator for the FINRA (Financial Industry Regulatory Authority) Investor Education Foundation’s program Smart investing @ your library®. The program offers grants to libraries that are developing creative and practical programs and services to educate user groups about wise investing and financial decision-making. Through the FINRA Foundation, part of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, the grants fund “public library efforts to provide library patrons with access to effective, unbiased financial education resources.” This year there were twenty grant recipients, sixteen new grantees and four continuing projects. Since 2007, sixty-four libraries have received grants through the Smart investing @ your library® program. This year grants were awarded to libraries from Apache Junction, Arizona and Chesterfield, Virginia to Florence, South Carolina and Pelham, Alabama There were large library systems represented as well as smaller libraries, but all of them had put together thoughtful and creative programs to offer much-needed financial information to their users. Some libraries were targeting young members of the community, others focused on seniors. Libraries have developed programs aimed at single-mothers, military spouses, and low income families. A key component of many of the programs is collaboration, and grantee libraries have developed some excellent models for partnerships in their communities. Partners have included local government agencies, colleges and universities, and state CPA organizations whose expertise has expanded the reach of the library projects. I was excited to see the ideas that librarians were coming up with to reach out to new segments of their communities, and I am delighted that RUSA has been able to work with our partners in ALA and at the FINRA Foundation to provide these opportunities. At our RUSA Board meeting at Midwinter, the Board approved continuing the relationship between RUSA and the Smart investing @ your library® program. More information about Smart investing @ your library® can be found at http://www.smartinvestingala.org. For more information on the FINRA Foundation and access to a variety of useful tools for working with investors, see http://www.finrafoundation.org/.

The Smart investing @ your library® program is just one of the many ways that RUSA provides resources and information to librarians and then to our users. This sort of commitment to working collaboratively to serve our users is a hallmark of RUSA members and one of the things that will carry us forward in the profession, whatever sort of library we work in.

Barry Trott
RUSA President 2010-11

$1.4 Million in Grants Awarded to Public Libraries through FINRA Investor Education Foundation and ALA Smart investing@your library Partnership

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) Investor Education Foundation and the American Library Association (ALA) have announced $1.4 million in grants to 20 recipients as a part of the Smart investing@your library® initiative.

Smart investing@your library® is administered jointly by the Reference and User Services Association – a division of ALA – and the FINRA Investor Education Foundation. The program funds library efforts to provide patrons with effective, unbiased financial education resources. Now in its fourth year, the program has awarded a total of more than $4.6 million to public libraries and library networks nationwide.

The new grant recipients will use the funds to implement a variety of programs designed to increase patrons’ access to and understanding of financial information. The grants target a diverse group of library patrons – among them youth, seniors, English-language learners, local employment counselors, members of the military and their spouses, and low-income families. Participating libraries will use a variety of technologies and outreach strategies to connect library users to the best financial education and information available. These strategies include gaming, online learning, classroom formats, one-on-one clinics, storytelling and staff training.
The grantees will partner with community organizations, schools, universities and local governments to expand the impact of the services and resources the grants enable. Library patrons will be empowered to make educated financial choices for both long-term investing and day-to-day money matters.
The grantees, which serve urban, suburban and rural communities across the country, will receive one to two years of funding, in addition to assistance with program marketing, outreach and evaluation provided by ALA. For more information about Smart investing@your library®, visit www.smartinvesting.ala.org.

The new grant recipients are:

Apache Junction Public Library, Apache Junction, AZ
The Apache Junction Public Library will partner with the University of Arizona to offer financial literacy classes at the library and other community locations, emphasizing the small steps residents can take to lead a healthy lifestyle, both physically and financially.
Grant amount: $70,200

Burlington County Library System, Westampton, NJ
Burlington County Library System will partner with Rutgers University Cooperative Extension, the New Jersey Coalition for Financial Education and the library/technology center at nearby Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst to offer a variety of personal finance and investing workshops for adults. These face-to-face sessions will be supplemented by customizable Web-based learning resources.
Grant amount: $95,942

Camden Public Library, Camden, ME
The Camden Public Library and its partners will undertake a multipart campaign to reach every household in the town with a variety of personal finance messages, resources and utilities. The project will give particular attention to students in high school and working adults in the community.
Grant amount: $45,440

Carmel Clay Public Library, Carmel, IN
Carmel Clay Public Library will collaborate with the local public school system, the Ball State University Center for Economic Education, the Indiana Council for Economic Education and the Indiana Youth Institute to establish the library as the county’s focal point for personal finance learning. The program will address money basics for teens, college financing, retirement planning and investor protection, among other topics.
Grant amount: $84,600

Chesterfield County Public Library, Chesterfield, VA
Chesterfield County Public Library will work with local elementary schools, PTAs and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond to help moms and their children understand the mathematics of personal finance and investing.
Grant amount: $81,600

Curtis Memorial Library, Brunswick, ME
Curtis Memorial Library and its partners will offer a financial literacy program tailored to the specific information needs and learning styles of women in three life stages: teens and young women entering the workforce (ages 15–24), women in midlife in various stages of transition that require smart financial management (ages 25–44), and women entering retirement age (ages 55–65).
Grant amount: $72,950

Emmet O’Neal Library, Mountain Brook, AL
The Emmet O’Neal Library will collaborate with the University of Alabama-Birmingham and Junior Achievement to offer multigenerational programming of broad appeal to the community. The program will begin with performances by a professional storyteller, who will prepare narratives about money and investing and how they can affect relationships, particularly among friends and family. This kick-off event will be followed by a series of educational offerings targeting teens, young families and women who are recently widowed or divorced and have never before handled finances.
Grant amount: $46,200

Florence County Library System, Florence, SC
Florence County Library System will pursue a multigenerational financial literacy strategy in partnership with the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs and others. The project will reach children, teens/young adults, seniors and low- to moderate-income residents to help them become financially savvy and alert them to money scams.
Grant amount: $47,949

Lawrence Public Library, Lawrence, KS
Lawrence Public Library will incorporate a new financial wellness clinic into its business center to provide straightforward money management and investing information to low-income families. This will be accomplished through partnerships with the local school district and social services agencies, a series of educational workshops and a promotional campaign using both traditional and social media.
Grant amount: $52,800

Martin County Library System, Stuart, FL
Martin County Library System and the University of Florida Cooperative Extension will provide a graduated series of personal finance and investing workshops for lower-income residents referred by Habitat for Humanity and local social services agencies. The programming will emphasize the financial considerations pertaining to homeownership, saving for children’s education, planning for retirement and rebuilding a nest egg.
Grant amount: $45,054

Martinsburg-Berkeley County Public Libraries, Martinsburg, WV
The Martinsburg-Berkeley County Public Libraries will partner with the Blue Ridge Community and Technical College to establish a four-part financial literacy program serving county residents under the theme “Free-Way to Financial Information.” The program will include a family financial fair featuring services available in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, special programming on financial basics for children and teens delivered with assistance from the Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum, financial seminars for adults, and a “CASH Corridor” on the library system’s website with multimedia personal finance resources.
Grant amount: $79,560

Milwaukee Public Library, Milwaukee, WI
The Milwaukee Public Library will leverage partnerships with Make a Difference-Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Department on Aging and Money Smart Week to improve financial literacy among high school students, address the investor protection needs of senior citizens and provide basic financial education to the broader community.
Grant amount: $99,000

Monroe County Public Library, Bloomington, IN
The Monroe County Public Library will target teens and 20-somethings, including Spanish speakers, through 15 workshops and 15 “talk-to-an-expert” sessions on five high-priority topics: budgeting, saving, spending, managing credit and debt, and investing. Programs will occur at the library and various county locations, and will be produced with assistance from Purdue Extension, in part to leverage communitywide attention to Indiana Saves and Money Smart Week.
Grant amount: $79,582

Newton Free Library, Newton, MA
Librarians, financial literacy experts and volunteers will collaborate to integrate financial education into the library’s English-as-a-second-language services and to offer a full complement of public programs on personal finance topics, including preparing for retirement.
Grant amount: $81,811

Orange County Library System, Orlando, FL
Orange County Library System will continue its partnership with the Graduate School of Business at Rollins College to serve the financial and investor education needs of lower-income and Spanish-speaking residents, especially wage earners in the region’s hospitality industry.
Grant amount: $51,150

Pelham Public Library, Pelham, AL
The University of Alabama, Jefferson State Community College and the Alabama Cooperative Extension Center will assist Pelham Public Library in delivering a financial literacy initiative for youth, adults, seniors and Spanish-speaking library patrons.
Grant amount: $88,546

Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County, Youngstown, OH
The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County will partner with Junior Achievement, experts in museum exhibit design and the Mahoning County Financial Stability Partnership to provide a continuum of family-centered financial education experiences and services.
Grant amount: $95,102

Santa Clara County Library, Los Gatos, CA
The Santa Clara County Library project will emphasize staff training on financial topics and related reference resources. This training will be led by faculty from nearby higher education institutions and made available to all librarians within the Pacific Library Partnership, a consortium of four regional library systems. In addition to staff training, patron workshops on investing literacy will be offered at Santa Clara’s seven libraries. The public workshops will be complemented by a personal finance portal added to the library’s website, offering relevant materials in English, Spanish, Mandarin and Vietnamese.
Grant amount: $100,000

Schaumburg Township District Library, Schaumburg, IL
Schaumburg Township District Library and its partners (including the University of Illinois Extension) will organize and train a network of local employment counselors and social service agencies to act as intermediaries in the provision of basic personal finance information and refer clients to the resources and programs available at and through the library.
Grant amount: $87,000

Washington-Centerville Public Library, Centerville, OH
Washington-Centerville Public Library and the nearby Hithergreen Senior Center will establish a series of financial seminars geared towards adults ages 50 and over in the region. Among various topics, the seminars will address healthy finances and establishing saving and investing goals, recovering from job loss and other financial challenges, IRAs, investing strategies for seniors, identity theft and financial scams targeting seniors.
Grant amount: $30,000

Tickets now on sale for 2011 Literary Tastes Breakfast featuring best adult reading authors

All book lovers and adult readers are invited to celebrate the best writing and most outstanding authors of 2011 at the Literary Tastes Breakfast, an Annual Conference tradition hosted by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA).

The breakfast, which will be held from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Sunday, June 26, features authors from RUSA’s 2011 literary book award selections, including the Notable Books List for outstanding fiction, non-fiction and poetry; The Reading List for the best genre fiction of the year; the Sophie Brody Medal for achievement in Jewish literature; the Dartmouth Medal for an outstanding reference work; and the Outstanding Reference Sources list. Authors read from their work, ruminate on writing and sign books, while attendees enjoy a scrumptious breakfast. Authors participating in this year’s event will be announced throughout the spring at the RUSA website, RUSA blog and literarytastes.com. Registration for the breakfast and conference is now available at the 2011 Annual Conference website.
The breakfast is a ticketed event sponsored by the Collection Development and Evaluation Section (CODES) of RUSA and is one of many CODES events at the Annual Conference. Conference participants can add the breakfast to their registration by locating it on the list of ticketed events in the online registration form (event code RUS2) located at www.ala.org/annual. Those not attending the conference are invited to purchase tickets for the breakfast only by selected “Preconferences and Ticketed Events Only” as their registration type, then selecting the Literary Tastes Breakfast from the event list.
Breakfast tickets start at $50 for RUSA members, who receive the best price on this and other RUSA events throughout the conference. At the time of publication, Guy Gavriel Kay, author of “Under Heaven”, the 2011 Reading List Fantasy top pick had been confirmed to speak at the breakfast.

Genealogy, business reference, collaboration and older adults topics of 2011 RUSA preconferences

There’s something for everyone among the four preconferences hosted by various special interest sections of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) at the 2011 ALA Annual Conference.

Librarians and support staff from all types of libraries will find this year’s preconferences of interest—topics covered this year will include library services to older adults; genealogy reference basics and local resources; effective collaboration strategies between librarians and their IT departments; and business reference basics. All events will be held at one of the conference hotels, and are open to any interested individual. More information about all of these preconferences is available in the Professional Development section of the RUSA website.

We are also offering group pricing for this year’s preconferences. These discounted rates are available to any library, library network or system who registers three or more of their employees for any combination of RUSA preconferences. More information, including the group registration form, is on the RUSA website.
This year’s RUSA preconferences are:

  • Effective Library Service to Older Adults Seeking Employment and Volunteer Opportunities
    Friday, June 24, 2011, 8:00 a.m. – 12 p.m.
    Hosted by RUSA RSS

    The current recession has prompted many older adults to seek employment or volunteer opportunities. How are libraries responding to the job search assistance needs of these older job seekers? This preconference will describe various library programs as well as provide an overview of prospective partners, including resources that may be available through the Workforce Investment Act and the Corporation for National and Community Service.
    Advance Registration (through May 13, 2011): RUSA member, $125;
    ALA member, $170; non-member, $215; student and retired members, $105.
    GROUP RATES: $120 each until May 13
  • The Genealogy Reference Desk: How to Make it Big and Easy
    Friday, June 24, 2011, 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
    Hosted by RUSA History Section (HS)
    RUSA’s History Section hosts another outstanding genealogy reference workshop. In addition to covering basic skills for effective genealogy reference services, this event will feature expert speakers on local and specialized resources that help answer the more challenging research questions. Librarians from public, academic and all other types of libraries interested in learning how to use genealogy-related resources more effectively will benefit from this session. Lunch is sponsored by ProQuest.
    Advance Registration (through May 13, 2011): RUSA member, $100;
    ALA member, $145; non-member, $220; student and retired members, $75.
    GROUP RATES: $95 each until May 13
  • Strange Bedfellows: IT and Reference Collaborations to Enhance User Experiences
    Friday, June 24, 2011, 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
    Hosted by RUSA MARS and RUSA RSS
    This pre-conference will present strategies for successful collaborations between Reference and IT departments. Innovative approaches to enhance user experiences frequently require collaborations between reference and IT. Speakers will draw from personal experiences in order to illustrate how a successful collaboration is achieved and how to overcome challenges along the way. Breakout sessions will provide participants with an opportunity to delve further into strategies that appeal to them.
    Advance Registration (through May 13, 2011): RUSA member, $185;
    ALA member, $205; non-member, $230; student and retired members, $160.
    GROUP RATES: $175 each until May 13
  • Business Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship
    Friday, June 24, 2011 from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
    Hosted by RUSA BRASS
    This full-day interactive workshop is designed for new business librarians; generalists who have assumed responsibility in business librarianship; or librarians who handle business reference-related inquiries in all types of libraries including academic, public and special libraries. Rhonda Kleiman, economic development manager at the Library System of Lancaster and Bobray Bordelon, economics and finance librarian/data services librarian at Princeton University will present.
    Advance Registration (through May 13, 2011): RUSA member, $195;
    ALA member, $225; non-member, $295; student and retired members, $165.
    GROUP RATES: $175 each until May 13

Interested participants have the option to register for just a RUSA preconference, or for both a preconference and the Annual Conference. For preconference-only registration using the online form (login required), select “SO-Preconference and Ticketed Events Only” as the registration type and proceed to select this event from the list of ticketed events. Conference registrants can add this event to their registration, and will find it under the list of ticketed events and preconferences in the online form. Event codes are listed above in the event descriptions for those using the printed registration form for fax or mail. Advance registration rates are available through May 13, and prices will increase after that date. Registration for all RUSA preconferences will close Sunday, Jun. 19.

Launch of literarytastes.com on RUSA website

Looking for information about all things literary going on with RUSA? Bookmark www.literarytastes.com, where you’ll find links to our literary awards lists, event information for the Literary Tastes Breakfast and Midwinter Book and Media Awards and more. There’s a blog feed that links into the RUSA blog’s “Book Love” posting category. We also have a section of the page called Tools, and we’ll be adding to this over time. Right now we’ve listed our newly-established Goodreads account in this section—become our friend on Goodreads and easily add the literary award winners to your to-be-read list!
If you’re looking for the literarytastes.com landing page from the RUSA homepage, click on “RUSA Awards” in the left menu, then “Literary Tastes” in the submenu.

RUSA@2011 Annual Conference

As we move ahead to the Annual Conference in New Orleans, stay tuned to the Professional Development section of the RUSA website for a complete list of programming and other events. Access that page here. Right now it includes individual and group pricing for preconferences, a list of programs and an overview of discussion groups. The information will be updated as it becomes available from Conference Services. Visit www.ala.org/annual for more information about the conference, or register online now (login required).

Here are some dates to keep in mind:
Early Bird Registration: Ends March 4, 2011
Advance Registration: March 5 – May 13, 2011
Regular Registration: May 14 – on-site in New Orleans
RUSA Preconference and Ticketed Event Registration: Ends June 19, 2011

Messages from RUSA Board and Division Committees

Announcements

RUSA Divisional Webmaster (Volunteer Position Announcement)
The RUSA Divisional Webmaster is responsible for maintaining and developing content related to RUSA-divisional committees (such as Membership, Standards and Guidelines, Professional Development, Publications and Communications, and others) for the official RUSA web site. This volunteer position will work closely with RUSA’s office staff person that supports the RUSA web site.

The RUSA web site is located on the American Library Association’s web server at: http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/rusa and serves as an electronic forum for RUSA—and ALA-related business. It is used to disseminate information and to maintain archives on RUSA divisional-level committees and their activities. Contents may include RUSA-wide committee web sites, projects, publications, and rosters; official documents of the Association; announcements of programs, meetings, and conference activities; and news and resources for those concerned with emerging issues in reference and information services in libraries.
Required qualifications: Experience with creating and editing HTML documents and loading them on to a web server; familiarity with and access to the Internet and electronic mail; good communications skills; a demonstrated ability to work independently and to meet deadlines; membership in RUSA; and participation in the ALA Annual Conference and the ALA Midwinter Meeting (either in-person or virtually).

The individual will serve a two-year appointment, eligible for renewal upon application by the incumbent.

Individuals interested in the position should email a resume and a statement of interest by April 1, 2011 to the Chair of the RUSA Publications and Communications Committee:

Amber Prentiss
University of Georgia
Athens, GA
amberp@uga.edu
706-542-7674

Committee Reports

RUSA Professional Development Committee
At the Midwinter Meeting the RUSA Professional Development Committee discussed the existing Webinar and Continuing Education (CE) course proposal forms and guidelines. Earlier discussion among the committee on ALA Connect concluded that these need significant revision. The following are needed:

  1. A document explaining the proposal process and required information
  2. A document stating the criteria the committee uses to evaluate proposals for Webinars
  3. A document stating the criteria the committee uses for multi-session online courses

Jeannette Pierce, Beth Wood, and Diana Shonrock agreed to draft these documents by mid-March. Jeannette volunteered to lead the effort.

Once these draft documents are distributed for committee comment, the next task will be to develop a document that provides guidance on developing a good proposal. Another on effective presentation techniques for online education is also highly desirable.

The committee also reviewed pending webinar and course proposals and directed the committee chair to communicate the committee’s sense to those who submitted the proposals. Those communications have been sent.

Notes from your Emerging Leader

The ALA Midwinter Meeting also marked the start of my Emerging Leader Year (rather, half-year; the program concludes for me at Annual in June) with an all-day workshop on Friday, January 7. This workshop gave me insight into the organizational and governance structures of ALA (finally, I know the difference between a Division, a Round Table, a Committee, and an Interest Group!), an overview of the Emerging Leader program, and thoughtful discussion on leadership.

It was the last of these items that interested me most. Coming from the corporate world (specifically, the legal profession) I wondered if my views on leadership differed from my peers who have established careers in libraries and related public professions—namely, if there were attributes present in librarianship that one might not see in the corporate world. Fortunately, there is much overlap! Leadership traits like communication, trust, empathy, accountability, and inspiration—among many others—find equal weight in public and private sectors. I left my long day of work inspired, refreshed, and ready to get started on our team project: a collection development policy for video game collections.

The day also gave each group time to meet their team leaders and mentors in person. With Facebook and other social networking materials, we already knew each other on a superficial level, but face-to-face time discussing our projects and engaging in general conversation establishes necessary rapport. You’re going to be working together on a project for approximately six months; it’s very important that everyone do his or her best to get off on the right foot!

The rest of Midwinter was nothing short of enjoyable. The warm weather—warm comparable to my home in the Northeast—added to the camaraderie and free exchange of ideas. I learned about video games in libraries, transliteracy, emerging technologies, Library of Congress initiatives with linked data, new products and services from our partner vendors—including my own employer, JSTOR—and thanks to Twitter, attended the ALTAFF Gala Authors’ Tea!

I also had the opportunity to sit in on the RUSA Board Meeting monitoring their chat rooms for questions and ideas during the Town Hall portion of the meeting. As travel budgets shrink, virtual participation like this will be necessary to keep membership engaged, and I certainly hope RUSA continues to use chat rooms at future meetings and panels.

It was after I returned home to New Jersey (on time, one of the lucky ones—too many colleagues and friends were stuck in San Diego for a few extra days thanks to nasty weather!) that the real work as an Emerging Leader began. Our group has six months to write a draft collection development policy for video games, prepare a sample MARC record, and draft a “core collection” of video games for libraries wanting to start their own collection. I chose the project for several reasons—a chance to produce a deliverable that will serve the greatest population of members, experience in collection development (I assisted my school’s collection development course for two years), a desire to learn more about video games, and the chance to work with amazing mentors and friends who are on the forefront of video gaming in libraries (two of our mentors, Justin Hoenke and JP Porcaro, founded 8bitlibrary.com, a website and blog devoted to spreading the word about video games and librarianship). Our group is in the data-gathering stage right now, soliciting information from public, academic, and K-12 libraries on their collections. If you have video game collection in your library and have some time to answer questions, please contact me via one of the email addresses listed below. We’ll be presenting our work at the Annual Conference on Friday, June 24, and I invite all RUSA members to stop by and view all the Emerging Leader projects.

I hope all my fellow RUSA members have a wonderful snowstorm-free rest of the winter, a good winter semester/quarter (if you’re an academic librarian), and I look forward to seeing everyone in New Orleans this June.