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, 2015-2016
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
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
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!
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!
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
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!
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 Serviceshttp://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).
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/)!
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.
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
Jim Shepard
James Hannaham
Karin Slaughter
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 inFall of 2013, (Vol. 53, No. 1) ofReference 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.
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.
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
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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.
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.
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!
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:
The committee will reach out to the editors for the RUSA Voices blog to see how/if we can contribute BRASS content
We are looking at the possibility of creating an official BRASS Twitter profile, rather than just exclusively relying on the #bizref hashtag.
We are looking at ways to engage more members via Twitter, as the statistics indicate our reach and engagement with Facebook is very limited.
Our webmaster has reorganized some content on the BRASS page, as well as removed an outdated sidebar.
Our webmaster will update the publication submission guidelines for the website.
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.
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:
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
Just Ask Task Force
Just Ask started in 2012 as a group to develop, among other things, advocacy tools for reference librarian. The charge of the Task Force has changed from its inception, but the one thing that remained was the desire to promote and advocate for reference librarians. After three years, the Just Ask Task Force is being discontinued. Just Ask will be meeting at ALA Annual (details below), but we wanted to highlight a few of the Task Force’s high points.
Just Ask Discussion Group, Midwinter 2013
This discussion group was interesting and informative. During the group, attendees were asked what they wanted from the Just Ask Task Force. A theme of tools to help reference librarians do their jobs, but also manage change and advocate for themselves both inside and outside of their libraries emerged. From that Discussion Group, three things emerged: Two webinars and a pilot marketing campaign. Notes and feedback from the discussion group can be found on ALA Connect.
Ask Campaign Pilot
In addition to the webinars, Cathay Keough and Julie Strange put together the Ask Campaign pilot as a way to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the Maryland AskUsNow!. The pilot featured patrons of the library holding up questions asked by patrons online (via Twitter, chat, etc.) as a way to highlight the kinds of questions reference librarians can ask For more information about their Campaign, please see their post on ALA Connect.
Just Ask will be meeting at Annual on Saturday June 28 from 1:30-3:00 in the Conference Center in room 226(S). We will use this meeting to wrap up and loose ends and to begin planning the final report the co-chairs will submit to RUSA.
On a personal note, we would like to thank current and past members of the Just Ask Task Force, Susan Hornung and the current and past presidents of RUSA (Mary Popp, Kathleen Kern, and Joe Thompson), for their support. We would also like to thank Liz Markel, Andrea Hill, Marianne Braverman, and Leighann Wood for their help and support; they were invaluable. And thank you to everyone who participated in our discussion groups, webinars, or who attended the meetings.
Diana Shonrock
Elizabeth Stephan
Co-chairs, Just Ask Task Force
AFL-CIO/ALA Joint Committee on Library Service to Labor Groups
A name change for the AFL-CIO/ALA Joint Committee on Library Service to Labor Groups was approved by committee members and the RUSA Executive Committee. The committee will now be known as the AFL-CIO/ALA Labor Committee.
RUSA Membership
Our Virtual RUSA 101’s have been an unqualified success! If you are interested in publicizing your group or would like to be a special guest, just let Ann Brown (agbrown@gwu.edu) know. Or if you are interested in a more focused audience, sign up for a RUSA 201.
But please join us for our in-person RUSA 101: Network, Get Oriented, Get Involved!
Friday, June 26, 3-4pm Westin St. Francis, Tower Salon A & B
If you’re new to RUSA or a longtime member looking for an opportunity to connect with other members and ways to get involved, make sure to put RUSA 101 on your calendar! Sponsored by all RUSA Sections.
RUSA Publications and Communications Committee
Launch of RUSA Voices – Call for Bloggers!
RUSA Voices (http://blog.rusa.ala.org/), the official blog for RUSA, is an virtual forum for the reference and user services community. It is an opportunity to not only raise awareness of and explore practices, technology, and issues in reference and user services, but also to voice and share a diverse set of perspectives that represents the diverse community of RUSA.
If you have something to say, we want to hear it. We want to know what challenges you have faced so that we might feel like we’re not alone as librarians. We want to hear what works and what doesn’t work. We want to know about people who have made a difference not only for their patrons, but also for the profession. Write and share what you know, what you have experienced. This blog is about YOUR voice! Give breath to your hopes for the future of reference and user services. Blogging is simple, just write. Put your thoughts down in a document. Share your Voice and improve not only your own understanding, but the understanding of the rest of the profession.
Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis. Please email editor David Midyette (david.midyette@roseman.edu) for questions or submissions.
We’re looking forward to seeing everyone at ALA Annual in San Francisco.
Here are the primary BRASS-sponsored events at Annual:
BRASS Preconference: Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs, 8am-1pm, Friday
BRASS Members Reception sponsored by ReferenceUSA, Friday 5:30-7:30pm at ThirstyBear, 661 Howard St, San Francisco.
Public Libraries Forum – Revenue Streams for Libraries. Naming rights, corporate sponsorships, crowd funding, and other non-levy type revenue sources. Saturday 1-2:30pm
BRASS Discussion Group – Sunday 8:30-10am
Publishers forum – topic is financial literacy and the scheduled presenters are S&P Capital IQ, Mergent, Morningstar, and the San Francisco Federal Reserve. Sunday 1-2:30pm
2015 BRASS Program – Not Elsewhere Classified: Different Approaches to Researching Emerging Industries. S&P Capital IQ sponsored breakfast: Monday, 8:00 – 8:30am. Program: 8:30-10am.
BRASS Dinner will be Monday night at 6:30pm. Location details will follow.
These BRASS awards and grants will also be recognized at the RUSA Awards Ceremony and Reception:
Peter McKay, Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
Jason Dewland and Cindy Elliott, Emerald Research Grant Award
Barbara Alvarez, Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award
Grace Liu, Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award
Sara Hess, Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award
The full BRASS program/event guide will be sent out on BRASS-L.
Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee is busy informing its members about the different programs at Annual.
Charles Allan, 2013-2015 Chair
Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The ALA Annual Forum panel discussion date and time have been assigned; Saturday June 27, 1-230pm. The program will be a panel discussion about Revenue Streams for Libraries. This would include naming rights, sponsorships, crowd funding, grants and other non-levy type revenue sources. Location MCC 236-238. Roslyn, Sal, and Ed will be in San Francisco. All speakers are in place. Presentation format: 10 minutes per speaker then open to Q&A. We’ll use 2 color-coded survey forms, one standard for RUSA, one more specific for BRASS.
Thanks to Annette Buckley who’s helped us upload recycled articles to the Public Libraries Briefcase that include updated information. The older articles’ content is valuable and it’s important to make them more up to date and easy to use.
See you in San Francisco!
Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair
Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group hosted two virtual discussions during the spring semester. On February 20, 2015, a virtual discussion was held which centered around faculty liaison work and e-book collections strategies. The recording and chat transcript are available on ALA Connect.
On April 24, 2015, a collections-themed virtual discussion took place. We discussed resources we are renewing or cancelling and if we are subscribing to any new resources. During the meeting, people also shared a little about data acquisitions and managing data collections. The chat transcript is available on ALA Connect.
Thank you to the committee members who have helped coordinate these discussions! The next discussion of the BRASS Discussion Group will be in person at ALA Annual on June 28th with topics to be determined.
Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair
Business Reference Sources Committee
The Reference Sources Committee will be presenting the annual Publisher’s Forum at the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. The forum will be held on Sunday, June 28th from 1-2:30 pm at the Moscone Convention Center (MCC), Esplanade 303. The forum is entitled: Money Smart—Sources for Promoting Financial Literacy to Your Community, and will feature presenters from Morningstar, Standard and Poor’s, Mergent, and the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank.
The Reference Sources Committee is also in the process of nominating resources for its next column, which will appear in the winter 2015 issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly.
Ed Hahn, 2014-2015 Chair
Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is moving full speed ahead with our projects:
After discussing the progress with reviewing the BRASS Business Guides in April, the committee decided to touch base in mid-May after the school year is over. The goal is to have each guide reviewed by two people and coordinate with authors to ensure that all guides are up-to-date and provide correct information.
The 2015 preconference planning team (Natasha Arguello, Ashley Faulkner, Susan Schreiner, Christina Sheley, and Desirae Sweet) has been busy advertising the upcoming preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs” at ALA Annual (http://alaac15.ala.org/ticketed-events Event Code RUS3). The registration is a little slow, but we expect that the topic and excellent speakers will attract more registrants in the next few weeks.
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.
We are looking forward to our meeting in San Francisco!
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair
Membership Committee
BRASS Friday Reception Sponsored by ReferenceUSA!
Join old and new BRASS Members on June 26 in San Francisco. Enjoy the Business Reference and Services Section’s (RUSA’s BRASS) company around some food and drinks.
Friday, June 26th from 5:30 PM to 7:30 PM
Where: ThirstyBear Brewing Company, 661 Howard Street, San Francisco, CA
Publications and Communications Committee
Dear BRASS Friends,
It’s that time of year again—we’re requesting information for the 2015 BRASS Schedule of Events at ALA Annual publication. Please enter your program or meeting information by May 15 at: http://goo.gl/forms/TvgQe0HxGK
If you are not responsible for your program, meeting, or event, please forward to the person on your committee who will fill in the form on your behalf. If you are responsible for more than one program, please fill out the form separately for each event.
I hope to publish the schedule the week of May 25, so your prompt response to this request for information is appreciated. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.
Thanks,
Chad Boeninger, 2014-2015 Chair
Vendor Relations Committee
We are pleased to welcome Global Financial Data (GFD) as the new sponsor of the Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award. The award offers $1250 to an individual new to the field of academic business librarianship to support attendance at ALA Annual. Please help get the word out.
The Committee is also working vendor sponsorship for the break between the two Discussion Groups on Sunday at Annual Conference. Details to follow once everything is confirmed.
Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award
We are pleased to announce that Peter Z. McKay of the University of Florida is this year’s recipient of the BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship award.
Peter’s multiple nominators noted his expertise in business librarianship and praised the Business Library 2.0 site (http://businesslibrary.uflib.ufl.edu) that he developed to help UF students achieve maximum success with their projects and which receives over 175,000 visits a year from the students, faculty and staff at UF, as well as national and international audiences.
Other nominators stated that Peter’s “tireless efforts have helped demystify the research process for thousands of our business-writing students over the years” and that “Mr. McKay is an invaluable resource to our business students and faculty.”
For his innovative development of online business collection development and instructional resources and his many contributions to the field of business librarianship, the committee is thrilled to honor Peter Z. McKay with this year’s Excellence in Business Librarianship award.
Celia Ross, 2014-2015 Chair
Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sara F. Hess, who will receive her Master of Science in Information, Library and Information Science degree at the University of Michigan School of Information in May 2015, is the 2015 award recipient. Sara was selected because she has articulated and demonstrated a clear passion for business librarianship and a commitment to going above and beyond to meet the business information needs of the communities she is already serving.
Michael Oppenheim, 2014-2015 Chair
Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Barbara Alvarez, Business Liaison Librarian, Barrington Area Library (IL) was selected for her extensive range of activities in support of the local business community, including one-on-one appointments to assist business professionals and entrepreneurs, podcasts, a business blog, and a SlideShare account with business database tutorials.
CODES Highlights for RUSA Update
CODES chair Deborah Abston reports that the CODES Board will be meeting prior to ALA Annual to review policies and procedures, including updating procedures for awards committees. Committee appointments for CODES Committees are nearly complete.
CODES AT ALA ANNUAL
CODES committees will be presenting two programs at annual: Reading into the Future: Tips and Tools for Staying on Top of the Book World (Saturday, June 27, 2015 – 10:30 am to 11:30 am, Moscone Convention Center 2016) It’s a big book world, and someone’s gotta read it. Keeping up with the burgeoning world of publishing and popular culture can appear daunting, but it can be done! Be the first to know (instead of the last to hear) about reading trends and hot new titles.Join a panel of experts who will share practical techniques and invaluable resources to help you keep up with the current literary scene. Learn strategies to maximize your reading time, stay ahead of your patrons, and position yourself as a crucial literary resource in your library community.
CODES will have representatives at RUSA 101, Friday, June 26, 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm to talk with potential new members about the work of the section.
The CODES Reference Publishing Advisory Committee Discussion Forum will take place at ALA Annual on Saturday, June 27, 2015 – 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm at the Hilton San Francisco Union in the Taylor Room.
CODES is also co-sponsoring a program with the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) on university presses as an often-undiscovered gold mine of resources for school and public libraries. Sunday, June 28, 2015 – 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm.
CODES also is cosponsoring with ALCTS Collection Management Section the Collection Management in Public Libraries Interest Group on Monday, June 29, 2015 – 1:00 pm to 2:30 pm.
Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
Please join us in San Francisco for a discussion forum on Challenges and Opportunities for Reference and Instruction at the Point of Need. The results of a survey conducted by the committee earlier this year will be briefly discussed followed by a short presentation and breakout sessions on related topics.
When and Where:
Sunday, June 28th, 3-4 pm, HIL – Franciscan A/B Colleen Seale, Chair 2014-2015
Discovery Services Committee (Formerly Catalog Use Committee)
We will be holding an RSS Discovery Services Discussion Forum June 28th, 3:00-4:00 PM in the Convention Center, MCC-133 (N). This year’s theme is titled “Examining Discovery Platforms within the New Framework of Information Literacy.” We have three speakers selected to start the discussion and look forward to an informative discussion.
Anne Larrivee, Chair 2014-2015
Education and Professional Development for Reference
The committee has been focusing on developing programming for three upcoming conferences:
At ALA Annual 2015, we will host a discussion forum titled “What Should be the Future of Reference Education for Libraries?” That session will be held on Saturday, June 27 from 1pm-2:30pm in the Hilton San Francisco at Union Square in the Continental 3 room. Committee member Laura McClanathan has recruited Michelle Simmons to be our kick-off speaker. Michelle comes highly recommended as an outstanding reference instructor at San Jose State University’s MLIS program. Add the session to your conference planner: http://alaac15.ala.org/node/29464.
For ALA Midwinter 2016, we are partnering with MARS’ Professional Development Committee and MARS’ User-Experience Design Committee to host a 3 hour workshop on strategies and principles for user testing. These three groups have worked together to recruit several user-experience design experts to develop the content of the session. Our committee will provide logistical support. We have submitted a draft proposal to RSS’ Executive Committee and to MARS’ Executive Committee.
For ALA Annual 2016, we are partnering with ALISE’s Curriculum Special Interest Group to host a panel presentation at ALA 2016 on the topic of aligning library school’s reference curriculum with the needs of libraries and patrons. We have submitted a draft proposal to RSS’ Executive Committee.
Between now and ALA Annual 2015 we plan to write a brief article summarizing what we have learned from phase 1 of our State of Reference Education Project.
If you are interested in learning more about our projects or are interested in joining us in our efforts, please drop by our business meeting at ALA Annual 2015, which will be part of RSS’ All Committee Meeting on Saturday, June 27 from 8:30am-10am. That meeting will take place in the Market Street room at the Parc 55 hotel. Add the meeting to your conference planner: http://alaac15.ala.org/node/29470
Jason Coleman, Chair 2014-2015
Evaluation of Reference and User Services
The committee led a discussion session at Midwinter titled “Reference Services in Transition: Changing Models and Assessing Success,” based on a survey distributed in January 2014. The results from the survey were distributed as a handout and were used as a jump starter for the discussion. ERUS will be looking at using the results for further analysis.
Jason Kruse, Chair 2014-2015
Health and Medical Reference Committee
The Health and Medical Reference Committee will offer a Discussion Forum entitled “Get to Know the New RUSA Guidelines for Health and Medical Reference Services: on Sunday, June 28th, from 3-4 pm in Parc 55 San Francisco—Mason, at ALA Annual 2015. At this forum we will introduce the new Health and Medical Reference Guidelines, slated to replace the Guidelines for Medical, Legal, and Business Responses (2001). While the new Guidelines will unlikely be available online at that time, the RUSA Board expects to approve the new Guidelines during its meeting at ALA, and post them online soon after. We look forward to presenting the new Guidelines, and opening a discussion on the opportunities and challenges that arise during health reference interactions.
HMRC continues to work on content to add to the Health and Medical Reference Committee’s Website. The Committee aims to add top-level resources that all ALA members who provide health or medical reference services to patrons will find useful. The focus will be on large-scale information sources and best practices, and is seen as an extension of the Health and Medical Reference Guidelines. Since our last report, member Ann Glusker has presented the Committee with a draft website of health and medical reference sources that features 2 sites each for a variety of categories such as consumer health, scholarly research, online tutorials and more. The Committee is discussing this draft via email, will make any necessary changes, and hopes to upload the content to the Health and Medical Reference Committee’s web space on the ALA site by fall 2015.
The Health and Medical Reference Committee will also meet during the RSS All-Committee Meeting and Open House on Saturday, June 27th from 8:30-10 am in Parc 55—Market Street at ALA Annual in San Francisco. This is a great chance to stop by, meet members of the HMRC, and find out more about us. Please join us!
Laura Louise Haines, Chair 2014-2015
Library Service to an Aging Population
Library Services to an Aging Population nears completion of a draft of the guidelines Best Practices for Library Services with Midlife and Older Adults to submit to the Standards and Guidelines committee for their review at ALA Annual. Library Services to an Aging Population will meet twice at Annual: at the RSS Open House on Saturday, June 27 from 8:30-10am (Parc 55 Hotel), and for a working meeting on Saturday, June 27 from 1-2:30pm (Marriott Marquis).
Angela Fortin, Chair 2014-2015
Library Services to the Spanish-Speaking
The Library Services to the Spanish Speaking Committee will be meeting during the RSS All-Committee Meeting at Annual. Please join members of the committee to discuss goals for the coming year.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2014-2015
Management of Reference
On March 10 and 11, the Management of Reference Committee held their Spring E-Forum. The theme was Reference as Outreach.
Overall discussion stats:
Day 1 was a total of 8 threads and 70 messages with 12 people contributing (4 moderators and 8 others)
Day 2 was a total of 4 threads and 48 messages with 12 people contributing (3 moderators and 9 others)
The total number of unique librarians was the 4 moderators and 12 others (or 16 unique people)
Day 1 main discussion threads:
Desk placement
Most institutions in the thread had some type of merged desk structure
Most were also using some type of statistics tracking to mark both quantitative data (such as number of transactions) but also satisfaction and qualitative feedback
Chat reference
Institutions reported varying degrees of success with chat, especially when staffed internally with limited hours.
There simply was not enough traffic to justify having the service
Other still see it as an important extension of reference services and have encouraged faculty and students to utilize this service or have joined a consortium that allows for 24/7 support albeit from librarians at other institutions
The spectrum between teaching how to find the answer and giving the answer during the desk/reference interaction
Some institutions are making efforts in working with faculty to design better assignments and make things like scavenger hunts more research based
Others try to spend as much time as possible with research questions and turn them into teachable moments
Day 2 main discussion threads:
Gaining faculty buy-in
Explaining the benefits of library services during meetings
Joining them on Linkedin or other similar social media venues
Simply trying again-many faculty were not aware of existing library services so going to departmental meetings or inviting departmental chairs to one might be helpful
Marketing research assistance as much as instructional collaboration and encouraging students to come in after a class can be just as valuable and knowing when students might be better served by an appointment as opposed to a one-time session. Some are using the idea of Research Coaches as a way to market this
Scalability is always an issue especially for smaller institutions, there seems to be no good solution for how to do it all and still be effective other than to make a case for hiring additional staff
Use of an on-call system
For those institutions who had the model where staff were on the desk, librarians had an on-call system where they had “office hours” when they could be reached. They would have similarly scheduled shifts as when on the desk but devote more time to in-depth research assistance
Others brought librarians back to the desk because they found it more effective
Others still offer on-call during certain times of the semester but there is the question of how to balance being available with having enough time off the desk to pursue the other activities
Staffing with non-librarians (full or part time staff and students) and when/how the request is passed to a reference librarian
Most institutions with merged desks had them staffed by non-librarians with librarians concentrating on outreach work to departments and instruction in addition to consultations
Training is a key issue especially for staff and students knowing when to make referrals
Cinthya Ippoliti, Chair 2014-2015
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Services
The Marketing & Public Relations for Reference Services committee will be meeting virtually instead of an in-person meeting for ALA Annual 2015. Since the last Review, the committee has continued to work with the presenters for our ALA Annual 2014 session, “The Soft Sell: Sales Skills for Librarians,” to create a proposal for possible future webinars.
Elizabeth DeCoster, Chair 2014-2015
Research and Statistics Committee
The Research & Statistics Committee has chosen the presenters for the Annual Reference Research Forum, which will take place during the Annual on Sunday, June 28th from 10:30-11:30 am in the Moscone Conference Center, room 2014 (W). There were a number of strong proposals and the committee employed a blind review process to select proposals that would provide a variety of research foci. Here are the presenters and their topics:
“Information Behavior of Foreign-Born Students at Brooklyn College,” City University of New York, Frans Albarillo
This presentation reports the results of a survey of immigrant and international students at Brooklyn College, a large public liberal arts college with a diverse campus that serves many foreign-born and first-generation immigrant students. The survey gathers data on students in these communities to investigate common patterns and explore how these students experience the academic library with a focus on language and culture. This exploratory study was funded by a grant from the PSC CUNY and further developed at the 2014 inaugural Institute of Research Design in Librarianship.
“Understanding the Research Needs of Mid-level Undergraduate Students,” Reed College, Marianne Colgrove and Annie Downey
How do sophomores and juniors learn to do independent research and what services, resources and curriculum strategies would help? As part of a larger Mellon-funded initiative, the Reed College Library and IT departments collaborated on a needs assessment in order to understand the gap between faculty and student perspectives on the research process. Using both focus group discussions and a student survey, the needs assessment showed that faculty characterize research as a complex, multi-faceted process and emphasize the importance of a researchable question that drives the process. Many students aren’t sure what faculty expect and often invest so much energy in gathering resources that they run out of time to conduct analysis and integrate their assignment into a unified whole. This study also exemplifies how IT and the library can collaborate to conduct a low-cost self-study that informs the development of new research curriculum and services.
“Library as Endangered Species in the Information Ecosystem, Borough of Manhattan Community College,” Jean Amaral
When students and faculty need information, where do they go? A year-long ethnographic study at an urban community college suggests it may be anywhere but the library. Amaral will present the results of this study, which call for engaging in a creative reassessment of library services in community colleges.
Ava M. Iuliano Brillat, Chair 2014-2015
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The Virtual Reference (VR) Tutorial Subcommittee held its most recent meeting (virtually) on Tuesday, April 7. The discussion was about ways of keeping up with the literature on virtual reference in order to keep the Virtual Reference Companion current and helpful.
The Subcommittee continues to work toward changing its name to the Virtual Reference Companion Subcommittee. Though the approval process for this name change is not difficult, actually making the change in all the places where the name appears (e.g. the RUSA committee appointment database; ALA Connect) will be painstaking.
Co-Chairs Christine Tobias and Laura Friesen shared information about the VRC at the annual meeting of the consortial VR group “Research Help Now” in Ann Arbor, Michigan on April 17, 2015. In addition to the presentation about the Virtual Reference Companion, this was an opportunity to solicit tips and best practices for the VRC from librarians who are very involved in providing virtual reference services, and to potentially find new members for the Subcommittee.
The Subcommittee continues to ask for input from all librarians who provide virtual reference to submit tips and best practices to be incorporated into that section of the Virtual Reference Companion. 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 Christine Tobias ( tobiasc@msu.edu ) or Laura Friesen (lflynn@umflint.edu ).
In addition to being accessible from http://www.ala.org/rusa/vrc , the Hot Links section of the RSS Virtual Reference Committee page, and the Professional Tools section of the RUSA Resources page, the VRC is now linked in the Web Resources section of the ALA Library Fact Sheet 19: Virtual Reference: A Selected Annotated Bibliography .
Laura Friesen, Chair 2014-2015 Christine Tobias, Chair 2014-2015
Young Adult Reference Services Committee
The YARS co-chairs had a conference call with YALSA’s with Beth Yoke and Carrie Kausch to discuss our initiative to publish the In-House Homework Help Best Practices. They provided suggestions for how to how to re-arrange and improve the document to better align with the Future of Library Services for and with Teens. After the committee reworks the document, it will be sent through the RUSA S&G process.
The committee selected three well-qualified librarian panelists for our Annual Program, “The Core: A Year (Or More!) In, How Does This Affect Librarians?” which will provide information and discussion points on how to improve resources and service for the common core curriculum.
Allyson Evans Malik, Chair 2013-2015
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), editor.
Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee has completed work on the initial revised drafts for the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States and the Explanatory Supplement and submitted them to Tina Baich for distribution to the STARS Executive Committee. We plan on submitting them to the RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee by late May 2015, and we project that approved drafts will be ready for general comment by the ILL community in late summer/early fall. Members of our group are providing updates on the revision process at various conferences we each attend. This past quarter, our committee also completed a review and revision of the ShareILL Codes and Guidelines web page.
Brian Miller, Chair
ILL Committee
The ILL Committee will be meeting in San Francisco and is sponsoring a program. This program will be held on Sunday, June 28 from 1-2PM in MCC – 2002 and is titled “Acquisitions, Collection Development, Electronic Resources, and ILL, Oh My!: Connecting Users to What They Want!” It will be a great presentation, so make sure to attend!
Both Co-Chairs will be rotating off the Committee this year, so a new Chair will need to be elected.
Carol Kochan, Co-Chair
STARS Education and Training Committee
In January, the Education and Training committee hosted the 8th annual “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about ILL” workshop at the University of Chicago, during ALA Midwinter 2015. The workshop featured presentations on Borrowing, Lending, Copyright, and Assessment & Statistics by Megan Gaffney, Karen Janke, Cindy Kristof, and Collette Mak, respectively.
Lars Leon’s Emerging Leaders proposal, which would have supported the migration of ShareILL.org to a new platform, made it to the final proposal pool, but was not selected. The Education and Training committee is currently working with Linda Frederiksen on selecting a new host for ShareILL.org.
Kristen Palmiere, Chair
STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee
The Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee has continued to work on creating Version 2 of the ALA RUSA STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing STAR Checklist. Version 2 has been approved by the RUSA Stars Executive Board and the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative Steering Committee. We expect to have it available on the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative website for libraries to use by June 2015. We will meet at ALA Annual Conference to plan promotion and training events.
Sue Kaler, Chair
STARS Research and Assessment Committee
The Research and Assessment Committee is working on plans for the ALA pre-conference and is in the last stages of organization. Since Mid-Winter, they have finalized assessments for all STARS sponsored sessions through Annual 2014. We are currently working on assessments for Mid-Winter 2015. Finally, Krista Higham has been elected co-chair for next year.
Bethany Sewell & David Ketchum, Co-Chairs
STARS Legislation and Licensing Committee
The Committee has met via conference call and finished drafting a survey that will be sent to STARS Members on May 18, 2015. The very brief survey will help us to determine the future directions of the committee, including whether we should continue or disband, and we hope that all STARS members will participate. We will collect responses through June 6 and plan to have a report prepared before the ALA Annual meeting.
Sherri Michaels, Chair
Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
The Sharing and Transforming Access to Resources Section (STARS) of ALA has selected the winner of the 2015 Atlas Systems Mentoring Award, Karen Thomas, access services librarian at Krauskopf Library, Delaware Valley College, as this year’s recipient as she has demonstrated a passion and need for professional development, networking, education and service to her local community. Sponsored by Atlas Systems, Inc., the award offers $1,250 to a library practitioner new to the field of ILL and resource sharing to fund travel expenses to the ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco.
The Just Ask Task Force has continued to meet have been discussing its future goals. The Task Force is developing social media tools that reference staff can use to highlight what they do, including a #JustAsk social media campaign. Reference staff would be encouraged to Tweet some of their most interesting questions using the #JustAsk hashtag. We are hoping to compile these as a way to highlight the variety of questions we receive. Said another way, it’s a way to tell our story. Stay tuned for more details.
Just Ask co-sponsored the Midwinter RUSA Discussion Forum as a lead-in to the upcoming President’s Program. Although the attendance was only about 20 the discussion was lively.
Just Ask met on Saturday, January 31st at Midwinter in Chicago and determined to focus in the following areas:
Creating a the prototype of “librarians are” posters working with the RUSA Office marketing staff, and work with “Librarian Wardrobe” blog to get photographs for the posters.
Plan a free webinar for late spring related to President’s program and our committee goals of marketing reference librarians and use of social media in reference or privacy and censorship—how do we adjust reference to meet the real needs of new types of searchers?
Writing an “Emerging Leaders” proposal to get an emerging leader group to work on the marketing campaign.
Further define how to market what a “reference librarian” is; please feel free to share your ideas with us.
Just Ask will meet online early in March.
Elizabeth Stephan
Diana Shonrock
Co-chairs
RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee
The RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee (CPCC) held two meetings since the last RUSA Update, one virtual and one in-person. The in-person meeting took place in snowy Chicago at ALA Midwinter. Among other topics discussed at each was the request by the RUSA President to work on a database (in collaboration with other RUSA committees and members) of professional development offerings presented by RUSA. The results of this discussion were presented at RUSA Board II and resulted in the formation of a “task force” to investigate and implement this project.
The CPCC chair also presented information to RUSA membership on the process of submitting programs and pre-conferences at the inaugural RUSA 201 webinar in January 2015.
RUSA will be posting the submission form for 2016’s Midwinter pre-conferences and Annual programs in early March. CPCC is looking forward to receiving proposals in early May.
Don Boozer
RUSA CPCC, Chair 2014-15
RUSA Membership
The RUSA Membership Social at ALA Midwinter Chicago was a resounding success with more than 100 attendees!
RUSA 101 and 201 are doing very well, averaging 14 people per session. 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!
Calling all BRASS volunteers. Please considering serving our wonderful BRASS section. Committee positions will start after ALA Annual 2015 (San Francisco) and are generally for a two-year term. I hope you all will begin considering to serve on a committee again, or perhaps for the first time.
Here’s how to volunteer:
Visit http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/brass/committees to review the BRASS committees;
Go to http://www.ala.org/rusa/volunteer and login to the ALA website;
Select RUSA from the dropdown menu;
Fill out the initial form about yourself and your current ALA responsibilities;
Select RUSA_BRASS from the second drop down menu;
Indicate which committees you would like to help with.
You do not have to commit to traveling to conferences in order to volunteer. While some committees must meet in-person, many have virtual assignments, and some do all their work online. Most committee assignments last two years (there are exceptions) and begin and end after ALA Annual conference.
I’m looking forward to working with all of you in BRASS.
Best regards,
Paul Brother
BRASS Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect
Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee recently conducted a virtual Midwinter conference meeting. The committee discussed the upcoming program at ALA annual. Charles Allan, the committee chair and editor of the BRASS newsletter, solicited submissions for the newsletter from those present. We also discussed program ideas for the 2016 conference.
Charles Allan, 2014-2015 Chair
Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee Meeting was held Jan. 26, 2015 at 2:00pm ET. Among items discussed were:
New Additions to the Public Librarians Briefcase.
Details on this summers’ Forum, about new revenue streams for libraries, to be held Saturday, June 27, 1 – 230pm. The panel includes Deborah Doyle, current Development Director of the Friends of San Francisco Public Library, John Trischitti III, Director, Midland County Public Libraries and the Texas Library Association 2014 Librarian of the Year, and Jan Busa, Jan Busa, Management Analyst II, who set up the San Mateo Public Library passport Assistance Center. Ed Rossman, chair of the committee, will moderate. One more panelist is expected to speak on crowdfunding.
Solutions to the problems faced by the IRS not issuing the quantities of paper tax forms they’ve done in the past.
SmartMoney Week programming.
Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair
Business Reference Services Discussion Group
The BRASS Discussion Group hosted a virtual discussion on November 21, 2014. Topics focused on providing support for entrepreneurs and small business development. Makerspaces were also discussed. The recording is available on ALA Connect. The BRASS Midwinter All Member Committee Meeting and Discussion Group took place on February 1, 2015. There were about 20 people present, and we had a lively discussion about vendor and resource updates.
Thank you to the committee members who have helped coordinate these discussions. The next virtual discussion of the BRASS Discussion Group will take place on February 20, 2015. We will be discussing faculty liaison work and e-book strategies.
Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair
Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee has been busy working on several projects:
Editorial review of the new BRASS Business Guides is on the way. The estimated completion time is April 15th. The goal is to have an editorial team of at least two editors to work with a guide’s author to ensure currency and quality of the BRASS content.
We are about to start advertising the new RUSA BRASS preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs” at ALA Annual (http://alaac15.ala.org/ticketed-events Event Code RUS3). Take full advantage of the Early Bird rates before March 14th! Only $129 for RUSA members! Register here (http://alaac15.ala.org/register-now)
2014 Best of the Best Business Websites were announced at the RUSA Book and Media Award Ceremony at the ALA Midwinter by Kelly LaVoice. The winners are Patent Lens http://www.bios.net/daisy/patentlens/patentlens.html, Intellectual Property Basics http://www.cfe.umich.edu/intellectual-property/, and the United States Patent and Trademark Office http://www.uspto.gov/. See the official press-release for more information: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2015/02/brass-best-best-business-websites-selected-business-reference-experts
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair
Program Planning Committee BRASS 2015 ALA Annual Program
Monday, June 29, 2015, 8:30-10:00 AM
A continental breakfast will be sponsored by S&P Capital IQ from 8 to 8:30 am.
“Not Elsewhere Classified”: Researching New and Niche Industries
How do librarians teach business students and entrepreneurs the research techniques for a budding industry or market? How do we help our clients get ahead of an emerging industry or a new idea? Learn from experts about how to locate and evaluate information on leading-edge industries, assess markets, and lead your clients in making strategic decisions when their business crosses traditional NAICS code boundaries or is part of a new field.
Speakers:
Laura Young | Founding Partner + CEO | Bizologie
Business Research Simplified
Laura Young is a seasoned expert in business research and competitive intelligence. Combining seven years leading the research department at Austin Ventures, four years coordinating the Reference and Information desk at the University of Texas Perry Casteneda Library and seven years honing her customer service expertise as a Walt Disney World Guest Services Supervisor, Laura can tackle any research project, in any industry, with grace and speed. She has performed Due Diligence analysis for HomeAway, RetailMeNot, MapMyFitness, Magnablend, Bazaarvoice, Silvercar, Spredfast, Food on the Table, Delta Rigging & Tools, among many others. She is a highly sought after speaker on emerging research trends and regularly presents for Texas Library Association, Special Libraries Association, and American Library Association.
When she’s not digging for the next important piece of data, Laura can be found relaxing with her Basset Hound and PBGV rescues, catching up on the latest episodes of Mad Men, or culling design ideas from local architectural tours.
Amelia Kassel | President + Owner | MarketingBase
Research is your first step
Amelia Kassel is president and owner of MarketingBase, a global business research firm since 1982, specializing in industry, company and competitive and market intelligence research. Amelia holds a master’s degree in library science (UCLA) and combines expertise about the Internet and electronic databases with knowledge of business and marketing strategies. A recognized author and international speaker, Amelia conducts seminars for associations and conferences and gives workshops onsite for companies and organizations. She is also known for her successful one-on-one email-based Mentor Program in which she trains business searchers how to conduct research and aspiring independent information professionals how to develop to successfully develop and grow their businesses.
Diane Campbell, 2014-2015 Chair
Publications and Communications Committee
The Publications and Communications committee will be meeting shortly after the BRASS Chairs meeting. The Publications and Communications Committee will be putting together a preliminary draft of the BRASS ALA Annual 2015 Schedule of Events in March. The P&C Committee will be soliciting committee chairs for their program and meeting information via a Google web form, as we did last year. This draft version will not have as much information as the final version, but will be a means to notify BRASS members well in advance of ALA Annual about the types of programming available. The preliminary draft schedule should make it easier in piecing together the final schedule in May/early June.
Chad Boeninger, 2014-2015 Chair
Vendor Relations
The Committee worked with Todd Hines to arrange for the annual breakfast sponsorship with S&P Capital IQ at the 2015 ALA Annual.
Chris LeBeau, 2014-2015 Chair
Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, this $1,250 monetary prize 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. At this writing, the committee is still accepting applications through Sunday, February 8, 2015. Watch for RUSA to announce the 2015 award recipient in March!
Michael Oppenheim, 2014-2015 Chair
Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The award committee was pleased to receive several nominations of public librarians providing excellent business reference support for their communities. The committee selected Barbara Alvarez, Business Liaison Librarian at the Barrington Area Library in Barrington, Illinois, as this year’s recipient of the BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. Ms. Alvarez works with business persons in her area both individually and in partnership with a number of local organizations, offering training in business research, job seeking, and creating podcasts and websites. We are delighted that she will be present to participate in BRASS activities at the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas.
Karen Chapman, 2014-2015 Chair
Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award Committee
Grace Liu, Business Reference Librarian at University of Maine, is the recipient of the RUSA BRASS Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award. Ms. Liu’s background in industry has allowed her to leverage a recent education in librarianship to help her constituents. Projects in her first year as a business librarian include library instruction to classes and local small business, design of a library 101 class for first year business students, development of an embedded library service model, and creation of a student advisory committee. We wish Ms. Liu 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.
Genealogy Institute: Meeting the Needs of Your Family History Patrons
The Genealogy Preconference at ALA Midwinter had something for everyone, from the librarian who specializes in genealogy reference to those who find themselves answering family history questions in a general reference setting. Attendees learned about free resources for learning more about family history so they can better understand their patrons’ questions. They also discovered online resources for genealogical and local history materials, including those for ethnic populations. Those with collections that they would like to see online were particularly interested in the session on partnerships with commercial and non-profit organizations.
Discussion sections
Genealogy and Local History Discussion Session had a lively discussion about building relationships between different types of libraries engaged in Genealogy reference service.
The History Librarians Discussion Session explored crowdsourcing digital projects, including:
University of Louisville Archives & Special Collections (Carrie Daniels) began providing online access to all extant copies of a defunct local African-American newspaper, The Louisville Leader
University of Iowa Libraries (Tom Keegan) began the DIY History Project, transcribing civil war letters and diaries with the help of volunteers.
The Best Historical materials list was announced at the RUSA Book and Media Awards Ceremony at ALA Midwinter. Annually, this committee selects the best historical bibliographies and resources. For a complete list of the winners with descriptions see: http://www.ala.org/news/press-releases/2015/02/annual-list-best-historical-materials-selected-rusa-s-history-section. Winners are: Europeana 1914-1918; Mapping Gothic France; 1914-1918 Online: International Encyclopedia of the First World War; Lowcountry Digital History Initiative; Darwin Online; Freedom Summer Digital Collection; Densho Digital Repository; Roaring Twenties.
Webinars
Webinar in the works: Personal Archiving Program
We are working on a webinar that highlights three programs developed to support individuals’ efforts to archive their personal and family histories. In the fall of 2013, Jordan Welborn, a librarian at Campbell County (VA) Public Library got a six-week pilot program on personal digital archiving set up for less than $300. At the University of Central Florida, graduate student Ashley Vance conducted a History Harvest, a community-based digitizing event of personal artifacts to be placed onto the UCF digital archive. And Noah Lenstra, a PhD candidate at UIUC’s Graduate School of Library & Information Science, has given a series of public workshops on “Digital Local & Family history” across Illinois.
Paid Webinar
We have an upcoming webinar on Tuesday, May 12, 2015: 2-3:30pm: Exploring Partnerships with Faculty and Other User Groups for Digital Humanities Projects. (see http://www.ala.org/rusa/exploring-partnerships) which will provide specific examples of the ways in which librarians from two academic libraries actively participated in digital humanities projects with different user groups. Hear Chella Vaidyanathan from Johns Hopkins, Caitlin Christian-Lamb from Davidson College, and Mary Elings from The Bancroft library on the UC Berkeley campus talk about specific collaborative projects.
Updates from History Section Committees
The History Section Instruction & Research Services Committee (IRS) is revising the RUSA page “Using Primary Sources on the Web” (http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/history/resources/pubs/usingprimarysources) Originally written in 2003 and last revised in 2008, the Committee’s work will include updated content, a more contemporary look to the page and include new content for students and the public on ethical uses of internet sources. More to come later this spring. The Committee is also beginning to look at ways of improving communication among history librarians beyond the ALA Annual and Midwinter conference experiences. The Committee would like to keep the conversation about ideas, best practices, and clever solutions to promoting and supporting history librarians going; the Committee wants to reach out across the spectrum of libraries and cultural institutions, so watch for news on this communications front as well.
The Genealogy Committee is working on revising two sets of guidelines: Guidelines for a Unit or Course of Instruction in Genealogical Research at Schools of Library and Information Science and Guidelines for Developing a Core Genealogy Collection.
The Genealogical Publishing Company Award Committee has revised its charge and had it approved by the HS executive committee:
Revised January 31, 2015
Established in 1992 and sponsored by Genealogical Publishing Company, this award may be presented to an individual, group, publisher, or institution in recognition of achievements and activities in historical or genealogical reference, service or research. Sponsored by Genealogical Publishing Company; the 2015 award is $1,500 and a citation.
The recipient shall be selected for exceptional accomplishment in one or more of the following areas: leadership; service; training; reference; or publication of recent, significant print or digital reference works/projects that offer access to genealogical or historical sources. Preference shall be given to members of RUSA.
HSGPC committee:
Helen Gbala, Chair
Mary Bogan, Scribe
William J. Forsyth, Member
Sarah Kirby, Member
Between now and annual the Genealogical Publishing Company Award Committee will be working an Award manual following the style suggested by the RUSA awards coordinating committee.
MARS: Emerging Technologies in Reference Section is a busy group of folks dedicated to the intersection of technology and library services. There is a place for everyone in MARS and we hope that you will join us at conferences or engage in our online offerings. Below are some highlights from this past year of MARS happenings, as well as some announcements on things to come!
News from the Planning Committee
This year’s ballot will bring you not only a slate of well qualified candidates for the Vice Chair/Chair Elect position and a Member at Large position, but also, for the first time in a number of years, a number of bylaws changes on which to vote. First, we’re voting to change the acronym from MARS, which we have known and loved for 37 years, to ETS, for Emerging Technologies Section. Although the MARS acronym has a good history and holds significance for many of us who have been in the profession a while, we’re finding our newer colleagues are confused by the lack of alignment between the MARS acronym and the name we choose in 2010: Emerging Technologies in Reference Section. By aligning our acronym with our name, we hope to eliminate a lot of the confusion. Additional bylaws changes are being made primarily to clean up language and bring the handbook up to date with current practices. Please take a look and remember to vote this Spring. The Planning Committee and the Executive Committee recommend you vote YES on all six (6) items.
A brief summary of the Bylaws changes can be found below:
To amend Bylaws Article I, Name, Section 1 by changing the acronym from MARS to ETS.
To Amend Article II. Objectives, to delete the unneeded acronym
To amend Article V. Nominations and Elections to add the procedure of online balloting for elections in accordance with current ALA practice.
To amend Article VII. Executive Committee to delete references to positions which no longer exist.
To amend Article IX. Discussion Groups to remove the acronym and to clarify roles.
To amend Article XII. Adoption and Review by adding language to include the ALA balloting process.
Submitted by Debbie Bezanson, Chair Planning Committee
From the Nominating Committee
Votes for New Officers
For the 2015 Spring ballot, the Nominating Committee has identified four well qualified candidates for the positions of Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and Member at Large.
They are:
For Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Shannon D. Jones, and Courtney Greene McDonald.
For Member at Large: Jason Coleman, and Beth Boatright.
Be sure to check out their biographies when you receive your ballot. Eligible members will be sent their voting credentials between March 24-27, 2015. Votes must be received by May 1, 2015. For more on the ALA 2015 election cycle, including a link to the video of the ALA presidential candidates forum, please see: http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/alaelection.
Submitted by Debbie Bezanson, Chair, Nominating Committee
Volunteer for MARS: Emerging Technologies
Are you interested in the great work that MARS is doing? Interested in participating in committee work? Take a look at the variety of committees available as part of the MARS: Emerging Technologies Section: http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/mars/marssection/marscomm/committees. If you see one that interests you or you have questions about a particular committee, please contact me, Donna Scanlon (dscanlon@loc.gov), MARS Vice Chair, for additional information or to volunteer for a MARS committee.
MidWinter Conference Wrap-Up
MARS hosted some great discussion groups at ALA MidWinter 2015 in Chicago. Despite the blizzard, lots of folks came out to discuss how they are using technology to help their library users.
Our Virtual Reference Discussion Group met on Saturday, January 31st for an opportunity to share ideas about front-line virtual reference services and best practices.
On Sunday, February 1, 2015, the Management of Electronic Resources and Services (MERS) Discussion Group held a well-attended discussion group. They focused on assessment of library resources embedded in course management systems. Participants heard from several panelists, as well as sharing experiences from their libraries.
Also on Sunday, February 1st, the Hot Topics group hosted a discussion forum on Augmented Reality. Participants explored how augmented reality was being applied in libraries.
Check out the great MARS programming that is coming your way during the Annual Conference 2015 in sunny San Francisco.
Saturday, June 27
1:00 – 2:30 — MARS Chair’s Program: (Library Guides in the Era of Discovery Layers)
3:00 – 4:00 – Management of Electronic Resources and Services (MERS) Discussion Forum (Join us to talk about libraries in Course Management Systems)
Sunday, June 28
1:00 – 2:00 – MARS All Committee Meetings (Visitors interested in MARS are welcome to join us and learn)
3:00 – 4:00 — Hot Topics (Come hear about the use of drones and robotics in libraries)
4:30 – 5:30 – Virtual Reference Discussion Group (Come hear about the latest developments in virtual reference)
MARS Management of Electronic Reference Services
Midwinter Discussion Update
The Midwinter MARS Management of Electronic Reference Services Discussion Forum, Assessing Integration of Library Services into Course Management Systems, was a follow-up to the MERS Forum at Annual 2014. We began with a short panel presentation moderated by Lily Todorinova (Rutgers). Beth West (Linfield College), Lindsay Johnston (University of Alberta), and Matt Torrence (University of South Florida Tampa) described assessment activities that they are planning and have undertaken at their institutions. This was followed by a lively discussion with the 40 participants on the challenges that academic librarians face when undertaking to integrate library services into content management systems. Four themes emerged during the course of the discussion:
Despite the variation among our institutions, efforts to integrate library services into Course Management Systems involve negotiating a combination of technical and political challenges. Relationship-building, leveraging existing relationships, and acting as liaison between different campus partners must be combined with learning the technical possibilities and constraints of CMS architecture.
Analytics are extremely important for the placement of links to library resources and services anywhere in the institutional online presence, including within the CMS. We need to work together to explore ways to demonstrate the impact of library resources and services on student success. The ACRL Assessment in Action Program was cited as an avenue that could provide support in proposing this type of research to campus partners and overcoming privacy issues.
Opportunities: services that we already provide, such as Reserves and Reading List Services (which we should start rebranding as Resource List Services to indicate that we are not limited to the printed word) are examples of services that translate naturally into the CMS environment. Once this type of service is established within the CMS, relationships with campus IT and Learning colleagues are established, and the library presence within the CMS can be expanded. Course Management Systems provide us with the opportunity of pushing relevant library content within the appropriate context and at point of need for students.
Quality & Sustainability: what library staff resources does it take to successfully integrate library services into the CMS? With CMSs such as Canvas, the architecture is available to automatically embed relevant library guides into individual courses by subject, course code, etc. When we push our content, it must be of excellent quality and continually maintained. Common issues such as libguide tab-mania and out of date guides must be managed and avoided. There pushed content, such as library guides. These guides are learning objects, which should adhere was general consensus on the importance taking a minimalist approach in the creation of to information literacy principles.
Thanks to everyone who attended and participated. Look for our final Forum on CMS Integration at Annual 2015 in San Francisco!
At Midwinter, I once again witnessed our engaged, thoughtful, and hard-working STARS members. We had interesting conversations during the Discussion Groups and accomplished a great deal in our committee meetings. Our annual free workshop, “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about ILL,” had close to 60 attendees. I’d like to extend a big thank you to the University of Chicago Regenstein Library for hosting the event!
If you aren’t a STARS member and have an interest in resource sharing, I would encourage you to join our amazing community of knowledge and support. If you have questions about what STARS does, feel free to contact me at cbaich@iupui.edu.
For you current STARS members, Vice-Chair Tom Bruno is gearing up for the committee appointment process. You can contact him at tom.bruno@yale.edu to express your interest in serving on a STARS committee or as a STARS representative to a RUSA committee.
I’m already looking forward to seeing all of you in San Francisco!
Tina Baich
STARS Chair 2014-2015
Research and Assessment Committee
The Research and Assessment Committee has finalized the speakers for the pre-conference at ALA Annual 2015. The preconference will be held on that Friday, from 9AM-12PM. We are working on marketing the workshop. The presenters will include:
Kerri Goergen-Doll
Oregon State University
Resource Acquisition and Sharing Director
kerri.goergen-doll@oregonstate.edu
Heidi Nance
University of Washington
Head, ILL and Document Delivery
hnance@uw.edu
Collette Mak
University of Notre Dame
Outreach and Scholarly Communications Librarian
cmak@nd.edu
Tom Bruno
Yale University
Associate Director for Resource Sharing and Reserves
tom.bruno@yale.edu
Krista Higham
Millersville University
Access Services Librarian
krista.higham@millersville.edu
Sue Kaler
Massachusetts Library System
ILL Manager
sue@masslibsystem.org
Micquel Little
Claremont University
Director of User Services and Resource Sharing
micquel_little@cuc.claremont.edu
Bethany Sewell, Chair
Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee continues to review and revise the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States and its Explanatory Supplement. Feedback from the October 2014 survey has greatly informed our discussions and decision-making. We are on target to have first drafts ready for the STARS Board and RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee by April/May 2015, and we project that approved drafts will be ready for general comment by the ILL community in late summer/early Fall. By request of the STARS Education and Training Committee, we are also reviewing and updating the ShareILL Codes and Guidelines web page.
Brian Miller, Chair
Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
The STARS Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee received 30 nominations and, after careful evaluation, have chosen a winner. The STARS Executive Board has approved the choice and we are waiting for RUSA to make the official announcement, before we promote our selection of the nominee.
Amy Paulus, Chair
Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee
STARS Policies met at Midwinter to discuss the revised Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative Star Checklist. The revised version was approved by the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative Steering Committee and the STARS Executive Committee. We also discussed the logistics of mounting the new checklist, publicizing it and training with it and making data from it more available and useful to the greater resource sharing community.
Just Ask Task Force
The Just Ask Task Force has continued to meet since ALA Annual and have been discussing its future goals. The Task Force is developing social media tools that reference staff can use to highlight what they do, including a #JustAsk social media campaign. Reference staff would be encouraged to Tweet some of their most interesting questions using the #JustAsk hashtag. We are hoping to compile these as a way to highlight the variety of questions we receive. Said another way, it’s a way to tell our story. Stay tuned for more details.
Midwinter Meeting:
Task Force Meeting: The Task Force will be meeting on Saturday January 31 from 1:00-2:00 PM, location to be determined. The meeting is open to anyone.
Elizabeth Stephan
Diana Shonrock
Co-chairs
Professional Development Committee
The Professional Development Committee (PDC) provides leadership and coordination of learning opportunities beyond the geographic constraints of conference meetings. This year the committee already reviewed proposals for online courses and webinars. Peruse the outstanding new offerings and register for one or more of these great learning opportunities http://www.ala.org/rusa/development/onlinece. We are excited to announce that RUSA Executive Committee once again agreed to offer each section one free webinar in calendar year 2015. The PDC will review the proposals in spring 2015 but now is the time to start thinking about submitting a proposal. Stay tuned for the call for proposals and deadlines.
RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee
The RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee (CPCC) will be meeting at ALA Midwinter in Chicago on Sunday, February 1, 1-2:30 pm to discuss logistics, priorities, and projects. However, the “rubber will really hit the road” beginning in May 2015. Be on the lookout for the RUSA announcement for program submissions for ALA Annual 2016 in Orlando, Florida. Once announced, the deadline for submissions will be May 1, 2015! So, it’s never too early for RUSA Sections to begin thinking about program offerings in Orlando. Currently, each section has one slot available for a program offering, but, as additional details become available, we’ll be keeping everyone informed. If any section chairs have questions about 2016 programming, feel free to communicate these to your liaison and we’ll get answers for you. The current CPCC roster is available at http://www.ala.org/rusa/contact/rosters/rusa/rus-cfcoord.
RUSA CPCC will also be having a pre-Midwinter online meeting with a meeting time to be announced to kick off the 2014-15 committee’s activities.
Don Boozer, chair 2014-15
RUSA Membership
In a new initiative, RUSA Membership has been holding monthly sessions of a virtual RUSA 101 on the second Thursday of the month. Not only does Joe Thompson, current RUSA President join, but we’ve also had Tina Baich, Chair of STARS, Qiana Johnson, Chair of RSS; Jenny Presnell, Chair of History; Ed Kownslar for RUSA Awards; Todd Hines, Chair of BRASS; and Stephanie Graves, Chair of MARS. Thank you to all of these amazing volunteers! We’ve averaged 15 people at every session which has been amazing! (And if you’re interested in guest starring–send Ann Brown an email at agbrown@gwu.edu)
We’re going to start RUSA 201 in December. This will be a virtual session aimed at people already in RUSA and on Section Committees. Watch the listservs for an announcement!
Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee A new article has been posted to the Public Libraries Briefcase: “Help! I’m not a Business Librarian,” by Sal DiVincenzo
Other ideas for articles:
Terry Zarsky: Description/case study of the opening of a new high-tech library center, library21c (http://ppld.org/library-21c).
Article or presentation about building a Local Business Contact List at the city-county-state levels
Julia Herrington: considering an article on “Libraries in Boomtowns”
Updating past Public Library Briefcases: committee divided the workload for a dead link check
Topic for 2015 ALA Annual Convention Program:
Panel about Revenue Streams for Libraries (would include naming rights, sponsorships, crowd funding, grants and other non-levy type revenue sources)
Midwinter: committee will meet virtually sometime in January.
Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair
Business Reference Services Discussion Group
To date, the BRASS Discussion Group has hosted two virtual discussions during the fall semester:
On September 19, 2014, a virtual discussion was held which centered on collections. This topic was chosen based on responses to a survey sent out earlier to all BRASS members. Several resources were discussed including HBR, WRDS, Thomson Reuters Eikon and other Thomson resources, Investext (Mergent vs. Thomson), Bloomberg, and MSCI ESG Research. The recording is available on ALA Connect.
On October 24, 2014, an instruction-themed virtual discussion took place. We discussed faculty outreach, strategies for one-shot and embedded instruction, business information literacy, and assessment. During the meeting, many people shared links to instructional resources. These links are available in the chat transcript posted on ALA Connect.
The discussions held so far involved around forty participants each. Thank you to the committee members who have helped coordinate these discussions. The next virtual discussion of the BRASS Discussion Group will take place on November 21, 2014 with a topic to be determined.
Emily Treptow 2014-2016 Chair
Business Reference Resources Committee
The latest column on outstanding reference resources will be appearing in the next issue of the Reference and User Services Quarterly. There will be eleven resources reviewed for this issue.
The committee also approved of a topic for the publishers forum for the next ALA annual conference next June in San Francisco. The forum will be on Financial Literacy and will be titled Money Smart – Sources for Promoting Financial Literacy to your community.
Ed Hahn, 2014-2015 Chair
Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is up to a great start this year. We’ve been busy working on a number of projects:
Migration to the new LibGuide 2.0 platform led by Peter McKay is completed. Last year’s effort was focused on combining the Selected Core Resources and Best of the Best Business Websites guides into single topical guides [http://brass.libguides.com/index.php]. Now all members are reviewing and updating their guides to take full advantage of new functionality. The plans for November include a virtual meeting to further discuss style guidelines and come up with a process for editorial review.
The preconference working group, including Natasha Arguello, Christina Sheley, Ashley Faulkner, Desirae Sweet, and Susan Schreiner will coordinate the 2015 RUSA BRASS preconference in San Francisco. We are trying a new half-day format and a new topic on intellectual property for entrepreneurs. We have been able to recruit excellent presenters who will discuss IP challenges faced by entrepreneurs, patent and trademark searching, and best practices in business librarians’ collaboration with the campus technology transfer office.
Nominating and voting for three Best of the Best Business Websites which will be announced at the RUSA Book and Media Award Ceremony at the ALA Midwinter is also under way. Our theme for selecting the best business website aligns with the upcoming 2015 Preconference “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs.” The working group which includes Susan Schreiner, Kelly LaVoice, and Penny Huffman continues developing a marketing plan to raise the profile of the award. To see the previous winners, please visit http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/bestofthebestbus.
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair
Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2015 ALA Annual Program!
Mark your calendars:
Monday, June 29, 2015, 8:30-10:00 AM
“Not Elsewhere Classified”: Researching New and Niche Industries
How do librarians teach business students and entrepreneurs the research techniques for a budding industry or market? How do we help our clients get ahead of an emerging industry or a new idea? Learn from experts about how to locate and evaluate information on leading-edge industries, assess markets, and lead your clients in making strategic decisions when their business crosses traditional NAICS code boundaries or is part of a new field.
Speaker(s):
Laura Young, Co-Owner of Bizologie (and another speaker, to be announced)
Laura is a Research Analyst for Austin Ventures, a 30-year-old venture capital firm with $3.9 billion of assets under management. She received her MSIS from the University of Texas and her BA from Metropolitan State College of Denver. Before pursuing a career in the private sector, she provided research and instruction services for the University of Texas Libraries. The other speaker will be associated with new ventures also.
Diane Campbell, 2014-2015 Chair
Publications and Communications Committee
The Publications and Communications Committee will be putting together a preliminary draft of the BRASS ALA Annual 2015 Schedule of Events in March. The P&C Committee will be soliciting committee chairs for their program and meeting information. This draft version will not have as much information as the final version, but will be a means to notify BRASS members well in advance of ALA Annual about the types of programming available. The preliminary draft schedule should make it easier in piecing together the final schedule in May/early June.
Chad Boeninger, 2014-2015 Chair
Vendor Relations
Business Expert Press’s three year support for a BRASS travel award has come to an end. RUSA will fund the award for one year while we try to find another sponsor for next year. The Vendor Relations Committee also made a proposal to Gale to retain our awards and were successful.
Chris LeBeau, 2014-2015 Chair
Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award
The BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship committee continues to solicit nominations through December 14th, 2014. 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
Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, this $1,250 monetary prize 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. Candidates for the award should have demonstrated interest in a career in business librarianship and the potential to be a leader in the profession, as evidenced by activities that may include (but are not limited to) coursework, internships, jobs, special projects, and publications. Applicants may download the form here:nomination form (PDF format). Deadline for all nominations is February 8, 2015.
Michael Oppenheim, 2014-2015 Chair
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 below 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 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. 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 14, 2014. Proposals can be sent to: leticia_camacho@byu.edu.
Leticia Camacho, 2014-2015 Chair
Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Do you know a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and whose attendance at the ALA Annual Conference is not fully funded by their institution? Please nominate your colleague for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award! The recipient will receive $1250 in travel funds to attend the 2015 ALA Annual Conference in San Francisco. If you meet the qualifications, please don’t hesitate to nominate yourself! The deadline for nominations is December 14, 2014. For details, see http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/publibsupport.
Karen Chapman, 2014-2015 Chair
Academic Business Librarianship Travel Award Committee
You may not recognize this committee—that’s because it’s undergone a name change while we look for another vendor sponsor. However, the charge is still the same! We are looking for a new academic business librarian to give a $1250 grant to travel to ALA. Please nominate yourself or a new business librarian at: http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/brass_business_expert_press_award
Please join the RUSA History Librarians Discussion Group to learn about two outstanding crowdsourcing projects from the University of Iowa and the University of Louisville. The group will meet at the 2015 ALA Midwinter Conference on Sunday, February 1, from 1-2:30 pm. The panelists will talk about how they successfully engaged their local communities in transcribing historical materials for these two digital projects.
Chella Vaidyanathan, History Librarians Discussion Group
The Historical Materials Committee is in the process of creating its annual Best Historical Materials list. We have selected the winners and are in the process of writing abstracts for the RUSQ article.
Matthew J. Wayman, Chair of the Historical Materials Committee
Nominations are being accepted for the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) History Section Genealogical Publishing Company Award. This award is presented to a librarian, library or publisher, who is a RUSA member, and recognizes professional achievement in historical or genealogical reference, service or research librarianship. Sponsored by Genealogical Publishing Company; the 2015 award is $1,500 and a citation. For more information and to download the nomination form, please visit http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/genealogicalpublishing
Helen Gbala, Genealogical Publishing Company Award Committee
Nominating Committee
The Nominating Committee, composed of Nancy Cunningham, Dianna McKellar, Kelley Ann Lawton, and Debbie Bezanson was able to successfully recruit a complete slate of talented candidates for your Spring 2015 ballot. Thanks to all those who agreed to run. We encourage everyone to vote when the emails come to us in the Spring.
Debbie Bezanson, Chair, Nominating Committee
Planning Committee
The Planning Committee is working on a complete update/overhaul of the MARS Handbook which was last revised in 2008. We have been working on the introductory sections this Fall and will be working with Committees on the parts of the Handbook describing their work next. We hope to have a revised draft ready for comment from the membership in late Spring of 2015.
The Planning Committee is also working on a by-laws change to come to you along with your ballot this Spring– to change our acronym from MARS to ETS to more closely match our section name. Since we changed our name in 2010, many new and potential members have been confused by the acronym that no longer matches our name. So the Executive Committee has recommended we put an acronym change on the ballot for this year. Another reason to look for your ballots and vote this Spring!
Debbie Bezanson , Chair, Planning Committee
Best Free Reference Web Sites
The RUSA MARS Best Free Reference Web Sites committee is eager to add a couple new members to their group. If you are a savvy internet researcher and would like to help us create our list of the best free websites that are useful for ready reference on various subject areas, please fill out a volunteer form at http://www.ala.org/rusa/volunteer. Thank you!
Changes to Website Updates
In response to recommendations from last year’s Section Review, MARS Members-at-Large (Courtney McDonald, Amy Fry, Matt Torrence) will now be collaborating on updates to the MARS web site. We anticipate the first overall ‘refresh’ on the Section website should be complete early next summer. Committee chairs are encouraged to review their committee page (charge, etc.) and contact their Member at Large liaison with any corrections or new information.
Martian Award – Who will be our Favorite Martian
Take the time to acknowledge and celebrate the contributions and achievements of “your favorite Martian”!
Nominations are being accepted now through December 14th for this year’s MARS Achievement Recognition Certificate (also known as the “My Favorite Martian” Award). This award, which recognizes excellence in service to MARS Emerging Technologies in Reference section, is presented at the annual MARS Chair’s Program.
The recipient will have made either
1) sustained contributions toward attaining the goals of MARS; or
2) a single, significant contribution that has resulted in a positive impactupon the work of the section.
Nominees must be a current member of MARS, and have been an active member for the past two years.
STARS Membership Committee
STARs Membership is continuing to work with the ad hoc Web Committee to update committees’ information and incorporate initiatives into our marketing efforts. We’re also beginning to organize our collaborations with other committees to build a STARs Timeline complete with documents, pictures, etc., highlighting all the work STARs does throughout the years.
Micquel Little, Chair
STARS Legislation & Licensing Committee
Our committee recently held a conference call to review our charges and to plan for the year. We are discussing ways in which the committee can better meet the needs and expectations of the STARS membership. To that end, we will be conducting a survey soon for all STARS members. Please keep an eye on the STARS Listserv for an announcement and link to the survey.
Sherri Michaels, Chair
Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee is currently reviewing and revising the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States and its Explanatory Supplement. A survey was shared with the ILL community in October to gather suggestions for revisions from ILL practitioners around the country. In addition, the committee has negotiated with the ALA Video Roundtable the retirement of their separate document on the interlibrary loan of audiovisual materials. The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee is aiming to have a first draft of the ILL Code and Supplement completed by Spring 2015 for the STARS Board and RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee to see before ALA Annual. An approved draft will then be shared for general comment with the ILL community in late summer/early fall 2015.
Brian Miller, Chair
Vendor Relations Committee
The Vendor Relations Committee met on 10/28/14 and decided to add a section in Shareill.org for hardware, to include information on minimum requirements for ILL scanners. This is titled “What to Look for When Buying a Scanner for ILL.” This will be expanded upon using an upcoming survey of ILL practitioners’ feedback on their current scanners’ use. Finally, we are looking into co-sponsoring (possibly with the STARS ILL Discussion Group) a session of scanner talks at ALA Annual, with vendors giving short presentations about their products and potential uses for ILL.
A pared-down Just Ask group met at ALA Annual to discuss the next steps. After several successful ventures during the last year, it was decided that the group would focus on external Reference advocacy efforts. Using Maryland’s AskUsNow pilot of the ASK Campaign, members of Just Ask will develop a marketing plan and working with RUSA marketing to develop a national ASK Campaign featuring promotional items that librarians and libraries could use to promote reference services. Initial thoughts for the campaign were ASK posters featuring real questions asked by library users. The goal is to have a plan and advocacy toolkit ready to present at the 2015 ALA Annual Conference.
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee met on Saturday, June 28th.
The committee had organized the forum for 2014 and solicited feedback from those present.
The committee discussed ways to become more active during years when it does not organize forums. Several ideas were mentioned, including creating a way to share instructional material and surveying members about their reference working environment (information commons, research appointments, etc.). Other members shared future topics of discussion, including better integration into the curriculum, how to use APA to cite sources for business as a possible project, and for the committee to share outreach methods.
Ann Fiegen also brought up the possible involvement of Emerald as a sponsor of a preconference event next year.
Charles Allan, 2012-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
Briefcase Articles:
The next Briefcase Article will be “Consumer Research†by Terry Zarsky, anticipated publication in 3rd quarter. Analysis of usage data indicates that responses to recent articles has been good, and the articles are getting good exposure. The committee will also go back and check previous articles for update/rewrite possibilities. There was discussion of seeking articles with a more positive approach.
Recruitment Efforts:
Committee members will check with state organizations and perhaps develop a database of business sections in local organizations. Other strategies were discussed, such as advertising briefcase articles, or cross-promotion with organizations like SLA and PLA.
Looking Toward ALA Annual 2015:
Every other year the BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee does a major program, and 2015 will be the next. The committee is looking into various forms of support (naming rights, crowdfunding, honorariums, and so on) and beginning to consider speakers and organizations that might want to be involved. It is also the time to research scheduling and communication.
The chair will contact members about a virtual committee meeting sometime in August.
Ed Rossman, 2014-2015 Chair
BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS Conference Program Planning Committee: BRASS 2014 Program
Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
About 150 attendees were at the program and heard from 2 knowledgeable speakers:
Committee members: Andy Spackman (BRASS Chair), Ilana Barnes, Mark Bieraugel, Bobray Bordelon, Greg Fleming, Patrick Griffis, Elizabeth Malafi
We would like to thank S&P Capital IQ for their continued support of BRASS by providing a continental breakfast.
Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The committee met virtually on June 5, 2014 and identified eleven titles that will appear in the Winter RUSQ column of Outstanding Business Resources. Of the eleven titles, four were identified as outstanding, six as notable, and one as an overlooked treasure. The titles will be presented at the Midwinter RUSA Awards meeting.
At the ALA Annual Conference, the committee met and discussed various items including:
Susan Hurst will be rotating off as chair and being replaced by Ed Hahn
The previous issue with Harvard Business Review (HBR) restricting access to 500 of their most popular articles was discussed, HBR will continue to restrict access but is open to suggestions on this matter, one thing suggested was for better communication with BRASS and HBR so business librarians can prepare and help their faculty plan for their course work.
The committee was asked by the BRASS executive committee to consider a proposal to purchase Robert Berkman’s “Best of the Business Web†email alert; The committee recommended that the BRASS Executive Committee not purchase this.
At the ALA Annual Conference the committee presented the Publishers Forum titled “Hitting the Jackpot, Sources for Local and Regional Business Informationâ€. The presenters were from Data Planet, Euromonitor, Proquest, and Alteryx. There were 55 people attending the forum.
Ed Hahn, 2014-2016 Chair
BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group hosted their annual discussion at the ALA annual conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, June 29, 2014. The conference room was filled to capacity with over 80 people attending the proceedings.
The discussion kicked-off with outgoing President Andy Spackman hosting the annual BRASS membership meeting, which was followed by individual announcements. The discussion this year centered on best practices for managing student and faculty requests for information consultations. A wide variety of practices and strategies were covered for dealing with drop-in advanced referrals.
The second part of the discussion focused on the ACRL’s new n literacy standards and their impact on business instruction. Ann Fiegen encouraged participants to reach out to the committee writing the standards to ensure that business librarians have a say in the final product.
As of July 1, 2014 Emily Treptow from Michigan State University is the new BRASS Discussion Chair, we look forward to her leadership over the next year.
Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Education Committee
At our annual meeting in Las Vegas we had an opportunity to say good-bye and a big thank you for valuable contributions to Louise Feldman, Jared Hoppenfeld, and Rhonda Kleiman, whose terms ended this year. We were also excited to welcome Kelly LaVoice from Cornell University, Desirae Sweet from James Madison University, and Ashley Faulkner from Texas A&M.
The largest event of the year for the BRASS Education Committee is the annual preconference. The 2014 RUSA BRASS preconference “How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs†was very successful. Helen Kula from the University of Toronto, together with Chris Kim and Hyun-Duck Chung from the University of Toronto / MaRS Discovery District delivered a dynamic interactive workshop on market research. Posie Aagaard from the University of Texas at San Antonio offered practical approaches to licensing e-resources for entrepreneurial uses. Her presentation was complemented by a vendor’s perspective from Matt Dunie, CEO of Data-Planet. Jared Hoppenfeld from Texas A&M and Elizabeth Malafi from Middle County Public Library discussed best practices for engaging with entrepreneurs in public and academic libraries.
46 people registered and 45 attended, representing 14 public and 29 academic libraries, as well as one state library and the Library of Congress Science, Technology and Business Division. Five participants and three presenters hailed from Canada, and we also had a librarian from Trinidad and Tobago, making this event truly international. We received very positive feedback from the participants who appreciated the timely topic and opportunities for networking. Andy Spackman, the past BRASS Chair, dropped by to present us with a RUSA voucher for one free registration for the next year’s preconference. The lucky winner was Michelle Kowalsky from Rowan University.
Now we are getting busy planning the next year’s preconference Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright which will focus on commercializing IP, patent searching, IP licensing to third parties, and other issues of interest to entrepreneurs. If you have any good speakers on these topics in mind, let us know!
We will be migrating BRASS Business Guides http://brass.libguides.com/to LibGuides v.2.0 platform, with Peter McKay from the University of Florida in charge of this effort. The new Business Reference Essentials guide with tips for new business librarians is now featured on the BRASS website http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/brass. Comments and suggestions are welcome!
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2015 Chair
BRASS Membership Committee
Thanks to all who attended the BRASS Membership Reception sponsored by InfoGroup—the event was great.
The membership committee reminds members you are not automatically added to the BRASS Facebook page or brass-l. You must “like†or subscribe through ALA connect. It’s a great way to stay connected with BRASS events! See the website for more information:
BRASS met new business librarians at the RUSA 101—if you are a fairly new business librarian looking for tips and ideas, we have a networking group for you. The New Business Librarians Discussion Group. Contact Greta Wood (gwood@library.msstate.edu) to participate.
Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
Vendor relations remain strong; our vendors continue to be very supportive. Current vendor support comes from InfoGroup, S&P Capital IQ, Springshare, Gale, Morningstar, Emerald and Business Expert Press. InfoGroup hosted a wonderful member reception in Las Vegas for us. Our award sponsors are greatly appreciated by the membership. Emerald has expressed interest in sponsoring another preconference workshop in San Francisco. BRASS is working to
develop a program for that. The Vendor Relations committee is also working on a partnership with new vendor, details hopefully to follow.
Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The committee encourages BRASS members to promote their tutorials, Libguides, and cool finds on Twitter using the hashtag #bizref throughout the year.
The committee is exploring new projects and activities
Congrats to Carol for being selected as the RUSA Update editor! John Gottfried will be our new BRASS Notes editor
Thanks to all members and chairs who provided input on the official ALA BRASS events schedule
Chad Boeninger, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
Ilana Stonebraker accepted the BRASS Emerald Research Award on behalf of herself and Tao Zheng. Committee Chair, Elizabeth Stephan, and Emerald representative Eileen Breen were on hand to help present the grant. BRASS would like to extend a heart-felt thank you to Emerald for their continued support of research related to research librarianship!
Elizabeth Stephan, 2013-2014 chair
BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Unfortunately, the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award was not given this year. The committee has worked on updating the criteria for the award and preparing for our fall nomination campaign. Please be thinking about what deserving public librarian you will nominate this fall — perhaps yourself! The award, sponsored by Morningstar, offers $1,250 in travel funds for ALA’s annual conference to a public librarian who provides business reference services.
Notable Books Council
The announcements of the 2014 winners for the Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction & Nonfiction in Las Vegas was a lively event. This year the Notable Books Council was asked to put their super-human readers’ advisory skills to use and compile a list of read alikes for the finalists and reading group discussion guides for the winners, Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch for fiction and Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism.
Here’s what Katharine Phenix, chair of the Notable Books Council had to say about the process:
What’s it like for a group of 12 librarians, spread out from Washington to Florida, North Carolina to New Mexico to work together on a project with a 2-week deadline? First we had to agree on which Internet cloud to work on….Then conversation became lively, one suggestion led to another, one author to another, and our mini-book club and bibliographer brains got to work. Which micro-history is most like On Paper? Salt? Coffee? Oysters?†and “Is this too academic?†and “Looking for more literature of disaster and redemption…†are a few of our gambits.
Interested in hosting a reading group for the Carnegie winners? Take a look at the discussion guides the Notable Books Council has created. The Goldfinch The Bully Pulpit
Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
Our initial plans are to carry on work started last year with the distribution of a survey to gather information to aid in planning programs, discussion forums, and professional development opportunities. Once survey results have been gathered and analyzed, the committee will brainstorm activities to implement over the coming year.
Colleen Seale, Chair 2014-2015
Discovery Services Committee (Formerly Catalog Use Committee)
The RSS Discovery Services Committee welcomed over 120 attendees and 4 great speakers during this year’s ALA Annual Conference RSS Discovery Services Forum, held on Sunday, June 29th, from 3-4 pm.
Forum speakers included Mireille Djenno, Gwen Gregory, and Ling Wang of University of Illinois at Chicago Library presenting “What We Discovered About Discovery: Comparing Two Discovery Systems at One Academic Library,†Emily Keller of University of Washington Libraries presenting “Dumbing down or drilling down? Librarians’ perspectives on discovery tools,†Van Houlson of University of Minnesota presenting “Alma in the Morning: The Impact of a Next Generation Discovery System on Patrons and Staff at a Research Library,†and Rosalind Tedford of Wake Forest University presenting “Future of Discovery: Analytics, Meet Instruction.†The first half of the forum included lightning round style presentations from each of the speakers and the second half allowed participants to discuss important topics that revolved around the forum’s theme of Discussing Discovery Services: What’s working, What’s not, and What’s Next?. Feedback from the evaluation forms rated the forum from ‘very good’ to ‘excellent.’ To review the PPT slide presentations from the forum visit the RSS Discovery Services Committee’s ALA Connect page (http://connect.ala.org/node/63993).
After the forum some attendees suggested possible ideas for future forum topics such as how to use discovery systems within the threshold concept instructional themes, discussing the grey literature, or collaborating with LITA to think about what reference librarians can learn from systems. More brainstorming ideas are sure to will follow over this upcoming year.
In addition to planning this year’s forum, the committee has also been actively maintaining a bibliography of materials concentrating on catalog and other discovery services. To view the bibliography visit: http://connect.ala.org/node/202483.
Anne Larrivee, Chair, 2014-2015
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee hosted two popular discussion forums at Annual:
“Extreme Customer Service: Reference at Its Finest!†was facilitated by Jeanne Holba Puacz, from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. A scenario was provided to kick off the discussion and it flowed freely from there. Over 60 participants asked questions and discussed ways to create a customer service culture. Training strategies were discussed as were suggestions for dealing with grumpy patrons (and even for dealing with grumpy staffers!). Non-traditional concepts in customer service, such as traffic flow and signage were also considered. Among the tips that were shared were – don’t read at the desk, acknowledge patrons with open faces and attitudes; lead by example; smile while on the phone; and show interest in all questions.
“Readying Reference: Training for Public Service Reference Providers†was facilitated by Geoff Johnson and Joe Dobbs from the University of Texas Libraries, University of Texas at Austin. After sharing information about the training program at their library, Geoff and Joe had the approximately 35 attendees divide into small groups to discuss training at everyone’s libraries. Discussion questions were provided to help guide the discussions. The discussion began with focusing on what training looks like – who is responsible for training, who gets trained and are there refreshers or ongoing training. The discussion then touched on service standards and developing competencies. After the small group discussions the large group reconvened and people shared what they had discussed.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2013-2014
Education and Professional Development for Reference
On Monday, June 30, the committee sponsored a discussion forum at ALA Annual titled “The State of Reference Education: What We Have Learned and What Would You like to Find Out?†The 15 attendees participated in a lively discussion centered around four questions:
With Google, do we still need reference librarians?
Do working librarians find that new hires have the requisite reference skills?
What changes, if any, have you observed in reference work in recent years?
Based on your own view of the future of reference, what reference education should library schools provide?
Bryna Coonin, Rayette Sterling, and Jason Coleman created a summary of the discussion (attached to the comments at http://connect.ala.org/node/223262). As the summary indicates, there was a consensus that the skills and expertise of reference librarians are still needed. While WebScale discovery simplifies some aspects of research, it also creates a significant need for information about what the services lack. Some noted that library schools should continue to provide subject-specific reference knowledge, but should augment that with customer service skills and hands-on experience through internships and practicums.
The committee will use the insights gained from this discussion to inform its decisions about next steps to take in its ongoing investigation into the state of reference education. One likely next step is dissemination of the results from the committee’s preliminary examination of the slate of reference courses library schools are currently offering and what topics those courses are addressing. Another likely next step is discussions with members of the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) and further discussion forums with practicing reference librarians.
Jason Coleman, Chair 2014-2014
Evaluation of Reference and User Services
A group made up of members of ERUS and Virtual Reference Services Committee distributed a survey in August/September 2013 with the goal to assess the state of the profession in the provision of virtual reference services. The analysis stage was completed and initial results were reported to ERUS at our ALA Annual meeting. Results will be shared more broadly, and recommendations for regular surveys on this topic will be explored. ERUS also conducted a survey looking at reference service models and evaluation of service. At the close of the survey, we received a very large number of responses. Initial analysis of the results has begun and the goal is to disseminate the findings broadly. The committee will submit a proposal for a discussion forum at Midwinter 2015 on this topic, with the hope that the survey results can be incorporated or used to inform the discussion.
Jason Kruse, Chair, 2013-2014
Health and Medical Reference Committee
The Health and Medical Reference Committee has been hard at work completing the new Health and Medical Reference Guidelines to replace the Guidelines for Medical, Legal, and Business Responses (2001) currently on the RUSA website. Outgoing Chair Karen Vargas met with the Standards and Guidelines Committee on Sunday June 29 during the ALA Annual Meeting. The Health and Medical Reference Guidelines have to be approved by the Standards and Guidelines Committee, then they go out for public review, and finally to the RUSA Board. When the board approves them, they are good for 7 years. During the meeting on June 29, the Standards and Guidelines Committee had positive feedback about this draft of the new guidelines. Since they work entirely online, it is possible the process of adopting these new guidelines will be completed by Midwinter 2015.
The Health and Medical Reference Committee welcomes new member Ann Gluske, BST Librarian from The Seattle Public Library, as well as new Chair Laura Haines, Health Sciences Librarian from the Dana Medical Library at the University of Vermont. Welcome!
The Committee looks forward to completing a few different projects this coming year: the completion of the Guidelines; creating a web site for the committee; and getting medref-L, a listserv focused on health and medical reference topics, up and running.
Laura Louise Haines, Chair, 2014-2015
Job and Career Reference Committee
Most recently, at Annual, The RSS Job & Career Reference Committee held a discussion forum entitled “Community Needs, Reference, & Assessment in Job & Career Reference.†Its description stated “Large and small libraries hold a variety of programs for job seekers – regular classes, one-shot sessions, traditional reference services, reference appointments and others. How do libraries and information providers determine needs of the community and which services & programs to offer? How do they assess outcomes?†The discussion was pretty informal and intimate—it seems that while some libraries have in-house-designed systems for monitoring success rates and outcomes at the job seeker level, many of us are still struggle with assessing how much we help each job seeker and where we fall short. As a result, we are hoping to create a conference program, possibly inviting professionals from Queens Library which seems to succeed at assessment, for a future conference.
Another possible topic we would like to investigate is possible collaboration on a program on assisting and facilitating youth entrepreneurship. As many jobs traditionally held by this age group are being taken by adults, leaving youth to develop service businesses on their own, channeling the knowledge of entrepreneurship librarians with a program designed for teens and using the expertise in this patron group of YALSA or YARS seems worthy of exploration.
Our new chair is Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, though Kate Oberg is still going to be fully involved in the committee.
Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, Chair 2014-2015
Library Service to an Aging Population
Library Services to an Aging Population Committee held two meetings at ALA-Annual in Las Vegas and worked through the current draft of the Guidelines for Library Services with Midlife and Older Adults: Best Practices with the goal of finishing the draft by the end of 2014. The committee also decided to discontinue the recommended websites that was created years ago, and to fold particularly excellent websites into the OLOS Keys to Engaging Older Adults @ Your Library.
Committee members organized and presented the program “Creative Aging @ Your Library,†highlighting successful arts programs at public libraries. Approximately 150 people attended, and several signed up to learn more about the committee and its projects.
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Services
The Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Services Committee coordinated a discussion forum entitled, “The Soft Sell: Sales Skills for Librarian.†Nathaniel King, Director of Library Services, Nevada State College and Jacqueline Solis, Coordinator of Liaison Services for Subject Librarians, University of North Carolina presented on the SALES technique as it applies to library services. After the presentation, the 44 attendees were walked through a case study utilizing the technique, and broke into small groups to workshop additional examples.
Elizabeth DeCoster, Chair 2014-2015
Research and Statistics Committee
This year, the Research & Statistics Committee hosted the 20th Annual Reference Research Forum on Sunday, June 29th at the Las Vegas Convention Center. After a double-blind review process, the committee selected 3 research teams to present their results. Ixchel Faniel, Lynn Connaway, and Kendra Parson from OCLC presented “Building Relationships for the Effective Development and Delivery of Research Data Services,†which related the results of in-depth interviews conducted with librarians on the topic of data management. Curt Friehs presented the survey results on the use of technology by college students gathered by himself and his research partner, Jason Kaloudis, in “College Student Tech Usage: A Recent Survey of Trends.†And finally, Jenny Bossaller and Guinevere Lawson presented their survey results of libraries and their involvement with the Affordable Care Act, revealing interesting trends in “Libraries and the Affordable Care Actâ€. 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 Reference Research Review: 2013.
Ava M. Iuliano Brillat, Chair 2013-2014
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The VR Tutorial Subcommittee has almost completed work on the Virtual Reference Companion (VRC). Content has been created for the eighth and final module, Staffing/Partners, but the subcommittee still needs to finalize a few details before it can be made available. The committee will meet in August 2014 to complete the VRC.
Although we did not meet our goal of completion by ALA Annual 2014, some members of the subcommittee presented the VRC at the MARS VR Discussion Group meeting on Sunday, June 30, in Las Vegas, NV. The presentation included information about the history of the subcommittee, the process of creating the VRC, and the content and organization of the VRC. Meeting participants offered input and feedback to help populate the Tips & Best Practices section of the VRC, which is now available. We encourage RSS members to submit suggestions for additional content by leaving a comment on ALA Connect (http://connect.ala.org/node/225501 ) or by sending an email to Christine Tobias ( tobiasc@msu.edu ) or Laura Friesen ( flynnl@umflint.edu ).
In addition to being accessible from http://www.ala.org/rusa/vrc , the Hot Links section of the RSS Virtual Reference Committee page, and the Professional Tools section of the RUSA Resources page, the VRC is now linked in the Web Resources section of the ALA Library Fact Sheet 19: Virtual Reference: A Selected Annotated Bibliography (http://www.ala.org/tools/libfactsheets/alalibraryfactsheet19).
Laura Friesen, Chair 2014-2015
Christine Tobias, Chair 2014-2015
Young Adult Reference Services Committee
YARS hosted the ALA Annual discussion forum, “Of *Course* It’s Due Tomorrow: What is the Appropriate Level of Homework Assistance in Libraries?†held on Sunday, June 29, 2014 at 10:30am. Among the topics discussed were the following:
What are the obstacles to offering HW in libraries?
How do we offer in-house HW without the use of library resources (funding, staffing)?
How should we evaluate alternative tutoring services?
What would be the most help to you to provide HW help in your library?
Should ALA officially encourage libraries to provide in-house HW?
As a result of the ideas that emerged from the discussion, YARS will compile a resource of best practices, contacts, and templates for libraries that wish to offer in-house homework help or tutoring services to their student community. Details on the location of that resource will be decided shortly. The committee met at the All-RSS meeting at the Conference where we discussed ideas for next year’s conference program. A subgroup will work to plan that program, which will focus on issues surrounding library participation in Common Core standards, and will continue its search for panel speakers.
STARS Membership Committee
The 10th Anniversary Celebration at ALA Annual was a huge success! Thank you to everyone!
We will be collaborating with other committees to develop a RUSA STARs timeline archive inclusive of photos, events, webinars, etc.
Current projects also consist of improving recruitment and retention initiatives of our STARS members, as well as reaching out to other committees for information and updates. All are always welcome to join committee meetings, which are held virtually on the first Monday of every month. Contact Micquel Little, Chair of RUSA STARS Membership, at micq13@hotmail.com, for more details.
Micquel Little, Chair
ILL Discussion Group
The ILL Discussion Group hosted two panel presentations (Philadelphia Convention Center 204 A – Saturday, 1/25/14 – 10:30am-11:30am) at the 2014 Mid-Winter ALA Meetings, Philadelphia.
Over 70 people came to the presentation and exchanged lively discussions following the presentation. These included:
ILL Unchained!: Freeing Your Media Collection
Megan Gaffney, Coordinator, Interlibrary Loan & Document Delivery Services, University of Delaware Library, gaffneym@udel.edu
Meghann Matwichuk, Coordinator, Film & Video Collection Department, University of Delaware Library, mtwchk@udel.edu
A Case for Integration of Interlibrary Loan and Reference
Hong Ta-Moore (Library of Congress)
Kathleen S. Mannino (The College of New Rochelle, New Rochelle, NY)
We also met on Saturday (6/28, 10-30am-11:30am) at LVCC N258 for 2014 ALA Annual Conference, Las Vegas. Close to 90 people actively shared their experiences in various topics related to the ILL activities in their institutions.
Finally, please join us in welcoming Hong Ta-Moore, reference/ILL Librarian at the Library of Congress, who has been appointed as Vice Chair/Chair Elect for ILL Discussion Group.
Jaeyeon Sung, Chair
STARS Legislation & Licensing Committee
The committee recently met at the ALA annual meeting. Our main topic of discussion was the charge for this committee and whether it needs to be revamped. Participation in this STARS committee has recently been low and current members decided to take a fresh look at our role. We discussed possibilities for revamping the work of the committee, mergers with other committees, and the use of surveys to ensure our continued relevance. Members decided that an outreach survey would be most helpful, so please keep an eye out for its distribution this fall and share your opinions on how this committee might best serve STARS.
In the meantime, please consider joining us, as a member or by submitting thoughts and ideas on the role of this committee and/or possible projects. I’d love to hear them! Please contact the new Chair, Sherri Michaels, at shmichae@indiana.edu.
Sherri Michaels, Chair
STARS Education and Training Committee Annual Report, 2013-2014
The STARS Education and Training Committee held its seventh annual “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about ILL†workshop at Drexel University in Philadelphia on January 24th, 2014. The workshop featured speakers Megan Gaffney, Karen Janke, Cindy Kristof, and Collette Mak and attracted 56 attendees. Feedback from participants was positive. Planning is now underway for the eighth annual workshop to be held at the University of Chicago in January 2015, following the same format.
On October 16, 2013, the committee organized a free RUSA webinar entitled “Finding Dead People: Genealogy and Local History Resources for the ILL Practitioner.†Amber Case, University of Washington, and Cherie Weible, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, presented and shared their slides and handout on the Education and Training Committee’s web page. Registration quickly filled up with 90 registrants and a waiting list. Fifty-six people ultimately logged in, though we suspect there were more viewers.
The committee also partnered with the RUSA History Section to produce a similar program at the 2014 ALA Annual Conference. The program was a success with over 150 attendees in a room with a capacity of 125. Completed surveys for the program have been submitted to RUSA for analysis.
The Education and Training Committee continued to update the ShareILL wiki (shareill.org) and was grateful to receive assistance from many other STARS committees. Work on this project is ongoing. In early 2014 outgoing STARS chair, Nora Dethloff, submitted an Emerging Leaders proposal to find someone who can help us update ShareILL. As of July 2014, we have heard that the project was accepted by RUSA. We are now waiting for ALA’s approval. If the proposal is accepted, our Emerging Leader will likely begin work in October 2014.
Karen Okamoto, Outgoing Chair
Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee
The Codes, Guidelines, and Technical Standards Committee had three virtual meetings in early 2014 to begin the process of reviewing and revising the Interlibrary Loan Code for the United States and its accompanying Explanatory Supplement. Ryan Litsey (Texas Tech) completed his term as Chair of the committee in June, and Brian Miller (Ohio State) became Chair in July. Work on the ILL Code is scheduled to recommence in August 2014 with completion due by 2016.
Brian Miller, Chair
ALA RUSA STARS Research and Assessment Committee Annual Report 2013-2014
The 2013-2014 year was the inception of the Research and Assessment Committee (previously named the Research and Statistics Committee). Because of this, the committee has worked diligently to streamline procedures and work with all RUSA STARS committees on survey construction, distribution, and assessment of results to help guide future RUSA STARS programming and discussions.
This year, Bethany Sewell and David Ketchum have been elected as co-chairs of the committee.
After a success program at ALA annual in 2013, the committee was asked to submitted a pre-conference proposal for ALA annual 2015 “ ILL Data Storm.â€
We plan to continue to evaluate the surveys of all RUSA STARS programs, discussion groups, and Hot Topics.
Six programs and discussions were surveyed, beginning with ALA Annual in 2013. Not all discussions were implemented in this process in this first year due to the new alignment and work that would eventually steer the process for RUSA STARS. Survey responses for RUSA STARS programming and discussions sessions indicate that participants are very satisfied with the direction of these meetings.
Suggestions (condensed from all programs and discussions) for future webinars or programs are (* indicate more than six requests for this topic specifically):
More opportunities for sharing ideas, solutions, and problems with colleagues
Challenges for genealogy librarians and how to solve them
Land records
Locating digital content
Advanced business reference
Article Exchange
Comparison of ILLiad, OCLC or other management systems (e.g., Rapid)
*Copyright (e.g., fair use, CCC)
E-books
IFM
ILL basics (e.g., how to do ILL, best practices, stickers and adhesive labels, fill and unfilled defined, usages of multiple addresses, Article Change and ILLiad)
ILLiad (software tips)
 *Data analysis
 *Ins and outs of creating resource sharing/consortia agreements
International ILL
License language and negotiation
OCLC (software tips)
Students worker management and workflow
 Licenses and I
How to interpret internet sources
Open discussions
Management issues and organizational models
Advancement
Alternatives to CONTU-compliance
Automation methods
Storage
Trends in increases and decreases in ILL requests
Best practices and the future of IL
Lengths of loan periods
Progressive or cutting-edge topics. ILL-Reference merge (or not_ and Lending AV aren’t very inspirational – we’ve been having these conversations for years.
Programs and Discussion Sections Surveyed
RUSA/CODES and STARS Joint Program – Enhancing Services through Integration of Interlibrary Loan and Acquisitions – Annual 2013
Does Your Data Deliver for Decision Making? New Directions for Resource Sharing Assessment – Annual 2013
Finding Dead People – Webinar – 10/16/13
Everything you wanted to know about ILL – Midwinter – 1/25/14
Hot Topics Discussion Group – Midwinter – 1/25/14
Interlibrary Loan Discussion Group – Midwinter – 1/25/14
Bethany B. Sewell, Chair
RUSA STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee
The committee has continued to work on rewriting the RSSI Stars Checklist to bring it up to date and to minimize bias towards academic libraries in the USA. We are aiming towards 100 questions, arranged under the seven principles of the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative Manifesto. We hope to finish the new edition by the fall of 2014 and be approved by STARS and the RRSI Steering Committee. Our current membership list includes at least one new member, Elizabeth Lane, who joined us at 2014 Annual.
Sue Kaler, chair 2014-15
RUSA-STARS Interlibrary Loan Committee Meeting Minutes
June 28, 2014 Las Vegas, NV
Committee members attended: Co-Chairs Carol Kochan and Lan Yang, Ken Peterson, Mary Radnor, Jeanne Voyles, Sarah McHane-Chase
Visitors: Amber Glass, Weldon Higgins, Ricky Wallace, Jenny Lee, Lavoda Smith, and Elizabeth Lane
Midwinter Meeting Minutes. Mary Radnor made a motion to approve the minutes, Ken Peterson seconded the motion and all were in favor.
2015 Annual Proposed Program – So far, we are not sure if our program proposal has been accepted. We should know shortly after the meeting. The first choice for RUSA-STARS board will be a ½ day pre conference program proposed by the RUSA STARS Research & Assessment Committee, the proposed program title is: “ILL Data Storm: Practical Assessmentâ€. So we have a good chance of having our proposal being accepted.
Program Planning for 2015: The Committee decided to go ahead and plan the program.
Program title: Acquisitions, Collection Development, Electronic Resources and Interlibrary Loan, Oh My! Connecting Users to what they want! The ALCTS Committee is willing to Co-Sponsor. They may wish to suggest an additional Speaker.
STARS ILL committee proposes a lightning round session covering the following topics: 1) How demand driven acquisition of physical and electronic books affect interlibrary loan 2) What Occam’s Reader can do to allow interlibrary loan of electronic books 3) Outline the changes made by one Interlibrary Loan department to adapt to the current ILL environment 4) How patron ILL requests influence collection development
Current Speakers: Teresa Hazen, Associate Librarian (Delivery, Description and Acquisition’s Team), University of Arizona Libraries; Ryan Litsey, Occam’s Reader Project Manager, Assistant Librarian, Document Delivery, Texas Tech University; Library Linda Dols, Library Information Analyst (Delivery, Description and Acquisition’s Team); University of Arizona Libraries Jennifer Duncan, Head of Collections, Utah State University Library
We plan to have the speakers meet in advance via adobe connect to coordinate speaking and make sure the lightning rounds fit together.
We should have year’s worth of data for Occam’s reader.
We think this program will appeal to Resource Sharing, Collection Development and Electronic Resource Librarians and staff. Librarians and staff from academic, public and special libraries.
We need to make sure we are providing up to date information for the program and that we are balancing the Program between providing cutting edge information and practical ideas that people can bring back to home library and implement.
We plan to send out a survey to ALA Members of ALCTS, Stars and other relevant committees to learn what is working well in their libraries and what challenges they are encountering. Linda Dols can help with Survey.
Other discussions:
We spoke about how ILL is changing. Overall, the numbers of requests are declining (probably due to increased electronic journal packages). Current requests are more complex and libraries are seeing an increase in International Requests. How can libraries share data sets?
Special Libraries. Elizabeth Lane, from The Frick Collection, sought the committee’s input on how to get items from Special Libraries. In many cases, they can digitize to fill requests. Perhaps in the future 3-D printers could be an option to share art. The committee thought that having a program on requesting/lendingSpecial Items might be a good future presentation topic.
Best Practices for Lending, one committee member suggested that a 12-week loan be standards for all ILL departments. This is tricky. Most public libraries have much shorter loan periods.
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee is getting ready to present the BRASS Academic Libraries Forum at the 2014 ALA Annual Convention. Our speakers will be Ilana Stonebraker, Mary Dugan, Tom Ottaviano, and Jason Sokoloff. The general theme of the forum is scalability of instruction and business students. Different methods and results of scalability will be discussed. Jason Sokoloff’s presentation deals more with assessing one shot instruction. A previously scheduled speaker, Lisa O’Connor, had to withdraw due to a family health emergency. The committee thanks Tom Ottaviano for agreeing to present at such short notice!
The committee encourages everyone interested in this issue to attend. The Academic Libraries Forum will take place at Las Vegas Convention Center, room N111, Sat 1:00-2:30 PM.
Charles Allan, Chair 2012-2013
BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
Last Virtual Meeting was Friday April 4, 2014 via ALA connect.
We have added a new Briefcase article, No. 30, 2nd Quarter 2014, “Best Practices of Adult Financial Literacy in a Large Public Library System†by Melissa Jeter, Adult Services Librarian, Heatherdowns Branch; Toledo-Lucas County Public Library. Information on this article has been forwarded to Genifer Snipes and various listservs.
We appreciate BRASS Web Editor Annette Buckley setting up Google Analytics software to show the number of views the Briefcase receives as a whole, and the views which individual articles are receiving! We also appreciate Genifer Snipes’ assistance with social media.
Next Briefcase topic will be Consumer Research Tools.
Our 2015 ALA Program will be on naming rights as revenue generators for libraries.
Ed Rossman, Chair 2013-2014
BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2014 Program: Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
When: Monday, June 30, 2014 8:00-10:00 AM
Location: Las Vegas Convention Center, room S230
Many companies spend millions on advertising their brands and products, yet data can be hard to find. Specialized sources, available at many large libraries, focus on these statistics. The information they contain can be used by business students, researchers, or the general public. In addition media planning, a component of a company’s marketing plan, will be covered. Entrepreneurs need information on placing ads (and on how much it costs); reference librarians assisting these users will find the content of the program very useful.
The session kicks off with breakfast, 8:00-8:30 AM, sponsored by S&P Capital IQ.
Speakers:
Wendy Diamond, Business and Economics Librarian, California State University, Chico. Ms. Diamond has been a featured speaker at two prior BRASS annual programs (2001 and 2008) on marketing. She is the co-author of: Marketing Information: A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries (2004).
Dale Skarl, Search Engine Marketing Manager for MGM Resorts International
Patricia Kenly, Chair 2013-2014
BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The committee is preparing to review the nominations for Outstanding Business Reference Sources. We currently have twenty-seven titles for consideration. Review and voting will be done virtually, prior to ALA.
The Business Reference Source Committee (BRSC) will be meeting in person from 4:30-5:30 PM in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N220 on Saturday, June 28. This is an open meeting and visitors are welcome to attend. Ed Hahn will be the incoming Committee chair, starting July 1, so wish him congratulations or condolences, as you see fit.
The BRSC is once again sponsoring the Publishers Forum at ALA. This year it will be held in the Las Vegas Hotel, Ballroom F on Sunday June 29th from 1:00-2:30 pm. The forum is titled “Hitting the Jackpot – Sources for Local and Regional Business Information” and the discussion will focus on the various types of local business information that are available through a variety of sources.
Representatives from Euromonitor (featuring their new Passport Cities product); Demographics Now (US Census data); Data Planet (United States statistical datasets); and ProQuest ABI Inform (Dateline product focusing on local and regional business journals) will be the speakers. Each has agreed to demonstrate their products specifically concerning the types of data they have for Las Vegas and Nevada in general. The last half-hour of the Forum will be a Q&A session from the audience, so come prepared with questions and issues that you have with finding local information.
Susan Hurst, Chair 2012-2013
BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group will host an open forum at ALA’s Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, June 29 from 8:30-10:00 AM in Caesars Palace, Octavius 05-06. We will be sending out a survey in the first week of June to determine what topics we will put on the agenda for discussion.
Friday, June 6 at 2:00 PM EST we have tentatively scheduled an online discussion. We are compiling feedback to see if people wish to take part in the discussion prior to the annual meeting. Do you have a topic idea? Please take a moment to fill out this survey
Please be on the lookout for additional information about the online discussion and the Annual conference on topics on BRASS-L. We look forward to seeing everyone in Las Vegas!
Jason Dewland, Chair 2012-2013
BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education committee is happy to report that so far thirty-three people have registered for the 2014 RUSA BRASS preconference “How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs.†Our dynamic speakers will cover market sizing for a technology start-up, licensing business e-resources, and best practices in engaging entrepreneurs in public and academic libraries.
Next year we are going to try something new. Instead of a full day, we have proposed a half day preconference, “Intellectual Property for Entrepreneurs: Patents, Trademarks, and Copyright.â€The topic is still tentative, and we’ll be thrilled to hear any ideas or suggestions of interest to our members.
We are exploring new LibGuide functionality to enhance BRASS Business Guides, generously provided to us by Springshare. Peter McKay is spearheading this effort. In the meanwhile, committee members are busy working on updating and consolidating existing guides. We are still on target to complete the transition to topical guides by June 20th, 2014.
BRASS Membership Committee
The BRASS Membership Reception will be Friday June 27 from 6:00-8:00 PM, location TBA on BRASS-L and Facebook. Come network with colleagues while enjoying food and beverages. Plan your flights so you can join us on the Vegas Strip for a fun time!
Membership committee meeting at ALA Annual will be June 29, 3:00-4:00 PM. at Las Vegas Convention Center, room N217.
Kelly Janousek, Chair 2012-2013
BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
Vendor Relations spent the past two months talking to several vendors who expressed interest in getting more involved with BRASS. Ultimately for different reasons, they have withdrawn their interest at this time. We will continue to explore new opportunities. Vendor Relations is also working on a preconference half-day workshop with another vendor for the 2015 conference in San Francisco. More information will be forthcoming when the details are more fleshed out.
Vendor Relations has also been coordinating with Membership for the Member’s Reception in Las Vegas on June 27, and with the Program Committee to see that our sponsorship from S&P Capital IQ runs smoothly.
Chris LeBeau, Chair 2013-2015
BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The Publications and Communications Committee is working on the BRASS at ALA Annual Events and Program guide. We met in March to discuss various activities of the committee, including the BRASS website, our social media presence, and topics of discussion for our in-person annual meeting in June. We are looking forward to getting together at ALA Annual in Las Vegas. We’ll be meeting on Saturday, June 26 from 4:30-5:30 PM in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N202.
Chad Boeninger, Chair 2013-2015
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
Award-winning author and Associate Librarian, Celia Ross, of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business was selected for her dedication and commitment to the field of business librarianship and its practitioners.
Mark Andersen, Chair 2013-2014
BRASS Gale Cenage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Katharine Macy, MLIS candidate at the University of Washington was selected because of her extensive background and education in business.
Matthew Brower, Chair 2013-2014
BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
Desirae Zingarelli-Sweet, at the Carrier Library of James Madison University was selected for her outstanding efforts in collaboration with business faculty; students and community partners; library instruction; and business reference research at the university.
Kaiping Zhang, Chair 2013-2014
BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
Ilana Barnes, Business Information Specialist and Tao Zhang, Digital User Experience Specialist of Purdue University Libraries are the project heads of “Assessment of Business Undergraduate Student Engagement and Behavior in a Crowd-Sourced Library Help System: Best Practices and Emerging Technology Opportunities.â€
Elizabeth Stephan, Chair 2013-2014
BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
No award was presented this year.
CODES Hot Topics Discussion Group Meeting
The CODES Hot Topics Discussion Group will meet at Annual Conference on Saturday, June 28 from 10:30-11:30 AM at the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N219. The discussion topic will be “A Sentimental Education: Training Collection Development Librarians.†Rapid changes in how libraries select, collect, and maintain resources obviously affect how collection development librarians are trained. Increasing emphasis on electronic resources, consortial agreements, and patron-driven acquisitions coupled with budgetary restrictions and growing user expectations are challenges we all face. While there have been ongoing concerns that graduate coursework in this area has not been especially effective, it is equally obvious that collection development responsibilities and activities vary widely from library to library. The bottom line: on-the-job training must provide the depth and breadth that graduate programs cannot. How are libraries addressing this important issue? Are selectors getting the training they need to succeed? What does successful training involve? What needs to change? Please join us for a lively discussion on this complex topic. This is open to all registered conference attendees and we hope you can join us.
Louis Shores Award Committee
The Louis Shores Award Committee announced Francine Graf, now-retired managing editor at Choice, as the 2014 recipient of the Louis Shores Award. There have been multiple press releases about the award, including a release in the ACRL Insider. Graf will be presented with the Louis Shores award at the RUSA Achievement Awards and Volunteer Reception at ALA Annual.
CODES Collection Development Planning, Education, and Assessment Committee
The CODES Collection Development Planning and Assessment Committee and the CODES Collection Development Education Committee have been merged to create the CODES Collection Development Planning, Education, and Assessment Committee. The new committee’s charge can be found here. The committee met at Midwinter in Philadelphia and discussed plans for a program for Annual 2015 in San Francisco called “Whacking the Weeds in the Library: Deaccessioning Print and Digital Materials in the 21st Century and Beyond.†The program was submitted by CODES as one of two program proposals for Annual 2015.
The Committee will be meeting at Annual on Sunday, June 29 from 1:00-2:30 PM in Caesars Palace, room Livorno.
Sophie Brody Medal Committee
The Sophie Brody Medal Committee will meet at Annual on Friday June 27 from 1:00-3:00 PM at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Conference Room 04 (this is a closed meeting) to discuss the submissions that we have received so far. We will also present the medal to this year’s winner, Yossi Klein Halevi. Unfortunately, Mr. Halevi will not be at the conference, so someone will accept the award on his behalf.
Have you heard about makerspaces but still have questions about how they fit into the work of libraries? Are you interested in makerspaces, but unsure how to get started? Well this discussion forum is for you! Come learn what you need to take your library to the next level.
Join RUSA MARS Hot Topics as they welcome two speakers to discuss the link between makerspaces and libraries and how you can get started with a makerspace in your library.
The session will start with a discussion by Rudy Leon (the University of Nevada, Reno) on the connection between makerspace and libraries and how your current space may already have elements of a makerspace. Rosemary Arneson (University of Mary Washington, Fredricksburg, Virginia) will discuss how a storage space in the library was converted to create ThinkLab. She will share how the space has been incorporated into courses such as Makerbots and Mashups and also discuss the technologies currently in the space.
This ninety-minute session will include a discussion and Q&A, so be sure to bring your questions! By the end of the program, you’ll feel confident understanding the role of makerspaces in libraries and take away some ideas on how to start your own.
More about our speakers:
Rudy Leon joined the University of Nevada Knowledge Center in March of 2012. Her liaison areas are Communication Studies, Political Science, and Gender, Race & Identity. She is also the coordinator of Burning Inquiry (a celebration of researchers at UNR investigating aspects of the Burning Man Festival), and the advisor to the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center Undergraduate Student Committee.
Rosemary Arneson is the University Librarian at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, VA. She launched the UMW ThinkLab makerspace in September 2012, and she works closely with the Freshman Seminar, Makerbots and Mashups, that meets in the space. She continues to develop her own maker skills, particularly in the area of e-textiles and wearable technologies.
RUSA MARS Best Free Reference Websites
The RUSA MARS Best Free Reference Websites committee conducts virtual communication among members. Although on year-round lookout for outstanding sites, our busy times take place in February, March, and April as the committee participants focus on posting, evaluating, and voting on the many websites each member has chosen as favorites. After closely examining and evaluating the forty-eight websites initially submitted, the committee members voted for those we considered to be the best. The list for 2014 contains fourteen websites that have received this distinction.
Discovery Services Committee (Formerly Catalog Use Committee)
Please join us in Las Vegas for a Discussion Forum on Discovery Services: “What’s Working, What’s Not and What’s Next?â€
Sunday, June 29th, 3:00-4:00 PM, Las Vegas Convention Center, room N110
The first 15-20 minutes of this one-hour forum will begin with lightning round presentations followed by a Q&A. During the second half, presenters will rotate to start discussions about the themes of their presentations with each table.
Colleen Seale, Chair 2013-2014
Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
The Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need committee will have a virtual Annual meeting; the date and time will be announced on ALA Connect when decided. The committee has been working on a survey that will allow us to gather information to aid in planning programs, discussion forums, and professional development opportunities. Content and design of the survey have been finalized and we will begin gathering responses by mid-May. We plan to gather responses and complete an analysis with recommendations for next year by the end of June.
Julie Housknecht and Holly Wilson, Co-chairs 2013-2014
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee is pleased to announce that they will be hosting these discussion forums at Annual:
Sunday, June 29, 1:00-2:30 PM, Las Vegas Convention Center, room N117
What can truly set reference apart from Google and other online information providers? What can breed patron loyalty and ensure return visits? Service! A library’s customer service can have a staggering impact on customer satisfaction and retention. Join with colleagues to share real world examples of extreme customer service—wonderful as well as woeful—and to learn practical tips for improving your service and making your reference service invaluable. Facilitator: Jeanne Holba Puacz, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.
Monday, June 30, 8:30-10:00 AM, Las Vegas Convention Center, room N120
The importance of interactions with users of a library’s reference services (online and in person) cannot be overstated. If the user has a good experience, they will be back when they have another question. A bad experience, and that’s the end of it. Library literature supports the idea that training of reference providers and setting standards of service is a crucial component in the process of bringing new staffers up to speed and making sure they are upholding the library’s service mission. Gather with other front-line reference providers and managers to discuss what reference training currently looks like and brainstorm new ideas for innovative training in the future. Facilitators: Geoff Johnson, University of Texas Libraries, University of Texas at Austin and Joe Dobbs, University of Texas Libraries, University of Texas at Austin.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2013-2014
Education and Professional Development for Reference
We have completed the first phase of our research into the state of reference education in the United States and Canada. We have determined whether or not a basic reference course is required for students at ALA-accredited library schools and if more specialized reference courses are offered. As we move into Phase Two of this project (in which we will analyze our findings and seek more information on the general reference course and overall curriculum from ALA-accredited institutions), we hope to gather as much information as we can before the Annual Conference.
As we move toward the third phase of the project, we want to hear from fellow reference professionals about what you would like to learn about the state of reference education and what you feel is important to investigate.
If you care about the state of reference education, or want to know more about it, please come to the RSS Education & Professional Development for Reference Committee discussion forum at Annual 2014: “State of Reference Education: What We Have Learned And What Would You Like To Find Out?†on Monday, June 30 from 10:30-11:30 AM, in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N263C
At this discussion forum, we will share the preliminary summary of findings on general reference education from ALA accredited programs. We would love to hear from practitioners what is important in current and future reference education.
Check the conference schedule for any last minute room change.
Organized by the Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee, Reference Services Section (RSS), Reference and User Services Division (RUSA). Stay tuned for future plans on this project and ways to participate.
Joseph Yue, Chair 2013-2014
Evaluation of Reference and User Services
At the end of January 2014, Evaluation of Reference and User Services (ERUS) sent out a survey looking at reference service models and evaluation of service. At the close of the survey, we received a very large number of responses. Analysis of the results, as well as decisions on the best way to disseminate the findings will begin in this month. The committee is considering a discussion forum for Midwinter 2015 on the same topic, with the hope that the survey results can be incorporated or used to inform the discussion.
The ERUS committee meeting will be held during the RSS Open House and All-Committee Meeting on Saturday June 2 from 8:30-10:00am in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N113
There will be no other events for ERUS.
Jason Kruse, Chair 2013-2014
Health and Medical Reference Committee
The Health and Medical Reference Committee met at ALA Midwinter Meeting. Due to the intensiveness of the work on the Health and Medical Reference Guidelines, work in all other areas has been put on hold. The committee met with the liaison from the RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee about the progress with the Guidelines. A draft is expected to be given to the Standards and Guidelines Committee by the 2014 ALA Annual Conference for initial review.
Saturday, June 28, 2014, 1:00-2:30 PM
Las Vegas Hotel, Conference Room 09
Large and small libraries hold a variety of programs for job seekers—regular classes, one-shot sessions, traditional reference services, reference appointments and others. How do libraries and information providers determine the needs of the community and which services and programs to offer? How do they assess outcomes? Come join the RSS Job & Career Reference Committee for a discussion of various strategies for best serving communities large and small.
The RSS Job & Career Reference Committee is also about to launch a needs assessment for librarians interested in career reference resources and information. This will be advertised via various means and we invite all interested in this subject area to participate.
Kate Oberg, Chair 2013-2014
Library Service to an Aging Population
Library Services to an Aging Population met March 24. The committee is working to update its Guidelines for Serving Midlife and Older Adults, which will be discussed at length on Saturday, June 28 at 3:00 PM.
The group is also finalizing details for its ALA program, “Creative Aging at Your Library,†scheduled for Sunday, June 29 from 10:30-11:30 AM in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N243. We look forward to seeing you in Las Vegas!
Abigail Elder, Chair 2013-2014
Management of Reference
The RSS Management of Reference Committee sponsored its first e-forum, where a total of 220 librarians registered to discuss new models of reference on May 6 and 7. Over the course of the two days, we had about forty librarians actively participate and engage in discussing how reference has changed and what institutions are doing to stay current. This is the introduction from our first day:
Reference services have evolved over the years, and current best practices inform the 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 faculty, staff and students by meeting them where they are. This concept expands the boundaries of the traditional library and calls for a reconfiguration of spaces, resources, and services focused on supporting the learning needs of our community.
In this e-forum we’d like to spend some time discussing each of the following subjects: new staffing models (including technologies), new methods of delivery (including technologies) and your success stories and tips to take away. Responses revolved around training, staffing models and statistics to help make decisions and determine how to best repackage existing services as desks are merged, librarians step away from the desk and new technologies assist us in new delivery methods.
Cinthya Ippoliti, Chair 2013-2014
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Services
The Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Services Committee will be hosting a discussion forum, “The Soft Sell: Sales Skills for Librarians,†at Annual on Sunday, June 29 at 10:30-11:30 AM in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N220. Our discussion forum will be facilitated by Nathaniel King (Director of Library Services at Nevada State College) and Jaqueline Solis (Coordinator of Liaison Services for Subject Librarians at the University of North Carolina). They will be lead a conversation about the SALES technique for promoting library services that provides a method for having conversations with community members and stakeholders about the value of library services. Specifically, the technique emphasizes understanding problems faced by patrons or potential patrons and demonstrating how the library can help solve those problems. They will do a brief presentation on the technique and then lead a discussion so that attendees can think about how they would apply the technique to their own libraries.
Jessica Hagman, Chair 2013-2014
Research and Statistics Committee
The Research and Statistics Committee of the Reference Services Section of RUSA will be presenting 20th Reference Research Forum at ALA on June 29th from 10:30-11:30 am. The Research and Statistics Committee employed a double-blind method to choose three groups of speakers on a variety of topics.
Our first speakers from OCLC will be focused on the data deluge and librarians’ experiences with data services in “Building Relationships for the Effective Development and Delivery of Research Data Services,” presented by Ixchel Faniel, Lynn Connaway, and Kendra Parson. This presentation is based on an analysis of interview data collected from thirty-six librarians. A major objective of the study is to explore librarians’ early experiences in developing and delivering research data services in order to consider how their experiences and the services can be improved. By opening an early dialogue about the opportunities and challenges associated with library-provided research data services, we aim to consider practical, effective approaches to the development and delivery of such services within the academic community.
Our second set of speakers from SUNY College at Old Westbury will be focused on student tech usage and trends. In “College Student Tech Usage: A Recent Survey of Trends”, Curt Friehs and Jason Kaloudis will present findings of a survey of undergraduates to gain a better understanding of motivating factors behind tech adaptations. The perspective of the Millennial college student provides insights into the desires and needs of the younger generation.
Our final group of speakers from the University of Missouri will focus on Libraries and the Affordable Care Act. Jenny Bossaller and Guinevere Lawson will be sharing the results of discussions with librarians across the United States regarding their involvement with the Affordable Care Act. This exploratory study will provide context for libraries’ actions or inactions that are a result of the law’s uneven implementation, differing community needs, and the attitudes of the community and librarians. The Research and Statistics Committee is also hard at work in gathering and vetting annotations for the Annual Reference Reviews as well and will be sharing the results of their research before the ALA Annual.
Ava M. Iuliano Brillat, Chair 2013-2014
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The Virtual Reference (VR) Tutorial Subcommittee continues to work on the Virtual Reference Companion (VRC) with the goal of completion by ALA Annual 2014. The group meets monthly (including our recent Virtual Midwinter Meeting on January 31) and works in subgroups between meetings.
To date, the Subcommittee has completed seven modules of the VRC and recently decided to remove the Information Literacy module since much of the relevant information can be found in the Skills module. We are in the finishing stages of the eighth and final module, Staffing/Partners, with completion expected in late May.
After four years of hard work, the Subcommittee is looking forward to presenting the VRC at the MARS Virtual Reference Discussion Group meeting to be held at Annual, Sunday, June 29 at 10:30-11:30 AM at Paris Las Vegas in the Chablis Room. One section of the VRC contains Tips & Best Practices and we will actively seek input and feedback from audience members at this event. In addition, we encourage RSS members to contact Jared Hoppenfeld at jhoppenf@tamu.edu or Christine Tobias at tobiasc@msu.edu to share tips and best practices in virtual reference.
Jared Hoppenfeld, Chair 2012-2014
Christine Tobias, Chair 2013-2014
Young Adult Reference Services Committee
Young Adult Reference Services Committee (YARS) YARS is in the news! Based on our Midwinter discussion forum, the best-practices article “How Understanding Teen Brain Development Can Help Improve YA Reference Services” has been published in the Spring 2014 issue of Young Adult Library Services, the official publication of YALSA.
YARS is also preparing for Las Vegas, where we will host a discussion forum on Homework Help in libraries – a controversial topic on which some libraries are divided. We will gather information on best practices in order to make a recommendation as to what level libraries should expect to offer in-house homework help to their students. The discussion “Of *Course* it’s Due Tomorrow: What is the Appropriate Level of Homework Assistance in Libraries,†will be held Sunday, June 29, 2014 from 10:30-11:30 AM, in the Las Vegas Hotel, Ballroom G.
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), editor.
CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee
The CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee is still working on updating the ILL Code documents. We’ll announce when updates are completed in a future STARS section newsletter.
Ryan Litsey, Chair
Boucher Award Committee
David K. Larsen has been named the Virginia Boucher/OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award winner for 2014. Larsen is Head, Access Services and Assessment at the University of Chicago Library. He is being recognized for his expertise in interlibrary loan technology, his innovative approach to library services, his influential work with individual libraries, consortia, and vendors to make ongoing improvements, and his service and leadership at all levels of professional library organizations dedicated to resource sharing.
Please join me in congratulating David!
Megan Gaffney, Chair
STARS Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
Please join me in congratulating Jake Kubrin, the winner of the 2014 STARS Atlas Systems Mentoring Award. Along with other award recipients, Kubrin will be honored at the RUSA Achievement Awards Ceremony and Reception from 5:00-6:30 PM on Sunday, June 29 during the ALA Annual. Jacob Kubrin is the resource sharing and fulfillment specialist at Cushing Library at Holy Names University. In a newly created position at the Cushing Library, Kubrin demonstrated a great need for professional development, networking and education to serve the ever increasing patron needs of the library. The award, sponsored byAtlas Systems, Inc. recognizes an individual new to the field of interlibrary loan and contributes $1,250 to attend the ALA Annual Conference.
You can find the official press release here. You can also find RUSA activities during ALA online.
Amy Paulus, Chair
Naomi Chow
Paul Drake
Jennifer Jacobs
Shirley Thomas
STARS Education and Training Committee
The STARS Education and Training Committee (E&T) is organizing the program “Finding Dead People: Genealogy and Local History Resources for the ILL Practitioner,” presented by Amber Case and Cherie Weible, on Saturday, June 28 from 3:00-4:00PM in the Las Vegas Convention Center, room N232. E&T continues to coordinate the updating of the ShareILL wiki. It is also organizing the free annual ALA Midwinter workshop “Everything you wanted to know about ILL” for Chicago 2015.
Karen Okamoto, Chair
STARS Membership Committee
The RUSA STARS Membership Committee has been working with a 10th Anniversary Celebration Committee to organize an extra special social at ALA 2014 in Las Vegas. Thanks to vendors such as OCLC, Innovative, and DLSG, the committee has been able to plan a special 10th Anniversary Celebration for June 27th from 7:00-10:00 PM at Bahama Breeze. There will be food, live music, cake, and of course, friends!
The Membership Committee is also pleased to announce Lars Leon as our newest STARGazer. Leon will be at ALA and is always a friendly face to look for if you’re a first time attendee of the conference or an experienced ALA navigator.
Current projects also consist of improving recruitment and retention initiatives of our STARS members. All are always welcome to join committee meetings, which are held virtually on the first Monday of every month. Contact Micquel Little, Chair of RUSA STARS Membership, at micq13@hotmail.com, for more details.
Just Ask Task Force
At ALA Midwinter, the Just Ask Task Force met to discuss the follow-up to the Managing Changes to Reference Services delivered by Gail Griffith on December 4th, 2013 and the next steps. The registration went smoothly for the first webinar, and the 100 spaces were filled in less than a day. Sixty-seven people actually attended and registrants were from all types of libraries; mainly academic, but including twelve public librarians and nine special librarians as well as two students. The committee members and guests gathered agreed that we should work to increase the number of people from the smaller groups. Webinar attendees indicated a strong interest in having RUSA do more of these Webinars and suggested a variety of topics. Those most often listed include: a series of webinars on change management, a webinar on planning marketing and outreach, a webinar of case studies of innovative changes in reference in libraries other than their own, and a webinar on how to best show the value of the things they do.
The second of two Just Ask-sponsored webinars, “Got a Minute?: How to Prepare your Parking Lot Speech,†was on February 12. It sold out and attendance was strong; a recording to the webinar can be found here.
The Midwinter discussion followed on how to move forward with this information and create new programming that advances the charge of this task force.
Create a RUSA vision of the reference/ information professionals and the services they provide
Communicate that vision by advocating for reference librarians
Provide access and creative resources for librarians to engage in that advocacy
Several ideas were discussed by the members and guests present at the meeting, and the following three areas were seen as areas for the task force to move within the current charge which is somewhat broad.
Clarify the charge of the Task Force to assure we are on course.
Determine the feasibility of creating a National Reference Services Week or a Virtual Reference Day possibly in September.
Create a RUSA online course that builds on the suggestions from the free webinars; and the data from the PEW report “How Americans Value Libraries in their Communities†The Committee will do a conference call this spring to flesh this out completely.
Continue to develop the Ask Campaign based on the Maryland pilot project – discussion included creating posters kits like the READ Campaign only having the poster split diagonally and have a community member on one half and a reference librarian on the other half with a question and answer.
The Online access to the two webinars already presented are available:
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee recently met virtually. The committee’s main task for the year 2014 is organizing the forum at ALA Annual. The committee members have been hard at work. After soliciting submissions for the forum, we conducted a poll and selected the following speakers: Ilana Barnes, Jason Sokoloff, and Lisa O’Connor. Barnes is writing a paper about her experiences teaching a required information literacy course to a large number of students (and the problem of scalability), Sokoloff is covering concerns associated with assessment, and O’Connor is doing something really fascinating: discussing the internal psychological motivations of why people seek knowledge or think that would be effective behavior.
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee recently met virtually. The committee’s main task for the year 2014 is organizing the forum at ALA Annual. The committee members have been hard at work. After soliciting submissions for the forum, we conducted a poll and selected the following speakers: Ilana Barnes, Jason Sokoloff, and Lisa O’Connor. Barnes is writing a paper about her experiences teaching a required information literacy course to a large number of students (and the problem of scalability), Sokoloff is covering concerns associated with assessment, and O’Connor is doing something really fascinating: discussing the internal psychological motivations of why people seek knowledge or think that would be effective behavior.
The committee also started to divide up supporting logistical work for organizing the forum.
Charles Allan, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
We have added a new Public Librarian’s Briefcase article, No. 29, 1st Quarter 2014, “What’s in a name? Naming Rights as Revenue Generators.†In addition to the ALA URL, we have created a tinyurl: http://tinyurl.com/brassnr. The 2nd Quarter’s topic for the Public Librarian’s Briefcase is a case study: the grant process and program elements for a major grant on Financial Literacy received by Melissa Jeter and The Toledo Public Library.
We are still kicking ideas around for our 2015 Annual program.
Ed Rossman, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2014 Program: Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
Monday, June 30, 2014, 8:00-10:00am
Many companies spend millions on advertising their brands and products, yet the data can be hard to find. Specialized sources, available at many large libraries, focus on these statistics. The information they contain can be used by business students, researchers, or the general public. In addition, media planning, a component of a company’s marketing plan will be covered. Entrepreneurs need information on placing ads (and on how much it costs); reference librarians assisting these users will also find the content of the program very useful.
The session kicks off with breakfast, 8:00am-8:30am, sponsored by S&P Capital IQ.
Speakers:
Wendy Diamond, Business and Economics Librarian, California State University, Chico. Ms. Diamond has been a featured speaker at two prior BRASS annual programs (2001 and 2008) on marketing. She is the co-author of: Marketing Information: A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries (2004).
Dale Skarl, Search Engine Marketing Manager for MGM Resorts International.
Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The RUSQ column on “Outstanding Business Reference Sources 2013†was published in December 2013 issue. Becky Smith was the selections editor.
Suzanne Sweeney presented the list of winning Business Reference titles at the RUSA Book and Media Awards Reception at Midwinter.
We currently have twenty-one business reference titles nominated for the coming year. We hope to get several more nominated before the spring, when we will meet again online to begin the review process. Jordan Nielsen and Mark Siciliano are co-coordinators of the nominations process this year.
The Publishers Forum this year is being co-coordinated by Janis Tyhurst and Penny Scott, with assistance from Brittany Geissinger and me.
The forum will be titled “Hitting the Jackpot: Sources for Local and Regional Business Information.” The discussion will focus on the various types of local business information that are available through a variety of sources. We have contacted the following vendors and they have agreed to demonstrate their products specifically concerning the types of data they have for Las Vegas and Nevada in general.
Euromonitor Passport Cities (localized city economic profiles and analysis on consumers)
Demographics Now (US Census data)
Data Planet (U S States statistical datasets)
ProQuest ABI Inform Dateline product (local and regional business journals)
BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group moderated the all BRASS meeting at the ALA Mid-winter in Philadelphia in January. The meeting kicked-off with President Andy Spackman covering official business, approval of notes, and reviewing current plans for BRASS at ALA Annual in Las Vegas. The discussion portion of the meeting’s topics varied from the very restrictive policies of the Harvard Business Review, an update of the maker lab at Chicago Public Library, and other topics.
The Discussion Group plans on having two online discussions prior to the annual conference in June/July, monitor BRASS-L for dates, times, and topics.
Jason Dewland, 2012-2014 Chair
BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is happy to report that our first BRASS-sponsored free webinar “Industry Research Using the Economic Census and Other Government Sources†presented by Jennifer Boettcher from Georgetown University and moderated by our member Peter McKay from the University of Florida was a huge success. The recording is available for here.
The winners of the Best of the Best Business Websiteswere announced by Louise Feldman at the RUSA Book and Media Award Ceremony at ALA Midwinter. This year we focused on the websites indispensable to entrepreneurs. The 2014 winners are:
At the virtual midwinter meeting the committee members discussed style guidelines for updating the BRASS Business Guides. The target deadline to complete the transition to topical guides is June 20, 2014.
BRASS Membership Committee
BRASS Membership Committee will be hosting the BRASS Member Reception, Friday, June 27, 2014 5:30-7:30 PM, location TBA at ALA Annual in Las Vegas. This is a great opportunity for BRASS members and anyone interested in BRASS to meet and network! There will be hors d’oeuvres and beverages for your enjoyment. Sponsored by InfoGroup.
Membership is exploring ways to engage current members and recruit new business librarians to our great section. One is making Facebook more appealing as a place to get some of your BRASS information. Another is to offer ways for BRASS members to connect locally for more day-to-day operational support.
Kelly Janousek, 2012-2014 Chair
BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
We were successful at getting increased funding for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award and Gale Student Travel award.
BRASS also has a commitment from InfoGroup for the Member Reception in Las Vegas.
S&P Capital IQ has committed to supporting our Monday Program breakfast.
Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
Kelly Evans has updated the BRASS publications list
Chad Boeninger has sent several reminders to the BRASS-L list, and to individuals, regarding the list guidelines.
Genifer Snipes reports since ALA Annual in Chicago, we have added thirty followers (or “Likesâ€) to our Facebook page and have been seeing increased interaction with posts.
Annette Buckley has made significant updates to the BRASS web pages and roster.
Pauly Iheanacho: Update from BRASS Representative to RUSA Publication and Communications Committee.
Chad Boeninger, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee
The BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee would like to thank everyone for making the review successful. Thanks to all who contributed in giving thought and time to making our section more efficient, engaging and enjoyable for all BRASS members.
Paul Brother, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
We regret to announce that the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award will not be given this year. The committee received no nominations. We strongly encourage BRASS members to consider which of their public librarian colleagues might have benefited from this excellent opportunity to be recognized and receive travel funds for the next annual conference, generously sponsored by our friends at Morningstar. Please plan to nominate deserving colleagues next fall!
Karen Chapman, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
The BRASS Business Expert Press Award has received seven nominations. The committee reviewed the files of the nominees and made the selection of the recipient.
Desirae Zingarelli-Sweet, the Business Librarian of James Madison University of Virginia, is the recipient of the 2014 BRASS Business Expert Press Award. Ms. Zingarelli-Sweet has done an outstanding job in library instruction and collaboration with business faculty. She has been working with 1,500 business students helping them with their research projects via library instruction sessions and individual consultations. She has updated business research web pages adding new resources and has worked together with the Library Director to create a Graduate Student’s position to help with the demanding business research requests. Committee members believe that Ms. Zingarelli-Sweet will make a strong contribution to the profession of business librarianship and to BRASS.
Kaiping Zhang, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
The BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee received six applications. The committee is happy to announce Ilana Barnes, Business Information Specialist and Tao Zhang, Digital User Experience Specialist, at Purdue University, as this year’s recipients of the BRASS Emerald Research Award. Barnes and Zhang are assessing how students engage with CrowdAsk, a crowdsourced business library help system in a business information context and is a paradigm shift from the traditional library reference help model. Barnes and Zhang will look at the return on investment for business libraries interested in implementing the system or others like it. The committee was impressed with Barnes and Zhang’s proposal in terms of providing valuable insights into innovative reference service models. This research has the potential to study a new type of reference model, crowd-sourcing, while providing insights into user engagement opportunities within the scope of undergraduate business information literacy.
The Sophie Brody Medal Committee met on Friday January 24 during Midwinter. We had a very efficient and productive meeting to choose a winner and two honor books. The winner is Yossi Klein Halevi’s Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation (HarperCollins). The honor books are Ari Shavit’s My Promised Land: The Triumoh and Tragedy of Israel (Spiegel & Grau) and Jeremy Dauber’s The Worlds of Sholem Aleichem: The Life and Afterlife of the Man Who Created Tevye (Schocken).
Barbara Bibel, Chair
Readers’ Advisory Research and Trends Committee
The Readers’ Advisory (RA) Research and Trends Committee will be presenting the RA Forum at ALA Annual. This year the forum will address RA marketing and features the award-winning marketing expert from Edmonton Public Library, Tina Thomas, and Duncan Smith of Novelist. Here is the program description:
Turning Books into a Cool New Tool: RA Marketing in the Age of Maker Spaces
Maker spaces and 3D printers are hip and libraries are using them to ensure that they remain relevant and are perceived as keeping up with the latest trends. One of the trends that hasn’t gotten much attention, however, is the fact that books are still our brand and reading is the main reason citizens view the library as valuable and continue to support it. Does the key to public library success lie in adopting new technologies or in revitalizing the one that has been at the heart of our services for more than 100 years? Join library marketing expert Tina Thomas of Edmonton Public Library and Duncan Smith of NoveList and find out at this program which argues that the key to our future is contained in our past.
This fall the RA committee partnered with Library Journal and NoveList to map the state of RA practice. The survey that we helped create has recently been complied. The survey can be found and downloaded at LibraryJournal.com.
Several times a year the RA committee hosts a CODES Conversation, a free, email-based conversation on an RA topic. Anyone can join in and participate or lurk as they desire. The last conversation was on RA training. Over 500 people signed up for the two-day event. The committee will host another conversation in early Spring. Look for details on CODES-L.
Neal Wyatt, Co-chair
Louis Shores Award
The Louis Shores Award Committee (Emily Hamstra, Barry Trott, and Ed Kownslar) met virtually on Tuesday, January 14 to select the 2014 award recipient. We had many outstanding nominations for the award this year. The committee chose Fran Graf, managing editor at Choice, as the 2014 Louis Shores Award recipient. Graf was announced as a recipient of the award at the RUSA Book and Media Awards at ALA Midwinter.
Emily Hamstra, Chair
CODES Reference Publishing Advisory Committee
The CODES Reference Publishing Advisory Committee hosted a discussion forum at the Philadelphia Midwinter jointly with the Reference Publishers Group. The forum gave reference publishers and reference librarians a chance to discuss common concerns. Discussion topics included the use and barriers to use of reference sources, the difficulty of locating reference sources spread among a number of different vendor sites, and the need for reference publisher to consider their target audience, whether it is to make information more accessible or at the other spectrum, more specialized and in-depth. Despite all of the issues surrounding the rapidly changing world of Reference Publishing, most present did affirm the continuing value of this material. The committee is planning a similar forum at the Las Vegas Annual Conference.
Bill McHugh, Chair
Listen List Council
The Listen List Council, Jen Baker, Reader Services Librarian, Seattle Public Library; Di Herald, Program & Outreach Manager, Delta County Libraries (Colorado); Joyce Saricks, Readers’ Advisory Consultant, Downers Grove, Illinois (chair); Neal Wyatt, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia; and Renee Young, NoveList audiobook project team lead, Durham, North Carolina, selected outstanding audiobook titles for 2014, and will be publishing a Reader’s Shelf column in Library Journals’ March 1 issue.
Renee Young, council member
Conference Program Coordinating Committee
The Conference Program Coordinating Committee will be focusing on the following items for the coming year: Working with the RUSA board to continue formalizing a new process for selecting and approving programs for presentation at ALA Annual; explore possibility of partnering with the Learning Round Table to improve ALA programming; consideration of planning an “unconference” for RUSA.
Genealogy Preconference Planning
An audience of about eighty librarians and archivists filled the conference room at the Free Library of Philadelphia for the RUSA History/Genealogy section ALA Midwinter preconference event. Sponsor ProQuest provided refreshments and a delightful lunch. Fourteen top ranking speakers addressed popular topics including free genealogical online resources, future and current directions for NARA, producing genealogical webinars, Quaker sources, and government documents. Guest speaker Curt Witcher, Allen County Library Senior Manager for Special Collections addressed “Making the Financial Case for Genealogical Librarianship.” His dynamic presentation was taped and will be made available later this year. We look forward to another cutting edge event at Las Vegas on Friday, June 27.
Melinde Lutz Byrne, Chair
History Librarians Discussion Group
The RUSA History Librarians Discussion Group met on Jan. 26, 2014 from 1:00-2:30 PM. We had an excellent panel presentation on the roles of humanities librarians in Digital Humanities! The three speakers for the event were Sarah How, the European Studies Librarian from Cornell University Library; Nick Okrent, History Librarian, University of Pennsylvania Libraries; and Virginia Cole, the History and Medieval Studies Librarian from Cornell University Library. They discussed their participation in digital humanities related initiatives on their campuses. The presentation was followed by a very lively discussion. We had more than sixty attendees who participated and it was a successful event! The PowerPoint presentation from Sarah How and Nick Okrent can be accessed on ALA Connect. We welcome comments or feedback about the discussion. Please e-mail them to cvaidyan@jhu.edu
Interested in updates from the History Section and keeping with news that is of interest to History Section members? Please follow us on Facebook and Twitter and sign up for the history-l listserv!
Hot Topics in Electronic Reference Discussion Group
The RUSA MARS Hot Topics in Emerging Technologies Discussion Group held a roundtable discussion on Sunday, January 26, 1:00-2:30 pm. Approximately thirty-five people came for the discussion. The discussion centered on technology challenges and solutions, training staff and new technology initiatives and projects. A few of the resources shared include:
The RSS Board recently approved a name change to the Discovery Services Committee with this revised charge:
The RSS Discovery Services Committee focuses on the use of catalogs and other discovery tools in reference service, including such aspects as communicating, evaluating, improving, studying, and teaching the use of such tools; monitors and communicates significant continuities and changes in the use of such tools; identifies and examines critical issues and problems in the use of such tools; provides opportunities for librarians to propose and discuss innovative solutions to discovery problems; joins with librarians in other specialties to produce improvements in library service.
The Committee will hold a discussion forum at the ALA Annual Conference in Las Vegas on Sunday, June 29 from 3:00-4:00 PM, opening with a few brief presentations as discussion starters.
Colleen Seale, Chair 2013-2014
Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need
The Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need committee conducted an online meeting on January 21 to check in on progress members have made with various tasks. One of those tasks is a survey to find areas of need within our community and the resources related to communication and teaching strategies. The survey questions were reviewed and finalized and we determined the venues we plan to send the survey out to initially. We also discussed the length of time the survey should remain open. We are currently working on getting the questions transferred and formatted into the survey software so that we can send it out soon. The results from the survey will be used plan programs, forums for discussions, and professional development opportunities.
Julie Housknecht and Holly Wilson, Co-chairs 2013-2014
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee sponsored two exciting forums at Midwinter. A standing room only crowd of roughly 140 people attended “Skype? FaceTime? Why Has Face-to-Face Not Been the New Wave in Digital Reference?,†which was facilitated by Benjamin Andrus, Binghamton University. The focus of the discussion was on how camera-to-camera reference has been implemented at different institutions. Most use Skype, but other platforms and course management systems were also discussed. The conversation then moved to emerging trends in digital reference and how emerging technology will shape the future of the reference interview. The take home lesson for the group was that all institutions are different and that a one size fits all solution for video based reference service has yet to be found. Many of attendees agreed that there is great value in offering these services, but they are underutilized by patrons. The hope is that as the next generation of library users come of age, they will not be hesitant to use services like Skype or FaceTime that they have grown up using.
Our second forum, “Patron-Centered Reference Librarianship: Using Patrons’ Interests to Motivate Information Literacy Learning,†was facilitated by Kevin Michael Klipfel, California State University, Chico, and it drew over seventy-five attendees. After discussing what is involved in student-centered teaching and agreeing that teachers are more Socratic facilitators than experts telling students what to think, focus shifted to how this would transfer to the reference desk. Attendees discussed the successes and difficulties that may be encountered when one tries to engage in patron-centered reference by tying students’ interests to their schoolwork. They also discussed how the traditional reference interview is not often patron-centric. Strategies for connecting with patrons as people and providing patron-centered reference in the virtual realm were also discussed.
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee did not meet at the Midwinter Meeting. The committee’s meeting for Midwinter was conducted via email in September when the winning forum proposals for the meeting were chosen.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2013-2014
Education and Professional Development for Reference
Education and Professional Development for Reference co-sponsored events, a webinar with CODES Reference Publishing Advisory Committee and the in-person workshop before Midwinter Meeting with MARS Professional Development. The committee is currently engaged in gathering information on assessing the state of reference education. We hope to share our preliminary finding of phase one and two of the study by ALA Annual. Stay tuned for more information. If you are interested in helping us with this study, please contact the committee chair.
Joseph Yue, Chair 2013-2014
Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee
A group made up of members of ERUS and the Virtual Reference Services Committee created a survey to assess the state of the profession in the provision of virtual reference services, and will be moving into the analysis stage. At the end of January 2014, ERUS sent out a survey looking at reference service models and evaluation of service. At the close of the survey, we received a very large number of responses. Analysis of the results, as well as decisions on the best way to disseminate the findings will begin in the next few months. The committee is considering proposing a discussion forum for Midwinter 2015 on the same topic, with the hope that the survey results can be incorporated.
Jason Kruse, Chair, 2013-2014
Library Service to an Aging Population
The committee met virtually in January. Committee member Janet O’Keefe represented us for the annual Martin Luther King, Jr. celebration at ALA Midwinter.
Continuing our work on the Guidelines for Library Services to Older Adults, we have begun drafting new standards for programming, outreach, and technology. We generally use the phrase “midlife and older adults†to recognize the spectrum of ages and life-stages represented by adults over fifty years of age. We are finalizing speakers and format for our ALA presentation in Las Vegas.
We are an active and enthusiastic group, with participation from librarians from across the country. Please consider joining us!
Abigail Elder, Chair 2013-2014
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference
We met in person at Midwinter and finalized plans for our discussion forum proposal. The discussion forum will begin with a presentation by two librarians who are using a sales framework that helps them ask questions of their patrons and show how the library can help meet their needs. We’re exploring options for hosting a follow up open meeting for discussion forum attendees to discuss whether they have been able to use the framework in their daily work.
We’ve also been in touch with the Just Ask committee to see if there are areas where we could collaborate. We expect more discussion on this in the coming year.
Jessica Hagman, Chair 2013-2014
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The Subcommittee continues to work on the Virtual Reference Companion (VRC) with the goal of completion by ALA Annual 2014. The group meets monthly (including our recent Virtual Midwinter Meeting on January 31st) and works in subgroups between meetings.
To date, five modules have been completed and we are in the finishing stages of the Assessment and Professional Development modules. Once complete with those, we will begin the final two modules: Staffing/Partners and Information Literacy.
One section of the VRC has Tips & Best Practices and we continue to seek input from RSS members. If anyone has words of wisdom to share on any topics related to virtual reference, please send them to Jared Hoppenfeld at jhoppenf@tamu.edu or Christine Tobias at tobiasc@msu.edu.
Stay tuned to hear about a possible forum where you can hear more about this resource at ALA Annual in Las Vegas.
Jared Hoppenfeld, Chair 2012-2014
Christine Tobias, Chair 2013-2014
Young Adult Reference Services Committee
Young Adult Reference Services Committee (YARS) held a face-to-face committee meeting during Midwinter to finalize its discussion forum that was taking place later that afternoon on how adolescent brain development affects teen information seeking behaviors. The results of that discussion forum will be publicized in the upcoming issue of Young Adult Library Services (YALS). During the meeting, the committee decided that during 2014 ALA Annual, the committee will host a discussion forum on Homework Help in libraries, a controversial topic. Information will gathered on best practices in order to make a recommendation as to what level libraries should expect to offer in-house homework help to their students.
YARS will be meeting in-person at Annual during the RSS All-Committee Meeting.
Allyson Evans, Chair 2013-2014
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), editor.
RUSA STARS Membership Committee has been busy working on the STARS 10th Anniversary Celebration with the extended planning committee. We’ve been exploring venues, themes, time lines, etc.—all based on the feedback we received from our members! Make a note to attend our special 10th Anniversary Social in Las Vegas! Membership also recently revised the Five Things to ensure updated links and resources. We also welcomed Naomi Chow as the newest STARGazer: http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/stars!
Micquel Little, Chair
Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award Committee
The Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award committee has finished accepting nominations and is in the process of vetting candidates. We look forward to announcing the 2014 winner in the near future. Look for the news in an upcoming STARS section newsletter.
Megan Gaffney, Chair
STARS Education and Training Committee
On Friday January 24, 2014, the RUSA STARS Education and Training Committee held its seventh annual free “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about ILL” workshop at Drexel University’s Library Learning Terrace. Fifty-six attendees learned about the basics of interlibrary loan including borrowing, lending, copyright, assessment, and statistics from speakers Megan Gaffney, Karen Janke, Cindy Kristof, and Collette Mak. Atlas Systems, OCLC, and Drexel Libraries generously sponsored the event.
At Midwinter we met to discuss expanding the STAR Checklist and we will have a new and improved version ready soon!
Beth Posner, Chair
Atlas Systems-Mentoring Award Committee
The Atlas Systems-Mentoring Award committee has selected one nomination for this award and is waiting on final approval from the STARS Executive Board. We received seventeen applicants and the committee took a lot of time reviewing and discussing to finally select a winner.
Hopefully we will have a name to share in the very near future!
Amy Paulus, Chair
CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee
The CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee is busy at work, updating ILL Code documents. We’ll announce when updates are completed in a future STARS section newsletter.
Ryan Litsey, Chair
STARS Research and Assessment Committee
The STARS Research and Assessment Committee met at the ALA Midwinter and discussed the following:
We created procedures for survey assessments of workshops for RUSA STARS and are sent them to the Executive Committee for approval.
We have analyzed the feedback surveys from three programs, two from Annual 2013 and one from an online workshop. These will be going to be placed on ALA Connect and the chairs of the committees will be notified.
We will be doing the same for the Discussion Group and Hot Topics groups at Midwinter 2014.
We are also working on a proposal for a program at Annual 2015. We will be proposing a lightning round session of practical examples of assessment tools and outcomes including effects on collection development and marketing. Our working title is ILL Data-Storm: practical assessment.
Bethany B. Sewell, Chair
Vendor Relations Committee
The Vendor Relations Committee is planning its next meeting for ALA Annual in Las Vegas. We look forward to setting goals for increasing vendor communication with STARS members and welcome recommendations from all STARS members. Please feel free to contact Alison DePollo, at depollo@mail.etsu.edu with ideas or feedback.
