Carol Schuetz, Editor
Just Ask Task Force
The Just Ask Task Force has been planning two upcoming free webinars. “Managing Changes to Reference Services†featuring Gail Griffith was held on December 4. The webinar was full, so for those not able to attend, a recording will be available. The second webinar titled, “Got a minute?: How to Prepare Your Parking Lot Speech,†time and date to be determined later.
Elizabeth Stephan
Diana Shonrock
co-chairs
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee is busy planning its forum at 2014 ALA Annual. Several submissions have been received for potential speakers and a subcommittee is busy evaluating a lot of interesting and innovative proposals. If you think you would like to submit an idea and be part of the three to four speakers, please do so!
The committee is also gathering responses to Celia Ross’s call for all BRASS committees to respond to a series of self-evaluation questions on how each committee fulfills the BRASS mission statement. The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee contributes significantly to academic business education outreach and leadership and we’re looking forward to sharing our insights with Celia.
This committee is planning to hold a virtual meeting during ALA midwinter.
Charles Allan, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The committee has added a report to the Public Libraries briefcase. The report is Google Drive or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Online Forms by Sal DiVincenzo. This report can be found by going to the BRASS website and clicking on the MORE link by the Public Libraries Briefcase. The committee also discussed topics for ALA Annual in San Francisco in 2015. The committee has liaised with the RSS/Job and Career Services committee on resources for specialized entrance and certification exams.
Ed Rossman, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Program Planning Committee
Mark your calendars for …..BRASS 2014 ALA Annual Program
Monday, June 30, 2014, 8:0010:00 AM
Mad Men: The Business of Advertising
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).
The other speaker will focus on an advertising campaign, or advertising expenditures by a large “ad spender.â€
Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee is off to a good start, with several business reference titles nominated so far, but we could always use some more. Please let Jordan Nielsen or Mark Siciliano know if you run across any new good business reference titles, as they are coordinating the Business Reference nominations process for the committee. We are also starting to work on putting together the Publisher’s Forum for ALA next summer. If there are topics or vendors you’d like to see us present, please contact the Janis Tyhurst or Penny Scott, the Publisher’s Forum coordinators for this year. We are also wrapping up our section review and will turn in our self-study responses to the Section review Committee by the end of Sept.
Susan Hurst, 2012-2014 Chair
BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion group hosted an online discussion in August and had a truncated discussion in October due to technical difficulties.
The August discussion was an open forum, the free flowing conversation focused on collection development and smaller institutions as well as trends in business reference. The meeting concluded with an update of the BRASS reaction to the Harvard Business Review’s new access policies. Emily Treptow, Michigan State University, and Jason Dewland, University of Arizona, served as moderators, thirty individuals participated.
The second online discussion was organized by Stephanie Tulley, UC Santa Barbara, and Jason Dewland and was to feature a business librarian from the Boston Public Library. Due to technical difficulties in Boston, that portion of the discussion had to be cancelled. A brief overview of working with entrepreneurs at academic institutions and a review of the data management tool DataZoa concluded the meeting. Approximately twenty-five people were present.
Jason Dewland will reach out to the creators of DataZoa to have them sponsor an online webinar about their product (unaffiliated with BRASS). Watch for more on this event via the BRASS-L listserv.
Jason Dewland, 2012-2014 Chair
BRASS Education Committee
Lots of exciting events are happening in the BRASS Education Committee:
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2014 Chair
University of Texas at San Antonio
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
http://brass.libguides.com/
BRASS Membership Committee
Did you see BRASS’ own Chris LeBeau lead the week long IAmRUSA interview session with members? This forum led by RUSA gives ALA members the opportunity to ask RUSA members about their professional careers, their passions, and anything else involving librarianship. Chris had a video interview and answered questions about business librarianship. If you did not see her posts the last week in October, go to ALA Connectto read more about Ms. LeBeau!
A mini-reminder since BRASS just does not have enough friends. Become a “friend†of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. You can LIKE US at Facebook.
If you did not get to attend the 25th Anniversary Celebration, you can see all the smiling BRASS members and dignitaries who attended here.
Kelly Janousek, 2012-2014 Chair
BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The Committee has been communicating with the award vendors and RUSA to get the awards lined up for the New Year. The Committee has also been actively working on the Harvard Business Review issue, and we have received approval for the S&P Breakfast for our Annual Program.
Chris LeBeau, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The Publications and Communications Committee has been in a bit of transition this year.
Chad Boeninger, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee
As the chair of the BRASS Section Review Ad Hoc Committee, I would like to remind everyone (especially committee chairs), of the due date on the BRASS Section Review. The final report is due to RUSA on Feb. 15, 2014. The committee’s desire is to get a finished review to the BRASS Executive Committee by Midwinter meeting. If you have not been contacted already with your committee’s participation request please contact Paul Brothers, committee chair, ASAP. Brothers can be reached at pbrother@bruno.cba.ua.edu or by phone at 205-348-1097.
Paul Brother, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarianship Award is now seeking nominations. The award is $1,250 in travel funds for the 2014 ALA Annual Conference to a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the conference. Find more details on the BRASS website. BRASS members who are public librarians are encouraged to nominate themselves!
Karen Chapman, 2013-2015 Chair
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
This award honors an individual who has made significant contributions in the field business librarianship. The recipient will receive a $3,000 cash award and a citation. Applicants for this award will be evaluated based on their contribution to the field of business librarianship. To submit a nomination, please download and complete the nomination form, and follow the submission instructions therein. The deadline for submissions is December 15. For more information, as well as link to the nomination form, please see the RUSA site. A copy of the nomination form (PDF) can be downloaded here.
Mark Andersen, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Sponsored byGale Cengage Learning, this $1,000 monetary prize is given to a student enrolled in anALA 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. Applicants may download the form here: nomination form (PDF format). Deadline for all nominations is January 31, 2014.
Matthew Brower, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
This award presents a citation and $1,250 to an individual new to the field of academic business librarianship in order to support attendance to the ALA Annual Conference. To nominate a deserving candidate, download and complete the nomination form, and follow the submission instructions therein. The deadline for nominations is December 15.
Kaiping Zhang, 2013-2014 Chair
BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
The Emerald Research Grant Award, sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing Limited offers one award of $2,500 and a citation to an individual or team seeking support to conduct research in business librarianship. Interested candidates should 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. The deadline for submissions is December 15.
Elizabeth Stephan, 2013-2014 Chair
Catalog Use Committee
The RSS Catalog Use Committee is applying to the Board to change the Committee’s name and to revise its charge. We will not be meeting at Midwinter but will be meeting virtually and will plan a discussion forum for the 2014 Annual Conference in Las Vegas.
Colleen Seale, 2013-2014 Chair
Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need
The Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need committee met on October 23 to review its goals and direction for the future. We decided to continue with our plan to survey relevant communities with the objective of using the data gathered to build a portfolio of best practices and created a timeline for completion. The committee will review the survey at our Midwinter meeting in January and administer it in February 2014.
Julie Housknecht and Holly Wilson, 2013-2014 Co-chairs
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
SKYPE? Face Time? Why Has Face-to-Face Not Been the New Wave in Digital Reference?
Saturday, January 25, 1:00-2:30 PM
Face-to-face communication utilizing mobile devices has become increasingly popular thanks to front-facing cell phone cameras and other technologies, yet literature written about offering video reference services concludes that such services are not heavily utilized. Join with colleagues to share your own experiences with video chat reference, ideas for marketing the services, and whether or not you believe what the literature concludes is true. Facilitator: Benjamin Andrus, Binghamton University
Patron-Centered Reference Librarianship: Using Patrons’ Interests to Motivate Information Literacy Learning
Sunday, January 26, 8:30-10:00 AM, Pennsylvania Convention Center-115 C
Although it is widely acknowledged that library education should be patron-centered, serious discussions of patron-centered reference librarianship are virtually non-existent. Now is your chance to be part of just such a discussion. Gather with colleagues to share best practices and strategies for engaging users in patron-centered learning at the reference desk. What does patron-centered learning mean to you? What strategies do you use to connect with users at the reference desk? How can we motivate authentic learning within the context of reference? Learn from others and share your own strategies for connecting with users as unique individuals, not just information problems to be solved. Facilitator: Kevin Michael Klipfel, California State University, Chico
Crystal Lentz, 2013-2014 Chair
Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee
A team made up of members from Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee (ERUS) and Virtual Reference Services (VR) Committee, created a survey to assess the state of the profession in the provision of virtual reference services. The survey was sent out in September, and the analysis of results will begin soon. ERUS is also finalizing the questions for a survey looking at reference service models and evaluation of service. The survey will hopefully be ready to send out to listservs by the end of this year. ERUS will be meeting virtually after the Midwinter Conference.
Jason Kruse, 2013-2014 Chair
Health and Medical Reference Committee
The committee will host a discussion group during the ALA Midwinter Meeting called “Your Experiences with the Affordable Care Act.” The program will take place Monday, January 27 from 8:30-10:00 AM in the Pennsylvania Convention Center in room 105A. Affordable Care Act Open Enrollment goes through March 31, 2014. Come to this forum to discuss your library’s experiences: what has worked, what hasn’t worked, complaints, successes, surprises (both good and bad), and any other things about this process. A subgroup to rewrite guidelines for medical reference has met monthly to prepare a draft of the Guidelines. The committee will meet at ALA Midwinter to discuss the guidelines and other committee business on Sunday January 26 from 3:00-4:00 PM.
Karen Vargas, 2012-2014 Chair
Job and Career Reference Committee
Webinar
The RSS Job & Career Committee held it’s first free webinar on Thursday, November 21: “Partnerships in Career Services @ Your Library: A Case Study at St. Paul Public Libraryâ€,
Description: Join the ALA RSS Job & Career Reference Committee for a presentation and discussion on the work of St. Paul Public Library surrounding their Mobile WORKplace, community partnerships, and other initiatives to assist their patrons with digital literacy and employment after a strategic planning process.
New Listserv
We are also launching a subject-specific reference listserv: http://lists.ala.org/sympa/info/rssjcr-l
RSS Job and Career Reference Listserv. This is a subject-specific listserv that addresses Job and Career reference/public service delivery within a library setting (public, academic, corporate or special). Appropriate content includes relevant workshop offerings, reference questions & resource reviews. No vendor surveys.
We invite anyone with interest in the topic to join the listserv by sending an email to sympa@ala.org with SUBSCRIBE rssjcr-l firstname lastname in the subject of the message and leave the rest of the email blank.
For any questions or concerns please contact Kate Oberg.
Midwinter Discussion
RSS Job & Career Reference will be meeting virtually during Midwinter although they have an in-person discussion also planned entitled “Partnerships and Job & Career Reference: RSS Job & Career Reference Committee Discussion Forum.â€
Description: There are many organizations involved in assisting job-seekers. How do libraries interact with community partners when offering library services to job seekers? Join the RSS Job & Career Reference Committee for a discussion and sharing of programs, strategies & techniques.
It is tentatively scheduled for: Saturday, January 25 3:00-4:00 pm
Nominations Requested
The Committee is also accepting nominations from ALA members for speakers on job and career reference. If you know a library system or librarian who has accomplished a great deal in job & career reference, that has strong presentation skills, and an interest in sharing with the wider library community, please email us. Send all nominations to committee chair, Kate Oberg.
Kate Oberg, 2013-2014 Chair
Library Service to an Aging Population
The RSS Library Services to an Aging Population continues to work on overhauling the Guidelines for Library Services to Older Adults, for which we are responsible. Right now, we are working on the reference and programming sections, with the goal of having a draft ready for our virtual meeting on January 16.
Abigail Elder, 2013-2014 Chair
Library Services to the Spanish Speaking
The RSS Library Services to the Spanish Speaking Committee, is trying to get the Board to approve a revision to our Committee’s charge so that our focus can be changed to immigrants, not just the Spanish speaking. The proposed revision of the charge reads: “To improve library services to immigrants of all ages, races, and ethnic backgrounds at the local and national levels.†We are a very small group at present and would really welcome more participation.
For more information about the committee please contact: DLL-2@hotmail.com
Dana M. Lucisano, 2013-2014 Chair
Marketing & Public Relations for Reference
The Marketing and Public Relations Committee met virtually in early October. We are exploring ways that libraries can work to promote the work of librarians in promotion for libraries overall. We will continue our discussion when we meet at Midwinter and are investigating possibilities for hosting a discussion forum at Annual. If you’ve seen any great examples of campaigns promoting the work of librarians or library staff, we’d love to see them. Please send to Jessica Hagman.
Jessica Hagman, 2013-2014 Chair
Recognition Committee
The Recognition Committee is soliciting nominations for the RSS Service Achievement Award.
This annual award is presented 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.
Anyone who wishes to nominate a Reference Services Section member for the award should do so by December 15. Please send a nomination letter to the award committee chair (Emilie Smart) detailing how the nominee has met either of the above criteria Questions regarding the award or nomination process should be directed to the committee chair.
Emilie Smart, 2013-2014 Chair
Research and Statistics Committee
The Research and Statistics Committee of the Reference Services Section of RUSA invites the submission of research projects for presentation at the 20th Reference Research Forum at the 2014 American Library Association Annual Conference in Las Vegas.
The Reference Research Forum continues to be one of the most popular and valuable programs during the ALA Annual Conference, where attendees can learn about notable research projects conducted in the broad area of reference services such as user behavior, electronic services, reference effectiveness and assessment, and organizational structure and personnel. All researchers, including reference practitioners from all types of libraries, library school faculty and students, and other interested individuals, are encouraged to submit a proposal.
For examples of projects presented at past Forums, please see the Committee’s website.
The Committee employs a blind review process to select three projects for 20-minute presentations, followed by open discussion. Selected submissions must be presented in person at the Forum in Las Vegas, NV.
Criteria for selection:
Proposals are due by Monday, December 30, 2013. Notification of acceptance will be made by Monday, February 10, 2014.
The submission must not exceed two pages. Please include:
Please send submissions by email to:
Ava Iuliano, Chair, RUSA RSS Research and Statistics Committee, aiuliano@fiu.edu
Ava Iuliano, 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 Subcommittee meets monthly and works in subgroups between meetings.
The Skills module was completed at the end of August and resources were added to the Resources section of the VRC. The remaining four modules to complete are Assessment, Professional Development, Staffing/Partners, and Information Literacy. The Subcommittee has divided into two subgroups to complete work on the Assessment and Professional Development modules by ALA Midwinter 2014.
The VRC is now live at http://www.ala.org/rusa/vrc. It is also linked on the RSS Virtual Reference Committee page under the Hot Links section and on the RUSA Resources page under Professional Tools. We have requested to have it linked in the Web Resources section of the ALA Library Fact Sheet 19: Virtual Reference: A Selected Annotated Bibliography. The old resource is still available at http://cs.ala.org/ra/vr_adventure/vr_adventure_index.htm.
One section of the VRC has Tips & Best Practices and we seek input from RSS members. If anyone has words of wisdom to share on any of these or other topics related to virtual reference, please send them to Jared Hoppenfeld or Christine Tobias.
Jared Hoppenfeld, 2012-2014 Chair
Christine Tobias, 2013-2014 Chair
Young Adult Reference Services Committee
Young Adult Reference Services Committee (YARS) has gone through a busy year of transition. At the ALA Annual in Chicago this summer, the YALSA Board voted to conditionally make YARS a joint committee between YALSA and RUSA RSS, so long as its charge was rewritten to reflect its new joint committee status and approved by both divisions. Not only is the committee rewriting its charge, it is also overhauling RUSA’s Guidelines for Library Services to Teens to better align with YALSA’s Research Agenda. The committee will be holding an in-person meeting at Midwinter on Sunday, January 26 at 8:30 AM, at the Philadelphia Marriott Downtown in Room 402. Following the meeting, YARS will host the discussion forum “The Teen Brain Construction Site: How the Adolescent Work-in-Progress Mind Shapes Information Seeking Behaviors†from 10:30-11:30 on Sunday January 26 at Midwinter; Pennsylvania Convention Center Room 204 C.
Allyson Evans, 2013-2014 Chair
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.
Kerry Keegan, Editor
STARS Membership Committee
STARS Membership has just posted a new STARGazer! Naomi Chow’s interview can be found on the STARS page. The 5 Things webpage has been revised and updated for this upcoming year and we’re working hard to communicate with committees in an outreach effort through our monthly updates to new and current members.
We’ve also been working with additional members who volunteered for the 10th Anniversary Social Planning Committee to organize a celebratory social in Las Vegas! Lars Leon, Heather Weltin, Megan Gaffney, Shirley Thomas, Denise Forro, Beth Clausen, Deidre Clarkin, and myself are busy busy brainstorming ideas, options etc. We recently sent out a survey to the STARS Members asking for feedback on what folks would like to see. Five quick questions taking less than forty-eight seconds can be found here.
Micquel Little, Chair
STARS Legislation and Licensing Committee
The Licensing and Legislation Committee, would like to make sure that everyone is aware that the copyright infringement lawsuit filed by the Authors Guild against Google was dismissed. It’s a big victory for Google. For those who would like to read more about the case, please see the article “Google Books: Court Dismisses Authors’ Lawsuit†from the November 13, 2013 issue of the Wall Street Journal.
The Committee will be meeting remotely in December and at ALA Midwinter.
Shannon O’Grady, Chair
STARS Education and Training Committee
The STARS Education and Training Committee is currently distributing a survey to ILL practitioners asking for their feedback and thoughts on the ShareILL wiki. We are also organizing our free 2014 ALA Midwinter workshop “Everything you always wanted to know about ILL.” The workshop will be held on January 14 at the Library Learning Terrace at Drexel University in Philadelphia. Registration is limited to sixty-five.
Additionally, we are working with the Research & Assessment Committee, headed by Charla Gilbert, on analyzing the survey results for our ILL and genealogy webinar presented last month by Amber Case and Cherie Wieble. We are trying to establish a partnership with the RUSA Genealogy Committee, headed by Michael Hall, for our 2014 ALA Annual presentation also on ILL and genealogy.
Karen Okamoto, Chair
STARS Research and Assessment Committee
The Research and Assessment Committee is working with the Training and Education Committee to input surveys for webinars and upcoming sessions at Midwinter. We are also evaluating said surveys and looking for trends within the surveys. Because we received a new mission this past summer, we are continuing to redefine our purpose and work on policies and processes for the work to be completed.
Becky Ringwelski, Chair
Boucher Award Committee
The Virginia Boucher-OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award committee welcomes nominations in recognition of outstanding professional achievement, leadership, and contributions to interlibrary loan and document delivery. For full award criteria and nomination instructions, visit the awards page. The nomination deadline is December 15.
Megan Gaffney, Chair
STARS-Atlas Systems Mentoring Award Committee
The STARS-Atlas Systems Mentoring Award committee has been promoting this award via various listservs. Deadline for nominations is December 15. Additional promotions are planned. To date, the committee has received one official nomination and several inquiries about eligibility.
Amy R. Paulus, Chair
Just Ask
Just Ask met at ALA Annual to review what had been done since Midwinter in Seattle. The Ask Campaign has been piloted by Cathay Crosby and Julie Strange as a way to promote Maryland’s JustAskNow service. The Ask Campaign is a series of posters with library users holding a question asked at the library, similar to the READ posters. We hope that this project will lead to a national campaign. You can read more about Crosby and Strange’s pilot on ALA Connect and on the JustAskNow page. We are also planning at least one free webinar that will be focused on change and how it can specifically be applied to reference services.
Elizabeth Stephan, Co-Chair
Diana Shonrock, Co-Chair
BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee
The BRASS 25th Anniversary Dinner was held at Fulton’s-on-the-River in Chicago on Monday, July 1, 2013 with 150 BRASS members attending. Many thanks to the event grand sponsor, Gale Cengage Learning, and to the other sponsors: S&P Capital IQ, ReportLinker, Morningstar, Annual Reviews, EBSCO, Mintel, PrivCo, SimplyMap, Mergent, and Emerald. The event committee chair would also like to thank the planning committee members for their tremendous work putting this event together (Mark Andersen, Bobray Bordelon, Irwin Faye, Michael Oppenheim, and Celia Ross)! Thank you everyone for a great evening!
Louise Feldmann, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee met on Saturday, June 29 at McCormick Place. Twenty people were in attendance, ranging from new librarians to veteran business librarians. New business librarian Nicole Spoor took excellent minutes of the meeting.
After welcoming everyone and giving personal introductions, we discussed the following items: possible topics for future BRASS forums, publishing opportunities in the BRASS newsletter, an update on the status of the Core Competencies Task Force and a discussion of our committee’s duties and mission with BRASS executive representative Celia Ross.
Possible topics for future BRASS Forum discussions included local economies, entrepreneurship, business instruction, presentation of award-winning research papers and working with faculty. The purpose of the discussion was to get people thinking about emerging issues in business librarianship and to refine ideas into possible forum topics. Committee chair Charles Allan reminded everyone that the BRASS Newsletter is open to receiving new submissions on varying topics. Participants were urged to submit a brief article.
Charles Allan and several members of the joint BRASS/CUBL Core Competencies Task Force were present and informed the meeting attendees of their work and its current status. The Task Force currently has seven main points and covers material that students should know when they graduate. The competencies might be a bridge between us and AACSB standards (the relationship is too vague and we would like to fix that). The next step in the evolution of the competencies is to survey faculty, students and employers.
Celia Ross came for the last segment of the meeting to get our take on how our committee fits into the BRASS architecture. Members present cited the committee’s attention to addressing a wide variety of issues facing business librarians in universities.
Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
The Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee hosted a discussion at ALA Annual —Business Programming in Public Libraries. This spirited discussion included business programming ideas and advice from librarians around the country. The feedback for the program was excellent.
The committee met after the program and discussed the forum, state of business reference in our libraries and what’s to come. New Public Libraries Briefcases will be released by the end of the year.
Elizabeth Malafi, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Program Planning Committee
The BRASS Program, “Investment Success! Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio,†took place on July 1, 2013 at McCormick Place. Approximately 130 people turned out to hear our two speakers.
Charles Rotblut, Vice President of the American Association for Individual Investors (AAII) and editor of the AAII Journal, titled his presentation, “Smart Investing: Seeking Reward While Reducing Risk.” He emphasized that “the optimal strategy is not one that maximizes return, but rather one that helps you stick to your long-term investing plan and achieve your goals.” He discussed common cognitive errors investors make including loss aversion, overconfidence, confirmation bias, recency bias, and hindsight bias. A chart from an article in the October 2012 AAII Journal shows that the average equity mutual fund investor underperformed a simple buy and hold strategy using a Standard & Poor’s 500 index fund or ETF by more than 4% per year. The reason: individual mutual fund investors “buy high” and “sell low”, i.e., they buy funds that have already gone up in price and sell funds after they have gone down. Mr. Rotblut advises a three step process. 1) Understand the role your mind plays; 2) Use the power of the written word to your advantage by writing down your investment strategy, stating your buy and sell rules; he said that his favorite investing tool is a spiral notebook. 3) Determine your long-term allocation strategy and stick to It.
Jeremy Glaser is the Morningstar Markets Editor. His presentation was titled, “Investing Well at Every Life Stage.” He focused primarily on Pre-Retirees, people in their 50s and 60s, who are strategizing about retirement, and Retirees, people in their 60s and 70s, who are already retired. Pre-retirees should continue to save aggressively for retirement, gradually reduce risk in their portfolio, pay off debt, including “good” debt like mortgage debt if you intend to stay in your home, assess retirement readiness by looking at income needs, withdrawal rates, and portfolio sustainability, develop a Social Security and retirement date strategy, and formulate a long-term care and estate plan. Retirees (60s, 70s, and beyond) should continue to reduce risk in their investment portfolio, segment portfolio by time horizon, liquidate investments in a tax-efficient manner, and regularly revisit their withdrawal rate to make sure it is sustainable.
Audio recordings were made of both presentations. The Powerpoint slides and audio will be made available exclusively to BRASS members for the first six months. Check the BRASS website under the “Presentations” category.
  |
Morningstar distributed a free book, Investing for the Long Run: Strategies and Solutions to Help You Shape Up Your Finances. The book contains sound advice for investors of all ages. The book may be freely downloaded as a PDF: http://library.morningstar.com/mkt/investing_for_the_long_run.pdf . |
Â
Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee (BRSC) met twice online during May and June to discuss nominated titles for the Best Business References Sources. Selecting these titles is one of the major charges of the BRSC. With an abbreviated one hour meeting schedule in Chicago at ALA, the committee decided that we wanted to do this before we met in person in order to give the titles the time and consideration they deserved. The winning titles will be reviewed in the winter edition of the RUSQ and also announced at the Midwinter Book and Media Awards Reception in Philadelphia on Sunday, January 26, 2014. Many thanks to Ed Hahn, Nominating Coordinator, for his work in getting titles nominated and then leading the online meetings to determine which titles would be selected. Thanks also go to Becky Smith, Column Editor, who will be compiling the reviews of the winning titles and submitting the column to RUSQ for publication. Finally thanks to the committee as a whole for their efforts in nominating and discussing the titles and then reviewing those selected for the column.
The BRSC also sponsors the Publishers’ Forum at ALA each year. This year forum was titled, “Finding Business Information in a Googlized World: The Future of Business Research and Discovery Layers.†This was a timely topic, focusing on the impact of discovery services on locating business information and data. This is especially important since most of the discovery platforms tend to be focused on articles and do not pulling out the types of data that business researchers seek. Our speakers included Gilad Gal, Director of Product Management for Discovery and Delivery Solutions Ex Libris Ltd.; John Law, Vice President of Discovery Solutions, ProQuest/Serials Solutions; Sam Brooks, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, EBSCO Publishing; and Suzanne Kemperman, Director, Business Development & Publisher Relations, OCLC. We had approximately eighty persons in attendance and the evaluations returned after the session were quite positive. Thanks in particular go to Penny Scott who chaired the Forum sub-committee, as well as the other committee members who made it the success it was.
Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group hosted their annual discussion at the ALA annual conference in Chicago on Sunday, June 30, 2013. The discussion kicked-off with outgoing BRASS Chair Ann Fiegen hosting the annual BRASS membership meeting. After the membership meeting Kelly Janousek led a short discussion about what online conference software members were using and what were the strengths and weaknesses. This was followed by a call to follow and use the #bizref for BRASS related tweets.
The two scheduled areas for discussion were: 1) increasing significance of commercialization on campuses; 2) tools for finding information about online businesses. The commercialization efforts have been occurring primarily on large research campuses and smaller institutions haven’t been affected by this trend. Among the larger institutions there has been limited cooperation between the commercialization groups and libraries. While there has been limited cooperation between libraries and the campus commercialization groups, the majority of the interactions that libraries have in the process has occurred early on with the researchers.
The conversation about online business research focused on different tools that are available for free and on a subscription basis. A list of resources is being compiled in a Google Doc.
In June, there was the first open online discussion forum hosted by the discussion group and facilitated by Kelly Janousek and Jason Dewland. The first half of the discussion focused on how libraries are working with entrepreneurs. The second part of the discussion was about big data and the different areas librarians and researchers are finding it and tools to manage it. The final 10 minutes was a review of the changes made by Harvard Business Review. A recording of the discussion can be found here.
In the fall, the BRASS discussion group will host additional two to four online discussions. Dates, times, and topics are to be determined.
Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee is happy to report that the 2013 BRASS Preconference, “Business Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship†was a success. Forty-five librarians from academic, public, and special libraries across the nation attended this preconference at the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago on June 28, 2013. Chris LeBeau from the University of Missouri-Kansas-City and Rhonda Kleiman from the Library System of Lancaster County discussed core resources for business reference; Leticia Camacho from Brigham Young University covered selecting and evaluating business resources; and Jared Howland, also from Brigham Young University, addressed licensing of business electronic resources. On behalf of the organizers, I’d like to thank our presenters for volunteering countless hours and keeping the audience engaged. Next year’s preconference will be on supporting entrepreneurs.
On Saturday, June 29th, we held our annual Education Committee meeting for the first time in the new 4:30-5:30 PM slot. We said goodbye to John Juricek from University of Southern California and Mary Martin from Claremont Colleges whose term ended, as well as Chad Boeninger who left to chair the BRASS Publications Committee. Thank you all for your service! We were also excited to welcome incoming members who were able to attend our meeting: Tom Ottaviano from Cornell, Christina Sheley from Indiana University, and Hiromi Kubo from California State University, Fresno.
The BRASS Education Committee worked hard on recruiting presenters for the RUSA webinars. Thanks to Peter McKay, Jennifer Boettcher will be offering a free online webinar on industry research this fall. If you missed last year’s preconference, “MBA (Mastering Business Acumen) in a Day,†Elisabeth Leonard will be presenting a webinar on Management, Chris LeBeau on Finance, Todd Hines on Accounting, and Andy Spackman on Marketing. Keep an eye out for announcements!
We are looking forward to a busy year ahead of us. One of the major projects we’ll be working on is creating a new set of BRASS LibGuides which combines both the Best of the Best Business Websites and Selected Core Resources. Another important project is fleshing out Business Reference Essentials LibGuide which will serve as a start-up guide for a new business librarian and refresher for the rest of us.
photo caption: Chris LeBeau is discussing core business resources
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
University of Texas at San Antonio
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
BRASS Membership Committee
Don’t you LIKE us? Please become a “friend†of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. Committee chairs this is your opportunity to publicize your events and previews of your speakers. You can LIKE US Facebook.
Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee had a very successful year. Close to $30,000 was raised for the BRASS 25th Anniversary event. The Committee also received approval at Annual to explore the possibility of developing a “Virtual Expo” site which would serve as a clearinghouse of sorts for BRASS members to explore various business database vendors. Thanks go to committee members Paul Brothers and Lydia LaFaro for all of their great work and welcome to Chris LeBeau who will be serving as the new Chair!
Celia Ross, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS Publications and Communications Committee met at ALA Annual, discussing several projects for the coming year. First, a representative from the BRASS Section Review Committee covered some of the basic questions and procedures the committee will undertake this year in the committee review process. We then heard reports from several of our members on their specific areas of responsibility. We spent considerable time discussing a variety of plans and possibilities for a revision and restructuring of the BRASS Web site. We hope to contact representatives of a number of BRASS committees to obtain input and suggestions for these revisions. We also decided, due to positive reaction, to continue producing the BRASS Events Schedule to help our members keep up with BRASS-related activities at ALA Annual. Finally, we met incoming chair of BRASS Andy Spackman, and incoming chair of the Publications and Communications Committee Chad Boeninger, and we look forward to working with both of them this year.
John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Section Review Committee
This is the year for the review/evaluation of the committees that comprise the BRASS section of RUSA. If you are a committee chair, you should soon be contacted by a BRASS member asking permission to be included on the agenda of your committee’s meeting at the ALA annual conference in June. More information to follow soon. Thank you in advance.
Paul Brothers, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
Salvatore DiVincenzo was recognized at this year’s RUSA Awards reception as the recipient of the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award. DiVincenzo is the business librarian at Middle Country Public Library in Long Island, New York. The award, sponsored by Morningstar, offers $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference to a business librarian from a public library.
Congratulations, Salvatore!
Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
Michael R. Oppenheim was recognized at the RUSA Awards ceremony during the ALA Annual conference in Chicago as the 2013 recipient of the Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship. This award ($3,000 and a citation) is for his outstanding contributions to the field of business librarianship. Quoting from the citation: “Through publication, service in professional organizations, mentoring, and sharing of subject expertise, Michael has contributed significantly to the professional growth of colleagues throughout their careersâ€.
Michael R. Oppenheim is the business librarian’s librarian—as an author, officer, mentor, and expert.
Congratulations, Michael!
We thank Gale Cengage Learning for the generous support of this award.
The committee members: Mark Andersen; Karen J. Chapman; Patricia E. Kenly
Patricia Kenly, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Kelly LaVoice, graduate student of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University and current business librarian intern at the University of Pennsylvania’s Lippincott Business Library, was recognized at the RUSA Award reception as the 2013 BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award recipient. The award, sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning and the BRASS, offers $1,000 and a one year membership to BRASS to an outstanding MLIS student to fund travel to the ALA Annual Conference.
Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
Annette Buckley, Business Research Librarian at UC-Irvine and this year’s recipient of the Business Expert Press Award, was recognized at the RUSA Awards reception at ALA Annual. The award, sponsored by Business Expert Press, is given to a librarian who is new to the field of academic business librarianship, in order to support his or her attendance to the ALA Annual Conference. Congratulations to Annette who also serves as our BRASS Webmaster—A BIG THANK you from your BRASS colleagues!
Paul Brothers, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
Jennifer Boettcher, Business and Economics Reference Librarian at Georgetown University Library, was the recipient of this year’s Emerald Research Award and was recognized at the RUSA Awards reception. The award is sponsored by Emerald Group Publishing and is for for ALA members seeking support in conducting research in business librarianship. Jennifer’s research interests are in government sources and industry research.
Congratulations, Jennifer!
Christy Goodnight, 2012-2013 chair
Mark your calendars for …..BRASS 2014 PROGRAM
Mad Men: The Business of Advertising, Monday, June 30, 2014; 8:30-10:00 AM
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.
Speakers: Wendy Diamond, Business and Economics Librarian at 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).
The other speaker will be either from an advertising agency in Las Vegas—about what their clients (ad buyers) need, or a professor from UNLV’s William F. Harrah College of Hotel Administration.
Patricia Kenly, 2013-2014 Chair
Cathy Larson, Editor
Join the discussion at http://lists.ala.org/wws/info/mars-l
RUSA MARS Best Free Web sites
While the MARS Best Free Reference Web sites did not meet at annual, they did work on the following:
MARS Best Free Reference Website Committee
View the 2013 winners: http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/mars/marspubs/marsbestfreewebsites/marsbestref2013
And the combined list has also been updated: http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/mars/marspubs/marsbestindex
Donna Scanlon
dscanlon@loc.gov
MARS Conference Program Planning Committee
After the award presentation, the committee hosted / facilitated a program titled, “Usability, the User Experience & Interface Design: The Role of Reference.” Each presenter discussed how their institutions have implemented innovative changes to their user interface and addressed the role of usability testing, data mining, and other research methods in their decision process.
Audience members had an opportunity to submit questions to the panelists as well as time to speak with the panelists directly following the program.
The program was a success with a nearly full room, especially considering the popular concurrent sessions with which it competed. Our best guess is that the room would accommodate approximately 400-425 people and we were at least 70% filled which put attendance at approximately 280-300 attendees.
Donna Scanlon
dscanlon@loc.gov
Chair, Conference Program Planning Committee, 2012-2013
MARS Professional Development Committee
MARS Professional Development Committee (PD) held several virtual meeting between Midwinter and Annual, at we reviewed our progress at Annual.
The role of PD in training and facilitating webinar proposals is no longer relevant since RUSA now has assigned staff for the new Adobe Connect software. Nor is MARS PD active in soliciting and reviewing webinar proposals since these now go through RUSA submission and review process by the RUSA Professional Development Committee. PD will be updating our website to reflect these changes. We are still interested in collaborating with other MARS committees in planning professional development workshops or webinars. Some of the ideas proposed included:
​Joint RSS and MARS Midwinter Workshop: While the Midwinter Workshop in Seattle was a great success; RSS STARS will not be able to share space at Midwinter in Philadelphia. To date, we have been unable to secure space or content for a joint RSS and MARS workshop. There is a working group of RSS and MARS members still interested in developing a topic and locating a space. If planning does move forward by the working group, members of the MARS Professional Development Committee can be available to facilitate a free workshop.
Van Houlson
houls001@umn.edu
Co-Chair, Professional Development Committee, 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Discussion Coordinating Committee
The committee hosted and facilitated a discussion forum on the topic of virtual reference (VR). In response to feedback about the Midwinter discussion forum, at which we piloted a one-hour time slot, we eliminated kick-off speakers and devoted the entire time slot to small- and large-group discussion. Planning Committee member, Beth Boatwright (nee Overhauser) presented questions to guide discussion. These questions pertained to: VR platforms, staffing, assessment, best practices, marketing, emerging technologies, and the impacts of broader trends such as MOOCs. After a brief introduction by Boatwright, the thirty-five attendees engaged in small group discussions for approximately thirty minutes. And following that, we had approximately fifteen minutes in which each table reported the two or three most interesting things discussed at their table. The event was a success, especially considering the popular concurrent sessions with which it competed as well as its location outside of the conference center.
Jessica Sender will be taking over as chair for the 2013/14 year. Please contact her (jsender23@gmail.com) or Sam Stormont (srstormont@widener.edu) if you are interested in joining our committee. Virtual participation is possible for planning the forums. We will need some members to be able to attend each conference to assist with onsite discussion facilitation.
Julie A Piacentine
jpia@uchicago.edu
Chair, Virtual Reference Discussion Coordinating Committee, 2012-2013
MARS/RSS Virtual Reference Committee
The partnership with the RSS Marketing and Public Relations Committee for the Slam the Board series (webinar: May 2013; “Slamming”: June 10; in-person discussion forum: June 2013 @ Annual) was a success. The participants were treated to both background on the Slam the Boards initiative itself and also practical ideas on marketing reference services for their own institutions.
The partnership with the RSS Evaluation of Reference and User Services (ERUS) Committee is on going. The ad hoc virtual reference survey team presented a preliminary draft at our committee’s meeting at Annual. They are planning to continue to revise it (and the draft was also shared with incoming MARS chair, Sam Stormont).
The informal drop-in Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was held in the Networking Uncommons area of the McCormick Place from 11:00 AM-2:00 PM on Sunday at Annual. Although only fourteen people stopped by, there was a lively discussion on Wikipedia’s potential uses by libraries as a tool to provide access to resources and to promote libraries’ collections. One participant shared the article (Honan-Allston Branch of Boston Public Library) she created from scratch as a library school student (including photos she took). One participant who had never edited Wikipedia articles signed up for an account and edited her first article during the Edit-a-thon. Additionally, during the Joint RSS/MARS Executive Committee Meeting, attendees were intrigued by the idea of the Edit-a-thon and discussed ways something similar could be incorporated into section activities in the future.
Also at Annual, outgoing RSS Co-Chair, Don Boozer, introduced in-coming RSS Co-Chair, Cathay Crosby, who most recently was Chair of the RSS Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Committee. Crosby and Alisa Gonzalez (MARS Co-chair) will chair the committee beginning directly after ALA Annual 2013.
Alisa Gonzalez
acgonzal@nmsu.edu
Co-Chair, MARS/RSS Virtual Reference Committee, 2012-2014
Catalog Use Committee
A new committee name and updated charge will be proposed at the next RSS Board meeting. The Catalog Use Committee will continue to update a bibliography of materials on the current and future state of the library catalog available at http://connect.ala.org/node/202483
Colleen Seale, Chair 2013-2014Â
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee sponsored two exciting Forums at Annual. “Keeping it Real in a Virtual World: Managing and Promoting Your Online Reference Collection,†was facilitated by Sara Memmott from Eastern Michigan University, and April Levy from Columbia College Chicago. The eleven attendees were from a variety of types of libraries, including academic, community college, and public libraries, plus there was one non-librarian in attendance. Discussions took place in small groups, with ideas reported back to the entire group. Suggestions included: correlating recommended reference sources with events in the news, for more information, via Twitter and Facebook; featuring a “highlighted†reference resource or tool on the library’s home page; QR codes in the stacks to connect users with online resources that relate to those in print (or those recently removed and sent to storage); building on the QR codes idea, having librarians assisting users model the behavior we want to encourage by taking a smartphone or iPad/similar device to the stacks and using it to connect to and demonstrate an online resource; and using infographics to share/summarize information for users (resources available, cost of subscriptions, etc.).
Our second Forum, “Technology Competencies for Reference Librarians,†facilitated by Tina Chan from the State University of New York at Oswego, had a total of twenty-one attendees from academic, public, school, and other libraries. The very lively discussion touched on topics including what to look for in interviewees, how changing technology affects staff, what should go into a staff manual, and whether resistance to change is age-related.
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee did not meet at ALA Annual 2013. The committee’s meeting for Annual was conducted via email in May when the winning forum proposals for the conference were chosen.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2013-2014
Education and Professional Development for Reference
The RSS Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee is co-sponsoring a webinar on promoting reference products. The webinar is organized by the Reference Publishing Advisory Committee of the Collection Development and Evaluation Section in RUSA. The webinar will be held before the end of the year; look out for further announcement on this online event and other professional development opportunities related to reference service. The committee will commence our data gathering phase on assessing the state of reference education in the next few months. We are in the process of finalizing the various facets of this topic we want to explore in this initial phase of the project.
Joseph Yue, Chair 2013-2014Â
Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee
Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee (ERUS) has partnered with Virtual Reference Services Committee to form an ad hoc team to survey the current state of virtual reference. The questions have been drafted and the goal is to have the survey out by the end of this summer. ERUS is currently working on a survey looking at reference service models and evaluation of service. The committee is reviewing a first draft of questions that came out of discussions from Midwinter and Annual 2013. The goal is to have this survey ready to send out to listservs by the end of this year.
Jason Kruse, Chair, 2013-2014
Health and Medical Reference Committee
Approximately sixty people attended the ALA Annual Conference program, “Different Strokes: Serving the Health Information Needs of a Diverse Community” held on Sunday, June 30, 2013 at 1:00 PM. The committee met at the All-RSS meeting at the Conference. Ideas for a discussion forum at next year’s conference were discussed. The committee is planning a free RSS webinar, “Tried and True and Even Something New: Best Old and New Medical and Health Information Resources.†Details will be announced shortly. A subgroup to rewrite guidelines for medical reference continues to meet to discuss guidelines planning. The committee has established a listserv where librarians can discuss issues regarding medical reference. The email address is medref@ala.org. The link to subscribe is http://lists.ala.org/sympa/subscribe/medref. Plans are being made to promote this listserv.
Karen Vargas, Chair 2012-2014
Job and Career Reference Committee
The Job and Career Reference Committee met at ALA Annual. The Job and Career Reference Committee is moving forward with a wiki open to interested librarians and a listserv for librarians interested in Job & Career reference. Contact Kate Oberg (kathryn.oberg@gmail.com) if you have further questions.
Kate Oberg, Chair 2013-2014
Library Service to an Aging Population
Library Services to an Aging Population hosted “Boomers to Seniors: Library Models for Serving and Engaging Older Adults†that highlighted programs in California and Georgia, along with current research studies. Committee member Alan Kleiman moderated the panel. The presentation was enthusiastically received by the attendees; there was a strong sense among the group that this area of librarianship is being reinvented and many different models need to be tried.
In that same vein, the committee had an excellent meeting in which members decided that the current Guidelines for Library and Information Services to Older Adults no longer reflect current best practices. Committee members agreed that overhauling the Guidelines is the top priority this year. If you would like to be involved in this process, please follow us on ALA Connect or contact Abigail Elder (aelder@beavertonoregon.gov).
Abigail Elder, Chair 2013-2014
Library Services to the Spanish Speaking
The Services to the Spanish Speaking Committee met Saturday morning with only a few interested parties. The discussion group on Arizona libraries had twenty-five in attendance and seemed to be well received. Many of the speakers were also members of REFORMA who helped promote and support this program. ASCLA also has programs and webinars of interest to services to the Spanish Speaking. A few of the current and potential members suggested a change in the direction of this committee, perhaps in more dedication to services to immigrants. Rather than one specific group, this would include a broader spectrum of services libraries provide and potential expansion to include more libraries and government agencies interested in supporting these groups. Over the past few years, the Services to the Spanish Speaking had discussion groups for a limited audience. Consideration of changing the direction would enable more growth. I was not able to obtain a chair for the future. A few expressed potential interest and I am in contact with them to make their wishes known for your consideration. We were indeed fortunate to have the presentations on Sunday afternoon, but, as always, the programs often conflict with other broader interest programs such as this case with the Digital Public Library presentation.
The Committee hosted a discussion group on Sunday, June 30, 2013 3:00-4:00 PM, “Arizona Libraries: Spanish Services and Community Outreach.†As a border state, Arizona has historically always had a large Spanish Speaking/Latino community. Paulina Aguirre-Clinch, Marissa Alcorta, Paula Maez, Emily Scherrer, and Cecilia Tovar shared examples of successful programming and provide strategies for making connections to your own Spanish Speaking communities.
With the contemporary increase in recent immigration from Mexico and other Spanish speaking countries, library services and outreach to these communities is needed now more than ever. Two library systems in Southern Arizona, Yuma County Library District, and Pima County Public library, have used their resources, staff skills, and community building to provide relevant services and programming to these ever growing communities.
Finally, the Guidelines for Library Services to Spanish-Speaking Library Users may be due for an update.
Stephen Marvin, Chair 2012-2013
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference
The Marketing & Public Relations Committee hosted a free webinar on the Slam the Boards concept in May. Attendees learned about the idea from Bill Pardue, who shared tips for finding questions on social question and answer sites, and tips for those who are new to the practice.
We also hosted a workshop at Annual in Chicago where Slam the Board participants shared their experiences. Thanks to Bill sharing his knowledge with us and to those who attended. If you’d like to continue participating in the Slam the Boards project, you can join a Facebook group to connect with others who’ve been caught by the Q&A bug.
We’re currently exploring ways to collaborate on event planning with other ALA groups interested in marketing and public relations. At our Annual committee meeting, we also discussed what we might learn from non-library marketers and public relations specialists, such as Jonah Sachs, author of Winning the Story Wars and social media experts who can help us learn tools and strategies for better telling our library stories.
Jessica Hagman, Chair 2013-2014
Recognition Committee
The RSS Recognition Committee chose Larayne Dallas as the RSS Service Achievement Award recipient for 2013. Larayne has had a long career in the Reference Services Section and is widely regarded as one of the most hard-working RSS members, having served on/chaired numerous committees and mentoring new and incoming chairs. Her involvement in RSS includes:
Emilie Smart, Chair 2013-2014
Research and Statistics Committee
Over the 2012-2013 year, the Research and Statistics Committee solicited and selected proposals for the 19th Annual Reference Research Forum. This year’s forum included “Research Guides Usability Study,†by Angela Pashia, Instructional Services Outreach Librarian, University of West Georgia; “Two Birds, One Stone: Using a Mixed Methods Approach to Measure Service Process and Identify Usability Pain Points in Virtual Reference,†by Christine Tobias, User Experience and Reference Librarian, Michigan State University Libraries; “Query Clarification in Chat Reference: A Visual Transcript Analysis,†by Alexa Pearce, Librarian for Journalism, Media, Culture & Communication, New York University Libraries.
The Forum was held Saturday, June 29 from 1:00-2:30 PM at McCormick Place in Chicago. Approximately 180 people attended the event.
The committee also went through the literature from the past year to select exceptional articles detailing research in reference. The full Reference Research Review is available here.
Lynda Duke, Chair 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Services (MARS/RSS)
The partnership with the RSS Marketing and Public Relations Committee for the Slam the Board series (webinar: May 2013; “Slamming”: June 10; in-person discussion forum: June 2013 @ Annual) was a success. The participants were treated to both background on the Slam the Boards initiative itself and also practical ideas on marketing reference services for their own institutions.
The partnership with the RSS Evaluation of Reference and User Services (ERUS) Committee is on-going. The ad hoc virtual reference survey team presented a preliminary draft at our committee’s meeting at Annual. They are planning to continue to revise it (and the draft was also shared with incoming MARS chair, Sam Stormont).
The informal drop-in Wikipedia Edit-a-thon was held in the Networking Uncommons area of the McCormick Place from 11:00 AM-2:00 PM on Sunday at Annual. Although only fourteen people stopped by, there was a lively discussion on Wikipedia’s potential uses by libraries as a tool to provide access to resources and to promote libraries’ collections.
One participant shared the article (Honan-Allston Branch of Boston Public Library) she created from scratch as a library school student (including photos she took). One participant who had never edited Wikipedia articles before signed up for an account and edited her first article during the Edit-a-thon. Additionally, during the Joint RSS/MARS Executive Committee Meeting, attendees were intrigued by the idea of the Edit-a-thon and discussed ways something similar could be incorporated into section activities in the future.
Also at Annual, outgoing RSS Co-Chair, Don Boozer, introduced incoming RSS Co-Chair, Cathay Crosby, who most recently was Chair of the RSS Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Committee. Cathay and Alisa Gonzalez (MARS Co-chair) will chair the committee beginning directly after ALA Annual 2013.
Don Boozer, Chair 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The Subcommittee is excited to continue working on the Virtual Reference Companion (VRC) with the goal of completion by ALA Annual 2014. The group continues to meet monthly and works in subgroups between meetings. A fifth module will be complete by the end of summer, leaving four more to go.
One section of the VRC has Tips & Best Practices and we are looking for ideas from RSS members that may help those new to the world of virtual reference. Our modules include Planning, Skills, Information Literacy, Technologies, Staffing/Partners, Marketing, Assessment, and Professional Development. If anyone has words of wisdom to share on any of these or other topics related to virtual reference, please send them to Jared Hoppenfeld at jhoppenf@tamu.edu or Christine Tobias at tobiasc@mail.lib.msu.edu.
Although the VRC has been accessible to anyone with the URL, it will be going live by the end of summer as we will request that http://www.ala.org/rusa/vrc takes the place of the previous resource, as it is linked from its current RSS location(s).
Jared Hoppenfeld, Chair 2012-2014
Christine Tobias, Chair 2013-2014
Â
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.
STARS Membership Committee
The Membership Committee was able to pass out and begin collecting updated committee information for the Web site. This initiative is step one in promoting committees to members in the coming year.
Membership is also organizing a party planning committee for the 10 year celebration of RUSA STARS @ ALA 2014. Committee members were solicited and, so far, we have Lars Leon, Heather Weltin, and Tina Baich on board. Membership will spearhead planning this celebration throughout the coming year.
Membership organized a review of the “Five Things†document to take place and also reviewed our STAR Gazing initiative to target non-academic members and past STARS Atlas-Systems Award winners. Naomi Chow has agreed to be a STAR Gazer in the near future!
Membership also shared some statistics with the group and confirmed all committee members would be staying on for another year!
Micquel Little, Chair
STARS Education and Training Committee
In March, the committee submitted a successful proposal for a free RUSA webinar. Amber Case, University of Washington, and Cherie Weible, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign will present “Finding Dead People†on the topic of genealogy resources for ILL practitioners. The webinar will take place on October 16, and we anticipate strong interest from staff of public, academic, and special libraries. The committee will also partner with the RUSA History Section to produce a similar program at the 2014 ALA Annual Conference.
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, and plans include the addition of sections on open access, services to distance education students, and ILL best practices.
The committee also added several YouTube videos to the series “Exploring Library Careers in Interlibrary Loan and Resource Sharing.†New videos feature Megan Gaffney, Nora Dethloff, and Troy Christenson and are available at http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/stars/section/educationandtrainingcommittee/etc.
Finally, this year’s STARS Atlas Mentoring Award was presented to Daniel Chesney of Southern Nazarene University. The award committee was chaired by Collette Mak, University of Notre Dame.
Jennifer Jacobs, Chair
STARS Hot Topics Discussion Group
A vice chair for 2012/13, Chair Elect 2013/14 was elected: Jesslynn Shafer, MSLIS Resource Sharing and Document Delivery Coordinator, Binghamton University Libraries, Binghamton, NY.
A new assessment tool was implemented for 2013 ALA Midwinter and received only two responses. The tool was revised for the 2013 ALA Annual conference. The general response was affirmative.
When participants at the Hot Topics Discussion Group at 2013 ALA Annual were asked if they would like a short presentation to introduce topics or a specific subject, the response was primarily negative, stating that it would take away time from the general discussion. When asked if they liked the existing format, the majority of people said “yes†and would like it to continue in its current format, especially if the time was reduced to one hour.
Troy Christenson, Chair
STARS Interlibrary Loan Committee
Jeanne Voyles and Joanne McIntyre are the outgoing Co-Chairs. New Co-Chairs will be Carol Kochan and Zheng Yang. Jeanne Voyles agreed to stay on as a member of the committee to support the new co-chairs and the work of the committee.
For 2013 ALA Annual, the committee planned and coordinated the discussion group topic, entitled: “How Will the Current Climate/Trends in Libraries Influence/Impact the Future of Resource Sharing?†Lars Leon, University of Kansas, made a brief presentation, posed questions to the audience throughout the session, and engaged attendees in a variety of current topics and trends. There were ninety-three-plus attendees for the hour-long session. The room was a good size and accommodated the number of attendees. We believe that out of that session there will be ideas to consider for future programming. The committee was pleased with the attendance and participation by attendees. Lars did an excellent job presenting various topics and facilitating the discussion. This may be a good model for future sessions.
Jeanne Voyles, Co-Chair
STARS ILL Research and Assessment Committee
As of June 2013, the STARS Executive Committee approved a name change for the STARS ILL Research and Statistics Committee. The new name will be the STARS ILL Research and Assessment Committee with the following charge:
To explore, develop, and promote assessment activities focusing on library resource service communities and STARS membership needs. Support research and assessment collaboration among STARS members. Coordinate, produce, and review STARS program evaluations and other self-assessment activities.
The committee continues to brainstorm ideas about this new charge and the expectations that come with it. Much organization will need to be done over the next year to ensure the success of this new direction.
The committee worked diligently to plan a program for the 2013 ALA conference in Chicago. The program title was “Does Your Data Deliver for Decision Making? New Directions for Resource Sharing Assessment.†The presenters included: Charla Lancaster, Director of Assessment and Library Access Services, Virginia Tech; Collette Mak, Manager, University of Notre Dame; and Margaret Ellingson, Team Leader, Interlibrary Services, Emory University. The program was successful with over 200 attendees (standing room and sitting room on the floor only), as the room could not accommodate all that wished to attend.
In the year leading up to the program, the team worked on shaping the topic so that three different perspectives on recent data collections were given. Appropriate planning including marketing, feedback mechanisms, room planning, and organization of the day of activities to name a few was completed.
The committee also made some changes to the ALA Connect web pages in order to better reflect the committee charge.
The committee met several times over the course of the year via Blackboard to discuss these various topics. We look forward to another successful year and look forward to the changes in our charge to support RUSA STARS.
Charla Lancaster, Chair
Vendor Relations Committee
We have reviewed a number of topics that were of interest to members of the committee and determined that the question of how not to print requests and use of mobile technologies are areas that we’d like to pursue in the coming year.
Elizabeth Ringwelski, Chair
RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee
As of this writing, the proposal form for 2014 Midwinter Institutes and 2014 Preconferences and Programs was about to close on May 15. The committee is preparing to review the proposals in advance of its next meeting on Friday, May 24. Recommendations will then be sent on to RUSA Board so that it can approve the slate of programs and budgets when it meets in Chicago during this year’s Annual Conference.
Many thanks go to this year’s CPCC members, who have worked through so many of the questions that followed the release of last year’s ALA Conference Changes Roadmap. It has been a great team effort!
ALA Annual 2013 in Chicago is almost here! See RUSA President Mary Popp’s report for a review of the fifteen fantastic programs organized by RUSA sections and committees, as well as the Business Reference 101 preconference from BRASS on Friday, June 28.
Joe Thompson, Chair
RUSA President’s Program Planning Committee
The committee is putting together the final pieces of this year’s RUSA President’s Program—one of the major events at this year’s ALA Annual Conference. We hope to see you at the program on Saturday, as well as the Sunday morning discussion! See below for details.
Saturday, June 29, 4:00 pm – 5:30 pm
The Myth and the Reality of the Evolving Patron: The RUSA President’s Program
Just how well do you know the people who use your library? Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and co-author of Networked: The New Social Operating System, shares the latest data about how our clientele are interacting with information technology. Learn about patron preferences and behaviors during this program. Then, join Rainie and library leaders on Sunday, 10:30-11:30 A.M. to discuss how the data will influence your library’s future. #rusapres13
Sunday, June 30, 10:30-11:30 A.M.
The Myth and the Reality of the Evolving Patron: The Discussion Continues
The discussion continues following the previous day’s RUSA President’s Program! Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project, returns to participate in a discussion with library leaders featuring Emily Ford, David Lankes, Marie Radford, and Joyce Valenza. We will discuss how the Pew data will influence your library’s future. #rusapres13
Joe Thompson and Mary Mintz, co-chairs
RUSA Just Ask
RUSA’s Just Ask Committee has been working on several projects, including an upcoming webinar on how to manage change. Several of our members, Julie Strange and Cathay Crosby, have been working on a pilot Ask Campaign. Strange, Statewide Coordinator or Maryland’s JustAskNow!, and Crosby, Operations Assistant of JustAskNow!, used the tenth anniversary of the service as a starting point. Their Ask Campaign, loosely based on the READ campaign, will feature library patrons holding a sign with a question asked through JustAskNow!. These will be turned into materials used to promote reference service. Crosby posted about their experience in ALA Connect along with some more background info on the JustAskNow! website.
Elizabeth Stephan and Diana Schonrock, co-chairs
BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee
BRASS will be celebrating its 25th anniversary with a reception and dinner at ALA Annual in Chicago on Monday evening, July 1; from 6:00-10:00 P.M. atFulton’s on the River BRASS members are invited to this free event. Please RSVP by May 23 by sending an email to RUSABRASS25@gmail.com. Many thanks to our Grand Sponsor, Gale Cengage Learning, and to our other vendor sponsors: S&P Capital IQ, ReportLinker, Morningstar, Annual Reviews, EBSCO, Mintel, PrivCO, SimplyMap, Mergent, and Emerald. The 25th Anniversary event will be preceded by a “Meet the Analysts†reception which will be hosted by Mintel in their new offices just across the river from Fulton’s. More details on that event will be forthcoming. Please visit our event website
Louise Feldmann, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Core Competencies for Business Students Task Force
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee is continuing its work with Special Library Association’s (SLA) College and University Business Libraries (CUBL) group on the Core Competencies Task Force. This task force is charged with creating research proficiency standards for business students. The first phase of the project was brainstorming what librarians think are good research skills for students. Currently, the committee is evaluating the literature and discussing what professors, employers, and student experiences report as good core competencies. A big thank you to CUBL’s Carissa Marie Phillips for starting this phase of the project. The group is planning on meeting at ALA Annual in Chicago.
BRASS/ RUSA EMERALD AACSB Workshop for Academic Business Librarians
You may have also noticed a call put out to the BRASS-L and BUSLIB-L listservs about the upcoming Emerald sponsored workshop on business accreditation at ALA annual: How can the library continue to support the business school through the accreditation process? BRASS is fortunate to have as keynote speaker Dr. Dan LeClair, VP and Chief Operating Officer of AACSB International speak to us about changes in AACSB accreditation. The workshop will also address your experiences with AACSB business school accreditation standards and your library’s involvement and their creation. Please take a moment to fill out the survey and share your experiences with us. Remember that you are a valuable source of professional information and your input is greatly needed and appreciated! The link to the free registration page is above.
Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee Forum on June 29 from 2:00-3:00P.M.—“Business Librarian’s Reference Shelfâ€â€”a panel discussion featuring authors of valuable and practical books for the business librarian.
Check out our new Public Libraries Briefcase – Harness the Power of Branding by Eric Petersen from H&R Block Business & Career Center at the Kansas City Public Library.
Elizabeth Malafi, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Program Planning Committee
Investment Success! Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio
Monday, July 1, 2013, 8:30-10:00 A.M.
Good personal investment education is important for librarians and library staff. We are an occupational group that is rarely able to access top financial advice. In this program, investment professionals will demystify the process and help us understand essential principles and how to apply them to make better decisions to meet our retirement goals. The presentation will include a discussion of the common mistakes investors make, why we make them, and how to avoid them.
Speakers
Charles Rotblut, CFA, Vice President, American Association of Individual Investors
Rotblut is a vice president of the American Association of Individual Investors (AAII). He is the editor of the AAII Journal. He authors the weekly AAII Investor Update e-newsletter and his commentary is published on both Seeking Alpha and Forbes.com. He has analyzed both publicly traded and privately held companies. Charles’ experience includes working for Zacks Investment Research, an investment research firm; INVESTools, an investment education company; Curian Capital, a money management firm; and McClure, Schumacher & Associates, a business valuation firm. Charles is a graduate of the University of Kansas, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. He is a holder of the right to use the Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.
Jeremy Glaser, Morningstar Markets editor
Glaser is markets editor for Morningstar.com and responsible for directing all stock market coverage for Morningstar’s website for individual investors. Prior to assuming his current role in 2009, he was a senior equity analyst for Morningstar, covering the leisure, hospitality, and gaming sectors. He joined Morningstar in 2006. Glaser holds a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago.
Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee Publishers’ Forum Sub-Committee headed up by Penny Scott has been hard at work finalizing details for the program.
The Publishers’ Forum will be held from 1:00-2:30 P.M. on Sunday, June 30 and is currently schedule in N227a of the McCormick Place Convention Center. The program is titled “Finding Business Information in a Googlized World: The Future of Business Research and Discovery Layersâ€. “What is the impact of discovery services on business information? How are discovery services affecting business publishers, particularly on the specialized business databases side? Most of the discovery platforms tend to be focused on articles, not pulling out data that business researchers seek. Representatives from Proquest, OCLC, Ebsco, and Ex Libris will speak and, more importantly, answer questions about their services and how they are working to incorporate these more specialized data sourcesâ€.
Ed Hahn has also been riding herd on the Reference Sources Nominating Sub-Committee and getting additional sources nominated for consideration by the committee as a whole. Currently we have twenty-nine titles nominated, but we would still like to have more as we get ready to make our final determinations. Please contact Ed (edwardhahn@weber.edu) or myself (hurstsj@miamioh.edu) if you have Business Reference sources you would like the committee to consider.
This year as our meeting time at ALA has been cut to one hour (4:30-5:30 P.M., Saturday, June 29); the Committee will be trying something new. We will hold a virtual meeting in May to discuss the nominated titles and make some preliminary decisions. This will hopefully free up some time at ALA to allow us to discuss other topics, including choosing next year’s nominating coordinator and making final preparations for the Forum as well as finalizing the winning titles and selecting who will write the reviews for each of them for the RUSQ column.
Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Discussion Group Committee
The BRASS Discussion Group will host an open forum at ALA’s Annual Conference in Chicago on Sunday, June 30, 2013 from 8:30-10:00 A.M. Two main points of discussion:
Jason Dewland hosted the first Discussion Group online webinar on April 5,Commercialization Research on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CRIE). CRIE is the first patent database that will allow researchers to data mine all US patents with the ability to download up to 500,000 records per query. The webinar was well attended with about twenty-four people from around the country. Please be on the lookout for our first online BRASS Discussion Group announcement.
Have a topic idea? Please post suggestions to the BRASS Suggestion Wall. Past discussions have focused on working with businesses and entrepreneurs, free business related web resources, publishing, and other topics related to business librarianship. We look forward to hearing your suggestions.
Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Education Committee
The BRASS Education Committee will be presenting the 2013 preconferenceBusiness Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship on June 28 from 8:30 A.M.-4:00 P.M. at the ALA Annual conference in Chicago. It will address the most common business reference issues and core resources, evaluation of your business collection, and licensing electronic business products. The registration is in full swing, and we are expecting another successful event! You don’t need to be registered for the ALA Annual Conference to attend this workshop. Register here.
Our proposal to the BRASS Executive Committee to tweak the webinar submission and approval process was approved. The goal of the proposal is to increase visibility of BRASS initiated webinars. We are glad to report that RUSA will be adding section affiliation to the webinar submissions and publicity. The second proposal to offer discounts at the section level was unfortunately not possible.
Jennifer Boettcher will be offering a free webinar on industry research as part of the RUSA’s “one-free-webinar-per-year†initiative. As part of this program, she will cover updates on using the Census information for industry research. Stay tuned for more details!
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
University of Texas at San Antonio
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
http://brass.libguides.com/
BRASS Membership Committee
Don’t you LIKE us? Please become a “friend†of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. Committee chairs this is your opportunity to publicize your events and previews of your speakers. You can LIKE US viahttps://www.facebook.com/ala.rusa.brass.
Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee has continued to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the event. We are looking forward to celebrating in style! Committee members include Paul Brothers and Lydia LaFaro.
Celia Ross, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
In anticipation of the upcoming ALA Annual Conference in Chicago, the BRASS Publications and Communications Committee is working on updating the BRASS web pages. We are trying to clean up links and content to ensure that we can deliver all the information needed for BRASS members to have a great and productive time at Annual, including events related to our BRASS 25th Anniversary celebration. At this time we are also working on producing a BRASS events schedule—this popular resource shows all the BRASS-related events at the Conference so everyone can find and enjoy all that BRASS has to offer. We will post it to the BRASS listserv and to the BRASS web page.
Finally, one more bit of great news: We are delighted to welcome Annette Buckley to the BRASS Publications and Communications Committee as our new Webmaster. Buckley has already done some great work on the BRASS website, and we look forward the many innovations she has planned for the future!
John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Section Review Committee
This is the year for the review/evaluation of the committees that comprise the BRASS section of RUSA. If you are a committee chair, you should soon be contacted by a BRASS member asking permission to be included on the agenda of your committee’s meeting at the ALA annual conference in June. More information to follow soon. Thank you in advance.
Paul Brother, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award is proud to announce this year’s recipient; Salvatore DiVincenzo, business librarian at Middle Country Public Library in Long Island, New York. The award, sponsored by Morningstar, offers $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference to a business librarian from a public library.
Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Excellence in Business Librarianship Award Committee
Michael R. Oppenheim is the 2013 recipient of the Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship. Oppenheim is the Collections & Reference Services Librarian at the Rosenfeld Management Library, UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management. He is the co-author of: Marketing Information: A Strategic Guide for Business and Finance Libraries, and co-editor of the recent The Basic Business Library: Core Resources and Services (5th ed., 2011). He has also made countless contributions as a leader in professional associations. One of his colleagues summed it up best, “he is the business librarian’s librarianâ€.
Congratulations, Michael!
Patricia Kenly, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award Committee
Kelly LaVoice, graduate student of Library and Information Science at Rutgers University, and current business librarian intern at the University of Pennsylvania’s Lippincott Business Library, is being awarded the 2013 BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award. The award, sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning and the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) of RUSA, offers $1,000 and a one year membership to BRASS to an outstanding MLIS student to fund travel to the ALA Annual Conference.
Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Expert Press Award Committee
The BRASS Business Expert Press Award for Academic Librarians Committee is proud to announce this year’s recipient of the travel award to attend the annual conference in Chicago. Please congratulate Annette Buckley, Business Research Librarian at UC Irvine. By the way, some of you may know Annette as the upcoming volunteer BRASS Webmaster—A BIG THANK you from your BRASS colleagues!!!
Paul Brothers, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Emerald Research Award Committee
The Emerald Research Grant ($5000) was awarded to the following person:
Jennifer Boettcher, Business and Economics Reference Librarian at Georgetown University Library. Her winning proposal, “Zombie List: for information sources that should not die,†outlined the process of developing an online finding aid of business-related sources that have been discontinued or changed formats and list alternate ways to get the same or similar information. Boettcher’s research interests are in government sources and industry research.
Christy Goodnight, 2012-2013 Chair
User Experience Design Committee
After an exciting and productive inaugural program at Midwinter, we are hosting our first official event in Chicago. Guest speakers LeiLani Freund and Michele Crump, both of University of Florida, will present the fascinating data published in their new book, Meeting the Needs of Student Users in Academic Libraries: Reaching Across the Great Divide. Their presentation is called, How Wide the Divide—Why We Are Still Asking? In 2011/12, the presenters examined the perceptions and preferences of users and library staff in the information commons (IC) environment. Two survey instruments, one for library users and one for library staff, measured responses to same or similar questions asked of IC users and staff at five academic university libraries throughout the United States. With the analysis of the Crump/Freund surveys, the presenters discuss the perceptions of library staff and library users to confirm the existence of a divide and determine if assessing the user experience will offer strategies to narrow the divide. Will asking the users about their library needs bring about a real understanding of library services? Can academic libraries put the users and their needs at the center of service development and if they do, will this revitalize the library as more than “place� The presenters will involve the audience through discussion of assessment practices and implementations. Their examples ask the user to participate in the library community, a community defining every user as a distant learner and incorporating mobile technology to access resources at point of need.
The presentation will take place at 1:00-2:30 PM on Saturday, June 29 in the McCormick Place Convention Center, room N135.
Melissa Clapp
shoop@ufl.edu
Chair, User Experience Design Committee, 2012-2013
Catalog Use Committee
The Catalog Use Committee will meet during the RSS All Committee meeting on Saturday, June 29 from 8:30-10:00 A.M in McCormick Place Convention Center, room N226. Our meeting agenda will include discussion of a new committee name and updated charge and plans for a discussion forum for Midwinter 2014. The Committee has compiled a bibliography of books and articles on value-added features of both the present and future library catalog available on ALA Connect.
Colleen Seale, Chair
Communication and Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
The committee met virtually on February 13, 2013. This was a time to check in with the committee and to strategize how to move forward. The committee agreed that broadening the scope of the goals beyond technology concerns would be beneficial. As a result of the meeting, the goals were revised and we have begun work on an additional survey that we intend to send out early this summer.
The revised goals are as follows:
Holly Wilson, Chair 2013-2014
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
The RSS Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee will be holding two discussion forums on reference-related topics at Annual.
Keeping it Real in a Virtual World: Managing and Promoting Your Online Reference Collection
Facilitators: Sara Memmott, Eastern Michigan University Library, and April Levy, Reference & Instruction Librarian, Columbia College Chicago Library
Sunday, June 30, 1:00-2:30 P.M., Hyatt Regency Chicago, Columbus KL
As reference sources continue to migrate from print to online, librarians face challenges in managing and promoting these new online reference collections. Increased cost, restrictive subscription models, less visibility, and increasing use of mobile devices and apps are just a few of the issues being encountered in all types of libraries. Gather with colleagues to discuss how we can “keep it real†and acquire, manage, and promote online reference collections that provide real, valuable information for our community members.
Technology Competencies for Reference Librarians
Facilitator: Tina Chan, State University of New York at Oswego
Monday, July 1, 8:30-10:00 A.M., Hilton Chicago, Buckingham Room
Patrons expect reference librarians to know the latest technology. From basic computer skills and computer troubleshooting, to using the online catalog and databases, to navigating and troubleshooting mobile devices, questions run the gamut and require utilizing a variety of skills and knowledge. What technology competencies does your library expect librarians to have? What competencies should librarians have to help them better assist patrons? How do you keep skills up-to-date? Meet with colleagues to discuss these and other questions related to the ever changing technology landscape in libraries and its impact on providing quality reference services to customers.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2012-2013
Education and Professional Development for Reference
The Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee will meet at Annual during the All RSS Committee meetings on Saturday, June 29 from 8:30-10:00 A.M. at McCormick Place Convention Center, room N226. The Committee hopes to offer a free workshop opportunity at an upcoming ALA conference, watch for future information.
Kristen Mastel & Joseph Yue, Co-Chairs 2012-2013
Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee
ERUS has joined forces with the Virtual Reference Services (VRS) Committee and created an ad hoc committee to survey the current state of virtual reference. VRS chairs Don Boozer and Alisa Gonzalez and I are very excited about this and sat in on an excellent virtual meeting the ad hoc committee had. Anyone who is interested in hearing an update in person should find the ERUS and VRS tables at the RSS Open House at Annual.
Ellen Keith, Chair, 2011-2013
Health and Medical Reference Committee
The committee will host a program during the ALA Annual Conference, Different Strokes: Serving the Health Information Needs of a Diverse Community. The program will take place Sunday, June 30, 2013 from 1:00pm to 2:30 P.M. in the McCormick Place Convention Center, room S102a. The committee’s suggestion for a free RSS webinar on health and medical resources has been accepted, and the presenters are planning the date and time for the webinar. Details will be announced shortly. A subgroup to rewrite guidelines for medical reference has met several times to discuss guidelines planning. The committee continued to discuss the creation of an ALA Connect Community for health and medical reference discussions. The committee has established a listserv where librarians can discuss issues regarding medical reference. The email address is medref@ala.org. The link to subscribe is http://lists.ala.org/sympa/subscribe/medref.
Karen Vargas, Chair 2012-2014
Job and Career Reference Committee
The Job & Career Reference Committee is setting up a wiki for use by librarians to include career resources. This wiki is intended for different types of institutions (public, academic, & career colleges). For more information or to get involved with our online wiki efforts, contact the committee chair Kate Oberg (Kathryn.oberg@gmai.com).
Kate Oberg, Chair 2012-2013
Library Service to an Aging Population
Library Services to an Aging Population met in April to review its charter, and the Guidelines on Library and Information Services to Older Adults. We expect to approve new charter language at the June meeting. The committee is sponsoring a program at ALA Annual in Chicago: Boomers to Seniors: Library Models for Serving and Engaging Older Adults on Monday, July 1 from 8:30-10:00 A.M. at the McCormick Place Convention Center, room S106b.
Abigail Elder, Chair 2012-2013
Library Services to the Spanish Speaking
Arizona Libraries: Spanish Services and Community Outreach will take place at ALA Annual in Chicago, Sunday June 30, 3:00-4:00 P.M. at the McCormick Place Convention Center, room N227a.
As a border state, Arizona has historically had a large Spanish-speaking/Latino community. With the recent increase in immigration from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, library services and outreach to these communities is needed more than ever. Come learn how Yuma County Library District and Pima County Public Library have used their resources, staff skills, and community-building to provide relevant services and programming to these ever-growing communities. We will share examples of successful programming and provide strategies for making connections to your own Spanish Speaking communities. Presented by Paulina Aguirre-Clinch, Marissa Alcorta, Paula Maez, Emily Scherr, and Cecilia Tovar.
Stephen Marvin, Chair 2012-2013
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference
Our committee is pleased to be co-sponsoring a three part program, Slam the Boards: a Model for Marketing through Action with MARS/VR (Don Boozer and Alisa Gonzalez). The third part of the program will be held at ALA Annual on June 29.
Let’s Discuss How it Works for You/Your Library (on June 29). Attend the follow-up discussion forum based on the previous webinars held on May 21 and June 10. Share your “Slam†experiences and learn from your colleagues! Saturday, June 29, from 3:00-4:00 P.M. Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, room Clark 22A-C
The webinars and discussion forum have been co-sponsored by the RSS Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Services Committee and the RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee.
If you have any questions, please contact webinar organizers Don Boozer (librarian.don@gmail.com) , Alisa Gonzalez (acgonzal@nmsu.edu) or Cathay Crosby (cathay.Crosby@lib.de.us).
Cathay Crosby, Chair 2011-2013
Recognition Committee
The Recognition Committee received a number of nominations for the RSS Service Achievement Award and selected Larayne J. Dallas (engineering librarian at the University of Texas at Austin) as the 2013 winner!
Larayne will be honored at the RUSA Achievement Awards Reception and Volunteer Appreciation Party, which will be held from 5:00-6:30 P.M. Sunday, June 30 at Hyatt Regency McCormick Place, Prairie Room. All conference attendees are invited to participate in this celebration, which will include hors d’oeuvres and a cash bar, so please consider attending.
Larayne has had a long career in RSS. She is widely regarded as one of the most hard-working RSS members having served on, or chaired, numerous committees over the past ten years. She’s also an active and generous mentor for members and new chairs. Her involvement in RSS includes:
These are a few words and phrases that immediately come to mind when Larayne’s name comes up:
Virginia Cole, Chair 2012-2013
Research and Statistics Committee
In January, the RSS Research and Statistics Committee selected three presenters for the 19th Annual Reference Research Forum. The program is scheduled for Saturday, June 29th from 1:00-2:30 A.M. at McCormick Place Convention Center, room S404bc and will include the following:
In addition, the committee is currently selecting articles to annotate for the annual Reference Research Review.
Lynda Duke, Chair 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Services (MARS/RSS)
The RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services (VRS) Committee has been busy and has several exciting initiatives planned for the upcoming ALA Annual Conference!
The VRS Committee and the RSS Evaluation of Reference & User Services (ERUS) Committee have begun co-sponsoring an ad hoc team to ascertain the current state of virtual reference. The team consists of six individuals from a variety of backgrounds: public, academic, ipl2, and one librarian who also staffs OCLC’s QuestionPoint. They have had their initial meeting and will begin creating a survey instrument and considering the logistics of administering it. The ad hoc team will be giving a status report on their project at our joint VRS-ERUS committee meeting at Annual during the RSS Open House & All-Committee Meeting on Saturday, June 29, 8:30-10:00 A.M. in McCormick Place Convention Center, room N226. All those interested in the work of the team are welcomed to attend!
Along with the RSS Marketing and Public Relations for Reference Services Committee, the VRS Committee is also co-sponsoring Slam the Boards! A Model for Marketing through Action: A Reference Services Discussion Forum on Saturday, June 29, from 3:00-4:00 P.M. in Clark 22A-C at the Hyatt Regency McCormick Place. Anyone is welcome to attend the forum, especially those who also attended the webinar on the same topic in May. This lively discussion will focus on sharing ideas on active marketing and promotion of your institution’s reference services (both in-person and virtual).
The VRS Committee is also, for the first time, sponsoring an informal Wikipedia Edit-a-thon during Annual. Final details are still being planned, so stay tuned to the committee’s ALA Connect site as that info becomes available. For those who have never edited or contributed content to a Wikipedia article before, this is an opportunity to experiment. We’re planning on providing a quick-n-dirty introduction to being a Wikipedian as well as the opportunity to add your own content. The focus will be on “hyper-local” resources, but you’re welcome to edit any article that strikes your fancy. For those interested in dropping by the Edit-a-thon itself, we’ll be holding it in the Networking Uncommons area at McCormick Place. We’ll be posting our schedule there as well. We’re also still looking for anyone who would be interested in serving as a Wikipedia Mentor for our Edit-a-thon to help people get accustomed to the role of editor. The committee is excited about this informal, pilot project and, if successful, looking for ways to make it a regular part of the annual conference.
Don Boozer, Chair 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The Subcommittee has been hard at work on the tutorial, renamed the “Virtual Reference Companion: A Guide for VR Coordinators and Librarians,” or “VRC” for short.
We had two new members join us in the Fall: Christine Tobias and Neal Pomea. They replaced Jason Coleman, who had to resign. Jennifer Lau-Bond and Valli Hoski will also be leaving the subcommittee after ALA Annual. Jared Hoppenfeld will continue on as Co-Chair and be joined by new Co-Chair Christine Tobias.
The group has fully set up the VRC in Drupal and has moved on to major content creation and updating. In order to expedite the work, we divided into two subgroups. Each subgroup meets separately and works on one module at a time, incorporating the decisions of the larger group. Then, we hold an all-group virtual meeting approximately once a month to update everyone on progress and plan the next steps. Currently, we have finished the Planning and Technologies modules, and the Skills module is nearing completion. Next, we will be tackling the Marketing module and one other module to be determined.
We will be holding an all-group virtual meeting for ALA Annual. Subcommittee members attending ALA Annual in person will also meet during the RSS Open House & All Committee Meeting on Saturday, June 29 at 8:30 A.M. at mcCormick Place Convention Center, room N226. We will have further details about the VRC and what we have done for all those interested.
Jared Hoppenfeld, Co-Chair 2012-2013
Jennifer Lau-Bond, Co-Chair 2011-2013
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.
STARS Committee Members Needed!
If you are already a STARS committee volunteer, thanks for your service. Because of your contributions, our section accomplishes much.
If you are not yet a member of any of our committees, please join. STARS offers terrific opportunities for service and your professional growth. We also offer opportunities to represent our section in RUSA-level committees and working groups.
Check out your opportunities to be a STAR at the STARS Committee and Task Force Changes page. You can volunteer via RUSA’s website or you can contact Nora Dethloff at ndethloff@uh.edu
Committee Reports
STARS Membership Committee
STARS Membership Committee has been busy organizing the ALA STARS Social at The Berghoff Restaurant, Friday, June 28, from 5:00-7:00 P.M. We’re also planning on publishing the next STARGazer before ALA Annual, so please join us in recognizing Tina Baich!
ALA Agenda items consist of organizing membership initiatives to highlight STARS committees and encourage participation from STARS members not yet involved!
Micquel Little, Chair
STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee
The CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee program, Enhancing Services through Integration of Interlibrary Loan and Acquisitions, will be held on Saturday, June 29, from 1:00-2:30 P.M. at McCormick Convention Center, room S103d.
This panel will explore the opportunities and challenges that arise from merging interlibrary loan and acquisitions departments, as well as the administrative aspects of such a partnership.
Through examining the reasons why ILL/Acquisitions mergers may be beneficial, and hearing from peers engaged in the process, attendees will gain an understanding of how to weigh the merits of such an arrangement and determine if it is appropriate for their institution, as well as hear insights on how to move forward. This session is appropriate for all library types.
Sydney Thompson, Co-chair
STARS Education and Training Committee
The Education and Training Committee is currently working on a number of projects. These include preparing a free RUSA STARS webinar on obtaining genealogical resources through interlibrary loan and updating the ShareILL site, with a completion goal of pre-ALA Annual. We are also in the midst of securing a location for our free ILL workshop for ALA Midwinter 2014.
Karen Okamoto, Chair
Boucher Award Committee
Collette G. Mak has been named the Virginia Boucher/OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award winner for 2013. Collette is Head, Resource Access and Delivery at the Hesburgh Libraries, University of Notre Dame. She is recognized for her exceptional, sustained contributions to resource sharing and for her ongoing dedication to education and training for interlibrary loan practitioners. Please join me in congratulating Collette!
Questions and nominations can be directed to Megan Gaffney, 2012-2013 Boucher Award Committee Chair, at gaffneym@udel.edu.
Megan Gaffney, Chair
RUSA Conference Program Coordinating Committee
The RUSA sections and committees will be presenting fifteen fantastic programs at Annual Conference 2013 in Chicago, as well as the Business Reference 101 preconference from BRASS on Friday, June 28. Register now at http://ala13.ala.org.
The preliminary RUSA program schedule for Annual 2013 in Chicago:
Friday, June 28
8:00 am-4:00 pm
Preconference: Business Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship
[Special registration required]
Saturday, June 29
Sunday, June 30
Monday, July 1
This year the committee has focused much of its attention on ALA Annual Conference 2014 in Las Vegas. Over the fall the committee met twice using RUSA’s Blackboard Collaborate room. We then met in-person during ALA Midwinter in Seattle.
In response to ALA’s Conference Changes Roadmap, the committee has developed a set of recommendations that will impact 2014 Annual Conference programming. Earlier decisions by RUSA Board were used as our starting point. These recommendations were approved by the RUSA Board during ALA Midwinter in Seattle:
As of this writing, we do not yet know how many programs RUSA will be able to offer at the 2014 Annual Conference. RUSA sections should proceed on developing multiple program proposals with the understanding that at least one should be able to be presented at the conference, and maybe more!
Many thanks to the committee for their teamwork and cooperation!
-Joe Thompson, chair
Just Ask: Defining and Advocating for the Reference Librarian
The Just Ask discussion group, sponsored by RSS, was intended to help the Just Ask committee create a RUSA member-influenced vision of both, which in turn will assist the organization in advocating more effectively for the support and development of quality reference services. Just Ask Committee will further discuss the results of the discussion group at a virtual meeting held after Midwinter.
The discussion was centered around three questions:
With forty-five people in attendance, small groups discussed these questions and then presented their ideas back to the main group.
Some of the themes brought up during the discussion (this is not an exhaustive list): Our roles haven’t changed, but the tools have; services needed to be taken directly to our communities; we need to be better advocates for ourselves and our services.
Some suggestions for what RUSA can do to help: A national marketing campaign, and webinars for library staff related to developing advocacy tools, like elevator speeches.
If you are interested in contributing to the conversation, please contribute your thoughts to the Just Ask forum.
Elizabeth Stephan, co-chair
BRASS Business Reference in Academic Libraries Committee
Charles Allan participated in a conference call with the BRASS committee and shared the research competencies committee’s progress in writing rough drafts of research competencies and creating an annotated bibliography. The committee has a rough research competencies draft of seven points with subcategories that cover key components of information literacy, database searching techniques, framing research questions and specific research questions related to business information research skills.
The Research Committee is continuing to incorporate members’ inputs on the content and wording of the competencies. Delivery of the competencies may prove to be a multi-year process as surveys from faculty and businesses are gathered. Several members of the task force have suggested further enhancements to the document to expand and refine content.
Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee
A small group of Business Reference in Public Libraries Committee met at Mid-Winter and finalized our Forum topic for Annual. The forum is entitled Business Librarian’s Reference Shelf. Speakers are to be determined.
Elizabeth Malafi, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Program Planning Committee
BRASS 2013 Program: Investment Success! Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio
Monday, July 1, 2013
8:30-10:00 A.M.
Good personal investment education is important for librarians and library staff. We are an occupational group that is rarely able to access top financial advice. In this program, investment professionals will demystify the process and help us understand essential principles and how to apply them to make better decisions to meet our retirement goals. The presentation will include a discussion of the common mistakes investors make, why we make them, and how to avoid them.
Speaker:
Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Business Reference Sources Committee
The Business Reference Sources Committee (BRSC) held a virtual meeting through Collaborate on January 7, 2013.
One of the main announcements was the RUSQ column on Outstanding Business Reference sources has now been published: “Outstanding Business Reference Sources 2012”. (2012). Reference & User Services Quarterly, 52(2), 154-157. http://rusa.metapress.com/content/x16h7013v7mr6435/fulltext.pdf.
We also discussed the list of nominated titles and business sources. Ed Hahn is in charge of this subcommittee and announced that so far twenty-six items have been nominated. We are still seeking additional nominations; however, as some items are removed from the list as we narrow it down.
Penny Scott is leading the subcommittee for organizing the 2013 Publishers’ forum at ALA. A committee discussion was held to finalize ideas for the forum and to start getting details solidified. Penny has also offered to document the timeline and steps necessary to organize the Publishers’ Forum and post them on the BRSC Wiki as well as on the BRSC RUSA webpage along with possible topics discussed during the virtual meeting. The one that seemed to get the most attention was looking at Discovery Layer services and how this has affected specialized sources of business information such as financial data and market research reports. Penny is working on this.
Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee
Plans are underway for the BRASS 25th Anniversary Party to be held on Monday, July 1st, at ALA Annual 2013 in Chicago. Keep your calendars open for this fabulous event. Stay tuned for details to come over the coming months.
Louise Feldmann, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Discussion Group Steering Committee
Jason Dewland led a discussion on entrepreneurship support in libraries. BRASS attendees described library programs and offered supporting resources for entrepreneurship. Public libraries offer a number of programs and resources for local entrepreneurs. The Chamber of Commerce meets at the Middle Country Public Library in New York. Some libraries offer entrepreneur centers including maker spaces, the Chicago Public Library received a $250,000 maker space grant from the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS). Many libraries offer help with launching and marketing new businesses to those creating new tech products by providing resources, referrals to small business counselors, and hosting networking events.
Academic libraries are evolving as they are being asked to help support universities that are increasingly reaching out into their communities. Universities expanding their efforts to help new business ventures with business incubators and expanding their role with helping faculty get new products patented and brought to market. In academic libraries the importance of distinguishing between student assignments and entrepreneurial projects when using library databases is addressed by educating students about licensing limitations of academic library databases.
Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Education Committee
Best of the Best Business Websites Winners
Since 2009, every fall the BRASS Education Committee has been selecting the top three Best of the Best Business Websites a business librarian can’t live without. Take a look at the previous winners. This year, the three winners are:
On behalf of the BRASS Education Committee, Mary Martin announced the winners at the RUSA Book and Media Awards on January 27th, 2013, at ALA Midwinter in Seattle.
Since 2009, the three winners have been reviewed in the winter issue of the Reference & User Services Quarterly (RUSQ).
BRASS Webinars
The BRASS Education Committee submitted a proposal to the BRASS Executive Committee to amend the submission and approval process for RUSA webinars in order to elevate BRASS’ profile. First, we would like to highlight BRASS sponsorship for those webinars where presenters are BRASS members or recruited by BRASS. As an additional benefit to BRASS members and to attract new members, we also proposed discounts for such webinars for BRASS members, as well as group, series and recording rates. The BRASS Executive Committee approved our proposal, and now we are awaiting RUSA’s decision.
Interested in doing a webinar, or know someone whose business research expertise will be appreciated by colleagues? Let us know!
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
http://brass.libguides.com/
BRASS Membership Committee
Don’t you LIKE us? Please become a “friend” of BRASS Facebook page. See pictures and events. You can Like Us on Facebook.
Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Nominating Committee
The BRASS Nominating Committee submitted the 2013 Ballot nominees this past September. Thanks to Mary Gilles and Elizabeth Stephan for all of their help in getting this great list of nominees together. The BRASS 2013 Ballot will include for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Todd Hines and Peter Z. McKay; and for Member-at-Large: Chad Boeninger and Elizabeth Malafi. BRASS member Anthony (Tony) Lin will be a candidate on the RUSA-level ballot for Secretary.
Celia Ross, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Vendor Relations Committee
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee has been continuing to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the celebration event planned for 2013 in Chicago. Confirmed sponsors so far are Gale Cengage, S&P Capital IQ, Morningstar, Annual Reviews, Emerald, SimplyMap, and PrivCo. We are also close to confirming sponsorship by Mintel, Mergent, ReportLinker and possibly EIU. Committee members include Paul Brothers and Lydia LaFaro.
Celia Ross, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Publications and Communications Committee
The BRASS Publications and Communications committee held their midwinter virtual meeting in early January. The committee’s primary objective for the coming semester is to continue improving the quality, accuracy and timeliness of BRASS web pages. Toward this end, the committee will contact many of the other BRASS groups and committees for advice and feedback. The Publications and Communication Committee will also begin plans for a new collection of Guidelines and Style Guide for BRASS Web pages and communications.
John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair
BRASS Morningstar Public Librarian Support Award Committee
The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarianship Award is now reviewing nominations. The award winner will be selected soon and announced in the upcoming month. A public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the conference will be selected. The award winner will receive $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference.
Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair
BRASS Gale-Cenage learning Student Travel Award Committee
The application deadline for the BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award was January 31st. A winner is expected to be announced soon.
Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair
Virtual Reference Discussion Forum
The Virtual Reference (VR) Discussion Coordinating Committee hosted an engaging discussion forum at the Midwinter Meeting in Seattle. Nearly fifty attendees gathered to reflect and share knowledge on the topic of transitions between virtual reference platforms. Many libraries transitioned between platforms this year, due to the phasing out of Meebo, so the topic was especially timely. Dr. Pam Dennis and Laureen P. Cantwell of the University of Memphis University Libraries provided kick-off remarks titled, “Life After Meebo: Evaluating Virtual Reference Services for Your Library in the Post-Meebo Virtual Environment.” Following the kick-off remarks, attendees participated in small-group discussions, sharing their experiences evaluating and transitioning between VR platforms. A range of experiences were represented—some attendees came to learn about how they might implement VR services at their libraries, while others reported on their experiences with numerous VR platforms. Finally, attendees reported out on their small group discussions. Attendees shared suggestions for VR staffing models, emerging and alternative platforms, and best practices. Attendees expressed the value they derive from these discussions with their colleagues, particularly the small-group discussions. The Virtual Reference Discussion Coordinating Committee looks forward to hosting another engaging discussion forum at ALA Annual in Chicago.
Julie A. Piacentine, Chair
Virtual Reference Discussion Coordinating Committee, 2012-2013
jpia@uchicago.edu
MARS Professional Development Committee
The MARS Professional Development Committee is interested in developing webinars for any RUSA committee or member. We know how to deliver webinars using Blackboard Collaborate, the vendor chosen by RUSA for online learning. Our committee will help you with the process of getting your webinar approved, train your instructors, and facilitate your presentations. The committee is currently working on a webinar on using reference tracking and data collection tools to improve their services. Got an idea? Please consider submitting it to the MARS Professional Development Webinar Suggestion Form.
Van Houlson, Co-Chair
Professional Development Committee, 2012-2013
houls001@umn.edu
MARS Local Systems and Services Committee
The MARS LSS committee is planning an online program on learning commons. The date has not been finalized but is scheduled to take place in March. It is a follow-up to the 2011 discussion forum the committee held on Learning Commons.
Title:
The Learning Commons and the Academic Library: Using Emerging Technologies and New Partnerships to Build Student Success.
Description:
Has your library partnered with academic support services to offer a “learning commons” in the library, or are you discussing/planning such a partnership? If so, please join us for a follow-up to the discussion forum “The Learning Commons and the Academic Library: Using Emerging Technologies and New Partnerships to Build Student Success” held at Midwinter 2012. Attend the online open meeting and learn how these libraries have developed partnerships and designed spaces to support student learning.
Speakers:
Look for an email on the MARS listserv with more details. If you are interested in attending, please contact Chanitra Bishop at chbishop@indiana.edu.
The committee is also planning a program for ALA Annual on open source software. Below is the title and the description:
Title: Leveraging Open Source Software to create library web sites
Description: Is your library considering using open source software such as Drupal, WordPress or Omeka to revamp your library’s web site, create a digital archive or a staff intranet? Our speakers will provide an overview of open source software and discuss some of their features and capabilities. They will also discuss implementations of the software at their institution including the development process, challenges, lessons learned and practical advice for developing websites using open source software.
Time: Sunday, June 30, 2013 3-4 PM
Chanitra Bishop, Chair
Local Systems and Services Committee, 2012-2013
chbishop@indiana.edu
MARS Chair’s Program for ALA Annual 2013
The MARS Chair Program Planning Committee has been hard at work planning an exciting program for this year’s conference. Mark your calendars now to join us Sunday, June 30th, from 1:00-2:30 P.M. for an informative discussion with David Bietila, Web Program Director, Digital Library Development Center, University of Chicago Library; Lesley Moyo, Director Research and Instruction, Virginia Tech University; Tracy Gilmore, Technical Services Librarian, Virginia Tech University; and a “mystery” speaker (to be identified soon) about the user experience, interface design and the role of reference. Don’t forget we start the program with the My Favorite Martian Award for 2013!
Title: Usability, the User Experience & Interface Design: The Role of Reference
Description: With the advent of new discovery tools and new technology, the habits of our researchers and users have certainly changed. How are we collecting data and observing behavior to improve these interfaces to better meet our user’s needs? How can we learn from what other researchers are studying and use that data to implement change? What is the new relationship between the virtual space, the physical space, and the user experience?
Panel members will discuss how their institutions have implemented innovative changes to the user interface and address the role of usability testing in their decision process. Audience members will have opportunities to submit questions to the panelists. The learning objectives for attendees are:
Donna Scanlon
dscanlon@loc.gov
Chair, Conference Program Planning Committee, 2012-2013
User Experience Design Committee
Though it was 4:30 P.M. on a Sunday afternoon in Seattle, more than sixtypeople packed Room 203 of the Washington Convention Center for the “Putting U in UX Design” discussion forum sponsored by RUSA/MARS’ User Experience Design Committee. Heidi Steiner, Head of Digital and Distance Education Services at Norwich University, sparked the discussion by providing a provocative, witty introduction to the principles of user experience design. She emphasized the need for librarians to intentionally take the perspective of users and noted that doing so would help us avoid confusing them with inscrutable jargon and overly detailed blocks of text on websites. It would also inspire us to put help where our users are by embedding widgets and other contact information at the point-of-need.
Steiner further recommended that we solicit quick feedback from non-library users and then make quick changes based on that feedback rather than make changes only after complex, large-scale usability testing. Her slide-deck and Power Point slides can be found in the ALA Scheduler.
Following Steiner’s introduction, attendees participated in a lively discussion centering on what interests them and what concerns them about User Experience Design. This discussion yielded numerous ideas for future sessions and projects for the User Experience Design Committee.
Ideas for sessions included presentations or discussions about:
Ideas for projects:
Other ideas:
Melissa Clapp
melshoo@uflib.ufl.edu
Chair, User Experience Design Committee, 2012-2013
Jason Coleman
coleman@k-state.edu
Member, User Experience Design Committee, 2012-2014
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee sponsored two excellent Forums at Midwinter. “Just Ask: Defining and Advocating for the Reference Librarian,” facilitated by Elizabeth Stephan from Western Washington University, had a total of forty-five attendees from public, academic, and other types of libraries. Lively small group discussions focused on the new or changing role of reference librarians, how it may differ by type of library, and the kind of support needed to make the public aware of the changing role.
Our second Forum, “Unhappy Campers: Coping with Job Dissatisfaction and Burnout on the Front Lines,” facilitated by Virginia Cairns from the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, had 48 attendees from many different types of libraries. Discussions took place in small groups, with many great ideas and suggestions reported back to the entire group. Topics included how to approach management for help with burnout, strategies for preventing and alleviating burnout in your peers or subordinates, and ideas for how we as individuals can cope with burnout in our own lives and careers.
The Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee did not meet at ALA Midwinter 2013. The committee’s meeting for Midwinter was conducted via email in October when the winning forum proposals for the meeting were chosen.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2012-2013
Education and Professional Development for Reference
The RSS Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee (EDPRC), in collaboration with the MARS Professional Development Committee, hosted a free workshop “New Tech for Reference: From the Reference Interview to Roving Reference, Challenges, Benefits and Best Practice” at ALA Midwinter 2013. The workshop was a resounding success with over seventy-five people in attendance. Ninety-five percent of attendees thought they would implement some of the ideas presented at their library. The workshop consisted of three sessions which highlighted using social media to answer reference questions, an iPad roving reference program, and how LibAnswers were implemented as a knowledge base. All presentation materials are available on the ALA Connect. The planning group looks forward to offering a free workshop opportunity at an upcoming ALA conference, and is busy documenting lessons learned so we can improve for the next workshop.
In addition, EDPRC is in discussion with RUSA CODES, who coordinated the Reference Publishing Discussion Forum, “Are Users Finding Our Online Reference Resources,” at Midwinter to see if we could do a follow-up via webinar. Lastly, the group is still developing a process to review library school syllabi for reference themes; this is our spring project.
Kristen Mastel & Joseph Yue, Co-Chairs 2012-2013
Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee
The Evaluation of Reference and User Services met virtually on January 30 and discussed two upcoming goals. The first is to determine, by survey, what reference models are currently in place (triage, combined desk, roving, etc.) in libraries and how libraries arrived at those models and also how libraries are assessing those models. The second is the formation of an ad hoc committee with the Virtual Reference Services committee to take a snapshot of the current state of virtual reference, get a baseline of services being offered, and ideas for those who haven’t implemented it yet. Much work to do between now and Annual!
Ellen Keith, Chair, 2011-2013
Health and Medical Reference Committee
The Health and Medical Reference Committee (HMRC) has chosen four speakers for the 2013 ALA Annual program, Different Strokes: Serving the Health Information Needs of a Diverse Community. In addition, the HMRC has had a webinar proposal approved by RUSA on the topic of best medical resources. However, as the committee would really like to have a series of free programs on this topic, the HMRC is considering the possibility of doing a quarterly online discussion series which could be free to anyone. The HMRC has also met monthly to work on new guidelines for health and medical reference.
Karen Vargas, Chair 2012-2014
Job and Career Reference Committee
The Job & Career Reference Committee had a lively gathering of ALA members discussing job & career reference at our respective institutions (public, academic, & career colleges) in Seattle. For more information or to get involved with our online wiki efforts, contact the committee chair Kate Oberg: Kathryn.Oberg@gmail.com.
Kate Oberg, Chair 2012-2013
Library Service to an Aging Population
RUSA RSS Library Services to an Aging Population met on Thursday, January 31st. The committee is considering a change to its charge, with a focus on positive language and broadening the scope to recognize that “Aging Population” encompasses a diverse group with a wide variety of interests and needs.
The committee will be making minor changes to the Guidelines for Library and Information Services to Older Adults, last revised in 2008, and suggesting additional resources for Keys to Engaging Older Adults @ Your Library. The committee hopes to provide input on the Access to Information Wiki under construction by the RUSA Access to Information Committee.
The committee recently lost two members, so is currently seeking new members to join. Please contact Abigail Elder (aelder@ci.tualatin.or.us) if you would like to join us!
Abigail Elder, Chair 2012-2013
Library Services to the Spanish Speaking
Lucia Castillo, of the Vancouver Public Library, provided a very informative and interactive lively session on the program used in Canada to assist young families with social skills and engaging with the Spanish speaking community. Vancouver is thriving with a variety of culture and languages. Less than three percent are Spanish speaking and they all attend the Mother Goose program despite the distance they may need to travel.
A collection of YouTube videos from the session are linked below:
The Services to Spanish Speaking had some discussion in advance of the presentation on Mother Goose about the next step toward revising the Guidelines for Services to the Spanish Speaking. The committee is seeking volunteers for next year.
Stephen Marvin, Chair 2012-2013
Management of Reference Committee
The Committee met virtually on January 30th and discussed a request by an original member of the RUSA Task Force that wrote the Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians (http://www.ala.org/rusa/resources/guidelines/professional) to ask that they be reinstated. Discussion revealed that perhaps the Committee previously had acted in haste and the matter will be brought before the RSS Board at its February 7 meeting.
This Committee is also working with the Services to an Aging Population Committee in sponsoring a discussion session at the Annual Conference in Chicago. The session is about “The Little r in Reference .”
Session summary: There is plenty of talk about the new work of “little r” reference, but little detail on how that translates into the daily work of public library reference staff. This program delves into the who/what/where/how of contemporary reference work.
Speakers
We discussed a request by Sarah Hammill on whether our Committee wanted to work on updating the Competencies for Cooperative Services. With our work on re-evaluating the fate of the Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians, we have enough on our plate.
Sally Dockter, Chair 2012-2013
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference
RSS Marketing and PR committee met in person at ALA Midwinter on January 26. (Meeting notes are posted on ALA Connect).
During this meeting, we brainstormed the details of the upcoming webinar/discussion event for ALA Annual, “Slam the Boards.” The webinar will be during the week of May 20-24 and presenter Bill Pardue will introduce us to the volunteer program “Slam the Boards,” how it came to be, its mission, how it works, and measuring success. He will also set us up to participate on June 10 so that by ALA Annual, we’ll be ready to take this discussion to a deeper level.
Our discussion of “Slam the Boards” is on June 26. Bill will recap the webinar and our experiences. We’ll then move into how to develop ways like “Slam the Boards,” helping customers where they are with professionalism and friendliness. Our hope is that participants will walk away with specific ideas and plans about extending current or creating new online question-answering, social media, and virtual reference services that they can bring back to their libraries for immediate consideration.
Marketing and PR for libraries is also a major consideration for every aspect of library work. We discussed the newly-reformed “Ask” campaign and other ways libraries can advocate their relevance to their communities.
Current programs such as Ask, Turning the Page, the Geek Campaign and more offer libraries opportunities for marketing and promotion. The RSS Marketing and PR committee is considering the development of a workshop for ALA Annual 2014 to showcase what is available.
Cathay Crosby, Chair 2011-2013
Organization and Planning Committee
The committee met online in January 2013. We reviewed RSS Bylaws and Handbook and thought we might be able to move forward updating both documents. However, upon further review, we discovered some issues/inconsistencies between the documents that require further discussion. We will be holding a joint O&P/Executive meeting in February or March to work out these issues once and for all. Then we will move forward with updating. Our goal is to have a very easy-to-use Chair Orientation Handbook; updated, clear bylaws; and a Handbook for Officers, if needed, which explains duties of each position and other details.
Liane Taylor, Chair 2012-2013
Recognition Committee
Are you eligible for the Honor Roll?
When you hear Honor Roll do you have flashbacks to high school? Maybe you have happy memories of the honor roll or maybe you think could of, would of, should of…
Regardless of your experience in high school, you may be eligible for the RSS Honor Roll.
The RSS has an Honor Roll that 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 Susan Ware at saw4@psu.edu or Virginia Cole vac11@cornell.edu
Not only will you become a member of this esteemed group, you will also be recognized at ALA Annual in Chicago!
If you want to find out which honored colleagues you will be joining, see the list of RSS Honor Roll Members.
Virginia Cole, Chair 2012-2013
Research and Statistics Committee
In January, the RSS Research and Statistics Committee selected three presenters for the 19th Annual Reference Research Forum; the program will include the following:
Lynda Duke, Chair 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Services (MARS/RSS)
The RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee has a new MARS Co-chair, Alisa Gonzalez, Social Sciences Librarian and Reference Coordinator at New Mexico State University Library.
The committee will be partnering with the RSS Marketing and Public Relations Committee on a webinar in late-May and related discussion forum for ALA Annual. The topic will be active advocacy and promotion of virtual reference services, and the speaker will be Bill Pardue (of “Slam the Boards!” fame).
Investigation of hosting a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon at ALA Annual is also in the works. After an informal meeting in the Networking Uncommons at Midwinter, the event has taken on some new and exciting possibilities. These will be being discussed within the committee and with attendees at the Midwinter get-together.
The committee is also in the beginning stages of partnering with the RSS Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee (ERUS) on a survey to ascertain the current state of virtual reference. Don Boozer (RSS Co-chair) attended a meeting of ERUS in January, and plans are moving ahead on forming an ad hoc team to construct and administer the survey.
More details on each of these initiatives will be forthcoming, so stay tuned to the committee’s ALA Connect space.
Don Boozer, Chair 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
The subcommittee continues to meet monthly and works in subgroups between meetings. Our virtual Midwinter meeting took place on February 5. We are finishing up the Training, Interview Skills, and Core Competencies modules and will work on additional modules as we look forward to ALA Annual.
Jared Hoppenfeld, Chair 2012-2013
Jennifer Lau-Bond, Chair 2011-2013
Young Adult Reference Services
We hope to schedule our midyear committee meeting imminently, to discuss the guideline mandate of the committee and directions we are going including perhaps issues such as:
We are also progressing through RSS leadership on the move to becoming a joint YALSA committee.
The committee sponsored a discussion forum at Midwinter entitled “Reference Services to Young Adults: Why Common Core Standards Matter.” Adopted by forty-five of the fifty states and several territories, the Common Core State Standards are impacting the way that students are being taught and information literacy is being judged. The ripple effect from that hits libraries and library services immediately in ways we are trying to evaluate.
The discussion forum, led by Amanda Ellington, Rose Luna, and Margaux DelGuidice, drew an interested crowd of 78 librarians from all types of libraries, from school to public to academic to state libraries. The session received coverage in Publishers Weekly. Meanwhile, the session has a useful wiki.
We hope to see what topics might be useful to those serving young adults for a discussion forum at Annual.
Nicolette Warisse Sosulski, Chair 2012-2013
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.
STARS Membership Committee
The RUSA STARS Membership Committee has been hard at work! Over the past few months, we’ve implemented the “5 Things Every New Resource Sharing Librarian Should Know!” as well as “STARGazing.” The “5 Things…” document provides key resources a new person in the field of Resource Sharing will find most helpful in orienting themselves within the profession. “STARGazing” is an initiative to spotlight STARS members in an effort to grow a sense of community and assist new STARS members in getting to know the names and faces of their colleagues. Hopefully, when attending ALA conferences, the “STARGazer” will provide a few friendly faces in the crowd.
Our first STARGazer was Nora Dethloff and our next STARGazer, Heather Weltin, was interviewed at ALA Midwinter! You can find both “5 Things…” and “STARGazing” on the RUSA STARS website. STARS Membership Committee meets once a month (virtually) and is beginning organized outreach to new members and all members alike.
Micquel Little, Chair
STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee
The RUSA CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee met at Midwinter to discuss planning for our program at Annual 2013, which will take place on Saturday, June 29th from 1:00-2:30 P.M.
The title of our program is: “Enhancing Services through Integration of Interlibrary Loan and Acquisitions”
Description:
“This panel will explore the opportunities and challenges that arise from merging interlibrary
loan and acquisitions departments, as well as the administrative aspects of such a partnership.
Through examining the reasons why ILL/Acquisitions mergers may be beneficial, and hearing
from peers engaged in the process, attendees will gain an understanding of how to weigh the
merits of such an arrangement and determine if it is appropriate for their institution, as well as
hear insights on how to move forward. This session is appropriate for all library types.”
Our committee hopes to organize a discussion group for Annual 2014, and submit a program proposal again for Annual 2015.
Sydney Thompson, Co-chair
STARS Education and Training Committee
Sixty people attended the sixth annual “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About ILL” workshop at the University of Washington on January 25. Education and Training continues to coordinate efforts to update shareill.org and will work with ShareILL owners and STARS Executive to transition the wiki to a new platform.
Jennifer Jacobs, Chair
STARS Hot Topics Discussion Group
A successful discussion was held in Seattle at ALA Midwinter 2013, encompassing a variety of relevant topics in the Resource Sharing world. These included CCC’s Get it Now! proposed “time-bomb,” which would restrict access to articles within a specific time frame; universal patron pick-up cards; electronic billing’s effect on paper check processing, along with IFM protocols and the ability to credit, as well as charge; and the recording of services performed by ILL operations and statistical relevance. The Working Group’s survey was distributed and results will be published to STARS members after collection and dissemination.
Troy Christenson, Chair
RUSA STARS / LLAMA SASS: Cooperative and Remote Circulation Committee
This fall we held a virtual meeting, part of which was devoted to a request from the STARS Education and Training Committee to assist them in updating the ShareILL wiki.
The group broke down the responsibilities and used Google docs to collaborate on the update. We were able to fix broken links, remove outdated entries, and add links for consortia and networks that have been established since the last update.
The group has a virtual meeting schedule for February 11 to discuss our plans for ALA Annual and the possibility of submitting a program proposal for 2014.
Peter Collins, Chair
Chair from Committee on Professional Ethics Wants to Hear from YOU.
Based on recent requests to the committee for assistance in two areas, we’re working on developing two new explanatory statements for the ALA Code of Ethics. These areas are: Ethics and Social Media Conflicts of Interest. These explanatory statements will take the form of a question & answer document. We currently have two in this format on workplace speech (also being updated) and on enforcement of the Code of Ethics. To see these examples, please see the Resources section on our committee’s website. As we are a committee of Council, we are seeking your input on the topics that we should cover in these documents. Examples of the types of questions we could answer are:
If you have suggestions for topics that we should cover, please send them to the Committee chair at mgarnar@regis.edu. Our goal is to have both documents ready for public consumption by Annual 2013. Contact the chair if you have any questions, and thanks in advance for your assistance.
Please send your comments to:
Martin Garnar Chair, ALA Committee on Professional Ethics
Reference Services Librarian and Professor of Library Science
Dayton Memorial Library, Regis University
3333 Regis Blvd., Mail Stop D-20
Denver, CO 80221
303.964.5459 (voice)
303.964.5497 (fax)
mgarnar@regis.edu
In light of the changes described in ALA’s June 2012 Conference Changes Roadmap the RUSA CPCC is working with the RUSA Board to modify our division’s processes for program selection and allocation. The immediate impact of the Roadmap on future conferences is that programs will all take place in the convention center or headquarters hotel, time slots are shortened to 60 and 90 minutes, and the divisions will have fewer programs. The RUSA sections (specifically STARS, RSS, MARS, and BRASS) were extremely helpful this past summer in making quick changes so that we could accommodate the reduced number of program time slots for Annual 2013 in Chicago. We are now working on a new program allocation model for Annual 2014 in Las Vegas, though at this moment we do not yet know how many programs RUSA will have the opportunity to present there.
The committee has been communicating by email and met online on Oct. 26 via RUSA’s Blackboard Collaborate room. We will meet online again on Wednesday, December 5, 11:00 AM-12:30 PM EST. Our meeting at ALA Midwinter 2013 in Seattle is scheduled for Monday, January 28 from 8:30-10:00 AM.
It’s not too soon to start making your plans for next summer! The RUSA sections and committees will be presenting fifteen fantastic programs at Annual Conference 2013 in Chicago and BRASS will be presenting the Business Reference 101 preconference on Friday, June 28. The programs are offered over three days, from Saturday, June 29 through Monday, July 1.
Joe Thompson, chair
Progress continues on putting together an excellent program for Annual 2013 in Chicago, to be held on Saturday, June 29 from 4:00-5:30 PM. This year’s highly anticipated RUSA President’s Program will provide new perspectives and creative thinking from a prominent non-librarian. The committee has been considering a multitude of possible topics and speakers from a variety of sources including TED talks, PopTech, SXSW Interactive, and the World Future Society. You will not want to miss this major event of the conference. Stay tuned for the announcement of this year’s speaker!
The committee members were able to meet in person while in Anaheim and have been communicating regularly since then via email, phone and RUSA’s Blackboard Collaborate room. Our meeting at ALA Midwinter 2013 in Seattle is scheduled for Sunday, January 27 from 8:30-10:00 AM.
Mary Mintz and Joe Thompson, co-chairs
The Business Reference in Academic Libraries committee is collaborating with SLA’s CUBL (College and University Business Libraries) to form the Core Competencies Task Force. We are working to create the first set of business research competencies. Our goal is to create clearly written guidelines that can be used by undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and business librarians in the private sector. Research competencies structure the academic experience and give students and others a benchmark for knowing their own information competency in the field and what their goals should be.
The committee is busy reviewing existing research competencies in other fields, existing information literacy standards in business disciplines, and conducting interviews with non-academic organizations about their experiences in business research. The committee expects to present rough drafts of these processes at ALA Midwinter.
Co-chair Carissa Phillips is identifying private businesses and other organizations to get feedback about how they use information and their experiences with recent business majors’ ability in information literacy.
Members of the committee are collaborating on Google Docs, group sourcing the literature review, providing links to research competencies and brainstorming on the content of the competencies.
Charles Allan, 2012-2013 Chair
The sub-committee focusing on nominations for Best Business Reference source is being headed up by Ed Hahn from Weber University. Hahn has started the nominations process and is encouraging all committee members to submit their nominations throughout the fall. This year we are also trying to broaden the pool by including new databases or other online resources. If anyone has any new business reference sources they would like us to consider, either print or online, please have them contact Hahn at edwardhahn@weber.edu or the BRSC committee chair at hurstsj@miamioh.edu.
The other BRSC sub-committee is focusing on planning for next year’s Publisher’s Forum program to be held at ALA Annual in Chicago. This subcommittee is being headed up by Penny Scott from the University of San Francisco. She and the other committee members are currently considering possible themes for the program. Anyone with suggestions for publishers or types of products you would like to see presented, please contact Scott at plscott@usfca.edu or the BRSC Chair at hurstsj@miamioh.edu.
Susan Hurst, 2012-2013 Chair
Investment Success!
Building & Managing Your Retirement Portfolio
Monday, July 1, 2013
8:30-10:00 AM
Good personal investment education is important for librarians and library staff. We are an occupational group that is rarely able to access top financial advice. In this program, investment professionals will demystify the process and help us understand essential principles and how to apply them to make better decisions to meet our retirement goals. The presentation will include a discussion of the common mistakes investors make, why we make them, and how to avoid them.
Speakers:
Charles Rotblut, CFA, Vice President, American Association of Individual Investors (AAII)
Charles Rotblut is a vice president of the American Association of Individual Investors and is the editor of the AAII Journal. He authors the weekly AAII Investor Update e-newsletter and his commentary is published on both Seeking Alpha and Forbes.com.
Christine Benz, Director of Personal Finance, Morningstar, Inc.
Christine Benz is director of personal finance for Morningstar and author of 30-Minute Money Solutions: A Step-by-Step Guide to Managing Your Finances, published by John Wiley and Sons in January 2009. She is also editor of Morningstar Personal Finance, a monthly personal finance newsletter and writes a column on Morningstar.com.
Peter McKay, 2012-2013 Chair
The BRASS Discussion group will host an open forum at ALA’s Midwinter conference. All who are attending the conference are invited to join us Sunday, January 27 from 8:30-10:30 AM. The BRASS Discussion group is currently seeking input on what topic(s) that participants would like to discuss. Past discussions have focused on free business-related web resources, publishing, and other topics related to business librarianship. Please post suggestions for topics on the Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) Suggestion Wall. We look forward to hearing your suggestions.
Jason Dewland, 2012-2013 Chair
The BRASS Education Committee has submitted a proposal for the 2013 preconference “Business Reference 101: Core Competencies for Business Librarianship.” This full-day interactive workshop is designed for new business librarians; generalists who have assumed responsibility in business librarianship; or librarians who handle business reference-related inquiries in all types of libraries. It will focus on core resources for business reference, business collection development, and licensing electronic business products. Lety Camacho (Brigham Young University), immediate Past-Chair of the BRASS Education Committee, is spearheading this effort. Mary Martin (Claremont Colleges) serves as the preconference coordinator.
The webinar working group is developing a series of webinars of interest to business librarians which will be offered as part of the RUSA online learning initiative. Chad Boeninger from Ohio University, Dan Hickey from Penn State, and Natasha Arguello from University of Texas at San Antonio welcome your suggestions for webinar topics which may be submitted via BRASS Suggestion Wall:http://brass.libguides.com/suggestionwall. Webinar presenters will be paid $150 for each 60-90-minute webinar. If you know any colleagues, or would like to share your own business reference expertise, please contact Natasha.Arguello@utsa.edu.
Natasha Arguello, 2012-2013 Chair
http://connect.ala.org/node/65121
Do you feel you are missing a friendly face? Do feel you do not have enough friends to share in your accomplishments? Then you might “like” the BRASS Facebook. This is a place to share pictures of BRASS accomplishment and find out what is happening in BRASS. Please “like us” atwww.facebook.com/ala.rusa.brass
Kelly Janousek, 2012-2013 Chair
The BRASS Nominating Committee was pleased to submit our slate of candidates for the 2013 ballot. Thanks to committee members Mary Gilles and Elizabeth Stephan for all of their help in getting this great list of nominees together. Special thanks, too, to Larayne Dallas, chair of the RUSA Nominating Committee, and to Susan Hornung for their excellent communication and support throughout this process. And, of course, thanks to our candidates who are willing to serve BRASS by being on the ballot! They are, for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect: Todd Hines and Peter Z. McKay; and for Member-at-Large: Chad Boeninger and Elizabeth Malafi.
Celia Ross, 2012-2013 Chair
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee has been continuing to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the celebration event planned for 2013 in Chicago. Other ideas for connecting to and collaborating with BRASS vendors in order to provide additional value to BRASS members are still in the works and include plans to build a “Virtual Expo” site where vendors could showcase their business reference products as well as any librarian support materials they publish so that BRASS members could see them all in one place.
Celia Ross, 2012-2013 Chair
The Publications and Communications Committee is still reviewing Web pages. Please feel free to pass along any problems with BRASS Web pages to the committee chair, John Gottfried (jcgottfried@gmail.com). The committee will also be attempting to recruit a new Webmaster; interested parties should contact the chair.
John Gottfried, 2012-2013 Chair
NEW! The BRASS Business Expert Press Award for Academic Business Librarians is sponsored by Business Expert Press and is presented to a new librarian in the field of academic business librarianship in order to support attendance at the ALA Annual Conference. This award consists of $1,250 and a citation.
Paul Brothers, 2012-2013 Chair
Plans are underway for a BRASS 25th Anniversary Party to be held at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Keep your calendars open for this fabulous event. Stay tuned for details to come over the next year.
Louise Feldmann, Chair
The 2013 BRASS Gale Cengage Learning Student Travel Award is now accepting applications.
Established in 1992 and sponsored by Gale Cengage Learning, this $1,000 monetary prize is awarded to a student enrolled in an ALA accredited master’s degree program to fund travel to and attendance at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago and a one-year membership in RUSA’s BRASS. Applicants should have a demonstrated interest in a career as a business reference librarian, and the potential to be a leader in the profession as demonstrated by activities that may include (but are not limited to) coursework, internships, jobs, special projects, and publications.
The deadline for nominations is January 31, 2013. Information about the award, including a PDF of the nomination form, can be found on the RUSA website. As explained in the nomination form, the application should include letters of reference, and a library school transcript.
Todd M. Hines, 2012-2013 Chair
The committee for the Morningstar Public Librarianship Award is now seeking nominations. The award is $1,000 in travel funds for ALA’s Annual Conference to a public librarian who has performed outstanding business reference service and who requires financial assistance to attend the conference. The winner must be a member of ALA, RUSA, and BRASS.
Melissa Jeter, 2011-2013 Chair
Do you know someone who always does more than expected for MARS? Someone who is willing to take on the challenge to complete a project or produce a successful program? What about someone who is an indispensable member of your committee or someone who has served as your mentor? If so, please consider nominating them for the MARS Achievement Recognition Certificate, also known as the My Favorite Martian Award.
The MARS Achievement Recognition Certificate is given annually to recognize excellence in service to MARS. This award, presented at the annual MARS Chair’s Program, is given to an individual who is a current member of MARS, and has been an active member for the past two years.
The recipient must have made either (1) sustained contributions toward attaining the goals of MARS, or (2) a single, significant contribution that has resulted in a positive impact upon the work of the section.
To nominate someone, please send the candidate’s name, contact information, and brief statement of why you think they should receive the award to Stephanie Graves (sgraves@lib.siu.edu) by Friday, January 18, 2013.
Stephanie J. Graves
sgraves@lib.siu.edu
Member-At-Large
The brand new UX Design Committee will host a program at Midwinter, “Putting U in UX Design.” Heidi Steiner from Norwich University (along with a co-presenter TBA) will present on ideas for improving current practices and she’ll lead a discussion with the audience to hear what their experiences have been so far, what direction their interests in future programs might take, etc. We hope to see you there!
Missy Clapp
shoop@ufl.edu
Chair, User Experience Design Committee, 2012-2013
Communication & Teaching at the Point of Need Committee
The RUSA Communication and Teaching at Point of Need Committee has finalized their survey results and will be reporting to the membership shortly. We will be meeting virtually for midwinter at a date TBA shortly on the ALA Connect website.
Christine Sharbrough, Chair 2012-2013
Discussion Forums Coordinating Committee
Just Ask: Defining and Advocating for the Reference Librarian (Sunday, January 27, 8:30-10:00 AM) Want to influence the way RUSA advocates for reference services? Join members of the RUSA Just Ask Committee to discuss the evolving role of reference librarians and reference services in all types of libraries. The discussion will help create a RUSA member-influenced vision of both, which in turn will assist the organization in advocating more effectively for the support and development of quality reference services.
Unhappy Campers: Coping with Job Dissatisfaction and Burnout on the Front Lines (Monday, January 28, 2013, 1:00-2:30 PM) Shrinking budgets, staff cuts, competing demands, impatient patrons; it all has an impact on staff morale and the quality of service provided by librarians everywhere. Gather with colleagues to discuss the issues faced, as well as potential strategies for managing unhappiness and distress in the workplace from the perspectives of library administration, peers, and the individual librarian.
Crystal Lentz, Chair 2012-2013
Education and Professional Development for Reference
The Education and Professional Development for Reference Committee is working hard with MARS to put together a fantastic and free ALA Midwinter Workshop on New Technology for Reference. For more information and to register please see the details below.
As our primary focus this fall has been with the workshop, the group has engaged in discussions with other committees regarding an education offering around marketing reference resources.
RUSA MARS and RSS invite you to “New Tech for Reference: from the reference interview to roving reference, challenges, benefits and best practice” at the University of Washington’s Odegaard Library. The workshop is free, open to all and includes refreshments. ALA membership or Midwinter registration is not required.
Reference technology is constantly changing; what was once radical has become established, complete with best practices. Newer technologies appear rapidly, challenging us to understand, learn and adapt ever more quickly.
This workshop explores three new reference technologies, their benefits, challenges and best practices: using social media for reference; applying iPads in roving reference; and integrating a knowledge base system (such as LibAnswers) into reference services.
SCHEDULE:
1:00 – 1:15: Check-in
1:15 – 1:25: Welcome and introductions
1:25 – 2:45: Social media in reference – challenges, benefits and best practices (Michelle Chronister, U.S. General Services Administration)
2:45 – 3:10: Break (refreshments courtesy of OCLC QuestionPoint)
3:10 – 3:55: Using iPads for roving reference (Ava Iuliana, Cindy Dottin and Lauren Christos – Florida International University)
3:55 – 4:40: Knowledge base systems for reference (Erica Nicol and Linda Crook, Washington State University)
4:40 – 5:00: Wrap-up, closing and evaluations
Everyone is welcome, but pre-registration is required athttp://bit.ly/MARSRSS . In the event that registration reaches capacity, RUSA members will have preference.
Additional information about the workshop is available (including session descriptions) here: http://connect.ala.org/node/190900
Kristen Mastel & Joseph Yue, Co-Chairs 2012-2013
Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee
Please note thatMeasuring and Assessing Reference Services and Resources: A Guide is available in public ALA Connect space. This guide was spearheaded by the Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee when chaired by Lisa Horowitz in 2002-2003. In 2010-2011, committee members Tiffany Walsh, Robin Kinder, Jan Tidwell, and Richard Caldwell updated the guide and moved it into Connect. We hope RSS members make use of this valuable resource!
Ellen Keith, Chair 2011-2013
Health and Medical Reference Committee (HMRC)
The HMRC met virtually using Blackboard Collaborate on September 10, 2012. The committee decided to handle all of its professional communication on ALA Connect. The committee will be creating an ALA Connect Community for health and medical reference discussions. Various panelists were brought up and discussed as possibilities for the program at ALA 2013. Various members of the committee decided to spearhead the webinar series, and another group agreed to work on the new Medical Guidelines. Virtual meetings to discuss these two areas are being planned for this fall. A meeting of the HMRC is planned for ALA Midwinter.
Karen Vargas, Chair 2012-2014
Job and Career Reference Committee
The RSS Job and Career Reference Committee will have a discussion group at Midwinter, “Helping Patrons Find Employment or New Career Information.” The discussion group is tentatively scheduled for Saturday, January 26 from 10:30-11:30 AM.
We also are welcoming new committee member from BRASS, Janet Franks.
Kate Oberg, Chair 2012-2013
Library Service to an Aging Population
We are planning to meet virtually in January.
Abigail Elder, Chair 2012-2013
Library Services to the Spanish Speaking
Mother Goose and Promoting Library Services to the Spanish Speaking Community
Lucia Castillo, BA in Librarianship from Leeds Polytechnic, England, and MLS from the University of British Columbia, Canada, has worked with academic and special libraries in Peru for over 25 years. Since 2007, she has been working at the Vancouver Public Library. Her Mother Goose Program in Spanish for the Latino community is the only program available in Vancouver for Spanish speaking children. The Services to Spanish Speaking committee is proud to be able to have Lucia Castillo at ALA Midwinter on Sunday from 10:30-11:30 AM to give sample “story hour.” Attendees will learn the difficulties of meeting needs of the Spanish-speaking community through a question and answer period and discussions. There is evidence music stimulates the development of cognitive ability and emotional intelligence from an early age. Why not start teaching parents today to use rhymes and songs with their children? As Hans Christian Andersen said, “Where words fail, music speaks.” While Mother Goose programs attract children, the Mother Goose program is meant for parents. They are going to rescue a tradition applicable to other cultures, such as the Latino community. New immigrants need to integrate, but without losing their heritage and culture. For the Latino families, the Mother Goose program is a totally new thing. Through the program the Latino families keep their heritage, language, culture, tradition, socialize in a group activity, and make lifelong friendship. Services to the Spanish Speaking described the details of a survey published in the REFORMA Newsletter. ASCLA recognizes, along with the Services to the Spanish speaking, the 43% growth of the U.S. Hispanic population. Bringing Latinos into the library still remains an uphill battle. RUSA RSS is sponsoring this exciting discussion during ALA Midwinter – see you in Seattle. For more information, please contact Stephen Marvin (smarvin@wcupa.edu) or Lucia Castillo (lcastill17@yahoo.ca).
Stephen Marvin, Chair 2012-2013
Management of Reference Committee
The Committee has begun writing “Professional Competencies for the Management of Reference Services.” We are looking at current job ads to see what skills and talents are being sought these days. We are also looking for similar types of documents from other organizations and plan to do a literature review. Nancy Huling, a current committee member, was also on the Committee when the original Competencies were written, so her wisdom will be beneficial to the process. We are not meeting in person at Midwinter, but we will hold a virtual meeting on January 30, 2013 to continue our efforts.
Sally Dockter, Chair 2012-2013
Marketing and Public Relations for Reference
The RSS Marketing and PR Committee will meet on Saturday, January 26 from 10:30-11:30 AM. The location has not been determined. This is a regular meeting to discuss our goals, upcoming program planning, and work on collaboration with other RSS committees.
Cathay Crosby, Chair 2011-2013
Organization and Planning Committee
The Organization & Planning Committee will soon begin work on updating the RSS Handbook, reviewing the RSS Bylaws, and assisting the RSS Executive Committee with holding the RSS Annual Open House. The Committee will be meeting virtually for Midwinter. The time and date will be announced via RSS-L.
Liane Taylor, Chair 2012-2013
Recognition Committee
RSS Service Achievement Award Nominate someone today!
The Reference and Services Section of RUSA is pleased to solicit nominations for the annual RSS Service Achievement Award. This award, which will be presented at the annual RSS Open House and the RUSA annual awards ceremony, honors an RSS member’s contributions to the section. The recipient will be chosen based on either sustained contributions towards attaining the goals of RSS or a single significant contribution that has resulted in a positive impact upon the work of the section.
Please send your nomination detailing specifically how the nominee has met either of these criteria to Virginia Cole (vac11@cornell.edu), the award committee chair, by December 1.
Virginia Cole, Chair 2012-2013
Research and Statistics Committee
The Committee will not be meeting in person at Midwinter, and will schedule a virtual meeting soon.
Call for Presentations
The Research and Statistics Committee of the Reference Services Section of RUSA invites the submission of research projects for presentation at the 19th Reference Research Forum at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago.
The Reference Research Forum continues to be one of the most popular and valuable programs during the ALA Annual Conference, where attendees can learn about notable research projects conducted in the broad area of reference services such as user behavior, electronic services, reference effectiveness and assessment, and organizational structure and personnel. All researchers, including reference practitioners from all types of libraries, library school faculty and students, and other interested individuals, are encouraged to submit a proposal.
For examples of projects presented at past Forums, please see the Committee’s website: http://connect.ala.org/node/187004
The Committee employs a blind review process to select three projects for 20-minute presentations, followed by open discussion. Selected submissions must be presented in person at the Forum in Chicago.
Criteria for selection:
Proposals are due by Monday, December 31, 2012. Notification of acceptance will be made by Monday, February 11, 2013. The submission must not exceed two pages. Please include:
1 A cover sheet including your name(s), title(s), institutional affiliation(s), mailing address(es), fax number(s) and email address(es).
2 The second page should NOT show your name, any personal information, or the name of your institution. Instead, it must include:
a. Title of the project;
b. Explicit statement of the research problem;
c. Description of the research design and methodologies used, and preliminary findings if any;
d. Brief discussion of the unique contribution, potential impact, and significance of the research.
Please send submissions by email to: Lynda Duke Chair, RUSA RSS Research and Statistics Committee.
Lynda Duke, Chair 2012-2013
lduke@iwu.edu
Virtual Reference Services (MARS/RSS)
The RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee has been going through some transitions this year so far. We’ve had some personnel changes with several members resigning or expressing interest in resigning to take on new duties and different responsibilities. We wish them all the best! One of those was coordinating our “RUSA MARS/RSS VR Committee Survey Ad Hoc Group” so we are looking for someone who would like to take on that project. (You need not be a current member of the committee.) The committee has also been in transition on communication channels and is in the process of switching from our current listserv to one sponsored by ALA. The listserv serves as a “behind-the-scenes” tool for discussions by and announcements to committee members that may not be quite ready for posting to ALA Connect.
The committee will be having a virtual meeting in early 2013, and we are looking forward to moving ahead on projects in the New Year.
Don Boozer, Chair 2012-2013
Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee
Jason Coleman has stepped down from the subcommittee and we wish to thank him for all his contributions. We have since added two new members to our group and we would like to welcome Christine Tobias and Neal Pomea. We are thrilled to have them join the team.
The subcommittee continues to meet monthly and works in subgroups between meetings. We will not be meeting at Midwinter, but our virtual monthly meeting will be on January 22nd at 1:00-2:00 PM CST. Our new members have been going through Drupal training while the rest of us move forward with our modules. The Resources section has been reorganized by topic and we will continue adding to this section as we work on additional modules. The Training module is still in progress and will be complete by Midwinter. We have recently discussed the Interview Skills and Core Competencies modules and subgroups have begun to take ideas from those meetings and implement them into Drupal content.
This will bring us to having four sections complete (or almost complete) by Midwinter. With additional members, we hope to continue at a fast pace into the spring to get most of the Virtual Reference Companion (VRC) complete by the Annual Conference.
Jared Hoppenfeld, Chair 2012-2013
Jennifer Lau-Bond, Chair 2011-201
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.
STARS Membership Committee
The STARS Membership Committee is excited to announce a collaborative effort with our new webmasters to make available our latest two initiatives: “Five Things Every New Resource Sharing Librarian Should Know” and our debut “STAR Gazing” Interview. These are available at http://www.ala.org/rusa/sections/stars.
STARS Membership is also working with the Education and Training Committee to update a portion of the SHARE-L website and organize our agenda for ALA Midwinter.
Micquel Little, Chair
STARS Legislation and Licensing Committee
The STARS Legislation and Licensing Committee has been meeting monthly and committee members are trying to keep up-to-date on relevant issues in the news, including the Center for Copyright Information’s Copyright Alert System. Committee members are posting on the ALA Connect site as they discover topics.
Shannon O’Grady, Chair
STARS International ILL Committee
The STARS International ILL Committee is currently collaborating with the Education and Training Committee on its one year pilot project to update ShareILL.org, improving the information for National Bibliographies, National Libraries and Archives, and International Gateways and Union Catalogs. The committee was also recently recognized for its work on the 2011 International ILL survey, the results of which have been reported and well-received at several library conferences. We are actively seeking to recruit new non-US members for the International ILL Committee, and urge anyone who might know of any prospective candidates to contact us.
Tom Bruno, Chair
STARS Cooperative Collection Development Committee
The RUSA CODES/STARS Cooperative Collection Development committee is currently recruiting speakers for our program scheduled for Saturday 1:00-2:30 PM during 2013 ALA Annual.
Title: Enhancing services through integration of Interlibrary Loan and Acquisitions
Description:
This panel will explore the opportunities and challenges that arise from merging interlibrary loan and acquisitions departments, as well as the administrative aspects of such a partnership. Through examining the reasons why ILL/Acquisitions mergers may be beneficial, and hearing from peers engaged in the process, attendees will gain an understanding of how to weigh the merits of such an arrangement and determine if it is appropriate for their institution, as well as hear insights on how to move forward. This session is appropriate for all library types.
Sydney Thompson, Co-chair
STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Policies Committee
An initial revision of the STAR Checklist is being reviewed by some members of the Rethinking Resource Sharing Steering Committee to ensure checklist items are applicable to a variety of library types (public, academic, special) and their locations. The goal is to finalize revisions at ALA Midwinter and release a new version, soon after.
While this is happening, the Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative website is being transitioned to a new platform, WordPress, which will continue to link to the STAR checklist and the list of libraries who have participated.
Evan Simpson, Chair
STARS Education and Training Committee
With help from other STARS committees, the Education and Training (E&T) Committee has been updating pages on the ShareILL Wiki. The ShareILL Wiki lists electronic and print resources related to interlibrary loan, document delivery and resource sharing. Resources cover finding aids and tools, how to manage operations and ways to stay current. ShareILL will be updated in time for ALA Midwinter 2013.
The Education and Training Committee is also organizing a free workshop for ALA Midwinter 2013 called “Everything you always wanted to know about ILL.” The workshop covers topics of interest to all resource sharing practitioners. Further details are available at http://stars.hosts.atlas-sys.com/
Jennifer Jacobs and Karen Okamoto, Co-Chairs
STARS Vendor Relations Committee
The RUSA STARS Vendor Relations Committee is prepared to give an update on the status of revisions to the ISO ILL protocol at the upcoming meeting of the ILL Discussion Group at ALA Midwinter in Seattle. We are awaiting word on whether this topic is approved for the meeting agenda. The committee has also been asked to assist in updates to the ShareILL pages by the STARS Education and Training Committee. We will be amending pages that discuss document suppliers and systems, software, and standards. We expect to have work completed before the ALA Midwinter Conference.
Becky Ringwelski, Chair
STARS Research and Statistics Committee
The Research and Statistics Committee co-chairs, Charla and Susan, are currently training and practicing with Blackboard’s Collaborate function (BC) in order to prepare for the Research and Statistics virtual Midwinter committee meeting, to be held via BC at the end of November. The agenda will include i) discussions of an upcoming ALA Annual program on assessment and the pre- and post- assessment activities being developed to accompany it and ii) the committee’s work on the Publications page of the ShareILL wiki.
Susan Buzzell, Co-chair
STARS Hot Topics Discussion Group
The STARS Hot Topics Discussion Group is currently preparing for our program at ALA Midwinter. We are currently compiling topics and actively recruiting a Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect for the 2013-14 program year. Please email Troy Christenson if you would like to volunteer (tchrist9@fau.edu). We are also working with STARS Chair David Atkins and the STARS Program Assessment Committee to create program evaluation forms for STARS events.
Troy Christenson, Chair
STARS Nominating Committee
The STARS Nominating committee has been busy recruiting members to run for the STARS Executive Committee. This year, we are seeking candidates to run for Vice-Chair/Chair-Elect and a Member at Large position. Several candidates have been found, but we are still in the process of finalizing the ballot. We should announce the final ballot soon.
Sherri Michaels, Chair
Boucher Award Committee
Recognize a distinguished interlibrary loan librarian!
STARS is seeking nominations for the annual Virginia Boucher/OCLC Distinguished ILL Librarian Award. This award recognizes a librarian for outstanding professional achievement, leadership, and contributions to interlibrary loan and document delivery. The award consists of $2,000 plus a citation. Nominations must be received by December 15, 2012. Self-nominations are welcome! For complete information about the criteria for this award, please visit:http://www.ala.org/rusa/awards/boucher.
The nomination form is available as a PDF. A complete application will include the nomination form; a resume detailing the nominee’s career and outstanding contributions to the field; and a formal letter of nomination.
Questions and nominations can be directed to Megan Gaffney, 2012-2013 Boucher Award Committee Chair, at gaffneym@udel.edu.
Megan Gaffney, Chair
STARS Code and Guidelines Committee
The STARS Code and Guidelines Committee is in the process of updating their section of the ShareILL wiki.
Ryan Litsey, Chair
STARS Organization Committee
The Organization Committee is revising a portion of the ShareILL wiki before the Midwinter meetings. We are also reviewing and updating the STARS handbook.
Marlayna Christensen, Chair
Interlibrary Loan Discussion Group
The ILL discussion Group is currently accepting program proposals for Midwinter. Please contact Ryan Litsey, at ryan.litsey@ttu.edu for more information. We are also in the process of developing a method of evaluating programming for future Discussion Group submissions.
Ryan Litsey, Chair
The BRASS Forum sponsored by the committee at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim on “Using Social Media to Promote Business Librarians and Resources” was well received by the 56 librarians that attended. John Gottfried of Western Kentucky University started off the session with a presentation on why experimenting with social media matters. April Kessler of the University of Texas and Chad Boeninger of Ohio University each presented inspiring examples of their use of social media in their work. The presentations are available to all conference goers in the ALA Conference Scheduler in the comments for the BRASS Forum (ALA Connect login required). They are also available to all BRASS members on the BRASS connect site in the BRASS 2012 Conference Handouts files folder.
In the coming year, the committee will be working in collaboration with the SLA Task Force for Core Competencies to establish core information literacy competencies for business students. In addition, one of our committee members will be participating in the newly formed RSS Job and Career Reference Committee to represent the academic library perspective. The incoming chair, Charles Allen of Texas State University–San Marcos, will be directing the committee in these and other new initiatives as the year progresses.
For questions and feedback to the committee, please refer to the contact information on the committee’s web page.
Lydia LaFaro, Chair, 2009-2012
Our committee is planning for the Forum at the 2013 ALA Annual. We are currently finalizing a topic. We are also working on updated Public Libraries Briefcase to be published in the 4th quarter.
Elizabeth Malafi, Chair, 2010-2011
The BRSC met on June 22. There were ten committee members present. The committee had an agenda to obtain a volunteer as nominations coordinator, discuss the twelve works nominated as potentially outstanding or notable, finalize who would write the reviews to send to Susan Hurst for the RUSQ article, get a publishers forum update, and briefly discuss future directions.
Ed Hahn, one of the new members, agreed to take minutes, and to be the nominations coordinator.
Of the twelve titles nominated, six were identified as outstanding and notable. Members volunteered for the six reviews due on July 19th to Susan Hurst to edit for the RUSQ deadline of August 1st. Becky Smith will help edit as Susan will be on vacation before the RUSQ deadline.
Future directions discussed were having a mix of print works, including updated or revised editions if significant, and best databases, and overlooked works which had not been reviewed before, even though the works may be in their second or third edition. Smith also mentioned that it was possible with the workload that it may be necessary to have two subcommittees. While this currently exists, there was a lot of “double dipping” of the committee members (those who did reviews and the program planning) and those who did very little. It may clarify to have specific subcommittees in order to even the playing field of the work load.
On June 23rd, the Publishers’ forum was held. The theme was “How Private is Private” and covered private company information. The publishers on the panel were Bureau Van Djik, PrivCo, and Reference USA. Despite a building emergency during the presentation, the attendance was good, about 70-75 people.
The BRSC is on track, and Smith would like to thank the committee members for all of their hard work. It was announced that Susan Hurst would be chair for 2012-13.
Becky Smith, Chair, 2012
The BRASS Program for the 2012 ALA Annual Conference was “Adventures in Dataland: Business Data Sources” featuring Bobray Bordelon (Princeton University), Angela Lee (Esri), Joe Nation (RAND Statistics), and Jerry Wong (U.S. Census Bureau). The theme of our program was Business Data Sources, with a focus on free and low-cost resources. The committee extends our appreciation to Capital IQ Standard & Poor’s for their generous sponsorship of the breakfast.
Our program attracted a total of 120 attendees. Bobray Bordelon demonstrated resources from a variety of nonprofit and government sources, including the Consumer Expenditure Survey (CES) and American Time Use Survey (ATUS). Angela Lee discussed free and upcoming GIS resources from Esri. Joe Nation from the RAND Corporation presented several state statistical resources focusing on a wide range of social scientific data. Jerry Wong introduced the new changes to the American FactFinder and helpful ways to navigate the database. BRASS members Christy Goodnight and Van Houlson handled the audio and video recording of the full program. The video has been posted to the BRASS Section of ALA Connect for viewing by BRASS members.
Marketing for the program was well received and many people “friended” the BRASS Anaheim Program Committee Facebook page started by Jason Dewland. Members of the committee are writing an article to supplement the program that will be available in the winter 2012 issue of Reference and User Services Quarterly (RUSQ).
Program committee members: Paul Brothers, Laura Carscaddon, Jason Dewland, Allison Leaming, Chris LeBeau (BRASS Chair), Tony Lin (Committee Chair), Julia Martin, Peter McKay, Michael Oppenheim, and Mark Siciliano.
Anthony Lin, Chair, 2011-2012
The focus of this year’s BRASS Discussion Group was How Free Web Resources Can Complement Fee-Based Online Resources. The meeting took place on June 24, 2012, at the Anaheim Convention Center. The meeting was well attended and began with the BRASS business meeting, including announcements of the publisher’s forum, the BRASS program, and the BRASS dinner. The meeting then continued on to a discussion of various free online resources that BRASS members have found to be of use. Thanks to everyone who attended and contributed to a successful discussion.
Edward Hahn, Chair, 2010-2012
The new chair of the BRASS Education Committee is Natasha Arguello, Business Research Librarian at University of Texas at San Antonio.
The preconference Mastering Business Acumen (MBA) in a Day was a success! Forty-one librarians attended the one-day workshop during ALA Anaheim. The presenters did an excellent job at teaching basic business concepts to librarians. Attendees reported that their increased understanding of these concepts will allow them to assist patrons more effectively with business reference questions.
The Education committee completed transferring their popular guides: Best of the Best Business Websites and BRASS Selected Core Resources for Business Reference to the Libguides format. Please check them out at brass.libguides.com.
Committee members are currently writing reviews for this year’s winners of the Best of the Best Business Websites. Chosen from a running list of over 250 websites in various disciplines, the committee is recognizing the following three websites for the important and critical information they provide on business statistical data. Committee members’ reviews are scheduled to appear in the winter 2012 issue of RUSQ.
The winners are:
Leticia Camacho, 2010–2012, Chair
BRASS Education Committee Connect page
BRASS Best Business Sites
The BRASS Vendor Relations Committee was proud this year to have secured the BRASS Business Expert Press Award for Academic Librarians. In our role as the ad hoc award committee, we were pleased to select Joel Glogowski from Georgia State University from among a large and impressive pool of nominees as the inaugural recipient. We have been continuing to assist the BRASS 25th Anniversary Planning Committee by reaching out to new vendors and working with longtime partners to help secure funding for the celebration event planned for 2013 in Chicago. Other ideas for connecting to and collaborating with BRASS vendors in order to provide additional value to BRASS members are in the works.
Celia Ross, Chair, 2011-2012
The Publications and Communications Committee met at Anaheim to review projects from the previous year and look at possible goals for the coming year. The Committee spent much of the first half of 2012 converting BRASS Web pages to the new Drupal format, then reviewing those pages to update information and identify problems. While we have made a good start, much work remains to be done. As new chair of the committee, I will contact our new and existing members to discuss distribution of responsibility for updating and revising BRASS Web pages. The committee is also open to other new projects.
John Gottfried, Chair, 2012-2013
Plans are underway for a BRASS 25th Anniversary Party to be held at the 2013 ALA Annual Conference in Chicago. Keep your calendars open for this fabulous event. Stay tuned for details to come over the next year.
Louise Feldmann, Chair
The Emerald Research Grants ($5000 each) were awarded to the following persons
Greg Fleming, Chair, 2011-2012
Rita W. Moss was recognized at the RUSA Awards ceremony during the ALA Annual conference in Anaheim as the 2012 recipient of the Gale Cengage Learning Award for Excellence in Business Librarianship. This award ($3000 and a citation) is for her outstanding contributions to the field of business librarianship. Quoting from the citation: “Rita W. Moss leads by example – as an author, educator, officer, mentor, and expert.”
We thank Gale Cengage Learning for the generous support of this award.
The committee members: Bobray J. Bordelon, Karen J. Chapman, Irwin D. Faye, and Patricia E. Kenly
Patricia Kenly, Chair, 2011-2012