Category: RSS Review

The preconference in New Orleans was cancelled due to low enrollment, but we have a great program planned for 2012 Annual in Anaheim. We also discussed publication options for the annotated guidelines for services to older adults, that Kathleen Hegarty and Barbara Mates recently completed working on. It was proposed that a goal for the committee this year could be updating our committee charge. We all recognized the value of discussion groups at Midwinter as a great opportunity to promote conversation around timely issues for our service population.

Jeff Kempe, Chair 2011-2012
Jhkempe@kcls.org

The RSS Services to the Spanish Speaking committee designed and conducted a survey of librarians from all types of libraries working with Spanish-speaking patrons. The survey received more than seventy responses. The committee revised the Guidelines for Library Services to Spanish Speakers and the Guidelines for the Development and Promotion of Multilingual Collections and Services. At our committee meeting at the 2011 Annual Conference,  the committee started discussing the possibility of organizing a discussion forum based on the survey results to be held at the 2012 ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim, California.

Gabriel J. Duque, Chair 2011-2012
Gduque@umich.edu

The Management of Reference Committee has completed a draft revision of the Guidelines for Behavioral Performance of Reference and Information Service Providers. Suggestions, made by members of the RUSA Standards and Guidelines Committee, have been incorporated into the draft revision. This summer the current draft of the Guidelines will be posted to ALA Connect for feedback. This summer we will begin work on a revision of the Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians.

William Weare, Chair 2010-2012
wweare@iupui.edu

The committee had a fruitful annual conference. Our program, “Marketing Reference on a Dime,” the RUSA President’s Program, was a success! We had a tremendous panel who truly discussed the nuts and bolts of a successful marketing campaign and all the attendees came away with some marketing ideas and advice. All program presentations are located at the committee Facebook page. Log into Facebook and like ALA RUSA Marketing.

After Annual this year I officially stepped down as committee chair and off the committee. It has been a great five years serving on this committee, and I have learned a lot from other committee members and mentors who have guided me along the way as this was my first ALA committee assignment. The new incoming chair is Cathay Crosby who will lead the committee to more great work in the future!

Ed Garcia, Chair 2010-2011
Edprism@gmail.com

The committee met during the RSS All-Committee Meeting at the recent ALA Annual Conference 2011 in New Orleans. Two primary topics were addressed at the meeting:

1. Cindy Levine, our new RSS Archivist, reviewed the new procedures for maintaining and archiving committee documents as described in the document, RSS: A Plan for Information Gathering, Maintenance, Organization, Access & Preservation.
2. Ideas for how to accomplish an annual assessment of the section were shared, with the most likely solution involving the development of an annual survey of the membership.

Since the close of the Annual Conference, the new membership of Organization and Planning has communicated by email to develop a set of goals for the 2011-2012 year:

1. Meet jointly with RSS Executive Committee in August, October/November, January, and April/May to review progress toward meeting goals and suggest any actions needed to address problems.
2. Work with committee chairs to improve, repurpose, or eliminate committees that were identified as having problems during the most recent section review and/or during the spring 2011 committee appointments process. Create new committees where appropriate. Solicit input from the RSS Executive Committee through this process.
3. Review the recommendations provided during the July 2011 RSS Executive Committee II meeting. Prioritize the recommendations and coordinate with RSS Executive Committee to implement appropriate changes.
4. Work with RSS Executive Committee to build and sustain relationships with MARS and other sections of RUSA as appropriate. (Note: This includes the planning for the joint RSS/MARS series of Midwinter Workshops, with the first to take place in January 2013 in Seattle. Responsibility for planning the content of these workshops is expected to be assigned to a joint subcommittee of the Education and Professional Development Committee of both sections.)
5. Review and revise the RSS Handbook.
   1. Create a program planning checklist. Include in next revision of RSS Handbook.
   2. Review the established communication channels used in RSS. Define the appropriate use of each and recommend addition of new channels or removal of existing channels. Include in next revision of RSS Handbook recommendations for use of each channel.
6. Assess the section’s success in meeting the needs of its members through a survey and other evaluative means.
7. The Organization  and Planning chair will provide a report four times a year for RSS Review.

I’d also like to take this moment to thank Operations and Planning’s past-chair, Barb Mann, for her work over the past year in revising the RSS Bylaws and RSS Handbook. The section is now better positioned to address the needs of its members due to the many improvements that were made to these documents!

Joe Thompson, Chair 2011-2012
Jthompson@washcolibrary.org

The RSS-MARS joint pre-conference, “Strange Bedfellows: IT and Reference Collaborations to Enhance User Experiences,” brought together a fantastic set of speakers and included a lively discussion with participants. Char Booth opened the session with a keynote speech on effective collaborative behaviors and included several examples to demonstrate successful applications of those behaviors. Dan Suchy and Matt Critchlow, both from University of California-San Diego presented on some of the projects they had completed together and discussed what worked and what didn’t. Catherine Murray-Rust, Dean of Libraries, Georgia Institute of Technology, discussed the importance of building trust demonstrating value. William Denton and Adam Taves, from York University, Toronto, performed a skit to demonstrate where collaborations break down and how to rebuild them. Joanne Kossuth, Technology Strategy team member at Educational and Institutional Cooperative Purchasing, led attendees in an interactive discussion to identify the necessary components to successful collaboration. To learn more, visit John Chrastka’s post on the ALA Membership blog.

Carolyn Sheffield, Chair 2010-2011
csheffield11@gmail.com

Susan A. Ware, Reference and Instruction Librarian at Penn State University, was presented with the first RSS Service Achievement Award during the RUSA Awards Ceremony at the annual ALA conference in New Orleans.

Ware was nominated for a single, significant contribution that has resulted in a positive impact upon the work of the section and toward attaining the goals of RSS. After several years of work with the Evaluation of Reference and User Services Committee on the RUSA assigned project of developing guidelines for assessment of reference services and writing a new definition of reference, Ware volunteered to take charge of the project. She regularly attended committee and board meetings, contributing information and thoughts based upon the research she had done for the project. Ware followed this seven year project through new RSS chairs, new committee chairs and members, as well as through the change from MOUSS (Management and Operation of User Services Section) to RSS. Her dedication to the project resulted in the Measuring and Assessing Reference Services and Resources: A Guide and led to the final unveiling of the new Definition of Reference at a RUSA Board meeting in January 2008. For her tremendous and outstanding work with this project, the RSS Recognition Committee unanimously agreed that Susan is the perfect choice for the first RSS Service Achievement Award.

Lori Thornton, Chair 2010-2012
lori.thornton@sos.wa.gov

The Research and Statistics Committee hosted the 17th Annual Reference Research Forum on Sunday, June 26. The three presentations were Ana Dubnjakovic’s “Recent Reference Transaction Statistics in Academic Libraries in the United States: Are Electronic Resources Responsible for the Decline?” examined the relationship between spending on electronic resources and reference transactions; Amanda Clay Powers’s “Mining Virtual Reference Data for an Iterative Assessment Cycle” examined the possible changes in chat questions and answers after the implementation of the EBSCO Discovery Service; and Amy VanScoy’s “Practitioner Beliefs of Reference Librarians in Academic Research Libraries” examined the values and attitudes held by academic reference librarians that influence their work. The committee also combed the literature to select exceptional articles detailing research in reference to the ReferenceResearchReview: 2010.

Qiana Johnson, Chair 2010-2012
q-johnson@pobox.com

The RSS/MARS Virtual Reference Services Committee held its official meeting at ALA Annual in New Orleans on Saturday, June 25, as part of the RSS All-Committee meeting. Eight people were in attendance. The primary goal of the meeting was final planning for the committee’s sponsored program held on Monday, June 27, at 8:00 A.M., namely “Behind the Text: Pulling Back the Curtain on Virtual Reference.” (The program was quite successful with 135 attendees and several people offering congratulations and asking for the presenters’ slides.) The committee also discussed the program pending approval by RUSA Board for ALA Annual 2012 on evaluation of virtual reference services, (tentatively titled) “Are Virtual Reference Services Worth the Effort?,” and briefly brainstormed ideas for ALA Annual 2013. The Virtual Reference Tutorial Subcommittee reported on their exemplary work in updating the Online VR Tutorial. They are awaiting the migration of the ALA site to Drupal to update specific aspects of the tutorial, but they are prepared to move forward with two currently updated modules. The current plan is to conduct the committee’s official midwinter virtually in January 2012.

Don Boozer, Chair 2011-2012
Donald.boozer@cpl.org

The 2010-11 term has been exciting and productive for the Virtual Reference (VR )Tutorial Subcommittee of RSS and MARS. As 2010-11 subcommittee chair, I gratefully acknowledge the collaboration, creativity and collegiality shared by all team members. This is a great team and everyone contributed to our successful results in 2010-11.

In the fall 2010, the subcommittee identified two significant goals for 2010-2011: Evaluate the existing VR tutorial, and identify needed improvements; develop pilot modules to replace existing content in the VR tutorial. At ALA Midwinter 2011, subcommittee representatives reported on the VR tutorial evaluation recommendations and described the development work planned for spring 2011. During the winter and spring, members identified two main modules to improve, update, and present at ALA Annual. By ALA Annual in June 2011, subcommittee members proudly reported that two pilot modules were improved and updated, and will be the first to move to the new delivery platform sponsored by ALA. In the 2011-2012 term, the subcommittee is committed to upgrading additional modules and looks forward to sharing results with our Virtual Reference Services (MARS/RSS) Committee colleagues.

Valli Hoski, Chair 2010-2011
Vhoski@libraryref.org