Showing posts with label IPAL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IPAL. Show all posts

Friday, October 13, 2017

Updates Fall 2017

Well, I suppose I'm more than overdue for a blog update. Here goes! After my last post, it was a race to the end of the semester at Grand View, but not before hosting both the Iowa Private Academic Libraries conference and the spring Iowa Library Association ACRL conference. I was a member of the planning committee for the ILA ACRL conference and as a local person, also helped with IPAL. In addition to generally helping, I also helped plan and co-lead the Information Literacy Interest Group morning session at IPAL. But rather than drone on and on, how about we just check out some of my tweets between my last post and now! :) I think you'll see some exciting things!




































You may have noticed a shift in my role. I took a new position at Iowa State University as an Instruction Librarian focusing on teaching and teaching support. This is a big switch from a small, private university to a large, Regent university, but I'm excited to try new things and serve the students and instructors here! Also, I got an adorable puppy (with photos sprinkled in above). I'm sure I'll share more as I develop into this position, but I wanted to write an official update before I left this blog hanging even longer!
Posted by Cara at 10:14 AM 0 comments
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Whirlwind Spring 2016!

It has been a bit of a whirlwind of a past month! Here's just a little highlight of the fun things I've been up to:

Thank you to Amy Getty for snapping this photo! 
  • I attended the AAUW Smart Start Salary Negotiation Workshop on April 14th in preparation for becoming a backup workshop facilitator.
  • I put together the Staff & Faculty Celebration of Vocation, the first time an event of this kind has been held on campus. 

  • My favorite programming event for students was a hit again this semester. You guessed it! Pet a Pup was held April 19th and 20th. Students were smiling and tails were wagging! 

  • We celebrated faculty and staff milestones on April 29th, including 5 years at GV for me. I received this photo frame to commemorate my work-a-versary! 
My question to the manufacturer is: why, instead of using a smiling family or a generic beach or landscape photo, would you use a placeholder photo of a half-naked woman reclining in bed? Now this is on my desk and is not creepy or inappropriate at all... Happy 5 years! 
  • We hosted a workshop sponsored by ILA on Internet Privacy for librarians on May 2. I serve on the ILA Intellectual Freedom Committee and helped plan the event. 


  • I kicked off the Summer Reading Program on May 4th with a record 19 participants in attendance (and 34 35 signed up for the program, overall; updated 5/26/16).

  • I learned more about the LOGOS program and my role as an instructor in the first-year student seminar section of the program on May 9th. 
  • We began foundational work for GV program evaluation.
  • We hosted the first Lemonade Lunch for SRP, and folks were flipping over winning prizes!

  • IPAL is being held at GV this year on May 19th. I am helping coordinate the Information Literacy Interest Group morning session again this year, and I'm also going to be doing a lightning round presentation -- Here's a sneak peek at the presentation: 

  • ILA/ACRL is coming up on Friday, May 20 in Ankeny. I'm excited to attend and am especially looking forward to hearing the keynote speaker, Megan Oakleaf! This is also my first spring conference as ILA/ACRL Executive Board Member-at-Large, and I'm looking forward to all that brings! 
  • More to come on the upcoming conferences and other spring and summer happenings, I'm sure! 
Posted by Cara at 5:14 PM 0 comments
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Friday, May 17, 2013

April and May 2013

I realized I'm a bit behind on posting lately, so here's the "Reader's Digest" version of what I've been up to in April and May.

At the start of April I attended IPAL at Drake. Sometimes conferences can be hit & miss, but this year's IPAL felt practical and relevant.  Not only that, but I felt more connected and open with colleagues from other institutions about sharing ideas, successes, failures, and encouragement. You can find more information about what the iLOVE group discussed during IPAL here: Instruction Ideas & Ask the Masses

After IPAL I spent a few evenings covering a colleague's evening Computers & Information Literacy course wherein we covered the following topics:

  • Creating a Safe and Powerful Online Presence: Socially, Academically, and Professionally 
  • Visual Literacy: Using PowerPoint & Prezi to Communicate Your Ideas

It was a good experience, but also a nice reminder that scheduling myself to work late three nights/week isn't something I want to take on right now. It's fine when I know I'm staying for a specific project that has a definite stopping-point or is something I can take home with me and work on in my pajamas, but different when it is a regularly scheduled thing and I'm in full-on teacher mode all day and all night.

We also had another Library After Hours event featuring Lori Hanson Howe and Dr. Ellen Strachota. They shared their experiences from their recent travels to Rwanda working with Art of Conservation, an organization dedicated to using education and conservation to assist Rwandan children in gaining life skills and building a future for them and their communities using sustainable growth methods. Lori and Ellen also shared their experiences working with the children of Rwanda, their participation in a gorilla trek, and highlights from a three day safari they took into Kenya. Their presentation was followed by a reception.

 

 

This semester I've been serving as a mentor for an English/Theatre student for her senior capstone project.  During finals week the mentors attended the class's poster presentations. What a cool project! The students had to write a pretty intense research/analysis paper and then present on it. I could not have been more proud of my mentee! She knew her stuff inside and out, was articulate, had a well-written final paper, and did it all while being super-involved with various play performances, student organizations, and the rest of life! I am so proud of her!

We're also experiencing some changes around campus, one of which particularly impacts the library: dining services.  Our contract is switching to a new company, and with that change so changes the library coffee shop. Out with Starbucks products and in with and Einstein Bros Bagels.  Right now we don't really know what changes to the physical space will be made, but we're looking forward to seeing what comes of it.

As a library staff we've been working on reviewing, revisiting, and revising our Core Seminar I (freshman course) assessments and modules that we teach. That has been quite the process and is something we will continue to revise as we gain more experience with the new curriculum.

GV celebrated commencement at the end of April and I again volunteered to help usher.  It's always so rewarding to see the new grads so excited and proud and their family members just as excited and proud.

And then I took a quick trip to California. It was awesome. Here's a peek:


The week I returned from California was also the same week as ILA/ACRL held at Simpson College in Indianola. My colleague, Dan, and I presented a session that wasn't exactly the "typical" session.  I'm a big fan of practical ideas, things you can take home with you, things that feel relevant, and things that promote collaboration and brainstorming. Here is our session description (and, yes, it sounds a little info-mercial-y, but I embrace it):

"Calling all who teach library instruction sessions! Have you ever wanted a session that consisted entirely of instruction ideas? Do you want information literacy instruction strategies to add to your bag of tricks or teaching tool-kit? Have you ever been asked to teach a class and wondered 'how in the heck am I supposed to teach THAT?' Then this is the session for you! Not necessarily what one would think of as a 'typical conference presentation,' this session is one that will get you interacting with other participants from around the state. Participants will work together to share ideas and tackle instruction questions as you work with others to think outside the box, generate new ideas and ways of approaching information literacy, and leave with practical ideas. Attendees will be grouped together to brainstorm lesson ideas for a given prompt, then decide on an approach and develop a basic lesson plan outline.  Groups will share their initial brainstorming ideas and discuss why they chose the approach they used for their outline.  The brainstorming ideas and lesson plan outlines will then be compiled and electronically distributed to attendees shortly after the presentation so attendees can modify and apply the shared ideas at their own institutions."

The good news: we all survived this wacky experiment. The even better news: I think it actually worked! Folks shared their ideas, recommended resources, and had great conversations! Here are the lesson plans that were developed by the various groups: http://bit.ly/instantil2013


Lately I've been catching up with the folks in the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning on campus to start planning faculty development calendars, sessions, newsletters, and themes.  I've also been meeting with faculty to help plan library instruction for their summer courses, and this week was the Summer Reading Program Kickoff Open House! Despite the construction around campus (see photo below) we still had a great turnout for the open house, wonderful conversations, and some folks even brought books to share! I have some pretty wonderful colleagues around this campus and I'm looking forward to getting to better know them throughout the summer!
Posted by Cara at 2:58 PM 0 comments
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Friday, December 7, 2012

Iowa Library Association Conference Recap 2012 - Thursday

This past October I was very fortunate to have attended the 122nd Annual Iowa Library Association Conference held in Dubuqe, IA.  Here is a very brief recap of some of the sessions I attended.

I was teaching Thursday morning, so I wasn't able to attend the Wednesday pre-conference or early Thursday general sessions, but I did manage to slip one session in on Thursday afternoon, before the breakout meetings and evening banquet. I've been working closely with children's literature class over the past couple of years, so I thought the information shared in the Graphic Novels for Youth and Teens session, led by Andrew Frisbee (North Liberty Community Library), Sarah Latcham (Iowa City Public Schools), and Becky Johnson (Cedar Rapids Community Schools), would be helpful and give me ideas about collection development & instruction for this area. Boy, did it ever! I came away with a fantastic list I hope to purchase, plus I got to visit with a former coworker, Andrew! Below is a list of just a few of the titles that were mentioned. Graphic novels can sometimes be tricky. There is a wide range of of topics covered, and sometimes it can be tricky to determine age-appropriateness.  Particularly if you plan on recommending something to a young person, be sure you have carefully assessed this.  Just because it is presented in a visual format doesn't mean it should be fair game for some of the youngest readers.  This is also something parents don't always realize.  While this won't necessarily be a problem when purchasing for my college population, it is important for me to be aware of when presenting this type of material to our education students.

Click to enlarge

You may find more resources here: www.tinyurl.com/ia-graphic

On Thursday afternoon I attended the ILA/ACRL meeting where we took care of normal business (approval of minutes, individual & committee reports) and began to think ahead about elections for next year's officers (who have since been elected--My coworker, Dan, is the new ILA/ACRL President!).

After the ILA/ACRL meeting, a small group of instruction librarians got together to discuss Becky Canovan's idea for a group space where instruction librarians can come together to share ideas, resources, encouragement, etc. The idea behind this group came from the ILA/ACRL conference held last May in Decorah, IA.  Those who attended the instruction/IL lightning round session noticed that there were many timely, relevant questions being asked by both new and veteran librarians who may be the sole instruction librarian at their institutions.  Many great instruction ideas were shared as well.  This planted a seed in Becky Canovan’s brain and, after a few discussions and emails, the IL Interest Group began to take root. At ILA we discussed goals for the group, how/where we wanted to collaborate (online space), and what we wanted to be included (general post from one of the website moderators or guest contributors, a space where questions can be contributed and then later addressed in a post or responded to by other users, encouraging or humorous stress reliever posts to help everyone stay afloat and take a moment to remember to be a person too, and perhaps a space where users can contribute "this worked" or "this flopped" examples).  This is still very much in the early stages, but I'm looking forward to seeing how it all comes out! This April we hope to coordinate a pre-conference session before IPAL to help connect instruction librarians around the state.

That evening Bob Anderson, Director of the Raptor Research Project in Decorah, IA, spoke during the banquet about the many projects he has worked on over the years, capturing many different species of wildlife (specifically birds) on film.  Thanks to advances in technology, online streaming of the Decorah Eagles has really taken off, but Anderson also shared stories of humor, wisdom, and science.

In my next post I will cover Friday's events.
Posted by Cara at 10:54 AM 0 comments
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