Return from Blog Hiatus

As you may have gathered, I was on a brief hiatus from professional blogging. The next few posts will likely give you the "Reader's Digest" version of what's happened between my last post and now. This summer was a whirlwind of adventures, both professionally and personally. Here's a brief laundry list: presenting at LOEX and ILA/ACRL, applying for jobs and eventually juggling different interviews and offers, supporting my family as my dad recovered from major heart surgery, working at my favorite summer camp (Dorian Summer Music Camps), attending ALA Annual, starting a new job, living in 5 places over the span of about 8 months... Let's just say life kept me on my toes during my last semester of graduate school, and I wouldn't have had it any other way!

My internship at University of Dubuque concluded in May and Anne Marie Gruber and I presented at LOEX on the morning I would have walked in my MLS graduation ceremony. We had a fantastic time at LOEX, met some wonderful folks at various sessions and dine-arounds, took away tons of great ideas, and caught up with old friends! Those who attended our session were engaged we were excited to share ideas about mentoring and MLS-level internships. I would highly recommend LOEX to anyone interested in instruction and would love to attend (and possibly present) again in the future! After that, we returned to Dubuque where I continued to work in my intern capacity as well as at the reference desk (to finish out the semester).

I took about a week to be at home with my family as my dad recovered from heart surgery, and then hit the road for various job interviews. After that, I juggled accepting a wonderful job, working at camp (for 2 1/2 weeks in June), and figuring out how I would find a place to live between the end of camp, heading to ALA, and starting my job in early July.

ALA was an adventure, that's for sure, but it was good to go and see what it was all about. The convention center was huge. What an excellent set up for this large conference! Many of the events were held within the conference center itself, with various receptions held in nearby hotels or art galleries. I enjoyed seeing colleagues I hadn't seen in a while, networking with new acquaintances, visiting with vendors, and exploring New Orleans. I met some fun ALA people who were staying in the same hostel as I; we explored Bourbon Street together and listened to some great jazz and dixieland groups. When it got down to the sessions, though, those I attended were interesting enough, but I found them to be "just alright." For me, the best types of sessions engage attendees and provide take-aways beyond just "here's what we did"--they allow for an exchange of relevant and timely ideas. Perhaps it was because I missed the pre-conference sessions and the first day or so, but the sessions at the tail end of the conference didn't necessarily impress me as much as other presentations I've seen at smaller conferences like LOEX, Brick & Click, and state conferences. I would be interested in seeing if it was just a fluke with this years presentation lineup, or if it is just the way the larger, national conferences are. The execution and organization of the details it takes to put on a conference of this size was exceptional, however. Wherever you turned there was someone willing to answer questions (because librarians are the friendliest people, of course!), the transportation between hotels, tours, and other events was well coordinated--and understanding the logistics of coordinating such things for smaller conferences, I appreciate the effort that went into the local arrangements.

After ALA I had 1 week to move my belongings from Dubuque to my parents' place (what wound up being a temporary solution), find a place to live, and get ready to jump in with my new work responsibilities as Faculty Development and Instruction Librarian at Grand View. It all worked out--I found a place to live after looking at 12 apartments in about 6 hours and signed my lease by the end of the week; I was able to commute from my folks' place to Grand View for the couple of weeks before I could move into my apartment, and then moved closer to Des Moines in August. I was very glad to finally be settled somewhere, not be living out of a suitcase (after having done that for the last 2 1/2 months), and starting a new career as a full-fledged librarian!

Weeks 14, 15, and 16: Whirlwind End of the Semester!

It is hard for me to believe we are already at the end of the semester! I've continued to assume additional responsibilities as the semester has gone on, putting in extra hours to attend committee meetings, observe and assist with unique info lit sessions, and prepare for our upcoming LOEX presentation. Here's a quick rundown of some of the highlights:

University of Dubuque, Charles C. Myers Library 

• After having life-sized cut-outs of people in the library for April's abuse/assault awareness, we spent one morning dismantling the display so it could travel to its next destination (quite a moving display showing the names, ages, and the story of how they died as a result of domestic abuse).
  
• LOEX prep, LOEX prep, LOEX prep. (Did I mention LOEX prep?) Anne Marie and I have worked hard to complete both the paper and presentation, sharing our experiences from our internship/mentorship semester, as well as recommendations from the literature. See you in Fort Worth in just a few days! (Here's a sneak-peak at our Prezi: http://bit.ly/LOEXMentoring2011)
• Crafts (not just for elementary teachers, dear friends)! Between helping prep multicolored note card packets (complete with stickers) for the Great American Poetry Race (more on that in a bit) and transcribing colorful handwritten concept maps into electronic form, I was all about being crafty and creative!
• We had a master's student studying communication host a workshop for the library staff. We talked about effective communication, our habits as a staff, effective leadership, diversity of views & how that helps groups come up with new ideas.
• Web meeting: What do we like about what we have? What would we like to change? What new technologies would we like to incorporate into our library services and how would that be reflected in our website?
• Ref desk coverage for a colleague and my regular shifts--always something new there!
• The Great American Poetry Race: Students work in small groups, racing through a set of cards to find critical sources on their chosen poems. After a brief refresher on library resources, particularly those they'd likely use for this task, the students are on their own to find quality resources (with one "help card" they can cash in for librarian assistance). Progress is charted on the wall and the first group to complete all of their cards receives an awesome prize! The students were really involved with this activity and, while it was competitive, the competition didn't overshadow the learning objectives.
• Evaluation time! Anne Marie and I scheduled some time to go over the evaluation forms from IU as well as just discuss the internship experience. I won't go into too much detail here, but I am so thankful to have found a place for my internship that matches my student-first philosophy, one that has given me an abundance of opportunities and realistic experience that I can take with me anywhere, not to mention the new friends I have made!
• Jenny Parker and I prepared and led a book discussion over Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach. The meeting at the end of last week went really well, and reminded me that despite my colleagues having more experience than me, they continue to face the same challenges in and out of the classroom. By opening a dialog and sharing successes and frustrations, I think we were able to better understand each other as librarians and educators. At the end of the discussion, Mary Anne expressed an interest in regularly scheduling other discussion times to continue the professional sharing that happened during our meeting. 
• OCLC visit day! We hosted a meeting with the Iowa OCLC rep and invited the Loras library folks to join us as we learned about what is available through OCLC's Web-Scale Management Services, what will be available in the near future, and offered suggestions regarding features we like with the current system that aren't readily available through OCLC's product.

Anne Marie Gruber & Cara Stone

It has been a fantastic semester, and I would recommend this experience to anyone interested in librarianship! Many thanks to those who helped coordinate details between Bloomington and Dubuque, and to the UD faculty and staff for helping to develop me as a librarian!

Week 13: More LOEX Paper Writing, English 101, and a Fun Surprise!

Though it may not sound jam-packed, this week certainly was. Between juggling LOEX writing, teaching, and assisting patrons at the reference desk, I was definitely kept on my toes! Anne Marie and I have spent several hours fine tuning the LOEX paper, working from a modified outline I used for my presentation at the Iowa Library Association/ACRL conference. Originally we were concerned about being too long-winded, but between the two of us we have been able to be clear and concise (and stay within the required word count limit).

We also continued our work with English 101, finishing up the unit about scholarly research in preparation for their paper deadline. What is unique about this class is that essentially, the entire class writes the "same" paper. They create the same research question, analyze the same resources, take the same notes, and craft their thesis statement together. Even their bibliography is provided from the start. What is left is the writing of the paper. By extracting these elements and doing them together the students really learn the process before jumping in and trying to start from scratch on their own. By giving students this foundation, they are better prepared for assignments later in the semester, and later in their college careers, as they advance to the next level of research writing. In this last class period with the students and librarians together, we explicitly defined the connections between the different articles they dissected before. In making a chart and examining the similar factors and measures of success (factors: student engagement/involvement, metacognitive skills, locus of control, action behaviors, relationships with faculty, relationships with peers; measures of success: degree attainment and the amount of time it takes to earn the degree, cumulative grade point average), students noticed much overlap between the articles. We also worked together to define unfamiliar terms, and crafted a thesis statement together ("Engagement, internal factors, and relationships positively influence college students’ success as measured by cumulative GPA, and timeliness to graduation .").

This week I also received a fun surprise in my email inbox. I was very excited to hear that the American Library Association, New Members Round Table selected Indiana University’s IU ALA-SC as Student Chapter of the Year for our work in 2010. Having served as president in 2010 I was very excited that the efforts and activities of the membership and board were recognized. I, along with the current President, am looking forward to heading to the Annual conference in New Orleans to accept the award and represent Indiana University and the IU School of Library and Information Science!

Week 12: Scholarly Article Dissection, LOEX Preparation, and Reference Work

For the most recent unit in English 101, the students learn to dissect scholarly articles, finding information to answer their research question and guide them in writing their thesis. The process is designed to introduce them to this type of writing and set them up for success in future classes. As this is likely the first time students have had to work with scholarly research, the approach for this unit may feel "backwards" to some. Anne Marie compiled resources that compliment each other. The topic the classes were examining was: student success in college. She compiled three scholarly articles, as well as chapters from their required text, The Naked Roommate, and an article from The Chronicle of Higher Education. Throughout the week the class examined the articles together, identifying the pieces that helped answer their research question, "How do various factors influence college student success?" Students were to have read each of the articles prior to class (and were to have printed them to bring to class, to annotate as we discussed the important factors and results). The first day, Anne Marie popped in at the end of class to give students an idea of what to expect for the next class. On Wednesday the entire class dissected the first scholarly article all together, extracting factors and measures of success. That Friday I helped facilitate small group discussions (we broke into two groups, each discussing a different article). I was impressed with my students' abilities to see past the "fancy-author-talk" and interpret the article to get to the meat of what we were looking for. The next week we discussed both break-out articles as a class.

In addition to teaching, I assisted patrons at the reference desk, and Anne Marie and I spent quite a bit of time preparing our paper for LOEX--It will be here before we know it!

Week Eight: Scheduling, Implementing, LOEX Preparing, and Curriculum Library Touring

Here's an easy-to-digest list of last week's happenings:

• Info lit observation/teaching scheduling
• Reference desk manning (including an instance when a student used the library to woo a girl--we go the extra mile for our patrons!)
• LOEX presentation preparing/collaborating
• Preparing for Web Sub-committee meeting'
• Institutional repository informal discussions
• Concept map transcribing/digitization (for several classes)
• Curriculum library tour (collection policies, transitioning to a new space, what to keep/what to deselect, how it supports education program)
• CIS 101 Plagiarism assignment run through (done by Mary Anne and Jon to fill the rest of the staff in on what they have planned for the classes)
• A little bit of everything (because that's what librarians do)

 I have had several conversations about the future of education and the impact many proposed legislative changes may have on all levels of learning (from public elementary schools to college, and beyond with life-long learning being supported by public libraries).  As I am sure is the case in many areas of the country, librarians here have been following legislative news closely, particularly HF 45, HF 103, SF 163, HF 9 and the Iowa Work Force Development office closings.  There are lots of changes (or proposed) happening which would impact library users.