Finding Your Footing

New Member's Round Table hosted a panel discussion among five new librarians in five different types of libraries (public, academic, school, and database were all covered.)

Some of the tips that came up throughout the talk for those looking for a professional position:

• think outside the box -- One panelist got her footing in a library by having an informational meetings with library managers to find out what they were looking for in an employee. This led to her volunteering at the reference desk of one library, letting her gain the skills she needed to get a paid job.
• use your contacts and resources -- Knowing people comes in handy! If you prove that you're dedicated and hard-working, they may be willing to go to bat for you in the future when a job comes up.
• take advantage of internships, volunteer opportunities, and any other ways that you can get involved -- Although not being paid isn't fun, it may pay off in the long run, big time. One panelist cited how several other students going through Library School with her wouldn't leave their full-time paid jobs for unpaid jobs that provided library experience. Many of these people are now unable to find positions in the library world because they never made the necessary connections.
• have a portfolio of your work -- Examples of things that you have done in the past (even if it's work from school) can go a long way in your interview.
• be persistent!

Good luck to all you job searchers out there!

Literacy Changes Lives: What Your Library Can Do to Assure That There is "Literacy for All."

Laura Smith, director of the Pitt County Literacy Council, Donna Phillips from Wayne County Public Library, and Steve Sumerford from Greensboro Public Library gave a fabulous presentation on adult literacy in North Carolina.

Donna, along with a committee assembled from various community leaders and businesses, established a literacy council in Wayne County to fill an obvious gap that that had been identified in through community assessment; that of adult illiteracy throughout the county. She provided some tips about how to start a literacy program for your own community. She talked about the importance of making all types of community partnerships, including:

• businesses, which might be able to provide financial backing to a literacy program;
• marketing professionals, including newspapers, that can help promote the program;
• faith-based organizations, which can provide both financial backing as well as volunteers to help with getting the program on its feet;
• educators in the community, and
• the public.

Laura gave some tips for public libraries that already have a literacy program established within their community to begin collaborating with those programs. Often, literacy programs do not have space available for individual tutoring or for group meetings -- this is where public libraries can jump in and offer those services, if they have them available. Public libraries bulletin boards and display areas are also a great area to have literacy pamphlets and information, both to spread the word to potential students and to find volunteer tutors for programs.

Another tip is to team up with your local community-college to see if they need space and/or publicity for GED classes. Literacy programs often reach out to those with a pre-high school education (generally 3rd to 8th grade levels), meaning that students on a slightly higher level might be more suited to a community college course.

Also discussed were family literacy programs such as MotherRead and FatherRead, which are NC-based programs.

And if your library doesn't have the means to host or collaborate with literacy programs, fear not; as Steve said, libraries "create a literacy-rich environment every single day" -- meaning those things we do on a daily basis to create a love of learning and reading are also promoting literacy within our communities.

The Literacy Round Table hosted a great discussion today! Be sure to join them tomorrow at 9:00 a.m. for Latinos, Libraries, & Literacy for more specifics on starting a program of your own, and reaching out to specific demographics.

Come to the Technology Petting Zoo

It's going to be a different kind of presentation where you decide the content. Be sure to bring your laptop or text-enabled cell phone if you want to play along! We'll be in City Hotel 3.

Presentation Notes: Improving Libraries Through User-Centered Research

Susan Gibbons, Vice Provost and Dean, River Campus Libraries, University of Rochester (she wrote The Academic Library and the Net Gen Student)
In 2003, she was the Digital Initiatives Librarian at UR, had colleague who had used an anthropologist to study users
Got a grant to hire an anthropologist
Started by observing faculty 03-04
Undergrads 04-06
Grads 06-08
How people search 07-09
Science libraries in the digital age 08-09
Had to go through IRB

Start with question --> methodology (interviews, surveys, photos, etc.) --> data gathering --> findings --> change
Anthropologist gathers data, librarians interpret it

Undergrads:
Question: Looked at what makes an A paper- what happens between assignment and completed paper?
Methods: volunteer students- shadowed students throughout semester (via email), then interviewed at end
Had students draw process
Findings:
Most called mom/dad! So they stopped orienting students and started orienting parents
Research is not linear: students don't always know what their problem is. Now some librarians are cross-trained as writing coaches so they don't have to send confused students away.

Grads:
Question: What are barriers to successful dissertation completion?
Methods: InSitu interviews- in natural habitat (where they work on diss)
Findings: No common experience, librarians superimposed their experiences onto students
Disciplinary differences: Science- teams, grant-focused, Humanities- lone scholar, isolation, Social Sciences- article-driven, prior publications "glued" together
Focused on Humanities students- they have no space on campus. Provided space in library. Got them together and asked what they would want in a space: No undergrads (they're TAs, want to take off TA hat), Solitary but with others, Variety of seating, Outlets, lighting.
Let students pick out furniture, colors, etc.

Science Question
Role of science library in digital age: Much of the science literature is online, but science students are still in the library. Why? Is library space unique?
Methods: Observations, reply cards (why are you here? left around library), design workshop (perfect configuration of ground floor)
Findings: library is part of the process, they come to the library to do scholarly work, they want to see the journals even if they're not using them

How people search
eXtensible catalog project (XC)
open source, reveal physical and digital library collections, intuitive interface
Methods: Interviews (at multiple campuses) and show and tell
Preliminary report, product due Jan '10

Results- User-Centered Culture:
Us/Them shifted (us is library, them is users)
Tolerance of change
Tolerance of failure
Embrace experimentation
Test first, then ask hard questions
Banned "when I was in college..."
Barriers to entry need to be lowered

Shout-Out to People Attending Pre-Conferences!

I hope those of you attending pre-conferences today are having a great time! Remember, if you want to make everyone jealous by posting about how awesome your pre-conference was, you can email your descriptions to me at a_harri2 @ uncg.edu. Plus, it's still not too late to hype your sessions! I'll take descriptions of those as well!
See you in Greenville!

Yes, there really is a free lunch (unfortunately, not at NCLA)

And free concerts by Grammy-winning artists. And free museum tours. And free street dancing/drumming lessons. All available through your local library. How can a library afford to offer its patrons programs like this free of charge? Because the library didn't pay anything for them, either. Find out how to provide unique free experiences to your patrons in the "Developing Collaborative Partnerships" program at 4:15 on Thursday. Speaker will be Teresa Cain of ImaginOn/PLCMC.

Bloggers needed! Wednesday edition

As you figure out which NCLA sessions to attend, please consider blogging about the sessions you attend on the NCLA conference blog. As usual, there's so much going on that it's impossible to get to all the sessions you want to see. If you're interested in blogging about one of the sessions listed below, please email me at a_harri2 @ uncg.edu to become an author on this blog. If you've never blogged before, you can write a blurb in Word or an email and send it to me, and I'll post it for you.
The sessions without bloggers on Wednesday are:

Cataloging: Who Knew It Was Customer Service
Top 10 Mistakes in Technical Services
Literacy Changes Lives
FRBR and RDA
Training that Works
Not All Games Are Fun
When the Going Gets Tough
YA Booktalking for the Non-YA Librarian
Mascots
NC Gazetteer
Painting with a Broad Brush
A Crisis is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Children's Programming 101
Introducing the Job Search
Professionally Pinching Pennies
Supporting Faculty Through Online Collaboration

Those are just the Wednesday sessions! Tomorrow, I'll be back with the Thursday and Friday sessions. As you can see, we need bloggers! Help your fellow conference-goers get the full NCLA experience! Blog!!

YSS Program Update

The program “Debuting Debut Novels” (Wednesday at 1:30) has been canceled. Instead, at that time, YSS will host “YA Booktalking for the Non-YA Librarian” presented by Nastasha Johnson, Teen Coordinator for the Forsyth County Public Library system.

Going to the NC Lib Assoc Conference?

Come hang with the cool kids then @ the NCLA 58th Biennial Conference. The Government Resources Section has some fun programs all conference long. Stop by and get your government information fix.

Politician’s Papers focuses on the papers of politicians held in various special collections across the state. Betty Carter, University Archivist at UNCG, Maury York, Assistant Director and Head of Special Collections at ECU, and Tim West, Curator of Manuscripts and Director of the Southern History Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill, will talk about acquiring these collections and their importance to research. We created this session in conjunction with UNCG’s recent acquisition of Kay Hagan’s North Carolina Senate papers, and it is the inaugural Ridley Kessler Memorial Program. Wednesday, October 7, 1:30 pm – 2:45 pm.

Come join us at the Exploring NC EDIS session for a world wind tour of the North Carolina Economic Development Intelligence System. Hosted by our fearless navigator, Tammy Lester, a Data Analyst for the EDIS, we will explore a statistical and mapping tool that provides economic and demographic data for economic developers, businesses and the general public. Remember, there’s power in numbers! Thursday, October 8, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm

Digital Government Resources from the State Library will feature all of the cool new stuff the State Library is doing for YOU! Jennifer Davison, Head of the Government Documents branch, and Amy Rudersdorf, Director of the Digital Information Management Program will highlight a variety of digital projects from the NC State Publications Collection to NC Mosaic to the Historical NC Census Data. Digital collections galore! Thursday, October 8, 4:15 pm - 5:15 pm

The Hottest Business Meeting in Town will be in the early morning hours (you don’t sleep at conferences anyway, right?). This is a key meeting for all Government Resources Section members and wannabes. We will be electing new officers and discussing the new directions the Government Resources Section can take. You don’t want to miss it. Be a part of the future! Friday, October 9, 8:00 am – 8:45 am

All about Census 2010 is a timely panel presentation on the importance of the Census 2010 efforts, the upcoming data releases through the Census 2010 and American Community Survey, as well as what libraries across the state can do to help promote Census 2010. The presenters are Bob Coats, Governor's Census Liaison in the Office of State Budget and Management, Beth Hayden, Demographics and Reference Librarian in the State Library, and Laura Strickland McClettie, a Team Leader with the Charlotte Regional Census Center. Don’t forget that all agencies and institutions in this state are directly affected by the Census results. Come and learn what you can do to achieve a complete count! Friday, October 9, 9:00 am – 10:15 am

Program Spotlight: RASS

RASS has some great programs at the conference! Check out our Thursday, 10/8, lineup:

The Technology Petting Zoo will show you how to incorporate free Web 2.0 applications into the reference services and workflow at your library. Topics will include: productivity (Google Docs, Calendar, etc) social networking (Facebook, LibraryThing, Delicious, etc.) and communication (blogs, wikis, IM). Bring your laptop if you want to join in the fun!!

Piloting Your Library Through Tough Economic Times will discuss the effect of a bad economy on libraries and the best way for an institution to survive and remain productive through such times. Speakers are Richard Wells, former library director and current county manager of Randolph County and Dr. Larry Boyer from ECU Library.

If you want your section's programs highlighted, please send brief descriptions of your sessions to a_harri2 @ uncg.edu.