History Librarian

Florida Library Association conference

2009-05-10T07:09:00.000-07:00

Even though I didn't find time to take photos, the Florida Library Association conference in Orlando was thoroughly enjoyable. I attended for only one of the three days, but managed to squeeze in four full presentations, and part of a fifth.

Although it would be difficult to give a ranking to the sessions, I have to say that I was most impressed by the group from Florida State University. Their presentation on strategic planning was informative and engaging. They included a hands-on group activity that helped to bring the subject to life, and promoted an exchange of ideas among the participants. It also provided me with a point of departure for thinking about these issues in the future.

I also managed to attend presentations on library expansion, instant messaging for virtual reference, embedded librarianship, and the tail end of session on making web videos for library outreach. As I go over my notes and other materials from the conference, I realize that I'm still processing a lot of information.

In particular, the session on embedded librarianship was of great interest to me in terms of re-thinking the varying levels of collaboration with classroom faculty that are possible through the use of course management software. I'm sure that I'll be coming back to this topic in future posts. In the meantime, all the librarians at my college library will be having our end-of-semester planning meeting next week. That will also provide ample material for posts over the summer.

Project Information Literacy

2009-05-03T09:43:00.000-07:00

I'm a bit late in updating the blog this month. This is partly attributable to the usual end-of-semester hectic schedule, but also partly due to the fact that there are so many different things I've wanted to blog about that I had trouble making up my mind. In the event, I've settled on Project Information Literacy, which as captured a lot of my interest lately.

Project Information Literacy, which is based at the University of Washington's Information School, is conducting national studies of the ways that "early adults" on college campuses understand and conduct research. Since its inception in 2008, PIL has conducted discussion groups at seven different colleges nationwide to collect data about how these students locate, evaluate, select and use information. The schools chosen ranged from elite institutions to state universities, community colleges, and small liberal arts colleges.

See: Project Information Literacy. 2009. Information School, University of Washington. Web. 2 May 2009

In their preliminary progress report, released in February, PIL directors Alison Head and Michael Eisenberg note that many students in the digital age are confused and frustrated by the research process and are also challenged by the "vast and ever-changing information landscape." (Head and Eisenberg, 13)

Currently, PIL is conducting web-based surveys of college students nationwide, which will be released later this year. This is a much needed research project that is taking a comprehensive look at the challenges faced by today's college students in understanding how to conduct research. It also represents a potentially valuable tool for librarians to use in re-conceptualizing the process of information literacy instruction.

To hear a First Mondays podcast interview with Dr. Alison Head, co-director of PIL, click here.

Next week, I'm off to the Florida Library Association conference. I plan for my next entry to be inspired by what I see and hear there.

Sustainability in higher education

2009-03-20T17:36:00.000-07:00

The new byword at the college where I work is sustainability. At our recent faculty professional development meeting, we heard presentations by representatives from three different academic institutions that have integrated the concepts and practices of sustainability into their curricula and into their institutional cultures. Although I can't speak for my colleagues, I found the presentations stimulating, and I'm intrigued by the possibilities opened up by this new focus.

An emphasis on environmental sustainability has broad implications for a high profile public institution - everything from ordinary practices like recycling, conserving electricity, water use, and paper use to larger considerations such as availability of mass transit for students, limits on parking, and the construction of green buildings.

In a fairly recent article in Planning for Higher Education, historian Peter Bardaglio, discussed how four different institutions, Northern Arizona University, Emory University, Berea College and Ithaca College are incorporating sustainability into their curricula. See: Bardaglio, Peter W. "A Moment of Grace" Integrating Sustainability into the Undergraduate Curriculum." Planning for Higher Education 36, no. 1 (October/December 2007): 16-22.

Bardaglio draws on the work of other scholars to explain that values of ecological sustainability present a challenge to the dominant paradigm in higher education. That is, most teaching and learning takes place within defined disciplinary boudaries, and concerns either "first order" learning about sustainability, or "second order" learning that emphasizes acquiring the skills needed to effect change. He notes that many scholars point to the need for a "third order" learning in which "continual exploration through practice" contributes to an educational environment that enables students to use their creativity to understand sustainability in a larger context, and to make connections that can lead to solving real-word problems. (Bardaglio, 17-18)

The examples that Bardaglio gives of integration of sustainability into higher education curricula run the gamut from creating institutes that reach accross disciplinary boundaries to train faculty how to integrate environmental consciousness into their subjects, to the creation of green and self-suffcient student housing, and partnering with non-profits to create project based sustainabiliy field work for students in a variety of areas. These, of course, are only first steps, but they illustrate the kinds of strides that can be made when institutions act creatively, partner with other institutions and with outside groups, and seek grants from the federal government and from foundations.

For teaching faculty, and for those of us who are instruction librarians, the focus on sustainability represents both an opportunity and a challenge. Without exception, the library staff have embraced the new emphasis on sustainability. It has stimulated new thinking about collection development, library instruction, and even circulation procedures. This creates an opportunity for the library to take the lead in supporting an important new value in the college's institutional culture. We are also challenged to be ready to meet the needs of students with new assignments focused on sustainability, and to help faculty find the materials they need to design such assignments.

Many teaching faculty have also expressed enthusiasm about the new focus, and we are already seeing requests to design library instruction modules around sustainability issues. Some, however, feel that they are already incorporating some aspect of environmental awareness into their courses in the form of current affairs and environmental science assignments. Others wonder how these issues are directly relevant to the educational content that they deliver, and some resent the idea of yet another college mandate that they must shoehorn into their already crowded syllabi.

Certainly, these are not unimportant objections. But, I hope that over time growing information about sustainability combined with increased sustainable practices will help to achieve a kind of critical mass, so that this issue will become so natural that it is integrated into the curriculum as a matter of course, much as issues of diversity are already.

New Semester - Mixed Bag

2009-01-25T10:03:00.000-08:00

I'm opening the new year with an eclectic mix of items. I continue to be interested in digital history, so I'm going to mention a new website, and I'm also going to touch on a topic that (unfortunately) is becoming a perennial one - public rudeness and incivility.

Digital History

Considering last month's post regarding digital history, I've been on the lookout for good digital history sources. And, now that the semester is underway, I'm particularly interested in keeping my collection of history links up to date. A really good site that's come to my attention lately is called Digital Vaults. Created by the National Archives, this site was recently reviewed in History Eduction News, a publication of the Center for History and New Media.

Digital Vaults is an interactive website containing more than 1,200 items - official documents, images, maps, etc. It can be browsed easily through a system of tags indicating subject areas, and searches can be further refined through "filters" that sort by media type, time frame, or relevance. The site is visually appealing, and employs a visual search interface that graphically displays links. Each item has a brief annotation, and can be viewed in detail with a zoom function. You can also collect items, and manipulate them to create posters or videos. There is a free login that enables users to create an account so they can save and email their collections and projects. I've created an account, and I'm excited about experimenting with it, and sharing it with our faculty.

Incivility in the Academic Library

On a less than exciting note, there is the issue of the growing problem of bad public behavior, or incivility. Certainly, this is a problem that's been festering in our public culture for more than a decade, but it seems to have been more strongly manifest in recent years. I've just read an interesting piece from the ACRLog, in which one of the bloggers, an academic librarian from Pennsylvania, summarized a discussion on this topic by Frank Farley, Psychology Chair at Drexel. Referencing current research, Farley points to a number of factors that are driving the phenomenon of public incivility, mostly emanating from an increasingly juvenile and debased popular culture, as evinced in the narcissistic zero-sum-game ethos portrayed in "reality TV" programs. According to Farley, these influences, along with a "culture of complaint" fostered in the mass media, are amplified by anonymous and ubiquitous technologies like the Internet.

I think that those of us who have worked in academia for any length of time are only too familiar with these issues as they affect the college classroom and the academic library. The likelihood, however, that colleges and universities will ever see a return to some mythical halcyon days of buttoned-down quiet, scholarly contemplation, and polite discourse is probably remote. Nevertheless, Farley recommends an article that summarizes research into student incivility and suggests methods than can be used to cope with the problem. That's something that we can all profit from. See: Jennifer Schroeder and Harvetta Robertson. "Civility in the College Classroom" Psychological Science 21, no. 10 (Nov. 2008).

Digital Resources

2008-12-26T06:42:00.000-08:00

After an overly long hiatus, I'm finally bringing this blog up to date. My last entry was concerned with embedded librarianship, and this remains a strong interest of mine. Equally important to me, however - as a historian and as a librarian - is the issue of digital history. So, I do want to mention that briefly in this entry.

In an issue of the Journal of American History earlier this year, historians Daniel Cohen, Michael Frisch, Patrick Gallagher, Steven Mintz, Kirsten Sword, Amy Murrell Taylor, William G. Thomas and William Turkel engaged in a wide ranging discussion of digital history as it applies to historical scholarship. See: “Interchange: The Promise of Digital History.” Journal of American History 95, no. 2 (September 2008): 452-491.

While those discussions are too detailed to relate here, some points struck me as very relevant to librarians. The first is the idea of the abundance of historical sources made available through digitization. Whether we consider the online images and content now available from the Library of Congress, or the millions of pages of newspapers digitized by ProQuest, historians now have an embarrassment of primary and secondary source riches at their fingertips. Serious historical scholarship has been made much faster and less labor-intensive than it used to be thanks to these technologies. As librarians, we already know this; but often our students (and sometimes faculty) are not aware of the full extent of the resources available.

The second point, however, has more to do with the use of digital resources in a web 2.0 environment. Increasingly, the impetus for active learning across the undergraduate curriculum demands collaboration and interaction through wikis, blogs, podcasts, and social networking. Digital collections can reach the full potential of their usefulness through these modes of interaction. As librarians, we particularly need to make our faculty aware that these tools are available for them and their students, and that we are willing and able to help them use these tools in support of teaching and learning.

Related to this, I was also struck by the findings of a recent study done for the Association of Research Libraries by Ithaka Strategic Services. The study found that scholars in the humanities and social sciences tended to use digital resources that were more geared towards exchanges among scholars - e-journals, discussion lists and blogs - rather than data sites. The latter tended to be favored more by those in the science, technical and medical fields. Nevertheless, fully 50% of those in the survey reported using digital resources at least weekly or daily. In the humanities, e-journals were the most commonly cited type of digital resources used, followed by discussion lists. Other resources that are growing in use are online encyclopedias like the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and annotated content like that in the Roman de la Rose Digital Library. Finally, there is the growth of what the study calls 'professional and academic hubs." These are content-rich digital portals that offer e-journals, reviews, conference papers, gray literature, etc. A good example would be the Center for History and New Media.

Of course, the digital resources that we academic librarians are most keen to have students access are those available through the subscription databases provided by our colleges and universities. Not all of the resources in those databases are born digital, but they do represent an efficient way to provide a wealth of academic resources in one location - one that is also connected to the library's catalog. Increasingly, the challenge will be to connect those resources to other online venues that students use more regularly, such as social networking applications and course management software. But, that's the subject for another entry.

Embedded Librarians, part II

2008-09-04T17:28:00.001-07:00

At the college where I work, we've launched a project designed to improve and streamline the way we do bibliographic instruction. We're using the Angel courseware to deliver the basics of library orientation, and to target individual classes with guides and tips tailored to their assignments. Using the courseware, we can create mini tutorials and how-to jings that explain many of the day to day functions and procedures in the library. We can also provide external web links, bibliographies, and list of the best databases to use for specific disciplines. We can even do our pre and post instruction surveys using the courseware. We call it the Library Lab.

Admittedly, the information we can provide via the courseware is not fundamentally different from what we have always provided through the library website, in PowerPoint presentations, or in printed subject guides - or, indeed, in person. What is different, of course, is that we can now put all of this information in one place, and 'push' it to the students in a format that they are increasingly required to use for most of their courses. What was once widely dispersed over different media and in different venues can now be more centralized.

Certainly, this doesn't mean that we are moving towards totally virtual or self-directed instruction. We will still have individual classes coming to the library for course-specific instruction, but those sessions will now be more assignment focused, more geared to teaching the methods and strategies of library research. The formal sessions should also be shorter than they have been in the past.

Under the ‘old’ system classes would come to the library for sessions that included a brief orientation tour, a course-specific dog and pony show covering everything from how to make a photocopy and check out a book, to an explanation of the Library of Congress cataloging system, and some hands-on practice searching the databases and the online catalog.

That was then. Now, with the creation of the Library Lab as a "group" within the Angel courseware, we can locate all of the various segments of library instruction content in one place AND we can organize those various segments into modules that students can use independently. We can also create tips pages and guides specific to individual courses that students can access at the same time that they are doing work for their classes. In effect, we are bringing the content to the students at one of their regular points of instruction.

As long as students are using the courseware for their classes - and increasingly most courses at the college are making this a requirement - then we have a greater likelihood of reaching them where they are. Also, having separated the more general informational content from that which is targeted to a specific course or a specific assignment, we are now able to make library instruction more focused and (hopefully) more effective. With this tighter focus, we can also concentrate more comprehensively on incorporating the ACRL's information literacy standards and guidelines into our core instruction.

We plan to introduce students to the courseware and the Library Lab mainly through short sessions right in their classrooms. In this way, we can quickly demonstrate where all of the general information and tutorials can be found, and encourage them to look to the course-specific content for help with their assignments. It is our hope that this will make students more likely to seek out these resources on their own, and at the same time give them a sense of having a more direct and efficient way of connecting to the library, its resources, and staff.

That summarizes our goals for this pilot project. It’s our first real foray into 'embeddedness' and we are still treading lightly. So far, the response from faculty has been very positive. We are providing useful resources directly to one of the points of instruction without infringing too much on the prerogatives of the instructors. The most important test, of course, will come when we begin to get more feedback from students. Stay tuned....

Embedded Librarians

2008-08-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

One of the issues that I’ve been thinking about lately – especially as the start of the fall semester approaches – is the idea of ‘embedded’ librarianship. This is a concept that has been making the rounds in the professional literature for a few years now. And it seems worth serious exploration, particularly in light of the increased use of web-based resources, and distance learning.

The embedded librarian concept basically entails having a librarian directly involved assisting students at the point of classroom instruction. This could take place either in a real-time class, or virtually, through courseware like Blackboard. Most of the impetus for embedded librarian initiatives has come from a desire to address issues of information literacy, outreach to departmental teaching faculty, and the marketing of library resources and services to the wider college or university community.

Several articles in library science journals addressing this idea have focused on pilot programs in research orientated courses, where the librarian plays a role similar to a teaching assistant, specifically focused on helping students to find, evaluate, utilise and cite sources for their research projects. For example, Russell Hall, at Penn State “embedded” himself in a freshman speech class in which he attended all of the class sessions, often participating in class discussions with respect to his expertise. This was in addition to providing the usual stand-alone library instruction sessions. He reports a very positive experience, in which the instructor proposed involving him directly with the grading of students’ annotated bibliographies. He also notes that most of the students viewed his presence in a positive light as reflected in feedback from the course evaluations. See: Russell Hall. “The Embedded Librarian in a Freshman Speech Class:Information Literacy Instruction in Action.” C&RL News. 69, 1 (January 2008).

The advantages of having a librarian work closely with an instructor in a speech class are certainly obvious from the point of view of the students. They get a value-added service that helps them to do better in the course. Also, the librarian gets the opportunity to demonstrate his professionalism and expertise, both to the students and to the faculty member. The potential downside that I see in this type of scenario, however, is that such an active presence in the classroom could be seen as an intrusion by many teaching faculty. Moreover, there are questions about how much time such intensive projects will take from librarians' regular duties – from collection development and committee work to traditional bibliographic instruction.

This is an area where librarians need to tread very carefully. In their study of the model of the faculty liason librarian, Rodwell and Fairbairn of the University of Sydney point out that however much librarians may want to redefine their traditional roles, it remains unclear whether or not teaching faculty are themselves on board with such innovations. See: John Rodwell and Linden Fairbairn. “Dangerous Liasons? Defining the Faculty Liason Librarian Service Model, its Effectiveness and Sustainability.” Library Management. 29, 1/2 (2008).

In the area of distance learning, however, the embedded librarian concept does seem to promise more success. Several articles in the professional literature have examined the innovative role that librarians can play bringing information literacy instruction to students who are otherwise unable or unwilling to come to the library to receive such assistance. One method used in many initiatives has been to add librarians as instructors in Blackboard. In this way, librarians can engage students directly through the courseware’s discussion forum. This has the advantage of making the librarian immediately available to students at the site of their coursework, and it also means that all students reading the exchanges can benefit.

Another interesting concept is to create library courses specific to certain curricular areas. For example, a library information literacy course designed for the social sciences could provide tutorials, links, and a discussion board. Victoria Matthew and Ann Schroeder have discussed plans for such a program at the Community College of Vermont. In this model, teaching faculty would have a choice between having a librarian embedded in their classes’ courseware, or having their students sign up for the library course, much as one might sign up for an additional lab in a science or language course. See: Victoria Matthew and Ann Schroeder. “The Embedded Librarian Program.” Educause Quarterly. 29, 4. (2006).

To my mind, these are all exciting innovations. The main caveats, of course, are that libraries must proceed based upon the availability of resources. It should be kept in mind that these projects with take some time away from traditional duties, and that they will require a great deal of staff time in terms of preparation on the front-end. Finally, the teaching faculty must be prepared to meet the librarians in a collaborative way. Many faculty members (indeed, many department heads) may be loath to open their courses up to what they might perceive as interference by outsiders. A good deal of trial and error will likely be involved, and the good will of teaching faculty will be most important to ensure success.

Library Philosophy and Practice - Humanities Websites

2008-06-13T17:13:00.000-07:00

In an article in a recent issue of Library Philosophy and Practice, Eileen McElrath explores the question of the value of free websites to students and faculty in the humanities. In a review of the relevant literature, she points out that some research has shown faculty in the sciences having more confidence in the "accuracy and format of the web" than their colleagues in the social sciences or humanities. She notes that undergraduate students, by contrast, have been shown in one study to use online sources at significantly higher rates and have a perception that such sources provide more information more quickly that books or periodicals.

This, of course will come as no surprise either to academic librarians or to teaching faculty. The anecdotal evidence has been before us for about a decade now. The interesting thing about McElrath's article, however, is that it takes recent scholarship on this subject as a point of departure for an analysis of a variety of humanities orientated websites from the standpoint of a set of standards measuring the overall quality, authority, usefulness, and functionality of their content. The standards that she uses are those developed by the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) of the American Library Association. In 1999, RUSA established a set of 29 criteria by which to judge websites, and each year 25 sites are nominated and the results published in Reference & User Services Quarterly.

McElrath evaluates 20 sites that have been nominated during the period from 1999 - 2005. The result is a kind of annotated bibliography of humanities websites. The conclusion of her analysis is that the RUSA standards do stand up to scrutiny, and that their method of independent evaluation helps to ensure that there are good quality humanities websites that both students and faculty can rely upon.

Like many academic librarians who work with undergraduates doing research assignments, I was glad to see McElrath's work because it represents the type of practical analysis that helps librarians in thinking about both information literacy instruction and outreach to teaching faculty. The problem of blind Internet searching by undergraduate students is one that plagues teaching faculty and librarians alike. This is particularly pronounced in the new period of web 2.0. As the functions of web portals, search engines, social networks and web applications begin to aggregate in synergistic ways, and as more higher quality content becomes available on the Internet, it is not always so easy for students to parse the differences between highly rigorous academic content and well-presented but more superficial fare.

Whether or not the RUSA standards represent a kind of seal of approval remains to be seen. But, clearly, these sorts of ratings are going to become increasingly necessary. This is particularly so because the dominance of the simplified search interfaces like that of Google and other search engines is having an influence over the design of academic databases. In the not too distant future, it may not be possible for the uninitiated user to tell the difference between the look and function of an academic database and a commercial site like About.com.

I, for one, plan to spend more time analysing websites in light of the RUSA standards. In the process, I think that we should also begin to think about ranking some of these sites in more hierarchical ways - that is, with a view to recommending some sites as appropriate to, say, high school and lower-level undergraduates, and others for advanced undergraduates, graduate students and researchers. McElrath makes these kinds of judgments on the appropriate "audience" in her own analysis of the 20 websites in question. This is a great start.

The Presidential Records Act

2008-05-27T15:05:00.000-07:00

This is the first of what I hope will be many monthly blog entries. My intention in starting this blog was to create a professional development venue that would force me to write in a serious way about issues in librarianship - especially those issues of interest to subject specialists in history or related fields in the humanities and social sciences. So, my goal is to select one issue each month to explore and comment upon. I don't anticipate that these will necessarily be elaborate commentaries, though some may be longer than others.

An issue that currently attracts my interest is that of the Presidential Records Act - specifically, the Bush administration's attempt to rewrite the law by executive fiat. For those who've lost track of this controversy, it revolves around Bush's 2001 Executive Order 13233, which, among other things, overturned the 1978 Presidential Records Act (PRA), and gave both former and current presidents (and vice-presidents !) the power to withhold presidential records, or even to block their release indefinitely.

The 1978 PRA gave former presidents the power to withhold the release of their records under FOIA requests for up to 12 years after leaving office. In response to Executive Order 13233, Public Citizen filed suit in US District Court in November 2001 on behalf of the AHA, OAH, the National Security Archive and others, to stop implementation of the order. This case has been working its way through the courts since that time, and in October 2007, a Federal judge struck down those portions of the executive order that broadened former presidents' rights to withhold or delay the release of records. The judge did not, however, rule on the constitutionality of the order, or on provisions giving the heirs of presidents and vice-presidents control over the release of records.

Earlier in 2007, legislation was drafted in Congress - HR 1255, the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 - that would: overturn Executive Order 13233, establish a deadline for the review of records, limit the authority of former presidents to withhold records, require the sitting President to make any claims to executive privilege for withholding records, and eliminate executive privilege for vice-presidents. HR 1255 passed the House, and then Democrats in the Senate introduced a companion bill, S 886. The latter bill was referred to the Senate committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The Bush administration has threatened to veto any final legislation Congress may pass, claiming encroachment on executive privilege.

In March of this year, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid brought the Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007 (HR 1255 & S 886) to the floor for unanimous consent, but was blocked by Republican Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama. So, this vital piece of corrective legislation still languishes in committee.

For historians and librarians, this legislation cuts to the heart of what we do. Scholars of presidential history in particular are hampered by the restrictions of Bush's executive order. The trend of restricting access to information formerly available has become a disturbing one, particularly evident under the Bush administration. Taken together with actions such as the destruction of White House officials' emails on the servers of the Republican National Committee, Vice President Cheney's attempt to block access to the visitor's log at his official residence, and the reclassification of previously declassified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration, this represent a reversal of the trend towards more transparency in government begun in the 1970s. These are developments that scholars, public intellectuals, and civil libertarians should rightly view with alarm.

Introduction: me and my blog

2008-05-06T12:20:00.000-07:00

I'm starting this project in connexion with the other web tools that I'm using through Google - e.g. docs, calendar, groups, etc. I plan for it to be a venue for me to organise my writings and research with respect to academic librarianship in general, and history librarianship in particular. I welcome comments and collaboration from other academic librarians.