Links from Rhonda: SLA

Here are the links to the presentations I mentioned in my portion of the Conference Forum.

Information Seeking Behavior of Millennial's--Mary Scanlon
http://sla-divisions.typepad.com/dam_blog/files/Information-Seeking_BehaviorofMillennials.pdf

When Your Subject Doesn't Want to be Researched--Sylvia James

Tackling the Hard to Find Industries--Victoria Platt

The A-Ha Moment--Mary Ellen Bates
http://www.batesinfo.com/2006-sla-aha.pdf

What Social, Medical, & Pure Scientists Want in Information--Donald W King
http://units.sla.org/division/dsoc/Conference Archive/DWKing.ppt

Social Media and the Networked Public Sphere

Innovate: Journal of Online Education hosted a web seminar featuring Ulises Mejias, research consultant at Cornell University and instructor of Columbia University's "Social Software Affordances" course.  Mr. Mejias paper, "Teaching Social Software with Social Software" can be found here. 

Ulises Mejias looks at the ramifications of using social software to achieve social change.  His web presentation extended the arguments he began in the paper, exploring the effect social software applications have on social action and civic participation.  Mejias laid out the arguments for and against the social power of social media, noting the  potential for social software to augment or degrade the quality of civic discourse.  Mejias and the seminar attendees frequently cited Wikipedia as an example of the dual nature of social software.  Mejias structured his discussion around aspects of C. Wright Mills' book, "The Power Elite,"  examining the balance between democracy and authority in expression through social media, and the need for educators to include technology in their discussions of models of citizenship.

This discussion was much different than what I had expected, but was most thought provoking and enlightening.

Additional information on this presentation can be found at Ulises Mejias' blog, IDEANT here.

Innovate: Journal of Online Education can be found here.  About Innovate:

Innovate is a bimonthly, peer-reviewed online periodical (ISSN 1552-3233) published by the Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University. The journal focuses on the creative use of information technology (IT) to enhance educational processes in academic, commercial, and governmental settings. Our basic assumption is that innovative uses of technology in one sector can inform innovative uses of technology in each of the other sectors. ... Innovate also offers an RSS (really simple syndication) feed as well as Innovate-Live forums hosted by our partner, ULiveandLearn.

Summary of Some Faculty Perceptions, Concerns and/or Attitudes About Open Access Journals and Institutional Repositories

Special Libraries Association Conference in Baltimore, June, 2006 had a session entitled, “Open Access and Institutional Repositories in Sci-Tech and Engineering Libraries.” I thought I would summarize some of the salient points that arose during the presentation and subsequent discussion about Faculty perceptions of OA Journals and IRs.

Some Faculty Perceptions, Concerns and Attitudes about:

1. Open Access (OA) Journals:

a. Many OA Journals are new and do not have the prestige of more established, peer-reviewed journals with high impact factors.

b. Younger Faculty, who are working toward tenure, do not want to publish in OA Journals, because they feel these journals are not as highly respected as traditional journals during review process by Promotion and Tenure Committees.

2. Institutional Repositories (IRs):

a. Posting materials/items on an IR may prohibit or hinder publication in a high-impact, peer-reviewed journal.

b. There is a perceived low status of material posted on an IR due to the lack of peer-review or editorial board review.

c. Concerns about the copyright and intellectual property rights of the Faculty author.

d. IRs may weaken the current system/model of scholarly journal publishing.

e. Some Faculty feel that posting material on an IR will increase their workload and require a great time commitment.

These Faculty perceptions, concerns and/or attitudes concerning OA Journals and IRs can be carefully addressed in a positive, factual manner during meetings and discussions.

--Nancy Wilmes

Links mentioned during the Conference Forum

We had 15 people attend our first Conference Forum. Eight librarians spoke their experiences at conferences and programs attended over the past year.

Here are the links Sandy Yee mentioned during her presentation.
CLIR website http://www.clir.org/ (Council on Library & Information Resources: Nancy Davenport)
ULS Website for the ALA Annual Conference program http://www.acrl.org/ala/acrl/aboutacrl/acrlsections/universitylib/ULSMeetings.htm

Here are some of the sites Michael Samson mentioned:
RSS Bandit http://www.rssbandit.org/
del.icio.us http://del.icio.us/
AirSet http://www.airset.com/AirSet.jsp#app.Home
FURL http://www.furl.net/ (capture web pages of interest)
Marquette University Podcast of CALI Presentation http://calicon06.classcaster.org/index.php (Search for Marquette in the Search box)

Here is a site Nancy Wilmes mentioned:
SHERPA http://www.sherpa.ac.uk/ (investigating issues in the future of scholarly communication)

Here are some of the sites Monique Andrews mentioned.
Catalog of US Government Publications http://catalog.gpo.gov/
Federal Depository Library Program http://www.gpo.gov/su_docs/fdlp/index.html

Here are some of the sites Dee Callaway mentioned
The Links Incorporated http://www.linksinc.org/
John Hope Franklin (website) http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/franklin/bio.html

Here are some of the sites Rhonda McGinnis mentioned
Mary Ellen Bates http://www.batesinfo.com/
Blog post about her presentation http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_2006_conference_blog/2006/06/qa_from_mary_el.html
Meet the Millenials Blog post http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_2006_conference_blog/2006/06/gwen_stefani_at.html

Here is one of the sites Cindy Krolikowski mentioned
RUSA Information Services Guidelines
http://www.ala.org/ala/rusa/rusaprotools/referenceguide/guidelinesinformation.htm

Here are some of the sites Judith Arnold mentioned
LIRT Teaching the Unwilling http://www3.baylor.edu/LIRT/lirtnews/2006/mar06.pdf (page 6)

Wiki: The Ultimate Tool for Online Collaboration

Sponsor: SirsiDynix Institute
Date: July 13, 2006
Presenter: Meredith Farkas, Distance Learning Librarian, Norwich University. Meredith's blog is "Information Wants to Be Free" and she is the creator of several wikis, including Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki.

Meredith Farkas, frequent presenter on wikis and their use in a library context, offered her insights to over 100 webinar attendees.  She discussed what wikis are, how they are structured, the components of a wiki, and how they differ from blogs.  Meredith presented both pros (easy, web-based, flexible and extensible) and cons of wikis (too open, ownership of content issues, somewhat disorganized, prone to vandalism/spam).

I find the most interesting aspects of presentations on new technologies are the uses people find for the tool.  Meredith showed the audience several examples of how wikis could be used:  as a community wiki (e.g., Davis, California); as a subject guide (e.g., BizWiki at Ohio University); as courseware (e.g., Bemidji State University Rhetoric course); and as website / content management system (USC Aiken Gregg-Graniteville Library).

Meredith also showed  how librarians are using wikis internally:  as an intranet (e.g., Norwich University, behind their firewall); for collaborative document editing; for collaborative training / procedures manual (e.g., Antioch Graduate School); as conference guidebook (e.g., Internet Librarian 2006); as a knowledge base (e.g., Library Success); and as planning space for conferences (e.g., HigherEdBlogCon).

Meredith closed with points to consider in selecting and using a wiki.  Issues include whether or not the wiki is externally hosted, ease of installation, security, ease of use, cost (many are free), syntax, version control, discussion functions and RSS.  More information on comparing wiki software can be found at http://www.wikimatrix.org/

SirsiDynix Institute offers free web seminars on a variety of topics.  Their offerings can be viewed at http://www.sirsidynixinstitute.com/. The website also contains an archive of past presentations.

The Great (?) Debate: Is Information Literacy A Fad And A Waste Of Time

One of the most interesting programs at the 2006 ALA Annual Conference promised to be the "great debate" on the resolution “Information Literacy is a Fad and Waste of Librarians’ Time and Talent”. As you can imagine, having devoted as much of my career to information literacy as I have, I felt rather invested in the subject.

I was only able to attend part of the program because I had to leave for the airport. I was, however, impressed by the opening comments by the two speakers who supported the proposition (i.e., the two anti-information-literacy speakers who supported the idea that information literacy was a fad and a waste of time). This may seem wrong-headed given my reasons for being drawn to the debate. Both Stanley Wilder and Jeffrey Rutenbeck, however, had telling things to say on how we have formulated and used the concept of "information literacy" and its relevance to developing information environments. Wilder is, of course, the author of a well-known piece questioning the concept of "information literacy." Rutenbeck, on the other hand, does not seem to have published on the subject.

The most telling point was the simple observation that no other professional organization within academia has endorsed the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Indeed, it appears that no academic discipline outside of library science have even approached information literacy as a topic for serious research.

I was also fascinated by what Rutenbeck had to say about "information literacy" as a culturally bound concept and one approached with missionary like zeal. I guess I should say here that "missionary" is meant in the worse possible sense of the word: "you will be a better person if only you will do precisely what my group believes a better person should do"

The comments crystallized many of my own concerns about "information literacy." I am convinced that the time has come to rethink the concept and to remove it from the parochial concerns of librarianship. I do, however, strongly believe that within "information literacy" there are ideas and concerns that can elicit broad academic support and should be the focus of serious research in a wide range of disciplines.

The link to an article from ACRLog on the debated may be found here:

The Great (?) Debate: Is Information Literacy A Fad And A Waste Of Time

---Paul Beavers

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Welcome to the WSULS Conference Information Exchange. Please enter your conference expereiences into this blog so that others may benefit. Also, feel free to comment on and extend the entries of others. You all have the ability to enter material. When you attend a conference, seminar, webinar or program, bring the info back to us and share it using this blog. If you can link to handouts or websites, please include those too (files should be placed on the Z: drive). Thank you in advance for sharing!