ALA's State of American Libraries 2008

The section on academic libraries cites the JAL article that discussed results of a study positively linking the effect of library expenditures and professional staff on student retention.



http://www.ala.org/ala/pio/presscentera/piopresskits/2008statereport/draft-0001c-press.pdf

New EBSCO interface

Have any of you looked at the upcoming interface for EBSCO? We were playing around with it the other day in Charlotte. It has lots of interesting new features. I believe this is what EBSCO plans to demo at the IL Conference here in June.

Richard

University Online Learning Initiative

Hi everyone,

As library representative to the university’s online learning advisory committee I wanted to share with you some "library relevant" developments in the university’s online learning initiative. Although the office for online learning is situation on the Providence campus, the advisory committee is comprised of reps from all campuses.


1. During the latest committee meeting, it was reinforced that while the university is establishing online learning as a way to enhance educational opportunities, there is no plan afoot to have online programs replace face-to-face (F2F) programs.

2. The university has established an online platform which has been named ulearn (similar to uconnect). It is based on Angel® course management software. The site is still in pilot phase and not widely available however committee members are test-driving it for the purpose of committee communication.

3. Based on prior research, and in cooperation with reps from all campuses, the university has decided that the first courses to be made available as online courses will be: FSM3001; HOSP3050; HOSP4060; PSYCH2001; and ENG0001

4. The proposed launch for these courses will be in winter of the 08-09 academic year.

5. In the initial phase, online courses will be available only to students already enrolled at any one of the J&W campuses. (This means that students will already have a J number and library barcode.)

6. Prior to launching the courses, faculty assigned to teaching them will participate in a 7-week training course.

7. Particularly during the pilot phase of the course launch, systematic surveys will be used to assess satisfaction with the program.

8. In addition to making ulearn available for online courses, the interface will eventually also be available as a supplementary tool for all faculty to use in association with the delivery of F2F learning.


Some of the issues I have addressed at committee meetings are the potential for a single university login to apply to proprietary information resources; instructions for faculty on connecting a ulearn course interface with library resources; and copyright.

As the university moves towards the launch of online learning, it is important for us to plan on how best to make sure that we can deliver to remote learners library resources and services comparable in quality to those available to on-campus learners.


Please post comments and questions.


Thanks,


Rosie

Food for thought on accessibility workshop @ IUG

Accessability doesn't just have to be from the viewpoint of disabled patrons.
ADA & WebOPAC Accessibility Workshop.

What about:
1. What is JWU's international population? Does our website/OPAC "speak to" ESL students & faculty? What does Catalog and Database mean to them? Some of the sample libraries here at IUG use the phrase, "Books & More!" to represent catalog.

2. Focus2011 has a large focus on international student recruitment, is our website accessible to them? Is the language clear & simple? Are terms used librarianese?

A Sociologist Says Students Aren't So Web-Wise After All

Check out this interview in the Chronicle's Wired Campus column:

http://chronicle.com/wiredcampus/index.php?id=2943

Do you think web technology literacy is adequately addressed at J&W?

IUG Conference

Hi everyone,

I will be blogging the IUG Conference in Washington, D.C. and you can view my posts at http://risassylibrarian.blogspot.com/. Please feel free to leave comments!

Talia

Encore Usability Study-URI

At the last Reference Committee meeting, Mary McDonald from URI distributed some interesting results from a usability study they conducted comparing the old HELIN Opac with Encore. The study featured 170 students who had just completed the LIB120 session. Some key numbers, overall, 28.8% found HELIN easier than Encore compared to only 21.5% of students who found Encore easier than HELIN. only 4.6% of students thought that Encore was much easier than HELIN whereas 15.4% found HELIN much easier than Encore. As stated earier, students had just completed LIB120 and were extremely familar with Helin at the point of this survey.

Question for discussion:

1. If Encore is supposed to be what student's want i.e. tag cloud etc.., what does this survey mean?

Blog Settings

I'm so new to the blogosphere that I don't completely understand all the implications of the various settings.

It was suggested by one of the staff that I change the 'Comments' setting to allow anyone to comment. I have done so. This means that even anonymous comments from unregistered users will now be accepted.

Welcome!

Hi there, J&W librarian-- Thanks for taking a look at our freshly minted library staff blog. I hope you will feel free to post ideas, referrals to interesting articles, announcements, or just let off some LIS steam.