Category Archives: Conference Highlights

Gretchen Keer and Jeffra Bussmann – Transforming Knowledge Production: Decolonizing Information Literacy – notes

A really interesting presentation on bringing more of a focus on social justice into information literacy coursework, by incorporating what the presenters call “research justice.”  This involves looking at the sometimes problematic and exploitative process by which academic research gets done, and contrasting it with themes of community engagement and participatory action research (sometimes also called community-based participatory research), which involves research participants in all parts of the research – developing research questions, collecting data, and disseminating the findings in both academic venues and ways that the community can benefit from the research being done.  A really interesting topic, and one which I was delighted to see covered — I plan on touching on these themes for my own instruction.  Well done Gretchen and Jeffra!

Continue reading Gretchen Keer and Jeffra Bussmann – Transforming Knowledge Production: Decolonizing Information Literacy – notes

Marie Kennedy – “An intentional conversation: Electronic resources and your library patrons” – notes

Marie Kennedy’s invited paper session covered library marketing, which is a topic that I was delighted to see covered.  She focused primarily on the first part of the ‘marketing cycle’, which is to hone in on and learn more about your target market before undergoing a marketing plan, in order to find out more about them – how to reach them, and what messages will make the most impact.  Read on for more detailed notes:

Continue reading Marie Kennedy – “An intentional conversation: Electronic resources and your library patrons” – notes

“Letting User Search Behavior Lead Us: An Analysis of Search Queries & Relevancy in USC’s Web-Scale Discovery Tool” – Beth Namei and Christal Young – notes from the session

This session presented out on findings from research done on USC’s recent implementation of the discovery layer Summon.  The presenters did a review based on relevance of returned results for a smaller sub-set of searches, and compared them to both Google and Google Scholar.  Some really unexpected findings, and some really great strategies for transforming the iffy performance of our tools into new approaches for teaching information literacy in our organizations.  Read on!

Continue reading “Letting User Search Behavior Lead Us: An Analysis of Search Queries & Relevancy in USC’s Web-Scale Discovery Tool” – Beth Namei and Christal Young – notes from the session

“Ethnographic Study of Student Research Frustrations” – notes

The session titled “An Ethnographic Study of Student Research Frustrations” appealed to me because I trained as an ethnographer while studying my subject specialization in grad school.  The presenters in this session had some really interesting qualitative findings that expanded way beyond their original research question, which demonstrates some of the benefits of qualitative research (you get more than you bargained for!).  In particular, I found the different methods that they used (‘map of the day’, text message brief interviews, photo journals) to each be really innovative methods for gathering research data in a minimally-intrusive way for research participants.  Keep reading for my detailed notes.  Good stuff!

Continue reading “Ethnographic Study of Student Research Frustrations” – notes

Michele Van Hoeck – “The Social Side of Research” – notes

I’m posting the notes I took during Michele Van Hoeck’s session on “The Social Side of Research”, which is a focus on a specific aspect of the findings from a Project Information Literacy study which explored the information needs and gaps in information literacy which recent graduates encountered when they joined the workforce.  Michele presented on a related topic at the CCLI conference in 2013, but I was pleased that she expanded on one of the findings that I found to be most interesting — namely, that information needs in the workplace encompass a social and iterative quality that isn’t really found in college assignments.  Read on for more details: Continue reading Michele Van Hoeck – “The Social Side of Research” – notes

Patty Iannuzzi’s Keynote – Leadership in Action: Leading, Learning, and Reflecting on a Career in Academic Libraries – notes

Here are my notes from Patricia Iannuzzi’s keynote speech about her experience with leadership in a variety of academic library organizations.  She related some key formative experiences, primarily from the perspective of how leadership intersects with management roles.

Continue reading Patty Iannuzzi’s Keynote – Leadership in Action: Leading, Learning, and Reflecting on a Career in Academic Libraries – notes

Day 3 – IGs and some final thoughts

This morning I went to CARL IT IG: ReBoot, ReFormat…. Though it was a small group and began at 8 in the morning, discussion was animated. Ian Chan, Chair of the IT IG talked about reactivating the IG after a number of years of inactivity. He talked about the CARL IT On Air sessions that he worked on with Danielle Kane where Google Hangouts and YouTube were used to present and record 30 minutes sessions on a variety of technology tools. The main topic of conversation, however, was how to get more involvement in the IT IG. To help the process along, Ian and Danielle put out a survey. Over sixty people responded. One of these lucky respondents won a gift card in a random drawing. The Steering Committee will be using the information from the survey to help frame their future efforts. Volunteers for the Steering Committee are needed. I can say from having watched two of the On Air sessions that they are well worth 30 minutes once a month. In addition, they are archived in YouTube so you can watch when you have time. The Steering Committee is tracking views of the content. Volunteers for presenting in On Air are also welcome. Thanks for sharing the survey results with us, Ian. It was very interesting to see the demographic information.

I also attended a session called IG: Sharing Library Innovations Northern California. The session was facilitated by two librarians from San Jose State University, Emily Chan and Christina Mune. This was designed as a unconference session and turned out to be very informative. Around 15 librarians attended, all from libraries in the North. Some of these librarians work solo, some are part of smaller or larger institutions, and all want to revive IG activity in the North, not just for programming, but also for collegial support. Our current IG Coordinator, Billy Pashaie was also in attendance. Emily and Christina led a brainstorming session on what the scope/content of these IGs might be. There was acknowledgement that North members are geographically dispersed and that the number of CARL members from the North is significantly less than that in the South. However, there was also a clear wish on everyone’s part to try to start meeting in person again. It looks like CARLDIG-North might be revived. It was great to meet with fellow librarians from the North, to hear the enthusiasm for trying to reestablish more IG activity in the region, and to see both new and long time librarians dedicated to the CARL community.

That brings me to a few final thoughts. It was great to be at CARL 2014. I always enjoy seeing old friends and meeting new people. Allie Carr, Conference Planner Extraordinaire and current President asked the Board members to think about what we valued most about the conference. The content was excellent, but it is still the personal and professional connections that are made that I value most. This goes beyond networking and collegial conversation, however. A phrase Michelle Van Hoeck described in her session on The Social Side of Research comes to mind — We are a “Community of Practice.” I hope everyone enjoyed the sessions, the conversations, and the food, drink and venue. Until next time.
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