Archive | IL2013

 Yes it was a good conference.  As usual, I learned a lot.  If I had to name one significant topic discussed at IL 2013, I would say it was Libraries and their Communities.  I’m sure we will be hearing lots more about this in the future.  You can count on IL addressing the hot topics, so take a moment now, mark your calendar for next year’s dates, and plan to attend IL 2014–same time, same place!

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Josh Hanargarne

The closing keynote speaker was without doubt one of the more unusual ones to appear at an Internet Librarian conference.  According to the conference program, Josh Hanagarne, a reference librarian at Salt Lake City Public Library and Author, The World’s Strongest Librarian, “is a performing strong man who is an imposing 6′ 7″ tall, a bookish nerd, family man, and twitchy guy with Tourette Syndrome”.  Josh charmed, mesmerized, and inspired the audience and received a standing ovation at the end of his talk.  It was amazing how he frankly discussed his affliction and how it has affected his life.

Recently, Josh has been on a book tour and has noticed how some questions come up more often than others.   The most common one is “What’s wrong with you?”  (He has one of the most serious cases of Tourette syndrome that his neurologist has ever seen.)

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Hear about an all-electronic business branch library that has continually transformed itself and become an integral part of the Notre Dame business school’s educational system.

Speakers describe the library’s services, working relationships with students and faculty, staffing model and staff competencies, funding and licensing approaches, and, perhaps most importantly, how they continuously strategize and evolve themselves to be true partners in the business faculty.

Watch the Session

Presenters

Pete Pietraszewski, Business Librarian, University of Notre Dame
David Yeh, Manager of Enterprise Technology, Mendoza College of Business, University of Notre Dame

(L-R) Aaron Bowen, Reference/Subject Librarian, California State University, Chico; Chanitra Bishop, Digital Scholarship and Emerging Technologies Librarian, Indiana University Bloomington; Marie Bloechle, Electronic Acquisitions Librarian, University of North Texas

Chanitra Bishop opened the session with a description of using Wikipedia in the classroom.  She began teaching students how to edit Wikipedia articles but soon learned that it can be used as an information source.  Professors still tell students not to use Wikipedia because there is still a concern that it is a credible source; however, students will use it anyway.  Many Google searches return Wikipedia articles in their results.

Wikipedia is good for background uses in research such as searching on unknown topics, learning more about known topics, or as a starting point to find information on other sources such as books etc.  It is often used as a pathfinder or research guide.  Because it is global, it gives users 24/7 access from anywhere.

Giving students a Wikipedia assignment is a good way to teach students information literacy and how to evaluate information sources.  It is important to evaluate each article, not Wikipedia as a whole because it is a collection of articles from a multitude of sources.  One way to evaluate articles is to look at the article history, talk page, references, and quality scale.

Articles can be evaluated by looking at the Currency, Reliability, Authority, Purpose/Point of View–the (CRAP) test.

Marie Bloechle discussed transforming LibGuides for e-book promotion and assistance.  Only about 10% of LibGuide users access its advanced features.  The library at the University of North Texas (UNT) adopted Springshare’s LibGuides in the spring of 2012 for subject guides and class pages, providing access to more than 7 million items.  The home page was replaced with a customized page of pull-down menus.  LibGuides are fully  integrated into the UNT library site.  It is seamless and branded within the site; users do not know they are going to another server.  A specialized guide is devoted to e-books.  Using LibGuides to Enhance Library Services is a good reference.

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