spring is sprung

My first day at UW Libraries - no leaves on the tree outside my office window.

A month later, Spring has arrived - there are leaves on the tree. And it's my last day.

Whats Happening at Texas

Well guys, its been a while since I posted something, so here goes. My trip from San Francisco was not without the usual problems - my morning flight was cancelled, so was out on another flight and had my entire flight plan changed. Ended up in Los Angeles, had to deplane as I was told they would have to find me another seat since the plane was full. Managed to board after an hour and go to a Dallas to get my connecting flight to College Station. I was really exhausted as I arrived at 9pm. Anyway, this week I visited the Cushing Special collections library which has some strict security -

very specialised and involved in preservation. I did see some books valued at over $5000, so pretty serious stuff happening here. On Tuesday I visited the Medical Sciences Libray and noticed a similar work patttern amongst the librarians -except I found it very interesting to hear that the librarians do "Rounds" in the wards with the professor and students - a great way to network and learn about research. Today I went to the University of Texas in Austin and was amazed by the size of this library. Very different from Texas A & M in that the librarians are not on a tenure track here, so not so much under pressure to publish. Will be spending the next 2 days learning about digitisation..
The last picture is their Research Commons which is wireless and students bring their own laptops in.

Assessment

One of the goals for our USA visit is to learn about assessment practices. For those of us who weren't aware of it, there's a library assessment blog - "A blog for and by librarians interested in library service assessment, evaluation, and improvement supported by the Association of Research Libraries".

And there's a library assessment conference coming up in August.

Visit to Wesleyan University Library, 14 April 2008

Just before we all took off for the San Francisco meeting, I visited Wesleyan University Library, Middletown, Connecticut which is not far from Yale. We had some interesting discussions after which there was a coffee reception. The Librarian surprised me with a big cup full of Rooibos tea and invited a University reporter to come and talk to me. The event is now accessible online at The Wesleyan Connection. Here is a picture of the Wesleyan University Library, Olin.

Cool library

Wow! My sight-seeing event for Sunday 13 April was a trip to the Central branch of the Seattle Public Library. And what a sight it was!

My camera couldn't handle the width of the building from where I was standing, so apologies for the dis-jointed photo. Lots of glass and therefore wonderful views from within the building.


I had a wonderful cup of hot chocolate in the cafe in the library before wandering around.

Non-fiction books are shelved in a square spiral over 4 levels all connected into one gently sloping ramp. Dewey numbers are on the floor.



On the ceiling in the highest reading room (level 10) are these "acoustic pillows" that are designed to absorb noise.


Bright colours in the children's section and an abundance of light and space throughout the building make this a welcoming place.

Proof that the sun does shine in Seattle

(Pics: Mountain range with ferry; Mount Ranier; Tillicum Village)

What an absolutely beautiful day it was here in Seattle on Saturday 12 April. I was blessed to have booked the trip out to Tillicum Village on a perfect day. The ferry ride was amazing and I got to see the snow-covered mountain range, Mount Ranier, and even Mount Baker in the distance which is apparently not usually visible at this time of year. The water was calm, except for the ferry wakes. The salmon meal at Tillicum Village was delicious and the dancing and narration fascinating.

On ride back I took photo after photo of the Seattle skyline as we approached the city.

My type of day - blue sky and blue water.

Ending the Week at Yale, New Haven

I ended the week by sitting with research librarians and observing them answer reference enquiries through their IM service Ask!live. I also sat through a demo of Borrow Direct, a 4 day book delivery service. A weekend adventure into New York city was quite justified. I am sharing photos of New York Public Library and Broadway.

Texas A & M, Friday, April 11 2008

I was kind of nervous this morning as I had to do my presentation at the Deans Corner. This is a time scheduled monthly where all the staff meet for an hour and half and there is a video conference set up to the satelite libraries. The equipment in this room was intimidating as its very hi tech with 3 video cameras, pointing at you and high tech sound equipment. Anyway, I started of my presentation and them went on to shop them a library orientation video. The staff just loved my presentation and asked several interesting questions. Many were not aware of where South Africa was and this gave the map gave them a good overview. I heard that staff were talking in corridoors about my presentation and some even want a copy. Well, that makes me feel good and ohh, I have a recorded copy. Apparently the meetings during the Deans corner is always recorded.
I then met with a group of Librarians who wanted me to share my knowledge of SA databases and resources, especially in the Business and Politics / Economcis arena. I demonstrated SABINET and they were quite impressed.
Am off to Houstom tomorrow to visit NASA, so will let you know all about that on Sunday...

Omesh

Inside & Outside the Yale Library: 7-10 April 2008

My coordinator, Graziano Kratli continues to enrich the programme. Whenever something interesting arises, he finds a way of bringing it in. He leaves no stone unturned and by the end of the programme I will have gone through virtually all functions and services!

In between very fruitful meetings this week, as part of a small research project set up by Alan Solomon, Head of Research Services & Collections, I have been going through Resources for College Libraries and searching titles on the Orbis circulation system to identify high use materials. It is a bigger undertaking and I can already see I won't go that far in the limited time available. But its been nice just getting the time to appreciate and maybe do a little assessment of Resources for College Libraries as well as getting a feel of Orbis.

Today, 10 April 2008 has been a day to see Yale outside the library. At the invitation of Danuta Nitecki, Associate University Librarian, I attended a get together of the Trumbull College Fellows ---excellent company. After the cocktails and the dinner, there was a presentation, "Newly Discovered Primates: Implications for Primate Origins and Conservation" by Eric Sargis, Associate Professor of Anthropology and a curator of mammals at the Peabody Museum of Natural History. It was such an incisive presentation of the discovery of a new monkey in Tanzania. Of particular interest, the data sets from this research are safely kept and accessible. What good news?

This week at Texas A & M

Week two in Texas is no different - am now assigned to the Business Library across campus for the week, so I also have an office here as well. I was given a reception lunch on Monday and did some job shadowing at the reference desk. Also spoke to librarians about collection development and support to faculty. Like the main library, the branch librarians have their offices "behind the scenes" so to speak but work regularly at the reference desk to help with queries. Theu are currently working on an exciting project called "Street Team" which makes use of undergrad students to reach out to students in class. A pilot project and I got to sit in one of their meetings. Attended a Staff Awards Ceremony today which is held yearly whereby staff who have went beyond the call of duty are nominated and given an award. Students who work in the library were also awarded..and then we had eats again...
I worked on my presentation today, tested the equipment and all set for Friday when I will present during the Deans corner....and ohhh, am going to Houston on Saturday to visit NASA...
OJ

Read/Write web opportunity - LIS on a Friday evening!

I attended the 2008 Margaret Chisholm "Motivate, Inspire & Lead" Lecture on Friday evening, 4 April. Aaron Schmidt is a very entertaining speaker. The presentation from the evening has been posted on his blog.

One of the questions he posed was what happens if our content becomes irrelevant to the people we are serving because of format and delivery. They are living in the Web 2.0 environment. The talk was all about the participatory culture we're living in - people are creating and using information for fun. The lines between work and play are becoming blurred. Reference was made to the paper I mentioned a few days ago - Confronting the challenges of participatory culture media education for the 21st century. He also made reference to the work being done in The Cave at UIUC. I was pleased to know what he was talking about having visited there not too long ago.

Seattle weekend, 5 and 6 April

I didn't do much on Saturday. Decided to take myself on a walk up the road and down the hill to one of the big shopping centres in the area. I took the bus back, as the way home was up hill. Walking back to my apartment from the bus stop I needed a landmark to make sure I was walking in the correct direction. In Seattle's University District, this is the SAFECO Tower (below). At home in Cape Town, my landmark is Table Mountain. And that got me thinking about some of my conversations with UW librarians. Apparently salaries are not good at UW. I'm told there is something called the "Mount Ranier factor". UCT colleagues, doesn't this ring a bell?

I was a bit more adventurous on Sunday. Got myself out of the apartment by about noon (most things only open at 11:00 anyway) and on the bus going downtown. I spent the afternoon getting a history lesson on Seattle by wandering around Pioneer Square, going on the underground tour and popping in to see theKlondike Gold Rush National Park. For lunch I had fish and chips from Ivans while looking out over the water.

Experiences at Yale, 31 March-7 April

Its been quite a busy time but most exciting. From outside, the main Library reminds you of old historic buildings. Over the years, extensinsive renovations have been done inside the library, but this is not obvious at a glance. The finishes have kept the old looks intact. On the other hand large learning commons spaces and nice looking furniture give it a very morden look.

I have been in meetings with a number of people including Human Resources, African Studies Library, Divinity Library, Medical Library and from today, I will be meeting with Research Services and Collections. It was interesting to learn about Yale Library's learning plans and mentorship programs, how the Curriculum & Research Services Librarian is coordinating use of Blackboard in collaboration with Office of Education & ICT in the Faculty of Medicine, and how the Divinity Library has put itself on the Yale map by offering a required course "Library Research Methodology" and running the very popular workshop “Social software for biblical studies”.

This wouldn't be a complete account if I don't mention the excellent Library organized talk that I attended last Thursday " “Roman Emperors in the Library: Tracking Them To Their Lair”, Prof. James J. O’Donnell, Provost & Professor of Classics, Georgetown University . T

University of Washington, 4 April

(On the top - the Allen Library ... in the rain. The Allen Library is the new section of the Library and is attached to the Suzzallo Library. Below- the UW mascot is the husky.This a photo of the statue outside the student union building.)

My good intentions of posting reports daily, went out down the drain very quickly. Things suddenly got very busy.

On Friday, 4 April, I met with a variety of people - the heads of special collections, interlibrary loans, and preservation, and the Dean of Libraries.

Take a look at some of the work that is being done in Special Collections by accessing their web site: http://www.lib.washington.edu/specialcoll/. They use InMagic to create the Pacific Northwest Regional Newspaper and Periodical Index. CONTENTdm is used to manage digital collections. The finding aids are created using EAD (encoded archival description).

The implementation of WorldCat local has resulted in a substantial increase in ILL requests; over 100%. The thinking is that this is due to UW users now being able to see the holdings of other libraries more easily.

University of Washington, 3 April 2008

What a day! Barely 15 minutes to myself between 8:30 and 16:30. It's a culture of commitees and meetings and I attended 3 such gatherings today.

The Research & Instructional Services Group (RISG) is made up of the heads of the areas in the libraries who are involved in offering research and instructional services. During the meeting the recent ACRL Springboard Event, featuring Henry Jenkins, Co-Director of the Comparative Media Studies Program and the Peter de Florez Professor of Humanities at MIT was mentioned. The paper on which the webcast was based is available online - Confronting the challenges of participatory culture media education for the 21st century. The webcast will apparently be available on the ACRL website from 16 April.

I then attended an ERMIT meeting (Electronic Resources Management Implementation Team). It's been a slow and steady implementation of the Millenium ERM module. Generally staff are satisfied with the product. They are able to do wonderful things such as taking SUSHI feeds for automatic import of usage statistics. The ERM can automatically calculate cost per use for the electronic resources.

After lunch it was the Preservation Forum meeting with the topic of preserving sound materials. We watched a movie produced by the History Channel - Save our sounds. Other items shown during the meeting were a YouTube video on Wax recording breakage, and the news, Sound Recording Predates Edison Phonograph .

My last meeting of the day was with the [Libraries'] Organization Development & Training department. UW libraries offers library staff a wide variety of workshops and training events.

Howdy from Texas-Past few days...

Hi Guys. Well, I haven't blogged in the last few days as I just been coming home real exhausyed and just wanna sleep. Past few days have been rather exciting. Getting to learn about various initiatives and workings of the library which is not much different from us, though there are some major differences. Had a tour of the campus which is said to have over 45 000 students. The town here is rather small with majority being students. I was shown the auditorium where I will do my presentation next Friday during the Deans corner time which is held once every month and well attended am told. I was invited to a full bright scholarship dinner on Friday night at a Chinese restaurant, while on Saturday I attended a Symposium on transmission of knowledge at the Hilton hotel. Also visited the George Bush presidential library after lunch and in the afternoon I was invited to a Friends of India picnic with dinner which was fun. So, thats my few days in a nutshell and am hoping to have some free time on Sunday.

Graduate Education Web Page

Hello from sunny Tucson!

Among the wealth of information coming my way and the many meetings I am attending, I was alerted to a website developed for graduate students by the soon-to-be Research Support Services Team at the University of Arizona Libraries. See it at http://www.library.arizona.edu/help/how/find/GradEd.html

Will post some pictures of this very lovely campus soon. Watch this space!

Seta

University of Washington, 2 April 2008

I've mentioned in conversation before that it is amazing to meet with ground breakers in the world of librarianship, especially in the field of electronic resources. I had a conversation with one such person today, Tim Jewel. He was involved in the development of DLF ERMI (electronic resource management) and SUSHI (usage statistics). Tim currently holds the position of Director, Information Resources, Collections and Scholarly Communication at UW Libraries. My other big meeting of the day was with Bill Jordan, Associate Dean of University Libraries, Resource Acquisition and Description/Information Technology Services.

Some of the topics that came up in these conversations:

• UW is swinging to e-only access for journals. For this reason they are concerned about the preservation of online access and are participating in LOCKSS and Portico.
• eBooks: There has not yet been a strong move to eBooks at UW.
• Institutional repository: UW is using DSpace. They have not been too successful in populating the IR yet.
• ERMS: Implementing ERM module from Innovative Interfaces: Millennium.
• Link resolver: WebBridge.
• Electronic resources usage statistics: UW is using ScholarlyStats.
• WorldCat local: Implementation has resulted in a dramatic increase in interlibrary loan requests.
• Datasets: UW Libraries has started to look at dataset curation.

Weather at the University of Washington

If you'd like to see what my world is looking like each day, click on the link to see the view from the live webcam on the Seattle campus - http://www.washington.edu/uwin/

Texas A & M, Day 2

My schedule on day 2 was pretty much full. Met with the Head of Instructional Services who is a librarian. This department provides support to faculty who request training on library instruction, from organizing the sessions, pamphlets to teaching the students on the use of library resources. Usually done in liaison with subject librarian. Shared some cool tips and tricks. I noticed that the data projector projects onto a huge touch screen – pretty cool feature and ideal for training. Also makes use of a clicker which allows students to answer questions by clicking an instrument that records your responses which can be seen on the touch screen. This makes the session very interactive.

I then sat in on a digital repository practice session and bridge group. This group brings the librarians and techies onto a common platform so that they can understand each other. I was shown how an item is uploaded onto the repository using d-space.
Was then taken to lunch by two subject librarians and we chatted about collection development, liaison with faculty and brochures. Some librarians and now booking a space in the faculty for a few hours a week just to be closer to them. They are assigned a computer and staff don’t have to go to the library but can speak to the librarian one on one.

After lunch I met with another instructional services staff member who does all the cool stuff like making teaching videos with audio using various software like camtasia; flash professional;

Finally spent time with the Psychology subject librarian who gave me an overview of things. SL are in offices not in direct contact with public. Queries from the reference desk gets filtered to the Sl who may be called upon if a query is complex. SL also work at the Ref desk for 2 hours during the week and live chat feature.
Librarians here even tough they may not have subject knowledge in a discipline, are also onto a tenure track. This is reviewed after 5 years by several committees who will determine your promotion.

1 April - University of Washington

Joined some of the UW librarians as they listened to an ARL webcast this morning. The University of Washington librarians are participating in the field study for the ARL Study of Emerging New Model Publications. Librarians will be interviewing faculty to find out what new model publications they are using. These include things like blogs and wikis. The field study will take place during April and May 2008.

Took some photos of the interior of the Suzzallo Library today. The two below are the reinforcements that had to be installed to compensate for seismic activity.


And the coffee shop at the entrance to Suzzallo... As we've learnt this is a very important part of the library culture in university libraries in the USA. There is a separate undergrad library at UW; the Suzzallo is the "central" library. There are also several other subject specific libraries.


Below is the reading room in Suzzallo. It's like a church. Apparently the students automatically change their behaviour in this room. Outside the room they may chat, but when they come in here they are silent.

Day one @ Texas A & M

Day one in Aggieland so is called was great. Had a very warm welcome by the associate dean who then showed me my office; went trhough my schedule (which is pretty intensive) and raised questions on issues I was not clear about. I then met with the dean of libraries and 3 other deans, ie. (associate dean medical libraries; associate dean for collections and services and executive associate dean of personnel /HR for libraries. I was briefly asked about our institution and the organogram; had lunch with the dean for libraries and few others; took a tour of the library and attended a welcome reception organised for me. So, am being spoilt here and well taken care of. Ohh, the bus service here is free and campus is also about a 15 min walk. One can also catch the bus to the mall from campus at no cost.

Day One at UDub

My first day at the University of Washington was a realxed introduction to the library system. I was set up with a cubicle that has a view out onto trees that are in bud. Most of the day was spent touring some of the libraries on campus. This morning the sun was out and it appeared to me that Spring had arrived. By 16h00 it was raining and a freezing cold wind was blowing.

I didn't take too many pictures today, but here are a couple. On the top is one of the exterior of the Suzzallo Library, and the bottom one is of campus.



Over the weekend I got to see two of the Seattle tourist attractions. On the left, Pike Place Market and on the left, the Space Needle.



As most of our group experienced at the Sears Tower in Chicago, the Space Needle has an elevator that goes up and up and a viewing platform from which one can see far into the distance out over the city to the mountains. Unfortunately it's been very cloudy since I arrived so I wasn't able to see the mountains in any detail.

Caroline