Brian received his MLS in 1991 and my PhD in 1998, both from Indiana University in Bloomington, IN. He served as the assistant director of the Indiana University Library School on the South Bend campus. He is an Associate Professor at UNC SILS and teaches classes at SILS on storytelling. He has been a storyteller for over 12 years. His talk is entitled “Creating and Marketing Immersive Libraries”

We are very excited to have Brian as our guest speaker!  Please mark your calendars and plan to join us in the Virginia Dare room in the Alumni House at noon on Saturday, March 31.

• Had you worked in other areas before entering library school?

Yes, I worked at a call center, as a bookseller several times at different stores, as an art teach and arts & crafts director for a summer playground program operated by my city’s parks and recreation department, as a fresh and frozen seafood processor when I lived in Alaska, and then as an historical interpreter at Rocky Mount before almost exclusively working in libraries.

• What was your first library job?

I volunteered at Johnson City Public Library (TN) when I was 13 or 14 and spent most of my time in the children’s department. The Children’s librarian at that time had me clean the picture books’ covers, and cut our felt pieces for story times. My first paying job was also at Johnson City Public Library after I had decided that I wanted to go to library school, but before I had earned my bachelor’s degree. Given my prior volunteer work , when I approached the head of circulation about the possibility of part-time work, I was s shoe-in and then worked as a page for two years prior to attending UNCG.

• What do you remember most about your time in the UNCG LIS program?

Many fond memories of the semesters I studied at UNCG’s LIS program readily come to my mind. I can’t decide whether the people or the information was most valuable, because both were—and still are—so important to my professional identity.  I became a librarian because I loved books and information and libraries as place; they offered sanctuary to me when I was bullied in junior high. But learning the philosophy and history of our profession and what values we hold dear—like freedom of information, intellectual freedom, and equity of access— correspond with my democratic ideals. My professors made lasting impressions on me:  Dr. Kovacs and Dr. Carmichael taught me so much about being a librarian. The friends I made were lasting and whether I run into classmates at ALA, see each other at weddings, chat on Facebook , or plan weekend getaways, I’m grateful for the power of bricks-and-mortar UNCG that forged our friendship.

• What is your current position and what does it entail?

Since 2009 I’ve served as the faculty outreach librarian at the Charles C. Sherrod Library at East Tennessee State University which entails a little bit of everything, really: Reference-by-appointment and library instruction. I coordinate library instruction for the public services team. We licensed bePress this fall and I’ll work directly with faculty to help them with Selected Works. Our systems librarian and I are writing our institutional repository policies, taxonomies, etc. Finally seeing this IR come to fruition is exciting since I’ve dreamed of nothing other than it for the past two years.

• Do you have any projects going on that you’re particularly excited about?

Other than the IR I mentioned above, my second co-edited book was published earlier this month Mentoring in Librarianship: Essays on Working with Adults and Students to Further the Profession and one of the contributors, Keith Phelan Gorman works at Jackson Library, UNCG.

• How do you feel the profession has changed since you graduated from UNCG?

Librarianship becomes more exciting with each passing year. Library school curricula amaze me. I envy what students learn and wish I could return and upgrade my skill set.  But that doesn’t really answer the question, does it? My observations are not very original. The rate of change that librarians experience in our profession nowadays is phenomenal. Keeping up with all the trends that may affect library services or programs seems barely possible. Perhaps when I earned my degree it was easier to be complacent in your professional development, but today constant improvement or lifelong learning so that librarians retain a competitive edge is key, especially given the rate at which libraries close and librarians’ jobs may be in peril.

• Anything else you’d like to say to the UNCG Alumni?

Let your curiosity and passion drive you. Seek phenomenal mentors. Take risks that force you out of your comfort zone or you’ll never learn what you’re capable of professionally.

Many thanks to Rebecca for taking time out to answer our questions in the midst of teaching her first Intro to Women’s Studies course this past fall!

Do you know an alumnus that you think we should feature? Email Lynda Kellam at lmkellam@uncg.edu or Kathy Shields at kshields@highpoint.edu with the information!

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 52 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

On behalf of the Executive Board of the Alumni Association, I’d like to wish everyone a happy and safe holiday season.  See you in 2012!

Regards,

Randall Bowman, ’97

Rick Collier provided a fascinating look at just some of the advertisements in the Hartman Center collection and how the advertisements can reveal the values, hopes, and concerns of the nation at that time.

- In 1987, the J. Walter Thompson Company, one of the oldest and largest US ad agencies (begun in the mid-1800′s), donated its corporate archives to Duke.
- In 1992, Duke alum Hartman donated money to set up Hartman Center.
- In the past 20 years have acquired several major collections.
- Approached by Apple and asked to digitize about 16,000 commercials that are now available through iTunesU.
- Over 3 million items in collection, including print advertisements, television and radio commercials and scripts, documentation (design layouts, sketches, case studies and market reports, campaign strategies and analysis, salesman kits and training materials, etc.)
- Who uses it? Historians, writers, journalists, publishers, advertising professionals, movie production companies, genealogists, nostalgia seekers, educators and students
- Why study history through advertising?
– Advertising developed with the industrial development and expansion of US and links these industries to media to form the American market system
– Advertising helped goods develop distinct identities as brands, which in turn reflect the values and aspirations of certain groups. Taken as a whole, advertising reflects the nation at the time and its aims, hopes, and fears. We can learn who we are, were, and strove to become by viewing history through the lens of advertising.
- Richard provided examples of ads from different time periods that exemplify social themes of the time.
- How has the Hartman Center used advertising to teach history?
– comparisons of past and present in Center’s newsletter (ex. Bowling promoted as healthy activity in 1914, DDR in today’s classrooms to fight obesity)
– exhibit on sexuality in historic contexts
– using ad photos to document history of public spaces, such as billboards & signs on Atlantic City Boardwalk
– exhibit on advertising’s role in developing children as consumers
- Advertising archives as documentary evidence (aka archivist as detective)
– in 2005 contacted by production company working on King Kong remake
– one of the items of interest was electric spectacular for Pepsodent spectacular from original 1933 movie, able to find still photo from 1931, article in trade journal from 1930 with technical specs and color image of the sign, which made it possible for production company to make a fairly accurate reproduction for new movie
- Hartman Center receives around 1500 research requests a year
- do charge a fee for doing research, copying or scanning images, but not for academic/educational class visits & presentations

This session is the first of a series of workshops being offered by NCBIG (Bibliographic Instruction Group) this year through the Teacher Librarian Academy. The sessions will be structured around the ILIAC Cycke, designed by Megan Oakleaf:
1. Review learning goals
2. Identify learning outcomes
3. Create learning activities
4. Enact learning activities
5. Gather data
6. Interpret data
7. Enact decisions

Amy Harris discussed the three domains of Bloom’s Taxonomy – cognitive, affective, and psychomotor.
- The session today was focused on the cognitive domain, which ranges from lower order thinking skills to higher order (remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating).
- Remember that learning outcomes have to be measurable! You can’t measure how well students “understand” a concept, but you can measure how well they can define or explain it.

Participants were then broken into groups and given the opportunity to take a bad learning outcomes and make them better. Some of the outcomes were too vague, some were too specific, some were unmeasurable. We then had the opportunity to develop learning outcomes for a class we had in mind or an example class. Three learning outcomes for a 50-75 minute class are enough!

Watch the NCLA list for information on the upcoming sessions in the Teacher Librarian Academy!

Kim, Emily, and Lisa offered examples of how they have developed and encouraged the instruction librarians at their institutions, the number of which varied from around 40 at one to 7 at another. They each provided practical ideas that could be implemented at any library, large or small.

Kim
- UNC changed the way it did subject liaisons – also began doing collection development
- Did a survey of all librarians who did instruction to find out their priorities in instruction, how they used their time, if they felt they had enough time, how important they felt instruction was to their job and to the mission of the library, how/if they did assessment and why
- also asked if they would be interested in attending sessions on topics related to teaching, by far the one one evaluation got the most interest
- offered session on learning outcomes in September, other sessions being offered in October and November

Emily
- Duke – Instruction & Outreach is its own department, with 2 full-time staff, a part-time intern, field experience student
- all public services librarians at Duke are required to teach something
- job is not to do all the teaching, but to coordinate the instruction on campus and make getting into the classroom as easy as possible, make librarians as effective as possible
- gather stats, develop support tools, maintain tutorials and help pages, provide professional development
- developed a bimonthly Instructors Forum on topics such as instructional technologies, reports of user studies, teaching Summon – focused and structured
- develop special workshops (about 4x a year) on topics that instructors need help with – advanced LibGuides functionality, PollEverywhere
- spring instruction retreats – offered every spring (may) since 2008 – offers opportunity to spend more than just an hour or so focusing on instruction – active learning, evaluating teaching and student learning, integrating special collections into instruction, understanding digital literacies, incorporating data into instruction
- listen to what instruction librarians are saying, also follow hot topics at conferences, lost-servs, etc.
- goals of retreat: introduce new concept, give librarians day to talk with colleagues about instruction, engage with Duke faculty, TRLN librarians and faculty, opportunity for follow-up programming on topics that really sparked interest
- begin planning retreat in January, location and budget varied, da runs 9am-2pm and includes breakfast and lunch, speakers include Duke and non-Duke librarians, faculty, LIS students, and support staff, day includes hands-on portion in lab (to practice a new technology or explore a new resource), invite guests from TRLN libraries
- 2009 retreat was on using special and digital collections – realized that sometimes archivists and librarians were working with the same class and not communicating, had representatives from both talk about specific classes and projects
- 2010 retreat focused on digital literacies – projects that required research, but also included multimedia; were able to bring in a librarian from Penn State who had researched digital literacies, and she conducted most of the sessions, also had a panel of faculty who talked about their assignments and staff who worked with multimedia talk about many of the different tools that students could use
- 2011 retreat was on using data in the classroom – realized that students were being asked to do this and librarians needed to know how to do it!
- include participant evaluation form, respond in program and planning

Lisa
- preparing librarians for a new first year seminar at UNC-W
- at UNC-W, 90% take FYS, will be required in the fall
- several variations, including early college, transfer students, learning communities, linked to particular class or particular residence
- library has always provided session, students were required to attend
- created online tutorial, FYS resource page, added library chapter to FYS text (written by librarians, asked to read before library session)
- developed step by step approach to info lit instruction
- solicited feedback from librarians, faculty, students on what students should learn in the session, based on feedback, added in some pieces to aid with assessment and student learning – online questionnaire, 2 worksheets in class, activity after class on evaluation
- as a result, needed to train the librarians how to do this – created a PPT for librarian to use in the class, an outline with timing
- used SharePoint to share documents (worksheet, handout, outline, PPT, etc.), also created Jing videos on where to find stuff, what to say, etc.
- provided mock session with librarians as students – remember that when training other librarians, you need to be a little thick-skinned!, also offered observation and practice sessions
- received feedback in weekly public services meetings and via email from FYS instructors, also sent email updates to librarians with changes, suggestions, etc. as learned what worked and what didn’t

In this session, the presenters provided an overview of the biggest players in e-readers and whether or not they play nice with libraries and library resources….

Kindle (Lynda)
- various iterations of Kindle – keeps getting cheaper!
- newest version is touchscreen
- can now get books on Kindle through Overdrive, but only if the book is available in the Kindle library & the Overdrive library
– process is also a bit clunky – many many steps (including perhaps the most unhelpful help page ever), especially if you have a 3G only version
– can also use Kindle app for iPad and get stuff via Overdrive almost immediately
- ebooks cannot be loaded across multiple devices at one time (see blog posts by Buffy Hamilton, School Library Journal) – big problem for libraries who have purchased Kindles to loan out to users!
- each Kindle has to be linked to its own account
- no integration with databases

Nook Color (Mark)
- characteristics of dedicated ereaders but not a full blown Android tablet (weakness?)
- has Android OS but can’t download from Android Market, must go to B&N
- ideal nook user reads everything – novels, magazines, Children’s books, blogs, & email
- ebooks via NCLive – needlessly cumbersome, access through web browser, read in browser or download some as PDF
- NetLibrary (EBSCOhost) – must have Adobe Digital Editions on PC to download (only about 2500 available to download), can move it over to your nook and keep for designated checkout period
- ECU checks out nooks to students, all can be on same account, share content across devices
- why would you want it? expensive, just get a tablet if want web stuff, kindle if just want to read novels

Original nook, nook touch, Sony Reader (Lauren)
Original nook
- came with 3G & wifi
- e-ink!
- can get library books on it (see Lauren’s blog post on it! Most viewed page on her blog)
nook touch
- simple navigation (just touch!)
- smaller and lighter, nice feel on the back vs kindle
- with both, software updates occur over the air instantly (not so with kindle)
- nooks take ePub format (why they were able to do library books), can also get other devices’ books on it – but these go into different files than books you buy from B&N
Sony Reader
- accepts ePub and multiple file formats, books in their store are more expensive
- Sony does NOT want libraries to loan them out
Lending
- at WFU, formed a committee to study copyright issues with ereaders before decided what to do
- purchased 2 of each to circulate

iPad (Amy)
- some providers play nicely with iPad – ex. Gale’s AccessMyLibrary (free app download), Overdrive
- some don’t – ex.EBSCO ebooks (possible, but hasn’t been successful in doing it so far), can’t scroll in the browser; new EBSCO app only works with articles
- and some just do OK – Learning Express Library ebooks are PDF, so can download and read on iPad
- technical support for these is difficult to find

Proving that statistic and country research can be exciting at 9am, Lynda Kellam and Steve Cramer pitted resources against each other in this session. Broken into rounds, they took similar resources, compared their strengths and weaknesses and then illustrated the battle with battle bots and tortoise and hare races. Here are the winners (marked with **) and other contenders:

EIU Country Reports vs Datamonitor reports (both via BSP)
EIU
- search by source, country reports in BSP
- in premier get full report in one, in bsp broken out; very text-heavy
**Datamonitor country analysis (PESTLE insights)
- includes environmental landscapes
- pretty charts and graphs

World DataBank v UN Data v IMF Data
**world databank
- 9 datasets, all free
- economic as well as demographic and social data
UN Data
- many free, some fee
IMF data
- some free, other fee, can do short trials
- data mapper, can get images out for reports

Political risk yearbook (bsp) v CQ political handbook of the world
**PRY
- broken down into different pieces in bsp (look for biggest PDF file for full report)
- how safe is it to do business in a particular country?
CQ
- fee, similar to Europa and CIA world factbook but focus on more current issues in each country
- focus on political systems

Country watch v IHS country monitor
**Country watch (via BSP)
- no embargo
- narrative reports on wide range of topics
IHS (via BSP)
- country and industry forecasting company
- monthly reports (but not updated since Jan)

OECD v Euromonitor Passport GMID
**OECD iLibrary
- subscription but papers available through BSP
- lots of resources on lots of subjects, including most of the books published by OECD
Euromonitor Passport
- international consumer markets with data, reports, analysis
- very expensive!
- difficult to use, slow

CCG v WB v EIU (all good! Use all 3)
Country Commercial Guides
- free!, produced by US Dept of Commerce, US Commercial Service
- focused on exporting US goods to other markets
- practical guides
WorldBank “doing business in…”
- free, very visual
- not necessarily about exporting, but about expanding business
EIU Country Commerce (via BSP)
- how to do business, broken down into individual chapters

wikipedia v nationmaster
**Wikipedia
- further reading, bibliography, external links are helpful, make students find keywords using it
Nationmaster
- free but with ads
- dated! Taking it from good sources, but not necessarily the most current data

Europa Yearbook v WorldMark Encyclopedia of Nations
**Europa
- fee, basic but current and informative narratives about countries
WorldMark
- GVRL
- covers all countries and UN system but not updated as frequently

CIA World Factbook v US Dept of State Background Notes
**CIA
- free, includes military and transportation, not as narrative driven
US State Dept
- free, land, people, politics, etc
- updated irregularly
- also provides travel warnings (mobile app!) (travel.state.gov)