Perhaps my favorite activity at conferences is socializing and meeting new librarians.  Sure, the presentations and poster sessions, roundtables and  lightening rounds are excellent learning opportunities.  However, for me, the real learning comes from talking to others in the field.  Relationships can be formed from sitting next to someone at a presentation, or grabbing a drink with a panelist at the end of the day.  You may have a 90second elevator speech on what you do and where you work, but other than that, the conversations are free and unbound by power point slides.  Networking is your opportunity to discuss anything on your minds about library and information careers.  These are times to discuss new services you are introducing to your library.  These are opportunities to share your career path and dole out advice to newer librarians, or commiserate in stories with other veterans.  It’s a valuable time to pick up those business cards, not just to fill out your contact lists for future jobs (and that’s ok too!), but to gain connections for when you need a mentor, or your institution wants to enter in a collaborative relationship and you hold the contact key.

Are you headed to SLA this July?  Or perhaps you have some other local conferences on your schedule that you are attending.  Feel free to share your networking stories in the comments and why YOU are excited for SLA!

Loyola University Maryland and Notre Dame of Maryland University seek a Director of the Loyola/Notre Dame Library to provide the information services and resources required to support the academic programs and educational concerns of the two institutions.

Loyola University Maryland and Notre Dame of Maryland University are geographically adjacent to each other in northern Baltimore and have shared library facilities since 1973.  Loyola, a Jesuit institution, was founded in 1852 and currently has approximately 3,800 undergraduate students and 334 full-time faculty members.  In addition, graduate programs serve 2,200 students.  Notre Dame of Maryland University, founded as a Catholic liberal arts college in 1895 by the School Sisters of Notre Dame, engages students as confident, capable learners and leaders through its distinguished Women’s College, College of Adult Undergraduate Studies, and College of Graduate Studies. Fall 2011 enrollment included 1,296 undergraduate students, 1,435 graduate students, and 198 first professional degree candidates, served by 104 full-time faculty members.

A 440,000 volume collection is housed in the shared facility which underwent a large-scale expansion and renovation project in 2008.  The library is a member of the Maryland Interlibrary Consortium, serving five independent academic libraries. The library’s outstanding collection, which includes a virtual collection of over one million volumes, is supported by an annual budget of approximately $3.9 million and a staff of 44, including 16 librarians and an archivist.  More information about the library can be found at http://www.lndl.org.

Working with multiple constituencies, the Director oversees all dimensions of an independent 501(c)(3) organization, identifies the information needs of the campuses, provides leadership in stimulating program development to meet those needs, and articulates the needs and services of the library.  The Director guides the library in key initiatives: leading the ongoing strategic plan; improving collaboration on and beyond the campuses; innovating in the use of technology in and beyond the library; and working externally to help support and represent the library locally, regionally, and nationally.

The position is a 12-month appointment reporting to the Board with an anticipated starting date of early to mid-December 2012.  For best consideration, please send all nominations and applications electronically by May 1, 2012 to:

Shelly Weiss Storbeck, Managing Partner and
Ruth Shoemaker Wood, Associated Consultant
Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates, LLC
LoyolaNotreDame@storbeckpimentel.com

Loyola University Maryland and Notre Dame of Maryland University do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, creed, ethnicity, religion, sex, national origin, marital status, veteran status, actual or perceived sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, status with regard to public assistance, disability, or age in providing employment or access to their educational facilities and activities.

Sure, we are probably aware of this, but what does it mean for academic librarians?  Isn’t this an article for school or children’s librarians – what can we take from this?

This article in a way preps us for what is to come.  One day, these young children will be entering our university library doors with an even less understanding of the printed book (and perhaps research techniques) than our users today.  We must prepare for the new generation of users coming through our libraries now before they show up and wonder if we lag behind the rest of the world.

This means more than simply increasing out e-books collections.  These new users are learning differently, not just reading words on a screen rather than a printed page, but (as the article suggests), they are morphing into connected users.  E-books for children have the ability to allow interaction via touch screens – for example, if one is reading a book and does not understand a word in a sentence, they can touch it and be taken to an online dictionary, full with definitions.  In fact, many of these technologies are occurring now with our current users, and our future students are going to be more adept and expectant of e- technologies.  New virtual tools are giving young users greater accessibility to what is unknown, and learning is coming to them more than the other way around. 

Can our libraries do the same?  Can we adapt the same philosophy on increasing dynamic online interaction?  We are seeing a general shift in our current student population that demands research answers sooner rather than later, and with the least amount of effort.  While this is frustrating to librarians, this trend may likely be here to stay.  How can we improve our current and future student’s research techniques when in 10 years, even Google may seem antiquated?  How can we improve our skill sets and technologies to prepare?  Will our budgets afford us our needs to welcome our new generation of students with knowledgeable, and perhaps virtual, open arms?

The statement is worth reading in full; while Elsevier will no longer openly support the RWA, they still oppose government efforts to require the open release of research:

Therefore, while withdrawing support for the Research Works Act, we will continue to join with those many other nonprofit and commercial publishers and scholarly societies that oppose repeated efforts to extend mandates through legislation. 

Long story short, this debate is far from over, and it remains to be seen whether those participating in the boycott will consider this policy change sufficient.

Lewis argues that most content will be digital within 20 years, and therefore academic libraries need to rethink how they are purchasing e-content.  PDA provides a cheaper and more efficient solution to providing rich collections that our users want.  Also, he boldly predicts that most (or even perhaps all?) journals will be open access, or be consolidated under parent journals in an open access format.  Pre-published material is going to gain ground in relevance, akin to how science pre-prints are made available on open repositories, such as arXiv.

Does your library have a PDA sytem in place, or are you thinking of using it?  What role do you think PDA plays in acquisition of resoureces and collection development as libraries become more digital?  Does this strenghten our collections and partnerships with users?

What happens when you finally get tenure?  Is the light just as bright as you imagined?  Many are finding this is not so.

Kathyrn D. Blanchard recently penned a piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education in which she describes her post-tenure depression, a feeling she soon discovered was not that uncommon in the pursuit of tenure bliss.  She describes the sensation of feeling disappointed and burned out after many years of scrutinizing research, wondering if that time was wasted and if her dreams staying in the field had changed.  There is also a sense of abandonment of the real reasons one would enter the academic world.

As a newer librarian reading this, I wondered how academic librarians felt in their fields.  Like me, many love their careers as librarians and the added responsibilities of publishing and presenting at conferences is seen as giving back to the profession we cherish, despite the fact it may be time consuming and financially challenging even.  However, do we get caught up in the valor of our own librarianship research?  If as an academic librarian going through the tenure process reaches such status, does that librarian feel the post-tenure blues?  How do academic librarians feel along the way?

Perhaps as an aside, how can we help faculty who are in the tenure process, or have obtained tenure status, remain energized and sharp with their research, given these new findings? 

Feel free to discuss in the comments below.

Same for librarians?

Offer support for faculty as librarians.

The Springshare Innovation in Academic Libraries Award recognizes a new program or service that demonstrates an innovative approach to academic librarianship. Deadline for submissions is April 1^st, 2012.

The Stacey Greenwell Outstanding Division Member Award recognizes a member for a notable or important contribution to the Academic Division. Deadline for nominations is April 1st, 2012.

The Academic Division will also give away a new award this year. The Practical Academic Librarianship Award recognizes the best article published in the previous year’s volume of Practical Academic Librarianship (PAL), the open access, peer-reviewed journal published by the Division.

More information on all three awards, including criteria, eligibility and nomination information can be found at http://slaacademic.libguides.com/content.php?pid=301442&sid=2470599

Now it seems that the researchers and faculty that publish in and use these journals are taking note of the expenses - and doing something about it.

An online petition, started by Tyler Nylon in response to an initial blog outcry from Timothy Gowers (University of Cambridge), has spread across the web and, as of this posting, received 4642 signatures.  Faculty in multiple universities are staging a boycott of the Elsevier giant, vowing not to publish in or partake in any reviews board activities of Elsevier content.  Instead, the singatories are turning towards the ever growing trend of open access, encouraging others to publish their works in freely accessible journals which are growing in stature and sophistication.

Also on the petition?  Calling out Elsevier on taking sides with the Research Works Act which threatens research from grant funded studies, like the NIH, being disseminated freely.  While the act itself seems dead in the water, the potential of squeezing such terminology into other legislation is always a possibility and one that librarians will want to keep their eye on.

Elsevier has responded in defending their practices by describing the labor that goes into publishing journals of the highest caliber and that digitizing their materials has actually opened up access and brought down the cost per use.

Does your library provide access to Elsevier journals?  Do you feel their pricing and licensing agreements are unfair, or are they justified due to the content and reputation of the publications?  How do you feel about this faculty boycott?  Please leave your comments below.

Cornell University Library surveyed students to ask what word comes to mind most when they think of a library.  The results created a wordle visualization,with “place” being (ironically) centered as the word used most often.  The idea that the library is  a physical building that people go to has not been lost in the digital age, and there is still this desire to have ones’ library be an escape of sorts. 

Academic libraries over the years have taken measures to ensure their “place” is more friendly and welcoming, hoping the increase in traffic would result in an increase in collections usage.  Many libraries now have cafes, more comfortable furniture and have had major face lifts to attract the masses.  They have taken note on how public libraries, and even bookstores, operate to become more dynamic and social. 

There is a divide in opinions about academic libraries being a place.  On one hand, having the library being a central place on campus for students and scholars to gather for various reasons is a welcome attribute.  On the other hand, some believe this means the library merely exists as a study hall.

Now that some smaller academic library branches are consolidating and going virtual, much of that empty space where stacks used to exist are now being transformed into study spaces, some complete with technology learning centers that include computers, smart boards and other types of mobile infrastructure to facilitate group work.  Despite the aggressive shift to go online, there is still a recognition of having a physical place for study purposes.  Additionally, the creation of virtual spaces or meeting grounds is gaining popularity in and out of the library, with portals such as ResearchGate and Piazza. 

Tell us what you think about the academic library being a place: are you on the side of them being community centers that harvest research and collaboration?  Are they really just study halls or drop off places in between classes?  Do you see both?