ACRL New England Chapter News Online

ISSN 1527-0106

Winter 2008, Number 112

In This Issue (Home):

2008 Annual Meeting - Registration Open!

ACRL NEC Provides New Online Services

Save the date - NELIG Annual Meeting, June 6, 2008

Board Meeting Minutes

Calendar

Fall 2007 Reports and News:

President's Report

NELIG Report

Member-at-large News

Webmaster's Report

New England Library Instruction Group Report

Heidi McCann and Kari Mofford, Co-Chairs
October 2007

Final results of the summer 2007 NELIG survey were tallied and presented at the first quarterly meeting on September 7th.  There was a very strong response to the survey, with 162 total responders.  Noteworthy from the results were the following:

• 82 of the 162 who completed the survey had never attended a NELIG quarterly meeting
• Question - If you have ever attended a NELIG meeting, and you are familiar with the group, please indicate why you did not attend: [top two results]

Too busy, couldn’t get away from work(39)
Location of Meetings too far away(24)

• Question - What day of the week works best for you?

Friday(72) [top result}

• Question - Would you like NELIG to develop a: [top two results]

Pool of resources/tools for instruction (121)
Librarian exchange program to observe at other institutions(72)

Almost all dates proposed for future meetings were well-received by survey-takers, so we will move forward with the dates as listed in the previous NELIG quarterly report (Sept 7, 2007, November 30, 2007, February 22, 2008, April 25, 2008). 

Also discussed at the September 7th meeting was the 2008 NELIG annual meeting.    Highlights of the planning session which followed the workshop included these notes, as taken by Angie Locknar:

• Sara Marks will co-chair.  Laurie Sabol is other co-chair.
• Final theme:   HOW STUDENTS LEARN and use facilities, etc.

Examples from Tufts, Wesleyan, MIT

• Ethnographic anthropologist from Rochester to talk about how students learn, Wesleyan is working on this.   Or professor who lived the life of a student without telling them (Nancy Foster at Rochester)
• Still need date and location.

The September 7th NELIG meeting held at Mt. Wachusett Community College was themed as a “Problem-solving Library Instruction Workshop.”  Run by Dr. Donna Duffy, professor of psychology and coordinator of the Carnegie Community of Practice at Middlesex Community College, Bedford and Lowell, Massachusetts it was intended to bring together both library instruction ‘newbies’ and ‘veterans’ in a type of brainstorming session.  Participants were invited to bring their most pressing library instruction-related issues to the meeting where they used a unique process to articulate and reframe individual issues, and leave with fresh perspectives and ideas on how to remedy these problems.   With 35 attendees, the co-chairs felt that this strong showing bodes well for the coming year.  This first quarterly meeting of the new academic year was built as a workshop in response to the face that the summer survey revealed that most NELIG participants favor this format over a presentation, which is what mostly took place in 2006-2007 NELIG meetings.

Looking ahead to our next quarterly meeting, scheduled for November 30th, we will co-sponsor with the ACRL/NEC ITIG SIG a workshop format session on “Library 2.0” (which was by far the leading suggestion in our summer survey, in terms of suggested topics for future meetings).  The Leominster satellite campus of Mt Wachusett Community College has been secured as a meeting location due to the fact that there the group will have 4+ open labs at their disposal – perfect for running the kind of hands-on workshop envisioned by the planners.  Individual breakout lab session leaders are still being contacted and secured for the meeting, but the day will start with a presentation by Elizabeth Thomson of NOBLE, an excellent and entertaining speaker on all things Library 2.0

Finally, two online resources have been added to the NELIG line-up:

a) a wiki – http://nelig.pbwiki.com and

b) a facegroup group - http://mwccmass.facebook.com/group.php?gid=14054700331

Within the wiki are carpooling, library instruction exchange and library resource sharing opportunities.  The wiki’s password is – infolit  The facebook group has not be advertised yet, but already some librarians have located it and joined - we currently have 8 members but all are welcome to join.  Both the wiki and facebook group have much potential as online tools for idea sharing and enhanced communications.