NELIG
Meeting Minutes - 2/26/1999
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Steering Committee meeting was held on Friday, February 26th, at the College of the Holy Cross, Dinand Library from 10:00 am to 1:00pm.
1. In attendance at the meeting were:
Jim Douglas, Nichols College, douglajs@nichols.edu
Amy Francis, Mass College of Pharmacy, afrancis@mcp.edu
Julie Whelan, Mass College of Pharmacy, jwhelan@mcp.edu
Betsy Like, NELINET, blike@nelinet.net
Jayne Fox, Holy Cross, jfox@holycross.edu
Chris Cox, Worcester Polytech, ccox@wpi.edu
Esme Devault, edevault@wheelock.edu
Sarah Prown, Yale, sarah.prown@yale.edu
Dawn Thistle, Assumption, dthistle@assumption.edu
Carol Maksian, Assumption, cmaksian@assumption.edu
Bob Kudlay, Springfield College, rkudlay@spfldcol.edu
Marilyn Graves, Bradford College, mgraves@bnet.bradford.edu
Laurie Sabol, Tufts, lsabol@tufts.edu
2. Dawn
Thistle, NEBIC Chair, called the meeting to order.
The minutes of the November 1998 meeting were approved.
3. Program Updates
Esme Devault reported that the program on evaluation of library instruction will be held on June 11 at URI's Continuing Education Center in Providence. The program will run from 9:30-1:00pm. The format and content are still being discussed.
Betsy Like reminded us about the 3/26 NELINET conference. For more information, see http://www.nelinet.net/conf/rtac/rtac99.htm
Dawn Thistle reminded us about the 3/19 ACRL/NEC conference/ FMI, see http://camel2.conncoll.edu/acrlnec/sprconf.htm
4. Web-in-BI Project Update
Bob Kudlay reported that the second program will be held on 3/23. FMI, http://www.samnet.net/bobandjo/nebic01.htm.
Esme Devault also reported on the downtown Boston program that was held in November.
Both programs have met with great success, drawing into an informal setting librarians from various locales to discuss this important issue. It's a great way to meet colleagues who are near by. Bob mentioned how gratifying it is to see new faces in attendance, not to mention speaking in front of the group! Another positive outcome is that these programs are a good chance for librarians to discuss consortial database purchase agreements.
The site for these programs can be a room with a laptop or an electronic classroom, or anything in between. If you are interested in hosting a program in your area, please contact Laurie Sabol at the email address listed above.
5. Guidelines Subcommittee
CORRECTION: The URL for the work this group has done is http://www.holycross.edu/departments/library/website/NEBIC/model.htm
Should the subcommittee incorporate ways to work with faculty into their paper?
The initial intent of this subcommittee was to submit its statement to the Instruction Section of ACRL.
If you have further comments, please direct them to Bob Kudlay at the email address listed above.
6. Web Subcommittee
Jayne Fox continues to be NEBIC Web manager. Comments or questions about the website should be directed to her.
7. Program discussion
The group continued its discussion of the June program. Evaluation is so important and so hard to undertake. It was mentioned that NEBIC might be a good group to explore putting together a research project on evaluation. Would we evaluate bibliographies or would we use some other determinants of quality? It was also noted that a lot of evaluation that does go on evaluates us, rather than evaluating either the success or satisfaction (or both) of the patron.
Bob Kudlay talked about an interesting project he is involved in with an instructor. Students will keep a journal of the research process, noting especially their failures in some kind of bibliographic format. The legitimacy of their failures will be evaluated by Bob and the instructor.
Betsy Like proposed comparing how students document their research methods both before and after they've had instruction.
Esme Devault suggested giving instruction to all students (we don't want to deny our students!) and advanced instruction to a selected group.
Back to the June program, it was suggested that an interesting activity would be to have (pre or post instruction) surveys that we already use be compared. It would also be valuable to see how the surveys are interpreted by others.
Finally, it was noted that we all want the June program to give us
specific tools to take back to our libraries.
8. Open
discussion of Instruction Issues
Marilyn Graves asked a general question: At a small library, how
do you do it all? She is loath to drum up business for the
instruction program, since she also has to serve on the
reference desk several hours each day, process Interlibrary
Loan, and wears a myriad of other hats. Everyone joined in on
the discussion and Marilyn
would be happy to hear from others in the same boat. One
thing we were all in agreement about was to contact faculty about
library instruction rather than market instruction directly to
students. This way, you reach a smaller, yet more powerful audience.
In fact, Holy Cross hosts a popular faculty-only technology seminar
at the beginning of the semester, with invitations sent by the
Dean. It was also suggested to look into outside funding for
part-timers to give fulltime people time to work on special
projects.
9.
Nominations/elections
We will soon begin the nomination/election process for Vice-chair and Secretary.
The procedure is as follows:
In mid-April, current -soon to be past- NEBIC chair (Dawn Thistle) will issue a call for nominations through the ACRL Newsletter and the NEBIC email list. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO NOMINATE YOURSELF OR SOMEONE ELSE NOW, send the name and library of the candidate to Dawn.
Chair's term of office is one year. Secretary's term of office is one year, and may be renewed once.
Candidates must be ACRL/NEC members.
Regarding elections: in early May, chair will post message to NEBIC email list announcing URL where ballot is to be found. The message will note how long URL will be active.
Only ACRL/NEC members will be allowed to vote.
Winner(s) will be announced at summer program or next planning
meeting.
10.
NEBIC
mission/charge
Dawn surveyed to group to determine if we are on the right track as far as our mission in the ACRL/NEC manual is concerned. Many of us reaffirmed how much we appreciate the informality and exchange of ideas that goes on at NEBIC meetings and programs. We thought that for the future, we might want to think about taking on some projects such as bibliographies, collaborative BI courses in consortia schools that allow cross-registration, cooperative programs with other ACRL/NEC groups or NELA.
11. Miscellaneous
ACRL/NEC Listserv
The chapter will be launching a listserv for the membership to
announce events of interest. The Publicity Committee, Sarah
Wenzel and Marilyn Steinberg, are soliciting email addresses from
those interested in joining. If you filled out a form at the Fall
Conference at Holy Cross College, there is NO need to send another.
However, if you are interested in joining, keeping in mind that the
listserv is NOT operating yet, send email to either Sarah
(swenzel@bu.edu) or
Marilyn (msteinbe@lynx.neu.edu).
Effective Web Design
Jayne Fox would like to hear from you if you have done any research
on effective web design. Should the NEBIC web site include more
brief listings? Yale is doing a useability study of their web
site, which everyone was interested to hear about. Sarah Prown
referred us to www.useit.com
for general information.
Faculty Status
Julie Whelan is rewriting the faculty manual for her library and
would be interested in hearing from other libraries where librarians
have faculty status. How do you progress through the ranks? What is
your title? Who is on your promotion committee?
Electronic Reserve
Jim Douglas asked if anyone has mounted a "homegrown" electronic
reserve system. If so, please contact him.
OUR NEXT MEETING will NOT be on April 23. The two choices for the next meeting are, in order, Friday, April 30 and Thursday, April 29. Please contact Dawn to tell her your preference.
Submitted by Laurie Sabol (substituting for Judy
Pinnolis)