Recently in Profession Category

I was uploading my presentation slides for an upcoming presentation and I noticed that Slideshare lists how many times my other presentations have been viewed.

The odd thing is that the most viewed is from a talk I did for an Engineering class (635) on how the Information Literacy Standards of ACRL applied to ABET Accreditation and their future job duties.

Does this mean that one of my small presentations is having some significant impact beyond it's original task? This can also be called Youtube fame, an example of which is Ellysa's video (17,790).

EBSCO has a working preview of their 2.0 interface (in "Beta") available under "New Features" when you use a EBSCO database, like Library Lit or LISTA. I tried it out, including creating a new MyEBSCOhost account since there are social networking features.

The starting search page looks "off" since the search boxes are so close to the top, but you get used to it. Basic and Advanced searching get you to results that use facets on the left side (though in a slightly different way from other databases, since added facets appear at the top and new ones come up on the left, but it is hard to tell) You can save items to a folder, which come in preset types but you can customize AND share (with an invite). There are oddly large buttons and little text for "email" and "print" and similar actions for articles.

The "visual search" is a pretty cool way to see results that you narrow and sort visually (does not really map them or allow custom grouping) and is a Flash application. I'm not sure it works completely yet (Beta) since I can't seem to add articles from it to my folders... or print... or anything.

To Brian Mathews "What department do you work in and who would do your job if the 'User Experience Librarian' didn't exist?"
- He reports directly to the Head of Public Services (used to be the Engineering Librarian)
- It used to be done by committee, it could be done by a coordinator. It really grew out of usability testing (web and information technology) but was moved into user testing in all areas (real life?)

To Marianne and all "What type of research do librarians do? Is it social science, information science, or it could even be similar to hospitality research?"
- She comments that even social scientists have trouble describing what kind of research they do

To All "Whose responsibility is it to publish on scholarly publishing like the crisis in Humanities for new professionals?"
- This is a new area, a call to study for a new library professional

Missed the questions, but Nancy responded that ACRL conference presentations are published in the proceedings, it isn't just already published unless it is a significant write-up. Joe followed up that a study showed less than 1/3 of ACRL proceedings entries went on to a journal article. I know that ACRL-STS has a Research Forum that Nan suggested they change into a format similar to other Sciences where preliminary research proposals are presented and critiqued with the idea that they would eventually develop into research projects and papers.

Wonderful video on a wacky focus group (Luxury!) Focus groups seems easy like a round robin Q&A, but can be very complicated, like results interpreted in many ways or "can you believe what they tell you". So you can combine different activities, not just focus on opinions. Be careful of conflict even by who is running the study, he is almost an internal consultant since he isn't in reference. Six focus groups break down like: 2 for an environmental scan, 2 for assessing what you have heard, 2 for (he trailed off). They use observations too, for example why are students using spaces other than the library. How to manage personalities is interesting; am I the free pizza guy or the joker? Ask question broadly then narrow and keep them the type that draw out stories. These slides are really good, too bad I am running out of battery power.

* Peer to peer study is a frequent observation implies that the library needs to be a social space.
* A one shot library session has been described as a "field trip" or "substitute teacher".
* Promotion and marketing are successful if they "appeal to their lifestyle".
* He talks pretty fast and sometimes drops names or runs through a statement that might be profound but it is hard to catch.
* Talk to "the Dominator" before the committee meeting to get them on board with you. The applications of focus group tactics to committees is the best part of this talk!
* This could be experiential research that the hospitality industry focuses on.

Judi Briden is giving a presentation different than those she had done in the past on the UR Undergraduate Research project (this time we were told to bring a map of our campus and a printout of our library homepage) It actually started as a study of faculty work practices (why weren't they using D-Space?). Their research is LOADS of work, from easy stuff to more labor intensive, many times creating "artifacts" such as photos, maps, and web-site mockups. Lots of objects including posters, 3d models in paper/cardboard, and marked up websites were created and before did unrelated activities to stimulate creativity. Fun for staff, probably because of the creative activities, plus they are more focused on the student experience.

Anthropology research sounds fun, but you need to learn the boundaries, rules, and you need to practice (on each other or in a weird place... Kinkos?) "Immersing yourself in the data" is either in a group or solo that you read, think, review all your materials including all your data (videos, images, interviews) and discuss or reflect. Build in this time (even in on your own)

* They did some things with the data (24/7 space, parents breakfast, six or more changes) then they continue the studies in the changed environments.
* Perhaps setting up a large, ongoing project would allow for many small pilots and experiments as part of it.
* Is Library Science research most like Information Science, Social Science (Anthropology), or History?

But at least I can take part by feed...

1) Does anyone read my blog?

2) Do you know of any universities that have tenure track librarians and also a library school with tenured faculty? How similar are they and how do they interact? Those I have talked to so far (including myself) only have experience where the librarians are quasi-tenure with a separate/dis-similar system. How would Penn State accommodate Library and Information Science faculty professors?

This is a microblog post that will only explain what I mean by the title "the information age is a cyberpunk dystopia". In reading lots of science fiction including the genre of cyberpunk, perhaps even playing the RPG Shadowrun, I recognized a theme that data (information) is an expensive commodity. The struggle in "the net" isn't how fast your connection is, but what you can get access to because of who you are or if you can "hack into" it. The enemy is the "corp" who has secrets that need to be unlocked for the good of mankind. You can probably see the scholarly publishing world in here, though our researchers aren't confined to plateaus in the desert at gunpoint. But things are looking up for those with government funded research and the other publishing models look to be catching on, so perhaps we're due for utopia instead.

I have happy to say that between my wife and I, who both registered for the conference and exhibits at ALA Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, we came back with only 1 more bag then we left with (despite returning with over 50 books) and only about 5-6 items of swag. I carried my mug, from Internet Librarian, almost the whole time and was able to waste very few beverage cups and recycle some of those. I actually mentioned it to some people, causing smiles and a couple "I forgot mine at home."

I didn't realize that I would have to say "No, thank you" as often as I did to exhibitor bags and swag. But in the end, I feel much better about my impact on the environment. I hope that I can find avenues to effect change on the profession for the positive. The idea, from SLA members, to bring old conference bags and lanyards to the conference can be done REAL SOON. And if anyone complains about losing corporate sponsorship revenue, just have the company sponsor the concept (and put up one poster or something).

The final slides from the presentation at Internet Librarian on RSS Beth and I gave can be found on Slideshare.

Someone asked a follow up question about email delivery of RSS feeds. I see that Mozilla's Thunderbird as well as the latest Microsoft Outlook have RSS reading capability, so email readers do this as well as the idea of third party software to send RSS feeds as regular email.