Recently in Profession Category

I have been tortured by the need to find ways radically change some of the ways librarians as researchers handle research, authorship, peer-review, and publication.  As information professional we should be innovating in these areas and yet at least tenure-track librarians are in the same or worse boat as other faculty members in the Titanic of scholarly communication.  Sure there are bright lights, but in general and in practice we aren't practicing what we preach.  So perhaps we need to pick some low hanging fruit in the library literature.

These are some thoughts about a book I am reading for the Penn State Library Leaders group.  The book Reframing Academic Leadership by Bolman and Gallos is relatively short and focuses on the dissection of higher education leadership using a model of environments and roles for administrators.

One of the early points that has stuck with me is how leaders can take one of two approaches to interactions and communication: advocacy (where you speak to convince) or inquiry (in which you speak to discover). Advocacy is easier for me than inquiry though I am getting good at active listening.  It would be great to learn more skills that combine advocacy and inquiry at same time or in same situation.

The first framework of academy that seems appealing to me at first is the structural approach.  That problems can be addressed by changing organizational structure and roles.  Maybe because I am an engineer.

The second structure uses a confusing "jungle" metaphor, limited resources and many independent groups competing for it.  This chapter does introduce politics in higher education is a very understandable way, but the example is off putting (President Quixote?) and they forget to mention what the resources administration controls that is useful in deal making.

Servant and caregiver is also a favorite metaphor, perhaps due to the role of the libraries on campus.  But moreso I think because it focuses most on individual job satisfaction and the work environment.  I have seen in my short career MUCH more effective work out of a happy and content unit than a demoralized and confused one.  This may seem obvious, but I think leaders often write off personal feelings and experiences in the face of professionalism and privacy.

I am most intrigued by the problems a community of experts creates.  I see librarians as educated generalists, which she mentions as key to higher education.

It seems fitting that I post a year later inspired by the same event as last year: LDSC10 (Learning Design Summer Camp) here at Penn State.  I wanted to capture some of the big ideas that intrigued me at the sessions, all of which were good, by prompting of Brett Bixler and my own need to reflect.

Dr. Sam Richards inspiring keynote, including disturbing visuals, who said something to the effect of "getting out of the way of the students so they can learn".  I coincidentally heard over lunch that a library expert said we should "dis-intermediate" ourselves from the information seeking of our users.  Both these came together to remind me that those who libraries help and librarians teach are not simple questions, they are information seekers with needs and expertise.  If you look at each person asking a question or each student in class, they have an interest in either there answer or an education.  Don't get in the way!

Another point was made by the dueling Cole Camplese and Chris Long during their Hacking Pedagogy talk that on the continuum of student engagement in the classroom there is a way to aim high.  If the range is student attention, engagement as the next level, interaction as greater, and collaboration as highest THEN we should set our goal as collaboration with students and at least we should get engagement.

Finally there was a breakout session on the Teaching With Technology Certificate that can be earned at Penn State.  Though began as a way for instructors and graduate assistants to train in technology in teaching, it provides what I think is a great mechanism for representing Teaching for promotion and tenure with its online portfolio. 

Looking at a recent photo of the 2009 Emerging Leaders I noticed, as I did in previous years, the few men in the background of the picture.  Granted the profession is predominately female, though I didn't know it was as low as 19.4% male (ALA Demographics) when I started a short study.  Using the wiki and Google Image Search I got some rough numbers.

Emerging Leaders 2007 - 25% male
Emerging Leaders 2008 - 22% male
Emerging Leaders 2009 - 19% male

You can check my numbers, but what will be shown even with small error is that rather than disproportionately representing women, emerging leaders is actually proportionally representing them.  This is great, since historically even librarianship has given men favor in leadership positions despite the predominance of women in the profession.  Just another day for me in a dramatic gender minority.

"Relative National Membership and Self-Reports of Professional Activity Among Academic Science, Engineering and Medical Librarians Some Hypotheses on Why SLA Is Mentioned So Often" by Tony Stankus - read it if you subscribe to Science & Technology Libraries

Three reasons are "proximity to academic SLA STM librarians, an awareness of the general success of SLA members in attainment of elective professional office, and success in SLA member recruitment by elite institutions."

Let me posit a fourth point that comes from attending STS Council and other ACRL meetings along with a recent personal experience trying to get a STM program accepted for ACRL Conference.  "In efforts to meet the needs of all its sections and members ACRL winds up giving STS and perhaps other sections very limited opportunities for impact and significance."  This plays itself out at ALA Conferences, of which ACRL is only a part, in limited
time slots of programming and multiple conflicts in those slots.  Also this may be my first year to attend SLA so I will see if the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence.

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.