Ohio Wesleyan University Libraries Intranet

MEMORANDUM

TO: William Louthan, Provost
FROM: Theresa S. Byrd, Director of Libraries
DATE: September 15, 2000
SUBJECT: REPORT TO THE TRUSTEES FOR OCTOBER 2000

NEWS FROM THE LIBRARIES

The Five Colleges Consortium’s receipt of an information literacy grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has required that a lot of time be spent on information literacy the last four months. On May 10 and the afternoon of May 23, Ohio Wesleyan staff members involved with information literacy brainstormed and planned on this issue. Then on May 25-26, instruction librarians participated in a two-day symposium, "Integrating Information Literacy into the Liberal Arts Curriculum," which was the kick-off event of the three-year Mellon Grant. On August 22, the library sponsored an information literacy program for faculty entitled "Integrating Information Literacy into the Library Arts Curriculum." Hannelore Rader, University Librarian at the University of Louisville, was the keynote speaker and 33 faculty and 14 librarians attended this program. The OWU campus-based Information Literacy Committee met three times between the spring and summer semesters and selected the Education Department as the first recipient of a Mellon grant at Ohio Wesleyan.

This summer the reference librarians participated in a three-day reference camp. The goal of the three-day meeting was to deal with the changing reference paradigm and to develop a new model of reference service at Ohio Wesleyan. For example, beginning October 1, the reference librarians will provide reference service in Hamilton-Williams on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 11:30-1:00 pm. We also discussed making changes in the Beeghly reference area such as reviewing print indexes and their location and moving the Reference Desk and Web Services workstations.

On August 16, the library held its annual retreat. The topic of the retreat was "Emotional Intelligence at Work." In addition to the topic of emotional intelligence, the retreat also focused on managing work relationships. The retreat facilitator was Marti Peden, a human resources and development instructor specializing in management and employee training programs. The retreat included a number of individual and small group activities, and it was held at Hamilton-Williams.

ERes, electronic reserves, is being tested this fall. Eight faculty members representing a variety of disciplines have agreed to participate in this test project. In fact, more faculty are interested in this project than the library can presently accommodate.

Webmaster, Joy He, made several revisions to the library home page. Using the revised templates, Tom Green updated the library intranet.

Director of Libraries, Dr. Byrd, participated in the Provost’s orientation for new faculty. On September 19, the library will be sponsoring an in-depth training session on library resources for all new faculty.

In October, the library will be offering a series of workshops for students. The workshops are as follows: "Advanced Research Techniques," "Power Searching on the Web," "Getting the Most From Fulltext Databases," and "How to Cite Electronic Sources Correctly."

The Technical Services Department’s summer semester statistics include ordering 161 books, adding 2,198 titles, adding 2,482 volumes, processing 1,263 government documents, and cataloging 11 periodicals. Other major tasks include binding journals, preparing to pay the EBSCO bill for periodicals, and revising the Union List of Serials. Also, the staff began work on the Dewey Book Project. The Dewey Book Project refers to 30,000 books that must be reviewed by faculty, reclassified to the Library Congress Classification Scheme, and added to our CONSORT holdings.

Dr. Byrd made a presentation to the local Kiwanis Club on the subject of "Libraries and Technology."

Deborah Carter Peoples was awarded the Academic Library Association of Ohio and Kent State’s School of Library and Information Science Scholarship which allowed her to attend "Ohio Immersion: Institute for Information Literacy." The Institute was held at Kent State University June 16-21, 2000.

FIVE COLLEGES/OHIOLINK

Theresa Byrd attended the Five Colleges of Ohio Directors’ meeting.
Theresa Byrd attended the OhioLINK Independent Colleges Directors’ meeting.
Paul Burnam attended an OhioLINK Lead Implementors meeting.
Theresa Byrd, Deb Carter Peoples, Tom Green, Xudong Jin, and Barbara Wiesner attended the Yankee Book Peddler Town Meeting held at the OhioLINK offices.
Marsha Zavar attended an OhioLINK P-Circ conference.

STAFF DEVELOPMENT AND PROFESSIONAL MEETINGS

Paul Burnam attended OhioLINK's advanced Dataware training.
Theresa Byrd, Danielle Clarke, and Joy He attended the American Library Association Annual Conference in Chicago. Danielle and Joy also attended a pre-conference "Library Instruction on the Web."
Deb Carter Peoples and Danielle Clarke attended "Ohio Immersion: Institute for Information Literacy."
Danielle Clarke and Tom Green attended the National LOEX Conference in Ypsilanti, Michigan "First Impressions, Lasting Impact: Introducing First-Year Students to the Academic Library."
Tom Green represented Ohio Wesleyan at this year's Consortium of Liberal Arts Colleges' annual conference "Building the Liberal Arts through Competition and Collaboration" held at Wabash College and DePauw University.
Marsha Zavar attended the Tech Connections 2 Conference, a Kent State University workshop "Basics of BI Planning," and an Ohionet workshop on "Practical Considerations in Managing ILL."
The following summer in-service training sessions were held:

Patty Bisker, computer training, provided several optional training sessions for library personnel, including five sessions on Access database training, a session on Linux and Pine, and a session on converting Quattro Pro spreadsheets to Excel.

Xudong Jin presented information on CORC and Metadata.

UNIVERSITY COMMITTEES

Tom Green and Bonnie Mahle served on the Reclassification Committee.
Theresa Byrd, Tom Green, Paul Burnam, Danielle Clarke, Xudong Jin, and Joy He attended the Faculty Meeting.
Theresa Byrd attended the Department Chairs’ meeting.
Theresa Byrd attended the Teaching, Learning, and Cross Cultural Programming Committee meeting.