Summer Projects at ECC

Today at our librarians meeting we discussed options of what we, the librarians at ECC, might like to accomplish over the summer. We also looked through the FY10 goals sheet and evaluated whether there were items from that to still address. It appears we accomplished much of what we set out to do last year, though I of course only starting March 1st didn't do much to help out in this.

So, what to do this summer? There are 21 hours a week I have to work and the students don't have as many questions as usual, so thus some time for summer projects.

Some ideas for summer projects:

1. Develop an information literacy action plan (including goals for each Research Session)
   
2. Continue to weed if this is desired by the Collection Development librarian
3. Discover Web 2.0 and possible library outreach and implementation of these tools
4. Learn about teaching and presenting to be more effective in bibliographic instruction
5. Read about current events to relate to students - more relevant examples for sessions
6. Finish the Arthur Lourie research - research writing skills and organizing thoughts(my personal goal and not a work-related one)
7. Acquaint myself with the library resources & ECC classes - reference, videos, databases, etc.

YES, there are many things to do and I will use my time wisely over the summer. Thank God for better air-conditioning today in the library.

A Personalized "Dashboard"

Though I have my own website at http://www.janaborchardt.com/ I now am creating a "dashboard" - a personalized newsboard or website which will allow me to more easily stay informed through the wonderful technology of widgets and RSS feeds. Instead of checking out several websites and blogs to find the latest news I can refer to my "dashboard."

I read about this cool Web 2.0 tool on another blog "Information Literacy Meets Web 2.0." When I complete my project I will let you see how it turned out.

Create your own "dashboard" at http://www.netvibes.com/. This way the news comes to you, and you save valuable time.

Brainstorming - facilitating a lost skill

Why can't today's students brainstorm? See "Sparking a Brainstorm: Getting Students Organized" by Theresa Westbrock from the LOEX Quarterly (Summer 2009, vol. 36 no. 2). LOEX (Library Orientation Exchange) is a great organization for academic librarians who teach students information literacy skills. Their 38th annual conference was last this month.

QUOTE - "One could argue that the Web can take the place of brainstorming . . . they were used to letting the hyperlinks lead the way."

Thoughts on Brainstorming:

• Students have difficulties brainstorming due to their online search habits
• Brainstorming teaches students to pose better questions, the type with purpose and that lead to thought organization
• Brainstorming helps students slow down the research process
• Brainstorming helps students learn to care about the whole process, including finding quality resources
• By facilitating brainstorming librarians encourage higher levels of information literacy than merely finding the resources***

***See the ACRL Information Literacy Standards) Instead of merely developing the student's ability to access needed information effectively and efficiently (Standard 2) we can look at Info Lit Standard 1.1b & 1.1e (1.1b=Develops a thesis statement and formulates questions based on the information need & 1.1e=Identifies key concepts and terms that describe the information need.

ECC Community College

I'm thrilled to be working as a reference librarian at Elgin Community College, where my librarian colleagues and I teach classes, lead library initiatives, operate efficiently, and inspire one another to focus on playing our best games as librarians.

One such possible endeavor is a proposed outreach activity I hope to implement sometime next spring with one of my colleagues. We are basing our idea for an Info Literacy blog upon an article in the LOEX Quarterly titled "No Time, No Problem: Using Blogs to Build Upon Face-To-Face Instruction" by Harold Goss.

Check out my library's evolving website, and the progress we are making toward moving into a new library building in Summer 2012!