Author: dwakimoto

On Getting Stuff Done Without Working 24/7

/ dwakimoto

Happy Wednesday! I hope your week (and day) is going well. Today we’re going to talk about getting stuff done without working like a mad person 24/7. I think this is a good time to touch on the subject as it is still early in the new year and you may be experiencing the twin, somewhat dichotomous thoughts of 1. Oh, my goodness, who said it could be February? I have so much to do and so little time, while at the same time thinking 2. I have so much time. No need to panic, yet. So let’s talk about getting stuff done so you don’t panic and you do have time for a nap without feeling guilty (or needing a TARDIS or time-turner).

This isn’t expert advice on time management. In fact, I’m not sure what makes one an expert in time management. I suppose doing research studies. So I’ve not done any research studies, but I have been able to get quite a bit of work done without working 24/7, no matter how skeptical my work colleagues may be about that claim. So first a bit of context.

I’ve been at my current position for 2.5 years. It’s a tenure-track position so I’m expected to do research, publish, and serve on university-level committees. I also managed somehow to assume management of the University Archives during my second year on top of my position as one of the library faculty members. Oh, I also supervise SJSU Library School Student Interns who teach with us in the information literacy course that is mandatory for first-year students. My job also includes the usual things like reference and collection development, plus grant writing. I’m also, unsurprisingly, very into sharing my love and knowledge of technology with others so I often teach workshops for the Faculty Development Office. So, my work life is pretty busy.

With my workload, and the workload of librarians and people in general, it is easy to be sucked into the vicious cycle of working 24/7 because you need to be connected 24/7. I thought like that when I first started my current position, and I literally had no life. I worked through the weekends, developed a wicked case of insomnia, and basically was looking at burnout before my first year was up. Obviously something had to change and I’ll tell you what I did, and no, this isn’t one of those “happy thought” advice columns about giving up what you don’t like and only doing what you do like–that’s not realistic and I’m definitely a realist (or an insane optimist, it depends on who you ask). So here’ my advice for not working insane hours and still getting insane amounts of work done:

  1. Don’t even think about multi-tasking. Multi-tasking as a productivity tool is a myth. Except for listening to music when I work, I don’t multi-task. I single task. When I’m in hardcore writing mode, I basically shut down my internet connection and everything else, but my writing program. I refuse to bounce around among multiple tasks. I single task and it completely increases my efficiency.
  2. Be ruthless about your to-do list. I write my to-do list on a Post-it each day and then just get into it, no matter how much I don’t want to do something. I’ve gotten pretty good at estimating how much I can get done in a day and I find it satisfying to cross things off my list
  3. Get to work early. I admit that I’m lucky in the fact that I’m a morning person. (If we are being completely honest, I’m more of a siesta person–work early in the morning, take a nap during my slump time which is around mid-afternoon, and work later in the afternoon to the evening. But that schedule doesn’t work here, so let’s get back to getting to work early.) Most of my faculty colleagues aren’t morning people and don’t show up until around an hour or so after I’ve gotten to work. Without interruptions, I get a ton of work done. Plus morning hours are usually my most productive times of day in terms of creativity, writing, and other tasks that require a significant concentration level. Basically find the time that is most productive for you and safeguard it against interruptions.
  4. Don’t indulge in any perfectionist leanings or tendencies to procrastinate. If you want to ship work, as Seth Godin would say, you need to do the work and then get it out the door. In order to do excellent work, you need to do the work! Being a perfectionist will only keep you from getting work done and procrastinating will keep you from ever starting the work. Inertia can be a terrible or wonderful thing, dear readers.
  5. Leave work at work. I no longer stay at work for horribly long days as much as possible and I leave my work at work. I don’t take work home because if I can’t get it done in the 8-9 hours that I’m at work, it can just wait until tomorrow. Now, since I’m an instructor, I do have to answer student emails at home and sometimes work can’t be avoided. But my pretty firm rule is that work doesn’t come home with me.
  6. Say no to extra projects (and committees) when you don’t have time, have no interest, are able to say no and/or all of the above. Now I know you can’t say no to every unappealing project or committee that comes your way, but you should get used to flexing your “no” muscle on those occasions where saying “yes” will only increase your stress level and workload and not really help you in any way. It took me a while to be okay with saying no to people and raising objections to projects I knew wouldn’t work out. But flexing that “no” muscle is the surest way to keep your workload to at least a semi-manageable level.
  7. Get some sleep. Honestly, just get more sleep, it will help. Just listen to this video (it’s funny and makes a compelling case for getting more sleep). If you take nothing else away from this list of advice, please take away that you need to sleep. You will be more effective and efficient, not to mention feel better, if you get some sleep. Being sleep deprived isn’t a badge of honor, it’s bad for you and your health.
  8. Find something you are passionate about outside of work and someone(s) with which to share it. I don’t think it matters whether you are passionate about art, collecting coins, or finding the best tea shop in the neighborhood, as long as you have something fun to look forward to outside of work. And, hopefully, you have awesome people to share in your love of whatever outside of work. I love my work, and I’m hopefully that you do too. I love working with the students, doing my research, going to conferences, helping people, etc., but I also know that it’s important to get out of the archives and library mindset. Don’t forget your friends, your family, your hobbies, and having fun while you are climbing the professional ladder.

So that’s really all I have to say about that. I hope it inspires you to at least think about not working 24/7. If you have tips or stories about what has worked for you, I’d love to hear about it in comments.

And finally, to end, check out this interesting video by BBC Horizon, What is Reality?.

Have a fantastic rest of your day and I’ll be back with some tech news on Friday. Allons-y!

Friday Design Fun

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! Are you ready for the weekend? I was ready for the weekend on Monday night so I’m quite looking forward to relaxing this weekend. First though we should talk a little about design, mobile devices, reading, and writing.

It should be apparent by now, dear readers, that I have a weakness for good design. I love well-designed products, processes, and beautiful visuals. So I was rather excited about Lifehacker’s article, learn the basics of design this weekend. Just ignore most of the comments on the article, most of them are quite unhelpful to those wanting to learn design, but the comment by Ignition on the “hipster” nature of the other commenters is great. And if you have any favorite design resources, please share them in comments. I always like to learn more about design. One of my favorite design resources is Before & After. Their book, How to Design Cool Stuff is a great resource for anyone who wants an easy to understand explanation of design that you can apply to projects almost immediately. And never underestimate the value of playing around with Photoshop, Gimp, or Aviary. I’m a big believer in clicking buttons and seeing what happens. Not exactly scientific, I know, but very fun.

And you can apply your newly found/improved design sense on designing for mobile devices. You should also really check out this great slideshow, Designing Mobile Experiences. It is one of the best I’ve seen at describing the mobile design process and the factors to consider when planning, designing, and implementing experiences, be they native apps or web apps, for mobile devices. It’s really worth going through the entire slide deck.

After you get through the slide deck, check out the article, Is mobile affecting when we read? However, if you are reading this on your iPad, you’ll probably save this article to read for later. No matter. It is still a very good read.

Finally, check out Lifehacker’s why you learn more effectively by writing than typing. Seems to make sense and anecdotally, writing out notes instead of typing them is what got me through my undergrad years of studying biology.

Now, on to the last bit of fun for this Friday post, check out this great video, Every Doctor Who Story 1963-2008 (thanks to Hanna for sharing):

Have a wonderful rest of your day, a fantastic weekend, and I’ll be back next week with more interesting bits of news and fun.

Working on Kindness and Civility

/ dwakimoto

Happy Wednesday, dear readers! I hope that your week is going well and that you are having a lovely day. Today I want to discuss briefly a book I’m currently reading, The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One that Isn’t by Robert I. Sutton, and how kindness in general seems to be undervalued in many workplaces.

One of my friends and I were discussing how nice it would be to create a company whose primary rule would be that no jerks would be hired or tolerated. Everyone would be expected to be civil and kind to each other. We thought that a nice company is where we would love to work and different than some of our past experiences. Then, a few weeks later, I was browsing in a bookstore and stumbled upon Sutton’s work. I just picked it up from the library and had to share. I know the book has been out for a few years, but it is still worth discussing and I’ll be brief: there are only three things I want to discuss.

  1. Isn’t the title fabulous? The No Asshole Rule. It couldn’t be simpler or easier to understand. There is no ambiguity about the rule or what its intent is. I love it.
  2. Building on the first point, as Sutton wrote, “At the places where I want to work, even if people do other things well (even extraordinary well) but routinely demean others, they are seen as incompetent” (p. 57). I love this point and completely agree. I really don’t care if you are great at your job if you are nasty to others. It puts civility and kindness at the forefront of evaluating our performances, as it should be. Being nice should not be seen as a weakness, but as an imperative.
  3. One of the points that resonates with me is “framing”: “The assumptions and language we use–the lenses that we see the world through–can have big effects on how we treat others” (p. 105). Since part of my research interests lie with studying changes and differences in language, this was familiar territory for me. But much more than that, it is a true, common sense statement. There are many ways to communicate the same basic information that will have vastly different outcomes and affect people in vastly different ways. So the next time you need to communicate something, take a few extra moments to make sure your message is said in such a way that others will be receptive.

So what does this have to do with the library and archives?
We work with and interact with many, many people every day–both in and outside of work. There are just as many chances for positive interactions as negative interactions. Research that Sutton cites has shown, negative experiences carry five times the impact of positive interactions, so we need to be kind and civil to outweigh those negative experiences. Plus, I truly believe that, just as being nasty can be contagious in a group, so too can kindness and civility be contagious. This isn’t insane optimism; we know that we can’t change everyone from being nasty to being kind, but some may change.

We’re all stressed and overworked sometimes and we are serving communities that are feeling economic stress every day. Libraries and archives are already refuges for many and safe spaces to work, research, and be. So let’s all work together to keep them positive spaces, both for ourselves and others.

In one of those wonderful cosmic coincidences, this Free Compliments Poster came through over one of my feeds near the end of last week and was almost too perfect for this post on civility and kindness. I just printed one up and posted it on my office door. Hopefully it will make someone’s day a bit brighter, especially if they take a compliment to share with someone else. So, share compliments freely with others today, watch them smile, and I just know you’ll feel better too.

Finally, I need to give a shout out to my wonderful friends and colleagues who sat in on my seminar on Monday for my doctoral confirmation (both in person and online). You are truly amazing and make even the craziest days bearable. My sincerest thanks, always.

Take care, dear readers. Have a wonderful rest of your day and I’ll be back on Friday with a helping of tech news and goodies for you and your patrons. Allons-y!

Tech Help for Yourself and Others

/ dwakimoto

Happy Friday! I hope you are enjoying your Friday and have a lovely weekend planned. Today I want to get back to our regularly scheduled programming of technology tips and advice. I have a bunch of links, lists, and fun bits of information to share with you so that you can share them with others. It’s a round-up of tips for getting more out of your smartphone, figuring out when to buy stuff, and one lovely app from NARA. Allons-y!

Lifehacker has some great articles on smartphones and I want to share a few specifically about Android phones. First is the article on how to speed up your old or sluggish Android device. This seems especially relevant now that it seems that for those who have a Samsung device (in the United States), and haven’t rooted their phone, will be waiting for quite some time to get an OS update. Makes you think twice about rooting and voiding your warranty, doesn’t it? This is also a good article to share with your patrons who complain about their Android device running slowly, but don’t know what can be done about it.

If you haven’t yet succumbed to temptation and purchased an Android phone, you might want to read the article on how to pick your next Android phone: the specs that matter and the ones that don’t. Refuse to be an uninformed consumer of tech goodness.

Now, leaving Android-specific land, check out the tips on how to secure your smartphone. At least make it harder for people to steal your phone and your data.

Also in the realm of security, check out Lifehacker’s enhance your security this weekend article, if you were too busy to deal with this over the holidays. Though I am sure, dear readers, that you already do most of this, but it might be handy to pass on to your library patrons. While enhancing your security, you may also want to look into 6 social media pain points (and what to do about them). Again, good information to share with others.

After you are done enhancing the security of your smartphone, you may want to load the new-ish app from NARA (National Archives and Records Administration). Check out the press release here: Today’s Document Goes Mobile. It is quite lovely and you get one document a day with links to more information, transcripts, the ability to browse collections, etc. Kudos to NARA embracing mobile technology on top of redesigning their website, their logo, their brand, etc.

And because I love lists (and good deals), I had to share this Lifehacker chart/calendar/list on the Best Times to Buy Anything in 2011.

To end our whirlwind tour of technology, enjoy viewing this video using Chameleon Circuit’s “Exterminate, Regenerate” and then go buy one of Chameleon Circuit’s albums over at DFTBA Records.

Have a fantastic rest of your day and a wonderful weekend. I’ll be back next week with more fun in library/archives/tech-land. Thank you, dear readers, for reading.

Presentations, etc.

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

Happy Wednesday! It’s a good Wednesday here because my afternoon meeting was canceled, it’s beautifully sunny outside, and we get to talk a little bit about presentations and exciting news. So let’s get to it.

First, if you haven’t read through the presentation on Presentation Tips from The King’s Speech, you really should. Go ahead, click the link. I’ll wait here.

Now, wasn’t that worth reading? And it’s totally true, prepare, practice, get feedback, and find your own voice and you will be fine (although having a built in cheering section at your presentations is also helpful). I think it is incredibly important to keep your own voice when presenting. For example, even though I basically live in academia, I can’t get into the “super-serious professor” mode when presenting. It’s just not who I am and that’s okay. So to me, all presentations are just conversations, more or less, and that helps me with presenting. That and lots and lots of practice. So what helps you prepare for presentations? Any tips are always appreciated as I’m always trying to improve.

And you know the great thing about becoming an awesome presenter? There are so few of them, even though everyone can improve by taking the time to practice and prepare. So if you become a good presenter, people will not only appreciate it, but tell their colleagues and you will get more people coming to your talks. Really. At the last couple of conferences I attended I went to a few sessions not because I was super-interested in the topics, but because I knew the speakers were great. Content matters, but you are only effective at delivering content if you can connect with your audience and that’s where being a good speaker comes in.

Speaking of presentations (and exciting news), for any of you, dear readers, who are coming to the Society of California Archivist’s Annual General Meeting/Conference in San Jose in April, you should leave room in your schedule for a panel presentation that I’ll be chairing. It should be lots of fun (and hopefully useful) and also feature Collin Thorman, probably better known as The Litbrarian, Sherri Berger of the California Digital Library, and Jesse Nachem from the University of California’s Office of the President. We’ll be discussing graduate school, internships, breaking into the profession, among other stuff. At the very least, do stop by and say hello.

Now on to the public service announcement, you’ve probably heard of the horrible flooding affecting Queensland, but you may not have read this great article about Brisbane librarians and how their disaster planning allowed them to save a lot of materials and restore services quickly. There is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but it is good to see a report on how awesome librarians are, especially in times of crisis. Also, if you want to donate to help the flood victims, the government has a donation form for flood relief. And if you are wondering, the library school at Queensland University of Technology was affected as there was flooding on the QUT campus, but everyone (so far as I’ve heard) is okay.

Now, to finish up the day, let’s all take a break and watch “So You Want to be an Academic Librarian” (thanks to @johnxlibris for posting the link!):

Have a great rest of your day and I’ll be back on Friday with some tech and library fun. Allons-y!

Connections and the Digital World

/ dwakimoto / 1 Comment

Happy Friday! I’m so happy it’s Friday, aren’t you? Today I want to share some links about connections, communication, and digital preservation, among other things. Really, it all made sense in my head when I was planning this blog post. So just bear with me and I’ll explain.

It’s no secret that I really enjoy Seth Godin’s blog posts and his post on Lost in a Digital World is a really great one. It is very easy to get lost in a digital world, being constantly in communication, but not communicating or accomplishing anything of substance. I know I have to consciously pull myself away from my computer (and my beloved Android phone) when I’m really working. I can’t multi-task–really, I’m horrible at it. And I think we need quiet headspace to really focus and accomplish things and be present enough to catch on to those fleeting ideas that just might change everything we are doing in our lives.

And, as we all know, the digital pieces of our lives and our communication streams are very fragile–not just in terms of the possibility of misunderstandings via email, but in the very preservation of the datastreams. Just go ask your friendly archivist about digital preservation and watch him/her twitch and start going on about preservation metadata standards (at which point you should offer to take him/her out of the archives and down the street for a nice cup of tea). So, for those who want to do something about preserving their personal digital data, check out Lifehacker’s article, Future-Proof Your Digital Photos with Better Archiving Techniques. Take a night and fix your photos. The archivist in the future who may receive your “papers” will thank you.

After being at one of the talks about technology trends at ALA Midwinter, I found this post from Gizmodo timely: 12 Technologies on the Verge of Extinction. So what technologies do you think will become extinct? It’s something fun to discuss with the archivist whom you’ve taken to tea (see above paragraph). Archivists love to talk about obsolete technologies and media.

Technology is great if used correctly and it can definitely help facilitate communication if used well, but I sometimes worry about getting lost in the busyness of the digital world and also about how digital communication is affecting relationships, or rather the strength or depth of relationships. (I promise no long philosophical argument; it is Friday.) We need more than simply being in constant digital contact with people; we need people who will support us and really mean it when they say, “I’ve Got Your Back.”

You need to have your core group of friends (and no, hundreds of friends on Facebook whom you don’t really know don’t count) who will be your cheering squad, your sounding board, and the ones who will believe in what you are doing when everyone else is calling your ideas crazy. Your task for the weekend is to figure out who has your back and who you would truly back, no matter what. And yes, if I tell you that I’ve got your back, I mean it.

The last bit of hyperlink fun for today is Neil Gaiman’s Another Year from New Year’s Day. Yes, I’m aware that it’s the 14th of January, but it is still a good read and if you somehow missed it, you should go read it. It will make you feel warm and happy. Bonus points for sharing it with someone.

To end and give you a nice break for work today, check out this wonderful Infommercial for the TARDIS (thanks to Hanna for posting the video on her blog):

Have a wonderful day and relaxing weekend. Read a lot, get outside if the weather is nice, and I’ll be back next week with more library, archives, and tech-related goodies.

Reflections on the Gap Between Archivists and Librarians

/ dwakimoto

Happy Wednesday, dear readers. I hope that you are all having a lovely day, whether it is in sunny SoCal or you are enjoying a snow day like my friends in Boston. I am very happy to be back home after a whirlwind tour of San Diego for both the ALISE and ALA Midwinter Conferences. Because I’m still processing everything I’ve learned or experienced at the conferences, I thought I’d talk about just one issue that was quite striking: the gap between archivists and librarians. This theme came up at both of the conferences and I think it deserves to be explored further.

I’ve written previously on the need for librarians to understand what archivists do, and vice versa, but today I want to discuss the communication, or the lack thereof, between the two fields. Communication is key on moving both professions forward and not duplicating each other’s work. This was driven home for me when I was sitting in a session on Top Tech Trends at Midwinter listening to librarians and library vendors discussing trends, a large part of which revolved around digital curation and preservation. I was excited to hear this in a talk about technology, but thought it was a shame that there were no archivists on the panel. Archivists have been wrestling with issues of digital preservation, curation, preservation, access, and authentication for years and it would have been a much more useful discussion if it was between librarians and archivists and not limited to the librarian world.

Now, I’m not saying that this lack of communication can be blamed wholly on the librarians, archivists are just as guilty of staying in their silos. There was actually a discussion about breaking down the silos among archivists, librarians, and museum curators at ALISE which had some defending, rather vigorously, the necessity of maintaining strict boundaries and not having any of this interdisciplinary stuff. On the whole, I find it rather sad and disappointing to see our wonderful professions worrying more about boundaries than figuring out how to work together on issues such as digital preservation.

The lack of communication seems to be leading to duplication of work by archivists and librarians. We don’t need dozens of metadata standards, some used by archivists and some used by librarians, none of which are completely agreed upon. We don’t need to duplicate projects (and we definitely don’t need to create any more crazy initialisms and acronyms). What we need is to first understand each other’s field, actually talk with one another, and then set out solving these digital preservation and curation issues together. Everyone seems to be chronically underfunded these days, so let’s make our limited funds and grants go further by working together instead of competing with each other. Who knows, we might make some progress. Wouldn’t that be great?

Okay, I’m stepping off my soapbox now. Kudos to those of you who are working to break down the barriers between archivists and librarians and working to build up our collaborations and communications. I have great hope for what the professions can do together in the realm of digital preservation and curation.

Today we will be ending with something fun from Doctor Who for three reasons:

  1. Because, as my awesome friend Hanna said, Who wouldn’t want to be at a wedding with the Doctor?
  2. Because another one of my friends has recently finished watching Series 5 and, like Sheldon Cooper on The Big Bang Theory, believes that even if there are multiple universes, he will not be dancing in any of them. I’m hoping maybe the Doctor dancing will make him at least consider the possibility he is dancing in at least one of the universes.
  3. It’s Doctor Who, enough said:

Enjoy the rest of your day. We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming in a few days. Allons-y!

Teaching LIS Students to Teach

/ dwakimoto

“Unconference” style session (all materials will be available online–I’ll post link when we get it)
by Melissa Wong, Mega Oakleaf, and Jim Elmborg

“To Textbook or Not, That is the Question: Selecting Course Materials”
Jim Elmborg

Elmborg hasn’t seen a textbook that is great for his course–likes flexibility of using articles and book chapters. Librarians need to be teachers. The topic of instruction is very large and hard to wrap one’s head around. Trying to establish a mindset, ways of thinking about self and what the library is: a literacy activity, learning organizations. All library users are learners. Need to think about where course fits in the curriculum. Tries to sequence an extended argument in his course. Need to think about learning as a contextual activity.

“They Told Me I Should Learn to Teach: Addressing Student Anxiety”
Melissa Wong

Looking at student anxiety around learning to teach. Students know they should take the course, but are anxious about it. Reasons: students don’t see themselves as teachers, afraid of being bad teachers, students afraid that they don’t have “teacher traits,” but the main idea is that they don’t identify with being a teacher. So, how do we help students see themselves as teachers? Develop a personal style of teaching? Have confidence in their own efficacy?

“I Don’t Know if They Got It: Teaching Assessment and Evaluation”
Megan Oakleaf

Using questions by Understanding by Design: what do you want students to learn? What does learning look like? What activities will show learning? (make the assessment as part of your teaching activities= merge teaching activities with assessment) Satisfaction does not equal learning. Other facts can impact satisfaction: instruction enthusiasm, student expectations, and tendency to over-report satisfaction. Look at reflective learning/teaching (ILIAC, EBLIP, etc.). Talk about tools for assessing learning: teaching strategies that engage students, rubrics, classroom assessment techniques, tests, and self-report. Talk about problem of product versus process assessment. Look at good artifacts of student learning assessment. Then look at assessing teaching (CAT, videotape, and peer feedback). Uses for assessment data: improve instruction, improve the assessment, and/or throw a party.

Discussion
The lightening talks followed by group discussion. Looking at tensions between theory and practice in library school classes. Talking about how to operationalize everything that we are talking about–different in every context. Need to work to have relevance in each context. Internships for students in teaching are very important. Lots of different ways to inspire and teach instruction.

Information Literacy Research Papers at ALISE 2011

/ dwakimoto

ALISE 2011 session of three juried papers on information literacy (IL). The session was titled, “Helping Students be Competitive,” but I didn’t find this to be the best title for the session. It’s a session about information literacy (and yes, being information literate makes one more competitive), so have information literacy in the title. Anyway, onward to the summary!

Evidence-Based Design of Information Literacy Instruction: Innovation in Pedagogy for the Library and for the MLIS
by Heidi Julien and Kathleen DeLong (University of Alberta)

This project looks at pedagogy in LIS education, which is influenced by many factors: ALA Committee on Accreditation, faculty experience, etc. Project wanted to develop empirical evidence for improving pedagogy. The project also looks at practice and instruction in University libraries which is influenced by similar factors: standards, experience, talking with colleagues, etc.

Study looks at experiences of undergraduates transition from high school to the post-secondary environment. Looking to improve design of IL pedagogy. Assesses skill development of selected secondary and post-secondary students, focusing on arts and social sciences students. Looking at the gap in the literature as research studies do not look at both secondary and post-secondary education together in IL research. Examines students’ experiences as they complete their last year of high school through the start of their undergraduate studies. The researchers are using the James Madison University’s “Information Literacy Test.” Recruitment of undergraduates for interviews proved difficult.

Findings and Implications: students recognized the importance of IL skills but were unaware of the resources available to support them. Librarian-taught courses are still rare. Students are not entering post-secondary education with well-developed IL skills.

Information Literacy and Its Discontents: Lessons from College Students with Below Proficient Skills
by Don Latham and Melissa Gross (Florida State University)

Talking about “Attaining Information Literacy Project” which is IMLS-funded project. Purpose: to identify students with below-proficient IL skills, gather data about their conceptions of and experiences with IL, and develop an IL intervention that will address their needs. Defining IL as: finding, evaluating, and using information.

Guiding principles: evidence-based approach (yay!), focus on issues of student perceptions, develop learner-centered instruction, and develop reality-based instruction. Used the Information Literacy Test from James Madison University. (Second yay! Latham and Gross used Bruce’s relational model of IL.)

Findings: students didn’t perceive IL as a discrete set of skills, below-proficient students in the study greatly over-estimated their performance on the IL test and described their IL skills as “good” or “above average.” Students wanted in-person instruction and interactive learning.

Conclusions: Used Bruce’s Informed Learning Approach (which emphasizes learner experiences and perceptions and the need for a personal relevance framework) to focus on self-generated rather than imposed information seeking, web searching rather than database searching and provide an incentive.

Goals of Instruction: change learners’ conception of skills required, change learners’ conception of their personal ability, and teach one skill that learners can readily use that will improve both self-generated and imposed information task outcomes.

Developed ASE (Analyse, Search, Evaluate) Model developed as an intervention and tested in an iterative process. Will deliver intervention in February and assess model.

Information Seeking Experiences of the Post-Secondary Distance/Online Student
by Nancy E. Black (University of British Columbia PhD candidate)

Questions: what does information seeking look like for the distance student? What are the lived experiences? What are the: barriers, strategies, themes and contexts?

Black used the theoretical frameworks of: hermeneutic phenomenology and communicative action. She used semi-structure interviews, verbal analysis protocol, and reflexive journals as her methodology.

Findings: majority thought of Google first for searching, not a surprising finding for Black (and not surprising for most), then used Wikipedia and Google Scholars, and interviewees also talked a lot about time (different conceptions of time and when searching ended) and motivation (different motivating factors and different degrees of motivation). Other patterns: appreciation of the option of distance learning, technological barriers to searching, and dislike of collaboration/group projects.

Final Thoughts
It was great to hear about evidence-based research on information literacy and researchers from North America using Bruce’s work and not exclusively relying on the ACRL definitions/standards of IL. It will be interesting to read more about the results of these multi-year projects when they are finished.

ALISE Keynote: LIS Education in the 21st Century

/ dwakimoto

Big, Complex, Demanding, and Competitive: The Road to Library and Information Science Education in the 21st Century
by Jorge Reina Schement (Dean of School of Communication & Information at Rutgers University)

First, yay for getting the code for the conference wifi (makes blogging so much easier)! And double yay to seeing some other people on iPads, laptops, and notebooks at the conference! On to the actual keynote–allons-y!

Converging Trends
1. The historic public commitment to higher education is at risk.
The percent support of state support is decreasing in some states, but others are increasing (but not by a lot given the low support). Many states are “stepping away” from their support of public higher education. Our challenge is to create a business model that “positions ourselves successfully.” We aren’t prepared for the period that is coming. The demand for higher education is continuing to increase, unlike the level of state support.

Schement posits that the state support level will not return to previous levels in our lifetimes.

2. Household income lags farther behind the growing cost of a university education.
Tuition continues to increase, but household income is not increasing. Undergraduates are engaging higher education as a “pay-as-you-go” proposition because of the realities of the economy. Also, we need to change how we “do business” at the university because of the increasing diversity of our country and our undergraduates.

LIS Education and Profession
Obviously, the above trends will affect LIS programs and the profession. We will have issues with attracting students if tuition continues to increase while the job market (and salaries) stagnate. Also, our faculties are not changing as rapidly as our student bodies to reflect the diversity of the students.

“Librarianship is an aging, largely white, profession that must plan for its future. Without aggressive recruitment among diverse student populations by librarians & library program faculty, the profession will incur the consequences of cultural isolation.” We need to figure out a way to get a more diverse profession to reflect the communities we serve. Schement suggests that, “LIS faculty should consider a joint campaign to recruit younger students to the profession” (and also to recruit minority students). (However, there is already a trend of younger students at LIS schools–at least at San Jose and Simmons.)

Four Modest Proposals for LIS Education

  1. In the midst of an economic transformation, we must recognize ourselves as an enterprise and minimize our dependence on subsidies from the university and the state.
  2. We must ride the demographic wave sweeping America and attract and recruit a diverse profile of students and faculty.
  3. To succeed nationally, we must succeed within our own institutions by showing our centrality to the mission of the university.
  4. Just as Americans are developing a national narrative to explain economic hardships and demographic change, we too must craft a national narrative of value, service, and leadership.

Questions
What about distance education?
Distance education is clearly something we have to do. We might think about offering distance education programs collaboratively with other programs. “Distance education is thinking outside the box.”

How do we succeed when there are no jobs for our students?
There are tension between profession and function of librarianship. (I don’t think that this question was answered well because we can’t deny that this is a tough economy for finding work, no matter what you call the degree or job. If organizations aren’t hiring, there isn’t much one can do.)

How do you change the face of LIS faculty when people want to hire people who “look like us”?
“Give people the benefit of the doubt.” People just need to find the most qualified person for the position, regardless of ethnicity, sexuality, gender, etc. We also need to cultivate people for these positions.

Conclusion
Interesting review of changing demographics of the United States and how LIS schools need to change to reflect the diversity. I agreed with much of the talk, but I’m not sure how I feel about even more aggressive recruitment of students to LIS programs. I am in favor with increasing diversity in both the LIS faculty and student bodies, but not by promising that there will be employment after graduation for our students. I did completely agree with the need to be aggressive about showing and telling the value of librarianship to the public in order to create a narrative of value for the library that reflects the needs of society. Nice start to the conference.