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President's Musings
Hello CARL members,
In my last contribution to "Thoughts from the President," I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you to all of the active, engaged CARL members out there. There are too many folks to list here. Your service on committees, working groups, program planning, etc. is much appreciated by me and everyone else on the CARL Board. Many Interest Groups have picked up their activities these past two years, creating new learning opportunities for our members. Others, like SCIL, have continued to rock with well developed yearly programming and meetings. Be sure to check out the IG Showcases at the next CARL Conference. Also, a special thanks to all those people who have said "Yes!" when I asked them to help out with CARL in various ways and to those who took the initiative and tried something new. We are an evolving organization and really appreciate such proactivity.
A year goes by quickly and there are a number of ongoing projects that the new President, Allison Carr, will inherit in January. More on these in a bit. I'll still be around working with the Research Grant, new Outstanding Paper Award, and CARL Mentoring Program Committees and will do my best to keep recruiting folks to join us.
First, let me use this opportunity to shamelessly plug our next conference, CARL 2014: Leadership in Action, taking place at Dolce Hayes Mansion in San Jose from April 4 - 6. Registration is now open. Many thanks go out to Allison Carr, Brena Smith and Joseph Aubele for all their hard work in putting together what promises to be excellent programming and for managing the whole conference planning process. This is not their first time up to bat for us in CARL. They are pros. Those of you who attended the last conference got to see the fruits of their labors, as well as our Past President Stephanie Brasley, there. I am excited to be going and firmly believe that "leadership exists in many ways and places in the library" and that all CARL members can benefit from attending. Also, do not forget the Virtual Conference taking place on Friday, April 11. It is a one-day event to be delivered via Collaborate or GoToWebinar (TBD) and will consist of presentations related to the main conference theme. Look for more info on these presentations coming out soon.
Next, I want to mention a few of the projects the CARL Board is currently working on. We are putting together a membership survey to gauge member needs. I know, I know... we are in a survey "rich" world these days. However, it has been some time since CARL has surveyed its membership. As I mentioned above, CARL is evolving. We will need your feedback on the survey to see what we are doing that works, what we could do better, and new ways we might serve our members consistent with our mission. Thanks much to Kelly Janousek, Billy Pashaie, Annette Marines and everyone else on the Board who has been working on the draft, which will likely be approved at our Board meeting this month. I also wanted to thank our Committee on Organization, spearheaded by Vice President Annette Marines, for all the work done this year on updating, adding to, and rewriting parts of our Standing Rules. The draft is still ongoing, but we hope to complete this next year. The new version of the Standing Rules will more accurately reflect our practices, as some have necessarily changed over time since we last wrote them up as Rules. It will be very useful to CARL officers, both appointed and elected, to have these as a guideline for practice moving forward. So, while not something lots of members will likely see, it is an important guiding document for officers. Finally, thanks to Alexandra Chappell, Les Kong and all others involved in changes to the Research Grant, which members will be able to apply for again in September 2014 and in subsequent even-numbered years, as well as for helping to establish an Outstanding Paper Award, to be awarded starting 2015 (in leiu of the grant) and subsequent odd-numbered years. Look for more news on this in late Spring of next year.
 Finally, for those of you who have been reading my thoughts this year (and my interview), you know how much I value what CARL has done for me over the years. Mentorship I received from CARL members when I first joined the organization played a significant role in my early career development. My acceptance to present/facilitate at previous CARL conferences and IG programs helped me gain experience and confidence in writing and presenting at the early stages of my tenure process (quite a while ago now). I find CARL with its close to 400 members to be small enough so that new librarians are not overwhelmed, get opportunities to be engaged, and get chances to network with colleagues in a supportive atmosphere. I have been glad to be able to give back by serving as president and look forward to many more years of networking with colleagues who have become friends. Hope to see you at conference or at some other CARL event in the near future. Best wishes to all.
Submitted by Kathlene Hanson, CSU Monterey Bay, CARL Past President
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Getting to Know You is a series of interviews with CARL leadership, designed to give CARL members an opportunity to get to know the Executive Board better.
Tell us about how you got involved with CARL and how you came to your current role on the Executive Board
I went to the CARL conference held at Asilomar, and being a brand-new CSU librarian and being pushed by the retention, tenure and promotion process, I knew I had to publish. So I found a woman who had a similar job description to my own (Marcia Henry at CSU Northridge), who is a kind and generous person, and she consented to do an article with me. And we did it! So that experience led me to say, “Holy smokes! There are some really great people involved with CARL – how do I help the organization move forward?” I was on the Executive Board for my child’s coop nursery and for the PTA, and I thought, “Well, I can do it again – and this time it’s for me.”
I got my feet wet in one of the interest groups, and since I knew something about how to use the accounting program QuickBooks, I said “Well, I can do that.” And I brought my talent.
Give us a day in life of CARL Treasurer
It’s varied, depending on what membership is doing. When there is a program that’s starting, the people who are organizing the program are supposed to send me a copy of their planned expenses and projected receipts. This is a tacit okay from the Board to run the program, because very often the expense plan doesn’t make it up to the Board prior to the program happening. Once I receive that information, I email the group running the program to make sure they have their bases covered, and I provide a credit card for them to use (in the past people were covering expenses on their own credit cards, which could get quite onerous). Then when I receive checks, I deposit them, and when I receive expenses, I write checks… and generally make sure we don't run into the red. So that's actually a very active type of day in my office. Most of the time I don’t have to pay much attention to the Treasurer position… maybe two hours in a week.
Describe what it’s like working collaboratively with an Executive Board that is all over California
I don't even notice we’re not in the same city or county, and I can tell from having taken this job over in 2008 that it wasn't always like that. But today we do conference calls, we Skype, we do Google hangouts – it's cool!
Share a favorite moment from a past CARL conference, project or event
I had a colleague from SFSU sitting in the audience of a CARL conference, holding what looked to most people like a real live baby. But it was really a simulated patient; in the vernacular, it was a dummy. And the baby moved and cried, all on cue and command, and you could silence it by standing up and doing “the baby sway,” by patting its back, or by giving it a pacifier. This presentation, on the Human Patient Simulation Project at SFSU, was one of those strange, unusual pieces; we spent our presentation talking about collaboration and how the project got started and how we did it.
What excites you the most about CARL's future?
I like the energy we see down in the South, I like the idea of the interest groups branching out to do more science, and I like the idea that CARL is doing more programming in those areas down South. And I would love to be able to see how we can bring those programs North via video, whether simultaneous, asynchronous, or however it works best.
Which database would you take with you to a desert island?
The Internet Scout Report, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It covers resources on the internet, related programs people are doing, and some of the new databases put out by the Department of Education. It has a huge scope, and you never can tell what you're going to find. I use it when I have time to play (which is not often). It’s basically a mediated way to surf the net, instead of getting caught in the net.
Share a favorite quote
If you think of this quote as a piece that belongs in academia, you can actually see it happening:
“After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out.” — Warren Buffet
If you could have one superpower, what would it be?
I’d like to make people content. Happy and content are two different things.
Who do you admire more than anyone else in librarianship?
There’s a new public library, the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). I’ve watched it grow from the initial discussion points to it’s being headed up by Dan Cohen, who is the former director of the George Mason Library digital initiative that's responsible for Zotero. The DPLA is gathering individual libraries’ digital collections. Essentially, digitization in the United States has been a cottage industry; we’ve digitized one library and one collection at a time with no real thought as to who outside our institutions are going to use them. So the idea behind the DPLA is they are harvesting all this information and putting it in one catalog.
They’re working with Library of Congress to normalize all the metadata so it's findable. This is the frontier of libraries. This is how we don't compete with Google. This is how we not only provide services and information, but how we surface our individual histories. For example, the Labor Archives & Research Center at SFSU has a digital library of posters from the farm workers’ movement that really belongs in the DPLA; if it was findable in one place, can you imagine how many people would be able to use it?
One of the buzzwords we hear all the time in libraryland is “big data". This project is one way of gathering little data to make big data. This is exciting! They’ve organized it really well and they’re truly creating an inroad for the work of individual libraries. Sometimes we howl in the wilderness, and maybe that's why we have Libguides. But we don't want to always feel that we're howling in the woods.
Is there anything else I didn’t ask that you’d like CARL members to know?
We need ideas. We need ideas and we need people to experiment. Examples are the recent ILS webinar, and the Google+ hangout sessions from the CARL-IT group. I’d like to know how these things went! We need ideas as much as we need person power.
Photo courtesy of White Wolf Photography
Interview conducted by Nicole Allensworth, San Francisco State, CARL Newsletter Editor |
CARL Business
Congratulations to our newly elected members of the Executive Board:
Southern Vice President: Shana Higgins, University of Redlands
Secretary: Debi Hoffman, CSU Channel Islands
Membership Director: Melissa Browne, UC Davis
Director-at-Large, Community Colleges: Erika Montenegro, East Los Angeles College
Director-at-Large, Private Colleges & Universities: Annie Knight, Chapman University
Please look for full bios on our newest board members in an upcoming issue.
Another outcome of the election: the referendum to change the election year passed. A big thanks to those who ran and those who voted!
Submitted by Allison Carr, CSU San Marcos, CARL President
We received $1,000.00 from ACRL as a redistribution of 2013 membership funds. Our membership dues and program registrations are almost $11,000 for 2013. The regular CARL expenses of the Executive Board and the mandated expenses (insurance, CPA, awards and government fees) are approximately $9,600. Special interest program expenses are in the realm of $2,700.00. And since we started out with a positive balance January 1, 2013, CARL has pretty much broken even for this year.
The 2014 Conference has generated a little over $14,000 in registrations and donations for 2013. The donations from vendors have mostly been earmarked to support the conference and total $7,000.00 as of December 1, 2013.
In the 4th quarter, we had 58 new and renewing members, for a total membership of 445 (or 111% of our goal of 400). Of these, 391 are regular members, and 54 are retired or student members.
Interest Group Memberships, 2nd quarter:
ABLE:
CALM:
CARLDIG:
CARLIT:
CDIG:
DIAL:
SCIL:
SEAL:
TSIG: |
67
114
267
173
125
108
213
81
67 |
Submitted by Kelly Janousek, CSU Long Beach, CARL Outgoing Membership Director
CARL Conference
CARL Conference Planning 101: Virtual Conference
by Jacqui Grallo, Chair, 2014 CARL Virtual Conference Committee
CARL Conference Planning 101 has been a short series of articles designed to share the conference planning experience with CARL members. If you have any questions about conference planning, or are interested in getting involved, please contact Allison Carr, CARL Vice President South.
The CARL Virtual Conference will be streamlined for 2014. The Virtual Conference will be a one-day event, held on April 11th, the Friday following the main conference. Interactive features such as the conference blog and Twitter feed will be integrated into the main conference website and updated during and after the main and virtual conference events.
The Virtual Conference Committee’s goal is to create an experience that will extend the reach of the main conference, and be relevant and enriching for those who were present at the main conference as well as those who were not. To that end, the day will consist of live, virtual presentations consistent with the theme Leadership in Action, including a couple sessions focused on highlights from the previous weekend.
Main conference registration includes free access to the virtual conference; registration for the virtual conference only will cost $50 and open in late January when the program becomes available.
Want to get involved? The deadline for virtual session proposal submissions has been extended to January 10th, and in early spring we will be looking for bloggers and a couple folks to present highlights from the main conference. Help us make the 2014 CARL Virtual Conference a lively and successful event!
Have questions about the Virtual Conference? Contact Jacqui Grallo, CSU Monterey Bay, Chair, 2014 CARL Virtual Conference Committee.
And, as always, if you have any questions about the conference, please feel free to contact the Planning Team:
Allison Carr, CSU San Marcos, CARL Vice President, South and Co-Chair, CARL 2014 Conference Planning Team
Brena Smith, California Institute of the Arts, Co-Chair, CARL 2014 Conference Planning Team
Joseph Aubele, CSU Long Beach, Co-Chair, CARL 2014 Conference Planning Team
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Interest Group News
On November 22, Southern California Instruction Librarians Interest Group (SCIL) and the Inland Empire Librarians Educated to Advance Diversity and Service (IE LEADS) co-hosted a day-long workshop called “Library Instruction 101: What You (Probably) Didn’t Learn in Library School” at the Highlander Union Building at UC Riverside. The UC Riverside Libraries, in partnership with ten libraries in the Inland Empire and the UCLA Department of Information Studies, received a $974,259 grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program. The IE LEADS program supports projects/programs that “encourage careers in librarianship… ensuring that the profession is prepared to meet the challenges of the 21st century." The goal of the IE LEADS program is to recruit and educate a new generation of diverse library professionals to effectively serve the culturally and ethnically diverse communities of the region.
Some library school programs don’t offer an instruction/user education class. Even when they do, some students don’t have the opportunity to take such a class due to scheduling difficulties or other reasons. The IE LEADS project managers approached SCIL to provide a workshop on basic skills every instruction librarians should have. Attendees were welcomed to the program by Patricia Smith-Hunt, Project Manager for IE Leads, who talked about the program and the importance of increasing diversity in the profession. Stephanie Rosenblatt, SCIL past chair, who organized the program, welcomed the attendees and shared why library instruction skills are important when looking for a job.
There were 56 attendees, with 23 of them being part of the IE LEADS program. The attendees were divided into 3 cohorts, but they were able to attend all of the sessions. The conference program included sessions on:
• Instructional Design
• Assessment
• Designing learning activities/experiences
• Marketing your instruction
• Public speaking for teaching librarians
The presenters’ slides and documents can be found on the SCIL website. Thanks to our UC Riverside Library host, Anthony Sanchez, for his help with planning this successful program.
Dominique Turnbow, UC San Diego, shares how to use experience statements to create user centered learning outcomes.
 Stephanie Rosenblatt, CSU Fullerton, samples the
famous Mission Margarita
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After the day-long workshop at UC Riverside, the SCIL Outreach Committee was excited to host a networking outreach event. Anyone interested in instruction librarianship in the area was invited to meet up at the Presidential Lounge at the Mission Inn. Rainy Friday night traffic might have had something to do with the fact it was our most popular outreach event to date! The holiday-decorated Mission Inn provided a festive backdrop (not to mention, delicious beverages!) for instruction librarians and library school students who enjoyed exchanging ideas and networking . Keep an eye on the SCIL website for future meet-ups this year.
Submitted by Norma Durian, Mt. San Antonio College, SCIL Secretary |
On Friday, December 6, 2013, CARLIG-South hosted its annual fall workshop at Cal State Fullerton’s Pollak Library. Over 60 librarians attended the workshop, “Reference as Place? An Interactive Presentation”. The workshop featured four different perspectives on the changing nature of academic reference services. The first speakers, Jane Magee and Hiromi Kubo from CSU Fresno, presented on “Transition in Reference: Meeting the Needs of Your Users”. Their presentation focused on the tremendous change their library (and university) has undergone in the last five years, and how the library has adapted to these changes in the way they offer reference services. The second presenters, Nicole Lawson and Megan Kinney from Sonoma State University (see photo at left), addressed the notion of “Reference in Perpetual Beta”, a pilot study in which they collected data related to the library’s decision to consolidate its service points from five locations down to one “co-located” space for circulation and reference.
After the morning break, Martha Adkins from University of San Diego presented “Meet Your Personal Librarian: Moving from Service Point to Service Relationship”. Based on similar programs at Yale University and elsewhere, each incoming freshman at USD is assigned to a librarian. The program has run for one semester with positive results so far. In the fourth and final presentation: “Try, Try Again: Defining Library Research Support Beyond a Desk”, Allison Benedetti and Doug Worsham, reported on two UCLA libraries' programs to expand service away from the traditional reference desk. The UCLA College/Powell Library and University Research Library now provide research consultation services in new library spaces. Basic reference questions are answered at more traditional Access Service desks.
More information on this fabulous workshop can be found on the CARLDIG-South website.
Submitted by Debi Hoffmann, CSU Channel Islands, Secretary, CARLDIG-South
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People News
The Mt. San Antonio College Library received two honors for the College’s 2013 Presidential Awards for Excellence and Innovation in Teaching and Learning. These honors are determined by the College’s Outcomes Committee. The Library and Learning Resources Division, led by Dean Meghan Chen, was honored with a Presidential Award for Outstanding Basic Skills Effort for organizing a series of retreats to discuss planning, methods of assessment, use of results, and the opportunity to highlight outcomes-related achievements. Two librarians, Pauline Swartz and Nora Shea, earned Honorable Mention for Outstanding Curriculum. They were recognized for creating the curriculum, recommending pedagogy, and developing assessment tools for the Library’s information competency workshops. They also facilitated discussion about teaching and learning throughout this process.
Ned Fielden, from San Francisco State University, presented a paper titled "Early Modern Academic Libraries: The 17th Century Fulcrum of Change" at the 11th Annual International Conference on the Book, at the University of Regensburg, Germany, on October 27. Four important factors that influenced early modern academic library development were presented, along with a description and discussion of library interior architecture and overall library organisation. His article “Things I'd Like to See” also appeared in the November issue of the disability journal, New Mobility.
Karin Griffin, Education Librarian, CSU Long Beach, has published the article, “Pursuing tenure and promotion in the academy: A librarian’s cautionary tale,” Negro Educational Review, 64(1-4), 2013.
Jesse Holden, Head Acquisitions (USC), guest-edited the September "Features" articles for Against the Grain on the topic of "Discovery." He also presented on a panel at the Charleston Conference, “Making ‘Too Much’ Manageable and Discoverable: How Publishers, Vendors and Libraries Can Work Together to Unlock the Full Potential of Library Collections.” The panel included John Law (ProQuest), who organized it, and Alexandra Lange (Elsevier).
Dana Roth, Caltech, has edited a newly published chemical information book aimed specifically at practicing chemists. "Chemical Information for Chemists: A Primer", edited by Judith Currano (U. Penn.) and Dana Roth (Caltech), Royal Society of Chemistry, 2013, ISBN: 978-1-84973-551-3
Adam Sexton, Doheny Library Manager (USC), and Win Shih, Director of Integrated Library Systems, (USC) presented a paper “Sailing on a Cloud: How Cloud Computing is Mobilizing in Libraries!” at California Library Association 2013 Conference in Long Beach, November 4th, 2013. Adam Sexton also had a poster session, “Training (and Fun) with SC Scavengers & LC Jeopardy!”, with his staff, Jared Beck, Public Services Supervisor, and Jai Washington, Operations Supervisor. In addition, Win Shih participated in another conference presentation, “Basic Elements of Public Speaking for Librarians.”
Places News
 Raffle winner at Pepperdine's iPad launch party
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Jaime Beth Colvin, Pepperdine, transferred to UCLA from a junior college and studied History and Art History. After a year of interning, she was back at UCLA for her MLIS. At Pepperdine University’s undergraduate library, Payson, she's a Research and Reference Librarian. She teaches information literacy courses for undergraduate students, designs online tutorials explaining how to use digital resources, and assisted a colleague creating a library tour that utilizes QR codes embedded around the library. Most recently, Payson library started circulating iPads and Jaime organized the launch party promoting the circulation of these iPads. |
The Mt. San Antonio College Library is pleased to welcome Hong Guo as our new Professor, Library Science (Online Learning). Hong previously served as Internet Services Librarian with the County of Los Angeles Public Library. She also served as an adjunct librarian at Mt. San Antonio College, supporting department functions in cataloging, instruction, and reference. Among many wonderful qualities, Hong brings great knowledge and experience in using technology to support student learning.
Rebecca Halpern (USC) has been appointed as the new Virtual Academic Center Librarian (VAC Librarian). She provides reference and instruction support to students, staff and faculty in the School of Social Work’s Virtual Academic Center. Most recently, Rebecca was a Reference & Instruction Librarian for Antioch University in Los Angeles, where she supported students and faculty through tailored information literacy workshops, web-based guides and tutorials. Prior to her work at Antioch, she worked at the University of Texas, Austin and the Austin Public Library. Rebecca has a Master of Science in Information Studies from the University of Texas, Austin and a Bachelor’s Degree (in Sociology and Women’s Studies) from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Kelly Janousek, past CARL Membership Director, CSU Long Beach, has moved onto Bargaining Team for the California Faculty Association within the CSU. She will be on sabbatical in Spring 2014 to work on a database with data on California Ballot Measures, which includes history, sponsors, funding and policy outcomes of each measure.
Susan (Sue) Luftschein (USC) has been appointed the Special Collections Archival and Metadata Librarian. Sue previously served as the Data and Processing Archivist in Special Collections. In her new position Sue oversees archival and metadata operations in Special Collections. She also serves as the project manager for grant-funded projects and work with the Director of Grants and Research Communications to identify projects suitable for grant funding.
John McDonald (USC) is the new Associate Dean for Collections. Prior to joining the USC Libraries, Mr. McDonald held the position of associate vice president and chief information officer for the Claremont University Consortium, as well as the positions of acquisitions librarian at the California Institute of Technology and social and behavioral sciences librarian at Virginia Commonwealth University. Mr. McDonald holds a BA and MLIS from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Michael Qiu (USC) was appointed as a Science and Engineering Librarian on July 1, 2013. He serves as a subject librarian for the Department of Chemistry and the Mork Family Department of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science at USC. Michael has a BS in Chemistry from Iowa State University and a MLIS from the University of California, Los Angeles.
Andrzej Rutkowski (USC) has been appointed as an Interdisciplinary GIS Library Fellow. During his two-year librarian appointment, he will be responsible for shaping library support of spatial researchers and research initiatives across campus. Andrzej previously worked as a Reference Associate for Business and Government Documents at NYU's Bobst Library since 2006. In addition to a Master’s of Library Science from the Palmers School, Andy has an MA in Trauma and Violence Transdisciplinary Studies and an MA in Humanities and Social Thought (both from NYU). His BA is in Philosophy from the University of Vermont with Film Studies & Sociology minors.
Abby Saunders (USC) has been appointed as Curator for the Cassady Lewis Carroll Collection. Since 2011, Abby previously worked at Brown University as the Coordinator for the Charles H. Watts II History and Culture of the Book Program and as Interim Art & Architecture Librarian at Roger Williams University.
Susan Trujillo is a new librarian at West Los Angeles College where she has reference, instruction and cataloging responsibilities. Ms. Trujillo was a librarian at the University of California Riverside before accepting the position at West L.A. College. She received her Master’s degree in Library and Information Science from San José State University.
The California Library Association honored the USC Libraries with the CLA Public Relations Excellence Best-in-Show Award and the award for the $10 million-plus budget category. The awards recognized achievements in outreach and media relations related to the Mosely Snowflake Fractal at the USC Libraries, a large, participatory math-and-art project the libraries conducted as part of the USC Libraries Discovery Fellow program. CLA presented the awards at the CLA conference in Long Beach.
The L.A. City Historical Society selected L.A. as Subject (USC) as their 2013 J. Thomas Owen History Award honoree. Named for Los Angeles librarian J. Thomas Owen, the award honors individuals and organizations that support the “advancement of local historical knowledge and preservation.” L.A. as Subject is an organization of more than 200 libraries, archives, museums, and private collectors dedicated to making accessible the less-visible histories and stories of Los Angeles. The USC Libraries are the host institution for L.A. as Subject.
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CARL Special Announcements
Experiences with Information Literacy will be available as one of the NSSE’s topical modules for the 2014 administration. The full content of the module can be viewed right here. Participating institutions can add one of these modules to NSSE at no charge, but the second module will cost $150. If you or your Library Director would like to have Information Literacy included, so that NSSE can collect valuable assessment information for your library, please contact the NSSE.
Submitted by Linda Goff, CSU Sacramento
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About the CARL Newsletter
The CARL Newsletter (ISSN: 1090-9982) is the official publication of the California Academic & Research Libraries organization and is published online quarterly. The RSS feed  for this newsletter is available at http://www.carl-acrl.org/newsletter/feed.xml.
Deadlines for submissions: February 15, May 15, August 15, and November 15.
Newsletter submissions, including creative contributions, People News and Places News should be sent to carlnewsletter@gmail.com. For corrections, questions and comments please contact the Editor, Nicole Allensworth (nallensw@sfsu.edu), J. Paul Leonard Library, San Francisco State University, 1630 Holloway Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94132.
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