St. Kate's MLIS SGO Blog

The last SGO meeting of the fall semester!

2011-12-04T19:09:00.000-08:00

SGO Meeting Agenda for December 7, 2011

5:15 Welcome and Introductions

5:20 Plans for Graduate Reception

5:25 Committee or Liaison News

5:30 Discussion & Vote on Revised SGO Constitution

5:35 Review Present Committees and Posts

5:40 Nominate & Vote Membership into Posts

Executive Committee (1-3 openings)
Communications Committee (ECM + additional opening)
Liaisons (ALA, PLG, SLA)
Advisory Council Committee (1 opening)
ECM to Department Meeting Committee

5:50 Additional Discussion, Questions, New Topics

5:55 Review Upcoming Dates & Dismiss

Also, the PLG/ALA children's book drive is on! See here for more details!

New SGO Constitution!

2011-11-18T08:11:00.000-08:00

This semester SGO has begun the process of redefining itself as an organization.
We have redrafted the Professional Development Reimbursement Funds form which will be presenting to GSAB for a final approval on Monday.
We have also redrafted the SGO Constitution and did a first reading at the meeting this past Wednesday. The new Constitution will be voted upon at the next SGO meeting which is Wednesday, December 7 at 5:15 in CdC 17.

Feel free to read through the new Constitution here

An extra SGO meeting on Wednesday!

2011-11-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

SGO Meeting Agenda for November 16, 2011

5:15 Welcome and Introductions

5:20 Update on Web Accessibility materials funding

5:25 Committee or Liaison News

5:30 Revise SGO Grant Funds Application

5:40 Revise SGO Constitution

5:55 Additional Discussion, Questions, New Topics

6:00 Review Upcoming Dates & Dismiss

Next Month’s Meeting:

Wednesday, December 7th

5:15 PM, Room 17

Meeting Agenda for November 2, 2011

2011-10-30T20:00:00.000-07:00

5:15 Welcome and Introductions

5:20 Movie Night Report

5:25 Committee or Liaison News

5:30 Revise SGO Grant Funds Application

5:40 Revise SGO Constitution

5:55 Additional Discussion, Questions, New Topics

6:00 Review Upcoming Dates & Dismiss

Next Month’s Meeting:

Wednesday, December 7th

5:15 PM, Room 17

Minnesota Libraries Association Annual Conference in Duluth, MN on October 12 - 14, 2011

2011-10-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

When the message had gone out that MLA was looking for volunteers for the conference, they also included the message that they wanted people to be tweeting while attending. I volunteered myself to do this. So here are a selection of tweets and blurbs from MLA.

Friday luncheon keynote “Go Forth!” by William Kent Krueger
He who lends a book is an idiot. He who returns a book is even more of an idiot.
Anyone who says they only have 1 life to live does not know how to read.
stories help us endure chaos ~ Wm Kent Krueger
Always write something that will make you look good if you die in the middle of it. William Kent Krueger

Session: 50 in 60 Book Blast
In this session, each of the 5 speakers had a topic and suggested 10 books within that topic. If you want their full list, I’ve got it. But the topics were Paranormal (I was hoping "paranormal" was short for "paranormal romance" and this is not in this case), YA, Contemporary Women Writers, Scifi/Fantasy, and Nordic Mysteries.

At the Member meeting, Robin Ewing, president of MLA, said upon gifting the winner a prize, "In a shocking turn of events, a librarian has a tote bag." It was funny.

Session: Not Your Mother’s Authority Control: Locating Information in the 22nd Century
What is Authority Control? The notion that you can bring everything by or about one person or thing into one place. In this session, the presenter reported that authority control means there is a “correct” term and sometimes these need to be updated. One way to easily do this would be to store authority data using Unique Resource Identifiers as permanent links to records.

Session: Board@Your Library? Hot Board Games for Cool Librarians
I caught the tail end of this session and jotted down all the games. Scott Nicholson (a keynote) also attended and said to ask groups already using the library if there is a particular game they they like to play.

Session: Collection Development of Award-Winning Books in MnPALS Libraries
Award winners are often purchased because it is policy, library literature recommends as best/common practice, typically they are considered to be examples of best writing/literature. However, college libraries choose materials based on relevance to curriculum, requests by faculty, or subject of book, with awards being quite low. Tammy Bobrowski found that 50% of university/college libraries regularly purchase award winning titles, and 28% of technical/community college libraries regularly purchase them. She had data regarding most frequently purchase titles and highest circulating titles.

Dessert Keynote: Engagement Through Games: Reaching Library Users through Playful Ways by Dr. Scott Nicholson
2nd outcome 75% gaming participants returned for non-gaming participants. Scott Nicholson
Top outcome 77% reputation of lib improved with participants. Scott Nicholson
Most important goal in offering gaming is to attract under-served group of users to lib. Scott Nicholson
Libs need "cradle to cane" programming to keep users. Scott Nicholson
Gaming in libs since 1850s, chess and pool
Games in libs (collections) v. Gaming in libs (services)

Session: To Boldly Go: Fantastical Journeys through Science Fiction Readers’ Advisory
She didn’t really give a lot of suggestions but went over tropes including utopian/distopian, alternate universe, steampunk, time travel, space opera, robots/AI, cyborgs, aliens, hard science scifi, idea-driven. Also went over the difference between fantasy and scifi. Melissa Gray's blog librarianinspace.blogspot.com and Diigo account http://www.diigo.com/user/scifira

Session: 40 Years of Collaboration: Minitex and Minnesota Libraries Then and Now
#Minitex "Then and Now" slideshow minitex.umn.edu/40th/Slideshow/
1971-2 #Minitex received 71,353 request for loans and copies. 2010-1 401,825 requests
1989# Minitex staff attended “word processing” training for the first time says Bill DeJohn
1987 #Minitex delivery moved from the Greyhound Bus system to a dedicated courier service
June 1984 Bill DeJohn became director of #Minitex
1975 #Minitex began using local couriers and overnight delivery of shared resources via commercial buses to libs, says Bill DeJohn
1969 MN Interlibrary Teletype Experiment, 2 year pilot project to develop recommendations for a long-range statewide ILL svc

Session: The Special Library as Information Commons
Coll dev at Arboretum library thinks in terms of the next 1,000 yrs knowing how important their 500yo catalogs are. Kathy Allen
If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need. Cicero paraphrased by Kathy Allen
Working @ SL you learn from wide network: library, law, IT, marketing & training pros and are encouraged to learn more @jillinfopro
Mission: align the lib's strategic info solutions with the firm's goals so in addition to supporting practice AND business of law
SL needs to be seen as essential to an org's prime function, not enough to provide good svc or have well ordered collections.

Luncheon Keynote: Everything I Need to Know I learned from a Children’s Book by Anita Silvey
People remember who GAVE them a particular, meaningful book more than they remember the book's author. Anita Silvey
Children's books provide a personal, social and political reality. Anita Silvey
The character that has affected more [American?] women than any other is Jo March of Little Women. Anita Silvey
If a child steals a book from the library, that book must be very dear to them. Anita Silvey
Children read a story for plot or story or a character. NOT for metaphors, says Anita Silvey.

~ Sonja Isaacson

Tonight @ 5 pm! Breakfast Club in the Pulse! Breakfast buffet to be served!

2011-10-08T06:47:00.000-07:00

SGO Meeting Agenda for October 5, 2011

2011-09-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

5:15 Welcome and Introductions

5:20 Student Group Night Report

5:25 Movie Night Update

5:30 Spring Speaker Update

5:35 Finance Committee Update

5:40 Committee or Liaison News

5:45 Additional Discussion, Questions, New Topics

5:50 Review Upcoming Dates & Dismiss

Next Month’s Meeting:

Wednesday, November 2nd

5:15 PM, Room 17

SGO Meeting Agenda for September 14, 2011

2011-09-11T20:24:00.000-07:00

5:15 Welcome and Introductions

5:20 Orientation Report

5:25 Student Group Night Discussion

5:30 Movie Night Update & Discussion

5:35 Spring Speaker Update

5:40 Finance Committee Update

5:45 Committee or Liaison News

5:50 Additional Discussion, Questions, New Topics

5:55 Review Upcoming Dates & Dismiss

Next Month’s Meeting:

Wednesday, October 5^th

5:15 PM, Room 17

Welcome to the Fall Semester!

2011-09-07T07:14:00.000-07:00

Starting tonight and for the next week, classes begin!

I know I am excited about the classes I chose and I hope that all of you are also excited about what you have chosen to take this semester! I really hope that you can enjoy learning about the topics and getting to know the other students in your classes.

SGO has a number of upcoming items:

The first SGO meeting of the semester takes place on Wednesday, September 14 at 5:15 in CdC 17. The agenda will be posted in the next few days.

Student Group Night is Monday, September 19 from 6:30pm to 8pm. This is your chance to learn about the various student groups within our program: SGO, ALASC, SLA and PLG. Come out and see how you can get involved!

SGO is sponsoring a Movie Night on Saturday, October 8! A final decision on the movie will take place at the SGO meeting!

Again, welcome new and returning students! Best wished for the semester! And hope to see you at some of the events this semester!

SI

2011-08-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

Fall 2011 Semester is just about 2 weeks away! Wow. Where did the summer go? They always feel too short. Hopefully we all had a relaxing summer and are ready to tackle class again.

First let me say Hello to all the new, incoming students! Welcome to the MLIS Program at St. Kate's. And Welcome Back returning students! We're so glad to have everyone, new and returning students, here!

Orientation is this Saturday, August 27th. The MLIS portion begins at 10am in Library 128 with a brief introduction follwed by 15 minute rotations being held in various rooms downstairs CdC. At least 2 members of the SGO Exectutive Committee will be in attendance. Orientation has a new format this year so I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. After orientation, some students will be sticking around in case any new students want to grab a bite to eat and chat us up.

Classes begin Tuesday September, 6th. WooHoo, right? :) I hope everyone has a successful and fun semester. The first Community Night is Monday September 12th and is the New Student Advising Session by the MLIS faculty in the faculty offices.

The first SGO meeting of the semester takes place on Wednesday, September 14th at 5:15 to 5:50 in CdC 17. Come see what we're all about! Join a committee, find out how to ask for money (for MLA or any other professional development opportunity) or just come to meet your classmates.

On Monday, September 19th the Community Night Event will be Student Group Night from 6:30pm to 8pm. This is your chance to learn more about the various MLIS Students Groups you can join: SGO, ALASC, SLA and PLG. Be sure to come out and see how you can get involved in the program!

Last but not least! SGO is sponsering a Movie Night on Saturday, October 8! We haven't chosen a movie yet and want YOUR feedback. If you haven't voted yet go to http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=506219567#!/groups/StKateSGO/. New students will vote at orientation! Movie Night includes yummy food - last time there was a Taco Bar as well as an awesomely entertaining movie!

See everyone soon. Enjoy the last weeks of summer!

Jill Wujcik

SGO Meeting Agenda August 17, 2011 at 6pm in the Pulse

2011-08-17T10:41:00.000-07:00

Topics for discussion:

Recap of last month’s meeting
Orientation Representation
Student Groups Monday Night event
Fall Movie Night Update
Spring Speaker Event
Other Committee Updates
Discussion, Questions, New Topics
To-Dos for next month’s meeting

Next Month’s Meeting:

Wednesday, September 14^th5:15 PM, Room 17

Midwest Archives Conference Annual Meeting in St. Paul, MN on April 28 - 30, 2011

2011-08-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

This semester I am taking LIS 7750 Archives Administration & Services. Our professor had pointed out that MAC would be taking place near the end of the semester and asked the class about attending. I thought this was just a perfect confluence of events - being able to hear professionals talk about the topics we were studying. Plus it had an inexpensive registration fee ($45 for all three days at the early bird student price) and is in downtown St. Paul so don’t have to travel far or stay overnight anywhere.

Thursday I arrived and walked though the vendor booths, picking up some souvenirs for the family and then went to listen to the plenary address by Mark Neuzil, who is a professor at St. Thomas. He had written a book, Views on the Mississippi: The Photography of Henry Peter Bosse, and so his talk focused on Bosse’s life and why his photographs are a bit different than others of the time, and also a bit about what the Mississippi was like in the 1800s and what the Army Corps of Engineers was doing with it. I have now put this book on my Amazon list, also thinking it would be possible to track him down to have him sign it.

Then it was snack time - squares of cake, a popcorn mix and cans of pop!

My afternoon session was “Reaching Virtually Everyone—Virtually”. In the end, I would have done better to choose something else as they really spent the whole time talking about Twitter and Facebook and a blog. I learned that ⅓ of Facebook users use a mobile app and that the guy who did the Facial Hair Friday page on Facebook went into foreign service which is why it is no longer updated. I did also learn that #2011mac was the official hashtag for the conference and a few other Twitter pages to check out.

Friday morning, SJ Stambaugh and I met and headed back to the Crowne Plaza. I attended “I Didn’t Know We Had an Archives! Outreach Successes and Challenges in Corporate Archives”. This was presented by Jamie Martin of Target Corporation, Jennifer Johnson of Cargill, Inc.,and Susan Wakefield of General Mills, Inc. I had seen Jamie and Jennifer speak at St. Kate’s last fall and some of my classmates had recently met with Susan for archivist shadowing. It was interesting to hear what sort of environment they are each in and really to learn about these local companies. They really all mentioned that they are in ever-changing companies and so their displays need to change quarterly to retain interest but that other employees really enjoy seeing them. And also that the archivists need to keep trying new media to try and get awareness of their department out to other employees. At Target they are working on oral histories and we got to see a video of Audrey Russell talking about how Target used to be. She was hired as a cashier at the first Target just a few months after it opened and just retired in 2010. There was a montage of photographs to show what she was describing and it was really interesting to see how it was both similar and so different than Targets are now.

Then it was snack time - muffins and juice!

My next session was “ABCs of Appraisal and Acquisition.” Two of the presenters were related to the Air Force, one was for a research lab and the other with the Air Force National Museum. The woman with the research lab was actually the first archivist for that area. The third presenter was with the Sousa Archives and Center for American Music. What I knew about Sousa was that he wrote band music that my girls enjoy marching to, though apparently he was a self-made millionaire. The best part of this session was when the Air Force ladies did three vignettes about a potential donor of materials. Their “donors” were just over-the-top and the audience was cracking up. However, as outrageous as they were acted, they were still within the realm of possibility - material that was not within the scope of the collection, in possibly very poor condition, or wanting to retain control. So it could also be that watching the performances also reminded the archival audience of donor experiences they have had.

At the lunch break I went on the tour of the Saint Paul City Hall and Ramsey County Court House. I had been inside once to witness a wedding on a weekend where we, the bride and groom, and the judge were seemingly the only people in the building. This time was much busier. I had no idea that the largest art deco building in the United States was located here. And apparently because of the timing of the construction, just after the stock market crash, they were really able to use materials and decorate in a more expensive way than would have been possible at other times. I am also quite impressed that there is a lot of furniture original to the building being used each day so casually. One wonders how many people coming in to do business realize that. We did get to go into the mayor’s office and also sit in the council’s chairs and also in the witness box. We also got a demonstration by a county drug-sniffing dog. One does have to wonder what a deputy is doing walking around with a bag of drugs in his pocket...

After a trip to Subway, we settled in for “EAD FACTORy: Simplifying the Production of EAD.” This was just not that exciting. Maybe being afternoon nap-time coupled with having had introductions to EAD previously in class and also presenters with un-exciting presentations.... I did think it was a bit funny that after intuitions were using EAD and hiring student workers to populating the finding aids, the student workers got bored doing this task and would ask to do something else. It did appear that they had a bright green background on the screen and I wonder if the colors on the screen caused some eyestrain that also might have caused the students to say they don’t want to do the task.

Then it was snack time - soft pretzels and root beer floats!

Saturday morning, I made it though the drizzle for “Redesigning Archives Websites with User Perspectives.” All the speakers were excellent. I had taken Internet Fundamentals so it was nice to see that things our class had talked about came up in these real world situations. I also thought it funny when one presenter mentioned Kulthau’s relation between emotion and the search process as that had been brought up in History of the Printed Book just a couple weeks ago. Also, they all mentioned that their users had trouble with archival terms, such as not knowing “finding aid”, and the difference between University Archives and collections at the University, and also Records Management. They also learned that users don’t look at text, don’t utilize side navigation, don’t look for definitions of terms and really just head for the search bar only to become frustrated when it searches the whole institution site and not just the archives/special collections section of the website. However the history professors who were part of one study knew what finding aids were and wanted more of them! All of the presenters said they were working on reducing text and adding graphics to convey information. They were also working on the advanced search type settings which might possibly include specifying a date range or format of items.

Then it was snack time - cookies, bars and pop! Oh I do like a good lemon bar...

My last session was “Bringing History to Life: Teaching with Primary Sources.” The first speaker really ran professional development days for K-12 teachers where they would practice a skill such as replicating original order, interpreting photography, evaluation sources for truth, etc. The teachers really enjoyed this. The other two speakers worked with undergrads. The first speaker would do a day or two on a topic requested by a professor. The second speaker decided to teach an introduction course to the incoming freshmen on the topic of student life but would have them use resources from the archives. Her class had very interesting projects, such as making a Facebook page for a pre-1922 student, however it sounded like a large work-load for a 1 credit class. She has now done this class for 3 years, and I’m a bit surprised that it hasn’t seemed to result in more student interest in history or archives as a field. But perhaps it is still too early to tell. It does seem that there has been more use by the faculty of the archives since she began teaching so that is a positive result.

I think if my schedule was such that I could have gone on more of the tours or the receptions this would have been even more enjoyable. However I liked going and being able to tie the discussions to things from class. And even hearing about all the different types of archives that are out there and the problems they can each have makes me think I should keep my mind open about where I would want to work. Next year MAC is in Grand Rapids, who knows I may need a trip to Michigan next spring!

Sonja Isaacson

Minnesota Library Association Annual Conference in Rochester, MN on October 8, 2010

2011-08-01T08:10:00.000-07:00

I had never been to a professional conference before. I chose to join MLA this year in part because I know I want to remain in the Twin Cities after graduation so it just seemed smart to have an association more focused on this state/area than a national association. And also since Rochester had been chosen as the next conference site, it was not incredibly out of the realm of possibility that I could arrange to attend. Plus the reduced conference fee for being a member (AND taking advantage of the early bird registration!).

After consulting my schedule and polling other MLIS students I determined that the last day of the conference, Friday, was really the only feasible option for me this year and that Jill Wujcik was able to also attend that day.

We set off early but perhaps not early enough as after finding parking and our name badges we only had a few minutes for breakfast. Another attendee commented that the breakfast the previous day was only pastries while our day included a number of hot items - eggs, potatoes, sausage, bacon. We ate with Professor Sook Lim who was presenting later in the morning.

The first session we attended was “Playing in the Stacks: Using Incentives and Collaboration to Make Weeding Enjoyable.” It was presented by a couple of librarians from Concordia College who had make a 5 year project of “designing and implementing a comprehensive weeding project for an academic library.” In the two years of the actual weeding, they began with about 300,000 items in the collection and removed over 10,000. Some of the ways they made it less of a dreary task were to have people work in teams of two and have “prizes” hidden along the way. These prizes included certificates for a free pencil and a cup of coffee, and a gift card for Barnes & Noble. They talked about the criteria used to determine if an item should be kept or not, and tasks that were given to student workers. They also spoke of the different ways they used to dispose of the weeded items.

After picking up a free can of pop between sessions, we walked to another part of the Mayo Civic Center for the next session chosen: “Things in a Flash: The Latest Web 2.0 Tools.” As part of the presentation, about 5 different people spoke about a new-ish tools about 10 minutes each including: Storybird, Evernote, HootSuite, Jing, Mind Meister, bubbl.us, and 60Second Recap. Wordle and Prezi were referenced during the presentation and these were also quickly shown to the audience as well. I can see myself looking into about half of these items.

Storybird is a site for 3-13 year olds that has sets of story-art all set. You choose either and artist or theme and then have a selection of artwork for your story. After choosing your art for the page there is only a little room to write - like a sentence or a couple short paragraphs. When your “book” is finished it can be shared online. LeAnn Suchy suggested it was for reluctant readers or writers and also noted that name-calling and violence will not be approved in books for online sharing. http://storybird.com/
Evernote makes me want a fancier phone. The Evernote motto is “Remember Everything.” Evernote is a way to record and file things you want to remember/reference/share. The presenter demonstrated that she had a file with images of business cards, potential vacation destinations, and books she wants to read. You can email URLs into your Evernote account, put in photos, recorded voice, screenshots, texts, etc. The presenter really encouraged tagging your notes to make them easier to find, though Evernote does have searching and organizing features. Evernote works with computers, phones and mobile devices so it can be accessible nearly all the time (as long as you have one of these devices with you and internet access). I often think of things I want to remember for later and this seems like a handy way to do so. http://www.evernote.com/about/home.php
I also want to explore 60 Second Recap a bit more. They are one minute videos of Jenny enthusiastically doing explanations of classic books. Sort of a more-fun Cliff’s Notes. Each of the classic books has a set of these recaps including characters, theme, overview and various other aspects of stories. Jenny has also been doing a “Pick of the Week” which is just one video on a more popular and recent book (mainly from the 2000s) and in which she also gives her opinion, which she does not do with the classics. LeAnn Suchy was a bit disgruntled with Jenny as they had differing views on a couple Pick of the Week books. As I scroll through, I have not read most of the books included in either section but I want to take a little time to watch those that I am a bit more familiar with.

At our table at lunch were two board members - Ken Behringer and Kristen Mastel. I had talked with Kristen on a previous occasion about being a librarian and getting her MLIS, so it was nice to run into her. The keynote speaker was Bruce Schneier. He has a TED talk coming up and test drove that by us - “Reconceptualizing Security.” He scheduled talk was on “Security, Privacy, and the Generation Gap.” He made a number of good points and was also very funny.

I then ate a second piece of cake and we began the trek home.

Sonja Isaacson

Professional Development Funds for SLA President Event

2011-03-25T12:36:00.000-07:00

Were you planning on attending the "Future Ready" event with Cindy Romaine, 2011 SLA President, on Monday, April 4? Well, the $15 student fee for her formal presentation qualifies for professional development funding from the St. Kate's SGO. And it is easy to apply!

To learn more about the SGO Professional Development Fund go to the MLIS Program Internal Website (via Kateway), then click on:

Menu: Get Involved -> SGO
Click on "SGO Professional Development Fund" link
Download the guidelines and application form PDF file

If you have questions about the SGO Professional Development Fund contact Andrew Crow. His contact information is listed on the professional development fund page mentioned above.

About the event:

Cindy Romaine's platform for 2011 is "Future Ready." She is interested in speaking with MLIS students and faculty about how we see the future and how our MLIS education fits that view. Join the student discussion and then stay for Cindy's formal presentation and networking with the MN SLA Chapter members:

Monday, April 4, 2011

5:00 - 5:30 pm - FREE - student discussion with Cindy Romaine

5:30 - 7:45 pm - $15 student fee - "Future Ready" presentation and networking

Registration information at the St. Kate's SLA Student group blog.

For further questions about the "Future Ready" event contact the SLA Student Group at stkatesla@gmail.com

Speaker Event recap

2010-10-29T14:55:00.000-07:00

It’s been two weeks since our Fall Speaker Event, and the members of SGO are still buzzing with excitement over the talk that Marilyn Johnson gave. From the speech itself to the wonderful crowd that turned out, this year’s event was a huge success!

For those of you who couldn’t make it, here’s a brief recap: Marilyn’s remarks centered on the idea of service in the public library. Time and again, she expressed her wonderment at librarians’ ceaseless attempts to help the “freaks” of the world deal with technological change. “Freaks,” as Marilyn clarified, include those of us who walk into a library baffled by new web resources, printers that always seem to be offline, and the myriad other challenges that the public faces every day. She lamented that the profession does not have a higher profile, and urged librarians and library lovers alike to become stronger advocates of the important services that libraries provide. Her message was very affirming, particularly because Marilyn Johnson speaks as someone who is not a member of the profession — she is a writer and a user of libraries, not a librarian. We are fortunate to have such a wonderful ally!

Afterwards, Marilyn was gracious enough to take questions from the audience and sign copies of her book, This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All!

On behalf of SGO, I’d like to thank Meeting and Event Services for their help in organizing the Jeanne d’Arc auditorium, the staff and faculty of the MLIS program for tirelessly helping us promote the event, Brigette Marty of Student Center and Activities/GSAB for being an incredible resource, and Common Good Books for providing copies of Marilyn’s book for sale.

Everyone in SGO is eagerly looking ahead to the planning of next year’s Fall Speaker Event. We arrange other events throughout the year, too, so watch this blog for upcoming announcements on future SGO happenings!

Were you at the event? Do you have any feedback for us on this speaker or on future speakers you’d like to see? Leave us a comment or send an email to lissgo@gmail.com.

-Michael Mitchell

From left: Heidi Hammond, Marilyn Johnson, Deb Grealy, and Deb Torres.

Marilyn Johnson and Michael Mitchell

EVENT THIS FRIDAY!!!

2010-10-13T06:35:00.000-07:00

Location for Friday's event

2010-10-13T06:20:00.000-07:00

See this page for information on parking and a PDF of the map (without my lovely annotations).

SGO Meeting for October 7, 2010

2010-10-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

SGO Meeting for October 7, 2010

CDC 495 5:00 – 6:00

AGENDA:

I. Recap of ERP meeting

II. Marilyn Johnson Event

a. Advertising

b. The Event

III. Committee Updates?

IV. End of Semester

a. Food for grad reception

b. Gifts for students?

D.C., the L.O.C., O.S.I., N.D.I.I.P.P. & m.e.! [also known as My Summer of Acronyms]

2010-10-02T13:54:00.000-07:00

Looking back on summer 2010, I am overwhelmed by the alphabet soup that was my good fortune. Need a tour through the acronymic mess? I’m happy to oblige!

D.C. – Why, the District of Columbia, m’dear!, where I temporarily resided.

L.O.C. – Library of Congress, where I fulfilled a Junior Fellowship this summer.

O.S.I. – The Office of Strategic Initiatives, service unit under which I worked at L.O.C..

N.D.I.I.P.P. – The National Digital Information Infrastructure Preservation Program, my host department, in which I worked most closely with the Communications Team (which we thankfully did not call the C.T.).

m.e. – Candice LaPlante, third year (gracious!) graduate student at SCU who never thought she’d be engaged in digital initiatives…but grew to love them over one very exciting summer!

After wading through a hefty application process in Winter 2010, I was selected to serve as the first-ever Junior Fellow in the O.S.I. at L.O.C., where I gladly worked with N.D.I.I.P.P. I didn’t know what to expect when entering the Fellowship (other than a veritable labyrinth of acronyms), but I certainly got a lot out of it!

Some of the highlights of my time at the L.O.C. include:

· Meeting and learning from inspirational leaders such as David Ferriero, Lee Rainie, Dan Gillmor and James H. Billington.

· Being an active participant and member of the 2010 Partners Meeting, which brought together a diverse, enthusiastic, collaborative and progressive group of digital preservation leaders and stakeholders. We celebrated the rollout of the new N.D.S.A. (National Digital Stewardship Alliance), and I’m happy to say “I was there when it began!”

· Attending and engaging in amazing meetings, such as eST (electronic Science and Technology), FCC (Federal Communications Commission), the 2010 annual ALA conference, and O.S.I. team meetings.

· Writing, producing and editing my first ever video, titled “Bridging Physical & Digital Preservation at the Library of Congress.”

· Meeting amazing people, learning in a premier national library, and growing as a professional in ways I never expected!

Now that the Fall semester has begun, I find myself actively building bridges between my experiences at the L.O.C. and my continued schoolwork. Via class projects and a Project Assistant position I have undertaken at the Minnesota Historical Society, I keep in contact with acquaintances and coworkers from the summer, as I continue to produce material for N.D.I.I.P.P. and engage in partner-efforts. For a lass amazingly timid where networking is concerned, I’d say I’ve come a long way since my pre-L.O.C. days!

So as to not overwhelm, however, I close with encouragement for current students: Take advantage of the amazing opportunities open to you as a learner. Institutions, organizations and professionals are willing and able to support student learning in profound ways—you just have to seek them out. And, to help you on your journey, St. Kate’s SGO gladly accepts and entertains funding grant requests.

Now. Is. The. Time. Enrich your SCU learning with real-world experience!

Oh! How rude of me. What did you do over the summer?

~Candice LaPlante

SGO Represent!

2010-10-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

At this semester's first Graduate Student Advisory Board (GSAB) meeting, held on Monday, September 27th, the MLIS program was well represented.

Attending the meeting on behalf of Student Governance Organization and the greater MLIS program, were Andrew Crow and Candice LaPlante.

GSAB consists of two voting members from each program and as many non-voting members who actively choose to participate in GSAB initiatives. GSAB meets monthly during the academic year on the St. Paul campus to share program updates, review financial proposals, plan activities, address common questions/concerns, and network. All graduate students are welcome to attend the meetings and get involved!

And, excitement!, our own Andrew Crow will now be representing the GSAB at University Council meetings for St. Catherine University. Thank you, Andrew, for continuing to represent St. Kate's MLIS program and the greater graduate program here on campus!

The next GSAB meetings will be held:

October 25, 2010 in Coeur de Catherine in room 495
December 6, 2010 in Coeur de Catherine in room 362

Feel free to attend and contribute to the graduate agenda at St. Catherine University!

SLA MN Chapter Salon 4

2010-09-27T11:51:00.000-07:00

...hosted by our very own St. Kate's SLA Student Group!

From their blog:

"The St. Kate’s SLA Student Group is extending the party! You are invited to join Minnesota SLA Chapter members for a post-lecture discussion, dinner, and drinks following the book talk with author Marilyn Johnson on Friday, October 15, 2010."

Find out more about this event by visiting the St. Catherine University Special Libraries Association Student Group Blog.

Find out more about other events and activities by vising the student group at their website.

Agenda for 21 Sept Mtg

2010-09-21T08:04:00.001-07:00

SGO Meeting for September 21, 2010

CDC 018 5:00 – 6:00

AGENDA:

I. Welcome and Introductions

· Welcome to first-time SGO participants

· Introduction of current Executive Committee members and Department Liaison

II. What we do! [Mission and Involvement]

· Review SGO Mission, Goals, and Structure

· Standing Committees: review of open committee posts

III. ERP Visit

· Discuss SGO Involvement, confirm meeting time with ERP

· Review talking points, questions that may be asked by ERP

IV. Updates from Committees

V. Questions, other issues

I feel a movie night coming on...

2010-08-23T11:08:00.000-07:00

Check out this article on Huffington Post:

Librarians Save The Day! 11 Great Movies In Which They Star

Any movies that you would like to see that aren't on the list?

Author Marilyn Johnson to speak at St. Catherine University—October 15, 2010

2010-07-20T08:09:00.000-07:00

We are proud to present Marilyn Johnson at St. Kate’s on October 15, 2010.

Ms. Johnson, author of This Book is Overdue: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All , will speak on October 15 ^th at 5:00 P.M. in the Jeanne D’Arc auditorium on St. Catherine University’s Saint Paul Campus. There is no charge for this event.

Marilyn speaks regularly at library conferences and similar events, and she was interviewed earlier this year on National Public Radio’s On the Media (listen here).

Watch for further details about this event in an email announcement later this summer!

Meeting Minutes: March 9, 2010

2010-03-10T21:00:00.000-08:00

MLIS SGO Meeting, March 9, 2010
Members Present: Leslie Hunter-Larson, Heather Lewis, Andrew Crow, Michael Mitchell, and Faculty Advisor Deb Torres

1. Committee Updates
Faculty Meeting Committee: Michael updated the group on the department meeting from February, which featured special guests Karen O'Brien and June Lester, both of whom took questions from faculty and staff regarding the Committee on Accreditation

2. SGO Web site, email, and blog
a. Leslie reported that the stkate.edu email address for the SGO group is currently inactive/disabled. She will follow up with student services.

b. Michael agreed to update the blog with 03/09/2010 minutes

3. Mid-Term Cookie Break
a. SGO members brainstormed about the cookie break for Saturday and Sunday students. Deb suggested that it would be difficult to coordinate breaks among weekend classes, given the advanced planning that would require.

b. It was suggested that instead of a cookie break, SGO could make cookie care packages to be distributed to the weekend students. This would allow for SGO to distribute cookies AND serve as an opportunity to include a note about movie night.
i. Heather will get quotes on treats from a local bakery.
ii. Michael will work on getting the enrollment numbers for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday classes this semester.
iii. We will aim to do this the week prior to Spring Break

4. Via email, Candice submitted an update to Leslie regarding the Movie Night. The best date for Movie Night, as decided by those in attendance, is April 10th. The movie will start at 5:30 to allow Saturday students to attend.

5. Fall Speaker Event
a. Friends of the Library issue: consensus on this issue was not reached. Leslie will follow up with an in-person meeting.

b. Brainstorming list of speakers (submitted by those present):

Walt Crawford; author, editor (maintains the website http://citesandinsights.info/)
David Rothman; "exploring medical librarianship and web geekery"
Chad and Laura; both professional from local special libraries...possibly worth considering for a Spring Event or Monday night instead
Paul LeClerc; outgoing director of New York Public Libraries
Marilyn Johnson; author (This Book is Overdue!)
Loriene Roy; past ALA president
Nancy Pearl; author, former director of the Washington Center for the Book
Will Weaver; Minnesota author
Louise Erdich; Minnesota author
Lawrence Lessig; legal scholar, author
Sarah Vowell; author

6. SGO Development fund
Reviewed the criteria for approval and came to a group consensus on two current requests

7. Other items
i. For next meeting, consider what could be done to promote a St. Kates student presence at national library conferences; keep SGO bulletin board up to date with conference information.

Welcome Dr. Deborah Grealy as Associate Dean!

2010-01-12T07:19:00.000-08:00

Dr. Deborah Grealy has accepted the position as Associate Dean for the MLIS program.

SGO is really excited about this! Two SGO members were on the search committee for this position and Dr. Grealy was the search committee's first choice.

The fact that our MLIS program can recruit an Associate Dean of this caliber says much about
the strength and vitality of our MLIS program.

Check out Dr. Grealy's book published with Sylvia D. Hall-Ellis From Research to Practice: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in LIS Education published by Greenwood.

Learn more about Dr. Grealy's professional background on the MLIS website.

Please welcome our new Associate Dean when you come back, or start, Spring Classes in February!

MLA SGO Social Hour!

2009-12-02T07:48:00.001-08:00

This October SGO hosted a social hour at the Minnesota Library Association meeting in St Cloud, MN. We had over 20 students, St Kate's alums, and friends attend the gathering in the Raddison Hotel!

The social hour was a fun time to informally meet and network with fellow students and librarians who are working in libraries all around the state. Plus we had some yummy appetizers for all... Here I (Tanya Cothran) am with Leslie Hunter-Larson (on the left) enjoying the onion rings!

The Minnesota Library Association has a great student rate and so it is really inexpensive to join and get access to lots of great networking opportunities. I really enjoyed meeting practicing librarians at the MLA Conference this year. It was reassuring and interesting to hear about the huge range of jobs and positions each librarian had held during their career. It means I don't have to worry too much about finding a job now that I am going to have forever! Anyway, everyone was really friendly and happy to talk with a soon-to-be graduate about their library experiences and I would highly encourage other students to attend the MLA conference next October.

Here are more pictures of librarians chatting and eating...

SGO Meeting Minutes - November 9th

2009-12-02T07:46:00.000-08:00

MLIS Student Governance Organization
November 9, 2009 – 5:30-6:30pm – CdC 005
Meeting Minutes

1. Committee Updates
a. Recruitment
i. We first discussed how we can effectively recruit new people to join SGO. We think that a personal invitation (by students but more likely from faculty) would give people the extra nudge to get involved. We would like to talk to the faculty to get each to invite at least one person. We also can use SGO social events to give personal appeals for membership (like the Winter Social Hours before class). Laura Clark will also update the blog regularly (adding minutes and agendas) to tell people about what we are doing and to show that we are an active group.
b. Open Positions
i. Still need someone for the Finance Committee. Also, faculty putting together chapters for the Accreditation still need students for Chapter 1 (Mission/Goals) and Chapter 5 (Administrative/Financial Support).
c. GradBoard Update
i. The GradBoard met last month and we discussed a lot about what we could all do as a grad student community at St Kate. There seemed to be some interest about bringing in a speaker that all students would be interested in hearing. Other ideas were research days or workshops for all grad students.
ii. Brigette Marty (bmmarty@stkate.edu) is the GradBoard coordinator.

2. Accreditation Efforts (Presentation by David Peterson; MLIS student)
a. David came to speak to SGO about his efforts (working one day each week with Marilyn Cathcart, the department, and Dean Colleen Hegrenes) to work toward a successful accreditation bid next year.
b. He sees his role as promoting a “student-centered” accreditation process with lots of clear communication to students about what is going on in the process. One of his goals is to do everything possible to assure that everyone who has gone through the St Kate MLIS program has an accredited degree.
c. He did some research about the “look-back” period for the accreditation and found that ALA actually has a generous policy compared with other professional accrediting bodies.
d. Deb Torres told us that one of the biggest changes in the presentation this time is showing systematic collection of data, then analyzing that data, making decisions based on the outcomes and then documenting why decisions were made.

3. Budget Report
a. Brief report to say that we are still doing very well and had a successful SGO Speaker Event (with Andras Reidlmayer), which did not cost too much.
b. Tanya will follow up with Andras about his speaker fee and reimbursements.

4. Transition of old/new SGO and Information Storage
a. Tanya has added all her SGO-related documents to the Google Docs site. She will also transfer everything off the Moodle site, so that it can be retired.
b. Brigette Marty (GradBoard Coordinator) has passed along some questions to foster institutional memory and event planning and follow-up. They have been added to the “SGO General Docs” folder in Google Docs.

5. Winter Cookies Nights
a. This event should be coordinated with Marilyn Cathcart for the first week of classes in the Winter semester (NOW IN FEBRUARY).
b. We had 3 sessions each from 5-6pm on class nights. The idea is to get people when they are there for class anyway and get people to talk with classmates outside of class time.

6. Form committee for next SGO Speaker
a. This should happen early Winter semester – so that we can work with a longer timeline than we had for this year’s event.
b. We should contact St Kate’s Media and Communication office at least 6 months in advance to help promote our event.
c. Brigette Marty (bmmmarty@stkate.edu) is a good resource for planning; also check out the “Events” Folder on Google Docs.

7. Upcoming Events:
a. Next SGO Meeting (Last of Fall Semeter) will be Dec. 7th from 5:30-6:30pm.

SGO Minutes from Oct. 12th, 2009

2009-11-15T17:54:00.000-08:00

MLIS Student Governance Organization
October 12, 2009 – 5:30-6:30pm – CdC 005
Meeting Minutes

Attendance: Leslie Hunter-Larson, Tanya Cothran, Becky Arenivar, Heather Lewis, Michael Mitchell, Laura Clark

1. What is SGO? Student Governance at St Kate’s.
a. We are one of 8 grad programs at St Kates. Together we all make up the
Graduate Student Advisory Board - GSAB (also called GradBoard). We send a
rep to the monthly meetings to get updates from other programs and approve
funding. (See GSAB Meeting Minutes attached to email.)
b. SGO has funds in our account from student activities fees. Just this month
we finally were able to get a separate account number for our funds (it used
to all be held in a joint account with all other grad programs).
c. SGO represents the 200+ students in the MLIS program. In addition to serving
on committees we also make informational presentations at the MLIS
orientation and in the 7010 classes.
i. This year we may want to consider presenting to the Management class to
recruit students who have finished their first year of classes and may be
more ready to get involved with student governance.

2. Budget Report
a. Current balance: $27,415 (This total includes money from many years where
the College was collecting fees and there was not a mechanism for spending
them…)
b. We receive about $4,500 each year from the Student Activities fee (based on
the number of students in our program). Part of the SA fee also goes to a
GSAB General Fund and to a facilities fee for SCU.
c. Last year we used $4,331 in grants to students to attend conferences and
department functions (such as the All Student Gathering and the Graduate
Reception).
d. The Finance Committee approves funds requests that come in to SGO. Typically
we fund department functions aimed at students, $200 for conference travel
(more if student is presenting), other large events (i.e. speaker series)

3. Committee Sign-up
a. Thank you for signing up for committees! (See Committee Roster attached to
email)
b. We still need to recruit a few more people to fill open committee seats.
c. Open are:
i. Curriculum Sub-Committee
ii. SGO Finance Committee
iii. Elections and Public Relations Committee

4. Upcoming Events
a. Social Hour @ MLA
i. This was a great success! We had 25 students and St Kates alums attend
b. Andras Riedlmayer on “Art Documentation and War Crimes: Librarianship in the
Aftermath of War” – Saturday, Oct 24th, 2-4pm @ Jeanne d’Arc Auditorium
i. We are all set for the presentation tomorrow!
ii. We have invited librarians in the field, MLIS students and all St Kate’s
students.
iii. Hopefully this will be just the beginning of a yearly MLIS SGO Speaker
Series.

Respectfully submitted by Tanya Cothran. October 23, 2009

Fall 2009 SGO Committee Roster

2009-11-15T17:42:00.000-08:00

Curriculum Sub-Committee (2):
Laura Clark
OPEN

Finance Committee (3):
Leslie Hunter-Larson
Tanya Cothran
OPEN

GradBoard (GSAB) Representative (1):
Tanya Cothran
Alternate: Leslie Hunter-Larson

Department Meeting Committee (2-3):
Leslie Hunter-Larson
Michael Mitchell
Alternate: Laura Clark

Department Liaison (1):
Leslie Hunter-Larson

Advisory Council Committee (2):
Heather Lewis
Laura Clark

Elections & Public Relations Committee (2):
Becky Arenivar
OPEN

Executive Committee (3-4):
Tanya Cothran
Leslie Hunter-Larson
Becky Arenivar

Faculty Advisor:
Deb Torres

MLA Conference 2009

2009-10-26T17:34:00.000-07:00

A Report by Louann Terveer

Thanks to the SGO Professional Development Funds I was able to attend one jam packed day of the 2009 MLA conference. The conference day was comprised of a broad choice of topics over four sessions, a lunch time keynote speaker and the opportunity to talk with exhibitors.

The presentation that I attended in the first session was titled "Best Practices for Creating Online Tutorials." The speaker's focus was on a list of practices to consider when planning and designing online tutorials. The biggest impression on me, though, was the demonstration and finding out how easy it is to create tutorials using video screen capturing software such as Camtasia or Captivate.

The second session was a combination of Trends in Technical Services/RDA Update/MLA Tech Services Section business meeting. We hear that RDA (Resource Description and Access) may soon replace AACR2 cataloging standards in classes, but it was good to hear more about where RDA is in the implementation process. It turns out that 23 institutions (the most local being the Minn. Historical Society) have been chosen to test RDA in 2010. It was discussed at the session that RDA won't be approved until after Oct. 2010, and that after that time institutions will make the change when it makes sense for them. A great resource for the Tech Services themed presentations is their blog at http://sites.google.com/site/minnesotatss/

In the afternoon, "Workflows for Outsourced Technical Services" gave me a taste of the day to day decisions and concerns that Tech Services encounter, which are hard to fully appreciate through classroom learning. This panel discussed their experiences in receiving and using vendor supplied cataloging records. It seems that overall, the librarians thought that it was a cost saving measure over original cataloging, but that one must factor in time needed to fix up unsatisfactory records and the changes in work-flow to accommodate this--a time vs. cost savings challenge. Some were very frank in admitting that there needs to be a minimum "good enough" established within an institution's tech services in order to keep some sort of standard, while making the best use of time.

Finally, in Strategic planning for E-Resources Management it was again interesting to hear a first-hand account from librarians. Two of the presenters discussed how they incorporated a strategic plan as a way to clarify and define roles and workflow for overlapping resources between the E-resources Librarian and Serials Manager of Gustavus Adolphus.

Overall, I learned more about the challenges and conversations going on in libraries. I was surprised that I wasn't as clueless in the sessions as I thought I might be; my classes at St. Kate's are preparing me well!

Caralyn Champa Reports from the 2009 SLA Conference

2009-07-29T19:02:00.000-07:00

I’d like to thank Tanya Cothran for encouraging me to apply for the SGO’s Professional Development Funds. These funds will help defray the costs I incurred while attending the Special Libraries Association’s (SLA) Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. in June, 2009. This post is intended to share information about my experience at the SLA Conference with other MLIS students.

Attending this year’s SLA Conference was a priority for me as I am seeking employment in a federal library setting. Not only does SLA have a sub-group called the “Government Information Division,” the conference was going to take place in Washington, D.C. It seemed like a great opportunity to learn about the range of government librarians and to meet special librarians from a variety of backgrounds and specialties. I diligently reviewed the pre-conference brochure, sketched out a schedule of the sessions I especially wanted to attend, packed up comfortable yet dressy clothes and footwear, and headed to our Capital City! I hope you’ll enjoy the list I’ve created below. If you have any questions, feel free to send me an email (caralyn_c@yahoo.com).

Caralyn’s SLA Conference 2009 Tips, Learnings, and Resources

Try to attend SLA and similar conferences while you are still in graduate school because:

Registration fees are much lower for students, and there may be opportunities to apply for funding from the Student Governance Organization (SGO) and other student groups (http://www.stkate.edu/~mlisweb/current/scholarships.php).
Having a badge that says “Graduate Student” is like having a free pass to ask anyone and everyone questions at the conference. It is a great conversation starter, and on the whole, people were interested in where I went to school, what I was focusing on in my studies, and what I thought of the conference.

Listen carefully during the sessions you attend and be prepared to stand up and ask a question when the presenter opens the floor to the audience.

It found it startling and disappointing that there was little audience engagement or participation in these Q & A sessions. Even if I was not familiar with the speakers or the topic, I tried to have a few questions ready to ask, and in the event that the room was quiet, I would stand up and ask one of them. In part, I feel this is a respectful thing to do for a speaker who has presumably put hours of effort and thought into preparing his or her presentation. If you have a question, asking it during the Q & A is simply the best way to get an answer, and by asking it in public, the other session attendees will benefit from hearing the speaker’s response. Finally, because I had asked questions at several different sessions, the speakers recognized who I was when I went up front to speak with them and to introduce myself. It is intimidating at first, but try to remember that most of the presenters are excited about their topics and genuinely want to discuss them with attendees.

Even though you might feel like you have to attend as many sessions as possible, take breaks and explore city where the conference is taking place.

Over the lunch hour on Monday, June 16, I visited the National Portrait Gallery before the afternoon sessions started. Upon entering the museum, I was delighted and surprised to find myself in front of Shepard Fairey's Barack Obama "Hope" poster. This is a hugely important and iconic work of art and I was right there, seeing it with my own eyes! In case you’d like to get a sense of what it’s like in person, here’s a link to one of the museum’s blog entries about it (http://face2face.si.edu/my_weblog/2009/01/now-on-view-portrait-of-barack-obama-by-shepard-fairey.html). As the daughter of an art teacher, it was a delight to see the different techniques the artist used, and as a librarian-in-training, it was fascinating to see the original version of a work of art that has been at the center of a copyright controversy. Interestingly, the session I attended that afternoon was about copyright issues in today’s climate of social networking applications. One of the speakers was a lawyer from the Associated Press (AP). Why does this matter? Well, the AP and Mr. Fairey are suing each other because of the copyright issues regarding the “Hope” poster. This MSNBC article from February 2009 provides a good overview of the situation (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29103976/). If you are interested in reading Mr. Fairey’s opinions about the situation, here’s a link to one of his blog postings regarding the lawsuit (http://obeygiant.com/headlines/the-ap-obama-referencing). During the Q & A, one of the audience members asked the AP lawyer about this case, and she replied that she was not able to comment on it, since the case was on-going. At that point, I trotted up to the microphone and encouraged the audience (and panel members!) to take a 3-block walk to the National Portrait Gallery in order to see this work of art in person so they could develop their own opinions on the matter. It was a nervous-making moment for me, but it felt important to tell other conference attendees about this amazing resource just down the street.

Access the conference or association’s web site every few days after the conference ends in order to review the presentation slides and handouts that may have been uploaded.

At SLA 2009, there were often more than 15 concurrent sessions at each time slot. I don’t know about you, but I can’t be in two places at once, much less 15 places at once! Therefore, I am glad that the SLA has a web page where they have the resources they have received from conference speakers. I have accessed this page (http://www.sla.org/content/Events/conference/ac2009/Conference/handouts/index.cfm) several times since the conference, and it has been fun to review slides from presentations I attended, and it has been beneficial to have access to resources from sessions I couldn’t attend. I encourage you to take a look at this link, as you will likely find a topic of interest to you.

When I came back from this conference, I was excited about what I had learned and who I had met, disappointed about a few of the sessions, thrilled about having spent time in D.C., and exhausted from several days of intense learning, socializing, and site-seeing. Now that several weeks have passed, I can appreciate the value of having attended SLA 2009, and I encourage you to consider attending a conference like this while you are still at St. Kate’s. Happy Learning!

Minutes from Advisory Council Meeting

2009-03-12T12:15:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Debbie Yang for providing the minutes. The formatting is a little ugly - I just wanted to get them up right away.
-Liz

MLIS Advisory Council

5 March 2009

4:00-5:30am

CdC 495

AGENDA

I. Welcome and Introductions – Mary
II. COA Decision
III. Response
a. Assessment
b. Curriculum
c. Faculty Research
IV. Annual MLIS Summit – April 27, 2009

MLIS Advisory Council

5 March 2009

4:00-5:30am

CdC 495

MINUTES

Present: Jerry Baldwin, Marilyn Cathcart, Liz Scheibel, Margaret Gillespie, Karen Harwood, Bob Horton, Chris Jacobs, Patricia Post, Susan Shoemaker, Sehri Strom, Ann Treacy, Mary Wagner and Debbie Yang.

Debbie Yang took the minutes.

I. Welcome and Introductions
a. Everyone introduced themselves.

II. COA Decision
a. At the January meeting 25th meeting with COA decided to continue the College of St. Catherine’s MLIS program on candidacy. This decision affects all students and in particular those who have graduated from the program or are planning to do so in May 2009, as they will not have a degree from an accredited program. The faculty and College administrators are preparing additional documentation for COA to address the issues in their decision letter. The documents will be sent to COA on March 13, in preparation for meeting with COA on April 17th. Andrea Lee, IHM, the President of College of St. Catherine, Colleen Hegranes, Senior Vice President, and Jennie Robinson Kloos, Director of the Office of Institutional Research, Assessment and Planning, will be at the COA meeting on the April 17th. Mary Wagner, Director of the MLIS program, will also be attending.
b. Mary read excerpts from the decision letter from COA continuing candidacy for the MLIS program. COA has six standards for LIS programs. Out of these six standards, COA had concerns with the MLIS program on Standard I, II, and III. COA’s concerns on Standard I: Mission, Goals, and Objectives included assessment in terms of what data does the program collect and how is it used. Their concerns with Standard II: Curriculum include the changes being made to the curriculum with the IMLS grant. For Standard III: Faculty, COA is concerned with the support for faculty research.
c. Faculty have been working in two groups on response documentation - one on curriculum (Standard II) and the other on assessment (Standard I). The response to the support on Faculty Research will be addressed by Sister Andrea and Colleen Hegranes.
III. Response

a. Assessment.
i. Members of the Advisory Council were asked to look through the Assessment document within the next few days and to send any comments to Mary. The final document will be sent out on Friday, March 13. The purpose of the Assessment document is to show that we do assessment through data collection, analysis of data and this is used in decision making for program effectiveness and student learning. The Advisory Council was asked to focus on whether the document is successful in making this case to COA.
ii. The Advisory Council was asked for any immediate questions or comments on the assessment document. The argument for the response is that the MLIS program has met the standard. It includes data from the program presentation (pulling assessment pieces from throughout the program presentation into one) as well as including new data in an effort to make the information clearer to COA.
iii. The 2012 date in the COA letter is flexible, so the MLIS program is asking for a focus visit on these three standards in Fall with a new decision in January. For current grads and students ready to graduate, a look back for two years will be suggested. It is not known if there were any reversals in COA history, but COA has agreed to our request to meet on April 17th. If Advisory Council members want to write a letter to COA (especially as they have employed or are employing students from the MLIS program), they should write about the program in terms of the standards as it is ALA’s responsibility to see that programs meet them. MLA will send a letter to COA, the ALA president, and the ALA Executive Director. Mary will talk to SGO on whether they will send a letter to COA from students. The site visit was from the External Review Panel (ERP) who gave positive feedback. They wrote a report and sent it to COA to review. The decision for accreditation comes from COA based on this review and the program presentation from the MLIS program.

b. Curriculum.
i. The Curriculum document was sent to the Advisory Council electronically. Faculty member, Marilyn Cathcart, walked the Advisory Council through the Curriculum document. In summary, the program does meet the standard, the curriculum has been mapped to the Standards, the curriculum has had some changes as classes have been added and some have been taken away, and the IMLS grant is being used to enhance the curriculum and is not being used to do a major re-design. Since the External Review Panel was here, faculty have continued to work on the curriculum and added a research course and portfolio requirement. The current curriculum is synched with ALA Standards, and the College of St. Catherine student learning objectives. The Curriculum document quotes the concerns from COA letter on Standard II and addresses each concern.
ii. The Advisory Council was asked for any immediate questions or comments on the curriculum document. If Members have comments in the next few days, they can send them to Mary or Marilyn. It was suggested to put the tables in the appendices. In support of the first table (illustrating new courses, etc) it should be mentioned that the MLIS program communicates with the Advisory Council and this influences change in courses. LIS 7240 is an example of a course change based on assessment data. This summer the course will include use of various technologies including clickers, e-book readers and smartboards. To clear up some confusion on old and new versions of course, samples of old and new syllabi could be added as evidence. The MLIS program has been teaching an ALA accredited curriculum (from Dominican University) with some changes. It is the responsibility of faculty to continue to move forward with curriculum, incorporate suggestions from the Advisory Council, and connect to the College of St. Catherine as an institution. Dominican was on conditional accreditation for 3 years, and received full accreditation in Spring 2008. This situation of the MLIS program obtaining accreditation is unique because of the partnership with an already accredited institution.

c. Faculty Research
i. The President and the Vice President of the College of St. Catherine will be addressing this issue at the April 17th meeting.
ii. In talking to Karen O’Brien, the COA concerns about faculty research were faculty productivity, having many junior faculty, and support for research. The College does hire junior faculty. And these junior faculty members are at the beginning of their productivity. Also need to consider that College of St. Catherine is not a Research I institution.
iii. Advisory Council Member, Bob Horton agreed to draft a paragraph for the response document to address COA and set the tone for the documents. Mary has met with employers such as MELSA and CLIC. She has been talking to the professional community about a timeline and the implications in hiring or working with students. Mary will be talking with SLA and MALL.
iv. As soon as the MLIS program hears from COA, they will let everyone know any changes. Students will then be making decisions about this term. Some have delayed completion of the program for this term. Those in the middle of their program will decide if they want to slow down their program. Those who started this January will decide whether to stay in the program or transfer to another. There are approximately 10 students on leave right now and are waiting to hear about the decision. There are also about 70 new applicants for the Fall term and 20 prospective students at the Graduate Information Sessions. The president of the College of St. Catherine and the president of Dominican University are in conversation.

IV. Annual MLIS Summit. The MLIS Summit will be on Monday, April 27 at 5:30pm in the ballroom. There will be more information about accreditation at this gathering of students, faculty, adjunct faculty, alums, employers and others interested in the program.

MLIS Advisory Council Meeting

2009-03-07T10:19:00.000-08:00

Thank you to Liz Scheibel and Sehri Strom for attending the MLIS Advisory Council Meeting this week as SGO Representatives! Here are Liz's notes from the meeting:

Mary Wagner conducted the meeting, with Debbie Yang taking notes. Other attendees were faculty Marilyn Cathcart and Susan Shoemaker, students Liz Scheibel and Sehri Strom, and about 6-8 librarians.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the documents that the program and St. Kate’s are preparing to send to the ALA COA for review before the April meeting (all documents are in draft form). Mary began by describing the three standards in which COA saw problems.
We looked at the assessment document, with Mary walking us through it. There wasn’t much discussion on that specific document, because it wasn’t available before the meeting. One librarian offered the suggestion that St. Kate’s should phrase their presentation in particular ways in order to not be confrontational - we want to suggest that we didn’t clearly show some of these things in our program presentation, and we want to show that the college (as a larger institution) has also investigated these issues (and then go on to present the college’s response).
Mary mentioned that one of the things they are seeking from the COA is a longer look back period for those who have already graduated once the program gets accreditation. Usually the look back is one year, and they are hoping for two years. Other things they are asking for are an earlier visit (currently scheduled for 2012), preferably this coming fall. Of course they would love to see the COA reverse their decision, but that probably isn’t realistic. Mary also mentioned that since it’s not a decision meeting, she is hoping there can be more dialog between the people from CSC and the COA. She really wants to present to the COA that St. Kate’s is pressing the issue because it’s about the students - the students need accredited degrees and they’ve done the work for them.
The librarians present wanted to know of letters from employers would help, and Mary said that they might if those letters specifically addressed how the program meets the COA standards. Minnesota Library Association will be sending a letter, and SGO is working on one.
We talked about the issues the COA had with the revised curriculum that’s in the works at St. Kate’s. The feeling is that COA didn’t quite understand what this means, and we wondered if “revision” was the right word (perhaps that implies more sweeping change than it should). Also, CSC wants to make sure the COA understands that the program has still had Dominican students, so we could not step away from the relationship entirely until those students had completed their degrees.
The draft document regarding curriculum was discussed, and the faculty asked for some help in toning it down; they have had a hard time not letting their emotions creep into the way they are writing the documents. The purpose of this document is to show that St. Kate’s has met the standards with the current curriculum, and that we have and will continue to have a defined curriculum, even as it is revised. Some changes have been made from DU, an accredited curriculum, but the basics remain the same. The draft we saw showed a lot of comparison to DU, but they are going to take out a lot of that in order to focus on the CSC program, to show that we have our own program.
Other suggestions for the document included making the extensive tables into appendices and creating a sample of what a syllabus under the in-progress “new” curriculum would look like, compared to what is currently used (to show that it’s more of a tightening of the curriculum we already have, not a massive change in content).
An interesting point that Mary made was that the accreditation process isn’t really designed for a program like ours: a program that has been operating through the accreditation of another school. Therefore, some of the process for accreditation doesn’t fit us very well and those involved on the other end of the process (COA and the panel) can easily misunderstand how the CSC-DU relationship has worked and is working now.
Regarding the COA’s concerns about faculty research, the representatives from the College as a whole will primarily tackle this at the April meeting. The standards ask that an accredited program be in line with the parent organization in terms of faculty research, so it makes sense for the College to address this. They want to acknowledge that the MLIS faculty is rather young, and that is why some faculty members haven’t produced a lot of research yet; they are at the beginning of the productive cycle. The MLIS program has been interested in having some younger faculty in order to build for the future. Also, CSC doesn’t hire people into fully tenured faculty positions, so it’s important that COA understand that when evaluating how many of our faculty are tenured, etc.
The meeting ended with more discussion on how to approach the April meeting and phrase all of the things we want to get across. The librarians present encouraged the MLIS program to begin by recognizing that some elements may have not been properly or clearly addressed in the program presentation - they should not walk in there and tell the COA that they just missed it all. CSC should embrace the opportunity to clarify and highlight things that will address COA’s concerns. They should thank the COA for helping CSC to evaluate itself carefully, for pushing the program to be the best it can, and for being conscientious stewards of the standards and accreditation (accreditation wouldn’t mean anything if just any program could get it).
On a personal note, I think the documents that the faculty and college are working on look great. The department has been working a lot with the college’s institutional research office in order to add in more data, which it sounded like the COA would like to see. A huge amount of preparation is going into these documents and this meeting. The documents will be available for students to see once they are done (the versions that we saw had whole chunks missing and tables that had been thrown together that afternoon, so when I say draft, I really do mean draft). It’s a tough task to turn off your frustration and disappointment in order to meet with an open mind and try to achieve a better result. This meeting made me feel more optimistic than I had been feeling before.

MLIS Social Hours - Jan. 6-8th

2008-12-08T09:30:00.000-08:00

Mingle with fellow MLIS students!
Catch up with old friends!
Meet people in your new classes!

Presenting…
the MLIS Social Hour

January 6, 7 & 8th
(Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday)
5 – 6pm in the MLIS Hallway

Come for cookies, soda, coffee
and a great chance to mingle with fellow students right before class starts.

Don’t have a weeknight class? Choose any of the Social Hours that fit your schedule. All MLIS students are welcome every night!

Hosted by the Student Governance Organization (SGO) and the MLIS Program.

Professional Development Funds Available!

2008-11-11T06:37:00.000-08:00

For more information go to: http://www.stkate.edu/~mlisweb/current/scholarships.php

Next SGO Meeting - 11/17

2008-11-03T14:04:00.000-08:00

All St Kate's MLIS students are invited to attend the next SGO (Student Governance Organization) general meeting:

Date: MONDAY, Nov. 17
Time: 6:45-7:45pm
Location: CdC Room 17b

We will discuss the proposed SGO Constitution, the Professional Development Fund, attending the Chicago ALA meeting and more!

We hope to see you there!
Get involved! Meet new people!

NEW - MLIS Fridge in the student lounge!

2008-10-13T15:18:00.000-07:00

Are you looking for a way to keep your food cold while you are in class? Yay! Now MLIS-SGO has bought a fridge for the student lounge for our food.

Feel free to bring food in containers and store it in the fridge during class. A note of warning: the fridge will be cleaned regularly, so make sure your food is marked and dated to avoid disposal! (Pens available next to fridge.)

Check it out!
Here is a picture of the fridge we bought. The picture may not be exciting - but the real thing is better!

MLIS Advisory Council Meeting - Minutes

2008-10-06T21:09:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Laura Morlock for sending me the minutes from the meeting. The Executive Summary of the MLIS Program Presentation is on the department's homepage (in the list of links right in the center). Anyone interested in what the program has said about itself as we apply for ALA accreditation should read this summary.
--Liz

MLIS Advisory Council
25 September 2008
8:30-10:30am
CdC 495

AGENDA

I. Welcome and Introductions – Mary

II. Accreditation Update
a. Handout Program Presentation/Executive Summary -- Marilyn
b. External Review Panel Site Visit October 20 & 21, 2008 – Mary
c. Questions

III. MLIS Program Updates
a. University Status -- Mary
b. Faculty -- Mary
c. Curriculum -- Susan

MINUTES

Present: Marilyn Cathcart, Liz Cavert-Scheibel, Margaret Gillespie, Karen Harwood, Bob Horton, Peggy Johnson, Laura Morlock, Patricia Post, Susan Shoemaker, and Mary Wagner.

Laura Morlock took the minutes.

I. Welcome and Introductions
a. Welcome to Marilyn Cathcart and Susan Shoemaker who will serve as the MLIS Faculty Advisory Council members for 2008-09. Liz Cavert-Scheibel will continue to serve as a representative from the MLIS Student Governance Organization. Patricia Post attended via conference phone.

b. News from Advisory members included: Karen Harwood enjoyed an elder hostel in Farmington, New Mexico; Peggy Johnson just finished teaching a new, popular, four-week on-line technical services course with ambivalence toward the on-line format; Bob Horton mentioned the new Vatican Splendors exhibit at the Minnesota Historical Society; Marilyn Cathcart shared that the there is a fabulous group of entering MLIS students who are very engaged and intelligent; Liz Cavert-Scheibel works part-time at the Legislative Reference Library and volunteered at the Guthrie Library this summer; Margaret Gillespie brought up the Hennepin County and Minneapolis Public Library merger and the current intricacies of job hiring; Patricia Post shared that the St. Cloud Public Library had its ribbon cutting and grand opening. Circulation from the first five days exceeded the month of September from last year.

II. Accreditation Update
a. A Program Presentation was given to each Advisory Council member. Those who could not attend today’s meeting will be mailed a copy. Marilyn Cathcart, as author, walked through the Executive Summary handout (also sent to those who could not attend today). She outlined highlights from the executive summary which share the history of the program at St. Kate’s, future directions, strengths of the program and an encapsulation of each of the Standard chapters. The MLIS Mission, Guiding Principles, Goals, and Student Learning Objectives were attached at the end. We will find out about our Accreditation status in February from the Committee on Accreditation following the ALA conference.

b. The External Review Panel Site Visit takes place on October 19, 20, & 21, 2008. A detailed schedule will be posted on the MLIS website once it has been confirmed by the ERP Chair. Please mark those dates in your calendar especially with a tentative spot reserved on Sunday evening. The ERP may alternatively request Advisory Council email addresses and contact members in that fashion.

c. Questions and comments about Accreditation were addressed. Like Dominican University, St. Kate’s does see itself as preparing practitioners; the change in curriculum is so that St. Kate’s can create themes which reflect values that are different from DU. Positioning the MLIS Program in the national area for prospective students is a goal and future challenge. We will focus once again on what the hopes and dreams of the MLIS Program are. Some stories from Advisory Council members mentioned MLIS graduates as “rising star interns” within their organizations; that we have many people outside the program who are engaged in the program—as partnering institutions; that students also connect with the local library community through field trips from classes or student groups such as SLA.

III. MLIS Program Updates
a. The College of St. Catherine will become St. Catherine University as of June 1, 2009. Mary shared an advertisement from the Star Tribune announcing the new name. This change reflects what the college has become in the last 10-12 years. The MLIS Program/Information Management Department will reside in a School with the Social Work and Education Departments. That School name has yet to be decided. The INFM undergraduate program for which the IM Department is responsible will be phased out.

b. Faculty news includes the retirement of Helen Humeston as of the end of the winter 2008 semester. Two new faculty were hired. Sheri Ross comes from Florida State University. During the 2008-09 academic year she’ll teach the Organization of Knowledge, Information Policy, and Management of Libraries and Information Centers courses for MLIS as well as the Organization of Information Sources for the INFM Program. Sarah Park of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign will start in winter 2009 by teaching Library Materials for Young Adults and Internet Fundamentals & Design.

c. Susan Shoemaker conveyed that MLIS faculty have continued a Curriculum discussion during the whole Accreditation process. Following the scholar practitioner model the MLIS Program is working on incorporating five main threads into the future Curriculum: Ethics, Diversity, Leadership, Research/Critical Thinking and Technology. Brainstorming sessions, meetings of the MLIS faculty as a whole, and small group discussions have occurred; in particular there have been many small group meetings among the faculty who teach the core courses. Case studies have been a topic of interest. Introducing them into the core courses and revisiting them in subsequent advanced courses is a possibility. Other topics of interest have included offering one-credit courses on subjects that don’t seem to fit into the current curriculum but which merit value for students; one example could be a course on the role of libraries in an election year. These courses would be offered in a J-term. The Ethics, Diversity, Leadership, Research/Critical Thinking and Technology threads would be integrated into all courses. Assessment continues to be an ongoing discussion component. Faculty have contemplated a capstone course, a portfolio requirement, continuing education courses (such as brand new Leadership Certificate offered in conjunction with the MAOL Program). Summed up, the faculty are taking the Curriculum apart and putting it back together in a way that best supports the students and the library communities which they will serve.

Comments from Advisory Council members: Peggy Johnson shared that the U of M has offers a leadership workshop Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians From Traditionally Underrepresented Groups http://www.lib.umn.edu/sed/institute/Registration.html for the past ten years. It could serve as a possible template for a one-credit course. Bob Horton proposed offering 1-2 day workshops instead of one-credit courses. Topics for these courses included: grant writing (and evaluation) and advocacy.

Reminder: the next MLIS Advisory Council Meeting date is February 16, 2009 from 5-6pm in CdC 495 followed by an Accreditation announcement and celebration in Rauenhorst Hall (CdC third floor Ballroom ) from 6-8pm.

MLIS Advisory Council Meeting

2008-09-29T11:58:00.000-07:00

This meeting took place on Thursday, September 25, 2008. Below are my notes/my summary from the meeting. I'll try to get the minutes from the meeting and post those as well.
-Liz M.C. Scheibel, student representative to the Advisory Council

Meeting attendees:
6 librarians/information professionals from various libraries (including one via speakerphone)
Liz Scheibel, student
Mary Wagner, MLIS program director
Susan Shoemaker, faculty
Marilyn Cathcart, faculty

This meeting mostly went over the ALA Accreditation process. We went through the executive summary (I'll see if I can get an electronic copy to post) so that everyone knew what the highlights of our program presentation are. The coming visit from the committee for our accreditation was the topic of almost all of the meeting. Mary asked Council members to be prepared to talk to people from the committee (in response, there was a request that they could come and visit classes so that they knew more about the program - so you may see some professional librarians in your classes in coming weeks).

Another topic that came up regularly was continuing education and professional development. This is an area the program will be getting more involved in in the coming years. There is a program for a Certificate of Library Leadership that is being launched next fall.

Some updates: St. Kate's is becoming St. Catherine University. The MLIS program will be in a college/school with Education... and I didn't write down what else, but this group doesn't lend itself easily to a name, so it doesn't have an official name yet! We have one new faculty, Sherri Ross, and another coming in January, Sarah Park.

Mary Wagner mentioned that after getting accreditation, the department will be able to think about other things in ways they haven't been able to, since the accreditation has been taking up everyone's time and energy. She said we'll be able to think about the future in a way we haven't in a while (and as a future with ALA accreditation!), and she was really excited about that opportunity. Mary cited this as the challenge: how can we position this program in the national arena? I think that's a great question and a great direction - our St. Kate's degree has a lot of local respect, but it would be great if it was more widely known. This made me want to be involved in continuing to support our program after I finish - because my degree will get more valuable!

We also got an update on the curriculum development from Susan, who said it's still a lot of brainstorming and talking. Some of the questions that are big:
-What to do about research? Even those librarians who don't research themselves are consumers about research. How should this be in the curriculum?
-Incorporating how to use case studies in the curriculum.
-The capstone question: is it required? What about for those who already have lots of experience? How can it be formed so everyone has a capstone experience or project that is actually valuable to them, and not just a requirement? This issue has come up over and over again.
-Continuing education.

That's all I have. The meeting was really a prep for the accreditation visit, but I found it was also kind of a pep rally - in a good way! People were genuinely excited for this big event to come, because it's something we've been planning for and hoping for. And, we've reason to be pretty confident of success.

The session to prep students for the visit is October 6, I believe, so please come take part!

Accreditation Review Approaching

2008-09-10T19:32:00.000-07:00

Hello St Kate LIS students,

I'm sure you all know that St Kates is in the candidacy process for ALA Accreditation and the final site review by the External Review Board is fast-approaching! There will be an opportunity on Monday, October 6th, for all students to learn more about our application and the process and what may be asked of us as current students of the program. Please save this date if possible and support our program through the accreditation process! There will be more information from the department as the date approaches.

Hope to see you all there!

opportunities to meet with prospective faculty

2008-07-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

Meet Sheri Ross, prospective LIS faculty member:

Monday, July 14 (8-9pm) Presentation on Electronic Resources Management in CdC 019.
Tuesday, July 15 (9:45am) Attend the Interview as an Observer in CdC 005.
Tuesday, July 15 (11:45am) Informal Brown Bag Lunch in the west end of the CdC Cafeteria.

Faculty discussion of Monday Night Events and Advisors

2008-04-25T09:11:00.000-07:00

Here are my notes from the MLIS department meeting where we discussed Monday Night Events and Mid-point Advising:

MLIS Department Meeting Minutes
April 7, 2008

Monday Night discussion
• The faculty discussed the survey on Monday night events; lots of feedback was received even though events have been sparsely attended.
• Thoughts for improving the events include having fewer, but more elaborate events or offering a one-credit course that would meet on four consecutive Mondays.
• Marilyn Cathcart, David Lesniaski, and Joyce Yukawa have formed a committee to plan for next year and invite a student to join them. Those who want to serve or have any ideas or suggestions should contact Marilyn.
• The possibility of pod-casts was discussed because that was something people showed interest in on the survey. However, it was determined that pod-casts might be a disincentive for people to physically show up to the events, resulting in even fewer people and the potential for more presenters than attendees. There is also a question of copyright when taping people’s presentations.
• Tanya has the stats from survey responses if you are interested in seeing details.
Mid-point advising
• The faculty has established a mandatory mid-point advisory meeting (@15-18 credits) for students in the program.
• Registration holds will be used to insure compliance with the requirement. The mid-term advisory meeting will also allow for a change of advisor if necessary.

Public Library Association Conference

2008-03-12T09:02:00.000-07:00

DATE: March, 2008

TO: MLIS Students

FROM: The Graduate Student Advisory Board (GSAB) Finance Committee

RE: The Public Library Association Conference March 25 -March 29, 2008 in Minneapolis

As a reminder to all students attending the PLA Conference, if you are planning on submitting an application for reimbursement funds, make sure you have read through all of the information to know what has to be submitted for approval.

GSAB Funding Opportunities
The link to the Graduate Student Advisory Board (GSAB) Funding Opportunities Request Form: http://www.stkate.edu/~mlisweb/files/GSAB_Funding.pdf

MLIS Scholarships and Awards Web Page:
http://www.stkate.edu/~mlisweb/current/scholarships.php

"Funding opportunities are available for current College of St. Catherine graduate students for leadership development, academic enrichment related to their educational experience at the College, and to support groups as well as individual endeavors that will better graduate students and/or the CSC community. These opportunities exist through the activity fee. Any graduate student who pays the activity fee can request funds as long as they are used to benefit graduate students and enhance the student experience." (This information is from the GSAB Web site).

Meeting with Tracie Hall, DU assistant dean

2008-02-21T08:33:00.000-08:00

Acting as the SGO representative, I met with Tracie Hall on Monday, February 11. Some of the things we talked about:

DU will stop offering classes at St. Kate's in December 2008. However, they will offer courses in the Twin Cities area (possibly at locations in the St. Paul Public Library) in the Winter term of 2009 to help students finish the four required courses.
DU will try to improve communication with their students taking courses at St. Kates, possibly through increased e-mail correspondence.
Tracie encourages students to contact her with any suggestions for courses, improvements to the program, or problems which arise for them.
Deborah Mitts-Smith, a DU faculty member who lives in St. Paul, will serve as a liaison/advisor for St. Kate's students in the DU program. Students can also contact Deb with questions or concerns.
Tracie encouraged students to consider doing a practicum supervised by a DU faculty person. Lenora Berendt in the placement office at DU is the first contact for setting up a practicum.

Renee Dougherty

Minutes from February 7, 2008 Advisory Council Committee Meeting

2008-02-12T07:53:00.000-08:00

Laura Morlock has provided the minutes from the meeting and they are much more complete and clear than my notes. Thanks Laura!
-Liz

MINUTES

Present: Jerry Baldwin, Liz Cavert-Scheibel, Margaret Gillespie, Karen Harwood, Kathrine Hayes, Bob Horton, Laura Morlock, Erin Perry, Peter Sidney, Deb Torres, Mary Wagner, and Joyce Yukawa.

Laura Morlock took the minutes.

1. Welcome and Introductions.

2. MLIS Program Updates
a. The MLIS new student enrollment was 46 for fall 2007 and 43 for winter 2008. There were 56 fall 2007 MLIS graduates. There are approximately 89 students left in the Dominican University track program.

b. See handout of the External Review Panel from COA. We have been in communication with James Benson, the Panel Chair. He will receive the Program Presentation draft in June; the MLIS Program will then revise it and submit the final version by September 8, 2008 to all COA Panel Members. The ERP onsite visit is scheduled for October 20-21, 2008. Currently the MLIS department has the draft form of each standard. Marilyn Cathcart will edit all drafts beginning in April. At the MLIS Summit on April 28, 2008 (5:30-8pm, Derham Hall room 409) the Advisory Council will have a chance to review the Program Presentation.

c. A new faculty position is available in the MLIS department. Marilyn Cathcart is the head of that search committee; MLIS faculty members David Lesniaski and Deb Torres as well as Library Director, Carol Johnson also serve on the faculty search committee. They are looking for 1-2 students to also serve. See handout of faculty position description.

3. Refer to The Braided Curriculum handout for details on the Curriculum Revision; discussion led by David Lesniaski, principal investigator for the ELITE (Ethical Leadership Intertwining with Technological Literacy) Curriculum Grant, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), under the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program.

a. Concerning the overall process of the ELITE grant, there is a need to integrate “threads” (the “key competencies, attributes, behaviors, and skills”) into the MLIS Program. Ethics is one of the “threads; integration is preferred to simply offering an Ethics course. There are at present six main threads: ethics, leadership, critical inquiry, technological fluency, research methods and diversity. Currently, MLIS faculty are each working in two separate focus groups on this; one group is looking at the threads, the other on the MLIS core courses. Each full-time faculty member has a one point taught one or more of the core courses. Faculty who have taught the same core courses have begun to meet together; adjuncts who have also taught core courses were invited to the discussion. At this point faculty are data gathering; the analysis will come later.

b. The MLIS Advisory Council was asked to Brainstorm on Management and Leadership. How do we prepare people for management supervisory experiences as part of the core program requirement? Practitioners ask: where are our leaders going to come from? How should leadership be woven into the program? Discussion points are listed below.

i. Management. Recent graduates may not be in managerial positions. Managerial skills learned in the MLIS Program may be outdated by the time they get into those managerial positions. Teach students how to be “managed”; how to fit into their institutions; how to change and adapt into an organizational framework; support their organizational goals; know the culture of their organization. Teach students how to dedicate themselves to the work that is before them. The MLIS Program could offer more Practicum situations, have more budgeting and planning aspects; more project management and process development improvement. Manage with “m” versus “M”. Graduates are capable of managing a project and learning how to get others to buy into the project. Know outcomes and evaluation; offer 1-2 day workshops on assessment: help students figure out their collaboration style or management style. Have modules in which students can learn how to manage a project using timelines, with meeting schedules, and actions are recorded. Offer a “skills” course using Microsoft Project. In a class, have students evaluate a project: learn the skill; do it; reflect on it; and problem solve it for the next time. Teach students how to give constructive criticism and be able to accept it in return.

ii. Leadership. Position students to become leaders versus training them to be leaders. Employers will look for people who can behave as a leader with some leadership abilities such as: taking accountability & initiative, being able to work on teams, being able to influence others. Learn collaboration. Have flexibility.

iii. Other discussions included how to discern if a job applicant has these management or leadership qualities? Have them write an essay; give examples; interview them using situational-based questions. The MLIS program doesn’t screen for this—just for subject expertise. There was also a discussion on what students already bring to the program from their own work experiences; there is great diversity amongst student experience. Margaret Gillespie mentioned trying the “Bridges to Poverty Workshops” as an idea. Mary Wagner shared a handout with a citation on it for an article on “a survey of MLIS graduates that addressed the managerial and leadership skills they needed on the job, with a section on whether these skills were addressed in their MLIS curriculum.” Arns, J.W., et. al., To Market, to Market: The Supervisory Skills and Managerial Competencies Most Valued by New Library Supervisors. Library Administration & Management v. 21 no. 1 (Winter 2007) p. 13-19.

4. Other News
a. On Sunday, March 2, 2008 an MLIS Mini-Conference will be held. It will take place in the Coeur de Catherine building, Rauenhorst Hall, 3rd Floor, from 12:30-5pm. Its theme is Diversifying for the Future of Librarianship. This conference is an opportunity for students to understand more about research and presenting. They can present a poster, paper, or group/individual project. A keynote presentation will replicate an MLA Panel from last fall. Marcella Sanchez, outreach worker for the Latino community, will work on recreating a panel to talk about “Serving Diverse Populations”. The Urban Library Program students will present posters. There were also three MLIS students who presented at BOBCATSSS this past January in Zadar, Croatia. They will have a Monday night session on “Presenting at a Conference” on February 18 from 6:30-8pm, room CdC 362. Refer to the flyer for more information or contact Marilyn Cathcart. All MLIS Advisory Council members are invited to attend the conference.

b. Mary Wagner briefly discussed the MLIS Program Goals for 2008-09. Faculty will work on decisions regarding grading standards; acceptable standards for measuring Student Outcomes; an MLIS calendar compatible with the college; admissions reviewal, among others. The College itself is still discussing the College versus University decision. The Board will most likely decide at their May meeting.

c. An updated MLIS Advisory Council contact list was distributed. Refer to handout. Email imdept@stkate.edu with any corrections.

Department Meeting Feb. 4th

2008-02-09T14:01:00.000-08:00

Revisited 2007-2008 MLIS Goals

Most topics on track
Many goals revolve around Accreditation work
Other discussions:

Academic Calendar (do we want to remain on our schedule or switch to match the rest of CSC; J-term?) This will be discussed at March General Meeting
Admission process and candidate screening (Evaluation of current system; Do we want to include interviews?) This will be discussed at April General Meeting
CSC still discussing whether they want to remain a "college" or change name to "university"; all grad school discussions are on hold until college/university decision is made; if CSC becomes a university - what does that mean for the formation of a grad school?
2nd Annual Summit - April 28th

focus on faculty activities, particularly scholarship.

MLIS Academic Conference - March 2nd

Every one is encouraged to submit a proposal for paper and poster presentations!! Proposals due Feb. 15th to Marilyn Cathcart.

This will be Sister Marjorie's last year teaching in the MLIS program

She has taught 710-713 for many years (archives, manuscripts, special collections)
How do we want to modify curriculum?

Distinguish or combine classes on special collections and special libraries?

Scholarship criteria development committee

Joyce, Susan, Mary
Education department - Sister Marie Award

Curriculum

Marilyn has been comparing our program requirements to the other ALA accredited programs
We could have more tech requirements
Require the research methods class?
All other programs have some sort of final project for the MLIS degree; there are many options

Capstone project
Comprehensive exams
Action project
Action research project
Thesis

Should these be part of a 1- or 3-credit class?
Please let me know your ideas on this!! The faculty would like to have our input.

Respectfully submitted,
Tanya Cothran

Curriculum Meeting

2008-02-09T13:58:00.000-08:00

*I attended the Curriculum discussion on Monday (Feb. 4th) with 2 other students and 3 faculty. It was a small discussion and we got TONS of great ideas out there.

We are planning to have another discussion soon with hopefully MORE PARTICIPATION! I know you have opinions about the program - here is your chance to really share them and create REAL CHANGE!

Here are some of the topics we discussed:

How to create the feeling of a "cohort" in our program?

Cohorts create lasting relationships that can be a great help in our future professional careers
Cohorts can create support groups for our class work and scholarship/research

Social events on other nights of the week?
Social events during weeknight class breaks

In the past they have had small socials during breaks in evening classes so that people get a chance to see their friends who are not in the same classes
Each class responsible for food & each shares about their class

Require weekend retreat before starting first class?

Some programs require cohorts to continue meeting once or twice a year to develop lasting relationships
Could be fun community event; Habitat for Humanity? Other volunteer/cohort-building activities?

Curriculum grant is 3 year grant to revamp curriculum now that we are no longer following Dominican's schedule

1st phase: reviewing CORE classes (701, 703, 704, 770)

How to prevent overlap?
Should these be required before taking advanced courses?
Should these be taken with the same group of people (to create cohort feeling?)
Introduce THREADS then build on those more as student progresses through program

Introduce THREADS

Threads include:

Ethics
Leadership
Critical Inquiry
Technological Fluency
Research Methods
Diversity

These will be introduced in modules in the beginning of program;

first: basic, background knowledge of subject
second: practical application of threads, specifically as it relates to the class topic (ie diversity in children's literature)
third: develop own understanding of topic; own vocabulary; refine understanding (ie ethical analysis)

More class topics we want?

There was a lot of discussion on other classes we want and other focuses for classes

If we switch our academic calender to include a J-term we could possibly have classes that look at more specific topics, more in depth discussions
Some other classes we wanted:

Grant writing
Non-profit management (not specifically related to libraries)
Advocacy (public policy)
Consulting
More corporate library classes
Technology (J-term internet basics, rather than entire semester)
Library theory (reading and analyzing classic library theorists)
OTHERS??

I will let you know when the next meeting will be and I hope to see you all there. Otherwise, let me know your thoughts, ideas, etc and I can bring them to the larger group.

THANK YOU!

Advisory Council Committee Meeting

2008-02-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

The Advisory Council Committee consists of 25 working librarians, library directors, alumni, and faculty to advise the MLIS department about its future development.

Notes from February 7, 2008 MLIS Advisory Council Committee Meeting
Liz Cavert

Mary Wagner conducted the meeting and Laura Morlock took notes.
The following attended:
Jerry Baldwin
Margaret Gillespie
Karen Harwood
Katherine Hayes
Bob Horton
Peter Sidney
Deb Torres (faculty)
Joyce Yukawa (faculty)
Liz Cavert (student)
Erin Perry (student)

Update on program:
-86 new students for this term (Winter 2008)
-50 students graduated in Summer and Fall 2007 terms
-85 students left who will graduate as Dominican Students

Accreditation Update:
-we have the names of the members of the panel for the external review.
-the chair of the panel will receive the program presentation, send it back for clarifications, etc., then it will go to others.
-the standards for the accreditation are in draft form. Next steps are looking at the revised draft (through March). Then Marilyn Cathcart will edit the drafts and feedback into the program presentation.
-the April 28 Summit will have the program presentation available for public review.
-Summit is in Derham Hall, room 409, in the evening.

Open faculty position:
-2 students are needed on the panel to look at candidates
-meeting at the end of February about applications; possibly bringing someone here in March.
-new faculty will start next fall.

Mini-conference on March 2, 2008: Diversifying for the Future of Librarianship
-conference is an idea from input gathered at last year’s Summit: students need opportunities to develop skills for presenting and conferences.
-using a broad theme to encourage lots of interest.
-will start with a panel that was at MLA, talking about serving diverse populations.

Update on goals of the program:
-we are continuing on the path to accreditation and doing well.
-we wanted to develop a diversity plan. We are making progress on this and it will also figure into the program presentation.
-we will be needing to make some decisions about grading standards.
-we will be needing to make some decisions about student learning outcomes.

Calendar for the 2009-2010 year:
-once we are not DU anymore, we can make our own calendar.
-St. Kate’s would like the program to fit with an already operating calendar.
-do we want a January term with short, intense classes? Summer term? Summer terms?

Admissions:
-have been talking about how to screen candidates.
-have been participating in planning for “School of…” ideas at the college, but this has been put on hold by the College vs. University discussion.

Update on curriculum development and grant from David Lesniaski:
-we have a grant to revise the curriculum.
-the feeling is not to just add classes for big themes, like ethics.
-the current working idea is to have these 6 themes (ethics, leadership, critical inquiry, technological fluency, research methods, and diversity) run throughout the program, but be consciously developed as a student moves through. The learning would happen in a sequential manner; the basics of, for example, ethics, ethical theory/philosophy and how those relate to libraries would be covered in an introductory course, then other courses build on that and students work through ethical issues (“I think…”), and then later courses ask for more advanced ethical work (“I think this because of all I have learned and experience in these areas…”).
-the idea is to focus on how to teach, develop, and measure the qualities, skills and knowledge a professional should have.

The curriculum discussion led into a discussion on management and leadership and how these skills should be taught in the program. There were many points made on a large number of topics, so I will try to summarize some of the big ones.

Some wondered how much the program should focus on management when many graduates will not be in those positions for many years (issues with younger generations and their expectations of immediate responsibility came up). It was also mentioned that it can be hard to teach and talk about management in a way that is meaningful for a student body with such diverse backgrounds; some students have management or extensive other professional experience while some have just finished the undergraduate degree. Perhaps part of “management class” should also be learning how to be managed, since for many that may be the more immediately necessary skill.

There were many comments about evaluation and feedback, both self-evaluation and feedback from others. Related to this was the topic of collaboration. In the program, students do a lot of group work, but are we reflecting and getting feedback so that those experiences teach us something? When we give presentations, the feedback is often minimal; the instructor says the content was good for the assignment and the presentation was done well, and the classmates say, “Good job!” I have continued to think about this topic and I would like to see more feedback overall for these vital communication skills and more specific feedback. If the presentation was good, how so? If it was a group presentation, was I the stronger or weaker part of the presentation, and why?

In terms of evaluation, we also talked a lot about self-evaluation and where it should be in the program, especially in regards to management. The idea that I took away was that if we do more self-evaluation and exploration, we will know more about ourselves, our management and learning styles, and thus be better prepared to be managers and know where our strengths and weaknesses are. These kinds of activities can be useful to those new to the workforce and those with experience, since evaluation happens throughout the professional life.

Talking about these ideas led to the theme of lifelong learning, which the group as a whole seemed to agree was an important skill and value, especially for librarians. The professionals at the meeting felt that if students could all graduate intending to be lifelong learners, they would be better leaders, managers and employees.

We also touched on teaching and how students could learn to be good teachers and gain experience in this area. Teaching is one possible solution to the difficulties of the different backgrounds of the students; if ethics and leadership are core themes that should run throughout the program, students will experience or knowledge of these areas should get to share what they know.

There were many more ideas and comments - I simply couldn’t keep up with taking notes! It was definitely a very interesting conversation and one I hope students will get to be involved with more later on, as curriculum develops. Please post any comments or questions and I will do my best to respond or let you know who can answer you. I hope to get other summaries of the meeting posted as well, since these are just the themes and comments that stuck out for me and it’s an incomplete picture of all that we covered.

Opportunities for Students!

Several great opportunities for students came up in this meeting. Students are needed to help in the faculty search - it sounded like Marilyn Cathcart is the person to get in touch with if you are interested. Participation in the conference is also still open and is a unique chance to get some conference experience without having to travel or get too nervous! And in my experience, Mary Wagner and the faculty are always receptive to comments and input from students on any topic, so if you have something to add to the conversations about admissions, curriculum, or the calendar, talk to Mary or another member of the faculty.