Wednesday, March 9, 2016

Marshall Breeding leads the discussion among a panel of executives from key companies which provide or support strategic technologies for libraries. These executives represent organizations with a mix of strategic perspectives, including those that develop library management platforms, discovery services, content and technology products, and open source development and support. Following a brief introduction, Breeding facilitates a lively discussion probing the technology and business trends currently in play, including industry consolidation, differing approaches to opening software to library programmers, and the shift toward cloud-based technologies.

The academic community has many ways to engage in the information environment, making academic resources in both physical and digital formats only one option among many. Institutionally provided resources, such as those provided by libraries, often are not the academic community’s first choices. They often choose the more convenient, easier-to-use, open access sources. In order to create a library environment centered on user needs and habits, and to provide services and systems of value, it is necessary to identify how, why, and under what circumstances individuals use the various available systems and services. Get the results of some great research and learn how it was used for brainstorming, discussion, prioritization, and planning.

Hawkins shares highlights and insights from his book on personal archiving and preserving our digital heritage. Mears looks inside the 12-month project to make preservation fun, approachable, and relevant to the public. It shares a summary of his research, the Memory lab’s implementation and reception, strategies for sustainability and outreach, and final takeaways. Grab recommendations and resources to begin personal archiving programming in your communities.

How are students today using the library and performing research? The majority of academic library users now have grown up as Digital Natives, working online and using mobile devices to get the information they want when they need it. What habits and behaviors factor into their use of library resources? Who are the biggest influencers? What are the largest pain points experienced by today’s academic library users? How are libraries responding to this evolution in users? D’Couto shares insights from a study of student and faculty researchers on six college campuses. Gray shares recent changes at his library and shows how Case Western is changing the way it engages students and faculty. Take away insights into user behavior, ideas on how you might survey your user population, and real-life solutions for engaging your community. From access to technology to personalized interactions, explore the needs and solutions to support rapidly changing user perspectives about libraries.

Institutional repositories (IR) keep emerging at colleges and universities in response to the open access scholarly communication environment. Creating a successful information system requires certain critical elements: a sound infrastructure, stakeholders’ involvement in the stages of design and implementation, assessment of the system throughout its lifecycle, and promotion of system usage. All these factors are essential to developing a successful IR. There are numerous case studies on IR, yet research on issues relating to staffing, usability, user involvement, marketing, and assessment is lacking. Get the results of an ARL survey on IR development and implementation including the leading IR platform adopted among the 80 participating libraries, their operational styles, their scope of IR, the extent of usability testing and needs assessment conducted, availability of staff for overseeing development and implementation of IR, and major marketing methods applied, as well as the most difficult challenges encountered and commonly used approaches to address those issues. Hear current trends and gain insights for those planning to establish IR at their own institutions.

Big Data has made the big time, and data-driven decision- making is the order of the day. By now, all knowledge workers realize that Big Data is changing the rules of their fields—and fast. No one can afford to be complacent during such times, and we are seeing new signs of activism in response to Big Data’s impact. Huwe surveys the highly motivated reactions of professionals who are “pushing-back” against the “meme” of Big Data with one of their own: “Algorithmic Accountability.” Drawing on the experience of journalists, attorneys, humanities scholars, and medical professionals, he describes how experts are reestablishing a healthy balance between human analysis and machine learning. He concludes by challenging info pros to adopt new strategies that interpret Big Data’s potential, and to take leadership with our own data-driven initiatives.

A lot of accessibility tests discussed within the profession usually deal with our web presence, especially our library website. However, our offers to the users are more than just the website. We also offer access to the electronic resources we subscribe to. This presentation discusses the method and tools used to assess the electronic resources as a starting point. MSU Libraries also hired a blind student to help assess the interaction between a blind user with the e-resources, thus allowing us to review from the usability perspective. Junus discusses findings on why certain design decisions impact users with screen readers. A short, 3–5 minute video clip on how MSU Libraries’ blind students access its web presence using a screen reader will be shown so attendees can see her interact with the tool.

Implementing a web-scale discovery service can be a complex and challenging task, but the process doesn’t simply end once your service goes live. In order to ensure that your new service is meeting the needs of its users, your implementation strategy should include a plan for iterative user testing. Different library users have different needs, making it nearly impossible for any discovery product to offer a one-size-fits-all solution. Fortunately, vendors offer a variety of configuration and customization options to help libraries tailor the experience to the needs of their users. This presentation offers practical guidance on how to apply insights from user testing to the customization of your webscale discovery tool. In particular, it describes the results of a collaborative user study conducted by Rutgers University and EBSCO User Research and offers an instructive model for how libraries and vendors can work together to improve products and develop solutions that become part of future web-scale discovery offerings.

Understanding the importance of providing seamless access to research materials at a budding research institution, the Rowan University Libraries Website Committee has begun working on ways to improve access to online services. The Committee’s current focus is on overall navigation of library resources and engaging all of the university’s researchers. Several studies were completed, including a Google Analytics data review, remote user experience tests run in conjunction with EBSCO, card sorting surveys and focus groups. Each study provided a different shade of insight, allowing Rowan University Libraries to evaluate the accessibility of its online library resources and inform decisions about implementing new features, rearranging content and redesigning the overall structure of the Rowan University Library website. The session covers the structure and process of each study, the different types of data collected, what we learned and the changes implemented.

Library website designers, library marketers, and librarians have a lot to learn from political campaign CRM and CMS platforms. In the past, libraries have been so focused on content management systems with platforms such as Word- Press and Drupal, they have missed a huge opportunity with back-end design and user data integration. The political platforms have filled the gap between CRM and CMS and revolutionized the way organizations integrate marketing tactics, social media, and customer data with front-end design. They drastically eliminate the need for third-party platforms and have the potential to completely restructure the way library websites are used by both patrons and library staff. After this program you will understand the holistic approach that many National PACs, political parties, candidates, and causes use to further their agendas and how libraries can learn from that approach.

Our panel shares good practices and strategies from small to medium sized public libraries as well as academic libraries.

Hear from an organization with lots of engineers who use librarians to implement knowledge management activities across their agencies. Learn about the different roles and skill sets that assist in the efficient sharing of knowledge.

This session explores the evolution of training at DoJ Libraries, including the transition from “in-person” to “handson” to “long-distance training.” It shares how changes in budget, as well as technological advances, affected what they are able to do, discusses how anticipating the needs of their patrons led to the creation of course offerings such as Bluebooking and the CLE Series, and how a good marketing strategy can impact the effectiveness of training programs.

Learn how the NIST Research Library’s long-running, customer- facing programs, such as its Lab Liaison program and Research Library Board, instill trust, build community, and help the library plan for the future. Designing a library space doesn’t start when you meet with an architect. Every library effort, past and present, can position your staff to make informed choices for your next library redesign. The NIST Research Library has developed a planning strategy for a major repurposing of its physical space over the course of the next few years. Find out how customer feedback was captured through focus groups and space needs identified through an archival journal study. Learn how the library innovates with temporary and pilot projects, such as an Emerging Technology Bar, that further direct transformation into a 21st-century research library.

CEB’s Information Resource Center (IRC) serves 4,500 employees in more than 45 locations around the world. Based in a single location, the six-person IRC staff is challenged with raising awareness of its offerings and training CEB’s employees on the use of the information resources available to them. For training, elearning was clearly the way to go, but it involved a learning curve with technologies on a tight budget and converting in-person training to a format that worked electronically. Hear how CEB selected technology and designed elearning courses, and lessons learned during the process. Our speakers also highlight other ways the IRC reaches out to CEB’s globally dispersed employees, including internal social media, webinars, and other communication channels. Milton shares how the IRC created, developed, and implemented an internal SharePoint site that provides access to a rich archive of CEB content, its evolution, lessons learned, future ideas and a quick demo.

Building on the successful creation of a database of public and private research on Alzheimer’s disease, the NIH Library and the National Institute on Aging are working on a second database designed to provide experimental study details from both published and unpublished studies to capitalize on the value of unsuccessful results as well as successful experimentation. This session discusses how information professionals and web designers worked together to create a tool that can be used by the scientific community; how detailed knowledge about clinical and preclinical research, as well as information architecture, adds value to the database design process; how information management skills were used to link data from this repository to other databases, adding value to the researchers’ scope of discoverability and range of knowledge; how Drupal and utilities such as ECitMatch and the ELink can be used to collect and present relationships among these studies; how MeSH terms used within a Drupal faceted search fit nicely into this interface’s overall strategy; and more.

Hear how transformation and community engagement result from creating a platform for entrepreneurship, invention, and discovery, as well as relationship building for a lifetime through making and informal STEM learning. Using the Fayetteville library as an example, which is a pioneer with makerspace, this talk focuses on key initiatives that create true transformation and engagement within a community.

Idea Box, the makerspace of Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, officially opened in February 2015. The space features innovative design, lofty brainstorming, fresh programming events, and specialized staff. Utilizing the Charlotte maker community, staff devised a plan to learn as they taught and to embrace the concept of a public makerspace. From 3D models and 3D prints, to laser cuts and vector graphics software, to the more traditional crafts—all are created in Idea Box. Join library staff as they present the successes, lessons learned, staff challenges, and community building efforts of the Idea Box makerspace.

The library is the intellectual crossroads of the university, a place where students come to research, explore, and discover. It was in this spirit that two California State University libraries established technology-focused makerspaces during 2015. With each makerspace located in their central library, they are open to all university students regardless of discipline, skill set, or background. They encourage creativity and inquiry, facilitate cross-disciplinary collaboration, and promote innovation. This session presents case studies that examine the experiences of these two projects. Embarking on an innovative new service can be rife with pitfalls and obstacles, and speakers discuss the logistics involved with planning, implementing, and maintaining a makerspace. They share their mistakes as well as triumphs, and address the lessons learned during the first year of operations.

This session highlights a collaboration between the Princeton Public Library and Code for Princeton, the local Code for America brigade, to create a community of coders in Princeton, N.J. The library is working to create this community through initiatives such as partnering with the Municipality of Princeton to host its first ever civic hack-a-thon as part of the National Day of Civic Hacking; hosting twice-monthly “hack nights” with Code for Princeton; and creating learning opportunities for beginning and experienced coders at the library. This session offers an overview of Code for America and the National Day of Civic Hacking, covers lessons learned over the past year of the collaboration, and give tips on how you can grow a community of coders at your own library through hack-athons, coding classes, and more.

If you haven’t already heard, coding is where it’s at. However, in New York, many adults are paying thousands of dollars to learn these skills and many of those who can’t afford it are being left behind. So the New York Public Library TechConnect department launched a free coding training program from scratch to deal with the rise of coding mayhem. This session discusses Project Code, which went from 400 people showing up to a nonpublicized open house event to currently having a wait list of more than 4,000 people. It covers how to build a successful coding program: hiring and training staff, creating partnerships for the program, technology needs to run a program like this, and the pitfalls along the way. In addition, it discusses scaling the program to double and quadruple the size, the Teen Coding Program, best practices when launching series based courses, and more.

The Baltimore County Public Schools are using two inquiry-based models to facilitate brief and extended research across the curriculum for students in grades K–12. Their Online Research Models and Slam Dunk lessons scaffold the research process, utilizing digital content and tools to integrate 21st century skills with content learning in all subjects. The presenters share their process and many examples of students research done right.

At Burke School, feedback about student progress in the library and the “Makery” has been directed toward parents through report card comments. Flip the audience and transform learning. How? Burke’s librarian and maker facilitator assess work and write comments directly to students on digital portfolios. There, on Google Sites, third and fourth grade students curate their own projects, reflect on their process and product, and engage in online conversation with teachers. The result: a supportive ecosystem for students to learn about themselves as learners. Metacognition! Transformative learning!

While technology makes many things easier, for students and adults who are “organizationally challenged” it can become yet another distraction, something that pulls them away from what is truly important. But there are many tools available that, if accessed and used well, can help students and adults become successful. This session explores a variety of tools and resources for all platforms that support organizational skills and provides suggestions to make all students (and teachers) more focused and efficient.

While we would love our students to use library resources all the time, we know they often run to Google. At the Cheng Library at William Paterson University, students are told that Google is fine for some—not all—research, but that part of using Google well is evaluating the websites they find. In this session, Cara Berg covers how they teach and assess website evaluation to first year students at WPU. This same lesson has been successfully used for high school students as well! The assessment, methodology, and history of this assignment are discussed and current results from the past semester are shared.

How can you empower your students to translate and evaluate complex, globally important concepts into personally relevant information? In this session, Jen Spisak embraces the power of transliteracy by taking you step by step through the creation of fully integrated multimedia learning stations, complete with a perfect mix of content, technology, and multiple formats. Find out how to create multimedia learning stations that employ podcasts, databases, educational apps, videos, and websites to explore content standards and bring out the 21st-century learner within each student. These learning stations will help you facilitate instruction, strengthen student research skills, and build collaborative partnerships in your school.

As library offerings go digital, members and nonmembers rely on the library website for information and access. How do we encourage these digital visitors to walk through our physical doors? Get some tips and tricks for applying strategies and metrics from digital advertising, including user engagement, conversion, and reach, to turn web traffic into foot traffic.

Makerspaces in academic libraries pull from a range of influences, including Design Thinking, Hackerspaces, entrepreneurially motivated TechShops, and a heavy dose of Papert’s constructionism. In their synthesis and expression of this range of influences, makerspaces contain multitudes of possibilities. Hear how academic library makerspaces have aligned themselves with various influences while creating new models, seeking to better define not only what is meant by the term makerspaces but also to provide more nuanced understanding of the shapes that makerspaces take.

Hear how the GWU Gelman Library started an on-demand 3D printing program with two Makerbot Replicator 2X’s and one MakerBot Digitizer. Get insights from GWU’s learning experiences and challenges associated with implementing the program, and tips on explaining how 3D printing works, dealing with printing requests, and Makerware (the software that powers our machines).

The Reaching Across Illinois Library System’s Library Jobs Board began as a tentative, “easy to set up, so what the heck, let’s try it” addition to the RAILS website. If it didn’t take off, it’d be fairly painless to shut down. However, with very little development and maintenance required of RAILS staff, the Jobs Board quickly became the most visited area of the site by far. A look at the Jobs Board serves as a starting point for discussing key features of no-pain experiments.

In order to teach a large audience the basics of genealogy research, a university and state library entered into a yearlong partnership to develop RootsMOOC, a massive open online course (MOOC) for beginning genealogy researchers. This IMLS grant-funded project enrolled more than 4,000 learners. Get tips for developing, marketing & managing an easy, free, high-quality genealogy instruction in a highly interactive and social learning environment. Gain insights about fostering lifelong learning through MOOCs with partners, external organizations and an online community of learners.

Hear how students partnered with an information industry startup and what each partner learned!

In response to academic research being conducted on a mobile environment, our speaker developed a series of workshops focusing on iPad apps. With an iPad cart and 24 iPads the workshops immediately engaged the community to specialized program apps as sources and tools for academic research including note taking, file sharing, productivity, accessibility, writing, citing and collaboration. Get tips to use to engage your community.

This cybertour shares some tools and tips for keeping up with social media and using the results for other projects.

How do you keep the public knowledgeable on new devices and technology, let alone staff? Hear how one public library trained a combined staff of 485 at 21 branch locations with six devices that were purchased for each branch through public funds and a grant. From the library’s Digital Strategy guidelines, core competencies were developed which required all staff to become knowledgeable about these new devices and technologies. Additionally, staff were encouraged to learn how to use the new devices in their daily work routines and facilitate mobile technology classes to the public. Learn about the “Digital Point Person” role created to help facilitate learning and growth at each branch in an effort to spearhead this initiative and to encourage programming around the new devices.

In 2014, on the 25th anniversary of the Web, Pew released research on the Internet of Things: “Many experts say the rise of embedded and wearable computing will bring the next revolution in digital technology. They say the upsides are enhanced health, convenience, productivity, safety, and more useful information for people/organizations. The downsides: challenges to personal privacy, over-hyped expectations, and boggling tech complexity. We hear more and more about the Internet of Things these days, and our popular speaker Rainie shares Pew’s research and other insights on libraries and the expanding Internet of Things!