Monday, March 22, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Online Homework Center
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
Online Homework Center
View more presentations from lcplreference.
Reference Today - Teaching
The Head of Reference Services job description and duties: coordinate all system-wide in service reference training, orientate paraprofessional and professional reference staff, and supervise the development of training modules for the staff and the public.
LCPL staff teach the following public classes on a weekly basis: Meet the Mouse, Navigating the Net, Library Catalog, and Sharpen Your Skills.
Throughout the year professional development classes are offered for LCPL and neighboring library staff. These classes have been approved for LEU (Library Education Unit) credits for librarian certification.
This past week 38 Children's Librarians took the LEU approved class, Online Homework Center and discovered ways to reach their student patrons via the web.
Please feel free to comment on the teaching that you do in your libraries.
LCPL staff teach the following public classes on a weekly basis: Meet the Mouse, Navigating the Net, Library Catalog, and Sharpen Your Skills.
Throughout the year professional development classes are offered for LCPL and neighboring library staff. These classes have been approved for LEU (Library Education Unit) credits for librarian certification.
This past week 38 Children's Librarians took the LEU approved class, Online Homework Center and discovered ways to reach their student patrons via the web.
Please feel free to comment on the teaching that you do in your libraries.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
2009 ILF Annual Conference
In the last few posts I have answered questions about my presentation. Now I am posting notes from the programs that I attended. I attended the Reception at the Allen County Public Library on Sunday evening, programs on Monday and had the pleasure of seeing Rosella Garcia, Lake County Public Library Literacy Coordinator, accept the Tom Zupancic Literacy Award at the Awards & Honors Banquet on Monday evening.
The conference was held in Fort Wayne and the ILF Committee did a great job presenting an interesting and smooth running conference.
PROGRAM NOTES
EXPLORING THE BORDERLANDS BETWEEN ILS 1.0 AND 2.0
Melissa Kiser, Information Technology Librarian, Allen County Public Library
Web 2.0 refers to the “second generation” of web-based communities and services that promotes collaboration and sharing between users.
Sites that ACPLib 2.0 uses to communicate with their users, to share new ideas about library services and materials with the wider Allen County Community, and to collaborate on internal projects:
Most Popular Titles
ACPL Staff Picks
ACPL Blog
ACPL Kids Blog
ACPL Teens Blog
Branch blogs
ACPL on Flickr
ACPL on YouTube
Search Cloud – see popular search terms in OPAC
NEIRRS Podcast –North Eastern Indiana Radio Reading Service provides web access for those who are blind or have reading challenges.
Library Elf
PROCESS IMPROVEMENT MINDSET: Surviving a 10% Increase in Circulation with No Increase in Staff or Funding
Sara Laughlin and panelists from the circulation department of the Monroe County Public Library
From pages to supervisors, everyone has a hand in identifying and implementing changes in circulation: problem, action, result.
1,100 holds per day, 20% of checkouts go through as holds – holds on everything; 10% of holds not picked up; 7 days on hold shelves
-reduced “claims returned items”
-doubled the percentage of self-checkout transactions
-speed shelving time – eliminated excessive “touches” – no sorting shelves, put on carts
WHAT ARE LIBRARIES DOING FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT?
Rob Fox & Libby Walker, Vigo County Public Library
-Continuing education for staff at professional meetings
-Believes in “home-grown” librarians & supports staff
-Process for tracing library certification levels and LEU
-In-House LEU Approved Training
-VCPL Staff Institute, close library & training approved for LEU credit
-Staff Association – grants & programs eligible for LEU credit
-Friends – scholarships
-Self-service employee portal – information about benefits, library news & resources supporting professional development
Carolyn Strickland, Lake County Public Library
http://referencetoday.blogspot.com/2009/10/lake-county-public-library-professional.html
-Formal Training Program: all public service staff required to attend standard training modules as well as subject overviews offered annually
-LCPL classes & trainers approved for LEU credit by state; classes open to all libraries & their staff at no charge: 464 credits have been awarded in 2009
-Informal Database Training: Adopt a Database Program, And the Winner Is….Program, Weekly Database Q & A’s, Database of the Month, Database Tip Sheets, & Vendor Training
-In-Service Training & Cross-Training
David Dyer, Carmel Clay Public Library
CCPL’s Web Adventure – 23 Things
Ten week program to train staff on Web 2.0: includes Blogging; Photos & Images (Flickr); RSS & Newsreaders; Social Networking (MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn; GoodReads & LibraryThing); Wikis; Online Applications & Tools (Google Docs & Google Maps); Podcasts, Video & Downloadable audio; and Professional Networking & Distance Learning.
Surveyed staff – Most liked doing it, but everyone did not complete the program.
Comments: too many activities and not enough time.
FLOATING: SHIFTING COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT TO A NEW LEVEL
Ingrid Norris, Lake County Public Library
What is floating? One system, one collection – materials “float” freely among system libraries rather than being “owned” by a specific location.
What are the benefits? Items spend less time on delivery trucks so materials are more likely to be on the shelf for people to check out; avoids extra transactions; and extends life of the collections
Making it easy for staff – staff don’t have to do anything extra to make each transaction work; promote benefits to customers; easy to use tools for weeding & responding to stock fluctuations
How do I get started? Will your ILS support floating/shared collections? Decide what will be exempted. Implement then deal with any problems that come up!
Any comments or questions?
The conference was held in Fort Wayne and the ILF Committee did a great job presenting an interesting and smooth running conference.
PROGRAM NOTES
EXPLORING THE BORDERLANDS BETWEEN ILS 1.0 AND 2.0
Melissa Kiser, Information Technology Librarian, Allen County Public Library
Web 2.0 refers to the “second generation” of web-based communities and services that promotes collaboration and sharing between users.
Sites that ACPLib 2.0 uses to communicate with their users, to share new ideas about library services and materials with the wider Allen County Community, and to collaborate on internal projects:
Most Popular Titles
ACPL Staff Picks
ACPL Blog
ACPL Kids Blog
ACPL Teens Blog
Branch blogs
ACPL on Flickr
ACPL on YouTube
Search Cloud – see popular search terms in OPAC
NEIRRS Podcast –North Eastern Indiana Radio Reading Service provides web access for those who are blind or have reading challenges.
Library Elf
PROCESS IMPROVEMENT MINDSET: Surviving a 10% Increase in Circulation with No Increase in Staff or Funding
Sara Laughlin and panelists from the circulation department of the Monroe County Public Library
From pages to supervisors, everyone has a hand in identifying and implementing changes in circulation: problem, action, result.
1,100 holds per day, 20% of checkouts go through as holds – holds on everything; 10% of holds not picked up; 7 days on hold shelves
-reduced “claims returned items”
-doubled the percentage of self-checkout transactions
-speed shelving time – eliminated excessive “touches” – no sorting shelves, put on carts
WHAT ARE LIBRARIES DOING FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT?
Rob Fox & Libby Walker, Vigo County Public Library
-Continuing education for staff at professional meetings
-Believes in “home-grown” librarians & supports staff
-Process for tracing library certification levels and LEU
-In-House LEU Approved Training
-VCPL Staff Institute, close library & training approved for LEU credit
-Staff Association – grants & programs eligible for LEU credit
-Friends – scholarships
-Self-service employee portal – information about benefits, library news & resources supporting professional development
Carolyn Strickland, Lake County Public Library
http://referencetoday.blogspot.com/2009/10/lake-county-public-library-professional.html
-Formal Training Program: all public service staff required to attend standard training modules as well as subject overviews offered annually
-LCPL classes & trainers approved for LEU credit by state; classes open to all libraries & their staff at no charge: 464 credits have been awarded in 2009
-Informal Database Training: Adopt a Database Program, And the Winner Is….Program, Weekly Database Q & A’s, Database of the Month, Database Tip Sheets, & Vendor Training
-In-Service Training & Cross-Training
David Dyer, Carmel Clay Public Library
CCPL’s Web Adventure – 23 Things
Ten week program to train staff on Web 2.0: includes Blogging; Photos & Images (Flickr); RSS & Newsreaders; Social Networking (MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn; GoodReads & LibraryThing); Wikis; Online Applications & Tools (Google Docs & Google Maps); Podcasts, Video & Downloadable audio; and Professional Networking & Distance Learning.
Surveyed staff – Most liked doing it, but everyone did not complete the program.
Comments: too many activities and not enough time.
FLOATING: SHIFTING COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT TO A NEW LEVEL
Ingrid Norris, Lake County Public Library
What is floating? One system, one collection – materials “float” freely among system libraries rather than being “owned” by a specific location.
What are the benefits? Items spend less time on delivery trucks so materials are more likely to be on the shelf for people to check out; avoids extra transactions; and extends life of the collections
Making it easy for staff – staff don’t have to do anything extra to make each transaction work; promote benefits to customers; easy to use tools for weeding & responding to stock fluctuations
How do I get started? Will your ILS support floating/shared collections? Decide what will be exempted. Implement then deal with any problems that come up!
Any comments or questions?
Professional Development Program - ILF Part 2
And the Winner Is...Program
We just finished this year-long program. Staff were encouraged to recommend databases to patrons and keep track of the number with hash marks. I contacted our vendors to ask for inexpensive prizes (mugs, bags, pins, paperclip holders, etc.). My database contacts were very accomodating and excited about the program. So...each month we had a drawing from the logs that staff turned in and three winners received prizes. Of course, the real winners were our patrons! This program added a "friendly competiton" aspect to what we do every day - recommend databases to our patrons.
Weekly Database Q & A's
Our webmaster sends out a Question and Answer email (separate emails) to all staff. Questions come from a number of sources. They can be actual patron questions or ones that we make up to promote a database. It's very popular and when we stopped it for awhile, staff complained.
Database of the Month
An individual database is promoted each month on the website and I give a database demo at our monthly staff meetings. We also create displays in the library with posters and bookmarks.
Database Tip Sheets
These tip sheets are posted on our database page. Staff and patrons have access to a tip sheet on all of our subscription databases. They are created and updated by our webmaster and myself.
Vendor Training
These are very helpful. This past year I contacted a number of our vendors and scheduled webinars during some of our Reference Staff Meetings - twenty to twenty-five librarians were trained in one session.
I am always looking for new ways to promote our databases. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. Carolyn
We just finished this year-long program. Staff were encouraged to recommend databases to patrons and keep track of the number with hash marks. I contacted our vendors to ask for inexpensive prizes (mugs, bags, pins, paperclip holders, etc.). My database contacts were very accomodating and excited about the program. So...each month we had a drawing from the logs that staff turned in and three winners received prizes. Of course, the real winners were our patrons! This program added a "friendly competiton" aspect to what we do every day - recommend databases to our patrons.
Weekly Database Q & A's
Our webmaster sends out a Question and Answer email (separate emails) to all staff. Questions come from a number of sources. They can be actual patron questions or ones that we make up to promote a database. It's very popular and when we stopped it for awhile, staff complained.
Database of the Month
An individual database is promoted each month on the website and I give a database demo at our monthly staff meetings. We also create displays in the library with posters and bookmarks.
Database Tip Sheets
These tip sheets are posted on our database page. Staff and patrons have access to a tip sheet on all of our subscription databases. They are created and updated by our webmaster and myself.
Vendor Training
These are very helpful. This past year I contacted a number of our vendors and scheduled webinars during some of our Reference Staff Meetings - twenty to twenty-five librarians were trained in one session.
I am always looking for new ways to promote our databases. Any ideas or suggestions are welcome. Carolyn
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Professional Development Program at ILF
I received the following e-mail from an attendee at my ILF presentation on Professional Development at Lake County Public Library:
Hello, Carolyn,
I didn't make enough notes about your adopt a database program. Could you give me a review of how you operate that? Do staff members do one database at a time? Do they switch around to keep up with all the databases? Do they test them daily? More than once a day?
Also, what is the "And the Winner is.." program? Actually, I would like to know a little more about everything on slide 6 -- the Informal Database Training slide.
The slide that is referenced is in the slide presentation posted on this blog. I'll describe each program in a separate posting.
I initiated the Adopt a Database program in 2006. Reference librarians are assigned three databases to monitor for a six month period. There is a Database Checklist that they use to check their assigned databases. The goal of this program is two-fold: 1) to catch any problems with the databases early and 2) to familiarize staff with the library's subscription databases.
At the end of the first year, I asked staff to write up three questions & answers for each database that they monitor.
At the end of 2007, they were asked to give their recommendation on whether or not the library should continue to subscribe to their databases. And during the year they were asked to give a short presentation (10 - 15 minutes) highlighting the features of one of their databases at our monthly Reference Staff Meeting.
This is the checklist that they all use - they are asked to perform searches on a weekly basis and contact either our webmaster or myself if they find a problem.
Assigned Databases:
_____________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
Date:
Database:
Searches Function: Individually/Through Power Search (federated search)
Database Available: Staff Computer/Information Station (Public)/Remotely
Links Work: Power Search/Alphabetical List Page/DB in Library Page
Results Display Properly: Yes/No
So far it has been very effective as a learning tool and for catching any database problems. Your comments are welcome. Carolyn
Hello, Carolyn,
I didn't make enough notes about your adopt a database program. Could you give me a review of how you operate that? Do staff members do one database at a time? Do they switch around to keep up with all the databases? Do they test them daily? More than once a day?
Also, what is the "And the Winner is.." program? Actually, I would like to know a little more about everything on slide 6 -- the Informal Database Training slide.
The slide that is referenced is in the slide presentation posted on this blog. I'll describe each program in a separate posting.
I initiated the Adopt a Database program in 2006. Reference librarians are assigned three databases to monitor for a six month period. There is a Database Checklist that they use to check their assigned databases. The goal of this program is two-fold: 1) to catch any problems with the databases early and 2) to familiarize staff with the library's subscription databases.
At the end of the first year, I asked staff to write up three questions & answers for each database that they monitor.
At the end of 2007, they were asked to give their recommendation on whether or not the library should continue to subscribe to their databases. And during the year they were asked to give a short presentation (10 - 15 minutes) highlighting the features of one of their databases at our monthly Reference Staff Meeting.
This is the checklist that they all use - they are asked to perform searches on a weekly basis and contact either our webmaster or myself if they find a problem.
Assigned Databases:
_____________________________
_______________________________
_______________________________
Date:
Database:
Searches Function: Individually/Through Power Search (federated search)
Database Available: Staff Computer/Information Station (Public)/Remotely
Links Work: Power Search/Alphabetical List Page/DB in Library Page
Results Display Properly: Yes/No
So far it has been very effective as a learning tool and for catching any database problems. Your comments are welcome. Carolyn
Thursday, October 15, 2009
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