Wednesday, October 20, 2010

SCRLC's Next Five-Year Plan & ARL's Scenario Planning

As you may know, SCRLC is in the throes of designing its next five-year plan of service. We have been collecting your needs, ideas, suggestions, and information about your hopes and fears during our field visits. We have also discussed this with the various SCRLC advisory committees and have engaged in strategic planning activities with the Board of Trustees. The PoS Design Team will be meeting on Friday, and one of our activities involves familiarizing ourselves with relevant environmental scans/reports.

Just this week, the Association of Research Libraries released information about its scenario planning project, Envisioning Research Library Futures: A Scenario Thinking Project.” They have availed the scenario set, a user’s guide, and have scheduled a webcast for 4 November @1PM.

Through their process, ARL developed four scenarios for 2030 in response to the question, “How do we transform our organization(s) to create differential value for future users (individuals, institutions, and beyond), given the external dynamics redefining the research environment over the next 20 years?” Although the focus is on research libraries, the process and scenarios are of interest to those of us involved in a long range planning process. For more information, see: http://bit.ly/cjgMhy.

The Chronicle of Higher Education contains an article about ARL’s project at http://bit.ly/9DHx1C. Cornell’s Anne Kenney is quoted and there have been several interesting comments/perceptions.

Friday, February 19, 2010

Virtual Reference Opportunities!

AskUs 24 7 Virtual Reference: In 2009, SCRLC became a consortial member of the AskUs 24/7 virtual reference collaborative. Our Council continues to participate, which lowers costs for SCRLC libraries wanting to be part of the service. If you were not able to join last year, you can still participate. Joining through SCRLC saves you the set-up charge and the “population served” fee—you pay only the yearly administrative cost, which is based on your materials budget (print and electronic). We can also provide free, on-demand AskUs 24/7 learning opportunities for SCRLC participants. For complete information about AskUs 24/7, please visit http://www.askus247.org/info.

Materials Budget Range Administration Fee
$0 - $49,999 $ 230.00
$50,000 - $99,999 $ 290.00
$100,000 - $249,999 $ 410.00
$250,000 - $499,999 $ 650.00
$500,000 - $999,999 $ 1,100.00
$1,000,000-$1,499,999 $1,700.00
$1,500,000 - $1,999,999 $ 2,300.00
$2,000,000 - $2,499,999 $ 2,900.00
$2,500,000 - $2,999,999 $ 3,500.00
$3,000,000 - $3,499,999 $ 4,100.00
$3,500,000 - $3,999,999 $ 4,700.00
$4,000,000 - $4,499,999 $ 5,300.00
$4,500,000 - $4,999,999 $ 5,900.00
$5,000,000 + $ 6,200.00

SCRLC AskUs 24/7 participants: Cornell University, Corning Museum of Glass, Finger Lakes Library System, SUNY Cortland, SUNY Delhi, SUNY Oneonta, Tompkins-Cortland Community College, and Wells College.

My Info Quest: Txt 4 Answers: SCRLC continues to partner in the My Info Quest collaborative SMS text reference pilot project. The pilot phase runs through the end of 2010. Participating libraries contribute staff time (on the desk—usually an hour or two per week). There is no other cost at this time; fees are expected to be very minimal after the pilot phase ends in December (i.e., less than $200). Librarians do not need to know how to “text” to participate. The questions are texted by users via mobile device and sent through the Altarama interface to a Gmail account. The librarian on the desk sees only the Gmail account. The learning curve is practically nonexistent and we can provide free training. Nearly 70 libraries from around the country and Canada are participating, and it is a great opportunity to explore a collaborative library approach to our increasingly mobile device-populated world! The hours of service constantly expand and are currently Mondays through Thursdays from 9AM-11PM, Saturdays 9AM-9PM, Sundays 10AM-7PM eastern time.
Note: Libraries participating in AskUs 24/7 will soon have another text reference option. Mosio and OCLC recently announced development of an application programming interface (API) to integrate Mosio’s Text a Librarian with QuestionPoint, OCLC’s virtual reference software. QuestionPoint users will get a discounted price on the Text a Librarian product (using this product will be entirely optional for each library).

If you are interested in joining either AskUs 24/7 or My Info Quest, please contact Mary-Carol Lindbloom @ mclindbloom@scrlc.org 607-273-9106

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Faster than the Speed of Bytes: Technology, Cognition, and the Academic Librarian

Academic Librarians 2010
Faster than the Speed of Bytes:
Technology, Cognition, and the Academic Librarian
June 7 & 8, 2010, Holiday Inn Downtown, Ithaca

Are we organically shaped by technology? If so, how can academic librarians respond? How do cognitive changes influence the way’s we lead our libraries and teach our users? This conference will explore changes in cognitive development, based on new models of interacting with information and how these new models will impact collections and services. Participants will examine what this means for academic librarians and the way they interact with users. This event is brought to you by the NY 3Rs Association and the Academic and Special Libraries Section of the New York Library Association.

Featuring: Dr. Michael Stephens, Assistant Professor, Dominican University, Hyperlinked Users: How Academic Librarians Can Respond. What trends are shaping the 21st Century student experience? What does emerging research tell us about expectations for learning environments, creative collaboration and "always on" access to information? This presentation will provide a roadmap for serving our hyperlinked users online, in our physical spaces and wherever they happen to be. Mobile solutions, creation spaces and embedded librarians are all part of the equation.

Dr. Deborah Gagnon, Associate Professor of Psychology, Wells College
, This Is Your Brain on Technology: The Technology Exposure Effect (TEE). The media offer a bewildering array of doomsday as well as more benign prognoses of the effect that excessive exposure to extant technologies -Twitter, FaceBook, GPS, Second Life, etc. - present to our cognitive and neural functioning. Is that GPS on your dashboard possibly shrinking your hippocampus? Or is it really the Holy Grail that the more spatially challenged among us have been searching for our whole lives? This talk will attempt to sort questions like these out and, more to the point, will reveal how technology may be changing our perception, attention, memory, reasoning, decision making, and problem solving processes.

The Horizon Report: Look Over the Horizon: Connecting Technology Trends with the Library of Tomorrow. The NMC Horizon Report is an important tool for educators and information specialists who must strategize for the adoption of new technologies in their organizations. Our panelists will present examples and offer a variety of perspectives on the 2010 Horizon Report as it will impact "The Library of the Near Future". Panelists include Mark A. Smith, Information Systems Librarian at NYS College of Ceramics at Alfred; Joan Getman is Sr. Strategist for Learning Technologies at Cornell University; Alison Miller, Manager, ipl2 Reference Services for Drexel University; Harry Pence, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus from SUNY Oneonta where he currently serves as TLTC Faculty Fellow for Emerging Technologies.

Geotagging, Geolocation, and Augmented Reality: Opportunities for Libraries to Create in Situ Learning Experiences. Tito Sierra, Associate Head for Digital Library Development, North Carolina State University and Markus Wust, Digital Collections and Preservation Librarian, North Carolina State University.

E-readers in Action.
Melinda Dermody, Librarian/Department Head Access Services; Scott Warren, Bibliographer for the Sciences and Technology; and Suzanne Preate, Digital Initiatives Librarian from Syracuse University speak about their e-reader pilot program.

Text Reference in Action. Virginia Cole, Reference & Digital Services Librarian, Cornell University Library and Joe Murphy (libraryfuture on Twitter), Science Librarian, Coordinator of Instruction & Technology, Yale Science Libraries. Hear from QuestionPoint/Text-a-Librarian & My Info Quest participants to learn about collaborative text reference opportunities.

Associated activities will include local tours, wine-tasting, and hiking.

Registration Registration is open. http://tinyurl.com/yhyka6q

Twitter: Follow us at AcLibCon2010.
The Holiday Inn has reserved a block of rooms for the evenings of June 6th and 7th at the rate of $139+ tax per room. When booking, mention the Academic Librarians conference. (607) 272-1000. Book early as we expect the rooms to go fast!

$95 NYLA or NY 3R members: Early Bird Registration--Register by March 15
$120 NYLA or NY 3R members: Regular Registration
$145 Non-Member Registration
$50 MLS/MLIS Student Registration

Traveling to Ithaca: Ithaca is a great place (some would say gorges!) to visit in the late spring. The airport is conveniently located with daily flights to LaGuardia, Newark, and Philadelphia--and at perfect times of the day for conference goers. The waiting time at the airport is always short and shuttles to area hotels. There is also daily bus service.

Thanks to our generous sponsors: WALDO, EBSCO, CCP Solutions, University at Buffalo Department of Library and Information Studies, ProQuest, and Mango Languages!

Contact Aprille Nace (naceac@cmog.org) or Mary-Carol Lindbloom (mclindbloom@scrlc.org) for more information.


Please feel free to forward this announcement to other discussion/distribution lists.