I did this short presentation at Summit & Fulfillment Day, Friday August 4, 2017 in Portland. It was rushed and the keyboard and mouse failed halfway through. So, viewing it online is probably safer anyway!FulLettersPres2017
Fabulous colloquium in NYU – May 13-14, 2017 – small, everyone attending the same sessions all day, lots of discussions in break and diverse content and perspectives to share. This first time event was created and planned by:
Saturday
9:00-10:00 Keynote, Roy Scranton, Learning to Die in the Anthropocene
We failed to stop climate change. Period. Hope is a 4 letter word.
To imagine something different in the present and future, to save something of the past for the future is a Utopian presence. Is it really all that bad you think? We are growing our renewable energy for one example… but it would be prudent to act on the evidence – we know that those in power won’t care. things have just gone downhill over the recent decades. Those in power do not care about the future. Capitalism. Greed. We need a survivalist ethos now.
You want answers? How might we imagine ourselves in the late Anthropocene dead state? Look at authors who discuss post-apocalyptic futures. Sci Fi. Suggested reads :
So what does this mean for the future of our work?
Keep in mind the reality: History will be rewritten again and again by the winners
What do we need to do? Best option Go Local. Build sustainable communities.
10:00-12:00 – 20-minute papers – Archival Theory and the Crisis
Q/A summary: Tension between fighting the capitalistic society but we need a space/place and to pay for it and make sure we don’t take money from those we disagree with but …its complex.
Less is more.
1:15-2:50 – 20-minute papers – Crisis and Survival
How do you become and stay prepared for upcoming disasters in your library? The role of public libraries. Good science, good data. Lots of info on slides – LOOK FOR HIS RECORDING OR SLIDES! I missed some of this session….
2:50-3:30 – Five minute lightning talks with 15 minutes for discussion
Q/A Listen to this https://soundcloud.com/generation-anthropocene Storytelling is key but does depend on the audience – public might want stories but economist might need facts. Also look at archival evidence too – make your own narrative.
3:40-5:00 – Plenary and end of day discussion: Howard Besser, Eira Tansey, Jill Kubit, and John Burgess *
Sunday
9:00-10:30 – 20-minute papers – Rethinking Libraries
Poem from http://littlestarjournal.com/blog/2010/10/%E2%80%9Cbreak-the-glass%E2%80%9D-by-jean-valentine/
2. Sarah Lamdan: Improving Access to Environmental Information and Records (Lawyer and librarian)
The catalog of life: nomenclature and hierarchy http://www.catalogueoflife.org/ Global database of species
Not a librarian but studies libraries.
Examples:
2:40-3:30 – Five minute lightning talks with 15 minutes for discussion
Tuesday – the day before Day One
As usual this will be an informal, slightly fictionalized version of the events that ensued during my travels. I mostly tell the truth. But I also mostly make things up as I go. So. This all started at 5:45 am. Unless you count the dog waking up at 5am, and again at 5:30 am forcing me to repeatedly roll over and pile the pillows over my ears (because the dog wakes the cat up and the cat meows incessantly until you get up and feed him). So I guess I can’t blame it on the dog after all.
Planes were on time, and taxi lines were long, but I read quite a bit of “The Art of Asking” by Amanda Palmer. I recommend it and you can borrow it when I’m done (seriously) but if you paint yourself white and stand on a milk crate, I take no personal responsibility. Here’s what I learned as the plane flew across the midwest:
“Those who can ask without shame are viewing themselves in collaboration with – rather than in competition with – the world.
Listening fast and caring immediately is a skill in itself.
I have no interest in DIY. I’m much more interested in getting everybody to help me. I think a better definition might be UWYC. Use what you can.”
http://amandapalmer.net/wp-content/themes/afp/paperback/assets/images/the-art-of-asking-cover.png
I also learned that it is okay to make people wait. You are valuable. They are valuable also. They deserve your time. You deserve to take time. If this is true of everyone, we need to stop hurrying and start investing. Period. Mic drop.
I got a cushy room. Only for one night. I need to pack up in the morning, move myself to a different hotel and carry my bags around. Aaargh. Oh well. I’m at a conference in a budget crunch. I will complain as little as possible.
I spent the evening at a very good reception in a 3 story establishment with skeeball, foosball, pacman, and ping pong and I got to play them all.
I was also lucky enough to be joined by Dan, our discovery librarian *who I’ve added to the share in case he wants to comment or defend his honor.*
I ran into a scad of folks from the Alliance that I know who think OSU must just be an oasis of brilliancy, and who, of course, constantly threaten to steal our people (as they have with C-Dog and Zac). Alas. It’s hard having all the best colleagues – you guys rock.
TOMORROW. 6 am, I’ll rise, shower, and walk to the conference hotel with my prospects and my pick axe – and I’ll be digging for the dream. (“Every day that you get up and force your cards
Playing your story in fits and starts. Take your prospects and your pickaxe” Indigo Girls)
Miss you already. Thank you for making this possible.
Wednesday Day
Or “In one hotel and out the other.”
Breakfast was delicious with bagels and scrambled eggs. I ran into Julie Kowalski Ward from San Jose (who I met at the Access Services conference a couple years ago) – they’re going live in Alma next month and nervous! I’m going to try to have lunch or dinner with her this week and see what kind of questions she has. Now for the conference.
Plenary
I got a chair in the back because it looks like we’ll be sitting awhile! Record attendance again this year – over 700 people.
Habib Tabatabai is giving the welcome – mostly just recognition of the user’s group leaders and committees. Mentioned that the user’s group will be focusing on Authentication, Knowledge Base, Alma usability and the new UI (user interface), Primo new UI, and Alma/Primo combined backoffice.
Mary Case – University of Illinois, University Librarian
Better Together: Enriching our Community Through Collaboration
Global community of collaboration, not just local consortia. This includes not just shared collections and buying for the group instead of the institution, but also collaborating on data storage and preservation, research access, storage of de-duped collection and the maintenance of the agreed upon remaining print collections. Requires a long-term plan to make sure we never lose the last known print copies as we go through the process of de-duping our collections. OSU does this with the WEST program I think. Those are the journal titles that come through circ and still indicate “Non-Circulating” – we have the copy that was saved!! Don’t lose it! Public mission for collecting preserving cultural memory – special collections and archives are a huge help in this. Not a very interesting keynote. I’m kind of surprised.
Eric Hines – President, ExLibris North America
Global Company Update
A bit of a history of ExLibris, but one interesting thing – good company attracts good customers, BUT also good customers attract MORE good customers. Which makes me believe that the Alliance (and OSU) are more than doing their share to keep Ex Libris flush. One more good thing. Community has the ability to bring things from the edges of the group to the center – for help, AND for growth. Some of those folks on the edges have really good ideas!
Matti Shem-Tov – President, Ex Libris
Interesting points: Over 1000 ideas have been submitted on the ideas exchange! Wow – that’s crowd activity. No indication from the speaker on how many of those ideas have been made real.
Break time – I got to check into my new room and the view is amazing.
Next Generation Library Services – this will be multiple speakers and appears to be a great big long advertisement for ExLibris products. Including cheesy videos with dramatic soundtracks.
Bar Veinstein
“Generation CX” Customer eXperience. Designing for the users – both us *libraries as customers* and OUR patrons. Focus this year on staff workflow streamlining, increased user community collaboration, services consistently available, and addressing staff needs quickly.
New Alma UI promises less clicks to get things done, more customizable screens and fields, and a more intuitive layout. Added 10 more ideas exchange points for each user, have developed 36 ideas so far (there’s the answer from Matti’s presentation above). 36 out of 1000, well…. Adding Benchmark Analytics (I’ll be attending a session on this later in the conference). Ability to compare workflows and use stats against others – also unique and overlap records, etc. These should be extremely helpful for acquisitions and cataloging to my mind. Check out Oklahoma OVAL (virtual academic lab) – they are doing some super cool things!
“Bring joy and excitement, pleasure and fun, and Beauty to people’s lives.” Don Norman
Shlomi Kringel
Discovery and resource lists – This discussion promises to be mostly about Summon (ProQuest), Primo and Leganto (reading lists product for course reserves). Much of it won’t apply since we aren’t using some of these tools, but I’ll try to grab anything of value. OOH- here’s a bit on the unified management of Primo and Alma *and a session Friday morning on it I’ll try to go to* – at this point, just a mention that combining config of the 2 products into one platform will make eas of publishing and record movement/edits much more simple. AMEN. Leganto looks cool but I believe it costs extra. It allows instructors to use the lists themselves, make additions, drag and drop items into the lists, and etc. Involves the instructors far more directly in their process of reserves, also allows for email/text integration through Canvas to notify students when a reading list has been created for their courses.
Ido Peled
Mobile Campus Solutions (CampusM) – supporting student services. Estimated 5 hours per day on mobile devices for the average American. Immediacy and urgency are built in to mobile devices. CampusM creates a portal experience for mobile where all the different apps/contacts/sites they need to use can be put into one place. Seems like ExLibris version of MyOSU, but includes “MyAccount” displays from Primo/Alma, cross platform similar to google integrations where all the things are in all the places (also like iCloud). But can’t really tell if it’s trying to also be a learning management system like blackboard/Canvas. Very odd. But interesting. ID box and push notifications – you can use cards or boxes at the entrance to rooms and buildings (or on people’s name tags) that work with apps to broadcast something whenever you’re close to them! I’m in love with this idea and need to read more on it – I think this is called cell broadcasting….
Okay LUNCH! Macaroni and cheese, and Chicago Style pizza (as envisioned by hotel catering) – if that’s really what Chicago Pizza is like, I think my taste needs further development to get to a point of appreciation. The mac and cheese was yum.
Alma UX – new user interface – Dana Sharvit (ExL)
This room is at almost double capacity so I’m sitting on the floor but will try to keep as good of notes as possible. So far just an explanation of the process for coming up with the designs and functionality through user input, focus groups, and beta testers. Workshop to get people to do their regular workflow from beginning to end – this taught them a lot about how people are using their product.
Multiple customizable menus including favorites, search display contents you can choose metadata elements you’re interested in. Drop down in repository search displays previous 10 searches. Right click to perform actions – no longer need all the action buttons. Advanced searching allows you to type in the field you want (for instance “Location”) and it will bring up the terms that contain that option. Uses “Look up OR Select” so you don’t have to go through all the steps to find your locations. Still filters on the left, buttons on the right. Most functions will ahve a different look but similar functionality so no need to re-learn process, but definitely we will have to re-do all the screenshots that include menus and navigation….
Rollout – May 21 for the focus group sandboxes. July for our testing sandboxes at the Alliance. Alma community August or September release in production.
I’m actually presenting on the new UI at Summit/Fulfillment Day in early August, so I’m going to have to make huge push during that July sandbox period! Yikes!
Analytics and Your Neighbors – Comparative Approaches – Aasof Klein @Rima Reves: this guy reminds me so much of Donovon presenting for Yoel Korick (ExL)
Comparative analytics needs to find a good balance of group size, number of institutions, comparative institution size and volume. Benchmark Analytics requires a breadth of comparison and big data, key performance indicators (KPI), while Comparative Collection Analytics operates at a depth of comparison – small group, specific data
KPI need to be snapshot-ed every month or every year to enable the identification of trends
Example of need – ordering to shelf-ready time is significantly longer than reported at other institutions.
Data is kept non-identifying – collaborative and peer-measurable (so you can narrow down comparison sets). Student body size, collection size, circ numbers, gate count, etc to allow you to decide peer to peer.
In analytics, Benchmark Preview. 3 subfields – KPI measures, KPI date, Institution Profile
Dashboard example allows you to choose public, academic, consortial, etc.
I’m left wondering (and will have to ask unless he says) if we will get this data from everyone or only those who volunteer – and how many will volunteer, or have the time to get the data entered? (Just got the answer – 70% of Alma institutions have opted in. @Dan Moore: Have we? When was this decided? I totally think we should)! Will they supply preset canned reports that we can edit by date, location etc.? Hoping that’s the case for consistent comparison – everyone builds reports differently otherwise and the data might not mean what you think it does.
Some areas of interest still coming – number of items in Reserves location added each year; fines and fees – money owed, how many owe, money waived. Transit time. Borrowing vs. Lending for resource sharing.
Collection analysis – IS identifying – this is for working with partners to create shared collections that do not duplicate, or only duplicate to a predetermined extent. These institutions will have agreed in advance to share their identifying inventory data with each other. This will work really well for the Alliance. Compare holdings, depth of collection in various areas, prep for remote storage, agreed retention of final print. This is wonderful and cool, and will probably, ultimately decimate our print collections. While that is painful thinking in my world, the idea of fresher collections and more space is kind of a great thing. I wish you all were here to be in on this so I won’t lose the thread of all this before I get home and have time to talk with people about it!
Data contribution is turned on in Analytics configuration, profile question 1. I can double check this!
Ours is NOT turned on! So we can’t use or be used! We’ll add this to the next SILS meeting list.
Unlocking your Library with Alma’s Open Platform – Josh Weisman (ExL)
Alma open platform – integrations with other systems, REST APIs, and community to share what you’ve learned or need to learn (blog and forum). Use the developer network to get these things started.
Tableau Web Data Connector – allows library data to be included from Analytics. This is brand new and available on GitHub it’s open source. I don’t know if we use Tableau, but there’s a very easy connector that just asks for a key. Pulls in the column names and data types, calls the API behind the scenes and populates it into the report.
SWORD Digital Deposit Protocol – not familiar with this project for document deposit interface. But there’s an API for that.
Webhooks – a new way to communicate with Alma (HTTP callbacks) – when an event happens in Alma, it calls a REST endpoint with a predefined response – thing it does. So when X, do Y. You can see the back end structure in the letter activity screen.
Has to support GET and POST. Configure in integration profile, Webhooks, URL and a Secret to test. Can be used to trigger job order. Once on job ends, start the next. Or once a holdslip email is sent, send an SMS text message as well…. I want to learn more about all of this.
Login via email is also set up at the same place social logins are set up – this is an interesting idea if we get stuck with no internal auth. But no EZproxy integration.
I really wish I had time to learn and apply all of these tools. It seems like there is so much we could be doing given time and understanding. Maybe a class on integrations? I need to know more.
Administrator Changes in Primo & Alma – Jean Vik (Univ of TX)
This is the last session of the day and my tablet battery is almost dead so you may or may not get full notes in here.
Oh geez. This is going to be a whole presentation about what gets changed in Primo instead of in Alma. I don’t know if this is going to be too useful to me since I can’t get into Primo Back Office.
I just made what I hope was a quiet and graceful exit. Off to the hotel room and then dinner with the Alliance members who are here. Dan is coming, and maybe Richard – it’s at Olive Garden so I think ravioli is in my immediate future!
I’ll recap dinner if I get back nice and early, otherwise – I’ll catch you all tomorrow!
Thursday Day Two
Scenes from last night include trying to walk to the dinner restaurant and being overcome by a deluge from the sky that forced me back to the hotel for shoes, socks and pants. I was naive to believe that my status as a native Oregonian would protect me from, or at least prepare me for a Chicago-area rainstorm. There was lightning. After that I ate some of Olive Garden’s crockery. No really. I’m currently attempting to digest ceramics. Anyway – enough of that. I got up and joined an impromptu meeting on Resource Sharing vs. Fulfillment Networks in Alma and learned a few interesting things about how they do it in Wisconsin.
Ex Libris Strategy Update
Oren Beit-Arie (ExL Chief Strategy Officer)
ExL wants to extend their reach beyond libraries and into research, teaching and learning, and academic leaders. In the research cycle, funding and re-use/openness rules, and competition are the 2 main drivers. Visibility is critical. ExL wants to move into data management and research storage, compliance and IR community supports in a single system environment. System of Research Records. Researcher deposits, sync with external repositories, capture published content. Enhance metadata and identifiers, ad data linking and OA workflows. Sounds like they want to move into campus-wide solutions (like their campusM tool) and focus more on the building institutional repository and data management tools. Hoping this shift in focus doesn’t take away from their Alma commitments.
Customer Life Cycle at ExL
Jane Burke (ExL VP Customer Success)
YIKES – going to go work on email. This is more of the ExL sales pitch and etc. Yay! 1 hour to catch up!
Document Delivery and Delivering Digitized Items – Nate Turajski “Solutions Architect”
And now that I’ve seen the presenter’s title, I’ve decided that we should all get “Solutions Architect” name tags. What do you think? Do you love it?
I know that circ isn’t involved in doc delivery but this looked really interesting and it’s definitely functionality we have yet to explore in Alma. **January 2017 release notes have good instructions. Workflow for owned physical copy by email attachment, or link if you add it to the repository. Depositing the article allows for limits of how many times it can be viewed and how long before it’s flushed.
Use regular request feature, then patron digitization. Add Partial Digitization designation to have pages/chapter options pop up. Have to be copyright clearance approved – waiting for copyright clearance is a status. When ready to digitize, change to the digitization department (instead of the circ desk) because it really is a work order. Set up is in fulfillment configuration menu under digital fulfillment, and user needs to be set up as an operator. This is a simple enough process that I want to try a couple of tests of it when I get back. I know that the upstairs folks are busy busy and use the scan and deliver, but this looks like a reasonable option – not knowing their full workflow I’m not sure if this would be an improvement or not. It sounds like sending a link will of course require us to have storage space outside of Alma (unless we want to subscribe to their Alma D repository program solution). More later – this will be fun to explore! AND Ray indicated that she thinks we HAVE an Alma D subscription but she’ll have to check with Al to confirm that.
Lunch! Taco bar and Churros. Happy tummy.
Management Q&A
These are questions sent in by conference attendees for the ExL managers. Most of the answers are very surface level and the questions tend to express uncertainty and worry that people really aren’t sure how migrations might go or what the future of projects in discovery might look like as ExL redirects its resources toward new products.
Live questions included addressing the Chrome upgrade that broke stuff last month and what to do with our reliance on web browsers and their upgrades. I asked a question about the new projects vs. the commitment to improving existing products with only 36 ideas exchange implementations. Not much of an answer.
Calendars in Alma – Seriously??? – Tari Keller (UKY)
She’s got 10 libraries with different hours. Hoping she’ll have some tricks and tips but so far this looks like basic configuration. Instructions in the wiki are just as good for this part. She seems to use the calendar for informational pieces or things like that. They don’t trigger anything though. She mentioned that even though the libraries had similar hours, she had to duplicate the calendar. But I got curious and this isn’t actually true. If you add standard operating hours to the institution calendar, they will inherit to any libraries that DON’T have their own designating standard hours. So you put the institution hours as the most common hours in this instance and only enter standards into individual libraries that are different. I tried it with IPPC that has no hours/due times so nothing to mess up ((hoping I didn’t break anything – I think I deleted all of my attempts)). I am doing a session on calendars at Summit/Fulfillment Day and think I’ll be sure to mention the different closing/different due time in multi library institutions, and using events to trigger exact due date by TOU and fulfillment rules. This could be used to have regular collection books not due until beginning of next term but allow reserves to circulate as normal over the break, etc. Rolling rules over at 1 year – potential effect on overdue #of days if you delete too soon, but annually works well. Very basic session but at least it got me thinking! I’ve got ideas for August now.
Alma Product Update and Roadmap
Assaf and Dvir (missed their last names)
Main drivers include resource management, gaining insights, UX, collaboration, open platform operability, Acquisition streamlining (and other units).
Roadmap
Insights is about Analytics and the mission to benchmark and comparative analytics – Saw a full session on this earlier.
Unified Resource Management – this is more of the Alma D I was talking about, repository deposits, digitization workflow and etc.
Alma new UI for this summer (also saw this earlier)
Collaboration – convert/transform your records to move them out for consumption by 3rd party software. Metadata integration with linked data and enhancing the metadata editor to work with linked records, support triple store service and using BIBFRAME. I’m sure that Ian and the upstairs crew will understand all this and that.
Audience questions about continued dedication to making the community zone functional – working with other vendors to make it cleaner and easier to ingest records without creating dupes and errors.
Alma analytics – any move to real time data? No specific plans but interested
And that was it! Not a lot to go forward with, but there were a lot of small details in the printed document that weren’t presented here.
Alma Working Group Meeting
I’m not a member of this group but sitting in on their meeting just to see what they’re about.
Working group is turning over after 4 years of service and looking for new members.
Dinner at Big Bowl (Thai food – not bad) and then planning Alma – The Musical with Mary from UO. We will be famous, we will mock, we will sing. Rehearsals coming to a workroom near you.
Friday – Day Three
Slept through my alarm meant to wake me up in time to get a run. Kind of on purpose. I was really sleepy this morning. Ray brought her extra chips and cookies and I’m taking them tomorrow for the plane! Super Score!
Automation and Batch Processing for Remote Storage – Sarah Koller (UCDavis)
Their regional storage serves 10 campuses and they DO NOT duplicate titles. Once an item is in storage it is shared between all campuses. Their offsite storage does NOT use Alma, so once the item is moved. Needed the item to not show in Primo because it can’t show true availability. Need to move both monographs and serials. This will be about monographs. Used “change holdings information job” – required them to use a norm rule and Droolz (I know nothing of this but hope to learn). Norm rule added a note to each holdings that it was relocated to storage – also provided an opportunity to check that other parts of the record were clean.
Create a set for monograph single, monograph multi-volume, and serials (depending on what you’re doing) – imported from Excel as an itemized set. Employee the norm rule in the change holdings info job. Once run, check the records for accuracy. Then deletes items while maintaining the holdings and bib records. Item list should be empty.
Note needs to go in the holding record because the item records will be gone. Holdings stays so the record shows up in Primo but without availability. Wondering if they could add a public note to each of these with a URL to the storage facility’s page? OR make the title of the location a link to that page? They used a button instead and it worked better – pre populates the ILL request form they use for pulls from storage. Also I think buttons are supposed to be better than links for low vision/blind users and screen readers.
**Side note that Haithi Trust will send links to materials that you have had but no longer have (which is why they don’t delete ANY of their bibs and holdings). Should this be true for us too?
Advanced Analytics – Allison Erhardt (UManitoba)
Change editor in “My account” preferences to start on the criteria page instead of results page.
Dashboard reports are based on loan date criteria – problems include the idea that returns will only be counted on items LOANED during that time AND returned during that time. So if your range is March Loan Dates, something borrowed in February and returned in March would not count.
Lifecycle (physical items) – Active and None (deleted will bring back everything – even though they’ve been withdrawn)
Customize error reports in the xyz button results display, display custom message to make results message more friendly. This is done per report.
***Bins act like a filter in reverse. Groups your data together. Loans per hour and per day of week. Lists each one which is not what you want. Put them in a bin and it will tell you how many instead. Use Edit Formula and choose Bins tab. Add a Bin to get Loan Time “Is between”
This is something I needed just 2 weeks ago. @Amila: This would have been so helpful when you were pulling laptop loans and returns. Keep it in mind for the future.
Prompt order to put months in order instead of alphabetical. Edit prompt (pencil button, options, choice List Values)
Adding a chart or pivot table from the view button (with the plus mark)
***Filter by results of another report – this for patron purge. Report of expired patrons filter by report of expired patrons with fines. add filter that the primary ID appeared in previous list (last option in the filter list- based on results of another analysis. @April: let’s look at this as it will make your patron purge lists so much easier to use. We should be able to cut out the entire excel portion of the process!!
Analytics special interest group list
MOST USEFUL SESSION
Just Like Starting Over – Using Primo and Alma for Course Reserves
Molly Gunderson (PSU)
Reserves are free in Alma, (even eReserves), more mobile friendly, single sign-on
Their method:
Nothing new here yet. This is very much the same as what we’re doing.
Widgets for CMS (for us Canvas). I’m not sure if we have this and don’t know how we would get it done…. I think we have a chat widget so wondering if there might be a search box with it?
They are creating an item for eReserves that is a “Course File” and then link that out to the list of stored documents – she did not designate where that list lives, but the documents are stored on PSU servers rather than in Alma. If we have Alma-D we could use their space and use links which she said is preferable so you can count clicks.
Data and Holds from Alma to Banner – Joe Ferguson (UTennessee)
Students who owe more than $X, a hold is sent to banner – not monetary data, but a hold. Sent to banner daily, updated in Alma hourly
Uses PHP script, MySQL Database, Alma Integration Profile.
Integration profile to export user blocks (it’s in the patron loader profile – already set up, just needs to be configured and turned on). Sends file to the MySQL Database (this is the same idea as the parser program you use @Emma when you send fines and fees). Database writes a file that Banner understands and dumps it on a server for Banner to pick up. Hourly, runs a job to check if the student still owes $X – if not, writes to file to REMOVE the hold. Could use Webhooks (just learned about these the other day but runs and if/then or do/when process and could keep from having to run for updated removals hourly).
They are mostly doing this because they only send active fines over after they are a year old!! So they need a way to dig at people to get the fines paid – the hold does that without posting charges to Banner until they are super old. They also take cash which is good because it potentially keeps students from getting pushed into collections unless they’ve been a year out, but still allows a built in “nudge.” They don’t send faculty/staff charges at all! Only have them pay in-house.
**@April: Check and see if the “Fine Fee Status” in Analytics could be used in setting the patron purge report more easily.
When they send the fines to Banner, the Bursar’s office sends the library money and buys the debt. If this is true for them, is this happening here? I had always heard that we didn’t get money from the Bursar unless/until the student actually PAYS the fine. If we are really being paid for the debt, before it is paid this makes me really nervous. I wonder who at Kerr I should ask.
The only thing left is the key note at 2pm! I’ll see you then. LUNCH!
I spent the hour after lunch helping Julie Ward from CSU to look at her fulfillment configuration. They go live next month and I wanted to help her understand how the rules and their order matter. I missed the keynote speaker except for now he’s answering questions that I have no context for. I feel bad that I missed it but hoping that was helpful for Julie – she’s awesome. There are so few people still here but I wanted to be able to see the afternoon sessions (it looks like there’s actually one more after this) and not get home after midnight.
Closing Session – Habib Tabatabai, ELUNA chair
Financial summary report, introduction of new committee.
Next year’s conference will be May 2-4, 2018 in Spokane Washington at the Davenport Grand Hotel! This should dramatically reduce conference costs for Alliance institutions and foster a huge amount of residence sharing. We’ve all got friends in Spokane!
Alright everyone. That’s a wrap. I fly out tomorrow and should be back to work on Monday! Thanks to all of you who held down the fort while I was away. I’m sorry to read that you have dealt with odors, power outages, absences, car trouble, plague and loneliness. While I can’t resolve these problems, I will be happy to return and share in your misery!
Amila’s notes from Thursday, April 20th, at the OLA Conference 2017. Conference website: https://orlib17.wordpress.com/
I didn’t take notes during the keynote but the speaker, City of Portland Commissioner Chloe Eudaly, was very inspiring. She has led an interesting and often challenging life and her keynote focused on all of the ways that libraries were indispensable to her as she was dealing with youth homelessness, burgeoning political activism, opening an alternative bookstore, her son’s cerebral palsy, and running for city council. I would look her up if you’d like some inspiration!
This went great! I drew in a lot of people and told them our story and answered questions they didn’t even know they had. Since our poster was so… wordy… it meant that people could read the poster without my intervention, which was also nice. There were a lot more public library folks from small libraries so it wasn’t quite the same crowd or level of enthusiasm as at the Access Services Conference (and David wasn’t there to rile the crowd up). A lot of people took my fliers and said they’d be in touch with questions. One guy has wanted to start a board game collection at this library for years and we may have inspired him to just go for it!
This session was kind of a continuation of the keynote with Chloe Eudaly. Chloe wanted to know what issues our libraries were dealing with, what cool things we were doing, and how she could help or connect us to people who could help. It was an “unconference” style so we just went around the room and talked about our libraries. As such, this session was a hodgepodge of ideas, resources, and cool things to look into. Here are some of them:
This was a session by McMinnville Public Library staff about their 2013 initiative to create an inclusive library team culture and set staff ground rules and customer service standards that everyone must abide by. Their ideas were quite radical so the session was pretty interesting. Here’s a summary:
This was an unconference-type session where we just shared recommendations and experiences about time management. There were about 30 of us and all of us have tried multiple time management techniques so there were a bunch of good ideas going around. We sat around in a circle and hashed things out. It was an informative session.
Overarching takeaways:
1.
The opening talk was from Marij Vaugelers from the University of Amsterdam and she was clearly charged with giving a “state of the field” talk. She relied heavily on documents from Educause and Gartner, though she also pointed to this report out of the UK which might be of interest: https://www.ucisa.ac.uk/learningspace.
Looking at the change curve – she positioned learning space talk here, which felt kind of accurate to me – after the honeymoon and trough of despair.
Overall, the talk felt to me like it could have been given at any point in the last 10 years, but given how heavily she relied on US sources, I think that might just be a reflection of the relative state(s) of this field. She was reporting on what was going on in the US for a fair part of the talk, so of course that was more familiar to me.
2.
Eleanor Magennis from U. Glasgow gave one of my favorite talks at the conference.
(Basically, the talks that were about people’s own work were the best – the “tour of cool” talks running through a bunch of pictures of other people’s work were less so. And the talks where someone talked about their own work and focused on WHY they did what they did – what specific problems they were trying to solve, and what data they used — were by far the best. Increasingly, I am of the opinion that learning spaces need to be pretty deeply situated in context — I’m not just ever going to want to replicate someone else’s space they built for their community. So the more someone tells me about how they responded to their context, the more useful their talk is. This was one of those.)
Eleanor works on learning space design for her whole campus (and is also part of the planning committee for the toolkit linked above) and the University of Glasgow is currently working to bring a new “learning hub” space online, but this talk focused on 2-3 specific rooms that are already in use. Glasgow sounded like a spot that might be good for a site visit, if the opportunity arose.
Takeaways:
3.
Louise Naylor from the University of Kent in Canterbury. This was by far my favorite talk of the conference and another location I think would be worthwhile for a site visit. Louise oversees 4 teaching and learning related units at Kent, including learning spaces, CTL type stuff, and assessment. She is also working on a major learning spaces project, but chose to focus this talk on something else – student collaborations.
The talk was great because 1. The student collaborations were aligned with things we’ve talked about doing, and 2. She spent a lot of time talking about informal and outdoor (!) spaces.
There’s a chapter in this book about the space development process: Dunne, E., & Owen, Derfel. (2013). The student engagement handbook : Practice in higher education (First ed.). United Kingdom: Emerald: http://search.library.oregonstate.edu/OSU:everything:CP71194486610001451
4.
This was co-presented by an academic (Engineer Peter Green) and an architect (Fedele Canosa), who collaborated to build a new building at the University of Manchester. The title was “an academic’s journey thorough leading a major project: The Manchester Engineering Campus Project. Having both of them there elevated this beyond an architect’s infomercial and pushed the focus to why they made the choices they did.
Obviously, we’re probably not going to create a huge staircase in the library for event space — what was relatable was the desire to create spaces that were multipurpose — this is a conduit to move people from A to B, but it can be easily configured into many different spaces and uses. And specifically, the need for event space is, I think, frequently overlooked. That huge staircase doubles as informal seating. There’s a glass wall that opens to the outside (and indoor-outdoor spaces were a recurring theme throughout the better talks). The space below can handle parties, poster sessions, lunch and learns and conferences, and it also connects directly to workshop space.
5.
Ulrike Thomas and Pam Woolner from Newcastle talked about workshops they did with teaching faculty in advance of designing spaces. This was another good talk and another one where the speakers are open to sharing some of their activities with us.
The researchers here came out of K-12, but were put in charge of a campus project to build a new classroom space. The problem they were trying to solve was to create a space that would support active learning, in many disciplines, in large (100+) classes.
Diamond Pattern Activity
Give users/faculty a set of 9 images. Tell them to work in groups to arrange those images in a diamond pattern. In our case, we were to answer the question “what is the best and worse higher education spaces.” This was way too broad. But you get the idea.
Once the groups arrange the images, then you get people talking across groups about why they put different images where they did.
After this initial workshop, they created a Working Party User Group who came together to make decisions along the way.
So, if it had all been like these talks, the conference would have been awesome. But unfortunately, these were all of my favorite talks. That said, I did have some additional takeaways:
A.
Keith Lilley from the University of Sheffield, talked about a 81 million pound building project: The Diamond at the University of Sheffield:
This talk raised more questions than answers for me, but some of the questions where interesting:
FIRST – he talked about an intentional choice to keep all faculty space out — including offices. So it is i just classrooms and informal learning spaces. The faculty offices are in another building across the quad.
SECOND, he talked about this as a super-popular study space on campus. In fact, he called it the most popular study space on campus (though I don’t know what data that is based upon) . He also said that this space was heavily used by all students — not just engineers.
WHICH MADE ME WONDER — are those things related. I have a hard time seeing a building owned by Engineering on this campus feel as if it was owned by all students. Was the decision to keep faculty offices out connected to this feeling open and welcoming to all students?
AND ALSO MADE ME WONDER — this didn’t really feel and wasn’t described as an “anything goes” space. The different learning areas within the building felt pretty controlled and locked down. So how does that connect to students having a sense of belonging?
ALSO. THERE IS A LIBRARY IN THE SPACE. This was super interesting. It’s about 20K volumes, a core, multidisciplinary collection, and it’s non-circulating (though students can return books borrowed from other campus libraries there. It is a library, not a separate-from-the-library-collection-of-books). He described the library within the Diamond as “The most popular study space on campus.” Healso said later that The Diamond’s opening did not affect usage in two other heavily used libraries: the Info Commons and the more traditional library (sounded to me like an Odegaard/Suzallo type deal). Their numbers haven’t gone down, but have even gone up. They are interpreting this to mean that more students are choosing to study on campus as they provide more options.
So this raises a super future question about our stuff elsewhere on campus, and also raises a question about what kinds of things signify workspace to students — more on this below.
B.
Mat Davies from the Said Business School at Oxford talked about two building-renovation projects. Neither one of them was super relevant to us (though they did have some recurring themes — indoor/outdoor spaces, multifunction spaces, public workshop space)
He also said they LOVE site visits.
What was interesting here, was the intersection between the two projects he highlighted.
FIRST – A new executive education center. And not just any Exec Ed center. This is for the customized training programmes that super rich companies contract with Oxford to do. So, not sending your middle managers to Oxford for training, but having Oxford set up a bespoke program just for your people. In other words, of all of the audiences for a Fancy Oxford Business education, this audience was the Most Fancy. So a huge part of this project was making sure that the space itself was the Most Fancy. That meant super fancy finishing, a great location at the center of campus, and the like. There were some other interesting things – like these were week=long immersive programs, so all of the spaces, including the cocktail party spaces had to have educational outcomes attached. But the main thing for our purposes here is that this space had to be Fancy. Only the Best.
SECOND = an Entrepreneurship Center. This was put into an old Foundry building. Again, some interesting things – this was not so much as classroom as experiential space so most of the building was a huge, open “co-working” space in the middle with a flexible space at one end that could be turned into a performance or workshop space.
But for our purposes, the interesting thing here is that the design and décor was intentionally Not Fancy. It was entirely furnished with repurposed furniture and finishings. In fact, they used salvaged paneling from another building that they literally got out of the dumpster. In other words, it was intentionally designed to look DIY because that was the work they wanted to encourage in the space.
So my question here is – what design elements should we put in the studio to encourage the work that we want people to do there. What signifies authorship, creativity, serious work? I am wondering if we shouldn’t think about putting books in the space – I think books might signify that kind of work to people, even if they aren’t actively using them? There is a reason people like to study in the stacks or sit in the reading collection space? Are there ways we can use technology to display the kind of creative or productive work we expect students to do in the space?
C.
The most interesting thing for our purposes from Mark Brown from Dublin City University’s talk was an interesting bit with metaphors that might be interesting to talk about – different metaphors for learning spaces (habitat/home; cave, campfire, mountaintop, watering hole) and how different spaces should reflect different metaphors. Thinking with users about what metaphors resonate might be an interesting info gathering method.
This talk got me thinking about OSU – probably because it’s not Dublin City University and DCU is what the talk was mostly about – but I wonder if there is a way to connect what we’re doing with OSU. I’m not sure “studio” works super well with our users (or maybe it does – maybe that’s a broader term than I’m thinking about). But is there a way to get at what our students think is special about OSU and bake that into the name, or the design of the space?
Check out Twitter #acrl2017 and my notes (unedited) in a google doc …. questions or comments, please come see me!
Baltimore’s Inner Harbor
Conference reception at the B&B Railroad Museum
Closing Keynote – Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden!
In the cold, icy, snowy, dark, month of January I took an unusual (I thought for librarians) course called “Mindfulness for Librarians: Handling Stress and Thriving Under Pressure.” Having read a number of books over the years on mindfulness, and tried to practice (often unsuccessfully) in my personal life, and through inspiration from librarian colleagues I respect applying these concepts in their librarianship and teaching, I thought I would try it out this course.
Though the course was 100% online (no virtual synchronous meet ups) – which is not always my best style to learn – over the 4 weeks, the engagement of students as well as instructors, keep my attention. The class size was large, making it hard to read everyone’s posts and respond, but I managed to pick up tips and ideas. Simply realizing everyone else enrolled was also struggling with an information overload, too many meetings/projects and not enough staff, etc scenarios too and looking for ways to be mindful and present in these situations was helpful and bonding. I enjoyed readings and discussions about “job demands-resources theory,” librarians and burnout, why relationships are important in libraries, mindful reference interactions, and job crafting – and I recommend an article by Schein “learning leader as cultural manager.” I found the mediation exercises (such as the Insight Timer Mediation App, these from UCLA, this loving kindness meditation, and Jon Kabat-Zinn resources.) and discussion about our struggles to practice very helpful. I joined a Facebook group with others from the course, that is sharing and virtually meeting up for synchronous mindfulness sessions. Others are now taking various online/in person Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction courses.
I hope to bring some of these ideas and methods into my work place by sharing applicable ideas/reading with others, encouraging being present for my staff and role modeling that behavior, and bringing mindfulness and mediation moments throughout the work day. Wish me luck!
” If you are not at the table you might be on the menu”
Reading Library Spaces: Using Mobile Assessment to Complete Your Library’s Story by Tobi Hines, Cornell University, Camille Andrews, Cornell University and Sara Wright, Cornell University
Evidence-Based Decision Making Using New Library Data, by Heather Scalf, University of Texas Arlington
Driving the BUS: A Multimodal Building Use Study and Needs Assessment by Mandy Shannon, Wright State University
Don’t Dismiss Directional: Analyzing Reference Desk Interactions to Develop an Evidence-Based Content Strategy for a Digital Wayfinding System Christine Tobias, Michigan State University
Shh Stats: Mining the Library’s Chat Transcripts to Identify Patterns in Noise Complaints Jason Vance, Middle Tennessee State University
After the Ribbon Cutting: Creating and Executing an Efficient Assessment Plan for a Large-Scale Learning Space Project Krystal Wyatt-Baxter, University of Texas at Austin Michele Ostrow, University of Texas at Austin
Lead Users: A Strategy for Predictive, Context-Sensitive Service and Space Design Ameet Doshi, Georgia Institute of Technology Elliot Felix, brightspot strategy
From Data to Development: Using Qualitative Data to Create New Ideas and Solutions Ingela Wahlgren, Lund University, Åsa Forsberg, Lund University
Space: Describing and Assessing Library and Other Learning Spaces Bob Fox, University of Louisville, Steve Hiller, University of Washington, Martha Kyrillidou, Quality Metrics, LLC Joan Lippincott, CNI
Assessing to Transform an Aging Learning Commons: Leveraging Multiple Methods to Create a Holistic Picture of Student Needs Jessica Adamick, University of Massachusetts Amherst Sarah Hutton, University of Massachusetts Amherst
Consulting Detectives: How One Library Deduced the Effectiveness of Its Consultation Area & Services Camille Andrews, Cornell University Tobi Hines, Cornell University
Public Workstation Use: Visualizing Occupancy Rates Jeremy Buhler, University of British Columbia
Library Snapshot Day, or the 5 Ws—Who, What, When, Where, and Why Are Students Using Academic Library Space: A Method for Library User Experience Assessment Gricel Dominguez, Florida International University Genevieve Diamond, Florida International University Enrique Caboverde, Florida International University Denisse Solis, Florida International University
Assessment by Design: A Design Thinking Project at the University of Washington Libraries Linda Garcia, Washington State University Vancouver (linda.garcia@wsu.edu) Jackie Belanger, University of Washington http://libraryassessment.org/bm~doc/belanger-handout.pdf
Space Assessment Via Tableau – U of Washington Libraries https://visualibrarian.wordpress.com/2016/10/07/library-space-assessment-in-tableau-a-step-by-step-guide-to-custom-polygon-maps-and-dashboard-actions/
Used Tableau to visualize the data https://public.tableau.com/profile/libraryviz#!/vizhome/REACH_1/REACHDashboard
Using Peers to Shed Light on Service Hours for Librarians
Hector Escobar, University of Dayton @greenghopper Heidi Gauder, University of Dayton
Active Learning with Assessment
Katharine Hall, Concordia University Meredith Giffin, Concordia University
A Comparison Study of the Perceptions, Expectations, and Behaviors of Library Employers on Job Negotiations as Hiring Employers and as Job Seekers
Leo Lo, Old Dominion U Jason Reed, Purdue
Impact of Academic Libraries on UG Degree Completion http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2016/09/27/crl16-968.full.pdf
The Designing Libraries for the 21st Century conference held in Calgary, Canada in September 2016 was attended by Margaret Mellinger, Beth Filar Williams and Victoria Heiduschke. It included a pre-conference day on Learning Spaces and one on Data Visualization.
Overall key takeaways:
The Learning Spaces pre-conference was held in the brand new Taylor Institute for Teaching and Learning (TITL)
Key Highlights:
all space. For example, TITL has the tech boxes throughout the space in the floor.
Reflection Loft area
Conversation Pods hang from up high!Key highlights:
Core values of design concepts within a space and with partners:
Ideas to consider at OSULP:
The Data Visualization pre-conference was help in the Taylor Family Digital Library (http://tfdl.ucalgary.ca/faqs)
Key Insights | application to OSULP:
Closing Panel: Rethinking the organization as you redesign space
Organizational Change: For major renovations or organization structure changes, Murray-Rust suggest these important lessons:
University of Rochester New Service Model in Old Spaces
Important Lessons:
University of British Columbia, Barber Learning Center
Important Lessons:
Studio Bell – National Music Center
Studio Bell Music Makerspace
(new) Mount Royal University Library – reclaimed skateboard wall
Mount Royal University – Taylor Centre for the Performing Arts
Hello.
Just wanted to share a brief summary of this year’s OLA-SSD Conference “Coming to a Crossroads: Intersecting Roles in Library Service and Community” in Wilsonville.
First off, the food was excellent and everyone was stuffed by the end of the day. A nice venue.
Also met one of our former student employees from the early 90’s, Tallie McWilliams. Her husband, Jeremy, also worked for us during that time and is now the Digital Services Coordinator at Lewis & Clark College. Tallie also works at the L&C library.
Keynote – Oregon Library Passport Program – Eva Calcagno, Chair of the OLA Resource Sharing Committee and Director Washington County Cooperative Library Services.
Gave an historical background of the Library Passport Program – she spearheaded the development and implementation in 2013 – which opened up free, direct patron borrowing at libraries across the state. She also shared experiences being involved in resource sharing during her career and the Passport Program has been a positive resource for some metropolitan libraries and rural ones as well throughout Oregon. The program has not been that influential at Oregon State University Libraries as our Oregon Resident Card already provides access for all Oregon residents.
Session #1 – One of These Things is Not Like the Other: The Joy of a Diverse Environment. – Sandra Valenti, Emporia State University
Discussed individual approaches to topics of diversity. Many examples from the presenter and audience of how the best-intentioned comments or statements can be perceived as offensive to some. How you say something does matter and we all need to be aware of sensitive topics including gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and disabilities among others. Welcoming diversity and being respectful is the goal. Think before you speak. Explaining yourself afterwards is a very awkward and uncomfortable situation and can be easily avoided.
Session #2 – Responding to and Assisting People with Unique Needs – Elise Thompson, Clackamas County Behavioral Health Division
Because most libraries are open to the general public, “we see the entire unique and wonderful range of humanity at the library, and that can present some interesting challenges to staff concerning how to keep that shared space as comfortable and welcoming as possible for all who use it.” The presentation gave some tips on how to engage effectively, professionally – and compassionately – with all of your patrons and their unique needs.
Elise discussed different situations and shared a handout for a guide. She stressed that if a situation appeared dangerous to always call security or the police for help.
The handout Responding To and Assisting People with Unique Needs covered topics like Behavior vs. Cause? Behavior is the primary area of concern for staff, not the cause of that behavior. Be cautious about assuming that you know the reason for someone’s unusual behavior – it can be caused by any one or a combination of factors. For your purposes, it is probably not relevant what the cause is. Instead, your concern is about the client’s ability to interact with you and get their needs met in a way that:
• Maintains safety for all involved
• Is satisfying to the client
• Causes a minimum disruption to your work
• Causes a minimum disruption to other clients
It also covers observational skills, communication skills and other general guidelines. Very useful.
Session #3 – Tips of the Trade: Training Guides and Techniques for Libraries. – Suzy Coleman (Tualatin Public Library), Shanel Parette (Willamette University), and Michael Farris (Pacific University)
The panel shared their student training materials and techniques. Software used included Google Docs and Libguides. The training materials were by topic and questions were answered about navigation, ease of use, and some training styles. Another question that came up was how best to communicate with students/volunteers that come and go and are not stationed at a desk. Everyone has tried notes, bulletin or whiteboards, etc. Several libraries also use gift boxes, candy and other rewards for their students. Also gained some ideas for interview questions based on a student’s personality and goals.
Amila and I mentioned that we base our training not on topics, but on the level of overall training using modules. We also use a wiki to manage the materials. Initial training is focused on allowing students to begin working at the desk quickly doing basic tasks and their level of overall skills and knowledge progresses as the training progresses. All staff participate and contribute to the training as we are open 24/5. We also discussed the use of training level badges – both digital and physical. There was much interest in our techniques and Suzy sat down with us afterwards for a discussion.
Overall an informational and pleasant day. Did I mention the great food?
– Bryan
