Minutes of December 5, 2008 Meeting

Present:

Andrew Gerber, Eileen Stec (recorder), Jeris Cassel (chair), Theo Haynes, Roberta Tipton and Donna Wertheimer—the last three attending via videoconference.

The group reviewed responses provided from the final activity of the “Reflecting on Library Instruction” program on Tuesday, December 2 with a presentation by Sara Harrington and workshop activities developed by ISC. The responses were informative and useful for future activities on instruction and professional development for teacher-librarians. The program was successful in facilitating an open dialogue on instruction within RUL.

We recommend that RUL send more librarians, both tenured and tenure-track to the appropriate ACRL Immersion program tracks (some for beginner, some for advanced and some for program management) and/or the NJ State Library Train-the-Trainer programs. The ACRL deadline is December 8, (however we suspect available spots after that date) and the NJ Train-the-Trainer scheduled for March 18, 19, 20 and March 27, 2009, but March is one of the heaviest teaching months for librarians. The program consists of three consecutive days of instruction, building to a fourth day where participants demonstrate the skills learned by presenting a snapshot of their training session to other participants. The registration fee of $400 includes all workshop materials, food and overnight lodging at the Sheraton Eatontown, NJ. Theo also highly recommends Bob Pike as a trainer/consultant (The Bob Pike Group.com).

• Professional development opportunities are being listed on the ISC’s SAKAI site. One of the ISC roles could be to add to this collection as well as listing information on activities of peer-aspirant institutions. We would like to put together training on a regular basis next year, but this is secondary to our goal of increasing the number of RUL librarians who have attended an appropriate ACRL Immersion track. Some ideas for included workshops, discussions and presentations on Sakai and RUL Instruction Repository, Refworks, Zotero, Bloom’s Taxonomy, and assessment and active learning techniques, with expertise shared by CTAAR (Center for Teaching Advancement and Assessment Research). Jeris noted that the NB Writing Program offers for its instructors regular lunchtime discussions called “Tips for Teachers” and we might use that as a model.

In our continuing discussions of morphing ISC into a more agile and teacher-librarian focused we agreed to the following action steps:

• Place the ideas for presentation/discussion into the SAKAI RUL Instruction Repository site. This will allow others to view ideas and add their own.
• ISC attendees will divide a list of peer-aspirant institutions and search for their library instruction philosophies, vision and mission statements and place on the SAKAI RUL Instruction Repository site. These resources will inform discussions with the User Services Council regarding reformulating Instructional Services Committee. The chart used for assigning research is located at http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/staff/planning/reports/peer_and_aspirant_institutions_08.pdf

Theo will research Berkeley to U. Michigan;

Donna will cover UNC, Chapel Hill (excluding Rutgers) to U. of Kansas;

Bobbie will take Michigan State U to University of Colorado, Boulder;

Eileen will research UC Davis through UC Irvine;

Jeris will cover U Maryland, College Park to Penn State;

Andrew will take U Pittsburgh to U. Washington.

These assignments, to be completed before December 18.

Announcements of ongoing activities of ISC members:

• Valeda and Jeris have been meeting and talking with Office of Undergraduate Academic Programming/Engagement, FIGS Program, Honors Program, University College Community, and Writing Program about an information literacy tutorial. Ron Goldman, CEO of Kognito, met with the group on November 19.
• Jeris, Myoung, and Valeda will be meeting with a group led by Karen Novick in January to discuss a new SCILS information literacy program initiative.
• Eileen, Jeris and Valeda met with the English 201 and Business, Scientific & Technical writing directors (Darcy Gioia, Emily Renaud, and Bill Magrino) about the possibility of adding a one-credit lab component to selected courses covering aspects of library research as related to information literacy needed for their courses. English 201 plans to discuss this co-requisite with Susan Lawrence of SAS.
• Theo reported that VALE SIL (Shared Information Literacy) committee is working with Central Jersey Academic Reference Librarians (CJARL) and NJLA CUS/ACRL User Education committee to come up with “progression standards” that students should meet coming from High School into Community and Four-year Colleges. There will be a joint meeting to discuss the standards project on Friday, December 12, at Monmouth University.