Adaptor or Innovator? Responding to User’s Changing Needs
Tracks: Access & Equity, Assessment, Leadership & Management
Library Director, Berkeley College
The poster will share the results of a qualitative study interviewing library leaders and how they manage change. Through the lens of design thinking and business models helped interpret the results and align many library operations from librarian agency to user experience. The poster will present a model created from this research to visualize how to analyze perceived services or user expectations and actual services or the reality. Takeaways from the poster include how to evaluate user needs through needs assessment, research methods, and how to apply design thinking methods to library operations.
Creating Community: The Value of Core Mentoring Program in the New Continuing Resources Cataloger
Tracks: Leadership & Management, Metadata & Collections
Bonnie Parks
Collections Technology Librarian, University of Portland
Continuing Resources Catalog Librarian, Brigham Young University
Our poster will focus on how working with a CONSER-trained cataloger can help the new continuing resources cataloger learn not only how, but also what it means to catalog in a cooperative cataloging environment.
Highlights:
• Introduce the new cataloger to professional development opportunities like the CONSER DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals) project, networking opportunities, and other ways to contribute to the larger library community.
• Identify freely-available tools of the trade.
• Lessons learned and tips for future collaboration
The Defining and Visualization of Equity & Inclusion
Tracks: Access & Equity
Lesley Brown
Head – User Services, California State University Sacramento
Melissa Cardenas-Dow
Social Sciences Librarian, California State University Sacramento
A concerted effort should be made to define diversity, equity and inclusion to work toward common DEI goals. Common definitions help with goal setting, allows organizations to plan with greater purpose, ambition, and intention. Once common definitions have been established an organization can begin to work toward developing a common DEI agenda/strategy. Providing visual imagery that represents what DEI would look like provides another access point. Simple strategies like this can quickly be deployed by any type or size of organization. Definitions and imagery alone will not prioritize goals or administer a DEI agenda, but it is a start.
Double Purpose Research: Creating Student Tutorials from Technology Lessons Learned
Tracks: Technology
Reference & Instruction Librarian, Manhattan College
While doing our own research, many digital humanities librarians are using the same tools that faculty and students can. When we apply these tools to real-world research objectives, we become better informed in best practices, limitations, and troubleshooting methods for these technologies. This can help us create concrete learning tools for students. An example of how to take the lessons learned while gathering data, organizing it, analyzing it and visualizing it for a digital humanities research project, and turning it into a series of tutorials for our school’s research guide.
Evolving Role of Cataloging Department Heads
Tracks: Access & Equity, Leadership & Management, Metadata & Collections
Catherine Sassen
Principal Catalog Librarian, University of North Texas
Associate Dean for Collection Management, University of North Texas
Department Head of Cataloging & Metadata Services
This poster presents an analysis of job advertisements for cataloging department head positions in academic libraries from 2015 through 2020. It illuminates how required and preferred qualifications have evolved over time. Recommendations for writing job advertisements to promote equity, diversity, and inclusion are provided.
Fall 2020: A Tale of Two Cohorts
Tracks: Building & Operations, Leadership & Management
Director – Desks and Patron Experience, University of Tennessee at Chattanoga
Director-Studio, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Our institution resumed face-to-face services in fall 2020, so we needed a plan to keep staff safe and materials circulating. The university provided safety protocols, and we reduced face-to-face transactions. Could we do more to ensure safety of employees and continuity of operations? This poster will present the experiences of two public service teams who rotated cohorts between on-site and work from home. While both successful and grueling, the cohort scheduling strategy taught us a lot. This poster will describe how we created the model, how reality differed from plans, and how we will adjust for the future.
Leveraging Lateral Leadership: Strategy, Communication, Motivation
Tracks: Leadership & Management
Rebecca Croxton
Head of Assessment, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Anne Cooper Moore
Library Dean, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
Sherri Saines
Subject Librarian for Social Sciences, Ohio University
Lateral leaders, those who lead but are not the bosses, influence, persuade, and elicit constructive contributions from others at all levels of an organization. Being a lateral leader doesn’t mean you can take over and issue orders. In fact, to remain afloat, lateral leadership requires you to let others help pull the load. In this poster session, three library professionals who are … or have been lateral leaders will share their insights about how they found success in positions of unofficial leadership by motivating others and promoting productivity through conviction, communication, motivation, and a strategic mindset.
Libraries Minus Librarian: The open+ Model
Tracks: Access & Equity, Building & Operations, Technology
Doctoral Student, UCLA
Jeremy Abbott
Doctoral Student, UCLA
Our presentation examines the introduction of the open+ staffless model to United States public libraries. We argue that staffless libraries are stealth efforts to cull library jobs, enhance the role of surveillance and policing in a manner contrary to the public mission of public librarianship, and threaten the very essence of what public libraries are, transforming former public, community knowledge-seeking spaces into privatized book warehouses. We particularly examine the decision of the Santa Monica Public Library to open a fully staffless branch, but will also offer international context on deployments of this technology.
Library Employment as Student Engagement: Using the NSSE Engagement Indicators to Align with a Campus Priority
Tracks: Building & Operations, Leadership & Management
Physical Sciences & Engineering Director, University of Minnesota Libraries
Assistant University Librarian for Access Services, Towson University Cook Library
Student engagement is one of the many priorities that colleges and universities prioritize in support of their retention and graduation rates. Many studies have shown that libraries support student achievement and engagement through their resources, services and spaces, but few focus on the impact student employment in the library can have on these areas. This poster will report on a study that uses interviews with library employers and the Engagement Indicators from the National Survey of Student Engagement as a framework for identifying a range of student employment responsibilities and program components that support campus student engagement goals and enrich the employment experience for students. The poster will take viewers through the study methodology, results and implications.
Political Skill of Academic Librarians: The Influence of Personal, Job, and Institutional Characteristics
Tracks: Leadership & Management
Dean of University Libraries
Strong political skills are necessary for organizational effectiveness and career success. However, not much is known about academic librarians’ political skills. Survey data was collected in February 2020 from 260 U.S. academic librarians using two validated instruments. Linear regression showed that three variables (length of service as a librarian, supervision of regular employees, and structural frame score) significantly influenced respondents’ Political Score Inventory scores with a modest effect size. This poster will include crosstab and correlational data for independent variables including race, gender, and age as well as recommendations for improving political skills.
Representing African Activism in the Library of Congress Name Authority File through Remote Cataloging of Archival Finding Aids
Tracks: Metadata & Collections
Nicole Smeltekop
Special Materials Catalog Librarian, Michigan State University
The Library of Congress Name Authority File is used by catalogers worldwide; however much of the scope of the file is focused on Western individuals and organizations. This poster will document my work in creating authority records for African activist organizations and individual activists represented in our Special Collections manuscript collections, and highlight the responsibility catalogers have for diversifying the authority file. Particular attention will be paid to creating authority records from manuscript material remotely.
Scholarly Communication Priorities Among Public Teaching Institutions: A Mixed-Methods Study
Tracks: Assessment, Leadership & Management
Dean of University Libraries, Towson University
Associate Dean for Academic Services, Sacramento State University
Associate Dean for Research & Scholarship, San Jose State University
Daina Dickman
Scholarly Communication
This program presents the results of an IMLS-funded study that investigated the scholarly communication programming and staffing priorities among M1 (Master’s Colleges and Universities – Larger programs) public university libraries. Twenty librarians from M1 public institutions participated in focus groups and provided structured information on their libraries’ scholarly communication program, development, and staffing.
Scholarly communication services and support among academic libraries continue to grow and develop within the context of limited budgets and staffing and high expectations. This study adds to the existing conversation on the prevalence of scholarly communication programs at institutions with strong teaching and learning emphases.
World’s Greatest (First) Boss: Librarian as Student Manager and Mentor
Tracks: Leadership & Management
Amanda VerMeulen
Associate Director for Research, Learning, and Outreach, Frostburg State University
Amanda Bena
Head of Access Services, Frostburg State University
Academic libraries rely on student employees to effectively deliver services to patrons. However, student employees have very different managerial and mentoring needs than professional staff. For many students, a job in the library may be the very first they’ve ever had.
Most management training librarians receive focus on professional staff. As young adults, student employees often need greater developmental attention beyond traditional management.
This poster focuses on some developmental techniques used to help students grow as people and employees. Student employment is not just a job, it’s also a critical component of a student’s overall educational experience and social community.