The Blended Librarian

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Does Information Literacy Make a Difference for
Pre-College Students?: Researching a Big Question
Thursday, January 28, 2010
3-4pm EST

Event Description
Does information literacy make a contribution to overall learning and transition to college for pre-college students? Join us for a discussion of how this research question has brought together many of the community and technical college librarians in Washington state in an effort to answer it. This session will discuss the approach to the research, the role of librarians in assisting our colleges/universities with retention efforts, the unique characteristics of pre-college students, and the collaboration between librarians and Basic Skills faculty to achieve results.

Guest Speaker Bio
Debra Gilchrist is Dean of Libraries and Institutional Effectiveness for Pierce Colleges, a community college district in Lakewood and Puyallup, Washington. She is responsible for leadership and management of the library and media services for the multi-campus district. She was an inaugural faculty member for ACRL's Institute for Information Literacy Immersion program, and has served on the faculty since 1998. Debra has given presentations and published in the areas of library instruction, outcomes assessment, the teaching library mission, and faculty/librarian collaboration. She is currently facilitating the implementation of an information literacy requirement that is based on student outcomes and focused on measuring library effectiveness based on student learning.

Registration
Although this event is free, advance registration is required to reserve a virtual seat.

If you are already a member of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community, register here: http://home.learningtimes.net/library?go=2282498

If you need to join the Blended Librarians Online Community in order to register (no fee to join):

Go to the Blended Librarian website at http://blendedlibrarian.org
Click on the “Join” button on the home page of Blendedlibrarian.org and follow the instructions.
After you receive confirmation of your Learning Times account you can return to this email message and use the link above for registered members of Learning Times. Click on the link, and then register on the next page (you may need to scroll down to see the register button).
We recommend that those participating in the webcast obtain a microphone or headset in order to make use of the VoIP technology that allows conversation between the speakers and participants. A microphone or headset is not required to participate.
Please plan on allowing yourself sufficient time to log in to the webcast. If it is the first time attending a Learning Times event it may take a few extra minutes to log on to their Elluminate webcasting software. Once you have registered for the event you may wish to try the “test room” to make sure your computer is set up and ready to go the day of the webcast.

Collaborating With Faculty on Information Literacy Instruction:
Using Visual Methods to Enhance Student Learning
Thursday, December 3, 2009
3-4pm EST

Event Description
Students’ ability to create visual work is important in their understanding and learning of complex concepts. While visual literacy is a growing phenomenon of interest amongst librarians in a variety of settings, visual methods for teaching are centered around the learner’s ability to take in new knowledge and express it in an original, visual form. In this session, two members of Indiana University’s Visual Methods Research Group will explain their research in exploring visual teaching methods, as well as their collaborative efforts to integrate information literacy into an undergraduate course using visual methods.

Guest Speaker Bios
Laurel Cornell, Professor of Sociology, Indiana University, spent the first two-thirds of her research career working in demography, gender and Japanese studies. She used quantitative historical data from villages in early modern Japan (1600-1868) to examine a variety of comparative questions relating to household structure, marriage, divorce, gender roles, aging, and mortality. She received her Ph.D. from the Department of Social Relations, Johns Hopkins University. Professor Cornell returned to graduate school and received a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from the University of Virginia in 2003. She is interested in large public projects --- especially those involving disused industrial sites --- and in public art. In her teaching Professor Cornell emphasizes visual methods of learning and student involvement in the community (service-learning).

Carrie Donovan, Instructional Services Librarian, Indiana University, is the librarian for Gender Studies and the Head of Teaching & Learning for the Indiana University Libraries, where she works with students, faculty, and instructors to connect the libraries to student learning. An instruction librarian for ten years, Carrie has explored a variety of methods and strategies for helping undergraduates understand information-seeking and their role in it. Her research areas of interest include visual teaching methods, discipline-focused information literacy, first year experience initiatives, and teacher development/training for librarians and future librarians.<

View the Archive
The recording of this free webcast is available in the Blended Librarians Online Community under "Archives". To access: go to the Blended Librarian website at http://blendedlibrarian.org. If you are already a registered member of the Learning Times Network, use the login on the Blended Librarian home page to connect to the Learning Times Network. If you are not registered, click on the “Join” button and follow the instructions.

Digital Literacy, Digital Storytelling
and the Role of the Academic Librarian
Thursday, November 10, 2009
3-4pm EST

Event Description
An emergent trend in higher education today is the ever-increasing number of faculty who are allowing students to create video and multimedia projects as an alternative to the traditional research paper. This session will explore the current and future roles academic libraries and librarians should play in this environment. The topics covered in this session are: digital literacy and the librarian’s role, working effectively with faculty on assignment design, and digital storytelling & video assignments and the academic library’s support role.

Guest Speaker Bios
Ellysa Stern Cahoy, is Assistant Head of Library Learning Services in the Penn State University Libraries, University Park. A former children's librarian and school library media specialist, Ms. Cahoy has published research and presented on information literacy, library orientation, evidence-based librarianship and library instruction. She is a Faculty Fellow in Penn State’s Teaching and Learning with Technology unit, focused on defining a model for student digital literacy acquisition within the online content creation process. Ms. Cahoy is Co-Director of the Central Pennsylvania K-16 Information Literacy Network and serves on the Executive Committee of the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Instruction Section.

Ms. Vedantham, is the Director of the Weigle Information Commons at the Penn Libraries. She came to Penn in 2007 from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, where she directed the Southern Regional Educational Technology Training Center (ETTC) for six years providing professional development and technology models for college faculty and K-12 teachers. She also served as Interim Associate Provost and as Director of Instructional Technology. Her research on global warming has been recognized by the Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) as a significant contribution to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. Ms. Vedantham holds her New Jersey Principal Certificate and served for two years as Director of Grants and Community Initiatives at Stafford Township School District. In the mid-90s, Ms. Vedantham served as Program Officer at the Telecommunications Opportunities Program at the United States Department of Commerce. She completed her Masters in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and her Bachelors and Masters in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Ms. Vedantham is pursuing her doctorate in Higher Education Management at Penn's Graduate School of Education.

Coming Soon to Campus:
The New "Free Agent" Learner - Are You Ready?
Thursday, October 22, 2009
3-4pm EST

Event Description
The dynamic profusion of emerging technologies, both in school and out of school, is propelling today's K-12 students to make new demands on education institutions for technology-rich learning experiences and environments. Enabled, empowered and engaged, this next wave of students is bringing to college their own set of objectives for 21st century learning. Get a first hand glimpse into the activities, values and aspirations of tomorrow's students through this webinar presentation by Project Tomorrow CEO, Julie Evans.

Guest Speaker Bio
Julie Evans is the CEO of Project Tomorrow (www.tomorrow.org), a national education nonprofit organization (formerly known as NetDay). Project Tomorrow is dedicated to empowering K-12 students to have a larger voice in improving education and learning. Ms. Evans has been CEO of this organization since 1999. Prior to this position, Ms. Evans enjoyed a successful 17-year career in national and regional sales and marketing management with Unisys and two education technology startups. Ms. Evans is a graduate of Brown University and serves on the Board of Directors of Project Tomorrow, the KOCE-TV Education Advisory Council, the Childrens' First Advisory Council and the Association of Women in Technology Council. She is a Frances Hesselbein Community Innovation Fellow and a frequent speaker, writer and commentator on children, education, science and technology issues. In April 2008, Ms. Evans was named as one of the Top Ten Most Influential People in Education Technology over the past 10 years by eSchool News, a leading national education publication. This past year, Ms. Evans served on the Project Advisory Boards for both the 2009 Horizon Report for Higher Education and the 2009 K-12 Horizon Report.

Becoming an Educational Change Agent
Thursday, May 21, 2009
3-4pm EST

Event Description
In this session, we'll explore the changing role of academic teaching and learning "support" staff. How has it evolved over the past decade, and where are our job descriptions going? How much of our work is reactive, and how much of is advocacy for changes in instructional paradigms? How are the roles between instructional designers and librarians demarcated, and where are they beginning to shift or merge? Is learning technology itself an emerging academic discipline? We'll begin with a brief presentation on these issues by Josh Kim and Barbara Knauff, Senior Learning Technologists at Dartmouth College (see their recent Educause Review column on these issues, "Business Cards for the Future", but the majority of the session will be given over to a participant discussion of these issues. Please prepare for the session by reading the Educause column, and by thinking about the shifts in teaching and learning support at your own institutions. We look forward to a lively discussion!

Guest Speakers Bio
Joshua Kim, Ph.D., is a Senior Learning Technologist at Dartmouth College in Hanover NH and a part-time faculty member at Quinnipiac University Online, and an ECAR Fellow. Prior to coming to Dartmouth in 2008, Josh worked as a Program Manager / Learning Designer at Quinnipiac University, as a Senior Producer for Britannica.com Education and was on the faculty at West Virginia University. He has a Ph.D. from Brown University in Sociology.

Barbara Knauff, Ph.D., is a Senior Learning Technologist at Dartmouth College. After her first career as a French professor at St. Mary's College, Maryland's public honors college, Barbara moved to the Curricular Computing group at Dartmouth College in 2001. Her mission is to help faculty integrate technology into the curriculum in order to help today's students meet their learning goals and objectives. Barbara also works with the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning (DCAL), whose mission is to promote and support effective teaching. She frequently presents at regional and national conferences on current issues in technology and education; and especially enjoys occasionally teaching in her subject area as an adjunct professor of French at Dartmouth. A native of Marburg, Germany, Barbara received her B.A. from Wellesley College, and her M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Academic Library Administrators' Perceptions of
Critical Skills Needed by Librarians for the Instruction Process
Thursday, April 09, 2009
3-4pm EST

Event Description
This research study explores the attitudes of today's library leaders toward the skill sets needed to fulfill the library's educational role. Nancy H. Dewald will share preliminary results from their research and discuss possible implications, impact, and effects. This session will help you become more aware of the skills and traits that could affect your future hiring needs. This research will include information that can enable academic public services librarians and future library school graduates to identify critical existing and newly emerging skills and traits in order to pursue strategic professional development. Additionally, Library school faculty can gain a deeper understanding of newly emerging trends in instructional positions and be more informed when modifying curricula.

Guest Speakers
Nancy H. Dewald

Leading the Blended Library:
Two Blended Librarians Share Their Leadership Program Experience
Thursday, February 12, 2009
3-4pm EST

Event Description
In shaping a future in which blended librarianship is weaved into the fabric of the library organization it's important that blended librarians accept leadership roles in their library organizations and as campus technology leaders. One way in which blended librarians establish themselves as leaders is through formal leadership programs. In this webcast two blended librarians, Lauren Pressley, Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University, and Elizabeth Siecke, Dean of the Ramapo College Library, will share their experience in attending formal leadership programs. Engage in a conversation with your colleagues about seeking leadership opportunities, and using one's leadership position to champion blended librarianship.

Guest Speakers Bio
Lauren Pressley is the Instructional Design Librarian at Wake Forest University's Z. Smith Reynolds Library. As a new professional she has participated in ALA's 2008 Emerging Leaders program and the 2008 North Carolina Library Association's Leadership Institute. She writes, speaks, and consults on emerging, library, and educational technology and is working on a book, So You Want To Be a Librarian, due out this Spring.

Liz Siecke is the Ramapo College Librarian/Dean at the George T. Potter Library, Ramapo College. Prior to her role as Dean, she served as Interim Director of the Ramapo College’s Technology and Education Center (TEC). Her interest in educational technologies and strength-based management has been a central focus in her work. She is a 2008 graduate of the Frye Leadership Institute.

Participatory Librarianship and Change Agents
Thursday, December 11, 2008
3-4pm EST

Event Description
Knowledge is created through conversation. Libraries are in the knowledge business. Therefore libraries are in the conversation business. This seemingly simple set of statements has profound implications for how libraries are run, and how they measure success. For example, it casts library services as centered on learning, and not access. This presentation will cover the basics of participatory librarianship, and talk about the need for librarians to become change agents within their own libraries and the communities they serve. This is a great opportunity to hear Dr. Lankes discuss participatory librarianship, which has commonalities with blended librarianship, without having to travel to a national or state conference.

Guest Speaker Bio
R. David Lankes is an Associate Professor at Syracuse University's School of Information Studies, Director of the Information Institute of Syracuse, and Fellow at ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy. http://www.DavidLankes.org

Keeping the User in Mind:
User Experience and the Modern Library
Thursday, October 30, 2008
3-4pm EST

Event Description
Librarians are just beginning to hear more about the concept of the user experience (UX). Many retail and service organizations, such as Starbucks and Disney, design user experiences in order to gain an edge on their competitors or develop strong customer loyalty. The key is differentiation. This webcast will present a general overview of user experience and address why it's important for libraries. Comparisons to the use of UX in the consumer market will be presented, as well as examples of how librarians can craft better user experiences.

Guest Speaker Bio
Valeda Dent Goodman is currently Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services and Associate Professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. She previously served as Associate Professor and head of the reference division at the Hunter College Library in New York City, and project director for the MALIBU digital library project in London, United Kingdom. She holds an M.S.W from the University of Michigan School of Social Work and an M.I.L.S. from the University of Michigan School of Information. Her research interests include new uses of technology, information literacy, and rural libraries and literacy. She is the author of several articles, and has been published in journals such as New Library World, Libri, Research Strategies, Reference Services Review, and Reference and User Services Quarterly. She is currently working on two books “Keeping the User in Mind: Instructional Design and the Modern Library”, and another title on the impact of rural village libraries in Africa.

Dumbest Younger Generation or Clueless Older Educators:
What Librarians Can Do To Promote Student Excellence
Thursday, October 2, 2008
3-4pm EST

Event Description
A wave of books and articles, including Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation, are calling attention to the declining analytical skills of college students. They read far less. They seem incapable of critical thought and debate. They take the research path of least resistance. And perhaps worst of all, they seem above constructive criticism. Is digital technology at the root of the dumber generation or is technology simply a convenient scapegoat? Some technology advocates, such as Marc Prensky, suggest that the students are fine, and that the educators are the ones who need to change their ways. Join your colleagues for a discussion of these issues at the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community . We will be joined by Mark Herring who will frame the issues and share his thoughts about why librarians should be concerned about them - and what we can do to make a difference.

Guest Speaker Bio
Mark Herring has been Dean of Library Services at Winthrop University since 1999. He has written four books while there (The Pro-Life, Pro-Choice Debate, Genetic Engineering (both Greenwood Press, 2005, 2006), Raising Funds with Friends Groups (Neal-Schuman, 2006) and Fool’s Gold: Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library ( McFarland, 2007). He has increased the library’s budget by more than 30% and promoted and raised the salaries of all library employees. Throughout his career he has written articles, book chapters, and for the last four years, a regular column for Against the Grain. The poster he created and designed (from the article “10 Reasons Why the Internet Is No Substitute for a Library” American Libraries April 2002)) has sold more than 3,000 copies. A version of the article has been translated in to at least seven languages.

Opening New Windows of Opportunity:
Creating Breakthrough Instructional Experiences
Thursday, June 5, 2008
3-4 pm EST

Event Description
Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community and their guest, Brian Mathews, invite you to join the next Blended Librarian community event, “Opening New Windows of Opportunity: Creating Breakthrough Instructional Experiences”. Brian Mathews will speak on "breakthrough opportunities" as he shares his latest ideas on creating interactive library experiences for students. This session will feature tactics for engaging students in both the classroom as well as in digital environments. Brian will also discuss possibilities for the library and librarians to become a more integrated part of campus and will highlight his ubiquitous "push-out" philosophy.

Guest Speaker Bio
Brian Mathews is the User Experience Librarian at Georgia Tech. He frequency writes and speaks on the topics of marketing, assessment, and user interactions. His blog, The Ubiquitous Librarian, frequently describes many of his on-going projects aimed at making the library a more user-centered experience.

Designing Instruction to get your Students Involved:
Doing it Successfully in One Class Session
Thursday, March 6, 2008
1-2 pm. EST

Event Description
It's a tough instructional situation: usually one class session (two if you're very lucky) to teach students the basics about the library and its plethora of electronic resources. Most of the time, library teachers can't rely on extrinsic motivators, no points or quizzes. The session may be designed to help students with an assignment, but that's points delayed and not directly relevant to the session at hand. Are there ways to involve students, techniques that don't rely on extrinsic motivators, reasons a teacher can give students, demonstrations that grab attention? During this session we will share possibilities and propose a process whereby techniques can be adapted and assessed, so that the likelihood of their success is increased.

Maryellen Weimer has over 25 years of experience in college teaching. She is a well-known writer, speaker, and proponent of effective teaching practices. She was the director of the Instructional Development Program at Pennsylvania State University for ten years and served as associate director at the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment. She has authored numerous books and presents at workshops and conferences throughout the US and Canada. Currently, she is editor of the "Teaching Professor" newsletter.

Students, Faculty and Librarians: Making Connections through Course Pages
Thursday, February 7, 2008
3-4 pm. EST

Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community and their guests, Margaret Mellinger and Jane Nichols, invite you to join the next Blended Librarian community event, “Students, Faculty and Librarians: Making Connections through Course Pages.”

Event Description
In response to Oregon State University’s Libraries Strategic Plan, librarians planned to make library resources easier to access by building prototype subject portals. However, conversations with faculty and results from a needs assessment changed the direction of our subsequent project. We focused, not on the subject portal, but on course assignment pages built by librarians in close collaboration with faculty because undergraduates clearly wanted to 1) connect with library information at their point of need, the course assignment 2) know that faculty recommended certain library and information resources for success and 3) save time and effort. Join us in a discussion of the merits and challenges of using course specific tools, and share your experiences working with faculty to integrate library resources within courses. For additional information see Mellinger and Nichols’s related article in the October 2007 issue of portal: Libraries and the Academy.

Margaret Mellinger has been Engineering Librarian at Oregon State University Libraries since 2003. She holds an MS in Information Sciences from University of Tennessee, where she gained an appreciation for women's college basketball. Margaret is the Team Lead for the ICAP project and is also a member of the OSU Libraries web team, playfully named "Team 200" after the http status code for "okay." She also contributes to infodoodads.com.

Jane Nichols has been Social Sciences/Humanities Librarian at Oregon State University since 2003. She serves as liaison to the Ethnic Studies, History, Philosophy and Women Studies departments and is Lead of OSU Libraries Usability Team. She blogs at http://infodoodads.com/. She earned her MLIS from Dominican University during one of her tenures in the Midwest.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy Instruction:
Using a Problem-based Approach to Address Learner’s Needs
Thursday, December 13, 2007
3-4 pm. EST

Steven Bell and John Shank and their guest Dr. Alexis Smith Macklin presented, “Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Literacy Instruction: Using a Problem-based Approach to Address Learner’s Needs.”

Event Description
This webcast features a presentation and discussion about the ICT-PBL Literacy Project. It is a problem-based learning approach to integrating information and communication technology literacy into the curriculum at Purdue University. This project uses the PBL model for information and communication technology literacy to incorporate cognitive and technical skills over a fifteen-week semester in a First-Year Composition course. During this time, students learned how to define their information needs from real-world problems, identify and test possible solutions, and communicate the results using available digital technologies – within the context of an existing curriculum. Dr. Macklin will describe the development of the project, and the results of ICT tests that she conducts in the course. Does the project produce the desired results? Join the webcast and hear what Dr. Macklin discovered through her research.

Dr. Alexis Smith Macklin is Associate Professor of Library Science at Purdue University. She specializes in information literacy and problem-based learning. Her PhD in Curriculum and Instruction focused on integrating information and communication technology into the higher education curriculum. She is a member of the National Advisory Committee for ICT Literacy Assessment. Dr. Macklin can be contacted at alexius@purdue.edu or asmacklin@mac.com.

Designing Deliberately--Putting Pedagogy Into Your Library Instruction Products
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
3-4 p.m. EST

Steven Bell and John Shank and their guest Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit, Instructional Design Librarian at New York Univeristy's Elmer Holmes Bobst Library, presented the Blended Librarian community event, “Designing Deliberately--Putting Pedagogy Into Your Library Instruction Products” on Tuesday, November 6, 2007 from 3-4 p.m. EST.

Event Description
The designers of web-based library instruction products traditionally pay too little attention to educational learning theories. Instead, their design approach is modeled on print resources. Paying more attention to pedagogy would result in the production of superior web-based learning experiences for library users. This session will focus on why those librarians creating instructional tools should be exploring learning theories for maximum benefit to both themselves, and their users. For more information about Nadaleen Tempelman-Kluit visit: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~ntk2

View the Archive
The recording of this free webcast is available in the Blended Librarians Online Community under "Archives". To access: go to the Blended Librarian website at http://blendedlibrarian.org. If you are already a registered member of the Learning Times Network, use the login on the Blended Librarian home page to connect to the Learning Times Network. If you are not registered, click on the “Join” button and follow the instructions.

Can You Use A Design Approach?
Design Thinking for Blended Librarians
Thursday, September 27, 2007
3-4 p.m. EST

Event Description
Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community, invite you to join them for a presentation and discussion about design thinking for librarians. “Can You Use A Design Approach? Design Thinking for Blended Librarians” shares ideas and insights from Steven and John’s recently published book, Academic Librarianship by Design. Their presentation will provide an introduction to design thinking and how it can be used by librarians to design better services. What is design thinking? In short, it examines how librarians can approach problems the way designers approach problems. They’ll explore the connections between design thinking and Blended Librarianship. Join Steven and John to learn more, and share your thoughts on how design thinking might or might not work for you.

Blended Librarian Webcast:
Observing Student Researchers in their Native Habitat
Thursday, May 10, 2007
3-4 p.m. EST

Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community, and their guest John Law, Director, Strategic Alliances & Platform Managment Proquest CSA presented the Blended Librarian community event, “Observing Student Researchers in their Native Habitat.”

Event Description
Understanding how students in real world situations go about conducting research is essential to ensuring that library resources are best positioned to meet their needs. This presentation will reveal key findings of an ethnographic study observing students in the context of performing research for actual course assignments.

The presentation will include a brief review of study methods and select video clips.

Learn how users begin their research, how they approach a research task, and how they interact with electronic resources. Learn how and when researchers turn to web search engines. Learn what access points to the library are most used and what's important to make them useful.

Blended Librarian/LT Green Room Interview
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
2-3 p.m. EST

Listen to the November 30, 2006 Learning Times Green Room podcast interview, co-hosted by Susan Manning and Dan Balzer, with John Shank and Steven Bell, co-founders of Blended Librarian: http://www.ltgreenroom.org/episodes/15

The LT Green Room is a place for "Renewal, Retooling and Conversations about Learning." The LT Green Room blog entry includes information about the event, a space for community feedback and comments, and a description of the event, from which the below has been excerpted:

They do it all! Is it all about multi-tasking? It’s not just about wearing lots of hats but branching professionally into new areas.

Will multi-tasking make librarians relevant? John says no, but a librarian who has a deeper understanding and can apply these technologies to meet service needs will have lasting power. It’s all about partnerships.

Information literacy skills development is part of the blended librarian’s work. This led to a discussion of whose job it is and some about faculty resistance. John has solutions! Context specific information fluency building.

In addition, the LT Green Room is looking for information from you! Go to the blog entry to share your experience with how librarians and faculty work together.

Conversations with Patrons: Extending Your Library's Presence Online
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
2-3 p.m. EST

Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community, and their guest Brian Mathews (Subject Librarian: Mechanical Engineering & Computer Science Distance Learning Services Coordinator, Georgia Institute of Technology) hosted the Blended Librarian community event, “Conversations with Patrons: Extending Your Library's Presence Online.”

Event Description
Google, Google Scholar and Wikipedia are emerging as favorite research designations among undergraduate students, while library resource usage seems marginalized. Is it really easier for students to find what they need on those free Internet sites? Where do they turn for help? How can libraries increase usage and relevancy? Are there new modes of instruction effective for the Net Generation? This free, one-hour Blended Librarian webcast explores the social nature of the web and advocates using social networking sites and student blogs to better understand and assist patrons. Blended Librarians need to add Web 2.0 technologies to their skill set, and this presentation will help get you started. Included are strategies for assessment, marketing, reference assistance, and instructional opportunities. Find out how to expand your library's web presence and interact more directly with students.

Tales from a Librarian-Instructional Designer Partnership:
Sharing Resources and Knowledge to Support Course Development
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
3-4 p.m. EST

Event Description
When librarians and instructional designers work together, great things can happen. This free, one-hour Blended Librarian webcast event explores how a librarian and instructional designer at North Carolina State University work together to support graduate-level distance education courses. Kim Duckett, Principal Librarian for Digital Technologies and Learning, and Dede Nelson, Instructional Designer in NCSU's Adult and Higher Education department, share the story of how they became partners and the synergy they discovered. They offer strategies for collaboration and give an overview of their "checklist" project, a strategy for spreading knowledge about library and other learning resources to faculty, instructional designers, and educational technologists across campus.

Kim Duckett Biography
Kim Duckett is the Principal Librarian for Digital Technologies and Learning at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has a M.S.L.S. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has worked at the NCSU Libraries for five years in roles related to distance learning services, library instruction, and learning technologies.

Dede Nelson Biography
Dede Nelson is currently an instructional designer for the Department of Adult and Higher Education at North Carolina State University and previously worked in the university's Faculty Development Services unit, a part of Learning Technology Service. Dede holds an M.Ed. in Training and Development with a specialty in technology from NC State University and has experience in both K-12 and Higher Education course development.

Blended Librarian Webcast:
A Look at Newly Emerging Positions at Academic Libraries
Thursday, April 27, 2006
3-4 p.m. EST

Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community, and their guests Kathryn Shaughnessy, Instructional Services Librarian, St. Johns University and Sean Cordes, Instructional Technology Librarian, Iowa State University hosted the Blended Librarian community event, "Blended Librarians: A look at Newly Emerging Positions at Academic Libraries," on Thursday, April 27th at 3 p.m. EST. This is a free, one-hour webcast event.

Event Description
This session explores newly emerging positions at academic libraries that integrate instruction design and technology skills and knowledge. The session starts with an overview of a research study that analyzed recently advertised academic library positions such as Instructional Design Librarian, Instructional Technology Librarian, Instructional Development Librarian, and other variants on the Blended Librarian. The session then focuses on two real-world examples of Blended Librarians and investigate the types of instructional techniques and technologies that these positions are utilizing to further collaboration with faculty and enhance the library's integration into their institutions' teaching and learning process.

Designing Library Experiences For Users
Tuesday Feb 7, 2006
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarians Online Learning Community, and their guest Aradhana Goel hosted the community event, "Designing Library Experiences for Users."

For February's Blended Librarians Online Learning Community Webcast we are exploring some new territory by examining a different area of the world of design. We are fortunate to have as our guest Aradhana Goel of MAYA Design who will share with us her insights into designing library "experiences" for users. We will explore how design can impact on the way in which users experience our libraries and resources. The work of MAYA Design for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh was featured in this Library Journal article:
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6289901.html

Event Description
Libraries thrive on complexity. But sometimes the physical and organizational structures that manage this complexity break down. This "environmental complexity" becomes apparent in an information overload of sights, sounds, signs, technology devices, official- and unofficial-looking people that, together, confuse or intimidate users. Users drift away when they're unsure where to turn for help or whom to ask. A large-scale capital improvement project to update and upgrade nearly every library building in its network became a perfect opportunity for the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh to rethink how it interacts with and serves its customers (and attracts new ones). The library wanted to make deep organizational changes, evaluate and adopt technological advances, and try innovative ways to organize and provide information. By working with the Carnegie Library to understand how digital, physical, and human aspects of the library converge, MAYA developed an information architecture that gives the library a framework not only for a single renovated space, but also for system-wide organizational change and ongoing evolution. This workshop offers a valuable model to reduce library's complexity and put people (rather than the system) at the center of a 360-degree seamless experience with information.

For more info on this project, please see: http://www.maya.com/web/what/clients/what_client_clp_dyninfo.mtml

Shifting the Balance: Faculty-Led Information Literacy Instruction
Thursday, Dec. 8, 2005
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

This event, led by William Miller, Steven Bell, and John Shank, discussed changing the balance of teaching Information Literacy from strictly the domain of the librarian to one in which faculty members move to the forefront while librarians provide essential support for user education. During the webcast potential risks and challenges to accepted notions about how information literacy happens in a higher education setting were discussed.

Powerful PowerPoint: Tips for Ending PowerPointlessness
Thu, Nov 10, 2005
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

""Powerful PowerPoint: Tips for Ending PowerPointlessness," was presented by Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarian Online Learning Community and their guest Kristopher Wiemer.

We've all see ineffective PowerPoint presentations where the slideshow distracts from the content being presented: slides covered intext, slides with too many bells and whistles, or worse. However, PowerPoint can be a very useful and powerful tool. In this session attendees will receive tips for making a PowerPoint presentation more effective, and will discover how to use it as an active learning tool.

Kristopher Wiemer is the Academic Technology Coordinator at Deerfield Academy in Western Massachusetts. He has been working in the instructional technology field for over nine years in both K-12 and Higher Education. He has a Master's degree in Teaching with Internet Technologies from the Graduate Center at Marlboro College and an M.Ed. (Math & Computer Education) and a B.S. (Mathematics) from the University of Massachusetts.

View the Archive
The recording of this free webcast is available in the Blended Librarians Online Community under "Archives". To acces: go to the Blended Librarian website at http://blendedlibrarian.org. If you are already a registered member of the Learning Times Network, use the login on the Blended Librarian home page to connect to the Learning Times Network. If you are not registered, click on the “Join” button and follow the instructions.

Emerging Positions in Academic Libraries:
A Case Study of the Learning Technologies Center librarian @ Kutztown University Libraries
Thu, Sep 29, 2005
3:00 PM to 4:00 PM

The community event "Emerging Positions in Academic Libraries: A Case Study of the Learning Technologies Center librarian @ Kutztown University Libraries," led by Steven Bell and John Shank, co-founders of the Blended Librarian Online Learning Community and their guests Margaret Devlin and William Jefferson, discussed newly emerging librarian positions designed to assist library and teaching faculty with new and emerging technologies. The Learning Technologies Center librarian position at Kutztown University, which assists faculty members in using technology to accomplish their instructional goals and to train staff on software packages that will benefit their daily work experience and facilitate their tasks, was showcased.

Last updated: November 5, 2009

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