NCES Releases "Academic Libraries: 2008 First Look"

From the IES newsflash this morning, Academic Libraries: 2008 First Look

Academic libraries held approximately 102.5 million e-books and about 3.6 million electronic reference sources at the end of fiscal year 2008. The National Center for Education Statistics within the Institute of Education Sciences has released the report "Academic Libraries: 2008 First Look." This report summarizes services, staff, collections, and expenditures of academic libraries in two- and four-year, degree-granting postsecondary institutions in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. Findings include:

• During FY 2008, there were about 138.1 million circulation transactions from academic libraries' general collection.
• Academic libraries reported 93,438 full-time equivalent (FTE) staff working during the fall of 2008.
• Academic libraries spent about $6.8 billion during FY 2008.

'Tis the season

Classes ended last Friday and accompanying the brisk pace of students finishing their independent lab by the prescribed 5:00 pm deadline, considerable time was spent simply putting "one foot in front of the other." Questions were answered, crowds were handled, and the pressure of completion was felt by one and all. It often feels things ends abruptly, even after six weeks of reminders and a large countdown sign on the IRC door.

Last week a young woman stopped in the IRC and took a few minutes to tell me how patient everyone was with her throughout the term and how much she appreciated the time taken to answer all her questions.  She gave me a thank-you card containing a gift certificate for a local pizza shop. It was a thoughtful gift that I passed along to my students this morning; each of them now has a pizza break financed during finals.

It was a very nice moment during a week filled with deadlines and revisions.

Unshelved: Pimp My Bookcart

Take a few minutes and check out the winners in Unshelved's 2009 Pimp My Bookcart contest.

"This year's contest had amazing entries that fell into a few familiar categories (vehicles, Dr. Seuss, pirates, Halloween, animals), one that straddled two categories (a Catbus), and a few that we don't remember seeing before (Alice in Wonderland, a GIANT book cart, a camera). Gene was delighted to see so many carts with an environmentally conscious theme (like our new shirt) and others that used recycled materials. Entries came from as far away as South Korea, New Zealand, Australia, and the U.K." Unshelved Pimp My Bookcart

The Shep Herding Books by Lexington Public Library is particularly creative and amazing.

Another new word: Tweckle

Hot on the heels of "unfriending" I read about "tweckling" from the Chronicle's technology article; Conference Humiliation: They're Tweeting Behind Your Back, by Marc Parry.

Tweckle (twek'ul) vt. to abuse a speaker only to Twitter followers in the audience while he/she is speaking.

Conference speakers beware: Twecklers are watching.
They're out for blood.
And you may be their next victim.

Unfriend? A sign of the times

The New Oxford American Dictionary word of the year for 2009 has been announced:  unfriend

Without further ado, the 2009 Word of the Year is: unfriend.

unfriend – verb – To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook. As in, “I decided to unfriend my roommate on Facebook after we had a fight.” -- OUP Blog

Sounds kind of harsh, doesn't it?

An Ill-wind is blowing

Are you tired of hearing about H1N1 like me? Are you sick of washing your hands constantly? Do you cringe everytime you hear someone cough near you?

Health and safety issues are real concerns for library administrators and campus personnel and have become even more real as more and more young people fall victim to swine flu symptoms. Student staff are unable to work (and we don't want them here!).

Our campus is trying to respond to all the potential problems by cleaning more thoroughly, installing hand sanitizer dispensers in buildings across campus, putting wipes in campus vehicles and encouraging faculty to be "flexible" with assignments.

I have put out bottles of sanitizer for our patrons to use and we wipe down the computers each night. My staff has sanitizer available to them and I try not to steal my staff's pens and pencils to use. We no longer supply headphones for our computer media; everyone must bring their own.

Kleenex will be out soon. Please, keep the Kleenex, don't ask to "borrow" any! I don't want them back!

From my bloglines account

I admit it, I browse my Bloglines account faithfully but do not read every feed every day. As with a newspaper, I check the headlines and delve deeper when something in particular catches my interest. These two items caught my attention as they portrayed interesting views regarding the social norm for libraries and higher education:

The F-Word, by Laurie Fendrich
Brainstorm, The Chronicle of Higher Education

"I came of age when the “f-word” first started entering ordinary conversation among educated people. Although The New York Times still won’t print it, The New Yorker will." ... read the article

Heather Has Two Mommies Turns 20, Leslea Newman
Soapbox, The More Things Change, Publisher's Weekly

"Two decades have come and gone since Heather, the little girl with two arms, two legs, two hands, two feet and two mommies popped out of my pen. And I am proud as any parent can be." ... read the article

Now that's customer service!

The library is currently weathering an unexpected adjustment to our proxy server. An innocent bystander, our collection of LibGuides chock full of links to database resources, electronic books, and articles using the proxy URL for authentication. Each of the estimated 1000+ links now rendered useless by the change. But this is a post with a happy ending.

One of our IT people suggested we contact LibGuides and ask if they could query our full content, remove the incorrect proxy string, and replace it with the new. We were secretly doubtful, but all things considered nothing ventured, nothing gained. Sara, fellow blogger and our liaison with LibGuides, contacted them with the request Wednesday evening. Almost immediately, their response was yes! This morning they completed the task and our guides are once again the shining star of our library resource page.

The Springshare About Us page states: "Our goal is to have each and every client say 'this is a great company to work with!'" In my humble opinion, you have more than met your goal.

Springshare is a great company to work with!

ALAO Conference

Fresh from the ALAO list serv & ALAO President Rob Withers:

Early bird registration is over, but it’s not too late to register for ALAO's 35th Annual Conference, "At the Crossroads: Recharging, Redefining, and Realigning Our Libraries," in Wilmington, OH! This year, ALAO is experimenting with online submission of registration information (payment by check will continue to be submitted by snail-mail).

Please register online by Friday, October 16, and make sure that registration checks are postmarked by that date as well.

Registration will not be complete until your check has been received. All registered on-site attendees will receive our new keepsake – the ALAO USB hub!

Rates are:

• Registration fee (after 10/3/09) - $100.00 (USD)
• Student conference registration fee - $30.00 (USD)

Deadline for registration and refunds: Friday, October 16, 2009. For instructions and a link to the online submission form, visit the conference web site.

Zero to Sixty

Yesterday Sara and I put finishing touches a "summer" project, a new LibGuide for the Dwight Schar College of Education Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies. We started by evaluating our existing online resource and determined the information and users would be better served in the AU LibGuide environment. A quick needs assessment, in the form of three simple and individualized SurveyMonkey surveys, was sent to doctoral faculty, current doctoral cohorts, and recent program graduates. We worked to facilitate their requests and provide quality library information resources:

• Library Mentor Program
• Using the Library Catalog
• Electronic Book Resources
• Library Database Resources
• ERIC Digital Library
• Education Journals
• Dissertation & Literature Reviews
• AU Dissertation Links (by yr)
• Citation & Plagiarism
• 2.0 Research Elements
• Quick Links
  

Tags and a unique URL were created, the guide quickly and effortlessly associated with education resources category, a bit of finessing done with the title (we still are not thrilled), and without more ado, the guide was ready: Ed.D. Research: Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies. A soft roll-out began with an email to the doctoral faculty, soliciting feedback so we can make changes to suit their needs. Currently under a web content freeze, the University will be unveiling a new web site soon; links from the library web site are on hold. However, we plan to email guide links to survey participants and post an announcement on the Library News Blog and IRC Blog. After publication, I verified our link from the library's LibGuide home and noted guide numbers; we are starting our second academic year with LibGuides and have gone from zero to sixty during that time.

Then, because the sheer joy of publishing the finished product made me a bit giddy, all I could think of was Alabama's song, "I'm In a Hurry" ... "I don't know why I drive so fast, my car has nothing to prove, it's not new, but it'll do zero to sixty in 5.2." It has been stuck in my head for two days now, so for my viewing pleasure, and maybe yours as well (after the requisite advertisement).

ALAO Conference Registration

Registration is open for the 35th Annual ALAO Conference! Early bird registration is available through October 3rd and offers a $15 break on conference fees; student conference registration is also available. This year ALAO is offering a variety of programs, posters, and several technology spotlights for attendees.

For more information, visit the conference web site. A few conference quick links are noted below:

• Conference Registration
• Preliminary List of Sessions
• Keynote Speaker, Dr. Rush Miller
• Conference Hotel

Thanks to fellow blogger Betsy, I remembered to take advantage of the early bird option - and- have a hotel room reserved. If the block of ALAO rooms sell out, be sure to take advantage of online reservation options with Expedia and Travelocity. As of last week, both had openings for the Roberts Center Holiday Inn at comparable prices.