Martha’s Message – December 23, 2014

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VPC 

The minutes from the 12-5 meeting can be found here. In honor of Bill Uricchio’s retirement the Hartford Campus Library will be hosting the next VPC on Wednesday, January 7th at 9:30. More details including an agenda will be coming out later. Following VPC is the reception for Bill in which you all have been invited. I encourage you to car pool when possible.

The Close of Another Year 

Please accept my deep gratitude for all of the work you have done in 2014. I was so pleased to see so many current and some former staff together at the Winter Solstice celebration enjoying each other’s company. If it wasn’t for the good sports fighting over the scotch and tequila in the Yankee Swap it would have been perfect (just kidding, especially since I won the scotch…) Congratulations to the staff who entered our contests and won! They included Terry Palacios-Baughman with the most festive outfit (with Joel Atkinson as the close runner up), Nicholas Eshelman with the most unique outfit and Terri Goldich for the ugliest outfit. For those of you who enjoyed the dessert contest, congratulations to Erika McNeil for receiving the staff vote. Photos from the event (minus the dessert, it went far too fast to take a photo) and a few other recent staff activities can be found on the staff news blog. A reminder the login information for that is your windows username and password.

Looking Ahead

As we look ahead to 2015, I hope you will all join me in being agents of inspiration for both our users and ourselves. As I spoke about in my Mashup, our collective inspiration will lead to great things, to give the “what if’s” a shot, and aspire to be the world-class library UConn can be proud of.

UConn Libraries’ Holiday Cheer

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The holidays always have a way of reminding us what is important in our lives and those things that we are thankful for. And like it or not, a big part of our lives are our jobs. The average person spends 90,000 hours at work during a lifetime – yikes! That means we spend a lot of time with each other. So why not make the best of it? Over the last month UCL staff has gathered to spend some time outside of the day-to-day tasks and meetings we all work through each day. We participated in the University’s gingerbread house decorating contest, the archives unit celebrated December birthdays at the bowling alley and most recently the Libraries’ hosted current and former staff for the Winter Solstice.

If you missed the Winter Solstice contests the winners included:
Most Festive Attire – Terry Palacios-Baughman
Most Unique Attire – Nicholas Eshelman
Ugliest Attire – Terri Goldich
Best Dessert – Erika McNeil

So please enjoy some of the images we have taken over the last month. If you have images you’d like to share, send them along and I will add them to the post! Happy Holidays!

 

Martha’s Message – December 3, 2014

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VPC

A reminder that VPC will be this Friday at 9:30 and the agenda can be found here. Please RSVP to Kristen if you are able to attend.

24/7 in Effect

We “weathered” our first winter weather incident without incident and have rolled right into 24/7 hours. Monday morning marked the beginning of the run and Babbidge Library will not close again until 6:00 pm on Sunday the 14th. I know I don’t need to remind you that this is the time of year when many students are stressed with significant work ahead of them, finals, job searching, etc. Thank you in advance for not only your patience, but your willingness to help students through this time by providing the services and study space they need. Also, a thank you to those of you who will be doing programming to help provide relief. As for all of those hours, we are still in the process of hiring additional security staff so Brian, Bill, Mike, and Patty are working around the clock over the 320+ hours to keep the building open. Dave Avery will also be pulling in some overnight hours to give them some time off. When you see them, please take a moment to thank them.

Winter Mashup/Solstice Event

The Solstice planning committee met earlier this week to start planning the library wide event scheduled for Friday, December 19th. The start of the program will be a Mashup from 11-12 which will include a much anticipated peek at the newly redesigned website. Lunch will be at 12:00. A formal invitation will follow but I have a little spoiler for you – dig out your best dessert recipe and your best “funky, festive and fugly” attire. There will be amazing prizes for the best in all those categories! There is also plans for a Yankee Swap so get those gift ideas ready.

Help Cheer on the ‘Babbidge Builders’

This Friday a small but determined group of staff members will be participating in UConn’s Gingerbread House Decorating Contest. They have a plan and are serious enough to be putting in some practice time later this week before the event. The ‘Babbidge Builders’ consist of Kristen Jones, Chris McNevins, Tony Molly, Jean Nelson and Terry Palacios. I encourage you all to join me in cheering them on this Friday between 2:30-4:30 (winners announced at 4:15) in the Rome Commons Ballroom. As part of the Winter Holiday Celebration, catering provides a lovely spread of food and beverages during the event. They do ask that you RSVP but it is not required.

1st HBL Chili Cookoff!

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Thanks to everyone who participated in the Employee Appreciation Committee’s First HBL Chili Cookoff!  There were a total of 6 entries into the Cookoff and they ranged from sweet chili with maple syrup and sweet potato to a green chili stew. The winner was Tony Molloy with his version of a vegan Frito Pie.  What does Tony win? Our respect as chili champion and this one-of-a-kind trophy that you won’t find anywhere else!

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“UConn Libraries Annual Cookoff WINNER. Your dish deserves a royal flush!”

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In a barn raising ceremony, Jean presents the award to Tony on behalf of the Employee Appreciation Committee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet, isn’t it?!?! Now that you know how great the prize is you’ll be sure to join the competition next time when the champion must give the trophy to the new winner!

The top three entries were:
1st Place – Tony Molloy
2nd Place – David Avery
3rd Place – Holly Phillips

Thank you to everyone who came out and had a little fun. The Employee Appreciation Committee (EAC) is working towards strengthening our library community and recognizing individual excellence and commitment. Through events and other programs, we hope to be a part of encouraging a climate of trust, goodwill, open communication and a productive work place (well, and just have some fun too!).  We have many other ideas and we welcome you to share any you might have. Please be on a look out for a survey that will help us to begin the planning for staff accomplishments and contributions.

And a special thank you to those who helped round out the chili with crackers, hot sauce, corn bread, homemade pepper jelly (wow, sorry if you missed that – it even got a vote!) and the rest.

The EAC Team
Brian Coleman (Co-Chair)
Barbara Mitchell (Co-Chair)
Janice Christopher
Jennifer Eustis
Khara Leon
Claudia Lopes
Carolyn Mills
Tony Molloy (VPC Liaison)
Jean Nelson

Kate Fuller to lead the Reference & Orienation Services unit

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The internal search for a head of the Reference & Orientation unit of the Research & Access Services Area has been completed, and I am pleased to announce that Kate Fuller will be leading Reference & Orientation Services. The members of the unit are Kathy Banas-Marti, Kate Fuller, Kathy Labadorf, Jane Recchio, and Joelle Thomas.

Reference & Orientation Services

Reference & Orientation Services is one of four units making up the Research & Access Services Program Area. Other units in the area are Circulation & Reserves, Humanities & Social Sciences, and Sciences. The Reference & Orientation Services unit is responsible for coordinating:

• Reference and information services
• Basic information literacy initiatives
• General orientation and student engagement programs at the main library

Core team functions:

• Coordinate the provision of physical and virtual reference services
• Coordinate engagement and outreach activities aimed at students or incoming students and their families
• Facilitate information literacy objectives
• Contribute to assessment and development of teaching, learning, and other library spaces

The unit head serves as immediate supervisor for the members in the unit and works together with the Director and the other Area unit heads to oversee the work of the Research & Access Services Area as a whole.

Scott Kennedy

 

Innovative Designs for 21st Century Library Spaces – A Steelcase Presentation

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Please join us on Wednesday, July 30th at 10:00am in the Class of ’47 for to discuss recent research by Steelcase on the future of academic library spaces.  Their white paper, describes their work below. If you are able to join us, please RSVP to Kristen Jones.

“Libraries are the preeminent icons of higher education. Leafy quadrangles, clock towers, and stadiums may star on the college home pages, but it’s the library that captures the academic heart of campus, both symbolically and physically. While information can be obtained from virtually anywhere, the library remains the only central location where new information technologies can be combined with traditional knowledge sources to support the social and
educational patterns of learning, teaching and research.

But if the library is to continue its pivotal role in the college learning experience, it needs to evolve to meet changing pedagogies and learning modes, and the evolving needs of students and instructors.

In the Spring of 2009, Steelcase initiated a major study of libraries at colleges and universities. This effort, along with our research of higher education over the last several years, has allowed us to develop a set of findings and insights about libraries, and new innovative designs for 21st century library spaces that we would like to share with you.”

Shelley Goldstein named Education Librarian

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Shelley Goldstein has agreed to serve as interim education librarian. She will assume this role in addition to her responsibilities as Waterbury Campus Libraries director and undergraduate education librarian. In her current roles, she has capably provided extensive instruction and research assistance to undergraduate students and for education faculty and students enrolled in programs at the Waterbury campus.

In the past, Shelley provided instructional and research support for education faculty and students enrolled in programs at the Stamford and Waterbury campuses.  Shelley will be resident on the Storrs campus approximately three days per week. In addition,  Shelley will be a full participant in Humanities and Social Sciences team discussions and work collaboratively with team members on issues and resource decisions related to collections, electronic resources and new initiatives relevant to her new area of responsibility. She is one of our most capable, enthusiastic and knowledgeable librarians and her services at both the Stamford and Waterbury campuses have been exemplary.

Please join me in thanking Shelley for her willingness to provide support for the faculty and students in Neag School of Education and in welcoming Shelley to her new role!

Submitted by Francine DeFranco, Interim Assistant Vice Provost

Rapid Returnables Pilot

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UConn’s DD-ILL team is fortunate to have been selected to participate in a new project developed by the Colorado RapidILL resource sharing group.  RapidR (Rapid Returnables) is a book-to-library interlibrary loan program that will complement Rapid’s existing and highly successful document delivery program.  The pilot has been underway for the last few months and also includes fellow BLC members Northeastern, Williams, UNH, and UMass Amherst.  The goal of the program is create a system that is “better, faster, more reliable, and more flexible” for both borrowing and lending institutions.  Working with RapidILL as a pilot partner is allowing us to help develop the program and the policy; we are in at the ground floor of this groundbreaking project, and it has been exciting to work with RapidILL at this level.

More members will soon be participating in the pilot to elicit more feedback and do more real-time testing.  Rapid’s plan is to go fully live on July 1.  There are many advantages to the new program, including:

  • 24-hour turnaround time by the lending institution
  • Real-time system shelf-checks
  • Integration with our current ILLiad interlibrary loan management system
  • Expedited shipping
  • Discounted UPS shipping
  • Extended loan periods
  • Multiple-volume requesting
  • General reciprocity with lending: no charges

Submitted by Erika McNeil, Resource Sharing Librarian

Employee Recognition Event

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Thank you to the following staff for their recent recognition for years of service. We didn’t get everyone in a photo, but here they all are:

Melissa Watterworth Batt – ten years
Phara Bayonne – ten years
Kate Fuller – fifteen years
Jean Nelson – fifteen years
Nancy Romanello – fifteen years
Robin Lubatkin – twenty years
David Avery – twenty five years
Bill Miller – twenty five years
Bill Uricchio – twenty five years

Update from the Web Governance Workgroup

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On March 19th, the Web Governance Workgroup made a presentation at a VPC meeting updating the Directors on what the Workgroup has been up to since we were formed. If you’re curious and would like to learn more, you can find the presentation at https://ibis.lib.uconn.edu/teams/webgov/Documents/Web%20Governance%20Workgroup%20VPC%20Presentation.pptx.

Most of our presentation was focused on our proposed plan to build a new web presence for the UConn Libraries. The Directors approved our plan, so we’d like to take this opportunity to explain what we’re planning and when it will impact you.

The Web Governance Workgroup will be partnering with UITS Web Development (WebDev) on the design and creation of a new web presence. This new web presence will be our own instance of Aurora, which is UITS’s WordPress platform. This will give the Libraries a modern, well-supported content management system that will make it vastly easier for our staff to create and maintain our web content.

We believe that there are a number of reasons why the Libraries needs a new web presence, but the most important reason is the incredible rise in mobile devices – not just in ownership, but in usage. Going forward, our goal will be to design for mobile first. If we put content online, we want it to work everywhere and anywhere.  We believe that this will be of significant benefit to all of our users, not just those on a cell phone or a tablet.

Our proposed timeline is detailed in the presentation we linked to at the beginning of this blog post, but the important thing to know is that we’ll be building the infrastructure & performing design work with WebDev over the summer, and then beginning in the Fall we’ll be working with you to port your content over. The Directors have asked that we bring a detailed project plan to VPC in May, and we’ll have much more detailed information available at that time.

The Web Governance Workgroup doesn’t want to make decisions about our web presence in a vacuum, and to ensure that doesn’t happen we plan on getting feedback from both external users and Libraries staff throughout the entire process. Outside of any scheduled feedback sessions that might happen, if you have questions or comments about the plan, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly.

Dave Hicking on behalf of the Web Governance Workgroup