During March 2010

Inside ZSR

ILLiad International Conference, 2010

ILL department upgraded to ILLiad 8, the revamped, re-designed ILL management software shortly before the Virginia Beach conference. The aftermath was clearly felt, as we had some tumultuous adventures with the upgrade. It was hoped that we would get familiar with the new interface before the conference, so we could bring questions, issues to the... more

Leslie at MLA 2010

Music librarians are inured to battling winter weather to convene every year during February in some northern clime (during a Chicago snowstorm last year). So it was almost surreal to find ourselves, this year, at an island resort in San Diego in March (beautiful weather, if still a bit on the chilly side). Despite the... more

ILLiad Conference Round up

The ILLiad International conference, held Thursday-Friday, March 25-26, 2010 in Virginia Beach, VA had many sessions whose common content all boiled down to this: collaboration is key; communication is critical; promotion is needed; and evaluation is necessary. There were a few other things that I learned, but those are the highest level takeaways from the... more

Birds, Seals and ILLiad reports

Cristina and I have had a taste of the wild life in Virginia Beach in our first 24 hours at the ILLiad International Conference. When we arrived at our hotel on Tuesday, we were greeted by a bird that was camped right outside our door. While surprised, we managed to scare it away so we... more

What the Best College Teachers Do

On March 19, I attended an inspirational presentation by Ken Bain who is the author of What the Best College Teachers Do. The program was co-sponsored by the Wake Forest University Schools of Business and the Teaching and Learning Center. Bain observed that students take three approaches to their learning: surface (trying to remember stuff);... more

Public Speaking & Presentations, Pt. III & IV

In the 3rd week of our public speaking class, Mary Beth and I were given the assignment of presenting a 5-minute informational or instructional speech. Each of the class participants was encouraged to use note cards and a timer. The speeches were recorded with a Flip video camera and e-mailed to each of us along... more

Steve at 2010 LAUNC-CH Conference

Ellen has already written an admirably thorough posting on the LAUNC-CH Conference we attended on Monday, but now that my week has finally settled down to merely busy instead of insanely packed as it draws to a close, I can add a few comments. I’ll begin by talking about the most interesting session I attended,... more

The Art of Feedback

Those of you who know me and love me might ask “Whatever could Susan hope to gain from a feedback workshop”? Well, actually, all of you know that I don’t particularly shy away from giving feedback, but that sometimes I might not be particularly artful in how I do it. I also, like many others,... more

LAUNC-CH March 2010

LAUNC-CH 2010 The theme of this spring’s LAUNC-CH conference, which Steve and I attended on Monday, was “Creating a User-Centered Library.” As ever, it offered an impressively wide range of pragmatic presentations, this time revolving around the issue of user-centricity. The keynote presenters, Mike Olsen, Dawn Hubbs, and Barbara Tierney, all of UNC -Charlotte, led... more

Society of North Carolina Archivists 2010 in Pinehurst

I spent an extra day in Pinehurst last week to attend some of the sessions at the Society of North Carolina Archivists‘ annual meeting. I got to hear some great sessions by North Carolina archivists about archival processing, finding aids, and digital projects. Two sessions focused on photograph collections. The first, “Minimal Processing North Carolina... more