Professional Development

Conference reports and more from ZSR Librarians

Lightning Insights: Will at the LAUNC-CH Conference

On Monday, March 11, I had the privilege of attending and presenting at the LAUNC-CH Conference held in the Pleasants Family Assembly Room of the Wilson Special Collections Library at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This year, the conference adopted a different format than I recall from previous years. Rather than navigating... more

Leslie at MLA 2024

This year’s meeting of the Music Library Association was held in Cincinnati, with a hybrid format. I attended virtually. IL A panel unveiled the Music Companion to the Framework for Information Literacy, the culmination of several years’ work developing music applications for the ACRL standard. Some points distinctive to music and other performing arts: Embodied... more

Lauren at ER&L 2024

Human Responsibility in the Age of AI by Kasia Chmielinski: While there are some fears about AI – real ones include risks of bias – human intervention is possible. The Data Nutrition Project aims to show some “ingredients” in the data, just like a food nutrition label does. There is a section that is icons... more

Meghan and Hu at the 43rd Annual First-Year Experience Conference in Seattle

Recently, we had the opportunity to attend and present “Timing is Everything: Planning and Managing Library Outreach for New Students During Their First Six Weeks” at the First-Year Experience Conference 2024 in Seattle with the Director of Orientation, New Student and Transitions Programs, Dr. Cherise James. This was the largest FYE since COVID-19 and the... more

Experiences of a ZSR Mentoring Cohort

In the final blog post for mentoring month, we hear from a mentoring cohort at ZSR. Thanks to Tanya and Amanda for sharing their story! Introduction Amanda requested Tanya as a mentor last year as she prepared her promotion dossier and they decided to extend their mentoring relationship another year to discuss other goals –... more

Carol’s Virtual Charleston Conference

I registered for a virtual version of the Charleston Conference. I’ve steadily been watching the sessions since they were released last November, with a lot of binge-watching over winter break. A few trends: Transformative Agreements A year ago I could’ve rattled off all WFU’s Transformative (a.k.a. Read and Publish) Agreements from memory. Now they’re starting... more

Unexpected Mentoring: Three Reinvigorating Experiences

Overview January is National Mentoring Month, and the ZSR Librarians’ Assembly Mentoring Committee would like to share our own stories of unexpected mentoring along with some new resources in the collection on mentoring for both faculty and staff. Look for more mentoring-focused posts this month and more programming from the mentoring committee in the coming... more

Kathy S. at Charleston Conference 2023

After hearing about the Charleston Conference for many years, this year I finally had the opportunity to attend, and it did not disappoint! Thankfully I had veteran attendees from ZSR to orient me to the conference, as it is structured very differently than other conferences I’ve attended. I really enjoyed the one-day exhibit hall, as... more

Kate at NCLA and Charleston 2023

NCLA Biennial Conference, October 17-20 While I have attended the NCLA Biennial Conference many times, this year was my first as a ZSR employee. It was great to run into my ZSR colleagues in a different setting, connect with former colleagues and friends at other libraries, and learn about the great work that’s happening across... more

Roz at The Charleston Conference 2023

I have been going to The Charleston Conference for 7 or 8 years now and it remains one of my very favorite conferences. This year the in-person conference took place Nov. 7-10 (in Charleston, SC – thus the name) and the virtual one took place Nov. 27th – 30th. Many of the virtual conference sessions... more