By Hu Womack

Inside ZSR

NCLA 2009 Google Tools Pre-conference

On Tuesday, October 6th, I led a pre-conference on Google Tools for TNT. I was expecting 16 attendees, but because of the cancellation of an earlier workshop, I ended up with 22 attendees. About half of them brought laptops as suggested, and this made for an excellent hands-on experience for those attending! The workshop was... more

ACRL OnPoint Chat Series: “Are Reference Desks Passé?”

On Wednesday, July 29th, Mary Scanlon and I participated in the ACRL OnPoint Chat series, “Are Reference Desks Passé?” While no definitive conclusion was reached, many salient points were discussed. The format of this series was a Meebo Chatroom with 80 participants. Two parallel threads emerged during the 45 minute conversation: the medium and the... more

The Big Read Orientation

Once again, the Z. Smith Reynolds Library is partnering with the Forsyth County Public Library for the “Big Read 2009.” You may recall that last year Rosalind Tedford was the ZSR representative for this project when the book selected was “Fahrenheit 451” by Ray Bradbury. This year I’ve taken on that role and the book... more

LYRASIS Mass Digitization Collaborative Information Session-ASERL

On May 27th Lynn, Megan and Giz met in the ITC Screening Room at 10am for a Mass Digitization Collaborative Information Session by Lyrasis. Laurie Gemmill the Lyrasis Digital Services Program Manager was the speaker. After a quick test of the webinar tools, Laurie Gemmill wanted to get a feel for everyone’s location, so we... more

NCLA Library 2.0 Instruction Conference

On Tuesday, November 18th, Roz Tedford, Lauren Pressley and I led a workshop on “Getting the Most Out of Google” at the Library 2.0 Instruction Conference at the Friday Center in Chapel Hill NC. The day before, Susan Smith, Roz Tedford and Lauren Pressley gave a presentation called “Teaching Them (2.0) to Fish: Web 2.0... more

ZSR Staff Development Tour of the ASU Library and Information Commons

On Wednesday, March 25th, 7 members of the ZSR Staff, Rosalind Tedford, Mary Beth Lock, Lauren Pressley, Kaeley McMahon, Sarah Jeong, Christian Burris and myself loaded up in the WFU Student Life van and headed up 421 to visit the ASU Library and Information Commons in Boone. We arrived and started a tour around 10:30am.... more

Giz at the 27th Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience – Wrapup

The First-Year Experience Conference was an excellent conference that I would recommend to anyone working with first-year students in any capacity. As I look back on the sessions and put them in a broader context, one of broad concepts that came away with was that first year students (and their parents) are in the middle... more

Giz at the 27th Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience – Day Two

Monday, February 18, 2008 Poster Sessions: Building a Digital Library for the Provisioning of Mobile Orientation Presenter, Jim Hahn, Orientation Services Librarian, University of Illinois at Urbana – Champaign This poster session professed that campus orientation professionals can draw on techniques of digital librarianship to deliver digital learning content to their new students. Some of... more

Giz at the 27th Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience – Day One

Sunday, February 17, 2008 Session: Leveraging Facebook Applications for More Effective Orientations Red Rover is a Facebook application (free) by SwiftKick, the presenter was Kevin Prentiss. It is a connection tool, not a communication tool. Began by telling us that Mark Zuckerberg wrote Facebook in 3 weeks at Harvard, he is 23 and his company... more

Giz at the 27th Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience

Opening Session and Keynote Address – Saturday, February 16th 2008 I am very excited to have this opportunity to attend the First-Year Experience (FYE) conference, as a member of the Freshman Orientation Committee at WFU, and as the manager of the Technology@WFU, I know I will hear some new ideas for engaging first year students... more