Professional Development

Conference reports and more from ZSR Librarians

Ares E-reserve Online Seminar

On Wednesday and Thursday afternoons, Ellen M. and I participated in the first Online Ares Seminar sponsored by Atlas Systems. It was a series of presentations on various Ares and E-reserve related subjects. Presenters included David Larsen from the University of Chicago, Crystal Hester from Case Western, Dru Zuretti from the CCC, Angela Mott from... more

Gretchen trains at Cisco

On Monday I trained in the Cisco offices in Raleigh to learn all about Cisco’s NEW (Network Enhanced Workspace) features. The workshop was geared towards sales associates, specifically helping them to most effectively use all of the tools they are selling. Monday’s session worked with BlackBerry users, whereas Tuesday’s is reserved for the iPhone. The... more

NCLA Library Instruction at the Point of Need

On Friday Sarah, Mary Beth, and I went to Thomasville, NC for the NCLA Library Instruction at the Point of Need, co-sponsored by the College & University and Community College & Junior College Libraries Sections. It was a really good conference and the conference organizers did a terrific job of everything. The conference was held... more

Assessment in Libraries – day 2

Stephen Town, University Librarian at the University of York, UK, Tuesday’s opening keynoter, reminded librarians that library assessment has been mostly about quality and quantity, but not about value. However, libraries are under pressure to prove their value. Value he defined as the quality or fact of being excellent, useful or desirable. But what is... more

Assessment in Libraries Conference

The 2010 Library Assessment Conference themed, Building Effective, Sustainable, Practical Assessment, is the third in a series of planned conferences devoted to building an assessment culture and community within libraries. Held every two years, the conference is co-sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL), the University of Virginia and the University of Washington. This... more

Achieving Strategic Change in Research Libraries II

2CUL: A Transformative Research Library Partnership Jim Neal, Columbia University, Anne Kenney, Cornell University Neal and Kenney described a radical partnership between two ARL libraries. Cornell and Columbia have similarities in that they are both private Ivy League institutions, ranked in the top 10 of the Association of Research Libraries, and are located in New... more

Achieving Strategic Change in Research Libraries I

Last Thursday and Friday I attended a seminar in Washington DC sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries and Coalition for Networked Information called Achieving Strategic Change in Research Libraries. In my experience, ARL programming is first-rate and I was not disappointed. The opening keynote was by David Shulenberger, formerly Provost at Kansas and now... more

GBW Standards of Excellence- Presentations

I attended three sessions this year and was delighted that these focused on binding and books. Martha Little spoke on “Evidence of Structure and Procedure in Books.” Martha has been the Head Conservator at the University of Michigan Libraries and Book Conservator at Yale. Her presentation was a kind of deconstruction of the historical book.... more

RITS Annual Team Retreat 2010

This year, the RITS (Research, Instruction & Technology Services) team stayed in Winston-Salem for our annual team retreat. We reserved the President’s Garage which is close to campus but is perfect space for a daylong retreat. We typically aim for the Friday of fall break as our team is comprised of many public service/instruction library... more

Guild of Bookworkers Standards of Excellence Seminar- Tucson

What, you may ask is the Guild of Bookworkers? Founded in 1906, it promotes hand binding and all the fields surrounding it. As their statement says: “The Guild still believes, as did its founders, that there is a responsibility among civilized people to sustain the crafts involved with the production of fine books.” They also... more