Professional Development

Conference reports and more from ZSR Librarians

Kevin at edUi 2015

In November, I attended my fifth edUi conference, edUi 2015 in Charlottesville, Virginia. Sessions featured systems analysis and user experience, advanced CSS techniques, advanced tracking using Google Tag Manager, digital signs and wayfinding, and information architecture. more

Tweeting NCLA

Last month I attended my first NCLA. While I had previously worked in NC libraries for 16 years and been a past president of the Society of NC Archivists, I had never taken advantage of this great networking opportunity before. In Greensboro I reconnected with old colleagues (including one from Penn State), saw one of... more

Charleston 2015

Unseasonably warm weather, severely overcrowded rooms, and as many varieties of head cold as there are attendees: the Charleston Conference might not be for everyone. You have to really like acquisitions. Which, fortunately, some of us do. James O’Donnell, Arizona State’s University Librarian (and a Classicist) gave a keynote-style talk about the need for libraries... more

NCLA Textbook Talks

Textbook costs were a popular topic at the NCLA Biennial Conference this year. Since this concern affects so many aspects of Access Services, I was particularly interested in seeing how other academic libraries have tried to help their students and faculty deal with the high cost of textbooks. At the beginning of every semester in... more

Charleston Conference 2015 (Carol)

James O’Donnell Arizona State: Within a Star-Wars-themed keynote (complete with light saber), he remarked that if you buy a knock-off Louis Vuitton bag you expect it to fall apart. If you get a pirated PDF from an offshore website, you get better access and fewer hurdles. Michael Levine-Clark at U. Denver did three local surveys... more

Charleston Conference 2015 (Lauren)

Contents: Alma from Ex Libris, take care in using downloads as a measure part 2, EPUB 3, NISO ODI (do we need to tweak Summon?), DPLA working on e-books, the Charlotte Initiative, Overdrive, ORCID, and the rising cost of e-book short-term loans with a DDA program part 2 My focus was networking to hear nitty... more

Hu at NCLA: “A Librarian, an Archivist, and a Professor walk into…Collaboration that Matters”

Since others have already posted about NCLA, I thought I would use my post to talk about an exciting program I attended by Shanta Alvarez and Patrick Rudd from Elon University. This program focused on the use of primary sources in classes, most notably, the Cable School, a restored 1850s schoolhouse that was part of... more

Susan At NCLA Biennial Conference

My main objective for this year’s NCLA conference was to participate in a panel discussion with colleagues Mary Beth Lock, Hu Womack and Meghan Webb. In our presentation, we shared the variety of programming ZSR Library is doing that supports the University’s Thrive initiative. The audience was receptive and engaged in the topic, so we... more

NC CUPA-HR

The North Carolina College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR) met October 7 – 9 in Cherokee with about a 150 in attendance. It was a pleasure joining our campus HR colleagues, Christy Lennon, Chris Dinkins, Pearlie Patton and Kari Reese for the event. The opening keynoter, Jeffrey Mangum, a Chicago playwright and... more

Leslie at SEMLA 2015

This year’s meeting of the Southeast Music Library Association was at the University of Georgia in Athens. Good weather, great shoptalk over lunch and dinner, and we had a good turnout this year, affording opportunities to re-connect with colleagues I hadn’t seen in a long time. A couple of presentations that stood out for me:... more