Professional Development

Conference reports and more from ZSR Librarians

NASIG 2015

Last week I attended the 30th annual NASIG conference, presided over by our own Steve Kelley, who looked more and more carefree as the conference progressed and he got closer to handing over the presidential gavel. Well, at NASIG the outgoing president actually receives a gavel; the new one usually gets a hat. This was... more

Jeff and Monesha at the 2015 Meeting of the NCICU Purchasing Committee

On 5/19/15, Monesha and I attended the annual meeting of the NCICU Purchasing Committee, held this year at Wingate University in Wingate, NC. First, Lisa Larson from LYRASIS talked about some of her organization’s activities, with special emphasis on its involvement with Open Access initiatives. LYRASIS has partnered with libraries on several major OA projects... more

Molly at ASERL SCUNC

Last Thursday, I found myself down in hot, humid Orlando for the first-ever ASERL Scholarly Communication Unconference, aka the ASERL SCUNC (pronounced “skunk”). The day brought together scholcomm folks from across the ASERL region at the John C. Hitt Library at the University of Central Florida. This event had been several years in the making,... more

Joy, Kyle, and Amanda at The Innovative Library Classroom Conference

For the second year in a row, the Instruction Cave descended upon Radford University (in Virginia) for the Innovative Library Classroom Conference. Here are some of the highlights from our visit. Keynote Carrie Donovan, head of Teaching & Learning at the Indiana University Libraries gave a high-energy talk on how she and her team have... more

TALA Paraprofessionals Conference – May 13, 2015

The Triad Academic Library Association (TALA) held its second conference at High Point University earlier this month. One of the conference’s goals is to provide library workers with multiple opportunities to network around topics of interest. This topics selected for discussion were taken directly from suggestions offered in the 2014 post conference survey. Our planning... more

Amanda at LOEX 2015

Earlier this month, Joy and I attended the annual LOEX Conference in Denver, Colorado. Like previous years, this continues to be the standout library instruction conference and I’m so happy we were able to go. Keynote I would agree with Joy’s assessment that the opening keynote, presented by Anne-Marie Dietering, was one of the best... more

2015 ABLD at Vanderbilt

In April I attended the annual meeting of the Academic Business Library Directors (ABLD) on the campus of Vanderbilt University in Nashville. ABLD is a small association of librarians from most of the top 50 business schools in North America. During the past year, I served as chair of the board of directors of the... more

Molly at ARCS

In late April, I attended the inaugural Advancing Research Communication & Scholarship (ARCS) conference in Philadelphia. Modeled on the early days of the Charleston Conference, ARCS aimed to be the first conference dedicated to scholarly communication that brought together the key stakeholders in the system: librarians, publishers, authors, and researchers. For two days, the 170... more

Chris at the 2015 Carolina Consortium Meeting

On Tuesday, I attended my first Carolina Consortium meeting. I’ve attended similar meetings previously, but this one was truly unique for me in that electronic resources were the primary focus. E-books were, of course, dominant in the conversation of the day as more packages were being offered by many vendors and libraries considered the choices... more

Carol at the Carolina Consortium Meeting

On May 12, Chris and I attended the annual Carolina Consortium Meeting at UNCG. The format was half business meeting/half mini-conference with a focus on the resources that we purchase (or potentially could purchase) using the Consortium’s discounts. In the business half, I scribbled down the product names of a few offers that we might... more