UCLA Library has successfully transitioned from offering a stand alone digital reference service to participating in the University of California chat collaborative service called Ask a UC Librarian. Launching at 5:00pm Sunday evening, November 5, 2006, the new schedule expands our service hours to include Sunday through Thursday evenings until 9 pm. As a stand alone service we offered the service 34 hours per week. As part of the collaborative we offer our users service 50 hours per week. At the same time, the number of hours UCLA is responsible for staffing was reduced to fourteen. Staffing (or soon to be staffing) the new collaborative hours for UCLA are: Elaine Adams, Hong Chen, Anita Colby, Miki Goral, Richard Davidon, Scott Martin, Susan Minobe, and Cathy Wilson.

During our first two weeks the Ask a UC Librarian service has conducted over 150 chat sessions. Many of us are refreshing our skills at juggling multiple callers! Callers have asked for a variety of research assistance on topics as diverse as “the positive psychological effects of religion”, “the prison industrial system”, and “the cost benefit of electronic government”. Chat callers have also needed assistance on placing interlibrary loan requests and guidance on accessing online resources- more of a challenge to answer when the caller is not from your own campus.

Currently, each of the following campuses, in addition to UCLA, are providing staff for the collaborative between four and eleven hours per week: UC Merced, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, UC San Diego, and UC Santa Barbara. Librarians and staff providing service come from all disciplines: social sciences, humanities, sciences, government documents, and instruction.

Challenges ahead for the Ask a UC Librarian service include developing a marketing strategy for all the campuses, fine tuning our policies and procedures, and becoming more familiar with the library web pages and resources at our sister campuses. We will also be evaluating the service and looking at other technologies, such as Instant Messaging, as possible alternatives for service delivery in the future.

Thanks to all who helped in the launch: John Wang (Web Services Coordinator) and Chris Cabrera Thompson (Web Administrator) for web support and Dawn Setzer (Director of Library Communications) for editorial services on the intake information page, and Sarah Watstein (AUL for Research and Instructional Services) for her general encouragement and guidance. Sarah is also the HOPS liaison to the UC Common Interest Group (CIG) for Digital Reference (responsible for implementing the service), and for her support in facilitating communication between HOPS and the CIG is invaluable.

And a big, BIG thank you to all the UCLA staff members who have been providing digital reference service since our move to the triage model in Fall, 2004: Alicia Amador, Lygia Bagdanovich, Richard Davidon, Anjelique Granados, Jonnie Hargis, Scott Martin, Susan Minobe, William Pashaie, Alicia Reiley, Steve Sherwin, Cathy Wilson, and others who have left UCLA. These frontline staff members handled an average of about 250 calls per quarter through Fall, Winter, Spring and Summer sessions for the last two years. Such dedication is positive proof of our service ethic in action! We could not have done it without you.

Highlight Your Successes

Are you presenting information literacy-related material at a conference, meeting, or other venues? Are you being sponsored or funded by Information Literacy Program (ILP) to attend an event? If you are, let the ILP Communications Interest Group know! This will give us the opportunity to highlight your efforts and the event you are attending.

Please let us know what you are doing so that we may spotlight your efforts and successes! Contact Andrea Lynch (andlynch@library.ucla.edu), Chair of the ILP Communications Interest Group.

PRIMO Sites for October and November

The Peer-Reviewed Instructional Materials Online (PRIMO) Committee of the Instruction Section of ACRL announced its Sites of the Month for October and November 2006. To read the full interviews for both projects and to browse the archive of previous profiles, please see: www.ala.org/ala/acrlbucket/is/iscommittees/webpages/emergingtech/site/index.htm.

ACRL’s Looking for IL-related Instructional Materials for Distance Learning

ACRL's Distance Learning Section's Instruction Committee is currently working on a web page of information literacy-related instructional materials for distance learning. One area that they are focusing on is new media (both free and/or those that must be purchased) that can be used to create instructional materials or to enhance instruction. They would like to create a list of relevant tools that includes review articles and a rating system that indicates how useful each tool is for librarians.

To that end they would like to solicit your input in a two step project. First they would like recommendations for any worthwhile tools that you have used and any particularly helpful product review articles that you've come across. Second, once they have compiled a list of such tools they would like to invite those familiar with a particular tool to fill out a rating sheet on it. They currently have for categories of tools:

• assessment/statistics,
• audio tools,
• authoring software, and
• course management software.

The group would really appreciate your feedback. Please respond to Lisa J. Vassady, Co-Chair ACRL DLS Instruction Committee (ljvassady@radford.edu).

Tools/Media they have already come up with:

• Assessment/Statistics
  • StatCounter
• Audio Tools:
  • Audacity
  • ccMixter
  • The Freesound project
• Authoring Software:
  • Macromedia Authorware 7
  • Camtasia
  • Captivate
  • Lectora
  • ViewletBuilder
• Course Management System (CMS):
  • Breeze
  • Elluminate
  • Moodle
  • Blackboard
  • WebCT

Need $$ to Attend ALA Annual 2007?

Going to ALA Midwinter? If So, Register for This!

Podcast U: Libraries, Podcasting, and the New Culture of Personal Broadcasting on Campus
Friday, January 19, 2007 from 9am-4pm
ALA Midwinter Meeting, Seattle, Washington

Speakers: Zachary Pogue, Duke University
Bart Collins, Purdue University
Jill McKinstry, University of Washington Karen Howell, University of Southern California Rachel Clemens, California State University, Fullerton

For registration, please visit: www.ala.org/ala/eventsandconferencesb/midwinter/2007/registration.htm.

(Please note, the ALA registration site has this workshop mistakenly listed as "Podcasting vs. Libraries: Podcasting and the New Culture of Personal Broadcasting on Campus")

2006 Horizon Report Available

To access this report, visit: www.nmc.org/pdf/2006_Horizon_Report.pdf .

Appointments

Reclassifications

Separations

Open Positions

Previous issues

• Issues 846 and forward are available on the Staff Intranet.
• Printed copies of previous issues are available at the UCLA Library or by email request.
• Issues 837-854 are available in print under the title UCLA Library Newsweb at the UCLA Library or by email request.
• Issues 1-836 are available in print under the title Library Newsletter/UCLA at the UCLA Library.

• Library News for the Faculty (www.library.ucla.edu/publications/facnews/)
• UCLA News (www.uclanews.ucla.edu)
• UCOP News (www.ucnewswire.org/ucnw.cfm)

The UCLA Library Staff Newsweb is published every other Monday by Library Human Resources. News items should be sent to Sheila Knapp, Library Newsweb, LHR. Please submit via email to Sheila at sknapp@library.ucla.edu. The deadline for the next issue (December 11) is Friday, December 1 at 3 p.m.

Other Publication dates and deadlines (www.library.ucla.edu/publications/libnews/deadline.htm)