Patti Schifter Caravello has been named Librarian of the Year by the Librarians Association of the University of California, Los Angeles. This annual award recognizes excellence in librarianship, particularly as it furthers the teaching and research mission of UCLA and meets the intellectual, informational and cultural needs of the university community. The Librarians Association of the University of California is the UC’s primary organization for professional librarian and governance affairs.

The award, conferred during the association’s spring meeting in May, recognized in particular Caravello’s leadership as Director of the UCLA Information Literacy Program, and her outstanding work and significant achievements in developing local and national information competencies and information literacy standards. Under her leadership, the UCLA Library Information Literacy Program has flourished, gaining momentum and establishing itself firmly within the UCLA community.

Caravello, along with Sarah Watstein, was invited to participate in the first annual Celebrating Undergraduate Education week at UCLA, in fall 2007. Their efforts led to the The Information Literacy Program’s symposium, A Competitive Edge in the Information Society, featuring a panel of faculty and librarians showcasing collaborations and projects that enhance undergraduates’ information skills and understanding of the scholarly process.

Information literacy instruction and standards have traditionally focused on undergraduates. Along with this focus, Caravello also championed the importance of recognizing the information literacy needs of graduate students. In collaboration with the Office of the Dean of Students, she helped develop a workshop on avoiding plagiarism which evolved into a workshop on Citation and Academic Integrity, currently offered at UCLA’s New Graduate Student Orientation each Fall, at the Bunche Center Summer Humanities Institute and as part of the Graduate Writing Center’s quarterly seminars.

Her ongoing work with both the Graduate Student Resource Center and the Graduate Writing Center has led to collaborations between them and a number of UCLA librarians, resulting in the development of a wide variety of workshops for graduate students.

On the national front, Caravello has played a significant role within the Association of College and Research Libraries Anthropology and Sociology Section’s (ACRL ANSS) Instruction and Information Literacy Task Force on Information Literacy Standards. The task force was responsible for creating Information Literacy Standards for Anthropology and Sociology Students. The standards were endorsed by the American Sociological Association in 2006, were approved by ACRL in January 2008, and are available via the ACRL website. The standards are slated for publication in the June 2008 issue of C&RL News.

During February and March 2008, the Science & Engineering Library (SEL) invited new faculty from the 13 departments SEL serves to a 90 minute orientation and lunch. The new faculty program was a pilot designed to:

• begin a networking relationship with incoming faculty and introduce them to resources, services and the librarian for their department
• provide librarians with information about the faculty members’ needs and expectations
• determine if faculty saw this type of library outreach of value to them as they began their career at UCLA

Two sessions were held to accommodate variations in schedules. Faculty with heavy Monday, Wednesday and Friday instruction commitments were invited to a Tuesday session. Those with heavy instruction commitments on Tuesdays and Thursdays were invited to a Wednesday session. The nine new faculty who attended the orientations had been at UCLA between 3 weeks and 9 months.

In the first half of the session, SEL librarians talked with the faculty in a large group, exploring the resources the faculty used at their previous institutions and the ones they felt were most important for their students to use. Librarians and staff followed up the discussion with a presentation of resources and services available for both faculty and their students, e.g. laptops, instruction, group study rooms, reference, My ILL, and e-resources.

In the second half of the session, each librarian then paired with a faculty member (most often the librarian for their department) to demonstrate databases, ways of accessing e-resources, the availability of online books, reports, patents, standards, and other materials or services. The one-on-one discussions took various directions based on faculty interests and questions.

Faculty commented that the combination of a succinct overview of services and time for specific consultation was useful to them and should continue to be made available to others. Prior to this set of orientations, SEL librarians usually contacted new faculty in their departments on an individual basis. However the librarians felt this pilot succeeded as a networking tool and as an information gathering and sharing opportunity, and should continue as a part of the library’s outreach to faculty.

OECD Report on the Participative Web

Participative Web and User-Created Content: Web 2.0, Wikis and Social Networking
By Graham Vickery and Sacha Wunsch-Vincent

Abstract: Drawing on an expanding array of intelligent web services and applications, a growing number of people are creating, distributing and exploiting user-created content (UCC) and being part of the wider participative web. This study describes the rapid growth of UCC and its increasing role in worldwide communication, and draws out implications for policy. Questions addressed include: What is user-created content? What are its key drivers, its scope and different forms? What are the new value chains and business models? What are the extent and form of social, cultural and economic opportunities and impacts? What are the associated challenges? Is there a government role, and what form could it take?

For links to free PDF and additional data, go to onlinesocialnetworks.blogspot.com/2008/06/participative-web-and-user-created.html.

Call for Conference Proposals - AERA Annual Meeting

The American Educational Research Association’s (AERA) Annual Meeting will be held Monday, April 13 through Friday, April 17, 2009 in San Diego, California. The call for proposals opened on June 1 and is scheduled to close on August 1, 2008. Please refer to the AERA website for details: www.aera.net/meetings/Default.aspx?menu_id=386&id=5316.

The Instructional Technology Special Interest Group (SIG IT) would like to encourage you to submit original, innovative, thought-provoking, and multidisciplinary paper proposals. (For more on multidisciplinary research in education, see the AERA call for proposals here: www.aera.net/Default.aspx?id=5318.)

Call for Conference Proposals - Entrepreneurial Conference for Librarians

Pioneers, adventurers and inventors will tell their stories at "Inspiration, Innovation, Celebration: an Entrepreneurial Conference for Librarians," organized by the libraries of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Wake Forest University.

The conference will take place June 3rd and 4th, 2009 in the Elliott University Center on the campus of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. The mission for this conference is threefold:

1. To share and celebrate entrepreneurial accomplishments in libraries
2. To inspire each other to innovate in our libraries
3. To create a community of interested librarians who will perpetuate the discussion beyond the conference

Entrepreneurial activity may have taken place in instruction, services, processes, facilities, resources, or other areas. Sessions should be one hour in length to include a 45 minute presentation, with 15 minutes for Q&A. Panel discussions will be accepted. Photos, drawings or other multi-media aids are welcome; display space will be available at the conference.

Timing:

• Submit a letter of intent - a one paragraph description of your presentation - immediately. Those who submit a letter of intent by September 1st will receive priority consideration.
• Submit your final proposal by 5:00pm on Monday, November 1st, 2008. It should include a detailed outline of the presentation with a textual description of the entrepreneurial project.
• Invitations to present will be delivered by mid-December.

Send your submission to:
 

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 (www2.library.ucla.edu/facultynews/3300.cfm)
• 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 (July 7) is Friday, June 27 at 3 p.m.

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