Present: Jack Bales, Pat Butler, Patricia Hardesty,
Connie McCarthy, Esther Onega, and Ginger Young
Location: Robertson Media Center at the University of
Virginia in Charlottesville
Connie welcomed the new Outreach Committee member, Esther Onega from the University of Virginia Library, and the other members introduced themselves.
Committee members had some weeks earlier emailed Connie with suggestions and corrections concerning the revised VIVA brochure, and she passed the latest revision around the table for us to examine. Connie reported that she and Kathy Perry had met with a Gale Company representative to talk about design and marketing support for the brochure. Gale will print 10,000 brochures and give VIVA a discounted price of $1,100. We all thought the brochure was a professional, well-produced piece of work, although we recommended that the portraits on it should include younger-looking students as well as the older persons who are presently featured.
Connie showed a placard with the VIVA logo in various colors, and we suggested that a teal logo would show up nicely on the brochure. Connie suggested that perhaps Gale could print up VIVA bookmarks as well, which would be given to students. Ginger noted that that the VIVA URL should be on the bookmark and that perhaps a space could be left blank for individual libraries to place such contact information as addresses, Web sites, etc. She wondered if colleges could have the bookmarks printed in their school colors, but Connie pointed out that for VIVA's purposes they all needed to be the same color.
The idea for VIVA workshops that focus on teaching skills originated from suggestions proposed by participants in the Outreach Committee's July workshop. These regional workshops, which will involve faculty members at host institutions, will help librarians get the most out of their one-hour library instruction sessions with students. Playing off on the "one minute manager" theme, we came up with the title, "The Fifty-Minute Librarian: Strategies for Effective Library Instruction."
We will have three workshops, all tentatively scheduled in the early spring and perhaps during each host institution's spring break (though all not on the same day). Each workshop will be designed for 50 to 75 participants and will be held from 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Ginger has contacted Nancy Seamans at Virginia Tech to coordinate one workshop. Esther, who is in charge of continuing education at the University of Virginia, will take care of the details at the second. Connie said that Loretta O'Brien-Perham at Hampton University would host a third. Outreach Committee members will serve as "point people" at each institution and can help talk to faculty about participating. Patricia recalled that at one time SCHEV recognized outstanding faculty, and perhaps some of these persons could be contacted.
The committee discussed the role of faculty members in the workshops. Preliminary questions that we could ask them include: "Librarians have fifty minutes to go over [subject] in a class. How much material should we cover? How do we know what the major points are? How much is too much? What are teaching practices or tips that you have found effective? How do you get and hold students' attention? Do you have trouble projecting your voice? If so, what do you do about it? What are the important features of a classroom presentation? Have you used online instruction or tutorials? What do you find that is NOT effective in a classroom setting?"
The committee suggested that two faculty members talk in the morning for fifty minutes each (from 10:00 to 10:50 and 11:00 to 11:50), and after lunch a panel of librarians and faculty could discuss teaching techniques and field questions and comments from the audience. We all felt that it is important that the workshops--especially the panel discussions--not be held in large auditoriums that would overwhelm the attendees.
Connie noted that VIVA would support the funding for the venues, travel (mileage, no overnight reimbursements), and lunch. We believed that the speaker received an honorarium at the July workshop and that the faculty participants should each receive one too. Registration will be online, with forms going to one location and not each host institution. Connie said that she would discuss some logistics with Berna Hayman, who arranged the July workshop. At least one of the two faculty members at each workshop must be from the host institution; the second can be from either that college/university or from an institution in the region.
Connie is the chair of an Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) committee, and she is exploring the possibility of VIVA working with ASERL to sponsor a 2-day information literacy Immersion workshop. We all acknowledged that the Immersion programs, while important and valuable, are expensive for libraries. For that reason we think that a 2-day workshop instead of a weeklong session would attract more participants. This mini-Immersion program, like the library instruction workshop, grew out of the Outreach Committee-sponsored workshop held last July.
Two new VIVA resources--American Mathematical Society Journals Online and the Encyclopaedia Britannica--need press releases. For some years the Outreach Committee has been preparing press releases for newspapers and legislators, and we thought we might ask other librarians to participate. Pat volunteered for the encyclopedia, and Jack said he would ask a colleague, Laurie Preston, if she would do the other.
After some initial Web access problems, Ginger has been working with John Duke to update the VIVA Web site. We wondered whether summaries of the VIVA workshops could be put on the site, but did not know who could maintain this section, and we doubted that VIVA could pay someone to do it. We did think that librarians could contribute "concrete examples of what works" in their respective libraries. These would be limited to online, not paper, contributions, such as annotated Web sites. Perhaps the page could be divided into sections, such as a section for mission statements, one for tutorials, etc.
Connie received an email from a woman who is "working on a feasibility study for the development of a National Coalition for Information Literacy in Australia." She wanted a few sample information literacy models, so Connie sent her some URLs and other materials.
The next Outreach Committee meeting will be held on January 11, 2002, in Charlottesville. Topics to be discussed include a draft program for the workshop, a registration form, an assessment form, and the VIVA Web page.
Respectfully submitted,
Jack Bales
Secretary
December 4, 2001
Updated March 4, 2008