My Typical Academic Desktop

As some of you may know I am currently on the American Library Association’s New Member Round Table’s Mentoring Committee.  Every year this committee tries to expand and improve mentoring services for new librarians.

Maybe you’re looking for some good advice, or perhaps you want to give back because of the people who supported you as a new librarian. Please at take a look at the call’s for participation below and consider being a mentor or a mentee.

Call for Mentors

Dear Colleagues,

Have you been a librarian for 5 years or more?

Do you like to help others and want to give back to your profession?

The New Members Round Table (NMRT) Career Mentoring Program offers you the chance to meet a new librarian and guide them as they learn the ins and outs of librarianship!

The Career Mentoring Program focuses on long term mentoring. We will pair up “newbie librarians” with “seasoned vets” as part of a year-long mentoring program that will last from  February 2012 to July 2012. Conference attendance is not required. Membership in ALA is required, and NMRT membership is encouraged.

Applications are due January 27, 2012 with the goal of notifying the matching pairs by the middle of February.

For more information and to apply, visit:

http://www.ala.org/nmrt/oversightgroups/comm/mentor/mentoringcommittee

Application: http://www.ala.org/nmrt/oversightgroups/comm/mentor/careerMentorApp

Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions after visiting the site.

Sincerely,

The New Member Round Table Mentoring Committee

Call for Mentees

Dear Colleagues,

Have you been a librarian for 5 years or less?

Do you sometimes feel that you have professional questions to ask and no one to direct them to?

Through the New Members Round Table’s Mentoring Committee, help has arrived! Here’s your chance to meet an experienced librarian who can offer you valuable professional guidance.

The NMRT Mentoring Committee will pair up “newbie librarians” with “seasoned vets” as part of our Career Mentoring program. The program will last from February 2012 to July 2012. Conference attendance is not required. Membership in ALA is required, and NMRT membership is encouraged.

Applications are due January 27,2012 with the goal of notifying the matching pairs by the middle middle of February.

For further information and to apply, visit: 

http://www.ala.org/nmrt/oversightgroups/comm/mentor/mentoringcommittee

Application: http://www.ala.org/nmrt/oversightgroups/comm/mentor/careerMentorApp

Please feel free to contact us if you have any further questions after visiting the site.

Sincerely,

The New Member Round Table Mentoring Committee

Jo Alcock (judge)w/Battle Decks judges/participants CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 The Shifted Librarian (link below)

To learn more about Jo please read her short interview.

ALA conferences are truly like no other library conference (not any I’ve experienced anyway!). I’m a UK resident and our ‘large’ library conferences have maybe 300 delegates – that’s not even 2% of the typical numbers attending ALA Annual so there’s quite a difference in size!

I was really fortunate to have been able to secure funding from the John Campbell Trust and support from my employer to attend my first ALA Annual conference last year, and absolutely loved every minute of it. I thought I’d write some tips for first-time attendees (this is from an international perspective but many will be applicable to anyone).

1. Find out more about the host city to make the most of your visit – I found some great restaurants to try and also managed to fit in visits to local attractions before and after the conference.
2. Use the online conference schedule before you leave – I didn’t get chance to spend time scheduling whilst I was there so was really grateful that I’d picked a few sessions that I definitely wanted to attend (and some extras that I’d quite like to attend) before I left.
3. Consider travel time between sessions – I hadn’t really realised just how far apart the sessions were and missed most of a session I really wanted to attend because I messed up my scheduling and travel plans. Some hotels are over the other side of the city, and even those in the main conference venue might be a good 10-15 minute walk (the convention centre at New Orleans is over a mile long!). Use the conference shuttle bus to get between venues (this is a great way to meet new people too), but make sure you know the shuttle timetable so you know where to be and when to leave to get to your session on time.
4. Vote with your feet – don’t be afraid to switch sessions if something isn’t what you had hoped, or leave early if there’s another session you want to attend. It’s always polite to sit near the back if you think you might leave early, but there’s so much going on that people really do understand and won’t take it personally.
5. Don’t try to do the whole exhibition in one go – it’s a large exhibition so I found it best to split it up and view certain sections at a time between sessions.
6. Don’t be afraid to schedule in down-time – you really will need it!
7. Take advantage of the free food/drink – I didn’t manage to maximise this and it was definitely a mistake. Vendors often have sponsored breakfasts or drinks receptions (sometimes with buffets), this can really save some money!
8. Carry snack food with you – it can be difficult to schedule in eating, especially if you have to find somewhere to get food and queue up too. Sometimes you will want to hook up with friends to eat, but other days you just might not have time, so carry some cereal bars or crisps (potato chips) to keep you going. A water bottle comes in handy too – I was constantly refilling mine throughout the day.
9. Be comfortable – you’ll be walking lots during the conference, and you’ll be in a variety of different environments and temperatures. Wear layers, and comfortable shoes; I wore Fitflops in New Orleans and they were perfect during the day (though probably wouldn’t be suitable for the more formal dinners if you choose to attend those).
10. Be flexible with your plans – both for the sessions and in your freetime. There will be loads of great opportunities so grab them whilst you can. Chat to everyone you meet; librarians are such friendly people – and the ribbons on people’s badges (which show which groups people are members of) can be a useful way of knowing a little about them or a potential conversation starter. Most of all – ENJOY IT!

The best piece of advice I can give anyone considering attending an ALA conference is to #makeithappen! Grab any opportunity you can to get yourself there, it really is worth the investment. I loved it so much that I’m going back again next year – I was encouraged by many people I met at ALA Annual to apply for ALA Emerging Leaders and I was delighted to be offered a place on the 2012 class (now I just need to source funding). I hope to see some of you at ALA Midwinter in Dallas and ALA Annual in Anaheim!

Image Credit:

2011 Battledecks contestants, judges, emcee, Vanna, and timekeeper

CC BY-NC-SA 2.0  via The Shifted Librarian

Jo Alcock

Leaders of Tomorrow is a series of short interviews with new librarians and library school students. These are the people I’m watching and I am sure we’ll see great things from them.

Meet Jo Alcock

Jo recently completed her dissertation for her MScEcon Information and Library Studies, congratulations!  Jo is an evidence based researcher for Evidence Base at Birmingham University.  She is active on several professional committees and has been publishing her research since 2009.

I met Jo through twitter, sadly, we completly missed each other at ALA Annual but I have high hopes that we’ll manage to meet at the next one!

Titter: @joeyanne

Website: http://www.joeyanne.co.uk

1. How did you first become interested in librarianship?

For as long as I can remember I’d wanted to be a teacher, but as the curriculum within schools in the UK changed I decided it wasn’t for me. I knew I wanted to stay in education so after finishing my degree I spent some time in a school library and absolutely loved it. After a brief spell in public libraries, I moved into academic librarianship and am now a researcher at Evidence Base, Birmingham City University (UK).

1a. If you had a previous career please tell us a little about it and your transferable skills.

No previous career but I had numerous customer service facing jobs whilst I was studying; barmaid, bakery supervisor, McDonald’s. This focus on delivering a high level of service (well, maybe not at McDonald’s but I tried my best!) provided me with customer service skills necessary in a library service. I was also a gymnastics coach and club captain on the gymnastics team at University; those experiences taught me a number of communication skills and people management skills.

2. How would you describe yourself in 5 words or less?

Librarian, researcher, CILIP/ALA activist.

3.  What do you see as some of the major challenges facing librarians in the coming years?

Establishing ourselves in the most effective position for helping our users. At the moment I think we’re trying to do too much and we’re not excelling at anything. I’d like to see us focus our efforts into refining the services we offer to make it clearer to all involved what we do (and basing this service offering on the needs of our users).

4. What would you like to accomplish or work towards as a librarian?

Having moved into the research world, I hope to be able to help librarians equip themselves with the skills and knowledge necessary to serve their community of users. I’m a strong believer in the value of professional networks such as those facilitated by organisations like ALA and CILIP (UK) and aim to help build connections within the profession and enable sharing of good practice – both by disseminating my research findings and also through my voluntary positions on committees.

5. When you aren’t on the clock how do you like to relax?

Since becoming a librarian I seem to have morphed into a stereotypical librarian. When I’m not cross stitching or learning a new craft (I’m currently trying to learn to crochet), I’m playing with my cats or going for walks. I do also love a bit of trashy TV to unwind though!

:-)

As some of you may have noticed a I published a guide to Open Science Resources last month, that guide is a work in progress but is targeted toward those working and studying science at UNL.  There are a lot of great Open Access resources out there for educators that don’t fit with the way I chose to design my guide.

Educational materials always seem to increase in price, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

In the spirit of promoting Open Access I present to you a multidisciplinary selection of Open Educational Resources that I reviewed but did not include in the Teaching Resources section of my guide to Open Science.

Textbooks, Reference, and Primary Source Materials

CK-12 Flexbooks
http://www.ck12.org/flexbook/

Bartleby’s
http://bartleby.com/subjects/

100 Extensive University Libraries Around the World That Anyone Can Access
http://maryandmacdesign.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/100-extensive-university-libraries-from-around-the-world-that-anyone-can-access/

Interactive Resources:

Dynamic Periodic Table
http://www.ptable.com/

How to Write an Effective Essay Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWqMQ26Gqi4&feature=player_embedded

EngVid.com
English Lessons via Video
http://www.engvid.com

Field Trip Earth
http://www.fieldtripearth.org/index.xml

NBC Learn K-12
http://www.nbclearn.com/portal/site/learn/k-12

PBS Learning Media
http://www.pbslearningmedia.org/

Documentary Heaven
http://documentaryheaven.com/

Teaching Resources

50 Ways to Leave Your Term Paper or Book Report and Tell Your Story
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1868CZhAVeeIxlA6AMV0VwiPYnafVosjl0H9CZJgvCJY/edit?hl=en_US&pli=1

10 Awesome Free Tools for Creating Infographics
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/awesome-free-tools-infographics/

Free Technology For Teachers
http://www.freetech4teachers.com/

Please share your favorite Open Education resources in the comments section and I’ll add them to the list!