4-H Arts-In Performance at Minnesota State Fair

24 August 2012 at 4-H Building.

Princess Kay of the Milky Way Carved in Butter

2012 Minnesota State Fair - Dairy Building, 24 August 2012.

A Time to Paint! July, 2012

7 July 2012 - Friends of Shady Nook School, the last rural school to close in Cottonwood County, near Westbrook, Minnnesota.

A Time to Plant - May, 2012

Lincoln Memorial, Washington Monument & United States Capitol

View from the United States Marine Corps Memorial on 7 March 2012.

Smithsonian Castle in Spring

Even though the beginning of March was too early for the cherry blossoms in Washington, there were some beautiful blossoms outside of the Smithsonian "Castle" Building.

The Mother of All Lib Guides: Reduce Maintenance and Enhance Uniformity Through Strategic Planning

http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/libtech_conf/2012/sessions/82/

Library Technology Conference, 2012 at Macalester College, St. Paul. MN

Dr. Carol Leibiger and Alan Aldrich, University of South Dakota Libaries



http://www.usd.edu/library/


The assumption was: "We have Lib Guides. What do we do now?"

Dr. Leibiger first gave some background.  Pathfinder, which originated at MIT in 1970, at first was limited to a single sheet of paper.  The idea was to start the user on a topic. Pathfinders went online in 1994, and were enhanced in 1997.

A negative aspect of Lib Guides now is the workload to keep them all updated.  Lib Guides are an expectation of the job.  Web 2.0 made the current format of Lib Guides possible.  2,900 to 3,000 libaries currently use Lib Guides.  They are easy to create and can borrow material or entire content.  Good statistics can be kept from them, and they meet student expectations.  They are easty to create, but not to maintain.  Lib Guides encourage reliance on the web.  According to the USD librarians, the average Lib Guide takes 8-20 hours to produce.  I found it interesting that the average lifespan of a URL is 44 days!  Dr. Leibiger said that we don't want students to tell us that a link is dead.  She currently maintains 24 Lib Guides.

There are different models for Lib Guides:

Individual Creator Model - created independently of each other

Pros

• Complete Customization
• Individual Creativity
• Liason Roles

Cons

• Labor Intensive
• Maintenance
• Updating

                                            Social Network Model

Pros

• Leverage Thinking and Creativity
• Less Effort Needed

Cons

• Maintenance
• Retrofitting of Borrowed Content

                                            Hub Model

Simplest

Change reverberates to all others who borrow

Greatly reduces workload

Sharing or borrowing is not just one directional

Small libraries may consider a single model

For any library the following question needs to be answered:

Who is in control?  Having one person in charge works well.

                                                                     Multiple Node Model

Referred to as "mothers" adding "children"

Having multiple nodes allows sharing and updating of content through all pages

Someone needs to create and update the nodes

   Common Content

• Databases are organized by subject or discipline
• Citation style for content and resources
• Links to library resources such as local catalogs, World Cat, etc.
• Uses information literarcy materials, tutorials, etc.

The presenters stressed that you "can't break a Lib Guide"

The content is now more generic, and linking at box level rather than page level offers more flexibility.


                                                                CLOSING COMMENTS

I was happy to be one of the 459 to attend the Library Technology Conferene 2012 at Macalester College, and gained much information in the day that I spent there.  The most difficult part was selecting the concurrent sessions to attend as there were so many choices. I had lunch with four women who work at high schools in the West Metro area.  It was good to discuss issues and concerns (such as printing costs!) with them.  Most of their students are college-bound, and the Library Technology Conference is helpful for them to attend.  It is also good to be able to "put a face" with librarians who I knew just from Twitter such as Amy Springer (Amy Librarian) who introduced the first Wednesday keynote speaker.