New Minitex MDL Webinar

Especially for those of you who were in my LIBT 2210 Intro to Indexing and Abstracting course, you may want to sign up for this webinar or view the recording later. This updates what we learned in that class.

Moving Forward: New Guidelines for Contributors to Minnesota Reflections
Feb. 3, 2011, 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m.

This webinar will include a walkthrough of the Minnesota Reflections Metadata Guidelines. Participants will learn to use the newly updated Guidelines to create individual records that are searchable and understandable to users of the Minnesota Reflections database. There will be ample time for questions and discussion.

Audience: The session is intended for staff of any Minnesota library, historical society, archive, museum, or other cultural heritage organization that has contributed items to Minnesota Reflections and is interested in a new project, which will use the new Guidelines. Experience working with the previous version of the Minnesota Digital Library’s Metadata Guidelines is required.

Registration: http://www.minitex.umn.edu/Training/Details.aspx?SessionID=325

NOTE: We plan to record the webinar and make an archived version freely available to anyone who cannot attend.

College of DuPage Library Futures Web Presentation

MCTC Library Information Technology Program presents...

"Free Content for Library Collections"

Broadcast date: Friday, February 4, 2011, 11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (bring your lunch and come for part or all, including a brief discussion following presentation) 

LOCATION: MCTC Science Blding, Conference Room S2140

To Register, please contact Jennifer.Sippel@minneapolis.edu 

The Internet offers a treasure trove of free resources that can greatly expand the range of information and services that libraries can offer their patrons.  But it's not always easy to find the best information to meet users' needs.  In this program, Michael Galloway, Manager, Digital Collections for ipl2: Information You Can Trust, and John Mark Ockerbloom, editor of The Online Books Page, will give a tour of some of the millions of books, magazines, journals, and informative web sites that can be accessed online for free.  They will discuss how they evaluate and describe online resources to include in their directories, how readers can find what they need in these directories and elsewhere online, and how they can distinguish useful information from unreliable or irrelevant sites.   You'll find out how you can integrate free online resources with your local library offerings in ways that give patrons better service than either online or print alone can provide.   And you'll also learn how your library and your patrons can contribute to this growing corpus of knowledge.

Guest Speakers

Michael Galloway is Manager, Digital Collections for the Internet Public Library (now called ipl2) at Drexel University.  He instructs students in  ipl2 member school workshops in collection development and maintenance for the ipl2. 

John Mark Ockerbloom is Digital Library Architect and Planner at the University of Pennsylvania and editor of The Online Books Page, which lists over 40,000 books that are freely available for reading online or for downloading. He publishes the blog Everybody's Libraries. 

 

MD Job Posting: Cataloging Technician

The National Agricultural Library has two vacant copy cataloging/bibliographic maintenance technician positions available.

These are full time, term positions at the GS-07 level. The initial contract is for one year, with the possibility of renewal up to four years. For details, see the link below:

http://jobview.usajobs.gov/GetJob.aspx?JobID=95875268&JobTitle=Library+T
echnician&q=ARS-D11E-0030&where=&brd=3876&vw=b&FedEmp=N&FedPub=Y&x=96&y=
13&AVSDM=2011-01-14+10%3a33%3a00

Tina Shrader
Cataloging Section Head
Bibliographic Services Branch
National Agricultural Library, Room 112
10301 Baltimore Ave.
Beltsville, MD 20705
Phone: 301-504-5040
Email: tina.shrader@ars.usda.gov

Local Library School News

The following is an excerpt of an email sent by Andrea Lee, President of St. Catherine University.

 

The Committee on Accreditation for the American Library Association (ALA) has informed me that St. Catherine University has been granted initial accreditation without stipulation for the MLIS program. For the first time in St. Catherine’s long and distinguished history with library education, we now possess a fully accredited master’s-level library and information science program. Ours is the only accredited program in Minnesota and one of only 57 throughout North America.

What this means for our more than 800 alumnae and current students, our faculty members and, indeed, our state and region is almost beyond measure.

An accredited MLIS degree better positions graduates for professional-level employment nationwide; it allows us to launch a chapter of Beta Phi Mu, the national library science honor society; and it makes students eligible for a variety of scholarships, including one from the ALA that promotes ethnic diversity in library science. And, of course, accreditation fulfills a key initiative of our 2020 Vision strategic plan — namely, to position St. Catherine University for national preeminence in a number of our core academic areas.

Creating Your Digital Destiny

Check out this mid-winter workshop/conference held in Fergus Falls.

"Creating Your Digital Destiny"

a North Star Library Consortium Midwinter Workshop

Sunday, Jan 23, 2011 6pm - 8pm

Monday, Jan 24, 2011 8:30am - 3:30pm

Big Wood Event Center

Fergus Falls, MN

Program changes

To all of our program students:

You should know that St. Cloud State announced at the end of last spring, 2010, that they were going to sunset their Information Media undergraduate major and minor:

"...two of CIM’s numerous programs (the undergraduate major and minor) have been designated for closure. All of our other degrees (Tracks I, II, and III masters) and certificates (Instructional Technology graduate and undergraduate, Design for E-Learning graduate, and Library Media Specialist graduate) are still in place. This closure of the undergraduate major and minor will allow us to use our existing resources to focus on the graduate and certificate programs and our service courses.

"For undergraduate students already in either the major or minor, there are provisions in place to allow for the completion of those degrees. But, we will not be accepting newly declared majors into either the undergraduate major or minor."

We found out about this change late in the spring. As an Associate of Science program that articulated into this program, this change was announced to us too late for us to give our students any real advance notice.

This fall, the faculty of MCTC's Library Information Technology program went before our Academic Council to improve our own program and address the changes in our curriculum that St. Cloud State's change prompted. Our Academic Council approved the changes, and we will now be presenting them to MnSCU for final approval. We'll be making a more formal announcement later this semester, but here's the short version.

1. Our current A.S. degree program will sunset in Spring 2013. That means that any students in the program that have started in the 2010-11 catalog year (this year) or earlier and wish to complete their studies under that catalog will need to complete their award by then. With the changes at St. Cloud State, there is no longer a formal program into which an MCTC student can articulate. All transfers will happen like any other transfer - the receiving college or university will review the incoming courses as per their standard transfer policy.
   
2. Beginning with the 2011-12 catalog, we will be offering an Associate of Applied Science (AAS degree) in Library Information Technology. Based on feedback from our advisory committee and past students, we are making the following changes to the curriculum:
1. We are dropping 3 credits of previously required coursework in the MnTC goal areas. An A.S. degree must have at least 30 credits in a minimum of 6 MnTC goal areas; an A.A.S degree must have at least 25% of the credits (15 in our case) from a minimum of 3 MnTC goal areas. The changed program will require 27 credits from the MnTC goal areas.
2. We are changing LIBT 2900 from 4 credits to a choice of 3 or 4 credits
3. Adding a new required program course, LIBT 2??? Library Community & Outreach Services
4. To make up those "dropped" credits, we are adding a choice of elective courses from which students must choose. Those courses are:
• CSCI 1200 Computer Applications in Home and Business[1] OR ITEC 1110 Information Technology Skills (2 cr)
• BUSN 1155 Human Relations and Team Building[2]
• CHDV 1640 Literature, Language and Literacy for Young Children
• EDUC 1215 Child, Youth Growth and Development
• ENGL 1161 Children's Literature
• ITEC 1100 Information Technology Concepts (2 cr)
• LIBT 14?? Topics in Library Information Technology (1 cr)
• LIBT 14?? Preserving History and Memory: Archives in Current Society



---

[1] Dropping this as a program requirement to add new outreach course LIBT 14??

[2] Was formerly a program requirement but dropped to make room for a 2^nd required 2000-level tech services course

You can see we're adding two new regular program courses, Library Community & Outreach Services, which will be required as part of the Public Information Services certificate and the new AAS, and an elective course, Preserving History and Memory: Archives in Current Society.

We're also developing a Topics course which will change each semester. For this course, we're envisioning a number of different online,hybrid and face-to-face options, depending on the topic. For example, we might meet one time, then have follow-up online, or meet over a series of weekends. Because it is an elective, it gives us some flexibility we don't have with our regular program courses.

We're excited about these changes, and we hope you are as well. We'll be posting up new program planning documents in late January or February. If you have any questions about course sequencing and/or how these changes impact you, please contact me (Ginny Heinrich).

Our View From the Park - Student Email

Join us this Friday 1/14 for the first MCTC Library BlogTalkRadio show of spring semester!

Our View From the Park - Student Email