09/21/2002
Retention Narrative
My first year of employment at WIU Libraries ended on July 16, 2002. This makes the period this evaluation addresses (roughly January to August 2002) the second half of my first year. As might be expected, I spent the second half of this first year learning and unlearning from the experiences of the first six months.
Bibliographic Instruction: Coordinating bibliographic instruction is my primary responsibility. In the last academic year the reference unit provided approximately 200 sessions of instruction. Each of these sessions requires an electronic classroom and an librarian/instructor. Moreover, each class receiving library comes with its own curriculum, indivual assignments, and the variable expectations of the teaching faculty regarding what they want students to take from the instruction. Succesfully coordinating all these requires what the courts refer to as “ordered liberty,” the freedom for librarians and teaching faculty to creatively engage the task of teaching students to use diverse and, often, intimidating information technologies and the establishing the order necessary to get this done in an effecient manner. The nuts and bolts of the “order” part of “ordered liberty” is scheduling. In the Fall 2001 semester, with the programming help of Hunt Dunlap and Bob Frasier, I moved library instruction from paper-based to Internet-based scheduling. An Internet-based shedule opens up scheduling so that teaching faculty can request instruction at their convenience. On the other hand, internet-based scheduling allows for an efficient centralization of the process on my end--e.g. all the requests come to me. Internet-based scheduling also creates a record of all the requests. There’s fewer opportunities for miscommunication. Like most software implementations, the shift to Internet-based scheduling in Fall 2001 was not without some difficulties. During the Spring 2002 and over the summer the reference unit and I worked out these kinks and in Fall 2001 things are working more smoothly. One of the changes made over the summer was the creation of an Internet-based calendar so that teaching faculty can see what slots in which rooms are open and which are not before making a request. This saves the faculty from the disappointment of asking for, and planning around, a date for library instruction, only to learn that slot in the schedule is already taken. As faculty get accustomed to the calendar, it is hoped the online calendar will encourage them to make requests earlier in the semester—even, perhaps, previous to the beginning of the semester, so that they can their preferred dates and times. This in turn may allow the Reference Unit to better plan its staffing commitments for the semester. Another scheduling change involved the creation of a personal E-Com account for library instruction. Previously, all the requests for instruction had come to my own E-com account. This meant I had to keep track of the considerable e-mail that every librarian deals with (reference questions from patrons, requests for help from other WIU librarians and from non-WIU librarians, listservs, etc.) and keep track of instruction requests. The new account sequesters instruction requests. It is also more efficient in that it is set up using E-Mail Workshop, an e-mail list manager that allows for the creation and maintenance of very large lists. This matters because selling the library’s instruction program requires the ability to e-mail, say, all the faculty with writing-intensive classes, offering instruction in basic library research or to e-mail everyone in the various education departments, offering advanced tutorials in ERIC. Being able to market the instruction program matters because as the university’s information needs become less paper and book based and, so, less building-based (people don’t need to come to the library to use its resources), the service the library provides, expertise in information gathering of all kinds, becomes as crucial as the books in its collection. For the less book-based disciplines, like the hard sciences and, more and more, the social sciences, knowing how to use databases and access digitally stored information is already no longer optional, but required.