SpringyCamp Summer Series 2017

Ken Winter, MLS, Virginia Department of Transportation

Ken has a Master of Library and Information Studies from UNC-Greensboro and a BA in English from North Carolina State University. In a past life he was a writer, editor and desktop publisher. He has worked in all types of academic libraries. Since 2002 he has worked for VDOT’s research library, located on the grounds of the University of Virginia. However, since 2009 he has been 100% virtual, working full-time from Nebraska, then Maryland, and most recently from Texas. 

About the Virginia Department of Transportation, Virginia - USA

Library Type: Special Library, funded by state and federal funds. The library is located on the campus of the University of Virginia, in Charlottesville. UVA was established in 1819 by Declaration of Independence author and 3rd U.S. President, Thomas Jefferson.  We are located away from the heart of the campus, up a long and winding hill surrounded by woods. 

Demographic Served: We have two very different types of user.

• The First - Transportation researchers: Typically these folks have a PhD and a “Professional Engineer” (PE) designation (on the hard science side), or if they are not engineers they may have other credentials (PMP, AICP). Others are: Economists, Environmental Researchers, Historians, or Urban Planners. As well as the research support and administrative staff. These tend to be "walk in" users.
• The Second - Practitioners: These are engineers, decision makers, administrators, planners, safety personnel, maintence personnel, etc. charged with building and maintaining the 3rd largest state DOT in the country.  So we have a large staff and large budgets for construction and maintenance. These are our “virtual” users unless they’re in town for a meeting.

Population Size: Ostensibly the 7,500 members of the Virginia Department of Transportation, but in reality about 30% of our time is spent assisting personnel at other state transportation organizations, regional transportation engineers, other Virginia agencies, federal agencies, universities and transportation research centers, collaborating with other libraries in the U.S. and abroad, and serving residents of Virginia who have transportation-related questions.

Staff Size: Small, one full-time (Ken), two part time employees and one graduate student.

Program Description:

When Virginia’s largest state agency, the Virginia Department of Transportation, explored LibGuides in 2015 we realized we could use LibGuides CMS as a “Whole Site” and we never looked back. We are attached to VDOT’s research arm, where we support post-doctoral researchers in transportation and faculty and grad students from the University of Virginia and other state universities, not to mention thousands of VDOT employees in the field. So many stakeholders and we were stuck with an overly governed and internal SharePoint instance as our key presence. Today we use LibAnswers with LibChat as a relationship management tool to track customer interactions with an intuitive dashboard and simple analytics. We use LibWizard for feedback via forms and surveys. Not to mention LibGuides. With Springshare all our content is optimized for discovery through Google and other search engines, which makes our invisible library is visible! We’re also mobile friendly thanks to Bootstrap integrations, and the benefit of that is it helps us serve real customers regardless of their location or device. With Springshare our small, mostly virtual library provides access to services and collections for customers who will probably never visit us in person. With modest HTML skills and no knowledge of CSS or Bootstrap, in past 18 months we’ve been able to roll out a public Web presence without support from our IT department. The site is ADA compliant and integrates seamlessly with our other systems (Catalog, EZproxy, Federated Search), and staff building guides can focus on content and message without having to know how to code.

Resources:

Emily Newberry, MS in Social Work- MSI (MS in Information), University of Michigan-Flint

Emily has worked at Thompson Library since 2008 and has managed the Springshare suite of products since they first subscribed in 2011.  She loves trying new things with the Springshare tools, helping students with their senior capstone projects, and increasing the visibility of academic librarians in university governance. Her husband who is a public librarian she has two daughters, who are five, and three. 

About the University of Michigan-Flint, USA:

Library Type: Academic, University Library. Funded by the state of Michigan and located downtown in the city of Flint.

Demographic Served: Urban, many first generation, non-traditional students.
Population Size: Approximately 8000 students.
Staff Size: 10 librarians.

Program Description:

Often when looking at how successful web content is, we rely on page views. This only goes so far to let you know how well you’re reaching your users. Asset views can be a much more reliable way to see if the content on your pages is successfully getting your users to where they want to be. This presentation will show you how to look at your asset usage and how to determine whether your resources are being accessed from your research guides or from your A-Z page. It will also show how integrating Google Tag manager can help bridge the gaps in stats that may not currently be available through Springshare and using that knowledge in your guide design (or redesign).

Resources:

Kendra Lake, MS in Social Work & MLIS, Director of Library Services, St. Clair County Community College, Michigan

Kendra Lake is the Director of Library Services at St. Clair County Community College, and has been working at SC4 Library in a variety of roles since 2011. Her favorite workday includes opportunities to problem solve, collaborate, and share. When not wearing her librarian hat, Kendra enjoys all things outdoors.  

About St. Clair County Community College, Michigan USA

Library Type: Academic library (2-year community/technical college, similar to TAFE). SCCC is located in downtown Port Huron, Michigan, a community of approximately 30,000 located on Lake Huron. Area is a mostly suburban/rural population located an hour north of Detroit on an international border with Canada. The college is publicly funded, receiving funds from local property taxes, tuition, and state funds.

Demographic Served: Students range from 16-75yrs old. Most of our students take on-campus classes. Other patrons include faculty, staff, alumni and local public.

Population Size: 2600 FTE students, serve surrounding St. Clair, Sanilac, and Huron counties (about 225,000 people total). Serve some international students as well.  

Staff Size: 2 full time librarians, 2 part time librarians, and 6 support staff.

Program Description:

This year, SC4 Library collaborated with our Community & Alumni Relations department to support the planning of the 2017 Free College Day event, a daylong learning opportunity that brings in presenters and students from around the community. Using a combination of LibGuides CMS, LibCal, and LibWizard, we were able to coordinate scheduling and registration, organize the event’s offerings into an easy to navigate branded website, and collect feedback to assess and plan for next year's event.

Resources:

Alice Kalinowski, MLIS, Librarian for Business, University of Pittsburgh

About Alice:

Alice Kalinowski is the Liaison Librarian for Business at the University of Pittsburgh. Some of her favorite responsibilities include developing and conducting instruction sessions and creating online learning objects.

About the University of Pittsburgh, USA:

Library Type: Academic library at a research intensive university, 'State-related' funding, meaning minimal funding from the state. The University is located in the city of which is an urban area population approximately 300,000.

Demographic Served - First year students through doctoral candidates, staff, and faculty. Classes are primarily in person, but increasing numbers of blended or online courses. 

Population Size: About 28,000 students total.

Staff size: About 180 library staff/librarians within the library.

Program Description:

This session will explore some unintended benefits of a comprehensive LibGuide re-design project, particularly for new liaisons or those wishing to reevaluate their outreach activities. The benefits include developing relationships with instructors, learning advanced subject-specific database features, taking advantage of new LibApps products and tools including LibWizard and LTI, and thinking more strategically about outreach and marketing to various groups.

Resources:

Ray White, Librarian, Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, The University of Western Australia

About Ray: 

I wrote my first web site in 1996 using Microsoft Notepad and Paint Shop Pro.  At that time I had no formal training in programming or computer science.  It was all done with a book open on my knees and my hands on the keyboard.  Great fun and a great grounding that many people who now start using web authoring tools don’t get. After a long career in TAFE libraries I moved, in 2008, to the University of Western Australia, where I now work in the Barry J Marshall Library looking after the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences.

Program Description

My pet hate is paper on screen.  So much of what we deal with in libraries is simply paper documents presented on a screen.  Consistently we fail to take advantage of the affordances of computer technology.  As a result, our products are often lifeless and unengaging.

Many of our clients grew up in the digital age.  Almost from birth they were accustomed to interacting with digital technology.  They now expect to be able to engage with the technology, not be mere passive consumers of content.

When LibGuides were first introduced at UWA we used them to simply migrate our PDF guides to a new online environment. Since that time we have consistently developed our guides and sought ways to make them more engaging.  At first this meant introducing videos but, even this got a little stale.  And, of course, it was still a one way transmission of information, with very limited interaction required from the user.

This program will focus on the work we have been doing with CSS and JavaScript to enhance some of our LibGuides. Links to these pages can be found below.

Resources: