Info Newsletter Index
SIS INFO
Vol. 15, No. 2
March 2001
Info Newsletter Index
SIS INFO
Vol. 15, No. 2
March 2001
Editor’s Corner
Future Meetings
If you would like to host a future meeting, or if you have a suggestion for a future program, contact Wanda Barrett, SIS Vice-President, with your ideas. Wanda can be reached by email at wanda@everlove.net or by phone at Everlove & Associates, 727-345-8180.
News to Share
The SIS Newsletter is a great way to share news, conference announcements, achievements, and items of interest with all organization members. Please send your news to the Editor, Nancy Becker, so we can include it in our next newsletter.
From the Editor
March is coming in like a lion this year. We got some needed rain and all the rest of the country is getting very un-Florida-like weather. Summer will be with us all too soon, so plan on enjoying Florida’s spring and join us for the April meeting. Don’t forget the Florida Library Association Annual Conference in Orlando, April 10-13. You can find out more about the conference and even register online at: http://www.flalib.org.
If you have any news or items of interest or information you’d like to see in the next newsletter, send them to me via email at: beckern@thpl.org or nanbecker@hotmail.com.
Items of Interest
Shirl Kennedy has this to share: "I'm in the process of preparing a presentation about dealing with information overload. I'd appreciate any hints, tips, etc., that SIS members can pass along. Do you filter your e-mail? How? What mailing lists and e-newsletters do you subscribe to? Which print publications are 'must reads' for you? Are there Web sites you check regularly? E-mail Shirl Kennedy at sdk@tampabay.rr.com. I'll be happy to share what I learn with all of you."
Sites of Interest?
E-mail
Manager
http://one.digital.cnet.com/cgi-bin1/flo?y=e470BycH50Ou0E1Id
Manage multiple email accounts with EPROMPTER, a simple download that lets you
access your messages from an unobtrusive taskbar icon.
E-Journals
Resource Guide
http://www.harrassowitz.de/top_resources/ejresguide.html
Everything you ever wanted to know about scholarly e-journals: bibliographies,
e-journal lists, usage studies, standards, legal and business issues,
preservation and archiving, and more.
Information Architecture
Guide
http://argus-acia.com/ia_guide/index.html
Recommended books, articles, web sites and events, with a set of expert picks
and subject, author and title indexes. You can subscribe to a biweekly
newsletter as well.
LexNotes
http://www.lexnotes.com/index.shtml
A new online resource for the legal profession, including news, links
tobibliographies, pathfinders, citators, research tips, and more.
Health
News Directory
http://www.healthnewsdirectory.com/healthNews/directory/
Links you to reliable health news sites for a variety of medical conditions as
well as to news on fitness, nutrition, pain, and men's, women's, and children's.
from Neat New Stuff, March 1, 2000 Copyright, Marylaine Block, 2000
Community Information
by Zip Code
http://library.csun.edu/mfinley/zipstats.html
This site provides links to selected Internet sources for statistical data on
population, education, health, environment, business, and politics which can be
retrieved by entering a zip code. It includes nationwide, California, and Los
Angeles area zip-code-level sources. Maintained by CSU-Northridge librarian Mary
Finley. – beb
Subjects: United States -- Statistics | California – Statistics | Los Angeles
(Calif.) – Statistics | Zip codes
How Much Is That
Worth Today?
http://www.eh.net/ehresources/howmuch/dollarq.php This Web site is used to
compare the value of an amount of money in the past with the present, or with
another time in the past. This site may be used as an online version of the
prices section of Historical Statistics of the United States, but with a broader
scope. How Much Is That Worth Today? can calculate the value of what a dollar
could purchase for every year from 1665 to the present.- rd Subjects: Prices --
United States
From LIIWEEK, March 7, 2001
Officer's Meeting
Officers meeting: Held 1/24/01 at Steak & Ale. The first officer’s meeting of the new year was held at Steak & Ale a few weeks ago. Ray Eydmann, President, led the meeting and introduced everyone around the table. Betsy King, Treasurer, provided information regarding the current budget and initial membership numbers for 2001. The initial numbers were a bit lower than in the past; however, membership increased at the first meeting of the year, which was held on February 21st. Wanda Barrett, Vice-president, led an animated discussion about potential meeting topics and locations. She encourages everyone to submit topics of interest so that the group can have the best possible programs throughout the year. Finally, the group discussed ways to increase membership, and how to add more value for current membership.
Attendees included: Ray Eydmann, President; Wanda Barrett, Vice-president/President elect; Betsy King, Treasurer; Theresa Burress, Secretary; Nancy Becker, Newsletter editor; John Davies, Webmaster.
February Minutes
Joint SIS/CFALL meeting: Held 2/21/01 at Stetson College of Law.
The first SIS meeting of the year was a success – it was a joint meeting that was held at Stetson University College of Law. Bill Cronin, President of CFALL, made some introductory remarks, and the program was underway. Linda Brakeall and Madison Mosley presented a debate on the topic, "Can library services be evaluated?"
Linda began with the "pro" stance, and made some very interesting statements to support her case. She started out with the idea that licensing guides performance in other professions, and the lack of licensing in librarianship makes it critical for librarians to develop consistent standards and guidelines. Along the same lines, evaluation is vital for two reasons: accountability, and to meet the service imperative.
Linda provided a historical perspective on librarianship, where she referenced an 1876 article that explains that reference services have expanded into library services and encompasses four areas: instruction, satisfying inquiries, collection development and public relations. These segments of library services are still viable today. She also talked about the three periods of librarianship: the classical period (when librarians had structured roles of bibliography and controlling resources), the 1980s experimental period (chaos and instability during advent of electronic resources), and the current eclectic period (retained some of classical and experimental periods).
Linda then discussed evaluation specifically. There are many variables in evaluation, and librarians must decide which are most relevant. Evaluation began with the idea of finding a "correct answer." Some basic measures were: transactions, usage of material, and database tracking. In many situations, however, evaluation is very focused on the personality characteristics of the librarian, which is extremely subjective.
Other methods of evaluation are more formal, such as surveys. Linda talked about user demographics, unobtrusive observation of the reference interview, exit surveys, focus groups, etc. The goal in formal evaluation is to obtain data that is comparable from year to year and across organizations. Internal evaluation (or self-evaluation) is also used informally by librarians; reading the patron, following up with the patron to determine if their needs were met, etc. Her conclusion was that although evaluation methods are not always perfect or consistent, evaluation is essential to the success of libraries and librarians both from an accountability standpoint and a personal growth standpoint.
Madison Mosley presented the opposite point of view, beginning with the thought-provoking question, "Evaluation is important, but can we do it?" He stated that libraries have been unsuccessful in measuring how we are contributing to the parent organization because we don’t have measurable goals; we have vague standards and half-formulated goals/objectives. He went on to talk about the classical period standards and described them as prescriptive and quantitative, while today’s eclectic standards are vague, permissive, and not measurable. He used a couple of different standards to illustrate:
Ex. Standard IIIA (from a county law library)
Law library should be staffed with professional personnel sufficient to meet the
goals of its mission. Sufficient technical, clerical and secretarial personnel
should also be made available to the law library. Some questions he asked about
this extremely vague statement were: Why do they use should and not must?
What does made available mean – do they not need their own technical,
clerical and secretarial staff?
Ex. Standard 604 (from a law school)
The law school and its library shall have a competent staff, sufficient in
number to provide appropriate service to faculty and students.He then showed
statistics from two different accredited law schools that had similar library
staff but very different enrollment numbers, making the point that it is
virtually impossible to tell which school is overstaffed or understaffed.
Without clear, measurable objectives, we cannot have meaningful evaluation. As a final example, Madison highlighted the standards for entry, middle and senior level librarians that were published by AALL. These standards did have specific credentials, both academic and experience, for each level position. While it is not perfect, it does begin to address the issue of evaluation in a more measurable way.
Madison and Linda then initiated a roundtable discussion among the attendees for the remainder of the lunch.
April Meeting
Thursday – April 5 - 6:00 dinner and round table discussionThe program will be a round table discussion of topics of interest to special librarians and will include contract negotiations and copyright issues.
Dinner will cost will be between $10 and $17.
Please consider your RSVP as an obligation on your part unless you notify Wanda prior to 3/30/01. Please RSVP to Wanda no later than Mar 28 at wanda@everlove.net or by calling (727) 345-8180.
For more detailed information and directions/maps etc. please visit the meeting website at: htpp://tblc.org/sis/meeting.htm.
Suncoast Information Specialists
c/o Tampa Bay Library Consortium
1202 Tech Boulevard, Suite 202
Tampa, FL 33619
Phone: (813) 622-8252
Email: sis@tblc.org
Electronic list: http://tblc.org/sis/list.htm
URL: http://tblc.org/sis/