RISG minutes March 18, 2009
Attending: Angie, Maggie, Remlee, Bill, Peter, Mark, Anita, Barbara, Lisa S. (minutes)
Guests: Brandie Doyle & Carol Robinson
Announcements
- PSLG accepted the Reference Stats proposal for going to sample stats 4x per year.
- New library homepage design - If have comments about new library homepage email Remlee. Remlee will check if there is a url that can be shared for people who missed the session in the DIRC to take a look at.
- Hoping to have the online Harvard Card form ready by the end of term.
- How are LibGuides training going?
Sorority Library instruction update - An educational programmer from a sorority requested a library instruction session. Peter Cohn met them in the student center on a Sunday evening to teach them about basic library resources. The sorority group consisted of undergrads from mixed years. They seemed unfamiliar with the basic resources introduced. They suggested contacting the Panhellenic society about possibly repeating for other sororities and fraternities. Remlee, Angie, Mark, and Stephanie Hartman are interested in participating in the future if there are repeats.
PSLG assessment subgroup report - The assessment group Peter, Lisa H., and Tracy Gabridge have been meeting since last summer continuing the discussion around embedding assessment into all of our work. They reviewed the 2006 assessment plan benchmarks and have made modifications. There needs to be an assessment plan for any new services and all benchmarks should be addressed, as well as the metrics and tools for evaluating. (Some benchmarks may not be relevant for a specific project, but it can be noted that they were thought about when designing new service.) The next step for the assessment subgroup is to look at all stats being kept across the system and how they map to the benchmarks. PSLG will check that new projects and services have an assessment plan and will keep a big picture view. The report was presented to PSLG recently; minor changes were suggested and will be worked out next week.
Angie suggested clarification about when a project is supposed to have a whole assessment plan - example updating instruction toolkit wouldn't need a whole report and assessment done. The assessment plan should be doable - not make documentation a huge process.
Spring Seminar - Mark and Lisa H. will talk about experiences at Immersion assessment workshop they attended in December. The program had 2 thematic components: classroom and programmatic. Mark and Lisa H. will be focused on the classroom content. Mark requested thoughts about how to structure the session.
Recommendations:
- Many people don't know what Immersion is - so announcement should let staff know what they will get out of it.
- People may want to share what they are doing and there aren't many forums for that - could be a time to let others share. Example: Chris may want to talk about assignment gave to 12.000 class - she gave and graded assignment. Barbara interested in sharing what she has learned about intellectual standards.
- Concrete examples, short demonstrations
- 1.5-2 hours max for scheduling, depending on if food is offered
The plan is to offer the spring seminar in late May (after exams, before graduation).
Past example of spring seminar session offered by Instruction Committee: Harvard theater person came to give talk "teaching as performance"
New Reference vision statement - Remlee, Anita, Stephanie, Bill, Anita, Lisa H., & Heather met to draft a new Reference Vision statement, since it is relevant to the whole future state planning of the libraries. Group discussed draft document. The plan is to get it the basic statement done in the next few weeks.
New Public Services Documentation (ISG subgroup) (presented by Brandie Doyle & Carol Robinson)- Purpose is to consolidate and provide easy access to information, especially for public service staff working evenings and weekends. Anything on websites is searchable through search box. Some documentation links to Pdfs - which will not be searchable through search box. Documentation group populated the reference page (based on suggestions from Lisa H.), but it belongs to RISG. Considering making "more..." a drop down list to avoid creating a 3rdlevel before getting to what desired. Assume content will be changed by RISG. Some wiki pages require certificates - users can be trained to use Touchstone to log in from public service desk. Timeline: late May hoping to get wire frames to Marion, get something set up, and have a brown bag session to get more staff input. Don't hesitate to email any additional feedback to isg-lib@mit.edu.