May 20, 2009
RISG Minutes

Present:  Maggie Bartley, Peter Cohn, Bill Helman, Angie Locknar, Heather McCann, Anita Perkins, Lisa Sweeney, Barbara Williams (Minutes)

Announcements:

• The reference statistics group is working on implementing a new model for gathering stats, which is expected to be in place by the new fiscal year.  Under the new model stats will be gathered four times a year in one-week intervals, and Steve will choose the times.  The current sheet used to record the reference stats may be revised and may include a definition of Reference.
• The reference vision statement will be emailed to PSLG in June.
• Based on an earlier request for information by one of the campus sororities Peter contacted all the sororities on campus to find out if they too could benefit from an overview of library resources and services.  Peter received favorable responses and will put something together for fall.  Peter will include Stephanie Hartman on the planning.
• Reminder to encourage people to enter their Instruction stats by the end of June so annual reports can be compiled.   Any perception of relevance forms should also be entered into Zoomerang (this is done by instruction coordinators).
• Lisa and Mark will host the spring seminar "From Theory to Practice:  Lessons Learned from ACRL's Instruction Immersion Program on Assessment" in the Stella Room, which is 7-338.  The two will discuss their experience in the Information Literacy Immersion Program and provide an over view of practical tools they garnered.  Attendees should feel free to bring their lunch since the session starts at noon.
• Angie met with Mark, Steve Gass and Kathleen MacArthur, Asst Dean for the Communication Requirement.  The Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program will not be cut next academic year and our relationship with them will be reinvigorated. Instructional sessions have been put on for this committee in the past and have been successful. Mark will be the contact person to this group we have a new friend in the communications department( Kathleen MacArthur).
• Angie announced that the Faculty were voting on changes to the SHASS requirement later that day.  If the requirements change, RISG might want to think how the changes affect us.  Hopefully the library will have a seat at the table during these conversations (in the SHASS requirement implementation group). 
  
  

IAPril & JulyAP:  sharing organizational responsibilities?  (Peter, Angie, Barbara)
A Suggestion was made to rotate the organizing responsibilities for the IAPril & JulyAP.  After a brief discussion it was agreed that we would rotate the organizational responsibilities, noting that the responsibilities were minimal and typically only require a month in advance planning.  Barbara volunteered to do the JulyAP 2009 and Anita will do IAPril 2010.

Instruction Perception of relevance evaluation forms --what to do with data gathered, future steps for next year. (Angie, Peter)

The current perception of relevance form isn't telling us what we'd like to know to improve our instruction.  A small group (Bill, Peter, Maggie, Mark and Lisa) is tasked with looking at strategies to access instruction for graduate students. There was a consensus that we've done a lot of assessment and we have recognized expertise on the subject.

Reference statistics data gathering -what other sample statistics might we gather?   (Heather, Bill, Lisa)
Now that we're only gathering stats for four weeks a year we have the rest of the year to collect other meaningful data such as: how long our transactions take, types of questions, etc.  There was a discussion of the need to have an over watch group to monitor/encourage the above type of extra statistical gathering activities.  The group brainstormed the following ideas:

1. Ideas for accessing reference and other stats
2. The value of having RISG be the overseer of these activities - agreed that RISG would own this activity
3.  Utilizing some type of project management tool to keep track of who's gathering what - Peter offered to demo a particular project management tool and will put the demonstration on as an agenda item.  Look for an email message from Peter identifying the site the project management tool resides.
4. Ways to collaborate with other groups.
5. Where to store the stats - we could house the stats on RISG wiki and link to other appropriate sites i.e. CFG
   
   
   

Assessment of reference in the coming year, share ideas for assessment of reference beyond the sample stats we will be taking.  (Bill & Heather)

Volunteers were requested for the group going forward.  We also discussed how to collaborate effectively with other committees and units.

Subject guides awareness assessment: we gathered baseline data in 2007, what are our next steps? (Peter)
Decided to revisit ways to increase usage of web pages 

• we need a group to gather data on current state and create a plan of how to increase usage
• By collaborating with CFG we can increase proficiency in other desk workers - circulation workers may increase usage by users.  Peter and Heather will pull data together for July meeting.
• We will create an agenda items to look at the Survey data communities to see which may impact us.  We will devote an entire meeting for looking at survey data and other relevant things to our groups for our July 6^th meeting.
  

Instruction Plan implementation, progress to date, next steps (Peter) - Deferred until next meeting.