INF 388K.2: Academic Libraries School of Information University of Texas at Austin Thursday 6-9, UTA 1.208

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1 INF 388K.2: Academic Libraries School of Information University of Texas at Austin Thursday 6-9, UTA Lynn Westbrook Fall / , office 512/ , fax UTA Office hours: Wednesday 3-5; Thursday 2-4; by appointment Table of Contents Course description..1 Rationale.1 Course aims.1 Learning objectives.1 Course format..2 Your feedback to me... 2 My feedback to you.2 Course schedule... 3 Assignment overview..4 Higher education paper... 5 BB participation Social/Individual paper 5 III Paper... 6 Mini pecha kucha presentation 6 Synthesis paper..7 Course policies 7-9 Official course description: Academic library development, innovation, evaluation, and user-centered design; its role in higher education and the research community at large Rationale In a very real sense, Information Studies is integral to all of higher education. Scholarly research and curricular development are not slotted into tightly delineated, insular intellectual domains. The multi/inter/intra/cross-disciplinary aspects of modern studies require rich and inherently complex constellations of information resources. Information experts anticipate these possibilities and generate support at-the-point-of-need. As institutions, universities have a hierarchical concatenation of schools, departments, and centers that are shaped by politics, values, and economics. These power dynamics at administrative and curricular levels require an advocate for the growth of knowledge that goes beyond any single institution. Information is essential in weaving together the intellectual threads that maximize higher education s social contributions. It is the information professional who knows at a visceral level that information communication technology is an essential aspect of any university s claim on society s support. Course aims This course is intended to contribute to your growth as an information professional by developing your ability to understand and enhance academic library information engagement and opportunities. Learning objectives: Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: 1. Analyze the complexities of the higher education context in which academic libraries are positioned 2. Delineate factors in individuals varying types of use and non-use of academic libraries 3. Explicate and exemplify academic libraries socio-cultural responsibilities 4. Develop an understanding of the information services and collections with which academic libraries meet their responsibilities 5. Synthesize academic libraries means of meeting institutional responsibilities

2 Course format This course is highly active. The readings provide fodder for discussion and tools for application. Over the course of the semester we will design an academic library prototype complete with needs analysis, collections, services, and more. We will do a number of in-class activities designed to develop precepts to guide our design. Most classes will include a brief lecture designed to enhance and synthesize the readings along with other activities and discussion. We will have various speakers to bring applications and decision-making experiences into our work. The activities, lectures, and discussions require full-tilt engagement. This means bringing higher education, information communication technology, and academic librarianship into the classroom. Read beyond what s required. Share blogs, listserv news, NY Times articles, Chronicle of Higher Education oped pieces, and more. Everything you bring in can push our prototype design innovations. Finally, the course format requires mutual respect. Our prototype library is a tool for fueling discussions and a forum for finalizing decisions. There is no chance that we will reach a unanimous decision on prototype components. In some cases we ll be fortunate to reach a modest consensus. That cohesion, however, is not our goal. The value of the exercise comes in our debates and discussions en route. That process requires a great deal of respect for individual colleagues and for our process. Your feedback to me This course requires a fine balance between the conceptual and the applied. We ll read and talk about everything from social values at a conceptual level to information literacy at an application level. I need to hear your voice. I need to know if you re getting what you need to get from the course. Tell me what worked so I can find more ways of using it. ( The news stories clarified economic impact for me. ) Tell me what you d like to examine further. ( The difference between a digital library and a digital collection is still vague. ) Tell me what you d like to add in. ( What about the problems in educating academic librarians for technologies that don t even exist yet? ) I need to know. To that end, I ll give out note cards each day. Throughout class, jot down a couple of notes. What you liked, what you want, what interests you. Just jot it down. On your way out of class, drop the card off. I ll read what everyone writes and do what I can to act on your feedback. My feedback to you Feedback can be formative or summative. Formative feedback is designed to strengthen work quality and increase productivity. Its sole function is to improve performance. You give formative feedback when you coach a colleague who is learning how to use an unfamiliar piece of software. Summative feedback is designed to quantify performance. You give summative feedback when you complete a satisfaction survey at your dentist and rate the receptionist s efficiency as 9 on a 10-point scale. I use three means of giving you feedback, two are formative and one is summative. First, one-to-one feedback is available at any time in my office. This is particularly useful when you are working on an assignment don t wait till the grade is in. Bring in questions as you go along. I d rather give you feedback early so you can make the most of it. The opportunity to have conversations about coursework is one of the many advantages of graduate school. Please come to office hours frequently. (Make appointments outside of office hours if the times aren t working well for you.) Second, formative in-class feedback fits into the workflow and is, therefore, quite informal. Requesting elaboration of an idea, encouraging follow-up on a group discussion analysis, and questioning the application of a news story are all means of providing positive feedback. Worthwhile contributions become part of the day s work and there s no better feedback than support in weaving your thoughts into the discourse. 2

3 Finally, grades provide the most concrete form of feedback. My grades are generally accompanied by formative notes, suggestions, and explanations. If you ve made good use of office hours and actively engaged in classroom work, then grades should be more a confirmation of your own self-assessment than an unanticipated summation. Most of us are accustomed to pay primary attention to the summative feedback. For all intents and purposes, however, the summative is temporary. What matters is the formative. Course Schedule Date Topics/Activities/Speakers Assignments/Readings 8/30 Social expectations; opportunities anticipated and lost -- 9/6 Higher education: roots, values, expectations JB1; Cole; Jackson; Stier Critical thinking, students as consumers, town/gown Shaw 9/13 Higher education: organizational structure & influences JB2; JB3 9/20 Academic library management: structure, finances, JB4; JB5; Elmborg; Lenker users and spaces Murphy; Higher education post with response on 9/24 9/27 User engagement: outreach, retention JB9; Emmons; Aguilar; Connaway; Carter 10/4 Scholarly communication: open access, digital JB6; Little; Smit humanities, data publication, intellectual diversity 10/11 Collections: purpose and possibilities, curation, format, JB7; JB8; J. Kim; Staiger; data repositories McDonald/Uribe 10/18 Information interactions: shaping experiences, Rolla; Nunn; Newby; potentials of reference and information literacy Tyckoson 10/25 NO CLASS MEETING xxxxxx; Use factor matrix 11/1 Information literacy goals and concepts Wong; Bennett; McDonald 11/8 Reference: information commons, digital reference Wong G.; Devine; Mitchell; Oakleaf 11/15 Professionals: functions, responsibilities, positions JB1; Blessinger; Han; Montgomery; Doan; Aby 11/22 Thanksgiving xxxxxx 11/29 Trends and potentials: innovations, roles JB11; Anderson; Carpenter; Fox; Wynne 12/6 Seminar Panel Presentations 3

4 Assignment Overview The assignments are derived directly from the course objectives below. Please let me know if you have any question about the relationship between objectives and assignments. I strongly encourage you to look at each assignment and ask your questions asap Take time enough all other graces will soon fill up their proper places. {John Byrom} Learning Objectives Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to: 1. Analyze the complexities of the higher education context in which academic libraries are positioned 2. Delineate factors in use and non-use of academic libraries 3. Explicate and exemplify academic libraries service goals and tools, particularly user education 4. Develop an understanding of the collection with which academic libraries meet their responsibilities 5. Synthesize academic libraries means of meeting management responsibilities Assignment Due date Objectives Points Higher education example post/response 9/20 + 9/ Use factor matrix 10/ Information literacy/reference proposal Collection example post/response Panel presentation Total points 1000 A C A C B C B D B F 599 or below Higher education example post/response; objective 1; 100 points; due 9/20 and 9/24 Objective 1: Analyze the complexities of the higher education context in which academic libraries are positioned What: Identify a substantive event or issue in higher education and explain it a BB post on 9/20; read your colleagues posts and extend their explanations with input of your own in a response to be posted on 9/24. Why: The social, political, financial, and ethical ramifications of shifting Western attitudes towards and values in higher education constitute the academic library s primary context. Seeking, analyzing, and developing reasoned positions on these ramifications are essential to effective work in academic libraries. How: Use any substantive source (e.g., New York Times is fine but Smitty the itinerate blogger is not) of news and/or analysis to identify a compelling event or issue in higher education. (Feel free to look outside the U.S. so long as the item is pertinent to our discussions.) Give us the item s cite and provide a crisp, brief recap of the item s primary content 1 or 2 paragraphs. Then add your crisp analysis of the item s impact 1 or 2 paragraphs. Post these 2-4 paragraphs in the appropriate BB forum on 9/20 by 9/24 post a response to at least 1 colleague s analysis 1 paragraph. Extend your colleague s discussion with, if appropriate, cites or sites as resources. 4

5 Tips: You event or issue: look for an item with transferable impact, that is, something that would spark conversations and debates outside its immediate setting Your recap: identify the event/issue cleanly then provide an objective, factual recap; a statement of content without your opinion; third person Your analysis: put your item in the context of higher education as a whole; tell us what its implications are for its immediate setting; compare/contrast it with other items in that area; first person is fine Your response to a colleague s post: take the analysis further by, for example, putting the issue in another context or considering other implications; first person is likely Grading criteria: Substantive item, cogent recap, thoughtful analysis, and insightful response; writing does not need to be formal but it does need to be well structured Outline of an example not complete, just an outline: Event: University of VA s Board of Regents fired President Sullivan then, 16 days later, reinstated her Recap: The Board acted without any consultation with faculty, gave no clear reason for the decision, acted so abruptly that no plan was in place for administrative continuity; the faculty and student protests were echoed across the nation with demands for transparency and Board accountability; President Sullivan was reinstated by the Board Analysis: Boards are generally politically appointed and can reflect political attitudes towards higher education; the long-term ramifications may be poorly understood, e.g., impact on the quality of an institution s faculty (at VA senior faculty spoke of their plans to leave, faculty elsewhere spoke of refusing to consider VA in their job hunting) Response: Look at the professional expertise of the UT board how many have expertise in higher education or business -- have any of their recent decisions suggested institutional priorities which the library should address Use factor matrix; objective 2; 250 points; due 10/25 Objective 2: Delineate factors in use and non-use of academic libraries What: Write up and fill in a matrix with 3 columns (explanation, example, reading) and 3 rows (elements of practicality, self-efficacy, information expectations) which address factors in people s use/non-use of academic libraries. Post it in the appropriate BB forum Why: Libraries are not an abstract social good they exist to, in some way, bring people and information together. This assignment calls on an understanding of the most common typologies of use criteria. Why do people use and not-use academic libraries? How: Of course, the actual format of the final document will not be a matrix since the information wouldn t fit into such small cells. That said, it s a good idea to draw out a matrix as a place to jot ideas and resources. The 3 columns are pretty straightforward: explanation (style of an encyclopedia or textbook), example (concrete, realistic may be taken from real life), and reading (full cite with a couple of sentence description making its value clear). The 3 rows require careful identification and then everything else follows cleanly. Each is a type of use criteria and is, therefore, far too big for this assignment. So find your own element of each and work from there. The end result will probably be about 2 pages (about 500 words) on each row s material for a total of about 6 pages. Tips: Narrow your rows very carefully. Your readings and our conversations will give you more ideas than you ll ever need and, with such a tight boundary, you ll have to define your scope carefully. Practicality elements include, among others, physical access (a digital archive can be used by more people than can a print archive), financial access (laptop costs can be prohibitive), and language (reading Melinda Nadj Abonji s award winning Tauben Fliegen Auf in translation versus reading it in the original German). Self-efficacy elements include, among others, an inaccurate view of one s information seeking skills and a deliberate effort to improve one s understanding of information tools. Information expectation elements include, among others, norms which say that information quality is reflected in the speed with which it is retrieved and easily digested information is almost always both possible and appropriate. 5

6 Choose an element, describe/explain it (probably will need to cite sources), develop a realistic and illuminating example, and provide a new reading which extends our understanding of the element. Grading criteria: Extremely cogent writing not an extraneous word or passive voice in sight. Explanations include identification, description, and implications. Examples provide rich, nuanced context nothing flat or obvious thought provoking. Substantive reading probably based in theory-driven research but could come from a conceptual analysis with persuasive description. Outline of an example not complete, just an outline each row would take about 500 words Explanation Example Reading Practical Funding Libraries free wifi Urban college Build it and they will come and safe physical space library used as a by MJ Magnifico; posits a draw users space then as an social responsibility role for info resource academic libraries re funding Self-efficacy Shame Asking for help is Roaming librarians No need to ask by PJ Choco; embarrassing make asking easy study on using large name tags shows increase in questions Info expectation Google rules Productive information Database designers Wherefore art thou critical tools should work like setting up the single thinking by OJ Capulet; opines Google in both form search box form get a correlation between simplistic and function positive feedback search expectations and tv s 30- minute solutions to crises Information literacy/reference proposal; objective 3; 300 points Objective 3: Explicate and exemplify academic libraries service goals and tools, particularly user education What: Why: How: Tips: Grading criteria: Collection example post/response; objective 4; 100 points Objective 4: Develop an understanding of the collection with which academic libraries meet their responsibilities What: Why: How: Tips: Grading criteria: Panel presentation; objective 5; 250 points Objective 5: Synthesize academic libraries means of meeting management responsibilities 6

7 What: Why: How: Tips: Grading criteria: 7

8 INF 388K.2 Course Policies You are responsible for reading and following these course policies. Please let me know if you have any questions on any of them. The University of Texas Honor Code see our BB site and the UT site for this Please note that matters of academic integrity are taken seriously in this course. Students who use, quote, or otherwise employ the ideas, words, and insights of others without appropriate attribution will fail the assignment and, possibly, the course. When in doubt, ask immediately. Asking is the sign of an intelligent, thoughtful response to our complex world of layered information resources. Every student is required to take the plagiarism online tutorial [ or assume responsibility for knowing its contents. University Electronic Mail Notification Policy All students should become familiar with the University's official student notification policy. It is the student's responsibility to keep the University informed as to changes in his or her address. Students are expected to check on a frequent and regular basis in order to stay current with University-related communications, recognizing that certain communications may be time-critical. It is recommended that be checked daily, but at a minimum, twice per week. The complete text of this policy and instructions for updating your address are available at In this course will be used as a means of communication with students. You will be responsible for checking your regularly for class work and announcements. Please be certain that your address in BlackBoard is correct at all times. You are the only one who can do this and it s essential for course communication. Documented Disability Support The University of Texas seeks to provide appropriate academic adjustments for all individuals with disabilities. This University will comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws, regulations and guidelines with respect to providing appropriate academic adjustments to afford equal educational opportunity. It is the responsibility of the student to register with and provide medical verification and academic schedules to Services for Students with Disabilities at the beginning of each semester or as soon as the need arises. The student must contact the faculty member in a timely manner to arrange for appropriate academic adjustments. Students who require special accommodations need to get a letter that documents the disability from the Services for Students with Disabilities area of the Office of the Dean of Students ( voice or TTY for users who are deaf or hard of hearing). This letter should be presented to the instructor in each course at the beginning of the semester and accommodations needed should be discussed at that time. Five business days before an exam the student should remind the instructor of any testing accommodations that will be needed. See this Web site for more information: [ Technology requirements The vast majority of this course will take place in-person with BlackBoard (BB) used primarily as a supplement and resource. You are required, however, to use BB to communicate on some points. You are required to read the BB forums once a week at any convenient time between Friday afternoon and Tuesday evening. BlackBoard is available at Support is provided by the ITS Help Desk at Monday through Friday 8 am to 6 pm Monday through Thursday and 8 am to 5 pm on Friday. 8

9 In addition, you are required to have access to whatever technology is necessary for you to function well in this course. That includes Internet access that allows you to explore sites that might be blocked by some filters and sufficient memory to handle downloads and other course requirements. You can use any of the computer labs on campus but any other arrangement is acceptable so long as your own needs for connectivity, printing, and information access are met. Attendance Much of this course includes in-class application of readings and lectures via discussion, exercises, and on-site analysis. If you miss one class for any reason, then you may make up that missing material via your colleagues and, if needed, by working with me during office hours. If you miss more than one class for any reason, then please see me to discuss your options in the context of your situation. Attendance is not part of the grade but it is essential to understanding the material that is graded. Religious Holy Days and observances sometimes conflict with class schedules. If you miss an in-class work assignment or other project due to the observance of a religious holy day you will be given an opportunity to complete the work missed within a reasonable time after the absence. It is the policy of The University of Texas at Austin that you must notify each of your instructors at least 14 days prior to the classes scheduled on dates you will be absent to observe a religious holiday. Feedback Feedback is an important part of any learning as well as any teaching. Please let me know right away if you have questions, concerns, or simply want to confirm your understanding of the material. I will provide you with feedback on your progress via comments in class, written commentary on assignments, grades, and BlackBoard responses to forum postings. If any of my feedback is unclear in any way, please let me know right away. Grading: Late work All unexcused late materials will have a 1/3 letter grade reduction for each day they are overdue. Matters of academic integrity, as noted above, will be strongly tied to course grades. Communication I will make every effort to answer s and phone calls within 3 working days. If you have not heard from me within those time limits, please let me know by an alternative form of contact so we can make sure there are no technical problems involved. I will also make every effort to grade and return assignments within 2 weeks of their due date. If I have to cancel office hours, then I will note that on our BB announcement page along with the make-up time scheduled to replace the slot. Maintain work files Students are responsible for maintaining their own files of work, both submitted and returned, until official University grades are received. You are encouraged to keep these materials until graduation, as I may need some of it to compose a detailed and persuasive recommendation letter for you. Health and safety The University has a wide range of health and safety services available to all students. Please take full advantage of these support tools and let me know if you have questions about how to access what you need. Please be aware of your surroundings at all times. For more on personal safety and health, take a look at these resources: Behavior Concerns Advice Line (BCAL) [ Stress management [ Crime prevention [ 9

10 Style guide Use APA, including sections on non-sexist language 10