The 2014-2015 year was a year in which I focused a lot of my time and energy on projects here at the Main Library. I went up for reappointment during this time and worked hard to compile and submit my dossier by the July 1, 2014 deadline. I am happy to say that my hard work paid off, as I have been successfully reappointed. In addition to focusing on my dossier, I spent a lot of time working with our print government documents collection and the space that this collection occupies on 3 West. This included physical shifts of the collection, as well as several different weeding projects.

Physical Shifts:

The print Canadian Depository Library Program was ended a few years ago, which means that MSU’s print Canadian Documents collection will not grow. Because of this now static-sized collection, I decided to shift the collection in order to remove shelves that will no longer be needed to accommodate growth in order to incorporate more patron seating. Over the course of several weeks during the summer, two of my student employees and myself worked on shifting the collection. We were able to have Facilities remove 1.5 shelf ranges that were now no longer needed which allowed for the addition of more tables and chairs.

Over winter break, part of 3 West was recarpeted. This project required that International Documents, which are on the carpeted area, be moved. Additionally, in order to make a temporary spot for International Documents, the Census collection and Michigan Documents both had to be shifted. For the stacks mover machine to be able to move the International Documents shelves, sections of books from each range had to be removed and placed on book trucks temporarily. This required careful time and staff management on my end to ensure that my student employees were able to remove this material to labeled book trucks (to ensure continued access to the collection) by the time that Facilities staff needed to move these shelves. During the course of shifting these collections to their temporary locations and back to their normal locations, many items fell off the shelves and needed to be collected and reshelved properly. Additionally, once the International Documents were moved to the newly recarpeted area, the books that were on book trucks had to be reshelved as well. This was a rather large project that spanned only a few weeks.

Weeding

Our print U.S. Government Documents has undergone several larger weeding projects, which required that I review lists of items and the actual physical volumes to determine appropriate action. These projects have resulted in the following results:

• 3,179 volumes were sent to our Regional Depository Library, the University of Minnesota.
• 5,344 volumes of the Serial Set were sent to Remote Storage.
• 2,224 volumes of the Congressional Record were disposed of according to Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) guidelines.
• 13,682 volumes were sent to Google for destructive digitization
  • 20 boxes will be sent back to us as Google could not scan them. This could be 200-1000 items to be returned later this year.
• 13,000 (approximate) Congressional Hearings (Y4 Su Doc number) were withdrawn
• In total, approximately 37,429 print volumes have been removed from the U.S. documents collection in the Main Library thus far.

In the summer 2014, Sara Miller announced the creation of a new Teacher Librarian Community of Practice (COP). I applied for and was accepted into the September 2014 – June 2015 cohort. The purpose of this group is to help librarians who provide instruction become stronger teachers. Topics covered in readings, discussions, and activities include teaching pedagogy, teaching and learning styles, and understanding and developing a teaching philosophy. As a librarian who provides a lot of instruction sessions I have found this program to be immensely helpful to become a better teacher and it has also helped me connect with my faculty better.

It was once again a busy instruction year for me, especially during the Spring semester. I taught 14 MC 112 classes, which is the freshman research and writing class for James Madison College. Each of these classes requires a lot of time and preparation on my part as each class has a different topic, usually, but not always, with a focus on U.S. history and the level of expectation from the professors of these classes is very high. Additionally, I also taught 3 upper level James Madison classes (MC 367 in the Fall, MC 384, and MC 498 both in the Spring) about finding and using Census information.   I was also asked, along with Breezy Silver (liaison to Business) by Anita Ezzo (liaison to Packaging) to assist with a library instruction session and course guide for Packaging 485 (Packaging System Development). My part focused on finding laws and regulatory information at the national, state, and local levels for the different types of products that each group of students will be designing for this capstone class.

There were two major changes to our library websites this year: the implementation of the discovery tool SearchPlus (Summon) and the migration of our Libguides to Libguides 2.

SearchPlus (Summon)

I was a member of the Summon Link Resolver team, which analyzed and compared the 360Link provided by Proquest against our incumbent link resolver WebBridge. This team was charged with investigating and implementing a link resolver solution using one (or both) of these products, including the initial implementation and a plan for maintaining the link resolver into the future. Some of the most important criteria used to evaluate the two products included whether or not the article searched for was actually accessible using the link resolver or if an error message appeared and the number of clicks it took to get into the actual article.

Libguides to Libguides 2

This year, Libguides was updated to the new version, Libguides 2. While much of our guides created in Libguides was automatically transferred (such as the textual parts), the guides needed to be reformatted and modified to take advantage of the new features. A good amount of time, especially during the fall, was devoted to migrating my libguides (I have 49 published and unpublished guides), updating content as needed, and utilizing the new features, such as the ability to include cover images for books in the library’s catalog.

SELF EVALUATION of SCHOLARLY AND CREATIVE ACTIVITIES:

Submitted Proposals

• Posters:
  • Michigan Library Association (MLA) Academic Conference 2014. “Space matters: Minimizing a legacy print collection to maximize patron space.” (Not selected)
  • American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference 2014. “Space matters: Minimizing a legacy print collection to maximize patron space.” (Not selected)
  • MLA Annual Conference 2014. “Weeding for the Future.” (Accepted but unable to attend)

• Presentations and Panels:
  • ALA Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) New Members Discussion Group (NDMG) panel proposal for their session “The Stories We Tell: Academic librarians and identity,” June 28, 2014 at ALA Annual Conference 2014. (Not selected)
  • Library Association of the City of New York University (LACUNY) Institute 2015. Presentation proposal “Social Media, Privacy, and the Academic Classroom.” (Accepted, conference is in May 2015).
  • Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) of Michigan Spring Conference and Business Meeting 2015. Presentation proposal “Weeding for the Future.” (Accepted, conference is in June 2015).

• Articles/Book Chapters:
  • Google in Libraries, chapter proposal entitled: Visualizing data: Using Fusion Tables to make your data shine. (No selected)
  • Google in Libraries, chapter proposal entitled: Using Google to Get Government Information. (Not selected)
  • Documents to the People (Dttp). (Government Documents Round Table of ALA journal). Article proposal submitted: “The APIs of Data.gov.” (Accepted, article is for Spring/Summer 2015 issue)

• Exhibits:
  • MSU Library exhibit proposal with Emily Sanford, “Unidentified Flying Objects – Flying Saucers, Little Green Men, and Other Extraterrestrial Subjects.” (Accepted, will be installed July 2015).

Completed Projects

• Book Reviews
  • I wrote reviews for the following books for American Reference Books Annual (ARBA) and ARBA online:
    • The Reference Interview Today
    • Encyclopedia of Populism in America: A Historical Encyclopedia
    • The Grey House Homeland Security Directory 2014, 10th Ed
    • The Zombie Book: The Encyclopedia of the Living Dead
    • Reference and Access: Innovative Practices for Archives and Special Collections

• Blog Posts
  • I contributed two posts to the Digital Scholarship Collaborative (DSC) Sandbox blog:
    • “Seeing Through the Congressional Record with Voyant,” December 16, 2014 (over 800 views).
    • “Catching Fugitives with Zotero,” February 24, 2015 (over 500 views).

• Continuing Education and Professional Development Activities
  • “You Know This Is All Discredited, Right?” Learning Styles, Preferences, and Modalities; Art of Liaison, Instruction, and Selection Series, MSU Main Library, March 27, 2014
  • Scholarly Communication Roadshow, Association of College and Research Libraries, hosted by the MSU Libraries, April 11, 2014.
  • Leading the Spartan Experience, MSU Human Resources and Development, April 24, 2014
  • Strategically Integrating Technology into Your Instruction; Art of Liaison, Instruction, and Selection Series, MSU Main Library, September 18, 2014
  • Teacher Librarian Community of Practice, MSU Main Library, September 2014-June 2015.
    • This group, led by Sara Miller, discusses teaching pedagogy and our own teaching styles to help us learn more about teaching so that participating librarians can become more effective teachers.
  • IRB (Institutional Review Board) Ethics training, completed January 2015.
  • Exploring the Why and How of Accessibility in Higher Education; Art of Liaison, Instruction, and Selection Series, MSU Main Library, February 19, 2015.

 SELF EVALUATION of SERVICE AND/OR PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

Memberships:

• American Library Association (ALA), 2011-Present
  • Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), 2011-Present
    • University Libraries Section, 2011-Present
  • New Members Round Table, 2011-Present
  • Government Documents Round Table, 2013-Present
• Government Documents Round Table (GODORT) of Michigan, 2013-Present
• Michigan Academic Library Association (Mi-ALA), 2014-Present
• Michigan Library Association, 2011-2014
• Special Library Association (SLA), 2014-Present
  • Government Information Division, 2014-Present
  • SLA Michigan, 2014-Present

Service:

New Members Round Table (NMRT)

• Committee Member, Endnotes: Journal of the New Members Round Table, July 2013- July 2014
  • Solicits proposals for articles, as well as completed articles for publication consideration.
  • Peer-reviews papers submitted for possible publication.
  • Edits book reviews submitted for inclusion in this journal.
• Committee Member, NMRT Professional Development Grant, July 2013-July 2014; July 2014-July 2015
  • Solicits applications through listservs and social networks.
  • Reviews applications and works with the rest of the committee to select an award recipient.
• Worked at the NMRT Resume Review Service as a booth greeter and resume reviewer at ALA Annual.
  • As a greeter, I helped check people in for the service, scheduled review times, ensured that reviewers stuck to the schedule
  • As reviewer, I reviewed resumes and provided helpful feedback to new librarians and library school students. One of the people I helped wrote an article about me and the advice I provided (http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/blogs/the-scoop/resume-advice-from-an-expert/)
  • Nominated for NMRT Member Services Director (2015-2016). Election for this position will be held in Spring 2015.
    • Position would supervise various NMRT committees and report to the NMRT Executive Board.

Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC)

• Committee Member, Heads of Government Documents, 2013-Present

Emerald Journal Reference Review

• Member, Peer-Review Board, October 2014-October 2015
  • Provides peer review to one article every two months to ensure a high-quality publication.
  • Required to source one article for publication consideration.

Government Documents Roundtable (GODORT) of Michigan

• Secretary, 2013-2015
  • Attends business meetings and records minutes.
  • Posts approved meeting minutes to the GODORT website.
  • Reviews, edits, and drafts amendments to the bylaws.

Michigan Library Association (MLA)

• Chair, Michigan Author Award Work Group, October 2013-October 2014
  • Solicits nominations for eligible Michigan authors.
    • Increased publicity of award helped increase the number of nominations from 4 in 2013 to 14 in 2014.
  • Works with MLA staff to update award criteria.
    • Changed eligibility requirements to allow self-published authors to be considered.
  • Sets deadlines and organizes work group meetings.

Michigan State University

• Member, Research Data Management Guidance team, February 2012 to October 2013
• Leader, Research Data Management Community for Advising, Facilitating, and Enabling (CAFÉ), May 2012 – October 2013
• Member, Digital Scholarship Collaborative, October 2013-Present

Michigan State University Libraries

• Member, Steering Committee, August 2012-August 2014
• Member, Head of Reference Search Committee, 2014
• Member, Link Resolver Discovery Tool Implementation Team, 2014
  • Evaluated 360 Link v. Web bridge and provided recommendations to help select link resolver.

University of Minnesota Regional Library Advisory Group

• Member, August 2013-August 31, 2014
  • Attends monthly Adobe Connect meetings.
  • Provides suggestions and recommendations to our regional library for training, webinars, policies, etc.

 Conferences attended

• Federal Depository Library Conference (FDLP)/Depository Library Council (DLC) Conference, Washington, D.C., April 29-May 2, 2014
• GODORT of Michigan Spring Conference and Business Meeting, Traverse City, June 13, 2014
• ALA Annual Conference, Las Vegas, June 25-June 30, 2014
• GODORT of Michigan Fall Conference and Business Meeting, University Center, October 3, 2014
• Mi ALA Conference/Meeting, East Lansing, October 10, 2014
• FDLP/DLC Conference, Virtual, December 2-4, 2014

Self Evaluations