Minutes

Agenda: Finalize the Survey to be sent out to the BLC instruction librarians

1. 1. The group spent most of the meeting time working through the survey questions. The main purpose of this survey is to gather information from BLC members that will be fed into a relational database to help BLC members find resources (human and web) related to information literacy initiatives, models, teaching techniques, programming, and collaboration. It is an effort to provide a network of shared information literacy resources and experts from BLC members that we can draw upon (at low or no cost) to help further our institutional goals of advancing information literacy efforts. The timeline for the completion of the survey is as follows:
   
   
   1. Lori will send the draft of the survey to the Task Force members by Monday, December 9th for their review. The task force will send any revisions or suggestions back to Lori by Tuesday the 10th. After making revisions Lori will send the survey off to Kathy so that she can begin setting up the database so that the survey responses can directly feed into the it.
      
      
   2. Lori will also send a message (on the 10th) to the Information Literacy COI listserv summarizing the purpose of the survey and the categories that are included. The message will ask them if they have any other categories they would like to see represented on the survey. The deadline for returning to Lori will be Dec. 12th so that they can be sent on to Kathy.
      
      
   3. The week of Dec. 16 Lori will send word formats of the survey (not a web version) to Margo Christ and ask that she take it to the Board for suggestions and approval.
      
      
   4. Once Kathy has a functional database (vanilla wrapping for testing purposes) the task force will then fill out a sample survey in order to test the database.
      
      
   5. We plan to have the final web survey form completed and approved by the middle of January (along with a cover letter) to send off to the Library Directors for their dissemination to the appropriate instruction staff at their institutions. We will also send the survey to Immersion Graduates.
      
      
2. Other issues related to the survey:
   
   
   1. Lori will contact Margot Sutten from the ACRL Immersion Institute to get an official list of the immersion attendees. To date we only have 20 members from the region who have completed immersion and we believe there should be more.
      
      
   2. We need to find out if the BLC has a disclosure statement (and header) they would like us to put on the survey.
      
      
3. Additional items of interest
   
   
   1. Kwasi mentioned that his library is using RefWorks (a citation manager) and that he believes the BLC has a site license for this. He will investigate further. He commented on the importance of providing instruction for this tool.
      
      
   2. BLC RefWorks (citation manager) License for all members? Not compatible with all databases.
      
      
   3. Christine shared some handouts she created for some nontraditional classes. This helped us in remembering not only how diverse our audiences are, but also how aware we need to be of the variety of approaches and teaching styles to ensure effective instruction to all our audiences. It also reminded us that not all the resources we have are online.
      
      
   4. We briefly mentioned the possibility of providing a BLC program/panel pulling together ACRL Information Literacy Immersion Institute graduates from the area. The goal here would be to allow many BLC members to get a chance to hear of not only what the Immersion Institute is, but also to hear about what these librarians have done as a result of immersion and how they can work with the BLC members at their institutions to advance their info lit goals.
      
      

We ran out of time, due to the arrival of the snowstorm and didn't get to the completion of the information literacy definition. That will be finished by e-mail.

We will also further discuss the rest of the database creation. Kathy raised several preliminary questions about the structure of the database. Perhaps we will have another meeting in January for this purpose, as it is very difficult to do that type of group work virtually.

1. The groups were asked to reflect on two questions: What I'll bring, contribute to the group and What I'll need to be an effective contributor. Our group focused on the first question. We learned more about the various skills of group members and how we can all contribute something to this project.
   
   
2. It was a relief to learn that Kathy has already developed a prototype of a Cold Fusion database and that we can use her skill in this area to develop our Clearinghouse database for this project (to be described later). All members seemed very eager to assist in this project and seemed to have the technological skills to do so.
   
   
3. Every member of the group brings important perspectives and experiences reflecting our user populations (first year programs, middle year/midyear/junior year, outreach, adult populations, undergraduate, graduate, staff, faculty, international, diverse and special populations). We discussed the importance of including information relevant to instruction for all our user groups, as well as learning and teaching style material in our project. This included how we design our database and web site to be useable and helpful to all populations.
   
   
4. The group also contains experience in critiquing jargon, designing forms and pages to accommodate all populations, and being renegades. In doing our work these areas will help us be creative and considerate of our users. However, we also want to communicate that the bottom line is to let our clientele know that "we are accessible".
   
   

1. Here we continued our brainstorming that began during our previous conversations about how we would begin attacking our charge.
   
   
2. Main ideas for task force
   
   1. Create a Cold Fusion relational database that will serve as a clearinghouse database to serve the BLC members. By doing this we address Action Items 2 through 5. It was noted that other national/regional groups also provide some of what we envision the database containing. However, the purpose of this database would be to draw on the information provided by BLC librarians (through an online survey form) of resources they use/need. Many of these resources may not have been added to any of the other compilations available. Additionally, resources compiled here will be those accessible to our members, and in the case of human resources, the hope is that we will be able to identify BLC librarians who can assist in training. This database could also be used to generate statistics about what other librarians are doing/have or their stated needs. The database for the BLC will include the following:
   
   a. existing online handouts/guides, workbooks curriculum guides/syllabi, Power Point/web presentations and similar tutorials and courses related to information literacy issues.
   
   b. location of print and other media (such as videos, dvd's etc.) in the consortium that are not available online but pertain to information literacy that could be shared by members.
   
   c. Bibliographies compiled related to information literacy, top twenty information literacy articles, best practices, etc.
   
   d. Models of instruction/information literacy
   
   e. Faculty/librarian collaboration articles/presentations, bibliographies etc.
   
   f. Online links to other information literacy agencies, listservs, committees etc. such as Nelig, Nebig, Loex, ACRL's groups and its information literacy listserv, BLC's Community of Interest Information Literacy listserv
   
   g. Conferences/programs/workshops available related to information literacy
   
   h. BLC institutions offering credit classes for information literacy
   
   i. Resource/contact list of members of the consortium who have attended the ACRL Immersion Institute so they can be contacted to serve as speakers or to assist in training and program development
   
   j. Resource/contact list of effective and available speakers (based on librarian input) on the topics of instruction and information literacy for training and program development. Here it could be noted if the speaker were a BLC member (thus low cost/no cost???).
   
   k. Grants that have been attained by BLC members to assist in their information literacy efforts and links to recommended agencies and starting points for obtaining grants. Successful BLC grantwriters/administrators could also serve as resource people for other librarians interested in this process.
   
   
3. To establish a shared working definition of information literacy and a program for its development among BLC members. This is Action Item 1 and will be one of our first assignments.
   
   
4. Prepare and present at a BLC program our Information Literacy Clearinghouse Database.