bartch02's blog

Luther College Library and Information Services (LIS) seeks an innovative and passionate leader to serve as Director (or Associate Director) of Research and Instructional Services. S/he coordinates library, research, and instruction services in support of the mission of Luther College. This includes leading a team to set and implement a vision for innovative academic information service across traditional bounds of libraries and technology organizations in a rapidly changing environment.

Headline of the Week: The Value of Academic Libraries

This week the Association of Research and College Libraries (ACRL) released a report addressing a critical challenge not only for academic libraries, but also for higher education broadly – defining and communicating value. The full report is available online and was compiled by Dr. Megan Oakleaf of Syracuse University (Dr. George Kuh, Luther ’68 and current Luther Regent served on the Advisory Committee for the report).

Headline of the Week: What’s New in Norse Apps

Since it’s introduction on campus beginning in 2008, Norse Apps, provided through a partnership between Luther and Google has proven to be one of the central services used by the Luther Community. While email may be the core application for many Luther users, campus adoption of other Norse Apps services such as Norse Chat, Norse Docs, and Norse Sites has changed the way many of us work for the better.

Headline of the Week: How Well Do You Know LIS?

Classes are up and running at Luther as we begin our 150th academic year and as part of the start up, LIS had the opportunity to participate in the annual training of our admissions tour guides. We spent a little time discussing the recent changes to the main level of the library and the philosophy behind our decisions there, and we also talked about upcoming improvements in how we will work to deliver research assistance to students.

Headline of the Week: The Bigger Picture

This week marks the “official” start to the 2010-11 academic year with orientations for new international students, new faculty, and the arrival of our new students tomorrow. At the first faculty meeting today, guest speaker Dr. Victor Ferrell Jr., former President of Beloit College (1991-2000), gave a talk arising from his soon to be published book At the Brink: The Bleak Future of Liberal Arts Education. As noted at the meeting, this was not your standard start-of-school pep talk.

Headline of the Week: It’s in the Air …

School is starting up again. Decorah schools are back in session this week and in just over a week Luther will welcome (officially) the Class of 2014. LIS has been working to prepare for the start of the school year, and over the next several weeks we’ll have a number of updates for the community on services and initiatives for the 2010-11 academic year.

One service we continue to work to expand and improve is wireless network services, and this summer has seen several notable improvements to our infrastructure.

Headline of the Week: Sneak Peek: Luther Goes Mobile

It doesn’t take exceptional powers of observation to see that mobile use of technology is blossoming all around us. Cell phones are not new, and yet they continue to seep deeper and deeper into our culture as multi-skilled communication devices now capable of bringing anything we like to anyone, and bringing anyone or anything we like to us.

Headline of the Week: Listening to the Music: E-books Coming of Age

The game is musical chairs. Circling the center are the big players in the book world: authors, publishers, hardware vendors (e.g. Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Sony), retail book vendors (e.g. Amazon, Apple, Barnes & Noble, Borders, Sony), libraries, and readers. The music is playing, and a chair has been removed from the center. When will the music stop?

Headline of the Week: Digital Document Output Seeing Steady Decline

As part of Luther’s strategic plan and commitment to building more sustainable operations, we have a stated goal of reducing overall output by 25% as well moving toward a campus standard of 50% post-consumer content paper.

Headline of the Week: Charting a Course for Greater Collaboration

At our annual strategic planning day last month, LIS spent a little time brainstorming potential opportunities for greater collaboration.