This Week in LIS - 23 October 2009

Headline of the Week: LIS & H1N1

While H1N1 is not a new topic locally or nationally, the spread of the virus continues to pose a significant threat not only to health but to operations at colleges like Luther. Library and Information Services prepared an initial response plan for pandemic situations three years ago, and continues to revise and refine them as we head deeper into the current flu season. Just this week, many Luther supervisors met with County Health Department Administrator Krista Vande Brink to discuss preparations and procedures. Winneshiek County also held its first H1N1 vaccination clinic for at-risk populations this week.

While Luther has had H1N1 cases reported, and college operations have continued as normal, the possibility still exists for mutations in the virus that can cause wider outbreaks, or subsequent waves could make changes to our normal business operations advisable for public health reasons.

So when LIS thinks about H1N1 pandemic planning what does it mean? Here are a few of the preparations we are taking or have taken to allow for critical service to continue:

  • LIS has defined a crisis management team with a daily meeting/update schedule to lead and adapt response as needed. This team can meet physically or virtually by chat or telephone.
  • LIS and Facilities Management have deployed hand sanitizers at public service points in LIS and some other selected locations to encourage sanitation when using shared equipment.
  • LIS assists in maintaining an Emergency website hosted off-site to allow for dissemination of critical information, particularly in the event our on-campus webservers are unavailable. This site is available at http://emergency.luther.edu/.
  • Generally, LIS assumes that most of our technology and physical infrastructure will be in place and functional. We do anticipate greater-than-normal loads on our networks, particularly our links to the Internet as more business may be conducted from off-site locations. Bandwidth will be closely monitored.
  • LIS plans for KATIE, our Moodle learning management system to become a primary means of instruction to students either quarantined in rooms or at other locations off-campus. Training materials are available online to assist any faculty who may be unfamiliar with using KATIE.
  • For employees requiring computer hardware in homes in order to perform Luther business, LIS has plans to remotely deploy selected hardware as needed. Employees are required to provide their own Internet access. Luther has also deployed multiple means of remotely authenticating to our network to allow for secure access to Luther resources from off-campus.
  • Services such as Help Desk and Research Help will continue to be available by telephone and email at our published points of contact. Delivery of physical materials will be done as appropriate. Electronic delivery of materials will also be used. We would also work to transfer physical course reserve materials to electronic delivery as copyright and licensing considerations would allow. Circulation of our collection would continue using physical delivery vendors such as the U.S. Postal Service (as available). Interlibrary loan requests will still be possible via our online requesting system.
  • Remote videoconferencing is available as part of our Norse Apps suite through Norse Chat provided the individuals have webcams attached to their workstations.

LIS continues to work individually with offices to determine any specific support needs in the event of pandemic or other business interruption. We encourage anyone with concerns about continuity of service to contact LIS so that we can be sure to design our plans most effectively to keep services available at all times.

For more local information about H1N1 see:

LIS Blog Highlights from the Week

The following articles are sampled from those available on the LIS Blog:

Notes from LIS Council

LIS Council is the leadership team within LIS. Among the topics discussed this past week were:

  • How quiet things were on Fall Break (since we didn’t meet this week :)

The User Perspective on LIS Services: Brad Phillips

Brad Phillips is Luther’s coordinator and manager all the performances on the Luther campus. His ‘official title’ Phillips said with a laugh, is Box Office Manager and Assistant for Campus Programming. As mentioned above, he decides when and where groups like the Luther Music and Theater departments as well as off campus groups will perform on campus. In addition to those ticketed events, Phillips also coordinates non-ticketed events like lectures, campus ministry and commencement. His main counterpart is the Student Activities Council (SAC) who helps coordinate ushers and hospitality for events on campus.

Before joining the Luther staff in 1989, Phillips had grown up on a farm. After he graduated high school he took a couple years off of school and sold shoes to support himself. Illinois State University was where he ultimately ended up graduating from in 1988 and found Luther shortly after. Before taking his current position, Phillips had been the Brandt Hall Director for two years.

Phillips is very pleased with the workstation and systems support within Library and Information Systems (LIS). Due to the unique needs of the box office, a good computer system is needed in order to keep track of ticketing from multiple sources and events. LIS has been key in setting up the box office system as well as maintaining it. Phillips remarked on how impressed he is with the quick response to technical issues that arise. “They keep us running,” he commented.

The Box Office has also transitioned to electronic forms for collecting Christmas at Luther ticket reservation information, eliminating the former paper-based process. This is made possible by using the Forms feature in Norse Docs. More information about Norse Docs, Luther’s online productivity suite provided by Google is available (Norse Docs FAQ / Norse Docs Training). You can also signup for an upcoming training session on Norse Forms on November 19th.

— Contributed by Adam Kobler ’11

MISO Moment: Adoption of Digital Video Up Sharply

MISO.134.png
Click through for full size

In order to assess information service at Luther, Library and Information Services participates in the Merged Information Services Organization Survey administered by Bryn Mawr College. Luther has administered the survey twice in 2007 and 2009 to all faculty, staff, and a random sample of students.

Each week, we profile a datapoint from the survey that illustrates how the Luther community currently uses LIS services.

NITLE Opportunities

As a member of NITLE (National Institute for Technology and Liberal Education), Luther has the opportunity to participate in a wide variety of developmental and training programs intended for faculty, librarians, and information technologists. Events listed at the link below are currently open for registration by Luther participants. LIS Staff who are interested in participating in an event should speak with Christopher Barth. Faculty who are interested in participating should speak with Lori Stanley. Participation is contingent upon available funding and program acceptance.

A full list of events (sortable by registration deadline) is available at http://www.nitle.org/events/calendar.php

The NITLE News
Monday, October 19, 2009

  • From the Executive Director
  • New blogs launched
    • As previewed in this late September blog post, we’ve expanded our blogging efforts at NITLE to focus on three key areas for small liberal arts colleges dealing with technology:
    • You can follow a combined feed of all three blogs from “The Daily NITLE” section of our home page or via blogs.nitle.org. We welcome your comments and feedback.
  • NITLE Labs
    • One new initiative you’ll now find on the website: “NITLE Labs.” The Labs house collaborative and inter-campus projects and research initiatives focused on new technologies with strategic promise for liberal education. As an experimental “laboratory,” NITLE Labs will be a space for testing new technologies and collaborative relationships to address challenges and open opportunities the liberal arts community. Current projects include our collaboration with Decapod and our work with Manakin, DSpace’s new interface toolkit.
    • Questions about the Labs? Please contact Eric Jansson
  • Send us your feedback!
    • Have thoughts about NITLE’s activities, the new site, or this new e-newsletter? We want to hear from you. Just send a note to contact@nitle.org.
  • Upcoming Events
    • October 28th, 2009
      • Highlights, Notes, Tags, and Comments
        • For those who want to use social bookmarking and website annotation to help students actively and critically integrate online material into courses.
    • November 4th, 2009
      • From Planning to Practice
        • A three-part virtual conference on technology for teaching language, culture, and international relations.

Upcoming LIS Training, Instruction, and Professional Development Opportunities

Click on the event below for specific information and for a link to register. More information on training and development events is available.

CourseFormatDateStart TimeEnd TimeLocation
New Faculty Teaching Group: Research and Technology ResourcesFaculty DevelopmentOct 262:45 pm3:45 pmDahl Centennial Union – Nansen
Teaching Writing: Helping Students ReviseFaculty DevelopmentOct 264:00 pm5:30 pmOlin 101
Current Trends in Student CommunicationFaculty DevelopmentOct 284:00 pm5:00 pmOlin 301 – Round Table Room
Call Pilot Desktop MessagingProduct DemonstrationOct 292:30 pm3:00 pmDahl Centennial Union – Borlaug
MUS 231A: Introduction to Music ResearchLibrary InstructionOct 308:00 am8:00 amJenson-Noble Choir Room
MUS 231B: Introduction to Music ResearchLibrary InstructionOct 3011:00 am12:00 pmJenson-Noble Choir Room
MUS 231C: Introduction to Music ResearchLibrary InstructionOct 301:30 pm2:00 pmJenson-Noble 123
Call Pilot Desktop MessagingProduct DemonstrationNov 911:30 am12:00 pmDahl Centennial Union – Borlaug
New Faculty Teaching GroupFaculty DevelopmentNov 92:45 pm3:45 pmDahl Centennial Union – Nansen
Encouraging Student Participation with ClickersFaculty DevelopmentNov 123:00 pm4:00 pmTBA
Norse FormsSkills TrainingNov 192:45 pm3:45 pmOlin 301 – Round Table Room
New Faculty Teaching GroupFaculty DevelopmentNov 232:45 pm3:45 pmDahl Centennial Union – Nansen
Teaching Writing: Using Rubrics to Evaluate PapersFaculty DevelopmentNov 304:00 pm5:30 pmOlin 101
German 201: Intermediate German ILibrary InstructionDec 212:15 pm12:15 pmRare Book Room – Preus Library
New Faculty Teaching GroupFaculty DevelopmentDec 72:45 pm3:45 pmDahl Centennial Union – Nansen

Internet Resource of the Week: Verifiable.com

Verifiable is a web-based information visualization tool, allowing you to upload datasets and design infographics around them. The free version is social, meaning all data uploaded is publicly available. You can browse the site, and open up datasets and visualizations, as well as play with how those visualizations are created. Premium accounts allow for private data uploads and selective sharing. Verifiable describes their product as:

  • a clean, low-chartjunk philosophy — no shadows, no pie charts, no 3-D bar graphs, just the ink you need
  • access to the data behind a chart, even from within the chart
  • the ability to easily join multiple data sets (e.g., to compare your time series data set with another).
  • a growing repository of economic, social, and sports data sets, suitable for joining with your own data
  • easy, one-click small multiples (something that’s either unavailable or a PITA in every other web tool we know of)
  • access to extra chart dimensions using bubbles and shading to increase the density of your data
  • handy shortcuts like the ability to automatically identify and label outliers
  • fine-grained control of layout and appearance — our goal is to enable the creation of publishable graphics and interactive * web embeds

Our goal, however, isn’t just to develop a great vizualization app — it’s to develop a tool to make it easier for you to communicate data more clearly, more efficiently, and more honestly with the viewer. We want to make it easy for you to make a gorgeous, verifiable vizualization, by allowing viewers to explore the data, manipulate the presentation, and even build on it to bring out richer, clearer, or just plain different conclusions.

On the web at http://www.verifiable.com/

Quote(s) of the Week:

  • “A truly great library contains something in it to offend everyone.” – Jo Godwin
  • “Microsoft’s core problem is that they have lost the hearts of computer enthusiasts.” – John Gruber
  • “Once a new technology rolls over you, if you’re not part of the steamroller, you’re part of the road.” – Stewart Brand
  • “The art of simplicity is a puzzle of complexity.” – Douglas Horton
  • “When I read about the way in which library funds are being cut and cut, I can only think that American society has found one more way to destroy itself.” – Isaac Asimov

Image of the Week: Reality Checking Device

Reality Checking Device via Susanna Hertrich

Video of the Week: Advertising/TV Commercial: Vodafone NZ – Symphonia

Advertising/TV Commercial: Vodafone NZ – Symphonia

1000 mobile phones. 2000 texts. One song.

The idea was simply to use a collection of mobile phones with TXT alerts that – when received in the sequence – created a symphony: Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. It took 53 different ringtone alerts. Timed to imperfection. After a lot of practice it actually worked and Symphonia is the result.

http://www.vodafone.co.nz/symphonia/

Making of, Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qyeko65vL7Q
Making of, Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RttlDzRPw9A

Links of the Week

  • Google Apps
    • None

infoneer.pngThe links and media above are selected from material posted to Infoneer.net, which gathers links and comment on the worlds of libraries, technology, higher education, culture, intellectual property, copyright, information, ethics, design, professional identity, leadership, and the future. Subscribe to Infoneer.net RSS

This Week in LIS is published most Fridays by Christopher Barth, Executive Director of Library and Information Services at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa for the Luther College community as well as those interested in information services and higher education.

This issue is Volume 4, Number 8 (#135)

Content is made available under Creative Commons license. Creative Commons License

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