This Week in LIS - 13 April 2012

Headline of the Week: How Do You Learn?

We are in the learning business. More specifically, within LIS, we are in the learning facilitation business. Further, at Luther, we learn in community. Collectively we work to align our contributions to learning to our mission. That is, we facilitate learning in our quest to enable our students to serve with distinction and for the common good.

We live in exhilarating times. An interconnected, global, competitive marketplace is driving up the rate of change. Higher education is experiencing change. Change creates opportunities for innovation and differentiation and seizing them requires new learning.

Professionals, by definition, engage in a continual pursuit of mastery. We believe liberal arts education is a foundation for continuous learning. Pursuing mastery in a changing world means we too will be learning in addition to facilitating learning for our community. It has been suggested that one of the most important skills one can have in the future is the ability to learn new things quickly.

I want to invite you to reflect on how you personally learn. When faced with something new and motivated by the need to develop a level of mastery what is your personal approach? What resources do you leverage? What activities do you engage in? What steps do you take? Think about this “out loud” through blog responses and let’s see what we can learn from one another, in community, about learning. I am looking forward to insights from the community to augment my own understanding of how I can learn.

Paul
paul.mattson@luther.edu

LIS Blog Highlights from the Week

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

• Promised, And Delivered – Dozens of New Library Outlets Installed
• Software Development Meeting April 2, 2012 [Luther only]
• New Books for Spring in Leisure Reading
• Soon we will start to see flexible displays on e-book readers
• The Rise of E-Reading
• Upgrade of Katie Software 2013SP and Morsle
• User Services Meeting – 4/3/12
• Summer 2012 Faculty Workshop Accepting Applications
• Google Bar Update Rolling Out Monday, April 9th
• Upgraded VPN web service
• Journeys to America interim report submitted
• Software Development Meeting April 9, 2012 [Luther only]
• Google Education On Air

Notes from LIS Council

LIS Council is the leadership team within LIS. Among the topics discussed these past two weeks were:

• New Items
  • Chips Articles
    • Paul and Diane were interviewed for a chips article regarding Paul’s new position as Executive Director of LIS. In addition, Jennifer R and Andi were interviewed in regard to the Hunger Games event held recently in the library.
  • Web Conferencing
    • LIS is researching options for web conferencing and is currently leaning toward the usage of Google Hangouts and GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar.
  • Center for Speech and Debate Request
    • We continued to discuss the request for the Speech Lab that’s currently in Main to move to the library and to develop options.
  • EDUCAUSE Session
    • We engaged in conversation about how we might apply an approach that Paul heard about at EDUCAUSE that more tightly links the campus help desk and IT to drive identification of opportunities to improve service quality.
  • Annual Report
    • Paul and Ryan have begun work to prepare the sections for the 2011-12 LIS Annual Report on the LIS website. The target for completion of the report is the end of June.
  • MISO Survey
    • Luther will be participating in conversation with other MISO survey schools to discuss strategies for analyzing and sharing the results of this year’s survey.
• Returning Items
  • New Katie Version
    • We discussed the upcoming Katie upgrade and related campus communication.
  • Library Open House
    • We finalized the handout for the open house to be held in the library on Monday from 11:45-1:15 as part of the Admissions Visit Day.
  • Transition
    • We continued to work through LIS Executive Director transition topics.

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 links below are currently open for registration by Luther participants. LIS Staff who are interested in participating in an event should speak with Paul Mattson. Faculty who are interested in participating should speak with Lori Stanley. Participation is contingent upon available funding and program acceptance.

Conferences & Events: http://www.nitle.org/events/events_list.php
Digital Humanities Events: http://www.nitle.org/help/digital_humanities_events.php
Teachers Without Borders Series: https://lis.luther.edu/files/NITLEandTWB.pdf

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.

Food for Thought: The Rise of E-Reading

The Pew Research Center has just issued a report, “The Rise of E-Reading”, based on a recent survey of Americans age 16 and older. Not surprisingly, e-reading in general and the use of e-readers in particular is increasing.

One interesting finding is that the average e-book reader has read 24 books in the last year, compared to an average of 15 books for a print-only reader. The survey also shows that readers of e-books read more frequently than print-only readers.

A good overview of the study can be found on the Pew website:
http://libraries.pewinternet.org/2012/04/04/the-rise-of-e-reading/?src=p...

The full 68 page report is available here:
http://libraries.pewinternet.org/files/legacy-pdf/The%20rise%20of%20e-re...

Thanks to John Goodin for this week’s submission.

This Week in LIS is published most Fridays by Paul Mattson, Executive Director of LIS at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.

Content is made available under Creative Commons license.