TWILIS

Headline of the Week: What We Think We Know … and What We What to Know More

This week, our series of MISO reports looks at self-reported skill levels in using a variety of information-based tools, as well as a gauge of interest in learning more.

Headline of the Week: Information Tools in Use at Luther

Last week, we published a look at services provided by LIS to the Luther community as ranked in order of importance by faculty, students, and staff. This week, we turn to a snapshot of how a variety of information tools are used by the community.

Headline of the Week: What You Think Is Important

This past February, LIS administed the Merged Information Services Organizations survey (MISO) for the second time in three years to the Luther community. All faculty, staff, and approximately one-fourth of our student body were invited to participate. Luther had outstanding participation rates (73.3% for faculty, 68.9% for staff, and 56.9% for students).

Headline of the Week: Rethinking How We Welcome

You only get one chance to make a first impression, or so the saying goes. To that end, LIS seeks to ease the transition to Luther for all new students, faculty, and staff through a seamless and intentional process that takes into everything from creation of Norse Keys, assigning appropriate equipment to delivery of training.

Headline of the Week: Reason Web Content Management: The First 100 Days

In the coming week, it seems we’ll all be taking stock of the “first 100 days.” At Luther of course that refers to our deployment of our new web content management system Reason which began in mid-January.

Headline of the Week: Report from Spring CNI Task Force Meeting

Last week I attended the semi-annual Coalition for Networked Information Task Force meeting in Minneapolis. CNI is a joint venture of ARL (Association of Research Libraries) and EDUCAUSE. Some notes from the sessions I attended:

Variations
This software has been in use at Indiana University for many years and allows online reserves for their music collection. Content is digitized, connected with MARC data and other metadata and then delivered via streaming server on-demand.

Headline of the Week: The Times They Are A-Changing

If I had to summarize both the content and the conversation from this week’s NITLE Summit and meeting, I’d characterize it as expecting some significant changes in the landscape of our work both in information support for higher education, but also as liberal arts colleges generally. At many schools, a deep process of retrenching (and evaluation of sacred cows) is ongoing that is requiring rethinking of many fundamental assumptions many of us take for granted.

Headline of the Week: Norse Keys and Our Forgetfulness

One of the most frequent calls to Luther’s Help Desk (and any other Help Desk for that matter) requests assistance in resetting a password that the user has forgotten. We’ve all done this. I know every now and then I’ll plunk various passwords into a web site authentication prompt silently hoping that one of them will connect. There is little personal business that we can conduct these days online without passwords. They are necessary, and their safety, security, and integrity is critical in maintaining our identities in many ways.

Headline of the Week: ACRL Notes

Last week I and many other LISfolk visited Seattle for the biennial Association of College and Research Libraries conference. Apart from Luther’s presentation on communication strategies for information organizations, the conference offered a variety of sessions showcasing the current work in academic libraries. A couple of our team have contributed conference reports to the LIS Blog and others will be contributing their perspectives soon I know (links included below).

Headline of the Week: IKON Update

Luther has now passed the 60-day mark in our transition to document and mail services managed by IKON. Many facets of the initiative are well-underway and delivering results. We continue to tweak, adjust and revise some portions of the program. Below are a few brief updates:

• Services in the Print Center continue under the same pricing structure that was in place prior to the transition, with one notable exception. Black and white copy costs have been reduced to a flat rate of $0.04/page with no additional cost for paper.