TWILIS

Headline of the Week: LIS Student Advisory Panel

In 2007-08, LIS initiated a small advisory panel of students with the purpose of both gathering feedback from and sharing information with Luther students.The group has continued this year with a meeting in the fall semester and another meeting coming up in the next week. The topics of conversation are wide-ranging and allow LIS to better understand our services through the eyes of students.

Headline of the Week: LIS 2008-09 Objectives Revised

Earlier this month, LIS met as a whole to review our organizational objectives we set for ourselves in July 2008 for the current academic year. At the midway point through the work year, we reconvene to asses our progress and note additional objectives that have emerged as priorities in the months since our original planning.

Headline of the Week: Paideia Research 2009

Next week begins the annual Paideia I research unit which provides LIS an opportunity to interact with and instuct all Luther first-year students as they begin researching a paper based on a topic chosen by their professor. Paideia I is Luther’s common interdisciplinary course for first-year students.

Headline of the Week: What Has Facebook Wrought?

Next week, LIS will carry on our new tradition for the beginning of each semester by emailing the Luther Community regarding acceptable use network policies. With our file sharing chart showing 162 163 complaints registered against students this year, there would seem to be ample evidence that reinforcing this message is prudent. We continue to see a steady stream of infringement complaints roll in, and several Luther students have lost all privileges to attach personally-owned devices to our network.

Headline of the Week: Reason Comes to Luther

Over the past several months, a team of Luther staff and faculty have researched and evaluated options for Luther as we consider the next step in web content management for luther.edu. The web is now the principal communication tool available for prospective students and employees to learn about Luther. We want to be sure Luther has the appropriate tools going forward to manage our web presence as effectively as possible.

Headline of the Week: LIS Service Points Task Force Reforming

Last spring, a number of LIS folk spent time exploring and asking the big questions regarding our primary LIS service points on the main floor of Preus Library – Circulation, Reference, and Help Desk. As an integrated library and technology organization, we wanted to think about how these traditional service points represent LIS as an organization, and understand how they do and can interact one another to further the work and mission of LIS and Luther.

Headline of the Week: Building Bridges

Yesterday, in the cold I trekked eastward to visit with the staff of Beloit College’s Information Services & Resources team, a merged library/IT organization. A former colleague of mine now heads ISR and while it was a good chance to reconnect with her, it was also a good opportunity to learn about the opportunities and challenges at Beloit while sharing the work currently underway here at Luther. LIS has included in our objectives each year the desire to reach out to others around us, particularly those that are relatively similar.

Headline of the Week: 2009 Brings New Stuff

The first nine days of 2009 have gotten off to a very quick start for many in LIS as we work to implement several new initiatives at the start of the year. So to start the year, a sampler of the things now launched and launching this month:

• Luther welcomes IKON to campus – Our strategic partner in managing digital output, IKON Office Solutions has officially begun work on campus this week.

Headline of the Week: A Christmas Gift from the RIAA … or Maybe Not

The InterTubes have been abuzz today with the announcement that the RIAA will abandon their broad scale attempts to sue file sharers. Apparently this approach was costing them too much money for too little return (not a big surprise).

Headline of the Week: Playing the Market

One of the sessions I attended this week at the Coalition for Networked Information (CNI) meeting in Washington DC was given by Bryan Alexander, NITLE’s Director for Research on NITLE’s Prediction Markets for Emerging Technology. This initiative was launched this past summer and draws roots from the University of Iowa’s prediction markets that originally were developed to track political “markets” in the state.