Inforumed

On Thursday, January 29 and Friday, January 30, I joined hundreds of librarians, technicians, administrators, students from across the province at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to attend the annual OLA Superconference. The theme of the conference this year was the role played by libraries as leaders of our communities’ “learning revolution”.

The all-session plenary held on Thursday afternoon, featuring Richard Florida, explored the theme of libraries and related cultural institutions as necessary organs of a livable community.

Although known for his writings about “the creative class”, Prof. Florida stated that the success of a community rests not in its ability to attract the creative class, but the ability of the community to tap into every person’s capacity for creativity. Although he poked fun at his tendency to give long, rambling speeches (he joked that he came “from the Fidel Castro school of public speaking”), Prof. Florida’s more-than-an-hour-long speech was an entertaining one, peppered with anecdotes of growing up in a second-generation immigrant family, and of visits to the local public library that sparked his imagination and life-long interest in learning.

The Superconference also featured a long list of professional sessions. Although it was impossible to attend all of them, I was able to sit in on a few.

Cataloguer’s Journey to FRBR (Session # 312)

Thomas Brenndorfer of the Guelph Public Library gave an introductory overview of FRBR, FRAD and FRSAR, and how these functional requirements can be incorporated into online public catalogues to improve users’ search experience.

New Accessibility Legislation: Standards and Progress (Session #416)

Estelle Small from Serve-ability Ontario talked about some of the requirements of Regulation 429, which currently applies to any organizations with more than one employee:

• Organizations have to establish policies, practices, procedures on providing goods and services.
• Organizations have to make reasonable effort to accommodate people with disabilities.
• Staff must receive adequate training on how to serve people with disabilities.
• Organizations must set up a process to receive and respond to feedback.

At the moment, standards regulating the built environment have not been developed. Online information and resources can be found at AccessON.ca.

OCLC Luncheon

The director of OCLC Canada talked about different products that OCLC is developing. One of the more interesting initiatives that they are looking into is the exchange of data between WorldCat and Google, linking Google’s digitized books to WorldCat records, and embedding WorldCat records to Google Book Search.

OCLC is also looking into establishing an improved union catalogue for OCUL members, with WorldCat records being integrated into the system.

Of interest to cataloguers and searchers is the OCLC's joint project with the Library and Congress, the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek and the Bibliothèque nationale de France to develop a single name authority service, to be called the Virtual International Authority File.

Beyond statistics: journal collections that meet faculty needs (Session #608)

Two librarians at the University of Guelph analyzed the strength of their journal collection, comparing their holdings with the journals listed in the ISI/Thomson Reuter’s JCR database.
The librarians were surprised to find that even though they provided access to the top ten percent of journals cited in the JCR, their faculty was still dissatisfied with the journal collection at the library. They had been expecting higher satisfaction to correlate with the quality of their journal collection.

The librarians hypothesized that faculty dissatisfaction could be discipline-based, as there were higher levels of dissatisfaction expressed in the humanities than in the social sciences or the sciences. They found that in some cases, titles that faculty requested or placed on their wishlist were titles to which the library already provided access. This has led to the other hypothesis that more instructional training to faculty and marketing the library's holdings more heavily may improve the faculty's assessment of the collection.

Making the grade: meeting requirements for tenure and continuing appointment (Session #1008)

Four librarians from three different libraries, and at various stages of their academic librarian career, talked about the challenges of preparing for tenure review and promotion through the ranks. Common themes discussed by each panel member include the value of having a mentor, gathering documentation for the portfolio early on and maintaining the portfolio throughout one’s career. Some advice that the librarians offered: plan early, develop a breadth of experience rather than focusing too narrowly in one area of the position, and get involved in professional and faculty associations.

Supporting the research endeavours of academic librarians (Session #1207)

The speakers discussed the types of support that encourage academic librarians to continue doing research. The speakers advocated for the following supports:

• Time allocation: more, and clearer, allocations of time devoted to research work.
• Office space, removed from the library and daily interruptions.
• Access to databases, web, software for quantitative research.
• Mentoring.
• Sharing networks, like brown bag lunches and online platforms for sharing findings and research-in-progress.

The speakers also identified some challenges. Faculty and librarians are not always seen as equals, so the amount of research time allotted to librarians are different from those allotted to professors. During a lively question period, the speakers and the audience wondered whether the culture of the profession and the lack of mandatory research experience in the MLIS (or equivalent) education also played a role in hindering academic librarians’ research output.

Library Technicians: Swiss Army Knives of Academic Libraries (Session #1306)

Technicians from University of Guelph-Humber and Humber College demonstrated involvement in a wide array of work activities, some of which have traditionally been within the professional librarian's domain:

• Managing electronic course reserves management (including tracking down copyright requests for faculty and ensuring that users comply with copyright restrictions).
• Providing basic instructional classes to first-year Humber College students.
• Developing pathfinders and subject guides.
• Participating in special project committees.
• Providing reference services at the desk, and virtually through AskON.ca.
• Dealing with online access problems and troubleshooting.
• Marketing the library's resources and services.
  

Attending the OLA Superconference was a worthwhile experience, as I got to hear about the work that libraries outside of the University of Toronto have been involved in, and the issues that are foremost in the minds of those working in the information profession.

Visit the OLA Super Conference 2009 website for session materials.

Labels: conference, libraries