Present: Marlene Laurence, Wish Leonard, Maureen McCormack, Doug Morton, Susan Moskal (Recorder), Shabiran Rahman, Susan Routliffe (Chair), Mary Stanley, Jackie Stapleton, Linda Teather
Mary Stanley reported that they have changed strategy. The original idea was to create one publication for undergraduates, graduates and faculty. After consulting others a new strategy has been developed.
For faculty, graduate students and staff a printed publication will be produced. This will be distributed directly to each recipient rather than through departmental secretaries. A first draft has been completed. The final publication should be ready for distribution by the end of October 2000. 2900 copies will be distributed to faculty and staff and 1600 to graduate students. Some will also be made available in the Library and a copy will be put up on the Web. This publication is a Special Edition of For Your Information.
For undergraduates there will be two on-line approaches. For first year undergraduates an e-zine Student Life 101 will have articles from the library. For upper year undergraduates a new development, uwstudent.org will deliver articles from the library. Uwstudent.org is an online news and service site run by students.
The group responsible for the publication will start thinking about evaluating these communication tools. It was suggested that including a coupon in the paper publication for a cup of coffee from Browsers could be used as a measurement.
During this part of the meeting, we reviewed topics for upcoming discussion and began to plan the order in which we will address them. The topics and a bit of background for some of them are:
Bill Oldfield is learning more about this software. He will obtain and test a copy of the program to see if it will resolve the proxy problems that our users have been experiencing. He will come to our ISMC meeting on October 31st and inform us of the results of his investigation.
Discussion of this topic will continue from the July meeting.
We will begin exploring the desirability of expanding the electronic reference serve that we currently offer. Among North American libraries there is a growing interest and emphasis on this service. The National Library is participating in a pilot project initiated by the Library of Congress to explore issues associated with a shared offering of electronic reference service to members of libraries participating in the project. In the future we will need to consider whether or not Waterloo wants to participate in this service.
Michele Laing will attend a two-day conference about digital reference. The conference will explore the nature of internet-based, human-mediated information service and examine issues in providing such service. Michele is also hoping to attend a pre-conference training session on the basics of digital reference service. Michele will attend an ISMC to give us an overview. She will assume an on-going role in exploring issues and opportunities associated with the provision of digital reference service.
Exploration will continue on the desirability of developing MyLibrary and associated issues.
In accordance with the Information Services Review Report the User Education Committee conducted a self-review and prepared a draft revision of terms of reference. The Information Services Review report recommended that a number of committees be reviewed to "ensure that they are co-ordinated, their terms of reference and accountability are clear, and they are appropriately populated". The User Education Committee was one of the ones identified for review. Last fall, the Committee conducted a self-review and prepared a draft revision of terms of reference and is operating under those terms.
ISMC will determine what further type or level of review is needed. The development of a mission statement and/or set of goals and directions for the library instruction programme will be considered.
Academic librarians have an on-going and increasing concern about the apparent lack of effective information finding/accessing/using skills on the part of many students. ACRL has established a set of Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. We need to familiarize ourselves with these Standards and begin to consider what they mean for our Library and campus, what questions/issues they raise and what we want to do about them.
Margaret Aquan-Yuen will be invited to meetings on these topics.
We need to consider taking advantage of opportunities provided by the Internet to help students develop skills associated with using a library and a wide range of resources. We can begin our discussion with the draft document prepared by Susan earlier this year on "Integrating Information Literacy into the Curriculum through Technology: An Opportunity to Work with LT3 to Develop an On-line, Interactive Programme to Promote the Development of Information Literacy Skills Among Students".
ISMC will have a systematic look at the Report to determine which recommendations have already been acted on and to consider what might be done to address remaining ones.
Charles Woods will come to an ISMC meeting to discuss the feasibility of introducing web page counters (i.e. counts of the number of times a page is used).
Discussion will pick up from where we left off. Esther Miller will be invited to attend. ISR librarians will be asked again about their preferences since the response to the first message was small.
People coming into the Library needing assistance often do not know which service desk to approach. The circulation desk is often approached when reference assistance is needed. To complicate matters it is not always clear what is or is not a reference question.
ISMC will bring clarity to this situation by considering what defines a reference question, under what, if any, circumstances should User Services staff be answering such questions and, if yes, what kind of training should staff receive to ensure an appropriate level of competence. In addition we need to count the number of reference questions answered at the circulation desk in order to have a fuller picture of the amount of total assistance the Library is providing. We will also consider the "flip side", i.e. do people approach the reference desks with questions related to circulation and, if so, does this need to be addressed as well.
Sharon Lamont will be invited to meetings on this topic.
It has been suggested that a separate electronic reference shelf be created for academic topics.
Margaret Aquan-Yuen has begun to work with the Library Instruction Committee to develop a web page outlining services for co-op students on a work term. A number of issues emerged that require ISMC to look at the services that could be or are offered to these students. Susan will meet with Bruce Lumsden to learn more about the University of Waterloo's commitment to students on work terms. ISMC will then consider what adjustments/additions might be made to the services currently offered.
Anne Fullerton will be invited to an ISMC meeting to discuss issues related to TRELLIS upgrades.
The terms of reference of the Training Group require that they report once a term. Jane Forgay will be invited to a fall meeting of ISMC.
This will be done at the end of October.
This will be done in October after the evaluation of meetings.
We will try to limit each meeting to two topics, one that requires lengthy discussion and one that can probably be dealt with quickly or will be dealt with over several meetings. Discussion of items 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 will begin in the "near future". We anticipate dealing with numbers 2, 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19 in one meeting. Numbers 4 and 12 will probably require two meetings; numbers 1, 3, 7, and 9 will probably require several meetings. When we have dealt with these topics, or have a more accurate idea of how much time they will require, we consider time frames for the remaining topics.
Wish, Jackie, Sue, and Doug have agreed to form a group to work will Carl on matters related to docking stations. Susan will let Carl know the composition of the group.
Next Meeting
September 19, 2000; Davis Library Conference Room