Coordinating Committees

User Services Coordinating Committee Progress Report to CUWL

September 2010 – February 2011

Submitted by Jill Markgraf, USCC Chair

The CUWL User Services Coordinating Committee has continued its work toward the Strategic Initiatives established by CUWL. A large focus of its efforts have been on planning and holding a monthly teleconference forum series to inform and facilitate discussion and idea sharing among librarians throughout the UW System. In addition, the Committee has made efforts to inventory and demonstrate its contributions to the K-12 community through a survey and upcoming webinar. The Committee is addressing the issue of assessment by planning a similar survey to inventory expertise and experience in varying methods of library instruction assessment throughout System.

Committee members meet monthly via teleconference. In addition to planning and discussing the items below, the members share developments from their own libraries with the group.

Webinars:

The series of USCC webinars continues, with three per semester offered. Beginning in October, the webinars have been recorded and archived on the CUWL website, in response to demand from those who wanted to attend but could not. Freeconference.com charges $6.00 per recording.

  • Oct. 21: FYE FYI: The library and first year experience programs, with Kim Bartosz and Molly Mathias. (Strat. Dir. 2, Obj. 1): We do not have exact attendance numbers but do know that 22 phone lines dialed in.
  • Nov. 18: LEAPin Libraries with Sarah McDaniel, Laura Jacobs, and Kate Ganski recap (Strat. Dir. 2, Obj. 3):  We do not have exact attendance numbers but do know that 16 phone lines dialed in.
  • Dec. 16: Library liaisons with Barbara Bren and Jill Markgraf (Strat. Dir. 2, Obj. 3, Strat. Dir. 2, Obj. 1):  We do not have exact attendance numbers but do know that 14 phone lines dialed in.

  • Select topics for spring semester webinars:
    • Collaborations with K-12 community (Strat. Dir. 2, Obj. 1):  Scheduled for Feb. 17, but canceled due to unrest on campuses. It will be rescheduled. We have been contacted by members of the K12 community who wish to participate in this teleconference, so the delay may be somewhat fortuitous.
    • Teaching with Xerxes (Strat. Dir. 1, Objs 1-3, Strat. Dir 2, Obj. 3): Scheduled for March forum. 
    • Digital Collections (Strat. Dir. 1, Obj. 2; Stra.t Dir. 2, Obj. 6):  scheduled for April. This forum will be a collaboration with the Digital Initiatives Coordinating Committee.
  • Evaluation of webinar series (Strat. Dir 3, Obj. 1): The committee is drafting a survey to assess the value of the monthly lunch forums to CUWL librarians and staff.  The survey will be conducted in April.

K-12 outreach survey update (Strat. Dir. 2, Obj. 1)

Jennifer Chamberlain and Kati Tvaruzka are compiling results of a survey conducted of UW libraries attempting to inventory K-12 outreach activities in place. Results will be shared at an upcoming webinar.

Assessment: develop online repository of assessment tools, techniques, experience  (Strat. Dir. 3, Obj. 1)

Jill Markgraf and Brad Gee will begin working on a survey to send to the CUWL directors regarding the tools and procedures being used at each library for assessment (reference, instruction, etc). The survey results will ultimately be reported on the USCC wiki and serve as the basis of a presentation at the annual conference. 

Membership: The committee has had two vacant positions for most of the year. Heather Weltin, UW-Madison, has been names to replace the seat vacated by Lee Conrad this fall. We are awaiting official word on the replacement of the archivist representative seat vacated by Colleen McFarland last spring.

CUWL Conference: The committee has been discussing and identifying possible topics for the CUWL summer conference. Among the ideas generated are:

  • Collaborations with K-12 community
  • Reference and/or instruction assessment
  • Finals week/welcome activities in the library
  • librarians teaching credit courses (FYE, others)
  • learning community librarians
  • marketing in the library (Brad Gee?)
  • Libraryh3lp chat system in a consortial environment (Jennifer Chamberlain and UW-Colleges colleagues?)
  • sharing core training materials
  • incorporating infolit skills/learning outcomes into the campus core competencies
  • librarian teaching loads
  • additional programming for support staff
  • mobile applications (in collaboration with LTCC)