College Librarians and Media Specialists of Washington State

Going to the OR-WA ACRL conference at Pac Forest is always fun and interesting. I have always been particularly fond of conferences as it always nice to learn something new. If not learning something new having what you are all ready doing validated, in a sense, because there is a presentation along the same lines as what you are doing. This conference was no exception.  I would urge all who read this blog to try and attend or present at this conference whenever it is being held in Washington.

The keynote address was titled “Engagement, Innovation and Value: Principles for Sustaining Today’s Academic Library” presented by Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe, ACRL past president.  She spoke about honoring the past as we invent the future.  I feel as we are doing that very nicely here in the CTC system.  As we CTC librarians are actively engaging our colleagues in integrating information literacy (IL) skills into the curriculum and participating in research to gather data. She suggested that we need to develop systems   to collect data on individual library user behavior but maintain privacy. By gathering data about our libraries we will be able to show the value of the library to the students and the college. There were some lightning talks on just that. One presentation included coming up with a card swipe from students getting reference help.  Another was about coding the reference interactions according to the READ Scale and the threats this could cause to librarians. Peter Smith from Western Washington University began keeping assessment data for a credit course called Introduction to Library Strategies.

Janicke Hinchliffe states that having good products and services are not enough and what makes our individual libraries different is customer service.  We need to be where the students are and if that means twitter or facebook then that’s where we should be.  Janicke Hinchliffe noted we need to…

Hello everyone and welcome back to fall quarter. As your CLAMS President for 2011-2012, I'm gearing up for the year. So to begin with, I want to encourage you all to attend the ACRL Washington and Oregon Fall Conference, Oct. 27-28, 2011 at Pack Forest. We will hold a CLAMS meeting from 7-8pm on Thursday, Oct. 27th in Macbride, Room 102, and I will send the agenda prior to that meeting. Details about the ACRL conference are below. I hope to see you all there.

• Registration is now open (note that CLAMS members pay $125.00)
• Preview the Conference Schedule
• Browse the presentation descriptions
• Proposals for Lightning Talks will be accepted through Oct. 3

CLAMS will also be co-sponsoring the Party & Pub Quiz Night from 8-11pm on the 27th, so we can enjoy lots of snacks, drinks, and laughter after we conclude our business.

There are other CLAMS business items on my "To Do" list, so you'll be hearing more from me soon. Please feel free to contact me with any questions/comments you have.

Deb Moore

CLAMS President

Highline Community College

dmoore@highline.edu