Director, Archives, Special Collections and Digital Programs

As part of its ongoing review of vacant position, the Executive Committee has approved proceeding with the filling of the Director, Archives position. The position will be posted this week on the University’s online position recruitment website.

Call for Volunteers for Search Committee

Call for Volunteers for Search Committee for the Director, Archives Position

Of course, with recruitment beginning for this position, we need to form a search committee! If you are interested in serving on this committee, please send me a message no later than Monday, September 8.

Poet Natasha Trethewey to Read

As part of the Kentucky Women Writers Conference, noted poet, Natasha Trethewey, will read her poetry in the Young Library Auditorium on Friday, September 12, from 4:30 to 5:30. The event is free and open to the public. The UK Libraries is co-sponsoring this reading with the Conference and I hope some of you will plan to attend. You can read more about the conference and Trethewey at http://www.uky.edu/WWK/

Career Enhancement Program - IMLS Grant

Planning continues for our participation in the ARL/IMLS grant for a minority fellowship program. The call for applications is now online at http://www.arl.org/news/pr/career-enhancement-18aug08.shtml. Please encourage any eligible library school students to consider this opportunity. Our Working Group began meeting this week to prepare to host our first fellows in 2009. More information will be forthcoming.

Young Library Information Services Changes

As we continue to look for the best ways to serve our students and faculty, Information Services in the Young Library has implemented the following changes for the fall semester. The service desk for the 2nd floor is now located in the Atrium just outside the Rotunda. This desk will provide reference assistance and is the service desk for PNM. The desk will be staffed from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. They have also expanded their Chat Reference Service. The Chat icon is now on the desktop of every machine in Young Library. This allows users to get assistance without leaving their machine. Chat will be available all hours the 2nd floor desk is open. Plans are to expand this service to all hours Young is open later in the semester. The Chat service will be shared by staff in Research and Education and Circulation. Another change is in the handling of the phone reference. Telephone reference will now be handled in the office area, allowing the staff at the Atrium desk to concentrate on walk in clientele.

Opt Out of Printed Pay Stub

Now that direct deposit of your paycheck is mandatory and now that the University has provided a way for you to check that paystub online (see 8-13-08 email instructions from Judy Sackett and http://www.uky.edu/HR/ESSOverview.html), I’d encourage you to “opt out” of receiving a printed pay stub. Not only will it save the printing costs, it will save much time for the Business Services staff who organize and distribute the printed pay stubs. It will also save time in your unit for the person who must retrieve those pay stubs from the Office of the Dean every pay day. Please let your student workers know about this option as well.

Publisher-Author Agreements and the NIH Public Access Policy

“ARL has released ‘PubMed Central Deposit and Author Rights: Agreements between 12 Publishers and the Authors Subject to the NIH Public Access Policy,’ by Ben Grillot ….
To help authors make informed choices about their rights, Grillot compares how the agreements of 12 publishers permit authors to meet the requirements of the recently revised National Institutes of Health (NIH) Public Access Policy and share their works while they are under embargo. The NIH Public Access Policy requires authors of NIH-funded research to deposit their works in PubMed Central and make them publicly available within 12 months of publication.

Grillot focuses his analysis on how the agreements differ in: the terms and procedures of deposit of the work, the length of any embargo period, and the rights of the author to use and share the work during the embargo period. Grillot presents summary tables that .. show the similarities and differences across agreements. He also analyzes the implications of these agreements.”

The pdf is available from the ARL Web site at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/grillot-pubmed.pdf.”

SOLINET Training Calendar for fall available online

The printable Fall 2008 Quarterly Class Schedule is now available on the SOLINET website. They have introduced 2 new Training Tracks and 14 new classes this fall.

New Training Tracks
Open Source: Evergreen Software Track
Disaster Prevention and Response Track

New Classes (Live Online)
Evergreen Guided Tour and DemoEvergreen Circulation and OPAC Module
Evergreen Cataloging Module
Evergreen Administration and Statistics Module
Managing Student Assistants in Academic Libraries
20 Questions: Music Resources
20 Questions: Art Resources
Establishing Emergency Response Networks for Cultural Collections
Archives Preservation
Using WorldCat on the Web: WorldCat.org

New Classes (Self-Paced)
Dreamweaver
General Cataloging Principles and Practices
Designing with Style!
Interpreting the MARC Record

Weekly Schedule Resumes Sept. 12

The next Dean’s Update will appear on September 12. At that time I’ll resume a weekly schedule.

Beloit College Mindset List

Every fall the folks at Beloit College release their “mindset” list about this year’s incoming freshman class (Class of 2012). You’ll find the details at http://www.beloit.edu/mindset/

Star in your own READ mini poster

From American Libraries Direct

Star in your own READ mini poster

Jenny Levine writes: “One of the fun projects I’ve gotten to shepherd at work is now available for you to play with—the READ Mini Poster Generator. Useful for web badges, profile pictures, and especially graphics for events such as Banned Books Week (which is coming up in September). It’s just like the generators on fd’s Flickr Toys because it was created by John Watson, Mr. fd himself. If you post yours to Flickr, be sure to add it to the READ posters pool.”...The Shifted Librarian, Aug. 7

ACRL on the Desk and Beyond

From American Libraries Direct

ACRL on The Desk and Beyond

ACRL has released a new publication, The Desk and Beyond: Next Generation Reference Services, edited by Sarah Steiner and M. Leslie Madden of Georgia State University. The book provides a thorough exploration of the present and possible future applications of 11 of the most promising new reference delivery methods. This forward-looking collection is intended to provide inspiration for potential new digital and physical reference services at academic libraries....

Spot Bonus for Marie Dale

Marie Dale’s primary assignment in SCDP as a Library Tech Sr. is to serve as an office manager for Preservation and Digital Programs.. Marie manages both the very beginning and the very end of the microfilming process by managing relations with customers, orders, receipts, claims, invoicing, and shipping. Her responsibilities also include payroll responsibilities for the large number of staff and students in Preservation and Digital Programs. During the transition following Adrienne Steven’s retirement, Marie played a crucial role in making it possible for SCDP to retool the procedures for payroll in SCDP. Each pay period she reviewed the SCDP paperwork and provided individual instruction to supervisors regarding the payroll process. Congratulations, Marie!

Spot Bonus for Theresa Yocum

Theresa's regular assignments are related to accounting support, but with the resignation of Payroll & HR Assistant Melody Brian last November, Theresa's primary responsibility became processing the payroll for the student workers and staff employees. This included time entry, adding and deleting people from payroll, managing payroll paperwork and absence reports, and maintaining the monthly absence reports. Theresa accepted this assignment willingly and, due to her conscientiousness and exact attention to detail, became very skilled very quickly. She solved a number of complicated payroll issues, improved procedures, and was very responsive and unfailingly pleasant and thorough in handling employee and student payroll questions and resolving problems. Theresa also played an instrumental role in training the new Payroll Assistant, Troy Martin. Her patience, thoroughness, and ongoing support have helped assure a smooth and mostly seamless transition as the majority of the payroll duties have shifted over to Troy. Congratulations, Theresa!

Poem by Jane Vance Posted

For those of you who were able to attend the 10th anniversary celebration in May, we were delighted when Kentucky’s poet laureate, Jane Gentry Vance, honors the Library with the presentation of an original poem about the library. Her poem is now posted on our web site at http://www.uky.edu/Libraries/libpage.php?lweb_id=723&llib_id=14

The Map of Early Modern London

From American Libraries Direct

The Map of Early Modern London

This site maps the streets, sites, and significant boundaries of late 16th-century and early 17th-century London. You can find many of the theatres and landmarks of Shakespeare’s time, and learn about the history and culture of the city in which he lived and worked. Navigation is by index or by tagged map section; an experimental map adds Google-style layers to the map platform. Janelle Jenstad, assistant professor of English at the University of Victoria, British Columbia, is editor and coordinator of the project....Map of Early Modern London

Factors that improve the online experience

From American Libraries Direct

Factors that improve the online experience

The Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement has released a report that sheds light on how people find information online and how the experience of website visitors can be improved. Some of its key findings: Easy access to complete information is key to visitor enjoyment; visitors want information fast; and designers are overly optimistic about visitors’ ability to maintain orientation. More than 50% report that there is a gap between what they are looking for and what typical websites provide, and 60% think that a personal navigational guide would help....Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement

On the move with the mobile web

From American Libraries Direct

On the move with the mobile web

In the fifth issue of Library Technology Reports this year, author and library-technology blogger Ellyssa Kroski outlines the components of the mobile web—the users, the devices, the operating systems, the services, the content—and illuminates the research that tracks how users currently engage with information on the Web via their mobile devices. She also delineates several library mobile initiatives and provides a “how to” chapter for libraries interested in developing a mobile experience for their users....

New Partners for Flickr Commons

From American Libraries Direct

New partners for Flickr Commons

The George Eastman House and the Bibliothèque de Toulouse have joined Flickr Commons and are providing open access to some of their images there. The woman dressed as an Egyptian dancer (right) is an autochrome provided by the George Eastman House. The Lumière brothers, inventors of the motion picture camera, invented the autochrome process in 1904. (The Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian is also providing access to part of its collection on Flickr, though not as part of the Commons project.)...Open Access News, July 28

Search Committee for Director, IT Support Formed

With the funding from the Provost to proceed with recruitment of a Director, IT Support in the IT Division, I have formed the search committee that will work with us to fill the position. The committee will be chaired by Kate Seago. Other members include Rob Aken, Jay Baker, Stacey Greenwell, Bev Hilton, and Judy Sackett (ex officio). My thanks to them for their willingness to serve.

Jeffrey Miller Resigns

Jeffrey Miller, Library Technician in the Access Services Division, has resigned his position, which is split between Interlibrary Loan and Circulation, Young Library. Jeffrey worked as a student assistant in Circulation for several years while attending UK; he began his regular position in May 2006. He is leaving to pursue his Master's Degree in Librarianship at Manchester Metropolitan University in Manchester, England. Jeffrey's last day with the Libraries will be August 8. We thank him for his years of good work with the Libraries and wish him much success and happiness for the future.

Facebook gets a facelift

From American Libraries Direct

Facebook gets a facelift

Facebook rolled out a major redesign of its social networking site late July 20 featuring a cleaner interface that links feed technology with user forums. Company officials said the updated site will give users more control and ownership over their profiles. The new version, now in limited use, will be rolled out gradually to Facebook’s 80 million users. The new look is all about the Wall, the blank space on a profile page that users can fill in with stories, photos, links, and the ever-popular Status Updates....New York Times, July 21; TechNewsWorld, July 22

LSU exhibits chronicles photo salvage effort

From American Libraries Direct

LSU exhibit chronicles photo salvage effort

Photographer Donn Young lost his life’s work in Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 when his studio in the Lakeview section of New Orleans was flooded. Then the Louisiana State University Library’s Special Collections department got involved in the hands-on recovery of the salvageable portion of Young’s holdings. Now an LSU exhibit showcases both Young’s pre-Katrina work as well as the library staff’s herculean efforts to save the remnants of his collection....Baton Rouge (La.) Advocate, July 20

17 things to do with your online photos

From American Libraries Direct

17 things to do with your online photos

Ellyssa Kroski suggests, among other things, creating librarian trading cards or badges, Animoto music videos, a coffee table book, an online portfolio, social networking slideshows, or photo widgets....iLibrarian, July 16

25 free stock ohoto sites

From American Libraries Direct

25 free stock photo sites

Bob Nolin writes: “I was quite surprised to find 25 good, solid resources out there. Note the terms of use for each site. Some of these sites offer free images in addition to images for a fee. All of them are worth a look. Keep in mind that Royalty Free does not mean the images are free; it means that you don’t need to pay the photographer a royalty each time you use the image.”...Digital Image Magazine, June 22