NJLA/ACRL User Education Committee Meeting

November 20, 2009

10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Hamilton Club, Passaic Community College, Paterson, NJ

Present: Ma Lei Hsieh (chair), Steve Chudnick, Eleonora Dubicki, Ruth Hamann, Theo Haynes, Chris Herz, Nancy Madacsi, Leslie Murtha.

Minutes of October 16, 2009 meeting approved with minor spelling corrections.

NJLA Conference (2010) Program Report: Eleonora distributed a detailed handout with the College & University Section sponsored programs. The luncheon “speaker” will celebrate the Research Committee’s 25th anniversary with a panel of past winners and what they have done since, hosted by Mark Thompson, current section chair.

VALE Conference Program: All four User Ed Comm. sponsored programs and 2 posters have been accepted for the January 2010 conference. The full schedule of events with details on topics and presenters is available at The Keynote Speaker will be Alex Wright from the New York Times.

Summer Program:

Suggestions were

1) a boot camp, where everyone who comes brings a tools or piece to contribute, for a Potluck Bring and Share; one topic suggestion is Open Source with John LeMasney on Gimp and Zotero.

2) breakout tables. The full program set up suggested would have each topic facilitator / specialist give a brief overview of their topic, then breakouts where topic facilitators have a table each, and participants can choose the topic of most interest to them. Lunch would include discussion topics for each table. Following would be another breakout like the morning one, and participants can choose another topic. Facilitators will be repeating their topics, but with a different group of participants. Flip charts would be available so recorders in each table group can summarize for the group at the end of the day.

Each User Ed Committee member will get specs from their institution including cost, & space that includes a central reconfigurable gathering place that could also be set up for table topic discussion, and would allow laptops or computer lab type hands-on learning for a few of the sessions. This summer program, will probably be held the end of the first week in June, the 7th or 8th.

Areas which committee members agreed to explore and define with a description of the section or topic are:

Lib Guides for Research Guides – Eleonora Dubicki

Linda Silverstein from Monmouth U.

Rubrics, especially for one-on-one sessions – Chris Herz

Open source options and participants could bring an example

How to teach citations – “Citation Station” – Steve Chudnick

Include: Noodle Tools, RefWorks, from online Indexes, Students with information and punctuation arrange themselves correctly

Scholarly vs. Popular Journals – Ruth Hamann

Evaluation of Sources – “Source Course” - Nancy Madacsi and Centenary College librarians Criteria

Developing Modules / Lesson Plans – Jacqui DaCosta & Nicole Cooke

Marketing E-Resources – Theo Haynes

Future Meetings:

Feb 12 Rider

March 12 Rutgers - Camden

April No meeting (NJLA)

May 7 or 14 County College of Morris or Centenary College or William Paterson

Other News:

Leslie reported that all the minutes for the committee are posted. The most recent three years are on the NJLA wiki, and earlier ones are still on the yahoo.groups committee site at as this seems a stable archive site and the wiki is not.

Ma Lei will be participating in the ACRL Immersion Assessment program this year and also at the Brick & Click Library Symposium.

Respectfully submitted by Theo Haynes