EDITOR'S NOTES
Libraries and Learning Initiatives
by Dick Kaser
This issue, we take a look at what librarians are doing to advance educational and learning initiatives within their communities—and it’s quite a wide range of projects and activities. Taylor Greene, Rand Boyd, and Doug Dechow discuss a project they conducted at Chapman University’s Leatherby Libraries. It focuses on incorporating library content within the learning management course system Canvas. Specifically, their case study deals with introducing a library instruction component within individual class modules. Robin Hastings, library services consultant for the Northeast Kansas Library System, addresses how adopting a personal knowledge management approach can help librarians apply their own knowledge to problem-solve. She introduces two new tools that use linked data to help you organize and connect your thoughts, notes, documents, and project files.
Brian Gray and Jennifer Starkey (Case Western Reserve University) describe implementing a CRM system to improve the user experience of students and faculty members. They chose Springshare’s LibConnect platform and discuss the motivation, implementation, and rollout.
In order to make a 3D printer available to support student projects, librarians Wilhelmina Randtke, Lee Bareford, and Alley Tooley (Georgia Southern University) dealt with a lack of funds for extra ventilation. They share their analysis about how to distribute printers in your existing facility without needing to worry about the exhaust.
Finally, Carolyn Foote, a longtime school librarian, talks about her efforts to maintain diverse, high-quality school collections while fending off book challenges with the help of social media.
Library efforts to extend learning opportunities to students, patrons, and their local communities do not begin or end with these stories. Pick up on these and many other conversations at Internet Librarian in October.
Dick Kaser, Executive Editor
kaser@infotoday.com
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