TCAL Talks are shorter (6-8 minutes), Pecha Kucha-style presentations. Presenters give brief hot takes on their topic or project in order to entice the curiosity of the audience. These presentations have been pre-recorded by their presenters. Conference attendees can view them whenever their schedule allows. We will host live viewing parties of a few of these sessions during the day of the conference. Attendees of a viewing party will be able to watch the presentation together, and then engage in live discussion and Q&A with the presenters following the viewing.
To view a recording (on or after July 28), click on the session title.
To register and attend a viewing party for any session, click on “Register” below the session title.
Note: Not all of these pre-recorded TCAL Talks will have a viewing party on the day of TCAL. Only the sessions with a “Register” link will have viewing parties
Archaeology in the Archives: Finding Strength in the Familiar
Learn how an archivist navigated a cross-country move, a new job, and a global pandemic all within the span of two months by playing to his strengths as a former student of Archaeology. Visualize how you can reimagine utilizing toolkits from other disciplines to aid your current workflow and ground yourself in the midst of the unfamiliar.
John Esh – Processing Archivist, Towson University
John Esh is the Processing Archivist at Towson University (TU) and holds a Master of Library Science from Emporia State University as well as a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology with an archaeological focus and a minor in French language from Portland State University and l’Université de Poitiers.
COVID Consternation: Transitioning Student Workers Online During the Pandemic
After the call was made for the library to shut its physical doors and go completely virtual in March 2020, questions arose about remote work opportunities for student assistants. The student assistant supervisors communicated with Federal Work Study & library budget student assistants to coordinate remote working schedules and projects. This presentation will highlight how we used Microsoft Teams to communicate & store shared files, give examples of projects our teleworking students completed, and describe how we maintained accountability in a remote working environment. We will also address student feedback about the experience and aspects that we can use moving forward as we plan for a return to pre-Covid staffing levels and building hours in Fall 2021.
Stephanie Schweighardt – Circulation Supervisor, Clayton State University
Stephanie is currently the Circulation Supervisor at Clayton State University Library in Morrow, Georgia while also pursuing her MLIS degree at Valdosta State University. She started in academic libraries as an undergraduate student assistant at Rollins College Olin Library. She has supervised student assistants in academic libraries for the last six years.
Ashley Woodruff – Reference & Instruction Librarian, Clayton State University
Ashley earned her MLIS from the University of South Carolina. She currently works as a Reference & Instruction Librarian and Student Assistant Supervisor at Clayton State University Library in Morrow, Georgia. She got her start in academic libraries as a circulation student assistant at Mercer University’s Jack Tarver Library.
The Dilemma of Returnables during COVID Leads to Unorthodox Solution: A partnership between Academic and Public Libraries in Connecticut
Due to the COVID-19 shutdown of academic libraries, students were left holding interlibrary loan books that they couldn’t return to their home-campus library where they initially requested them. In order to get these books returned, a small task force of concerned academic interlibrary loan librarians gathered to brainstorm solutions. The unorthodox solution that was proposed and implemented included the participation of not only academic, but also public libraries, who agreed to accept and forward any books that were returned by college students in lockdown in Connecticut. This partnership between Connecticut academic and public libraries allowed students to easily return their books to a nearby library and academic interlibrary loan libraries to successfully account for hundreds of outstanding books.
Kellie O’Donnell-Bobadilla – Head of Access and Interlibrary Loan Services, Eastern Connecticut State University
Kellie O’Donnell-Bobadilla is a librarian who currently works at Eastern Connecticut State University, in Willimantic, CT. She has been a librarian for thirty years, wearing many hats, mostly in access services, interlibrary loan, and reference and instruction.
Implementing and Piloting Leganto Reading Lists
During to the pandemic, libraries around the world sought solutions to support faculty who were converting their courses and course materials to an online format. In an effort to help with this process, Coastal Carolina University’s Kimbel Library employed ExLibris’ Leganto reading lists.
The Leganto reading list application, built on Ex Libris’ Alma discovery layer, integrates our library’s catalog and databases with the campus course management system. Our goal in implementing the platform was to provide faculty with a quick, easy way to locate and link library and internet resources from within the course management system.
We spent the summer learning about and implementing Leganto, and the fall and spring semesters tweaking the system and teaching it to librarians and faculty. This presentation will provide an overview of Leganto, the implementation process, our successes and failures, our strategies for recruiting, training, and supporting faculty users, and analysis of user feedback.
Ariana Baker – Scholarly Engagement Librarian, Coastal Carolina University
Ariana Baker currently serves as the Scholarly Engagement Librarian at Coastal Carolina University. She received her MLIS from Rutgers University and M. Ed. from Coastal Carolina University.
Jennifer Hughes – Associate University Librarian, Coastal Carolina University
Jennifer Hughes is the Associate University Librarian at Coastal Carolina University. She received her MLIS front the University of South Carolina and MBA from Coastal Carolina University.
Pivoting… to a new way to work with doctoral students
The Covid-19 pandemic has led to major changes in how research support is being provided to UMGC doctoral students. Pre-pandemic, students would receive face-to-face instruction each term when they attended in-person residencies, but residencies are now held online and so the students receive support virtually. This presentation will discuss how doctoral students were supported before the pandemic and how they’re being supported now and will present the pros and cons of each method of support. The presentation will offer concrete suggestions that librarians can use to support students at any level.
Cynthia Thomes – Reference and Instruction Librarian, University of Maryland Global Campus
Cynthia Thomes is a reference and instruction librarian III at University of Maryland Global Campus and serves as the library’s liaison to the DBA and MBA programs. She has also been an adjunct associate professor for UMGC and developed, managed, and taught a fully online library research skills class for doctoral students. Prior to her arrival at UMGC in 2007, she was a technical information specialist at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, NM. She received her Master of Science in Library Science degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and received a BA in English and psychology from the College of William and Mary.
Service point staff become content creators: now that’s a pivot!
What can library staff who provide direct assistance to users in physical spaces do when those libraries close? At Virginia Commonwealth University Libraries, our service point workers were connected with a variety of telework ready projects for other units within the libraries, including quality assurance reviews of our video captions, writing abstracts for materials in our institutional repository, and much more. This was an opportunity that staff in our Information Services & Learning Spaces department would never have had before the pandemic forced us to rethink their contributions to the work of the library outside of their usual duties. This was an unexpected win-win; departments which had placed projects aside for lack of time and staffing found staff interested in helping, and service point staff were able to engage at a new level with our collections. We hope to continue these new relations into the future!
M. Teresa Doherty – Interim Head, Information Services & Learning Spaces, Virginia Commonwealth University
M. Teresa Doherty, MLIS is the interim head of Information Services & Learning Spaces in James Branch Cabell Library at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. She coordinates the work staff that provides frontline services to students, researchers, and visitors through in-person interactions as well as through chat and text services, around the clock (or, at least, before the pandemic, this was a bustling 24×5 library). She also leads research and information literacy sessions for undergraduate students in Focused Inquiry classes.
Teresa has served as an active member of the American Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee for more than 10 years. She led a working group to craft guidelines for public and academic libraries using social media, and recently participated in work groups focused on the use of facial recognition software in libraries and condemning US enterprises’ abridgement of free speech.
The Struggle Is Real : suggestions on how to stay motivated and tackle projects using the Getting Things Done method of personal organization
Self-motivation and organization are always tough skills to master, especially when moving between in-person and remote work. As a Cataloging Librarian, I found myself struggling to plan new remote projects and keep on top of my existing duties at the beginning of quarantine, like many of my peers. Yet I soon found two things that helped me immensely – Asana, a free project management website, and the book Getting things done: the art of stress-free productivity by David Allen. For the past few months, I’ve been able to develop a system of stress-free productivity and organization using features from both Asana and the Getting Things Done (GTD) method. Explore ways to get on top of your growing to do list and stay stress-free in this presentation of organizational tips and tricks for both the savvy tech crowd and the pen-and-paper aficionados.
Jacqueline Saavedra – Cataloger / Metadata Librarian, University of the District of Columbia
Jacqueline Saavedra is a Cataloger/Metadata Librarian at the University of the District of Columbia, where she oversees all cataloging and metadata activity for the library’s print and digital holdings. She has worked in academic libraries for 8 years, and graduated from Florida State University with an MLIS in 2012.