These longer (20-50 minutes) presentations have been pre-recorded by their presenters. Conference attendees can view them whenever their schedule allows. We will host live viewing parties of some 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 presentations will have a viewing party on the day of TCAL. Only the sessions with a “Register” link will have viewing parties
Back to the drawing board: Adapting a student-focused research study during the pandemic
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Presentation Transcript
Over the last year and a half, a faculty-student research team was challenged to pivot their research project in response to the evolving COVID-19 pandemic. The project began in early spring 2020 with a goal of exploring student awareness of and engagement with Towson’s Special Collections & University Archives (SCUA) through in-person surveying. As campus policies and plans changed during 2020 and early 2021, the research team faced several challenges, including adapting their methodology, resubmitting the IRB application to reflect new health and safety protocol, modifying participant recruitment plans, and embracing new timelines. This presentation will share the research team’s experiences navigating the pandemic and the lessons they learned since spring 2020 that have helped them stay committed to their project. Finally, the presentation will share the team’s plan for gathering data during the upcoming fall semester as students transition back to campus, requiring yet another return to the drawing board.
Ashley Todd-Diaz – Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections and University Archives, Towson University
Ashley Todd-Diaz is Assistant University Librarian for Special Collections and University Archives at Towson University. She also teaches as an adjunct professor in Emporia State University’s School of Library and Information Management and Drexel University’s College of Computing and Informatics. Her interests include archives as organizations, perceptions of archives, and archival literacy. She holds a Ph.D. from Emporia State University’s School of Library and Information Management, an MSIS with a concentration in Archives and Records Administration from SUNY at Albany, and an MA in English and American Literature from New York University.
Peyton Cleary – Student Researcher, Towson University
Peyton Cleary is a rising first-year graduate student at the University of Delaware, where she will pursue an MA in History and a certificate in Museum Studies. Peyton holds a BS in History from Towson University, where she worked with Dr. Todd-Diaz at TU’s Special Collections and University Archives. She also served as a student research assistant to the ongoing project Unearthing Towson’s History, where she standardized the project’s metadata and researched historic and modern-day activism at TU. She recently served the Maryland Center for History and Culture as a Digital Collections Intern. Her research interests include 20th and 21st century social movements in the United States, student activism, and archival accessibility and inclusivity.
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: A Learning Commons Continues to Evolve
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Presentation Transcript
Change, which is both dynamic and constant, is also necessary in order to stay relevant, successful, and viable in today’s world. In September 2018, one small community college introduced a cutting-edge, energized learning environment, launching a sustainable investment in learning for future students – the Learning Commons. But the work didn’t stop there. Since that time, the newly established Learning Commons has undergone many meaningful changes and adapted in unimaginable ways in response to the ever-changing environment of higher education. From facing significant staffing restructures to the acquisition of the college bookstore, this Learning Commons continues to lead and promote cross-departmental collaboration in order to support major college initiatives tied to the college’s strategic plan, including enrollment and student success. What sets this Learning Commons apart is a positive approach to adapting to change.
Jenny Meslener – Director of the library & Learning Commons, Garrett College
Jenny Meslener currently serves as the Director of the Library & Learning Commons at Garrett College. In this position, she is responsible for reference services, information literacy instruction, technical services, information technology, collection development and strategic planning. Jenny also oversees the college’s online merchandise store and eCampus textbook initiative. She is a member of the college’s OER Committee and Student Life & Services Governance Committee. Before stepping into this role, Jenny was a member of the library team at Cazenovia College.
Ashley Ruby – Director of Advising & Academic Success, Garrett College
Ashley Ruby presently serves as the Director of Advising and Academic Success at Garrett College. In this role, she administers a program of Academic, Career, and Transfer advising for new, developmental, and at-risk students. Also under her purview is a comprehensive Tutoring Center and Proctored Testing services. Her career background began in the public K-12 education sector, before transitioning to higher education where she has spent the last ten years. Ashley is also a recognized Complete College America Content Expert.
A Cite for More Eyes: Hosting Virtual Citation Management Workshops
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Presentation Transcript
Citation management is a time-saving adventure that enables students and faculty to streamline their research process. In an effort to appeal to the scholarship needs of researchers during a year of online instruction, four librarians came together to plan several citation management workshops. In addition to a brief, co-taught introduction that provided an overview and comparison of each tool, the workshops included breakout rooms that participants could enter based on their choice of citation manager: EndNote, Mendeley, or Zotero. In the breakout rooms, each librarian taught a specific tool in greater depth. Librarian instructors inferred a need for asynchronous content and created a corresponding library guide and a YouTube playlist for each tool as a result of the workshops. In this presentation, librarians will describe their workshop planning process, what went well and what did not, and provide advice for librarians looking to offer similar programming at their institutions.
Brittni Ballard – Learning Technologies Librarian, Towson University
Brittni Ballard was hired by Towson University in July 2019 as the Learning Technologies Librarian and subject liaison for Educational Technology and Literacy. She came to academic librarianship after experiments with classroom teaching, video game development, and non-profit work. When not working, she can be found playing video games and sipping coffee, snuggled with two pug-beagle mixes and a domestic shorthair cat on their chaise sofa. Connect with Brittni at bballard@towson.edu or via LinkedIn and Twitter!
Shana M. Gass – Business & Economics Librarian, Towson University
Shana Gass is the Business & Economics Librarian at Towson University and also liaises to the Human Resource Development Master’s program. Prior to Towson, she worked at Wheaton College, Mass. and the MIT Libraries. Active in MILEX, CABAL, and ALA-RUSA/BRASS, Shana’s research interests include business information literacy, confirmation bias, and collection management.
Carrie Price – Health Professions Librarian, Towson University
Carrie Price is the Health Professions Librarian at the Albert S. Cook Library at Towson University. She liaises with the majority of departments in the College of Health Professions. She joined the Cook Library in August of 2020. Prior to her work at Towson University, she was a clinical medical librarian at Johns Hopkins University and Medical Institutions. She has a strong interest in user experience, instructional design, and evidence-based research methods.
Elisabeth B. White – Science, Technology, and Mathematics Librarian, Towson University
Elisabeth White is the Science, Technology, and Mathematics Librarian at Towson University. In this role, she serves as the liaison librarian to the majority of Towson’s STEM departments and programs. She has been in this role since January 2019. Prior to becoming a librarian, Elisabeth worked as an assistant at a public library, a K-12 math tutor, and a laboratory technician in a biomedical engineering lab. Her research interests include information literacy instruction in the laboratory setting, accessibility in library instruction, and diversity and inclusion in collection management.
Collaborative Adaptations to Primary Source Instruction During COVID-19
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Presentation Transcript
This virtual session will focus on three examples that demonstrate how Nabb Research Center staff worked in collaboration to pivot primary source instruction in a remote environment during COVID-19. The archivists and curator will juxtapose the successes and failures of these activities before and during the pandemic, as well as explore the future pedagogical impact of this type of instruction post-pandemic. Local History Archivist, Ian Post, will discuss an introductory level World Civilizations course that utilized digital primary sources during a semester-long assignment culminating in websites based on National History Day guidelines. Jen Piegols, University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, will reflect on developing a one-shot session for an upper-level Women’s History course using a thematic selection of curated digital primary sources. Melinda McPeek, Curator of Exhibits and Engagement, will examine managing interns during the pandemic and the development of a new fully remote internship experience in digital humanities.
Ian Post – Local History Archivist, Salisbury University
Ian Post is the Local History Archivist at the Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture. He received his Masters of Science in Library and Information Science (MSLIS) with an advanced certificate in archives from Pratt Institute in 2015, previously earning a Bachelor of Science in history and philosophy from Grand Valley State University in 2014. He began as the University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at Salisbury University in 2016 before transitioning to Local History Archivist in 2019. He has worked in varying positions in archives throughout West Michigan and New York City since 2013.
Jennifer Piegols – University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian, Salisbury University
Jennifer Piegols is the University Archivist and Special Collections Librarian at the Nabb Research Center at Salisbury University. She graduated from Salisbury University in 2016 with her BA in History and English and earned her MLIS from University of Maryland College Park in 2019.
Melinda McPeek – Curator of Exhibits and Engagement, Salisbury University
Melinda McPeek is the Curator of Exhibitions and Engagement at the Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture. Ms. McPeek has worked in the museum field for over twenty years in the areas of collections management, conservation, and exhibitions. She received her BA in anthropology and art history from the College of William & Mary and her MA in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester. She has worked for a wide range of museums including the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian, the Museum of the Aleutians, and the Eastern Shore of Virginia Historical Society.
Crisis Mode: From Surviving to Thriving, what we did to transform our Ask Us service
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Presentation Transcript
The University of Maryland College Park’s move to fully remote work and learning environments in mid-March 2020 quickly and unexpectedly repositioned the UMD Libraries’ Ask Us! service as the primary means of receiving and answering user questions, prompting an exploration of how to increase the service’s visibility and improve its user experience and necessitating significant alterations to the staffing model.
We will cover the major changes we implemented during the Covid Crisis and how we are planning to continue our Ask Us! service when we reopen for the Fall semester in August 2021.
Judy Markowitz – Subject Reference Librarian / Reference coordinator / Virtual Reference (Ask Us!) Co-coordinator, University of Maryland, College Park
Judy Markowitz is the subject reference librarian liaison for the School of Public Policy, the Department of Government and Politics, and the Harriet Tubman Department of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. She is also the Coordinator of Reference Services and co-coordinator of the library-wide virtual reference services (Ask Us!) with James Spring.
James V. Spring – Coordinator, Library Services, User Services & Resource Sharing / Virtual Reference Ask Us! Co-coordinator, University of Maryland, College Park
James V. Spring, is the Coordinator for the Library Services, User Services & Resource Sharing unit at the University of Maryland, College Park. He manages a team of seven staff and the first floor service point at the McKeldin Library. In addition, he co-coordinates the library-wide virtual reference services (Ask Us!) with Judy Markowitz.
Managing a Virtual Team During a Global Pandemic: Tips for Success
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Presentation Slides
Presentation Handout
When the pandemic sent everyone home for full-time remote work on March 13, 2020, the UMGC Library reference team had to adapt quickly to working from home. While this transition has been largely successful, there were a few challenges along the way. These included rethinking walk-in appointments and phone service, meetings, engagement, and working together on projects. Managing the team effectively meant using technology tools such as Zoom, Teams, and SharePoint, as well as understanding the challenges many librarians were facing at home, including caring for small children who were also learning remotely. Managing virtually has been a learning experience that has been rewarding overall, resulting in a completely engaged and effective team of reference librarians. This presentation will give tips on how to successfully manage a remote team during a pandemic.
Julie Harding – Assistant Director for Public Services, University of Maryland Global Campus
Julie Harding is the Assistant Director for Public Services for the University of Maryland Global Campus Library. In this role she oversees all reference and instruction operations and reference personnel in the library. She received her Master’s of Library Science degree from the University of Maryland iSchool in 1998, and her MBA from University of Maryland Global Campus in 2016. Her research areas of interest have included the effect of open educational resources on the reference desk, virtual reference services, web conferencing in the online classroom, and ethnographic studies on search strategies of graduate students.
Pandemic Pandemonium
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Presentation Transcript
This session will explain how I had to do several jobs at once during the initial months of the pandemic to ensure the library was running. Not only did I have to do my job as Lending Supervisor for ILL, but also all of our student worker’s jobs (students weren’t allowed to come back to work yet) and be the library mailman. I will explain different ways that I handled stress, took things one day at a time, and came out of it with an even greater appreciation for our student workers and what they do.
Zachary Madeley – ILL-Lending Supervisor, Sam Houston State University
My name Is Zach Madeley and I am currently a Library Assistant II at the Newton Gresham Library at SHSU and I oversee the Copy Room and ILL Lending. I have been working on campus since 2012 and my previous career was in Student Affairs. I received my Bachelor’s degree in English from SHSU, then I moved to San Antonio where I worked at the UTSA University Center and received my Master’s in College Administration. I ended up finding my way back to Huntsville and I have decided it was time for a career change. Given my love of reading, I decided to pursue a Master’s in Library Science from Texas Woman’s University, which I received in 2019.
Reimagining Internships in a Virtual Environment
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Presentation Transcript
When the pandemic hit in March 2020, the Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HSHSL) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) was in the process of drafting a call for an intern to split time between Historical Collections and the Resources Division. That call never went out. Instead the library looked for new projects and ways to offer remote internships to graduate students during UMB’s mandatory telework. In this session, the presenters will describe the planning and execution involved in creating virtual internships, describe the projects, and discuss the successes and lessons learned.
Tara Wink – Historical Collections Librarian and Archivist, Health Sciences and Human Services Library, University of Maryland, Baltimore
Tara Wink is currently the Historical Librarian and Archivist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s (UMB) Health Sciences and Human Services Library. Prior to this position she was the Special Collections Librarian at West Chester University of Pennsylvania’s (WCU) Francis Harvey Green Library. In both of these appointments she improved the departments presence both within the library and on campus through marketing, outreach, and successful collaborations. Tara has a Master’s Degree in Library Science from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill and Bachelor’s Degree in History and German from Gettysburg College. She is a member of the Mid Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) and Librarians, Archivists, and Museum Professionals in the History of Health Sciences (LAMPHHS) organizations.
Christina Baker – Human Resources Specialist, University of Maryland, Baltimore
Christina Baker is the former Human Resources (HR) Specialist for the University of Maryland, Baltimore’s Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HSHSL), where she spent four years managing the HR functions for the library’s faculty and staff. She has a Master’s Degree in Sport Management & Policy from the University of Georgia and a Bachelor’s Degree in Sport Management from the University of Florida. Christina is a member of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA-HR).