National Information Literacy Month

BY SHARON WEINER

In early August, Senator John Kerry and the late Senator Edward Kennedy, on behalf of the National Forum on Information Literacy, submitted a joint support letter to President Obama requesting a presidential proclamation establishing October as National Information Literacy Awareness Month. As the Vice President of the National Forum, I was thrilled when President Obama issued this proclamation on October 1, 2009.

According to the American Library Association, “Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.” Dealing with information is part of everyone’s lives, and having a strong foundation of information literacy skills helps people develop health literacy, technology literacy, and financial literacy, to name a few. You want to find the best information when you or a loved one has a health problem, when you are thinking about changing careers, or when you want to manage your finances better.  These are all examples of times when information literacy skills are important, and not having them can have serious consequences.

Each year, in honor of National Information Literacy Month, the National Forum on Information Literacy will work with schools, businesses, and organizations to promote community-based information literacy activities. The work we’re already doing at Purdue in establishing information literacy in Purdue’s curriculum, teaching collaborative courses with Purdue faculty, and teaching people to find information at our service desks all help in raising awareness and working to instill values of lifelong learning in our students.

In addition to this landmark proclamation, the National Forum celebrated its 20th anniversary last week (October 15-16) at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Conference Center in Washington, D.C. We recognized not only the achievements of the National Forum in advocating for this presidential proclamation, but also recognized Purdue’s own Dean James L. Mullins for his role in establishing the world’s first endowed chair in information literacy here at Purdue.

To read the full proclamation, visit: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Presidential-Proclamation-National-Information-Literacy-Awareness-Month/

Related stories:

• “Information literacy more than just Googling,” in the Journal & Courier, October 12, 2009 (http://www.jconline.com/article/20091012/NEWS0501/910120320)
• Resource Shelf:  http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/10/12/information-literacy-month-an-interview-with-a-purdue-university-librarian/
• The ADL Librarian blog: http://theadlibrarian.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/october-is-information-literacy-month/

At the September all-staff meetings (summarized in the 10/7/09 issue of INSIDE), we talked about the new performance process for clerical/service and administrative professional staff, which we’ll begin to implement in January 2010 in the Libraries, Press, and Copyright Office. The new process and related tools are intuitive, so extensive training is not needed. However, the Libraries Administration is offering face-to-face, small-group orientation sessions to help employees and supervisors answer the question, “How will I make this work for me?” Rebecca Richardson has sent an email to liball with specific dates and times, and how to register. Here’s an overview with information on sessions for employees and sessions for supervisors.

C/S and A/P employees
You are encouraged to participate in an orientation session:

Employees’ Orientation to the Performance Process (sessions offered Nov 4 – Dec 18).
This 90-minute session will orient you to the new process and tools, and provide guidance on planning and assessing your own performance.
PLEASE NOTE:  If you also supervise C/S or A/P staff, please register for the Supervisors’ Orientation Session and not for the Employees’ Orientation Session.

Supervisors of C/S and A/P employees
Your role as a supervisor is a critical one in the success of your staff, your library/unit, and the Libraries, and you will be evaluated on your performance in your supervisory role. Therefore, you are strongly encouraged to participate in both of the following:

Supervisors’ Orientation to the Performance Process (sessions offered Oct 28 – Nov 3).
This 90-minute session will orient you to the new process and tools, and provide guidance on coaching employees as you work together through the process.
 
Supervisors’ Measurable Goals Workshop (sessions offered Dec 2 - Jan 5). 
This two-hour session will help you work with your employees to develop measurable performance goals.

PLEASE NOTE:  

• Undergraduate student assistants are not included in the new performance process. Therefore, if you supervise only undergraduate students (and do not also supervisor C/S or A/P employees), please do not register for the sessions for supervisors.  
• If you supervise graduate assistants, please watch for an email with information specifically for supervisors of graduate assistants.

Information relating to the new system will be available on the intranet beginning in late October.

Questions and comments may be emailed to Nancy Hewison  nhewison@purdue.edu

Our Local Holdings Records (LHR) have been loaded into OCLC WorldCat database. Now when our patrons search WorldCat and click on the “Libraries worldwide that hold this title” link, they will see Purdue’s holdings statement for serial titles. Having our LHRs in WorldCat will also facilitate ILL and resource sharing because staff at other libraries can see our holdings and only ask us for articles from journals for which we hold the needed volumes. Having our serial holdings in WorldCat will also make future collection analysis projects easier.

Dawn Stahura Wins Scholarship Named In Memory of Former Purdue Librarian, Esther Schlundt (1929-1965)

Dawn Stahura, UGRL library assistant, has been awarded for the third time the Esther Schlundt Memorial Scholarship through the Indiana Library Federation.

The award is presented to an applicant enrolled in the ALA-accredited graduate degree program in library information science or to an applicant enrolled in an Indiana State Library-approved library certification program. The fund was established in memory of Esther M. Schlundt, a Purdue University Librarian and professor (see below).

Dawn is enrolled in graduate courses in Library and Information Sciences at IUPUI.  She has maintained a 4.00 GPA throughout the entire graduate program. 

Dawn is grateful for the scholarship and says, "As for my future career goals, I am most interested in instruction. These classroom interactions are similar to the reference interview but on a much bigger scale. I have found you can cover much more material in the classroom than you can sometimes at the desk. Also, right now, I am working on the finer details of the Harry Potter exhibit which is coming in March 2010. From this I have discovered that I really enjoy networking and working with organizations on campus and within the community to see how our libraries can work with them to meet educational goals.  I think it is an exciting time in which to be earning my MLS because the push for information literacy has never been more important or needed."

Dawn will graduate in December. 

ESTHER M. SCHLUNDT, 1905 - 1968
Esther Schlundt’s service in the Libraries began in 1929 when she came to Purdue with a library science degree from the University of Illinois library school, and she progressed through a series of positions, becoming Reference Librarian in 1943 and Head, Readers Services in 1953. She earned a master’s degree in library sciences from the University of Michigan in 1941.

Professor Schlundt was largely responsible for organizing the literature collection for use in the libraries, adapting traditional library procedures to the meet the new demands of patrons, and was particularly effective in making use of the many new sources of information that were of special importance to the Purdue scientific and technical community.

Professor Schlundt saw the library as a teaching and service institution.  She expected her staff to make use of every opportunity to instruct library users, from the newest freshman to the scholar-specialist. Her own teaching was skillful and revealed her enthusiasm whether in the formal classroom situation, individually with students and staff in the library, or at meetings and conferences with her colleagues.

She was well published, and co-authored a reference bibliography in microbiology and a standard guide to literature sources in the biological sciences. She was a member of both the American Library Association and the Indiana Library Association, where she was a member of the Executive Board and chaired the Scholarship and Loan Committee for many years. In 1951-1952 she was president of the Indiana chapter of Special Libraries Association.  Other professional memberships included American Society for Engineering Education and American Association of University Professors.  At Purdue she was a member of the Committee on Education for Women and served as its chair.

Esther Schlundt retired from the Purdue Libraries in September 1965.

Editor’s Note:  Thank you to Richard Funkhouser for his research on Esther Schlundt in the Archives and Special Collections. “She was my boss from 1958 to 1963. She served as Head of Readers Services, which was Public Services, and became Head of the General Library where departmental librarians all reported to her. She also was in charge of the Archives and Special Collections. She was an excellent mentor to her staff. She taught me how to manage a library and work with support staff and how to work with the teaching faculty in providing library services and collection development,” said Mr. Funkhouser.

The Memorial resolution for Esther Schlundt was included in the University Senate Minutes, 1968-1969 and written by Jane Ganfield, Ann Kerker, Molete Morelock, Margaret Sullivan, and Keith Dowden.

New Staff

Amanda Gill
Engineering/Operations Coordinator

I started working in the Libraries on September 28, 2009. In 1998, I graduated from Purdue with a degree in Professional Writing. The last six years saw me working for a company that provided internet-based study guides and resources for K-12 teachers.

I am extremely happy to be back at Purdue in my new role as Operations Coordinator. My responsibilities include supervising clerical staff and providing assistance and guidance in the use of library resources. I’m still finding my way and learning more about the position and the libraries every day, but I’m very much enjoying it so far.

I live in West Lafayette with my husband, two children and three cats. Every free moment I can find I spend knitting (lace is my favorite, but socks are a close second). My other hobbies include beading, hand spinning, reading, cooking, and playing video games with my kids.

Amanda is located in the Engineering Library and can be reached at 494-2870 and gill3@purdue.edu .

Stephan Miller
Windows System Administrator
Information Technology, DPIA

I actually started working at Purdue back in the 1980s as a Laboratory Technician. I did this for three years until I decided to leave Purdue for private industry and then eventually working for state government (INDOT). In  1999 I came back to Purdue as a Computer Technical Expert for the Vice President for Research (VPR) department. I stayed in VPR for ten years working my way to the position of Computer Systems Administrator. On September 14, 2009 I started the next phase of my career by moving from VPR to Libraries IT.

I am a graduate of Jefferson High School and attended classes at Purdue and Ivy Tech.  I live here in Lafayette as do my parents. I have a younger brother that lives in San Diego and my daughter, Jamie, who graduated from Purdue in 2003 currently lives and works in the Chicago area.

Stephan is located in STEW 363 and can be reached at 49-42891 or stephanmiller@purdue.edu.

It all started during Green Week when I picked up an ecological footprint calculator quiz that was missing its interpretation page. That started me surfing the web for online calculators. I was led to articles about calculators, sales pitches for consulting firms who would calculate a company’s work space, and actual calculators for both personal and work spaces. I did a few, and like Facebook quizzes, some may be more useful than others—critiquing the questions was as interesting as looking at results.

I am not giving URLs because several sites asked not to have large numbers of people directed there at one time. I figure that if you surf to find your own, chances are we will not all land on the same site simultaneously.

The most interesting one I tried started out giving world resources needed based on an average footprint: multiplying that average by world population showed it  would require 1 ½ earths to sustain.  Forgetting the disparity between haves and have-nots that would be included in the average, I was expecting to come out needing less. Imagine my surprise when my results –which were consistently below the average, but this time for country — were that for the whole world population to live at my level, would require 3.93 earths. That confirmed results from another instrument that said I had started well, but needed more work. So I'm trying the “No Impact experiment “October 18-24. http://noimpactproject.org/experiment/ .

CBS Films Segment for Sunday Morning Show

CBS correspondent Kimberly Dozier interviews Robin Jensen, assistant professor of communication, regarding her research about Amelia Earhart for a segment scheduled to air on Sunday, October 18 on "CBS Sunday Morning." Interviews also were conducted with Sammie Morris, associate professor of library science and university archivist, who manages the George Palmer Putnam Collection of Amelia Earhart Papers; and John Norberg, development communications manager and author of "Wings of Their Dreams: Purdue in Flight." Footage was shot in the HSSE Library, Libraries Archives and Special Collections, and at the Purdue airport. To view the segment click here.

People working in libraries perform numerous manual tasks and shelving is one of them. Shelving books and journals can put stress on your back, arms, hands, wrists, and shoulders. It can also increase the risk of repetitive stress injuries. Keep in mind that a 10 pound object will put 100 pounds of pressure on the back.

Risk Factors for Shelving Tasks

1. Weight of books and journals
2. Reaching and bending
3. High repetition rate of tasks

Tips for Safe Shelving

• Reaching overhead puts stress in your shoulders, arms and upper back. Use a foot stool when shelving books on high shelves.
• Carrying too many books while shelving can put stress on your arms and shoulders. Carry only the book being shelved.
• Bending at the waist puts stress on your back. Squat when shelving on low shelves, keeping your back straight.
• Lifting heavy books and journals can put stress on your wrists, arms, and shoulders. Use two hands to lift heavy books and journals.
• To prevent wrist injury when shelving avoid use of the “pinch grip.”
• To lessen the weight and strain on your arms, hands, and wrists switch back and forth between using your left and right arms.

Tips for Lifting and Carrying

• Bend at the knees and keep your back straight.
• Put the load close to your body and lift with your legs.
• Carry loads close to the body.
• Place heavy loads at waist level when possible.
• Take a step and turn instead of twisting.
• Do not carry too many books or journals at one time.

In Memoriam

RICHARD "DICK" McINTYRE

Dick worked in the Engineering Library as a reference and shelving assistant. He worked at Purdue for 32 years before retiring in 2003.

Dick enjoyed working with students and engineering staff and faculty. He is survived by his wife, Jeri, a daughter, Marti, and a grandson.

Libraries Faculty Host Open Access Table Display

Maribeth Slebodnik shares information with a graduate student about open access and the Purdue Libraries. Purdue is participating in the first annual international Open Access Week from October 19-23. Open Access Week featured speakers, displays, and programs on a variety of open access issues relevant to the Purdue research community.