Information Literacy Update: The CORE Tutorial

BY SHARON WEINER

PILLAR: Campuswide Information Literacy

I would like to provide you an update on what is happening in relation to updating the CORE tutorial (http://gemini.lib.purdue.edu/core/
login/login.cfm). The Information Literacy (IL) Council is focusing its efforts on developing a plan.

CORE is an important resource that the Libraries created around 15 years ago for new Purdue students. Since then, there have been minor updates to it, but tutorials today should incorporate assessment, be interactive and engaging and apply new technologies. Developing a plan for the new CORE is a long and involved process. The IL Council has been careful to engage people who have been involved with it in the past and people who have thoughts on how it can be improved.

Two professors, Karen Chang (Nursing) and Nancy Pelaez (Biological Sciences) incorporate CORE in their courses for first-year students. They administered a survey about CORE to those students so that we would have the student perspective. The IL Council, with input from the Libraries faculty, drafted a list of learning outcomes for first-year students.

These outcomes specify what first-year students at Purdue should know in relation to information literacy. The Council will soon send it to faculty and administrators outside of the Libraries who have an interest in information literacy for their comments. I am now a member of the University’s Core Curriculum Committee and will communicate with that group about our draft outcomes, too.  

Once we finalize the list of what we expect first-year students to know, we can select the outcomes that are most appropriate for learning through tutorials. Then, we can begin work on the second generation of CORE.

For questions please contact me at sweiner@purdue.edu.

PILLAR: Infrastructure

When Purdue announced the special retirement incentive program last year, it seemed like January 2011 was a long time away and that it would be ages before we’d have to say goodbye to our friends and colleagues. Now that January 2011 is drawing to a close, staff that elected to participate in the retirement are on their way to the next chapter in their lives.  

This week marks the last full work week at Purdue Libraries for several of our colleagues who will wrap up their time at Purdue in this month: Claire Alexander, Laura Hawley, Ellen Risk, Beth Robertson, Cindy Smith and Linda Underhill. They, along with other recent Libraries retirees (Ruth Long, Pam DeBonte and Judy Humburg) have devoted more than 200+ combined years of dedicated service to Purdue. We will miss them and their excellent work to further the mission and goals of Purdue Libraries and Press. Please join the Deans Council in congratulating these employees on their many years of fine work and wishing them the very best in the years to come.

CLAIRE ALEXANDER
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and Engineering Reference Desk
Map Room and Circulation/Information desk.

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job and why?
A. I like the variety of tasks that comes with working in a small library. I especially enjoy reference questions in EAS and ENGR and also on digref.

Q. How long have you worked in the Libraries and at Purdue?
A. I started full time in 1995 as evening supervisor in UGRL. Before that I was a Graduate Assistant in UGRL for a couple years where I worked the reference desk. In 1986 I came to Purdue to study Rhetoric and Composition in the English Department where I was also a Teaching Assistant. Helping students with their research papers was a common feature of both assistantships.

Q. What is one unforgettable experience that has happened to you or your coworkers while working in the library?
A. One evening in UGRL there was a power outage. We had temporary lighting but didn’t know how long it would last. At first we were letting people stay but then we decided to urge them to leave. Because the door security depended on electricity we had to check back packs as they left. Just as the last student left the emergency lights went off and it was very, very dark! The next evening the fire alarm rang and we evacuated the building. Turns out that the sump pumps were overworked and smoking from our having stayed open the night before when the power was out. That changed the procedure in UGRL for power outages to include emptying the restrooms and locking the restroom doors as one of the first things to do.

Q. What do you plan to do after your retirement?
A. Working in the library has hindered my quilting progress, but fed my fabric STABLE (STash Accumulated Beyond Life Expectancy). I plan to spend time using that fabric, but must organize it first. I’ll also be downsizing in preparation for a move to Portland, OR. I’ll fit as much reading and travel into my time as possible. I plan to do all those activities that have sounded interesting but occurred between 8-5, M-F!

JUDY HUMBURG
Digital Programs and Information Access
Data Base Maintenance/Marking Clerk  

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job and why? 
A. The changes in my job over the years. This made working at Purdue most enjoyable.

Q. How long have you worked in the Libraries and at Purdue?
A. 19 1/2 years.

Q. What is one unforgettable experience that has happened to you or your coworkers while working in the library?
A. Being stuck in the service elevator with Connie Smith and Sharon Shuman.

Q. What do you plan to do after your retirement?
A. I retired at the end of November and traveling around with my husband looking for antique bargains is a real plus. I do miss my friends and co-workers but I don't miss the 22 mile drive in the bad weather of winter.

BETH ROBERTSON
Purdue University Press
Information Associate

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job and why?
A. I enjoy the daily interaction with my co-workers, authors and other personnel. I really enjoy the “quick I need this done today” as it keeps you on your toes.

Q. How long have you worked in the Libraries and at Purdue?
A. I’ve been with the PU Press for 11 1/2 years.

Q. What is one unforgettable experience that has happened to you or your coworkers while working in the library?
A. I guess the most unforgettable experience was when I was taken to the hospital by ambulance from our office when we were located at South Campus Courts. The halls and doorways were too narrow for the stretcher, and I was wheeled out of my office in my chair to the stretcher outside.

Q. What do you plan to do after your retirement?

A. I don’t have many plans made for retirement right now because my husband is still working. When he retires I’m sure we will try to hit all of the NASCAR race tracks. I enjoy reading, crocheting and camping so these activities will occupy some time. The one thing I’m looking forward to is not setting my alarm clock at night!

CINDY SMITH
Management and Economics Library
Circulation Supervisor

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job and why? 
A. I enjoy the public contact, but my favorite part is hiring, training and supervising the student workers. I feel the students who have worked for me have enriched my life in many ways and opened my eyes to the entire world. I have met so many students from so many parts of the United States and the world. Each student is unique in some way, but similar in other ways. It makes me realize how long I have been at Purdue when some of the first students I hired are now over forty.

Q. How long have you worked in the Libraries and at Purdue? 
A. I started in 1986 at the CFS Library and worked there for 10 years before transferring to MEL where I have been for the last 14 years.

Q. What is one unforgettable experience that has happened to you or your coworkers while working in the library? 
A. Some of the reasons student workers have given for being late, not showing up or quitting have been quite unforgettable, one was even not printable. Some of the student workers have been very unforgettable, in both good and bad ways. 

Q. What do you plan to do after your retirement?
A. Well, my grandson has already decided I am going to eat lunch with him at school every week and help in his classroom. I look forward to spending more time with all of my grandchildren and my husband, as well as spending some quality time with my mother. I enjoy hiking and bicycle riding with my grandchildren. I also have a to-do list that is 20 pages long. If I ever get really bored, Connie is always trying to recruit me to join her in clowning.

LINDA D. UNDERHILL
Engineering Library
Library Assistant

Q. What do you enjoy most about your job and why?
A. Working with student workers. I have had 27 student workers since 1977, some who worked all four years of their college career for me and some who I still keep in touch with.

Q. How long have you worked in the Libraries and at Purdue?
A. 43 1/2 years — all in the libraries. I started out in the Main Library in Stewart Center in 1967 working with the shelf list (foreign words to most of you) then transferred to the Civil Engineering Library in 1973, working circulation. When the engineering libraries consolidated and moved into the Siegesmund Engineering Library in 1976, I began working with periodicals and the Kardex, binding and maintaining the catalog file and on Saturdays worked the reference desk. (I did not like that job — knew I couldn’t have liked ALL the jobs I had.)

Q. What is one unforgettable experience that has happened to you or your coworkers while working in the library? 
A. The most unforgettable experience for me, and I’m sure my other co-workers at the time, was the merging of the six individual engineering libraries into one library. We had card catalogs then and we worked very hard getting them merged together…along with all the books, journals, etc. and staff. Monica Asher (Teresa Brown’s sister) and I were called Mr. Posey’s (our boss) pets because his office was in Civil Engineering so whenever he went over to the new library we also got to tag along…we did have some input in the layout of the library.

Q. What do you plan to do after your retirement?
A. I have five good friends that are retired and they promise to help me to never regret retiring — hope they do a good job. After so many years it will be very hard to say good-bye. I plan on helping one friend with the Pet Food Pantry and getting involved with Trap, Neuter and Return (TNR). They trap and neuter feral cats and put them into foster homes until they find a permanent home. Maybe I will try being a foster Mom.

I have a very spoiled little schnauzer named Gretchen who will love me being home with her more and taking long walks. I am an outdoors person and will enjoy having more time to work in my yard and tend to my flower beds and being able to sit in the evening on my deck with a cold beer and Gretchen knowing I don’t have to get up in the morning and go to work. I like to walk around campus in the summer so maybe I will see some of you or stop by and say hi!

PAM De BONTE
Life Sciences Library
Reference

Pam began her Purdue career in 1971. Other libraries that Pam has worked in include General Library, Veterinary Medical, Consumer and Family Sciences and Humanities, Social Science, and Education. To read more about Pam and her Libraries experiences check out the Sept. 1, 2010 issue of INSIDE under "Libraries Staff A-Z."

Other clerical staff taking advantage of the retirement package offered last fall include:

LAURA HAWLEY, HSSE, who began her Purdue career in 1977.
RUTH LONG, MEL, who began her Purdue career in the 60s and in the Libraries in 1993.
ELLEN RISK, Life Sciences, who began her Purdue career in 1995.

Guiding Principle #3: Define the Libraries by relationships, not locations

On display Jan. 31-Mar. 2, the exhibit Indiana Cartoons and Cartoonists explores the comic and editorial art of Hoosiers who have made an impact on the millions of newspaper readers across the country. The collection comes to Purdue Libraries from the Indiana Historical Society and can be viewed in the John W. Hicks Undergraduate Library.

The exhibit features artists like: “Chic” Jackson’s “Roger Bean,” whose comic strip focused on the lives a of a typical Hoosier family; Purdue’s own Pulitzer Prize-winning artist John McCutcheon, whose editorial musings showed his fierce opposition of America’s entry in to World War II; and Jim Davis, who was responsible for bringing Garfield to life.

During the exhibit and throughout March, Purdue Libraries has partnered with West Lafayette Public Library, Words on the Go and Tippecanoe Arts Federation, to coordinate multiple events that examine the process of cartooning, as well as connecting words and art in different mediums. Check out scheduled workshops by visiting www.lib.purdue.edu/info/cartoonists/home when they are posted.

The exhibit and all events are free and open to the public.

PILLAR: Reconfigured, Relevant, Strategic Space

The students seem to be enjoying the process as we have received numerous votes for different chairs. It has also shed some light on student preferences that we were not aware of during the selection process. The current batch of chairs is actual the second time we have done this. The chairs will be on display thru this coming Friday, Jan. 28.

Students, faculty and staff are getting an early taste of the Phase 3 cafe with the Caribou Coffee kiosk now available in MEL.