Past Spring Webinars

Serving Homeschooling Families in Your Community (March 1, 2023)
Adrienne Pettinelli, Library Director, Henrietta Public Library (NY)

Recording | Slides

Homeschoolers are among libraries’ heaviest users and a growing segment of many communities. This webinar provides background focused on how and why people homeschool, Additionally, we’ll discuss how to create policies, programs, and collections that will serve homeschoolers’ particular needs. Participants will walk away with practical strategies to improve services to homeschoolers on almost any budget.

Want to dive deeper into this topic? Join Adrienne for our spring online course, Services to Homeschoolers! April 3 – May 1

CANCELED – April 11 at 9:00 a.m. CST

Consortium Cooperation: Ways to improve overall collection development through ordering collaboration
Betty Adams, Library Director, West Fargo Public Library

Many consortiums have the same titles, while lesser known, niche, fringe, or first time authors, are harder to locate within these systems. This webinar aims to provide fresh ways to think about ordering for libraries who participate in consortiums and offer solutions for collaboration within the communities for better overall collection development and more diversity in title availability, ultimately increasing the impact consortium libraries have within their communities and throughout their consortiums.

April 12 at 12:00 p.m. CST Recording | Slides (PDF)

Eye-Popping, Show-Stopping Libraries: Trends and Insights from the AIA/ALA Library Building Awards
Charles Forrest (MA’79), 21st Century Libraries Consulting, LLC and Anders Dahlgren, Library Planning Associates

The Library Building Awards, established in 1963 as a joint endeavor by the American Institute of Architects (AIA), the American Library Association (ALA), and the National Book Committee (NBC), is a regular, ongoing, juried award program that recognizes excellence in library architecture and design. During the nearly sixty years that awards have been given, some two hundred and fifty libraries of all types have been recognized. This presentation will review the history and development of the Library Building Awards program, and discuss a selection of award-winning libraries, as a way to document the transformation of library services as well as portray the evolution of library design.

April 26 at 12 p.m. CST Recording | Slides | Patents Guide | Standards Guide

What’s the Worst that Could Happen? A Practical Approach to STEM Librarianship without a STEM Degree
Erin Thomas (MA’15), Engineering & Physical Sciences Librarian, Iowa State University Library

For those without a background in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM) fields, STEM librarianship can seem like a daunting or even scary career prospect. This webinar will bust the myth that you can’t be a successful STEM librarian without a degree in a STEM field. This session will show you how to forge a strong liaison relationship with faculty in an engineering department that had been underserved for decades (with resulting resistance to library outreach), build a scaffolded information literacy instruction sequence for undergraduate students from the ground up, and take responsibility for some STEM-focused areas of the library’s collections and services… all without a degree in a STEM field. Presenter Erin Thomas will also discuss helpful approaches and how to address setbacks along the way—strategies that you can use, too.

May 17 at 12 p.m. CST Recording | Slides

Engaging Makers in a Zoom Environment
Tiffany Carlson (MA’18), Information Services and Technical Support Specialist, University of Minnesota

Making in libraries has become a valuable part of library programming, and since the Covid-19 pandemic, these maker workshops have taken on a new look. Learn methods, best practices, and lessons learned for hosting maker workshops online on a budget and how these tips and tricks can remain relevant even as we return to safe in-person operations. Applicable to all types of libraries – lessons learned will be drawn from an academic library – and most relevant to teen, young adult, and adult services though ideas may translate beyond these service areas.

April 27 at 12:00 p.m. CST | Recording | Slides

Digital Backpack Workshops: Adapting to students’ needs
Rachel Becker (MA’15), Copyright and Open Educational Resources Librarian, and Rachel Carroll, Metro Campuses Librarian, Madison Area Technical College Libraries

Moving library and student technology services online quickly and effectively in Spring 2020 presented an opportunity to reimagine traditional service models. A small team developed the Digital Backpack Workshop Series around the concept of free, timely, and open access to high quality online content. The workshop format allows anyone to join; both within and outside the college so all can benefit. Flexible and adaptable, this series has evolved along with the our students’ needs. With attendees from across the United States, the workshops demonstrate how creativity and ingenuity can reshape conventional approaches to library services.

April 13 at 12:00 p.m. CST | Recording | Slides

Partnering through the Pandemic to Reach Patrons
Jennifer Flake (MA’18), Museum Education Manager, Discovery Gateway Children’s Museum

The pandemic has emphasized the need for our organizations to work with partners to reach patrons. Furthermore, 2020 has highlighted the ability to develop partnerships beyond our traditional communities and introduce patrons to resources across the globe. During the last year, in my role as the Education Coordinator of a children’s museum, I have used traditional library skills to increase museum partnerships over 200% and network with libraries and cultural institutions well beyond my state. These relationships have moved beyond professional networking and have allowed me to fill in gaps left by virtual programming. This webinar will offer a helpful guide to other institutions with similar needs.

March 30 at 12:00 p.m. CST | Recording | Slides

Qualitative Data Analysis with Taguette 
Jessica Hagman (MA’08), Social Sciences Research Librarian & Assistant Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Qualitative research is a powerful tool both for those working libraries and researchers in their patron communities. Qualitative data analysis software can facilitate this research, but major tools such as Atlas.ti, NVivo, and MAXQDA require major investments of time and financial resources, putting such tools out of the reach of many libraries developing infrastructure to support qualitative research. In this webinar, I’ll introduce and demonstrate a new and open source tool for qualitative data analysis, Taguette. With Taguette, researchers can collaboratively code text data and export coded data for further analysis in spreadsheets or other software. The webinar will be hands-on for attendees who would like to test out Taguette as we collaboratively code and analyze a demonstration data set and discuss how we can report the results of our analysis in research and reports.

May 6 at 12:00 p.m. CST | Recording | Slides | Preserve This Podcast site

Preserve This Podcast
Dana Gerber-Margie (MA’13) and Sarah Nguyen

Preserve This Podcast is a Mellon grant-funded project that ended in January 2020. The collaborators are continuing to reach out to librarians and archives about how they can help independent podcasters preserve their podcasts, or what institutions need to know before preserving podcasts themselves. This persuasive webinar will make a case for paying attention to the podcast community and how to assist them. Dana Gerber-Margie (@theaudiosignal) was the Preserve This Podcast co-lead and lives in Madison, Wisconsin. She is currently a User Support Specialist and Help Desk KnowledgeBase Administrator at UW-Madison DoIT. She earned her Master’s in Library & Information Studies at UW-Madison, and has worked as an A/V Archivist for WiLS and the Wisconsin Historical Society. She is the co-founder and editor emerita of the Bello Collective, a publication about podcasts and storytelling. Sarah Nguyen (@snewyuen) was the Project Coordinator of Preserve This Podcast. She is an advocate for open, accessible, and secure technologies through a couple of gigs during her studies as a Master of Library and Information Science candidate at the University of Washington: Assistant Research Scientist for NYU Libraries and archivist for the Dance Heritage Coalition

Remote and Online Services to Children

March 17 at 12 p.m. CST   |  Recording | PDF of Slides

Beyond WordPress: Website Builders for Libraries
Debra Shapiro (MA’91), Instructor & Coordinator of the Online MA, Information School, UW-Madison

So you have to make a website – oh, no! Learn about the wide variety of free and for-fee website builders out there in this webinar. These are products you can quickly and easily get started using for small and larger website projects. Learn more about SquareSpace, Webflow, Weebly, Wix, and Ploud to find out what will work best for your library.

Presenter: Debra Shapiro (MA’91) teaches the web design course, Information Architecture, and has been the manager of the iSchool website for almost 20 years, starting with a hand-coded site, going through 2 different content management systems, and now on WordPress.

Feb 18 at 12 p.m. CST     |   PDF of Slides   |   Recording

Say Yes to Census 2020
Cindy Fesemyer (MA’12), Adult and Community Services Consultant, Public Libraries Division, WI Dept. of Public Instruction

We all know that, “in this world, nothing can be certain but death and taxes,” right? Well, the same can be said for Census 2020. Whether you’re ready or not, it’s coming. Why not be prepared? The U.S. Census Bureau is estimating 90% of people will complete their Census forms online and libraries of all kinds need to be prepared. Get the lowdown on all the ways you can say YES to Census 2020. Census 2020 counts will potentially create changes to political representation and Federal funding and inform your local data. Good numbers are important and libraries can–and should–help! Whether you’re in a school, public or academic library, there’s information here for you on this timely topic.

April 9 at 12 p.m. CST     |     View Recording    |     View Slides     |

Leveraging e-Content for Libraries and Patrons
Andi Coffin (MA’07) & Sara Gold (MA’07), Consortium Management, WiLS

Libraries have long recognized the potential of e-content to be so much more than just an alternative to print. Multiple people can use one file and it doesn’t have to live in just one place on a shelf. Links are just a faster cross-reference mechanism. No one can see what you’re reading and you don’t have to get out of your jammies to get it. And, while copyright’s end and fair use’s beginning is still hotly debated, the developing options for delivering, finding, and accessing e-content are both promising and growing. Join iSchool alumni Andi Coffin and Sara Gold from WiLS for a discussion on the ways we are seeing e-content mature, including through community engagement initiatives provided by the Wisconsin Public Library Consortium and the challenges and successes trending in the world of e-content publishing.

April 23 at 12 p.m. CST     |     View Recording     |      Slides

Creating a Community of Readers: Academic Librarians Promoting Reading on Campus
Kayleen Jones (MA’16), Education & Human Service Professions Librarian
Kim Pittman (MA’11), Information Literacy & Assessment Librarian
University of Minnesota Duluth

How can academic librarians help the campus community build awareness of our leisure reading collections and connect to other readers on campus? Two academic librarians will share our successful programming strategies on a difficulty spectrum from easy to ambitious. Our past programs include silent reading parties, pop-up libraries, online book talks from campus community members, a Nerd Nite focused on books and reading, partnerships with public libraries and campus organizations, a community-wide reading program, and more! Attendees from all types of libraries will be able to adapt our approaches for their own contexts.

April 23 at 12 p.m. CST     |     View Recording     |      Slides

Creating a Community of Readers: Academic Librarians Promoting Reading on Campus
Kayleen Jones (MA’16), Education & Human Service Professions Librarian
Kim Pittman (MA’11), Information Literacy & Assessment Librarian
University of Minnesota Duluth

How can academic librarians help the campus community build awareness of our leisure reading collections and connect to other readers on campus? Two academic librarians will share our successful programming strategies on a difficulty spectrum from easy to ambitious. Our past programs include silent reading parties, pop-up libraries, online book talks from campus community members, a Nerd Nite focused on books and reading, partnerships with public libraries and campus organizations, a community-wide reading program, and more! Attendees from all types of libraries will be able to adapt our approaches for their own contexts.

April 30 at 12 p.m. CST     |       View Recording     |      Slides

New Librarianship: Professional Evolution within a Team Environment
Kris Glodoski Wolf (MA’14), Engagement & Inclusion Librarian, Madison College

How do libraries stay relevant? This is a frequently asked question. We are confronted with this question in our day-to-day, throughout library school, and again as we navigate the professional space of librarianship. This webinar will share how a team of community college librarians re-imagined “what a librarian works like.” It will discuss an affirming process of re-envisioning ourselves as professionals, re-visiting methods of collaboration, and re-thinking outreach to better support our users in the evolving world of libraries and information services.

May 14 at 12 p.m. CST    |     View Recording     |     View Slides

Fake News, Real Talk: Engaging Your Patrons on Fake News and News Literacy
Cara Evanson (MA’11), Research Librarian for Teaching and Learning Initiatives, Davidson College

From politics to natural disasters, fake news is rampant and on patrons’ minds. Librarians can capitalize on this phenomenon and use their expertise to make a difference by engaging their patrons around issues of fake news and news literacy. At this webinar attendees will learn about ways they can lead educational outreach on this topic at their library, including pairing up with community partners, empowering patrons with strategies to spot fake news, and facilitating reflection on news consumption habits. I will share examples of ways my colleagues and I have worked to address the issue of fake news at my own institution and discuss tips for finding fake news story examples to use in programming.

February 27 At 12 Pm CST: For Director’s Ears Only: 10 Secret Tips To Support Youth Services

Marge Loch-Wouters (’76) is a consultant and educator who brings to her work over 40 years of experience as a public library and library system youth librarian, manager and listener. 

Great youth services happen in libraries where staff and community recognize the importance of supporting youth and their literacy, learning and discovery needs. Youth library staffers often have strong thoughts about what would help them be more effective advocates for youth and youth library services but may not be able to articulate them or need support to make them happen. Join a seasoned youth librarian and consultant to explore ten different ways you can support your youth services and create an even more powerful place in your community’s heart!

March 13 At 12 Pm CST: The Entrepreneurial Road To Building The Catholic News Archive

Jennifer Younger (’71) Executive Director, Catholic Research Resources Alliance

We have met the entrepreneurs and they are us. We are 47 non-profit libraries and archives, and 20+ partners collaborating to digitize and develop a new digital collection of Catholic newspapers. Scholars inspired the vision. We – archivists, librarians, newspaper editors, bishops, attorneys, and a project manager – are making it happen. So many questions. Are others digitizing Catholic newspapers? Who are the audiences we want to serve? What permissions, and from whom, are required to make digital versions of newspapers from inception through 2013 freely available to everyone online and preserve a copy in a digital archive? Who has what content? Who will fund the digitization and sustain an open access digital newspaper collection? What new knowledge and skills would we need? The webinar will cover all of these questions and highlight what users are doing and saying. The freely available Catholic News Archive at https://thecatholicnewsarchive.org/ . Check it out!

April 3 At 12 Pm CST: Legal Reference Services: Helping Access To Justice

Jaime Healy-Plotkin (’04), Cataloger, Wisconsin State Law Library

Whether a library patron is pro se (self-represented) or has an attorney, the librarian can be at the front-line for information gathering about the legal system. Helping users access legal information and resources can be complicated. Where is the line between research assistance and giving legal advice? How can you determine which sources are authoritative or up to date? Get examples and practical tips for helping users with legal research.

April 17 At 12 Pm CST: Budget-Neutral Digital Projects For Small Institutions

Lauren Gottlieb-Miller (’14), Librarian, The Menil Collection

Small libraries with one or two staff members are inspired by the large-scale digital projects of bigger flagship institutions. How can one translate this inspiration to action with small means and few staff? Over the past year the Menil Collection Library has embarked on small-scale digitization projects that are budget-neutral but provide access to information and resources generated by the museum that were previously found only in the archives. From repackaging born-digital gallery guides and ephemera to capturing and cataloging finding aids and foundation documents, library staff are beginning to make the entire exhibition history available globally for the first time. This has not only made valuable information more accessible but also helped raise the library’s profile within the broader digital initiatives of the museum. Based on the experiences, this webinar will explore possibilities and opportunities for individuals at small institutions to make big contributions with what is already available to them.

May 1 At 12 Pm CST: Tutorial Creation 101

Stephanie King, (’13), Public Services Librarian, Illinois Valley Community College

Interested in creating tutorials for your library but not sure where to begin? With a variety of recording programs, hosting platforms and accessibility options to consider, it’s easy to become overwhelmed. This webinar will serve as a guide for participants who are just beginning to develop tutorials standards, prioritize topics, consider copyright issues and research platforms. Learn how the staff at Jacobs Library build, brand and assess their tutorials.

May 15 At 12 Pm CST: Academic Library Space Planning

Charles Forrest (’79), 21st Century Libraries Consulting

As digital technology transforms our campuses into round-the-clock learning environments, the library as place matters more than ever. To effectively respond to the changing needs of our learning communities, we need to continuously renew and refresh our spaces in alignment with our continuing mission and our long-term vision for the future. Learn how a five-phase approach to library space planning—vision, plan, design, implement, occupy—can help your library continue to play a vital role in the life of your academic community and contribute to the success of your university.

Cheap And Easy: An Introduction To Passive Programming

Emily Wichman (’02), Manager, Williamsburg Branch, Clermont County (OH) Public Library

Are you short on programming funds?  Does your staff struggle to find time to program?  Would you like to showcase collections and services or promote community initiatives?  If so, then it’s time to add passive programming to your repertoire!  Discover what passive programming is and how to do it well.  Return to work with ideas that will allow you to design activities suitable for all ages, from kids to seniors, and even intergenerational audiences. Emily Wichman is the author of the Librarian’s Guide to Passive Programming: Easy and Affordable Activities for All Ages (Libraries Unlimited, 2012).

Weary Of Helping: Public Libraries, Health Information, And The Affordable Care Act

Catherine Arnott Smith, PhD, Associate Professor, UW-Madison iSchool

Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, PhD, has stated that “Health information is just about the number one thing that people go into public libraries and connect to public libraries for.” [PBS Newshour, September 19, 2016]. What was the impact of the Affordable Care Act on public libraries? What successes and challenges did library workers face in helping citizens enroll?  In this webinar, Professor Smith will discuss results of a survey she conducted, supported by the National Library of Medicine, to investigate how public library workers in 20 states experienced the ACA rollouts in their libraries, as well as the health information resources they rely on most often.  She will also provide helpful resources to inform public librarians about the rapidly changing health insurance and coverage landscape in 2017.

More Than Storytime: Outreach To Childcare Centers And Preschools

Amy Commers (’08), Youth Services Librarian at the City of South St. Paul (MN) Public Library

Outreach to childcare centers and preschools can be more than just a storytime. This webinar will help you begin to think about ways you can bring elements of the library experience, such as browsing and checking out books, getting a library card, or participating in a reading program to childcare centers and preschools in your area. Offering more than a storytime allows you to connect with children and families who may not already be library users, strengthen relationships among childcare providers in your community and the library, and spread early literacy advocacy beyond your walls. From Facebook messages to grant applications, I will share how my partnerships developed, function, and may evolve in the future. I will also highlight some other libraries with great ideas for preschool outreach that I would bring to my community if I could.

Find It Fast! Local History At Your Fingertips

Sue Braden (’94) and Diana McDonald (’81), Reference Librarians, Hedberg Public Library, Janesville, WI

Learn how the Local History Database (LHD) at the Hedberg Public Library helps people from all over the country find the answers they are looking for. The LHD is a staff-created online index to the library’s local history collection and Janesville Gazette newspaper clippings. It contains almost 65,000 entries to local history information relating to Rock County. For the past ten years, the LHD has allowed staff and patrons — along with local newspapers and historical societies — access to information quickly. Learn how this time-saving database can be utilized for other types of indexing projects as well.

Let The Wild Rumpus Start! Child-Led Play In Public Library Programming

Carissa Christner (’12), Youth Services Librarian, Madison Public Library — Alicia Ashman Neighborhood Library

Have you ever wondered if there’s a better way to spend your summer programming hours than hiring magicians and jugglers?  Do you struggle with ways to incorporate truly authentic play (the kind YOU engaged in as a kid, not the kind directed by adults) into your library offerings?  Not sure how much guidance to provide in open-exploration sessions for toddlers? Are you looking for more ways to encourage literacy skills and parent education?  This webinar will introduce you to a radical new library program idea being pioneered in Madison, Wisconsin, based on a groundbreaking new educational philosophy called Anji Play. Learn how Carissa has adapted this approach, originally developed for schools, into a library-friendly format that both kids and parents love.

Engaged Planning — February 2016

Cindy Fesemyer (’12), Director, Columbus Public Library

How can you make your library the heart of the community? To survive and thrive in the current political and fiscal climate, libraries must reflect their communities’ needs and wants. Learn the basics of turning outward in order to reflect the aspirations of your community as you plan for your library’s future.

Altmetrics: An Introduction To Alternative Metrics — February 2016

Tara Brigham (’07), Medical Librarian, Mayo Clinic

Altmetrics, or alternative metrics, are forging a new way to capture the attention of not only articles, but also scholarly or research ‘‘products’’ by tracking them when they are mentioned online, such as in blogs or social media platforms. While altmetrics have a lot of potential, there are also some limitations preventing their full acceptance alongside traditional citation metrics. In the presentation, we will review the basics of altmetrics and altmetric tools, discuss some possible concerns with this new metric, and explore various applications in libraries.

Supporting Makerspace Literacies In The Library — March 2016

Tara Radniecki (’08), Engineering Librarian, DeLaMare Science & Engineering Library at the University of Nevada, Reno

Makerspaces continue to become increasingly prevelant within libraries allowing for a variety of active learning and discovery opportunities. Yet, along with exciting new equipment and resources, new literacies and subsequently, deficiencies in those literacies, are appearing. In order to fully ulitize the potential of the makerspace patrons must acquire literacies beyond information including 3D modeling, design, computational, and tactile literacies. This webinar will focus on how one academic library has been utilizing expert student employees, online point of need resources, and repurposing the traditional reference interaction to teach these new literacies and encourage deeper use of the makerspace.

Tween Programming — March 2016

Amanda Struckmeyer (’05), Youth Services Librarian, Middleton Public Library

Your professional shelves are likely lined with story time resources and books full of ideas for cutting-edge teen programs. But what about the kids in between? In this webinar, we’ll discuss the nuts and bolts of programming for ‘tweens: selecting topics, structuring programs, and getting the most mileage possible out of your planning and preparation time.

The Library’s Role In University Research Reputation — April 2016

Anne Rauh (’07), Associate Librarian for Engineering, Computer Science, Biology, Physics, and Astronomy
Scott Warren (’01), Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship, Syracuse University

Faculty and the institutions they work for have increasingly strong needs to manage their research reputations. Syracuse University Libraries assists individuals and institutional offices in determining metrics such as the H index, citation counts, altmetrics, and provides context to these metrics. Anne will describe how the Libraries provide this service to individual researchers. Scott will focus on institutional wide assessment being done in cooperation with other campus units. Both presenters will talk about subscription based and free tools available to do this work.

It’s 10pm! Do You Know Where Your Collections Are? Library And Archival Security — May 2016

Gregor Trinkaus-Randall (’80), Preservation Specialist, Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners

Protecting one’s collections, especially archives and special collections, through internal security. All too often librarians and archivists ignore the issues of library and archival security to the detriment of their holdings. There are numerous activities that contribute to the loss of collections. Some are dramatic such as a disaster or theft, and some are insidious, such as the impact of poor storage conditions and environment. This webinar will address security in the broader sense, emphasizing policies and procedures as well as disaster planning and environmental monitoring and climate control.

Finding Historic Maps Online — June 2016

G. Salim Mohammed (’05), Digital and Rare Maps Librarian, Stanford University

Library Services For The Hmong Community — March 2015

Yee Lee Vue, Hmong Family Outreach Specialist at Appleton Public Library (APL)

There are more than 200,000 Hmong living in the United States. The highest Hmong populations are found in California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Carolina, and Michigan. The Hmong have been in the United States for 39 years; however the Hmong community is often unaware of services offered by public libraries. The Hmong do not seek information from the library compared to other immigrants. In the webinar, Yee Lee Vue, Hmong Family Outreach Specialist, will discuss barriers that prevent Hmong from using libraries and share the Appleton Public Library’s successful outreach strategies for reaching out to Hmong patrons.

Public Libraries And The Affordable Care Act — March 2015

Catherine Arnott Smith, Associate Professor at the School of Library & Information Studies, UW-Madison

It is clear that the ACA presents an area of high information need: a need which public librarians have been tasked with filling, but one in which they need considerable support. To best support them and move forward with ACA, we need to understand the challenges and the successes of this unfunded mandate for libraries. This webinar will review the findings from the interviews and put them in context of public libraries’ long history with health information provision.

Responsive Web Design — April 2015

Debra Shapiro, Instructor at the Information School, UW-Madison

Responsive web design (RWD) “is a web development approach that creates dynamic changes to the appearance of a website, depending on the screen size and orientation of the device being used to view it. RWD is one approach to the problem of designing for the multitude of devices available to customers, ranging from tiny phones to huge desktop monitors.” NNg/Nielsen-Norman Group

Made possible by the latest versions of HTML and cascading stylesheets, HTML5 and CSS3, responsive web design has been around for almost 5 years. RWD provides a solution to the conundrum of a library or organization having to maintain multiple versions of their website, each optimized for a different device. In addition, responsiveness is being built into more content management systems, for example Word Press themes, so RWD is within the reach of organizations without large IT departments. This webinar will present an overview of the benefits RWD, and provide criteria to help anyone charged with managing a website choose between a mobile site, RWD, or mobile app development.

Open Access In The Humanities — May 2015

Dr. Jonathan Senchyne, Assistant Professor of Information Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at UW-Madison

The open access (OA) movement has broad support within the library community, and it is increasingly embraced by researchers, granting agencies, and publishers. Why, then, are many graduate students, faculty, and professional associations in the humanities advocating measures such as embargoing access to dissertations in digital repositories? Why are some humanities faculty skeptical of accepting peer review requests from OA journals? In this session, Professor Jonathan Senchyne will explore some of the issues that differentiate OA conversations in the humanities and the sciences. The conversation will explore the pros, cons, and gray areas of OA in the humanities from different stakeholder perspectives while seeking common ground and increased collaboration between students, faculty, publishers, and librarians within the scholarly communication ecosystem.

Copyright, Libraries, And The Higher Ed Classroom — February 2014

Dorothea Salo, MA-LIS and MA-Spanish, Instructor at the Information School at UW-Madison

Get updated on the latest lawsuits, campaigns, and other copyright happenings in the higher-education classroom. We’ll touch on electronic-reserves legal action, streaming video legal action, the ARL Code of Best Practices in Fair Use, MOOCs, Google Books and Hathi Trust lawsuits, open access, open textbooks, and open educational resources.

Linked Data’s Many Varieties – March 2014

Debra Shapiro, MA-LIS, Instructor at the Information School at UW-Madison

For the last two years, we’ve been hearing a lot of talk about converting library metadata to linked data. But how? Library of Congress is working on BIBFRAME, a linked data format that is designed to carry all the data in the many millions of existing MARC records. OCLC is using schema.org, a microdata format, to enhance the Web displays of WorldCat records. Dublin Core can be written in RDF; is that linked data? In this webinar, Debra Shapiro, UW-Madison iSchool instructor, will help you untangle the acronyms, and pick your favorite flavor of linked data.

Get Up And Move! Why Movement Is Part Of Early Literacy Skills Development — April 2014

Dr. Allison Kaplan, Associate Professor, Information School at UW-Madison

Pitter, patter like a cat;
Stomp like an elephant with feet flat!
Now turn around and just like that;
Sit down quietly with hands in your lap!

The ALSC early literacy initiative, “Every Child Ready to Read,” presents five practices: Talking, Singing, Reading, Writing, and Playing, as strategies for helping parents understand how to develop early literacy skills in their children. We tend to feel pretty comfortable with incorporating Talking, Singing, Reading, and Writing into storytime programming; but, what about Playing? In this webinar, participants will learn about the important role moving, playing instruments, and pretending have in helping children ages 0-4 develop early literacy skills and how to incorporate those into storytime programming.

An Introduction To The Digital Humanities For Librarians — May 2014

Dr. Jonathan Senchyne, Assistant Professor of Information Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture at UW-Madison

In recent years, the term digital humanities has been used to describe modes of research, collaboration, and teaching that apply or analyze computational, digital, and networked tools in humanities contexts. The collaborative, project-focused, and technologically-oriented nature of the field means that information professionals often work alongside scholar-researchers and students. Academic, special, and public libraries and librarians have played important roles in the development of “dh.” This webinar will provide an introduction to the digital humanities using examples of recent projects, and focus on how librarians can contribute to or support the digital humanities through, for example, maker spaces, digital labs and learning environments, or as managers of data and providers of digital resources. A good resource for the curious to consult ahead of the webinar is dh+lib, available here.