Introduction

Welcome! This blog is intended to share information and ideas among community college libraries of all types and sizes.

Community Collge Libraries Talk will cover anything and everything related to community college library issues.

The blog is maintained by the Membership/Communications Committee of the Community and Junior College Library Section of the American Library Association, but you do NOT have to be a member to contribute comments or any content.

Contributors Welcome!

If you would like to contribute any interesting links or information to this blog, please contact liz(dot)barksdale(at)gmail(dot)com.

If you are interested in being a regular contributor on any topic, please contact us as well!

Good Audio-Visual Vendors

There are many places to buy educational media, some better than others.  Some reliable vendors are listed below–are there any others that you’ve found useful for particular subjects? Thanks to Christine Godin for this list!

SUGGESTED AUDIOVISUAL VENDOR WEBSITES

ABC News Store – http://www.abcnewsstore.com/

Agency For Instructional Technology – http://www.ait.net/

AIMS Multimedia – http://www.aimsmultimedia.com/

Ambrose Video – http://www.ambrosevideo.com/

Hot Topics Winter ‘09–Distance Ed/Embedded Librarians

Embedded Librarian/Distance Ed/Faculty Relations Group

Part I

 

-For blended (distance and on-campus) classes, faculty  are more hesitant to use embedded librarians because they’re protective of hours they have in person with their students

- There are still problems recruiting faculty members to even teach distance ed classes, let alone work with the library

Hot Topics Winter ‘09–Information Literacy

Information Literacy

Read CJCLS list.

 What level of info. literacy?  Palo Alto has: Information Resources Certificate, 7 classes, free Continuing Ed. Credit, introduction to Library, Databases, MLA, APA, Web search, Info. evaluation.  Instructors can schedule a BI class, also available online (students take a quiz).  No quiz in face-to-face.  Palo Alto enrollment 8,000.  Faculty offer extra credit for certificate completion.  Some discussion of problem of babysitting for absent faculty.  Palo Alto requires professor presence.  They offer desktop instruction for faculty, face-to-face, one-on-one with librarian.

Hot Topics Winter ‘09–Budgets

Budget Challenges & Issues

Reports from states (representatives in group): Florida, 25% budget cuts for public libraries, 12% cuts for Comm. Coll.  Ohio-deficit projected for next biennium.   Georgia, some (higher ed.) institutions have been hit harder than others.  Colorado, budgets getting tighter and tighter, 10% cut ordered by governor. 

There was also discussion of e-books vs. print, is it a good investment of funds?  Some libraries do not seem to have much use by students of e-books.  Access is key.  Arapahoe CC has e-books integrated in catalog through AquaBrowser. 

Hot Topics Winter ‘09–Assessment

Hot Topics in Community College Librarianship

ALA Midwinter Conference, Denver, CO    January 24, 2009

 More than 40 librarians gathered for the Saturday afternoon discussion group.  In addition to librarians in attendance, 2 representatives from a library vendor were also present.   State budget issues were on everyone’s minds, but other “hot” topics came to the forefront for discussion in small groups.  Topics included: 

Budget Cuts and Avoiding Layoffs

Everyone is worried about the economy these days for a lot of good reasons. Library workers know that we have to worry about budget cuts even when the economy’s doing pretty well.  College library departments usually don’t bring in the same ways that classes or athletic programs do and thus we’re often one of the first departments under scrutiny when there’s a crunch. This post will discuss how you can make some arguments against budget cuts.

American Association of Community Colleges Position Statement on Information Literacy

http://ol.scc.spokane.edu/nclr/InfoLit_statement.htm

 

This statement describes the AACC’s position on information literacy and can be a concise way to advocate for information literacy programs on your campus. Thanks to Alice Lubrecht for providing this information.

Project Muse vs. JSTOR

Recently, the topics of Project Muse and JSTOR have come up on the CJCLS list. What’s the difference? Are these subscriptions worth it for two-year schools? Here’s a summary of what people said:

Book Budget Allocation

How do community college libraries allocate their collection development budgets among various departments?  I was curious about how other librarians handles this–the following is a brief breakdown of their responses I got from the CJCLS listserv some time back: