Session 1 – Great Room A: “Telling Our Story: Documenting the Library's Contribution to Student Learning”

Moderator:  David Shumaker, Clinical Associate Professor, Catholic University of America
Panel Members: Miranda Rodriguez, Catholic University of America; Deborah Gaspar, George Washington University; Melissa Becher, American University

Programmatic assessment is essential to a strong information literacy initiative. Formative assessment provides evidence of growth, documents improvement, and presents a compelling case for the value of the library, which can lead to more resources resulting in furthering of information literacy goals. Assessment is also important to the accreditation review process. Accrediting agencies expect  institutions to develop learning outcomes, including information literacy outcomes, and to engage in cyclical assessment and program improvement. Programmatic information literacy assessment helps institutions meet overall goals for student learning. In turn, involvement with assessment beyond the library can help the instruction librarian promote information literacy.

This panel explores the role of assessment in meeting library and institutional goals. Panelists will compare assessment structures in place at their institutions and describe how these  frameworks have affected information literacy initiatives.

Deborah Gaspar, Ed.D., will explain the assessment process that has contributed to the success of library instruction at The George Washington University. Careful expansion of assessment activities supplied the data to successfully argue for four new librarian positions to meet increased requests for instruction. 

Miranda Rodriguez will explain how Catholic University of America is evolving to include information literacy learning outcomes across the academic curriculum; including a discussion of incorporating an information literacy aim in the university's goals of an undergraduate education, raising awareness among faculty forums, and including content within instructor's guides and syllabi. 

Melissa Becher, American University, will share preliminary results of research on instruction librarian awareness of the accreditation process and use of institutional learning outcomes and assessment in promoting information literacy. She will also explain how analysis of assessment documentation external to the library can help target information literacy outreach.

Session 2 – Great Room C: “Social in the Stacks: Social Media in Archives and Cultural Heritage Libraries”

Moderator: Dr. Young Choi, Assistant Professor, Catholic University of America
Panel Members: Sarah Rice Scott, Catholic University of America, American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives; Kim Andersen, North Carolina State Archives; Michelle Czaikowski, State Library of North Carolina, Government and Heritage Library

Social Media has now firmly established itself as an important element in archives’ and libraries’ outreach and marketing plans. This panel will discuss examples of different social media applications in use in archives and heritage library settings.  Panelists will cover a range of issues, from getting started and developing a plan, to sustaining more formal and established efforts like NCpedia at the NC Department of Cultural Resources’ State Library, to discussing more ad hoc efforts, such as The State Archives of North Carolina Flickr site. As the panelists will demonstrate, incorporating social media tools into the library and archives world can range from being very deliberate to being more relaxed and improvised.  Additionally, this panel will show similarities and differences between libraries’ and archives’ use of social media tools as well as how social media can be used to help break down barriers and promote collaboration between libraries and archives. However formal or casual, social media is used to engage the public in efforts to raise awareness as well as solicit help in filling gaps in metadata, among other functions. Panelists will address this range of uses in light of their respective experiences.

Sarah Rice Scott, graduate library preprofessional, and Maria Mazzenga, education archivist, will demonstrate how the American Catholic History Research Center and University Archives has adopted and implemented a social media strategy to enhance and support outreach. They will share details on what types of social media they are using, the hurdles encountered, and how their social media presence is maintained.

Michelle Czaikowski, project manager for NCpedia at NC Department of Cultural Resources’ State Library, will discuss how NCpedia's use of Twitter and Flickr has been used to promote the resource, to find and facilitate participation with project partners, and to lay the foundation for other outreach and crowdsourcing initiatives at the State Library. 

Kim Andersen Cumber, Non-Textual Materials Archivist for the NC Department of Cultural Resources, State Archives, will discuss how the State Archives uses Flickr to easily and inexpensively provide enhanced reference services, solicit information from the public about unidentified and/or poorly identified photographs in their collections, and share images with new audiences.