Mississippi Library Association

2007 MLA Annual Conference Information

24th Oct 2007

2007 Conference

Place: Vicksburg Convention Center, Vicksburg, MS Theme: Mississippi Libraries: Discover the World, Close to Home Dates: October 24th - 26th, 2007 Keynote speaker: Pauline LaRooy from the National Library of New Zealand Conference Hotel: Horizon Casino Hotel (Registration Information) Other Information Poster Session # 1 - 9:30am - 11:00am (10/24) Poster Session # 2 - 3:30pm - 5:00pm (10/24) Preliminary Conference Schedule Registration Form CEU Information Exhibitor Information Presidential Bash/Scholarship Fundraiser Sponsors Annual Conference Evaluation

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2007 MLA Preliminary Conference Schedule

Join as we “Discover the World, Close to Home!” The preliminary conference schedule is below as a Word document and PDF.

• 2007 MLA Preliminary Conference Schedule (PDF file)
• 2007 MLA Preliminary Conference Schedule (Word file)

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2007 MLA Conference Registration Form

• Registration Form (Excel file)
• Registration Form (PDF file)

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2007 MLA Conference CEU Information

• Continuing Education Units (doc file)

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17th Annual Poster Sessions

Wednesday October 24th, 2007

Poster Session I

9:30-11:00 AM

McCain Library’s Item of the Month: Bringing Special Collections to the University of Southern Mississippi One Item at a Time
Jennifer Brannock, University of Southern Mississippi

Publicizing activities and collections can be a challenge for libraries. In February 2007, the McCain Library and Archives at the University of Southern Mississippi started a new online feature – “Item of the Month.” Every month, a librarian selects an item (letter, book, photograph, etc) which is researched, scanned or photographed, and then sent to the Special Collections Librarian who then makes it accessible online. An announcement with a link to the webpage is sent out to mailing lists at the University of Southern Mississippi. The Item of the Month feature has been well-received by University faculty, staff, and students, and is a monthly reminder to the University community of the fascinating materials located in Special Collections. This poster session will highlight examples of current and past Items of the Month and how they are created.

Using Data Loggers to Monitor Archival Facilities
Shugana Campbell, Chatham Ewing, and John Wall, University of Mississippi

During the last several years we have consistently measured temperature and humidity in our archive using once-a-day readings from a hygrometer. Our readings have been relatively stable. However, the staff believed that a more comprehensive sampling of our environment done with more modern equipment might well indicate greater environmental variation that we had previously detected. Since significant variations in temperature, humidity, and light levels damage archival materials, the staff at the University of Mississippi set out to better understand the vagaries of the environment within our facility.

In December of 2006 the University of Mississippi Department of Archives and Special Collections received a mini-grant from the University Provost to purchase six data-loggers in order to learn more about the environment in which our archival materials were stored. These loggers capture data related to temperature, humidity, and light levels, and can export this
data in delimited format to common spreadsheet and database applications.

This poster session offers tables and the graphs generated from this data along with interpretive text (and context). We hope to display in detail what lessons we learned about the environment in different locations within our archives facility and how these lessons might improve our practice in the future.

Mississippi “Freedom Libraries”
Karen Cook, University of Louisiana at Monroe

The Coalition of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of civil rights organizations, established “Freedom Libraries” in Mississippi as part of the 1964 Summer Project. Libraries were located in “Freedom Schools,” Community Centers, project offices, churches, lodges, union halls, and private homes. Most were short-lived, yet played important roles in the lives of individuals, the Mississippi’s civil rights movement, and library history.

Freedom Libraries provided books, audio-visual materials, reading clubs, and programs for thousands of Mississippians with little or no other access to library services. The libraries supported citizenship education and adult literacy classes; encouraged freedom of thought and expression; provided remedial, supplementary, and vocational education; and promoted individual empowerment. Special collections of books by and about African-Americans, Africa, and the Movement were especially popular, as were children’s books, and reference materials used by local junior high, high school, and college students.

Donating books or funds to Freedom Libraries encouraged identification with and investment in the Movement by many book-centered persons across the nation, and internationally. Collection development for “Freedom Collections” necessitated creation of bibliographies of African-American and Afro-centric materials, eagerly snapped up by libraries everywhere. “Friends of Freedom Libraries” helped focus the national library community’s attention on the needs of poorly-funded southern libraries, particularly HBCU libraries. All these activities strengthened calls for full integration of libraries and the library profession and for improved services to the poor, minorities, and persons with limited literacy in the North as well as the South.

Cataloging with the Library of Congress NUCMC program
Chatham Ewing, University of Mississippi

Working with the Library of Congress’s National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) office can be easy and helpful for under funded archives, historical societies, and libraries that have limited archival cataloging expertise. This poster session will discuss how the University of Mississippi worked with NUCMC to have its records cataloged on both the Research Libraries Information Network and WorldCat.

Learning with Metadata: Gateway to Educational Materials.
Linda Ginn, University of Southern Mississippi

The organization, storage, and retrieval of information are impacted by changing technologies, but the goal of resource discovery remains the same. A variety of information technologies (marks on sticks, tablets and beads; flat media; bound volumes) leads to the age of computers and electronic storage of information. Ways to access information also changed (samples: key words on tablet edges, pictograms, lists of books, catalog cards).

Information on the Internet presents new challenges for resource discovery: information from many sources must be balanced with reliable ways to locate relevant resources. Teachers who want to find good lesson plans on the Internet are hard pressed to sort through all the results of a Google keyword search. Essential elements of data (metadata) about Internet resources, recorded in specific ways with retrieval as the goal, help to produce good results.

This presentation addresses a metadata scheme called Gateway to Educational Materials (GEM). Its development to describe educational materials on the Internet and its structure will be explored briefly, and a GEM record will be analyzed.

Promote It and They Will Come: Building Adult Programs
Mary Hamilton and John Tidwell, Chambers County Library (Valley, AL)

Attracting adults to library programs is a challenge for any public library. At the Chambers County Library in Valley, AL, a push began in 2006 to build an adult programming service that would provide activities of interest and quality to the community.

Adult patrons were asked to complete a survey to determine what types of programs they would like to see offered by the library. In response to the surveys, the library began a monthly senior citizens program with varying activities such as crafts, movies, bingo and invited speakers. The Friends of the Library provided funding to offer lunch to the attendees.

In January of 2007, the library funded a part-time Adult Services Coordinator position to build on the senior programs. Our monthly programs now include a Lunch N Learn series with invited scholars speaking on a wide range of topics, and the Library Travelers, a group of retirees, taking library sponsored trips to historical and cultural sites in Alabama and Georgia.

Other programs offered this year include a five-week conversational Spanish course; a driver safety class; a ten-week course titled Great Artists of the Italian Renaissance; and an original play presented by the Bradshaw Library Players, “It Ain’t Gossip If…”

In 2004, the Chambers County Library offered 2 adult programs with a total attendance of 34. During the current year, the library offered 44 adult programs with attendance reaching 2,190.

Libraries and Librarians in “Second Life”
Barton Spencer, University of Southern Mississippi

Since 2003 the online virtual world known as Second Life has attracted participants from around the world. They create their own presences in Second Life which include such things as clothing stores, museums, recreations of buildings and neighborhoods, gambling houses, and much more. Even large businesses such as Dell, IBM, Reuters and Toyota have built virtual presences in Second Life.

Recently educators have been experimenting with Second Life as a tool for online instruction for students and for collaboration among peers. Others interested in education and literacy, such as librarians, have also begun appearing in Second Life, providing services for those who are “in world” (meaning in Second Life) as well as real patrons in real life.

There are now well over 500 self-declared librarians participating in Second Life, from the realms of public, academic and special libraries. Many see their Second Life activities as a first step in an evolving world of online education. This poster session will showcase some of the key library endeavors that are now in place and illustrate trends for education endeavors in Second Life. Information will be provided regarding how librarians might become involved.

Posters and video footage of libraries and librarians in Second Life will be provided via laptop computer as well as handouts that contain links to relevant material.

RSS Feeds: Promoting New Materials
Virginia Kay Williams and Bobby Goff, Mississippi State University

Instead of waiting for library users to walk in the door and browse the new book shelves, MSU Libraries offer users an opportunity to subscribe to RSS feeds to bring new material notices to them. Library users can choose to subscribe to RSS feeds by subject, by collection, or by library. The RSS feeds are updated weekly with materials recently added to the SIRSI catalog. After the initial work of writing scripts to pull titles from the catalog and set up the feeds, the project requires minimal effort to provide weekly updates of newly added books, DVDs, and other materials. This poster session outlines the process of creating RSS feeds in non-technical language and includes screen shots of the web pages and RSS feeds. A handout will outline the process and include contact information for more technical information.

Poster Session II

3:30-5:00 PM

Superheroes @ The Library
David Brown, First Regional Library, Hernando, MS

This session will feature First Regional Library’s “library superheroes,” THE INFO FAMILY. First Regional received two national awards for this campaign at the 2007 American Library Association conference. David Brown, FRL’s Public Relations Specialist and creator of THE INFO FAMILY, will be on hand to talk about the success of bringing these original characters to the Library. Handouts will include information about using superheroes, comics, and graphic novels to promote reading and library services in your library.

MegaResource School Librarian Workshops: Forging Strategic Alliances!
Deborah Lee and Elizabeth Downey, Mississippi State University

This poster session will examine the use of the MegaResource School Librarian Workshops to offer continuing education to the K-12 library and media services professionals in the state of Mississippi. The MegaResource School Librarian Workshop series was created in 1999 and the original goal was to provide regional school librarians with a professional development opportunity to expand their knowledge of and skills with relevant technology. Through the years, the goal has expanded to cover a broad range of information literacy topics and to forge a relationship between the MSU Libraries and the K-12 community. In addition to profiling past programs and projects, this poster session will provide information on future workshop innovations and projects. Evaluative data on the program, as well as sample program materials, will be highlighted in the poster session. Participants will also have access to a number of bibliographies related to topics covered by past and future MegaResource workshops.

Finding Fun in Orientations through the Multifaceted Scavenger Hunt
Melissa Dennis, Delta State University

The poster presentation will showcase library scavenger hunts as orientations. At Delta State University during Fall 2006, Melissa Dennis designed a pirate-themed treasure hunt to use as an orientation tool targeting freshmen enrolled in GST 100: Emerging Scholars, a general studies course created over ten years ago as a student development and retention program. Designed specifically for GST 100, this treasure hunt proved to be a unique way to market the library to new students.

Instruction Librarians often look for ways to keep sessions fun. This presentation illustrates how a variety of scavenger hunts have been used at DSU; and how well received they were with the students and instructors in GST 100. Materials will include advertisements, assessment, clues and maps used in the game, a sample treasure chest (including chocolate coins for inquirers) and handouts.

Handouts will incorporate tips for fun scavenger hunts, including treasure hunts, murder mysteries and photo scavenger hunts. To incorporate technology (as many libraries scramble to do) a multimedia scavenger hunt is in the works for future orientations. These plans will also be revealed in the handout.

Marketing Libraries to New Students
Carol Green and Shirlene Stogner, University of Southern Mississippi

In today’s complex and increasingly electronic information environment, libraries have a greater responsibility in marketing and communicating their resources and services. Recognizing the need for library representation at university orientation sessions, The University Libraries at Southern Miss joined other departments and student organizations marketing their resources and services at a series of orientations, known as Previews, for students new to USM.

Sponsored by the Office of the Freshmen Year Experience, Previews acquaint new students, both freshmen and transfer students, to college life as they register for their first classes. Display booths in the student union showcase offerings from various departments and campus groups, with approximately 500 students and 300 parents attending each of the seven daylong sessions.

Librarians developed an informative and attractive display, with other librarians volunteering to staff the display booth during the Preview sessions. The display is updated yearly and highlights services including library orientations and workshops, Internet accessible computers, a late night computer lab, and laptop and DVD player checkout. All libraries and collections are represented.

The University Libraries display will serve as a model for this poster session, detailing content, design, and planning recommendations for library promotional displays. Visuals will include the display itself, sample brochures, a laptop, and handouts outlining suggestions for library display booths.

The Academic Librarian Labor Market and the Role of the Master of Library Science Degree: 1975 through 2005
Mary Beth Grimes and Paul Grimes, Mississippi State University

Since the late 1970s, the Master of Library Science (MLS) degree has served as an occupational license required by American colleges, universities, and other employers of academic librarians. However, over time, technological advancements and the resulting structural changes in the nature of library services have increased the importance of librarian expertise in highly specialized areas relative to competency in general library skills as taught in traditional MLS programs. To examine the evolving role of the MLS degree, pooled cross-sectional data were collected from job advertisements in College and Research Library News. Beginning with 1975 and continuing at 5-year intervals through 2005, pertinent information from all job advertisements in each monthly issue were compiled. The data revealed that the proportion of all academic librarian job openings requiring an MLS peaked in the early 1990s at more than 85%. A probit anlysis was conducted to determine which factors determined that a specific job opening required an MLS degree across the seven cross sections in time.

Reaching At-Risk Teens
Jan Neal, G. Chastaine Flynt Memorial Library (Flowood, MS)

Partnering with the local Alternative Learning Center for at-risk teens, G. Chastaine Flynt Memorial Library in Flowood, Mississippi, participated in ALA’s Great Stories CLUB, a grant program sponsored by ALA Public Programs Office and YALSA. The Great Stories CLUB (Connecting Libraries, Underserved Teens, & Books) has five general purposes: To read and discuss books relevant to the lives of at-risk teens; To identify and serve the needs of a special population of teens who normally do not use the public library; To build reading and discussion skills; To enhance self-esteem; To promote and strengthen services to young adults in the community.

The presentation will outline the program’s book choices, partners, advertising and promotion, and success.

Re-Imagining Our Libraries through the Eyes of Our Administrators
Edward Poletti, Central Arkansas Veterans Health Care System (Little Rock, AR), Dixie A. Jones, Overton Brooks VA Medical Center Library (Shreveport, LA), Priscilla Stephenson, G.V. ‘Sonny’ Montgomery VA Medical Center (Jackson, MS), Marvett Burns, VA Gulf Coast Veterans Health Care System (Biloxi, MS)

Objective: This project sought to determine the value of information provided by library staff in a health care network.

Setting: Seven medical centers in a regional health care network.

Methods: Recipients of literature searches or extended reference transactions conducted between April 2006 and March 2007 were asked to complete a questionnaire to evaluate the potential value of information received. The survey was patterned on the one used in Marshall’s 1992 Rochester study. Anonymous survey responses were transmitted electronically, and results were added to an online shared spreadsheet. Interlibrary loan (ILL) statistics were gathered as an adjunct to the questionnaire.

Results: The cumulated survey responses demonstrate the contribution of libraries to patient care, education, administrative activities, and research. Libraries provided information that helped health providers avoid adverse events, alter or confirm diagnosis or treatment, save money or time, increase income, and/or provide new knowledge. The ILL data supported estimates of saved expenses resulting from resource sharing.

Conclusion: Survey results and ILL statistics demonstrate the value of information provided by library staff. Administrators in this regional system now have data that documents the contributions of network libraries toward improved patient care and cost savings.

Using Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and Web 2.0 to Enhance an Information Literacy Course
Teresa S. Welsh and Melissa Wright, The University of Southern Mississippi School of Library and Information Science

Computer-mediated communication (CMC) applications as well as Web 2.0 applications have been incorporated into USM’s undergraduate course, LIS 201: Introduction to Information Literacy. CMC refers to communication between two or more people via a computer, while Web 2.0, a phrase coined by O’Reilly Media in 2004, refers to a perceived second-generation of Web based applications, such as social-networking sites and wikis, that facilitate collaboration and sharing between users.

LIS 201 highlights the following applications: email, listservs, online course software (such as Blackboard), discussion boards, user-generated content (UGC), XML, blogs, and other social networking tools.

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Presidential Bash/Scholarship Fundraiser

Tuesday, 10/23 5-7pm –
This year the traditional Presidential Bash is being combined with a Scholarship Fundraiser. The event will be funded by sponsors and other sources, allowing all proceeds to support the Peggy May and Virgia Brocks-Shedd Scholarships.

The event will take place in the auditorium of the Southern Cultural Heritage Center in Vicksburg. This structure was built in 1885 and has been designated a Mississippi Landmark and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was also featured in the popular film “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”.

Enjoy various eats as you listen to Terry “Big T” Williams perform the blues. Big T has been playing for over 20 years and has sat in with well-known musicians across the country. Don’t miss his dynamic performance!

• Directions to the Bash (PDF file)

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MLA Sponsors

Platinum Sponsor

Mississippi Library Commission

Gold Sponsor

SirsiDynix
ProQuest

Silver Sponsor

Library Interiors, Inc.
Ambassador Books & Media
EBSCO

Bronze Sponsor

Southern Business Solutions
H.W. Wilson Company
Trustmark Bank

Sponsor

Midwest Library Service
River Hills Bank
BancorpSouth

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Annual Conference Evaluation

• Evaluation Form (PDF file)
• Evaluation Form (Word file)

2007 MLA Conference Hotel Information

Horizon Casino Hotel - Vicksburg, MS

Hotel Reservations:

Phone:
1. Call 601-636-3423
2. Mention the Conference Booking Code - MSL 102207
3. Room rate $59.95

Online:
1. Access the Web site at http://www.horizonvicksburg.com/index.html
2. Select Reservations from the left menu
3. Choose dates of attendance
4. Select Room Type ($59.95)
5. Enter Personal/Payment information AND Mississippi Library Association -MSL 102207 in the Comments Section
6. Complete reservation process

Please don’t forget to use the Conference Booking Code so we meet our
room commitment.

Secondary Conference Hotels

There are still smoking rooms available at the Horizon for Wed. (10/24) and Thur. (10/25) which is serving as our primary conference hotel. However, we have also established secondary room blocks at other hotels in Vicksburg. Below is a list of hotels including their price and contact information.

FOR ALL RESERVATIONS MENTION YOU ARE WITH THE MLA GROUP

Comfort Inn of Vicksburg
3959 Clay St.
Phone: 601-634-8438
$62/night plus tax

Quality Inn and Suites
3332 Clay St.
Phone: 601-636-0804
$69/night plus tax

Jameson Inn
3975 South Frontage Road
Phone: 601-619-7799
$70.99/night plus tax

Holiday Inn Express
4330 S. Frontage Road
Phone: 601-634-8777
$95/night plus tax

Hampton Inn & Suites
3330 Clay Street
Phone: 601-636-6100
$119/night plus tax

See you in Vicksburg!

Jeff Slagell
Director of Library Services
Roberts-LaForge Library
Delta State University
Cleveland, MS 38733
Phone: 662-846-4441
Fax: 662-846-4443

2007 MLA Conference Exhibitor Information

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The Mississippi Library Association will be hosting its annual
conference October 23-26, 2007, at the Vicksburg Convention Center in
Vicksburg, Mississippi: http://www.vccmeet.com/.

We would like to invite you to participate by exhibiting your products
in the exhibit hall of the convention center. The exhibit spaces will be
provided by Convention Display Services, Inc. of Jackson, Mississippi.
Please see the following documents for additional information.

Exhibitor Letter (PDF file or Word file)
Exhibitor Contract (PDF file or Word file)

Entry Filed under: News, Events
Posted on: March 10th, 2007