Elaine
Fetyko Page
Head
of Technical Services, Assistant Librarian
Assistant
Professor, Library Science
Tenure
Portfolio – Fall 2001
Reflective
Essay
Because
much of what I do involves the World Wide Web, appropriate online materials
related to my portfolio are also available on a Web site: http://www.elmhurst.edu/~elainep/portfolio.html.
A printout of this Web site is included at the front of the portfolio. Included
on the Web site are:
·
Links to
Elmhurst College documents used to guide this portfolio
(also available in the portfolio as
Appendix 1):
o “Qualifications for Promotion for
Librarians” (Faculty Manual, Section 5.7.3)
o “The Professional Portfolio for
Librarians” (approved by Faculty Council, May 2000)
o Letter sent to faculty and librarian
colleagues requesting letters of evidence (included in Appendix 4)
·
Curriculum
Vitae
·
Reflective
Essay
·
Online
materials that appear in print in Appendices 3A and 5
I serve Elmhurst College in several areas of librarianship
as outlined in the “Qualifications for Promotion for Librarians” (Faculty
Manual, Section 5.7.3).
As Head
of Technical Services, my work is primarily focused on bibliographic access,
organization and control (hereafter referred to as technical services). The
technical services department is responsible for how library resources are
collected and organized – the acquisition, receipt, classification and
description of materials – to facilitate their use by the community. Being the
head of this department involves the creative administration of library
operations and staff (Section 5.7.3.c). I am responsible for the management of
three full-time and three part-time support staff positions in the department.
I coordinate staff functions and training, determine local cataloging and
processing practice, and develop quality assurance methods. I also work with
staff in other departments and areas when they have technical services needs.
Technology is an important part of my administration responsibilities as well.
In order to keep library operations running smoothly, I troubleshoot computer
hardware and software problems before forwarding requests for assistance to
Computer Services.
In
addition to these primary duties, I am a member of the reference staff with
regular reference desk time several hours per week. I also serve as library
liaison to the music, sociology, and theology departments and the human
services administration and intercultural studies programs. I work with faculty
in these departments to develop effective bibliographic instruction (hereafter
referred to as information literacy instruction) for classes, and I participate
in collection development in these subject areas, selecting timely and relevant
resources in many formats for acquisition by the library (Section 5.7.3.a). My
understanding of information needs and uses—gained through work with faculty
and students in these specific disciplines—guides my ability to design
effective library services and programs such as collection development
practices and information literacy instruction sessions. Additionally, I work
with other librarians to create and deliver faculty development instruction and
assistance in pedagogical uses of technology based on their needs and the needs
of the campus as a whole (Section 5.7.3.b).
A detailed account of my librarianship
activities since coming to Elmhurst College in January 1997 can be found in
Section 1 of the Library Activity Reports in Appendix 2.
Academic libraries exist to support the
vision and mission of their educational institutions. The academic library has
a responsibility to encourage students to explore information sources in a
variety of formats as part of the research process. The library also fosters
information seeking and analysis skills that students will use throughout their
professional and personal lives. All library functions work together toward a
common goal to provide access to information needed by users; I believe that
all of my work responsibilities address this essential goal.
My position as Head of Technical Services
at Elmhurst College is fairly unique in librarianship. Often, professional
technical services positions are concerned with these functions to the
exclusion of other areas of librarianship. Technical services are a vital
component in the network of library processes. Libraries need technical
services functions in order to acquire needed materials in a timely and
cost-effective manner. The items then need to be cataloged and classified in a
way that will make them accessible to users. This means not only cataloging
them quickly, but also ensuring items are classified in a reasonable manner. At
a small liberal arts institution such as Elmhurst, however, I am able to not
only work in technical services, also in reference, information literacy
instruction, and collection development. Additionally, I work closely with
staff and librarians not only in technical services but throughout the library
to develop local practices that best serve the users of the A.C. Buehler
Library. I feel that these opportunities to work in areas outside of technical
services better prepare me to make policy decisions as well as design effective
services to facilitate access because I have a more complete understanding of
library functions. Evidence of my work as a liaison can be found in the letters
of evidence from Nancy Lee, Kevin Olson, Paul Parker, and Jim Smith that are
included in Appendix 4.
I feel that the most direct method of
facilitating access to information is through work at the library’s reference
desk. I have regularly scheduled reference duties one evening a week, and fill
in at the desk when other staff are unavailable. I work with individual library
users, primarily students, in person, on the phone, and even through email.
This experience keeps my information seeking skills sharp and maintains my
awareness of the latest print and electronic resources. I also am able to
observe problems students encounter when trying to find resources. This
knowledge of users’ information seeking skills is especially helpful in my role
as a library liaison for the music, sociology and theology departments and the
human services administration (HSA) and intercultural studies (ICS) programs. I
am responsible for materials selection and information literacy instruction in
those areas. I work with faculty to develop course assignments that incorporate
information literacy skills and work with them to select appropriate resources
for the library’s collection. Working closely with faculty in specific
departments allows me to develop a deeper understanding of the specific
disciplines I serve. I feel that as I develop relationships with the faculty in
these areas, I understand their departments’ educational goals and can better
anticipate what resources they will need in the future. I can apply this
understanding when I create Web pages of appropriate print and electronic
resources for particular courses. We use these Web pages primarily as tools for
teaching information literacy sessions, but they serve an additional purpose
for all librarians and staff who provide reference services to our students.
Reference staff are able to use them to provide users with suggestions for
places to begin research when they do not have extensive knowledge in a
particular discipline. Since 1999 I have created approximately 35 course pages
that are revised on a regular basis, and I deliver 12-15 instruction sessions
each semester.
Some of my work facilitates access to
information and technology for faculty and staff through the design of library
programs. I work with the other librarians to create and deliver faculty
technology development workshops offered throughout the academic year. I
personally developed two workshops for creating Web pages using Netscape
Composer, “Quick and Dirty Web Pages” and “Refining Quick and Dirty Web Pages.”
The introductory workshop was created in May 1999, with the more advanced
workshop created in May 2000 based on the success of the introductory workshop.
Web pages for these workshops are included as part of Appendix 3A.
I also collaborate with the other
librarians to provide instruction and assistance in other pedagogical uses of
technology, particularly Web-based course management software such as
Blackboard. We work with individual faculty to help them integrate the software
into their courses as they see appropriate, whether it is to provide online
access to basic course documents such as syllabi and paper assignments, help
create online groups to facilitate discussion outside of class, or even develop
quizzes and tests that can be taken online. Several faculty in the departments
I serve have been very enthusiastic about implementing the Blackboard software
in their courses and I enjoy working with them. Nancy Lee and Kevin Olson
attest to this collaboration in their letters included in Appendix 4.
As the
Head of Technical Services, much of my responsibility has to do with management
of people and services; in other words, administration. I believe my most
important management skill is the ability to ensure that those I supervise or
collaborate with have the tools they need to complete their work successfully.
These tools may be the computers and programs they use to do their work, the
skills they need to complete specific tasks, or the organization of library
procedures and infrastructure to empower them to do their work most
effectively. By providing the necessary tools, I have the ability to facilitate
access by discerning order out of the chaos of uncertainty or indecision.
Computers and technology are essential to
library work for cataloging, Web page creation, access to electronic resources
and the World Wide Web, and general office applications. In the library I have
been the designated computer troubleshooter since 1997. When the library
implemented DRA Classic as its new integrated library system in 1998, we
decided to use the Windows NT operating system for our network of computers. At
the time there were few people on campus with Windows NT experience, so I began
working with Pat English of Computer Services to learn the basics. Since then,
the number of computers in the library has increased from about 24 to over 50
for both public and staff use. I have been responsible for the installation of
software upgrades and supervision of hardware upgrades in conjunction with
Computer Services with additional paraprofessional and student assistance.
Fully functioning computers are important not only to the library staff, but
are essential for students and other library users who need them to find the
resources that answer their questions.
All library staff required training in
the spring of 1998 as part of the Illinois Library Computer Services Organization
(ILCSO) migration to DRA. We received several days of training as part of the
consortium, but I spent a large amount of time after the training working with
technical services staff to develop local workflows and procedures. I have
since trained several new hires and staff in Instructional Media and
Circulation in DRA technical services functions. Much of that training is
one-on-one, and I have created some quick guides and cheat sheets to guide
staff in how to use the system correctly, several of which are included in
Appendix 3B.
Effective use of DRA involves more than
just knowing how to use the software properly. Staff also need to know how to
check or create appropriate subject headings for materials as well as classify
the items correctly. Part of my responsibility as department head is to
supervise the maintenance of the library’s catalog. This includes regular
monitoring of error reports. Our data in DRA for the most part has been fairly
clean, although there were several years prior to my coming to Elmhurst in 1997
that seem to have been a little lax in checking for cataloging accuracy and
consistency. We have made steady progress in cleaning up those errors and
inconsistencies. In addition, as the library prepares to migrate from DRA to
Endeavor’s Voyager integrated library system in the summer of 2002, we are
required to do special maintenance projects in order to make the migration
smoothly and make sure our data is as clean as possible. These projects include
the cataloging, serials, and circulation staff, cleaning up both our
bibliographic and demographic data. I forward error reports to the proper staff
and monitor their progress in cleanup.
Each year the library is required to
report on its activities as part of IPEDS and through the Association of
College and Research Libraries (ACRL). I have been responsible for compiling
statistics on library materials and activity and reporting them to the
appropriate agencies. This can be a difficult task, for often data collected
that is meaningful to us is not the same data that the government or other
organizations would like us to report. I have tried to develop methods to make
this data collection and conversion into “official statistics” easier, and it
has been a great help that most reporting now takes place on the Web.
Staff need to feel that they have
everything they need to do their jobs well. While I am the supervisor, I do not
do the tasks the staff do on a daily basis, and I rely on their specific
expertise to keep library operations running smoothly. When I arrived at
Elmhurst, I could find no written documentation for cataloging policies or
procedures. I was also concerned that position descriptions were very outdated
and did not reflect what staff were actually doing in their daily tasks. I met
with each member of the department to determine the scope of their positions,
as well as their interests for future development. I have rewritten position
descriptions when new staff have been hired based on these initial and ongoing
conversations. For the last several years as part of the annual evaluation
process, each staff member has written and discussed with me goals they would
like to achieve for the coming year, or changes they would like to see in
library processes or positions. I take these suggestions very seriously and try
to incorporate staff input whenever possible in implementing new projects.
I believe the technical services staff
know that while I trust their judgment in deciding how best to accomplish their
tasks, they are also welcome to come to me when they do not feel confident
about decisions they need to make. A decision as to where to classify a
particularly complicated book may take consultation with several staff members.
Decisions about how best to process special kinds of materials are also made
collaboratively, which I believe make the staff feel more invested in the work
they do. Included in Appendix 3B are several examples of policies that have
been developed to comply with the Dewey Decimal Classification system while taking
into account local needs expressed by librarians and staff.
I have taken on several additional
responsibilities in the last year to further facilitate access to library
resources. A portion of the $2.7 million Robinson library bequest has allowed
us to hire Kenamore & Klinkow, archival consultants, to process and
organize the Elmhurst College Archives in a one-year project. I work with them
as a liaison to College administrative areas such as the President’s Office and
the Office of College Advancement, fielding requests for materials. I also work
with the consultants as a resource for Elmhurst College history, answering
questions about the structure of the College’s governance and other matters in
order to most successfully organize the archival materials for researcher use.
In the near future I will also work with them to develop access, collecting and
usage policies to best reflect the goals and needs of the Elmhurst College
community and the preservation of the archival materials. Jane Kenamore provides
more information on this project in her letter of evidence in Appendix 4.
One area of library service that has been
very chaotic is periodicals, both the journals the library physically owns as
bound or microfilm volumes, and the arena of electronic access to journals.
After arriving here in 1997, I supervised a barcoding project for all
periodicals. This was a project that required a lot of detail work, and brought
to light many previous cataloging inconsistencies which had been transferred to
the barcodes. It took several years to correct numerous barcoding
inconsistencies and make the library system holdings more accurately reflect
the physical items on the shelves. We have also been streamlining the library’s
periodicals collection through prudent weeding. This again requires much
background work, checking to see if other libraries have the materials so the
information is not lost forever as well as making sure that access to these
materials is still acceptable to users. I work collaboratively with the other
librarians and our Periodicals Assistant Linda Harding to make sure that other
libraries that want our withdrawn periodicals receive the volumes they need.
Since changing our access method for
library databases to Web-based products in the summer of 1997, it has been
difficult to communicate to library users what periodicals are available in
full text on the Web. This can be especially difficult to determine because we
subscribe to databases from a number of different vendors, and the way journal offerings
are reported varies widely. In 1999 I developed a spreadsheet of full text
journals available on the Web culled from the different vendor lists. This was
maintained as a paper list for several months before I converted it into a
series of Web pages with live links to the appropriate databases. This process
was very time-consuming and the information was often out of date long before I
had the chance to update the listings twice each year. In the spring of 2001 I
discovered a vendor that does most of this work for libraries, and can keep the
lists updated bimonthly instead of semiannually. I have worked through the
summer to check all of our subscriptions for accuracy while submitting them to
Serials Solutions, and have been satisfied with their version of the listings.
Their service continues to improve as they get feedback from librarians, which
they solicit often. My feedback is even quoted on their web site, a printout of
which is included in Appendix 3B.
Representative Materials
Appendix 3 contains representative
materials for the essential areas of librarianship discussed in this portfolio.
Included in Appendix 3A are print versions of the web resource pages created
for courses in HSA, ICS, Music, Psychology, Sociology and Theology from Fall 2000
to the present. These pages illustrate the librarianship functions of
information literacy instruction and collection development as well as my
philosophy of facilitating access. Print versions of the faculty technology
workshops on Quick & Dirty Web Pages, Refining Quick & Dirty Web Pages,
and a PowerPoint workshop for Elmhurst College staff are included as well.
Online versions of these and all course and workshop pages I have created are
available on the Web at http://www.elmhurst.edu/~elainep/coursepages.html.
Additionally, training materials I have
created for library staff are included in Appendix 3B. These materials include
guides for technical services staff such as cataloging procedures and cheat
sheets, cataloging policy decisions, and library staff guides such as “Library
Information at a Glance.”
Evidence of Librarianship
Appendix
4 includes letters of evidence from Elmhurst College faculty and from library
and archives professionals from other institutions. These colleagues were asked
to describe the area of librarianship, professional activity or service that
they have experienced and comment on the impact this activity has had on them,
their students, their department, the College or the profession. A copy of this
request is available in Appendix 1. Paul Parker, Jim Smith, Kevin Olson, and
Nancy Lee are Elmhurst College faculty consulted with whom I have worked as a
departmental liaison; they document my work in the areas of instruction and
collection development. I have worked with Marie Baehr, Paul Parker and Jim
Smith on various campus committees; they document some of my service
activities. Ted Schwitzner (North Central College), Jane Kenamore (Kenamore
& Klinkow), and Casey Sutherland (ILCSO) are several outside colleagues who
attest to my work in bibliographic access, organization, and control with
library and archival materials as well as my professional activity.
Professional Development in Librarianship
The
field of librarianship is ever-changing, and by necessity requires
participation in continuing professional education activities. These activities
have generally fallen into three categories: technical training, graduate work,
and other professional development activities.
Technical training is critical to my work
as the head of the technical services department. Because I am responsible for
training staff in the use of the DRA integrated library system’s technical
services module Netcat and the OCLC national online union catalog Worldcat, I
have attended several training sessions on specific functions within these
products, such as Cataloging and Serials. This training has helped me develop
the necessary skills to train others and also helps me to use the tools more efficiently
myself, keeping my skills sharp. I do not catalog or check in materials on a
regular basis, but feel confident I can be called on with questions or to fill
in for an absent staff member because of my updated training.
Technical
training also includes learning general office application programs for library
purposes. I have primarily been self-taught in these areas, with the aid of
other librarians and Elmhurst College staff and manuals, and have learned to
use Microsoft Office applications, Netscape Communicator, Dreamweaver, and
several database programs. I took an online tutorial on Microsoft Access
offered by the Suburban Library System (SLS) in the summer of 2001 in order to
gain a better understanding of how databases work. This has helped me evaluate
the library’s archives and art slides databases to maximize their effectiveness
in the current and future uses. I also honed my skills after the tutorial by
creating two databases using Microsoft Access: one to assist reference desk
staff in locating items in the library’s educational test collection, and one
to assist staff in managing the library’s PCs.
Although
I have an M.S. in library and information science, the terminal degree for
librarianship, I have continued my graduate education in this field. In 2000 I
began study in archives administration at Dominican University. I have
completed two courses toward a five-course post-masters’ Certificate of Special
Study. I chose archives administration not only because of my current and
future involvement with the College Archives, but because it has been an
interest of mine for quite some time. In the past, I have been a volunteer at a
local history museum and I studied preservation when I was in graduate school
at the University of Illinois. In my studies at Dominican I have read
extensively in the archives field, and have completed two article-length papers
on electronic records management and digitization that can be prepared for
publication.
The archives courses I have taken at
Dominican have challenged me to think about librarianship differently. Although
archives and libraries share common principles of access, organization, and
control, the means through which these ends are achieved are very different.
Archives serve as a record of an organization or even a culture, and the way
these materials are organized is completely dependent on the person or body
that created them. This idea, called provenance, and the related idea of
maintenance of original order is completely foreign to librarianship, which
facilitates access to materials by organizing them by subject, regardless of
the context in which they were created. In addition, these courses, taught by
practicing archivists, also increased my awareness of ethical issues involved
with uses of information, and copyright issues surrounding materials of all
types. Jane Kenamore was my instructor for the advanced archives class, and
comments on my work in her letter in Appendix 4.
Discussions about copyright in class and
at assorted times on campus convinced me that I should study this topic more as
well. I participated in an online tutorial on copyright in the spring of 2000,
and have read several books on the history of copyright and its future in the
digital age. I would like to continue study in this area. I keep current on
this topic as well as other issues in librarianship through my professional
reading, in which I follow the major library journals and collect articles and
citations to interesting and relevant items.
Since
coming to Elmhurst in 1997 I have also participated in other professional
development activities. I was selected to be an ILCSO primary trainer in the
summer of 1997 in preparation for the conversion to DRA, and participated in a
five-day seminar on training that included information on change management,
learning and teaching styles. As a group of 20 primary trainers, we developed
one day “Train the Trainers” workshops which were presented to several ILCSO
constituencies in the winter of 1997-98. I learned a lot about teaching and
learning styles, which has enhanced my skills in preparing and delivering
information literacy instruction sessions. My increased understanding of change
management has been very useful during the library’s transition to DRA, as well
as campus implementations of the Diebold ID card system and the currently
ongoing implementation of Datatel. I feel better prepared to anticipate
people’s reactions and find solutions to allay fears and concerns before they
turn into larger problems.
Professional and Scholarly
Objectives and Activities
The field of librarianship evolves
because of innovative work by librarians that is shared through presentations,
publications, and networking. My professional and scholarly activities help to
strengthen my individual skills as a librarian while also allowing me to share
my experience with others in a variety of settings. These activities can be
seen in the categories of attendance at professional meetings (including
presentations at some of those meetings), leadership in professional
organizations, and publications and grants.
Librarianship
is an interdependent profession, with much collaboration between libraries or
other agencies and between librarians. I am an active participant in
professional library activities. I hold memberships in the American Library
Association (ALA), the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL),
the Illinois Library Association (ILA), the Illinois Association of College and
Research Libraries (IACRL), and the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC). I have
attended several national meetings of ALA, and the annual meetings of ILA and
MAC. I have attended the biennial ACRL conferences in Detroit (1999) and Denver
(2001), serving each time as a meeting room attendant and Internet room
volunteer. In addition, I participate in local consortial activities with
LIBRAS – a local consortium of 18 private liberal arts colleges – ILCSO, and
SLS. These activities serve two purposes: first, as a professional development
activity in which I am updated on the latest innovations in library services as
well as the newest products and services from vendors; and second, these
meetings offer abundant opportunities for networking with other library and
archives professionals.
I have made several poster session presentations
at state and national meetings. Poster sessions provide an informal forum for
presenting library innovations and research by offering opportunities to
discover the nuts and bolts of a particular library service, particularly
effective uses of the Web, or the effects services have on library communities.
These sessions allow the presenter to show the work, talk briefly about it, but
spend most of the allotted time talking one on one with other librarians,
sharing insights based on the work presented. Both poster sessions I have
presented, “If You Give a Professor a Web Page” at the 1999 ACRL conference
with library director Susan Swords Steffen and “Online Research Guides: Are
they Worth Librarians’ Effort?” at the 1999 ILA annual conference with reference/instruction
librarian Anne Jordan-Baker, sought to share our experiences with information
literacy instruction. I had compiled statistics about the library’s Web page
use, looking at the type of library pages that had been accessed and whether the
pages had been accessed by library staff, library users, others on campus, or
outsiders. We discovered that the course pages that Elmhurst College librarians
have been creating since the fall semester of 1998 have been beneficial to
students and our community as a whole. By presenting these poster sessions in
statewide and national settings, we also gained some valuable insights from
other libraries on ways to enhance this service. Outlines of these
presentations can be found in Appendix 5.
I have
been asked to speak at local consortia meetings on several occasions as well. I
presented segments of “train the trainers” workshops entitled “Adult Learning
Styles” and “Building a Training Design” for ILCSO library staff in January and
February 1998. These workshops were designed by the team of 20 ILCSO primary
trainers mentioned previously in the Professional Development section of my
portfolio. We developed scripts and outlines, handouts, group activities and
presentation aids. The workshops were presented by groups of four or five
trainers to audiences throughout the state of Illinois. This collaborative
planning and presentation was very beneficial to me because I had not really
done anything like it before – I learned a lot about the struggles and benefits
of working collaboratively, and was given the opportunity to share information
with my peers in a presentation setting. In addition, I have participated as
part of a panel presentation for ILCSO, “Implementation of DRA
Serials/Acquisitions Modules,” in November 1999. I was asked to share with
ILCSO Technical Services Forum members Elmhurst College’s experience
implementing the DRA Serials module in July of that year. Outlines of these
presentations are included in Appendix 5.
Leadership
in library professional organizations is crucial to success in librarianship. I
believe that good leadership is essential to maintaining networks necessary to
solve problems and share knowledge and resources. Locally, I have held the
position of LIBRAS Serials SIG chair since 1999. The LIBRAS Special Interest
Groups (SIGs) offer opportunities for librarians and support staff to gather to
ask for help and share information among libraries with similar collections and
needs. As a SIG chair I also meet with the LIBRAS executive board several times
each year. On a statewide level, ILCSO has recently restructured its
governance, creating an ILCSO Users Advisory Group (IUAG) consisting of elected
and selected representatives of the various library functional areas. I was
elected in 2000 by ILCSO directors to represent technical services interests
for a two-year term. I am also a member of the ILCSO Serials Pattern Record
Task Force, which serves to maintain consortial integrity of serials patterns
shared by libraries in DRA. We developed policies and procedures for working
with serials in a consortial environment, act as members on call to correct
pattern problems on a rotating basis, and will be active in helping libraries
convert their serials pattern data to the new Voyager integrated library system
in 2002. Ted Schwitzner and Casey Sutherland’s letters in Appendix 4 detail
some of my work in these two consortia.
Librarians
also serve as leaders when they support other librarians and library workers in
a mentoring relationship. In 1997-98 I participated in a pilot mentoring
program for graduate students in library science at the University of Illinois
at Urbana-Champaign. These students were enrolled in the university’s distance
education option (LEEP) – I was assigned a student who lived in the northwest
suburbs and only commuted to the Urbana-Champaign campus twice per semester. I
served as a professional contact for her, and encouraged her to visit the
library at Elmhurst College on several occasions to experience an academic
library behind the scenes. We also collaborated on several occasions for her
courses. While the mentoring program at the University was discontinued after
one year, the relationship I developed with the student has continued through
her first professional library job. I have also been active in developing a
relationship with the College of DuPage in support of its Library Technical
Assistant (LTA) program, which offers specialized training for paraprofessional
library workers. This fall the library is hosting two interns who are
completing the LTA program. They will each spend 99 hours over 10 weeks
learning the different functional areas of the library and instructional media.
I meet with them regularly and coordinate their schedules, and am working with
the other librarians and staff to provide them with interesting and fulfilling
opportunities to further encourage their interest in library work.
In the area of collection development,
librarians often select materials based on reviews written by others. Much of
the professional literature I follow includes book reviews by librarians and
book industry professionals. In order to contribute to this body of work, I
write book reviews for an electronic review journal, E-Streams (http://www.e-streams.com/).
I write reviews for texts in computer science, library and information science,
and human services and social work. Printouts of these reviews are included in
Appendix 5.
In
collaboration with Susan Swords Steffen, this fall I applied for a grant from
the Illinois State Library for an archives digitization project. The state of
Illinois is developing an Illinois Digital Archives, showcasing materials from
libraries, archives, museums and historical societies throughout the state. The
grant, approved in October 2001 and continuing through summer 2002, will
highlight “Social Justice Activism at Elmhurst College.” I will be working with
our archival consultants Kenamore & Klinkow to select photographs,
newspaper clippings, and other College archival materials that illustrate how
Elmhurst College has had a tradition of social justice concerns and action,
including protests about war and civil rights issues. The materials will be
digitized, cataloged and described, and uploaded to the state-sponsored
Illinois Digital Archives for electronic access by students and scholars all
over the state and the world. I have already completed an online course as an
introduction to digitization concepts, and participated in a two-day workshop
with other grant recipients to learn more about equipment and software
available to make digitizing projects successful.
Representative Professional
and Scholarly Materials
Appendix 5 contains representative
professional and scholarly materials. Printouts from my book reviews appearing
in the online journal E-Streams and
outlines from poster sessions and panel presentations are included. Links to
online versions of some of these materials are also available at http://www.elmhurst.edu/~elainep/appendix5.html.
Appendix 5 also includes some of the ILCSO training materials I helped develop
and present in 1998 and the Illinois State Library archives digitization grant
proposal. Additional information about my professional and scholarly activities
may be found in the Library Activity Reports in Appendix 2. Information about
my continuing education activities may be found in section 2.A., professional
participation in section 2.B, and various scholarly activities in sections 2.C,
2.D and 2.E.
Future Plans
I
believe my scholarly activity in the future will focus more exclusively on
archives administration. I intend to complete more courses at Dominican
University toward my Certificate of Special Study and also take the Certified
Archivists Exam in August 2002. Courses I am considering are indexing and
abstracting, which I believe will be invaluable when beginning to work with
such archival materials as the Elmhurst College newspaper, and an independent
study in the College Archives conducted with Kenamore & Klinkow. In
addition, I expect that the grant work with the Illinois Digital Archives will
offer additional opportunities for presentation and/or publication.
Service Philosophy and
Activities
The service activities I am involved in,
both on campus and in the community, help to give me insight into some of the
issues people face in our world today. This provides me an expanded frame of
reference when I am doing library work such as working with faculty to create
Web pages of resources for courses or selecting other materials for the
library’s collection. I feel that my time spent in service to the campus and
community has encouraged me to be an active participant as a member of our
diverse society while being sensitive to the varied needs of the library’s
users.
My service activities at Elmhurst College
have been varied, but they fall into roughly three areas: special
constituencies, student academic life, and general campus operations.
There are many groups on the Elmhurst
College campus that focus on special constituencies within the college
community. I have participated in the Faculty Women’s Caucus, SAFE, the
diversity book discussion group, the Newman steering committee, the Bernardin
lecture committee, and the Latino Heritage Month planning committee. Each of
these groups work to make Elmhurst College a more welcoming and affirming
campus for all of its students, faculty, and staff by offering opportunities to
have thoughtful discussion and open dialogue about different issues. I have
contributed to these groups as a regular member, but also as a librarian by
providing resources to the group and the community, by purchasing books or
creating Web pages of resources based on the needs of the group. An example of
this is a series of Web sites I created for Latino Heritage Month 1998;
printouts of these pages can be found in Appendix 6. Paul Parker and Jim Smith
also describe some of my committee work with special constituencies in their
letters in Appendix 4.
I have also been on committees that seek
to improve student academic life, such as Student Affairs Council and the
Honors Committee. These groups reinforce the value of student academic success
to the College’s overall quality and longevity.
During my term on Student Affairs
Council, we looked at several important issues relating to students such as
plus-minus grading, academic advising, and support services for international
students. We spent the entire Fall 1999 semester studying plus-minus grading and
grade inflation. I prepared a research summary on plus-minus grading and
institutions that have implemented it, which was used to facilitate an informed
discussion resulting in a qualified recommendation to table the issue and not
forward it to Academic Council. The research summary is included in Appendix 6.
Over the last two years, the Honors
Committee has been charged with developing a more robust and challenging
program for our students, which was presented to and approved by the faculty in
May 2001. Again, I provided research assistance to this group, looking at
schools similar in size and makeup of Elmhurst and comparing honors programs.
In addition, the committee looked at issues such as curriculum development, in
which members of the committee prepared outlines for sample courses in Social
Responsibility, Spiritual Values, Critical and Creative Inquiry and Lifelong
Learning. I prepared a sample course outline for the Spiritual Values course.
While these courses will probably not be used in favor of adapting existing
courses focusing on these ideas, the process of creating a course was a
valuable experience for me because I have had little experience in this area.
The research comparison and sample course outline are included in Appendix 6.
During my time at Elmhurst I have also
served on several administrative campus committees. These committees are needed
to plan and implement new technologies as well as maintain the general
operation of the College. I was involved with the implementation of the new
Diebold campus ID card system, serving on the ID card committee for several
years. I am currently and will continue to be involved with the implementation
of the campus information system, Datatel. I serve on the Datatel CORE team
which meets weekly as well as the faculty and residence life subcommittees. I
was selected to serve on these committees because of my familiarity with how
databases are structured. I also understand the importance of gathering
accurate data from disparate offices and departments on campus in order to
provide quality service to students. Currently, I am the chair of the Committee
on Committees, which strives to make faculty governance an equitable endeavor
for all involved while trying to meet the needs of the campus community. Marie
Baehr refers to my work with Datatel and the Committee on Committees in her
letter included in Appendix 4.
In my external service activities, I seek
opportunities to work for inclusion and peace. I am involved with music
ministries at Resurrection Catholic Community in Wayne. I am a member of the
community’s music ensemble, and I accompany and cantor at several masses each
month. Through the various music ministries, I hope that I encourage full and
active participation by all members of the community gathered for worship. I am
also an active member of Pax Christi USA - a national Catholic organization
concerned with peace and nonviolence - and am part of a group founding a local
chapter at Resurrection.
Conclusion
In
this essay I have attempted to describe my work as an academic librarian in
discrete parts that can be independently understood. However, the reality of my
work is that the diverse tasks I undertake all have the common goal of
facilitating access to information. My activities in librarianship,
professional and scholarly endeavors and service all further this goal, whether
it is to assist the staff I work with or the community the library serves.
Elmhurst College has been a good fit for my philosophies of access and service
and has encouraged me to grow as a librarian and a professional.