UPDATE FROM DAVIS COLLEGE! October Events: COA Update, 100th Birthday, and more

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Hello dear Colleagues and Friends,

Exciting times are afoot here at Davis College! Fall is finally here with a deep long rain yesterday and the smell of Yankee air; the State Fair starts this week and pumpkins are popping up in peculiar places. We are getting ready for five great events: first, the visit from the Great Pumpkin – oh whoops, no not this year. First, our National Advisory Council and the Diversity Leadership Group are meeting together with our faculty and staff on Friday, October 16. The main agenda items are a review of the COA documentation, planning for a curriculum review, and discussion of internship and scholarship opportunities. If you have additional agenda items please send them directly to me and I will make sure they get added.


Our second great event is the arrival of our six External Review Panelists for our accreditation visit. They arrive on Saturday, October 24 and will be with us through Tuesday, October 27. Thanks to a generous gift from Jack Bryan, they have a newly redecorated Conference Room in Davis 112 to call home for their visit.

Carolyn, Chess and Jenny have been organizing and color coding our files and creating maps to the evidence from our presentation. We are so ready and looking to the visit. Let me know if you have any questions about the process or have something you want to share with the panelists.

Third, our traditional Gamecocks on the Green homecoming will be Friday, October 23 from 4:30 – 7:00. Join us on Gibbes Green for meeting old friends, making new friends, getting a picture taken with Cocky and generally enjoying the celebration. RSVP to Elaine Taylor by October 15 (taylorem@mailbox.sc.edu).


And the fourth great event is the birthday party tea at 4p.m. on Sunday, October 25 to celebrate Davis College turning 100! Dr. Pat Feehan and a committee of party planners have great fun planned, with special guests and the University Archivist, Elizabeth West will be giving a tour of the horseshoe at 3:00. So hope you can join us to honor our beautiful building!


Finally, fifth fun event is the SC Library Association Conference and all the fun that brings. Join us for a Diversity Pre-Conference on Wednesday, October 28 and stay for the USC SLIS Alumni tea at the Marriott on Thursday afternoon. For more information: www.scla.org.


You can see that we are staying out of trouble, planning great things and looking forward to seeing you this fall. In the meantime, here are five things to read and think about:

A Library to Last Forever [The New York Times]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09brin.html

The Dewey Dilemma [Library Journal]
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6698264.html

A digital "think-in" -- this could be a good idea for library leaders and thinkers, too, no?
NPR’s Honchos Talk Digital at “Think In” in San Francisco (Also, Scoble!)
Source: kara.allthingsd.com
http://digitalthinkin.ning.com/

Google’s Abandoned Library of 700 Million Titles [Wired]
http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/10/usenet/

Got a Burning Question? Ask the Net [The New York Times]
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/03/technology/personaltech/03pogue-email.html


Don’t forget to hug a librarian and a teacher and let me know if there is anything we can do for you!


Yours,

sam

SLIS NEWS: Our Doctoral Student wins ALA Diversity Grant!

Great News!
ALA Congnotes from July 14th, 2009 published an article that named the winners of the 2009 Diversity Research Grants and OUR VERY OWN Doctoral Candidate, Clayton Copeland was awarded the FIRST of three grants!! Her study is titled "Library and information center accessibility: The differently-able patron's perspective" and will focus on giving voice to the differently-able patrons and and revealing areas of libraries that, with change, can improve accessibility. Congratulations Clayton!

If you want to find out more about these awards and her study, check out this article from the Office of Diversity:
http://ala.org/ala/newspresscenter/news/pressreleases2009/july2009/researchgrants_ofd.cfm

Always yours,
Dr. Sam

GENERAL NEWS: COA report, ALL Ceremony, Fall Semester, Third Year Review and More!

September 11, 2009

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

It’s Friday afternoon at Davis College. Carolyn is at the post office, mailing printed copies of our Accreditation report to the ALA, Committee on Accreditation and the members of our External Review Panel. I just hit the send button on the electronic copies. Am I happy, you ask? Oh-my-gosh! I feel like an anvil just got lifted from my chest! I’m giddy and excited but mostly, I feel an intense pride in our faculty, staff and students. They made this happen. Check it out on our website – if you find a typo, don’t tell me until next week.

Now, I can look forward to the ALL Award Ceremony on Tuesday night, 9/15 at 5:00 p.m. at the State Library on Senate Street. This is the third annual and our awards go to Callee Boulware, Rodney Graves and Ida Thompson. Fox TV is giving us a live spot on Tuesday morning so look for Ellen Hinrichs; WIS is giving it air time; and Darci Strickland from WXTL is our master of ceremony for the event. I hope to see you there as we honor the individuals that make a difference by helping people read!

The semester is sailing smoothly – classes are running, research projects are humming and all of the community service we do is continuing to bring good results to both us and the people we serve. I’m most delighted with the possibilities we have to grow and improve on how we influence our field. From staffing libraries with professionals that know how to meet the needs of diverse communities to working to eliminate illiteracy in South Carolina, our School is there!

Thank you for the responses to my third-year review. I appreciate the accolades but really enjoyed hearing what you had to say and taking your suggestions to heart. I will try to communicate more ways for our alumni to volunteer and am working on getting more synergy between Journalism and SLIS. If you are one of my advisees, please note that nothing is more important than you! Don’t hesitate to contact me for anything you need.

Tomorrow (Saturday, September 12) is "Reading Rocks Our World," the kick-off of the Richland District One's focus on literacy, from 10 am to 2 pm. The parade and events are all at Crayton Middle School on Clemson Road. Hope to see you there! Jerry Pinkney is a featured author!

Remember:

· Our Panning for Gold series of continuing education programs (http://www.libsci.sc.edu/ce/September.html). There are some really good choices this month!

· October 25 for the 100^th birthday party for our beautiful Davis College

· SCLA October 28 – 30 http://www.scla.org/index.php/AnnualConference2009/HomePage

Here are five things to read and think about:

1. The lost art of reading [Los Angeles Times]

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-ca-reading9-2009aug09,0,1920172.story

2. Why Academic Libraries Matter [Library Journal]
http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6675616.html

3. The future of libraries, with or without books [CNN]

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/04/future.library.technology/

4. What Are You Doing for Library Card Sign-up Month? [School Library Journal]

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6686647.html

5. Clive Thompson on the New Literacy [Wired]

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-09/st_thompson

Enjoy the fall -- I love these nights in the sixties! Hug a teacher and let me know if there is anything we can do for you.

Always yours,

Dr. Sam

GENERAL NEWS: Summer Graduations and Events for the Fall Semester!

August 10, 2009

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Our Summer Graduation event on Saturday was fantastic. I always get emotional when I look out at so many graduating students and the thousands of family and friends that helped them get to such a good part of their lives. It makes me think about truth and beauty and justice and the potential that each graduate brings to us – potential to change the world. When I talk to our SLIS graduates, I am convinced that the world will be a much better place with them on the front lines of libraries, holding the right to information like a banner. . .

And, the party was great! LISSA president Chess Schmidt, members (Amy, Kelly and Natalie), and our faculty and staff put together a lovely menu of special treats and even though it was VERY, VERY hot, we had a good time! Thank you each and all.

Now we are getting ready to welcome our new students. On Friday night we have a reception for our doctoral students, Saturday is orientation for the Masters and Sunday is convocation for our undergraduates. So much fun! As you know, graduation and orientation are my two most favorite events. It is important to remember that almost everything we do is for students, to be sure that they have the resources they need to succeed, to educate and help them protect our cultural heritage and yet be prepared for whatever the future might hold.

This is the beginning of my fourth year here at the University of South Carolina. I still wake up before my alarm, excited and ready to come to work. I still love walking through the doors of Davis each morning and treasure everyone I work with. I think I am doing a good job but would hate to find out that I am missing something critical or could improve in some area or. . . So, please do me a favor and go to http://CTLSilhouette.wsu.edu/surveys/ZS93685. It is a very short, anonymous survey for you to evaluate me as Director of the School. There is a place for you to comment and make suggestions – I’m counting on your help!

On August 28, we will have our first faculty/staff planning meeting of the year. In addition, to making plans and preparations for the external review panel visit from the ALA Committee on Accreditation, we will be working on the job descriptions for our two new tenure-track faculty, taking a strategic look at what we want our school to look like in 5 years and generally, making sure we have a plan ;-} If you have agenda items you want us to consider, please send them directly to me by email.

Mark your calendars for the following star-spangled events:

September 15 -- ALL (Annual Literacy Leaders) awards. Don’t miss seeing the people who make
difference in literacy initiatives receive awards for their service!

October 16 – Fall meeting of the National Advisory Council and Diversity Leadership
Group

October 25 – 100^th Birthday Party for Davis College at 4 p.m.

October 25-28 – ALA COA External Review Panel Visit

October 28-30 – SCLA 2009 Annual Conference. This year’s theme is: South Carolina Libraries: Diverse People and Exceptional Services. Don’t miss this premiere continuing education event offering a Preconference on diversity, dozens of workshops and networking opportunities for all. The Preconference on Diversity will open the Conference on Wednesday, October 28, beginning at 9:00 a.m. The Preconference is co-sponsored with the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) and its theme is, Diversity in the Workplace.

I look forward to seeing you at as many of these events as possible and if you are a distance student, we will have a web version of at least part of the event for you!

Let me know if you need anything and in the meantime, here are five things to read and think about:

1. Keep up with your LISSA! Great new twist on the idea of a fireside chat. . .

http://www.youtube.com/user/LISSAfireside

2. This is a great remembrance of a wonderful school media librarian by Paul Wood. Life Remembered: Vickers-Shelley's students recall credo. Champaign-Urbana (IL) News-Gazette, Sunday, August 9, 2009. http://tinyurl.com/muggpg

3. Serendipity, Lost in the Digital Deluge [The New York Times]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/business/02ping.html

4. Mourning the Death of Handwriting [Time]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1912419,00.html

5. Get Smarter [The Atlantic Monthly]

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/intelligence/

Stay cool and hug a librarian!

Yours,

Dr. Sam

GENERAL NEWS: Summer is here! Cohorts, SAC assessment, and Five Things!

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Summer is definitely here. My dehumidifier bucket fills with water faster that I can pour it out! I’m not complaining. . .it wouldn’t be this green and beautiful without the moisture – at least that is what I tell myself.

The more fun sign of summer is our orientation for new students and it was this past Saturday in Davis 209 from 10 - 4!

Nonie Price, Fred Roper and I had a lovely time in New England, recruiting new students and getting all things ready for our New England Cohort. First students will matriculate this fall and we will do an orientation for them on August 8 in Portland, ME. We are so happy to be able to offer another opportunity for our northern friends to join us.

Our Virginia, West Virginia cohort is bubbling along and we continue to admit students. We will be celebrating the graduates of this new batch on August 22. This will include the December 08, May 09, August 09 and a few December 09 graduates. We will be in Waynesboro and you are welcome to join us in acknowledging and congratulating this great group of new librarians and information professionals.

We are working on our SACs assessment reports and plans and finalizing a draft of our COA presentation for our ALA accreditation. Our advisory committee members will give it a first read and response before we shine it up. Our external review panel will visit in October 2009 so we are planning a reception in Davis on the 25^th. We will be celebrating the 100^th birthday of Davis College and welcoming our reviewers. Please plan to join us!

This has been a welcome break and I always look forward to hearing from you yet I must get back to the COA report. . .so much fun, so little time ;-}

Here are five things to do, read or think about:

1. The Next Age of Discovery [The Wall Street Journal]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124173896716198603.html

2. Books Born Digital [Library Journal]

http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6657392.html

3. Newspapers' Woes Worsening [CBS News]
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/02/28/earlyshow/main4835656.shtml

4. Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud [The New York Times]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/16/opinion/16sat4.html

5. New Search Tool Aims at Answering Tough Queries, but Not at Taking on Google [The New York Times] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/technology/internet/11search.html

Let us know if there is anything we can do for you and try to stay cool!

sam

GENERAL NEWS: Spring Graduation 2009, awards, rankings and tenure promotions (Oh my!) and Five Things

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

It’s graduation this Friday! My favorite ceremony! I am so looking forward to seeing our graduates begin their professional lives and prepare to be our future leaders, movers and shakers! In addition to our celebration on Friday, May 8 at Davis College in Columbia, SC we will also hold graduation ceremonies for our Virginia and West Virginia students in Waynesboro, VA on August 22. I love having something to look forward to ;-}

I hear that good things happen in threes and we definitely have three major events to sing about! I list them in order of occurrence. First, Ann Stewart Plein, a University of South Carolina graduate student in the School of Library and Information Science’s distance education master’s degree program from Morgantown, W. Va., has won the Thomas Cooper Library Student Book Collecting Award for her collection of book binding designs by Margaret Armstrong.

“Margaret Armstrong was one of the most notable book cover designers of the late 19th and 20th century and one of only two women in the field. She broke ground at a time when women more typically worked as seamstresses or teachers.” Plein’s collection, “Beautiful Bindings: The Designs of Margaret Armstrong,” will be on display at the university’s Thomas Cooper Library through May.

Second, the USC School of Library and Information Science recently received high marks for our program in the U.S. News & World Report “America’s Best Colleges Guide” for 2009. We ranked No. 2 for our school-library media program. “These rankings are especially gratifying, in that they highlight our academic excellence,” University President Harris Pastides says. “This news reaffirms our commitment to providing our students a top-quality education, thereby ensuring that we are providing a well-educated workforce for South Carolina and our nation.”

I am pleased with the rankings, which included an overall program rank of No. 17, out of 62 accredited schools nationally. Being ranked No. 2 in the nation for our school-library media program validates our mission to produce the best qualified leaders in our field. It helps us compete with an ever-challenging distance education market that recruits students without regard to geographical boundaries. Our faculty, staff and students are the best. Being in the top 20 is important and as we continue to improve and grow, we will continue to receive good rankings.

School-library media student, Roxanne Spray of Columbia, says she will be ultra-prepared when she earns her master's degree in May. "I really do believe that school library media specialists and programs are crucial to students' success and achievements," she says. "The professors, classes, and internships have helped me blend the theoretical and practical, so I'm ready to fill my role and be a leader and have a high-functioning media program on the first day of school." Of the ranking, she says, "Certainly it's nice to have that kind of national validation for a program that I already knew was wonderful."

THIRD, Dr. Jennifer Arns and Dr. Feili Tu are tenured and promoted to associate professors when the USC Board of Trustees votes at their June meeting. This is wonderful news and shows that our scholarship is of worth to the university and our profession as well as to our school. Please join me in saying “Good Work, Kudos, Thank You and more. . .” to Dr. Arns and Dr. Tu. We are so very proud of you!


So yes, good things come in threes and now I am ready for the next trio! In the meantime, here are five things to read or do:

1. Each year a panel of museum professionals reviews the sites nominated for Best of the Web awards, and honors the best work in the field. This year two of the MW2009 Best of the Web Awards go to:

Brooklyn Museum Collection, http://www.brooklynmuseum.org for Best Overall; Educational Site winner: Tate Kids http://kids.tate.org.uk/

2. Check this out if you are into new generation cataloging--Survival of the fittest tag: Folksonomies, findability, and the evolution of information organization [First Monday]

http://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2447/2175

3. Print a book while you wait? Revolutionary Espresso Book Machine launches in London [Guardian]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/apr/24/espresso-book-machine-launches

4. The U.N.'s World Digital Library [Time]

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1892916,00.html

5. Online Catalogs: What Users and Librarians Want [OCLC]

http://www.oclc.org/reports/onlinecatalogs/default.htm

Let me know if there is anything we can do for you. Don’t forget to hug a teacher, it is the end of another semester! You can start with our wonderful faculty.

Yours,

sam

SLIS NEWS: I-COMM Week and SLIS awards

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

I-COMM week is here! Our college is celebrating our two schools, Library and Information Science and Journalism and Mass Communications with programs and events that highlight the continuum of Information to Communication. Detailed information is at http://sc.edu/cmcis.

The I-COMM committee, co-chaired by Dr. Pat Feehan and Bonnie Drewniany have put together a spectacular week with much of the content available by webstreamed video. When you go to the schedule, check the programs that include breeze.sc.edu URL so you can join us wherever you are! Much appreciation to the committee and their great work with special thanks to the co-chairs! There is one typo on all of the programs. On Monday night the storytelling event that follows the SLIS Awards Ceremony and reception is NOT the first, nor an Augusta Baker Lecture. That honor goes to the partnership with Richland County Public Library and the long-standing Augusta Baker’s Dozen event (this year on April 24 and 25) http://www.myrcpl.com/children/augusta-bakers-dozen. Apologies for the confusion.

In addition to the I-COMM event, Graduate Student Day in Friday, April 3 and we have four students making poster presentations:

Clayton Copeland (SLIS Doctoral Student) at 9:05

Patricia Sasser (SLIS MLIS Student) at 9:45.

Barbara Montgomery(SLIS Doctoral Student) at 11:00

Robin Kurz (SLIS Doctoral Student) at 11:30

Also, the awards ceremony program will be held in the Russell House Ballroom at 2:30-4:00 p.m. and our own Chess Schmidt will be receiving the Trafton Outstanding Student Award. More information is available at http://www.gradschool.sc.edu/gsd/archive/gsdmain.php.

I am so grateful for the rain that I’m splashing in the puddles and loving it!

Have a wonderful week. I hope to see you during the events this week and in the meantime, if there is anything we can do for you, just let me know.

Yours,

Dr. Sam

GENERAL NEWS: SCASL Recap, Town Hall Meeting, 5 Things to Reflect Upon

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Finally back in the office after a Spring Break filled with professional associations and orientations. The only thing better than the beach is SCASL! It was wonderful to see all of our alumni in so many important leadership roles! I keep saying that we raise stars at USC SLIS and it was very evident that we do!

From seeing Valerie Byrd Fort be the perfect president, to Martha Taylor receiving media specialist of the year every session and hallway encounter was one to make us proud. Helen Fellers, Ellen Hinrichs, Sarah Keeling and Nonie Price kept our exhibit booth hopping and if they had a prize for best, most lively booth we would have won! The Alumni tea was wonderful again and it is so good to see everyone. Thanks for making it the best dear Nonie!

I went to Virginia from Greenville and met with our WVA/VA Cohort for an e-portfolio workshop. I was a little worried when Afton Mountain was covered in snow but our students make it safely and we had a lovely day learning to build portfolios and exchanging ideas and advice. Thank you Karen Galenas for sharing your wonderful library and making us feel so welcome! Dr. Wallace had everything planned to the second so I took great delight watching the expert at work.

I showed the Cocky’s Reading Express ™ video right before lunch and it was hard to find a dry eye. It is such a powerful look at the importance of reading. AND, oooohhhhh at SCASL, we received an ALA commendation for CRE! Only two ALA commendations were given this year nation-wide and we received one! Can you hear my buttons busting?

So here I am back to work after an evening town hall meeting with the students, me and Dean Bierbauer. We had some great questions and comments and as always, I came away totally impressed by the intelligence and heart in our students. You really do make me love coming to work! Video of the event will be available on the website.

I know there are many other things to share but will get them out to you next update. In the meantime, here are 5 things to do or reflect upon:

1. Want to see a really interactive website? Check out MoMA's new site redesign featured in the NYTimes http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/05/arts/design/05moma.html

2. Great presentation from the IMLS Webwise Conference: Web Tech Guy and Angry Staff Person http://usingdata.typepad.com/files/webTechGuy.html

3. Amazon launches Kindle application for the iPhone [The Washington Post] & of course I downloaded it immediately! Screen is a little small for reading and battery goes too quickly but great idea that will just get better.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-yn/content/article/2009/03/04/AR2009030400542.html

4. Better Safe Than Sorry: Does Your Library Have an Online Acceptable-Use Policy? [School Library Journal] http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6640437.html

5. In Search of Answers, Teachers Turn To Clickers [All Things Considered]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101343866

So “Erin Go Bragh” you all and happy spring! Let me know if there is anything we can do for you.

Always,

Sam

GENERAL NEWS: SLIS Update, Cocky's reading express Red Carpet, Book Festival and Five Things to Think About

Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Just a note to let you know that all is well at the SLIS. Davis College, our beautiful building will be one hundred years old this fall. We will be celebrating with a birthday party on October 25, 2009 so save the date. That is also when our ALA Committee on Accreditation, External Review Panelists will be here. I know they will want to see and talk with many of you!

The premiere of the Cocky’s Reading Express™ video was a great success. Photos from the event are linked off of http://cockysreadingexpress.com/ and you can also view the video there. This is a very powerful program and we are beginning to collect the data and evidence to show that when Cocky reads to children, they read! Thanks to all involved in making it a classy night!

This coming weekend is the Book Festival http://www.scbookfestival.org/. Of course, we are right in the midst of the fun! We will have a booth in the exhibit hall and several of us have roles as moderators or introducers in the sessions. On Friday morning, Cocky, Mrs. Moore-Pastides, Hellen Fellers and Ellen Hinrichs will welcome 400 children to a fun-filled read-in. Please stop by the Civic Center if you want to be a part of something wonderful!

Also on Friday, February 27 we have our strategic planning session for accreditation with our National Advisory Council and the Diversity Leadership Group! This is a most important part of our self-study and we look forward to working with our constituents. I’ll let you know how it goes!

So far we are holding our own in the budget scenarios. I send huge hugs to each of you that have sent your contributions to help us through these tough times! You have no idea how very important these dollars are to us right now! Thank you!

I am waiting for spring, ready to put my toes in the grass and dance with the flowers. In the meantime, here are some things to read and think about:

1. In Web Age, Library Job Gets Update [The New York Times]

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/16/books/16libr.html

2. Librarian Opposes Google's Library Fees [All Things Considered]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100969810

3. Library Hip As Economy Suffers [MSNBC]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29255899/

4. The Library Web Site of the Future [Inside Higher Ed]

http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2009/02/17/bell

5. What will the library of the future look like? [Los Angeles Times]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2009/02/what-will-the-l.html

All best wishes and let me know if there is anything we can do for you!

Yours,

Sam