GENERAL NEWS: Spring Orientation, Budget Meetings, and 5 Things to Think About
Hello dear Friends and Colleagues,
It is so wonderful to have the students back on campus! Saturday we held our Columbia onsite for orientation and had a great group of wonderfully intelligent new students. We continue to have increased diversity in our enrollment, both race and gender! It is a wonderful feeling to see those twinkling eyes, ready to learn, ready to make the world a better place to live! AAAAHHHH. . .
I hope you had a wonderful break and enjoyed the holidays with the ones you love. I still find a little sand here and there and miss the joy of the season but if you want to know the truth, I was ready to come back to work! I want to be here. We have so many opportunities and challenges, every day is another puzzle and I just love working it all out. (Let’s see what I am saying in May ;-}).
Next week is the ALISE and mid-winter ALA conference in Denver. Our faculty and doctoral students have several research papers and posters that will be presented. Our faculty also have many important roles as leaders, committee chairs, and governing council members. I will give you a full report when we return. Sure hope I can find my old winter coat. . .
We continue to prepare our presentation for the Committee on Accreditation for ALA. Employer surveys will be going out soon so please don’t toss them aside. We need to hear from you. We have a strategic planning meeting on February 27 here in Davis College with both of our advisory boards so please let me know if you want to join us in the afternoon. Our external review panel will be here October 26-27 so please be sure to save the dates for us. I know the panel members will welcome meeting you.
President Pastides addressed us in the Provost’s meeting last week. He emphasized that we are both the University OF South Carolina and the University FOR South Carolina. I like this dual approach as it matches what our school has been doing in service for many years. We serve our profession and field as the OF part and we serve our region in the FOR part.
The budgets cuts in South Carolina are serious but our doors are open, we will continue to build quality programs and we stand ready to serve our colleagues. Most important to me, is that we continue to support the importance of libraries as the centers of all things literate, good and human.
You can see the desire to learn in the faces of the children we read to on Cocky’s Reading Express ™. Cocky and the USC students (facilitated by Ellen Shuler Hinrichs) just finished 4 days on the road, giving out over a thousand books to children that promise Cocky they will read. There is a great diary from Ellen and photos at http://www.libsci.sc.edu/ccbl/
Here are some things to read, discuss and enjoy:
1. Best Careers 2009: Librarian [US News and World Report] http://www.usnews.com/
2. This is a must read from Lorcan Dempsey. Always on: Libraries in a world of permanent connectivity [First Monday]
http://firstmonday.org/htbin/
3. Survey Reveals That American High Schoolers Are Ethically Challenged The Josephson Institute, a Los Angeles-based ethics group, anonymously surveyed 29,760 students at 100 randomly selected public and private high schools nationwide and has concluded that America's youth are unconcerned about ethical standards. The survey found that 35 percent of boys and 26 percent of girls acknowledged stealing from a store within the past year. One-fifth of the students surveyed said they stole something from a friend; 23 percent said they stole something from a parent or other relative. As it relates to school, the survey found that 64 percent of students cheated on a test in the past year and 38 percent did so two or more times, up from 60 percent and 35 percent in a 2006 survey; 36 percent said they used the Internet to plagiarize an assignment, up from 33 percent in 2004.
4. From Ruth A. Riley, MS, AHIP
Three of our librarians from the University of South Carolina School of Medicine Library have authored the book Answers to the Health Questions People Ask in Libraries which was published by Medical Library Association Publishing in cooperation with Neal-Schuman Publishers in October 2008. This new consumer-focused handy reference volume is a reliable, authoritative resource for your consumer health and reference collections! The authors are Laura Kane, Assistant Director for Information Services, Roz Anderson, Assistant Director for Education & Outreach, and Steve Wilson, Coordinator, Center for Disability Resources Library. Here is link to more information about the book. http://www.neal-schuman.com/
5. Donkeys boost Ethiopian literacy [BBC News] By Elizabeth Blunt
BBC News, Awassa http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
In a bamboo and matting shelter on the edge of the town of Awassa, rows of tiny children are struggling with Ethiopia's fiendishly complicated Amharic alphabet. . . .This is Ethiopia's first Donkey Mobile Library - the brainchild of an expatriate Ethiopian now living in the United States.
His Ethiopian Books for Children and Educational Foundation (EBCEF) is also a publishing house and has produced many of the books on the shelves of the cart.
With all best wishes and a belief that all will be fine in 09! Let me know if there is anything we can do for you.
Sam
posted by Dr. Sam Hastings @ 10:27 AM
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