Talk About Images and Issues of Professional Librarianship

SUMMARY

This session provided an open forum that revolved around various library professional development issues. The presenter briefly introduced each topic and then facilitated audience participation. Specifically, the public image of the profession, librarian faculty status/tenure, public vs. technical services, and employment outlook/retirement concerns were discussed.     

CBQ Currents Topical Essays About Contemporary Issues

COMPATIBILITY STANDARDS, COMPETITION, AND INNOVATION IN THE BROADCASTING INDUSTRY by Stanley Besen and Leland Johnson (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1986—$7.50, paper)

Museum of Broadcasting, a guide to their published program catalogs

1986 TELEVISION FINANCIAL REPORT, and 1986 RADIO FINANCIAL REPORT by Cynthia Stanley (Washington, DC: National Association of Broadcasters, 1986—price not given, but about $100 each, spiral bound)     

Improving In-House Communication About Serials

Summary

Numerous departments are involved in the serials processing chain, with functions becoming more inter-related in the online environment. At the University of Maryland at College Park, no one person or individual acted as a central clearing house for planning, implementing, or disseminating information about serials processing. This workshop examines function and process of a continuous quality improvement (CQI) team which studied the issues surrounding processing of serials, as well as the team's recommendations and their implementation.     

Seven Myths About the ISSN

Summary

An understanding of how International Standard Serial Numbers (ISSN) are assigned and used is fundamental to the work of all participants in the serials information chain. This workshop sought to dispel many of the common misconceptions about the ISSN by exploring the “myths” and presenting the facts.     

Teaching About Ideology Through Grading Rubrics

Objective: To provide students with a practical understanding of the effect that ideology has upon their everyday lives

Courses: Persuasion, Rhetorical Theory, Communication Theory, Organizational Communication and any other course that wishes to address the concept of ideology     

News Talk: Investigating the Language of Journalism

The “topless radio”; phenomenon was briefly widespread— and controversy about such formats continues to appear. This article reviews two important FCC decisions, Sonderling (WGLD‐FM), and Pacifica (WBAI‐FM), to discern and describe FCC policy trends and attempts to define just what obscenity and indecency is and what standards for broadcasting should exist. Dr. Feldman is on the speech faculty at Denison University (Ohio), while Dr. Tickton teaches mass communication and speech at, respectively, Norfolk State College and Old Dominion University, both in Virginia.     

Using Word Clouds to Teach About Speaking Style

Courses: Hybrid/Introduction to Communication, Public Speaking, Advanced Public Speaking (online and face-to-face)

Objectives: Students will understand the importance of repetition, style and focus in speeches. Students will evaluate the effectiveness of their language use by creating and reviewing word clouds     

Incorporating TED Talk assignments into a public-speaking course

Courses: Introduction to public speaking, advanced public speaking, hybrid/survey introduction to communication.

Objectives: At the end of this activity, students will be able to (1) explain the elements of a speaking outline and discover these elements in real-world speech examples, (2) recreate outline formats effectively in their personal speeches, (3) appraise both their own presentations and the presentations of others in order to assess the effectiveness of these presentations, (4) recognize the needed elements of different speech genres and apply those elements when developing and delivering their own speeches, and (5) summarize and synthesize course concepts and apply them to a critical analysis of a real-world speech example.     

Thinking About Reference Service Paradigms and Metaphors

Abstract

A critical but overlooked aspect of reference service is thinking about paradigms and metaphors. These are subconscious imageries that define how we think about our work-and how our clients think about us. Limitations of the current paradigms affecting reference services are: (1) social-class assumptions about the nature of the library and its clientele; (2) classification systems based on obsolete ideas that subject categories are mutually exclusive; (3) the fortress metaphor implied in physical organization; and (4) failure to capture statistical data that measure contemporary aspects of user service.

New ways of thinking about reference service with new paradigms and metaphors are suggested. Critical elements in a new paradigm are: (1) envisioning the library as portal, both for on-line and in-library service; (2) accepting the fact that knowledge is an open system, not conducive to our closed-system classification systems; (3) breaching our metaphorical fortress to provide more personal reference service; and (4) updating our statistical measures to match quantitative measures with actual quality of service.     

How did Americans Really Think About the Apple/FBI Dispute? A Mixed-method Study

ABSTRACT

Second-level agenda-setting suggests that news media influence how we think. As a case study examining the nature and effects of mainstream news media’s coverage of the 2015 Apple/FBI dispute about data privacy versus national security, this study found via content analysis that a majority of articles covering the dispute (73.7%) made the same potentially misleading claim about how the American public feels about the dispute. Nearly half (45.6%) of those articles made public opinion claims without offering empirical evidence, and almost all articles (97.4%) that cited the Pew survey appeared to have inadvertently created an unsubstantiated social reality. Then, this study found in a subsequent experiment that, consistent with impersonal influence, the above-mentioned news portrayals significantly affected the participants’ view on Americans’ collective opinion towards the Apple/FBI dispute. The long-term effect of this journalistic oversight is notable. Theoretical implications and practical recommendations for future science communication in the news are discussed.     

Leadership Reflections: It is Not About the Perks

Abstract

Our guest columnist is Karl Bridges who has served in a variety of leadership roles in academic libraries. I have gotten to know Karl over the past few years as he was asked to serve in an interim dean role and then hired into the permanent dean positions. At the time, I was at the University of Wyoming and serving as a leader in sparsely populated state where everyone knows your name. Western leaders have to form a tight bond – there are fewer of us and the distances are great. But regardless of geographical situations, leaders need and depend on peer networks that provide a safe space for frank conversations and sharing ideas that help all libraries achieve their goals. Karl has dealt with changing university leadership, library transformations, and dire budget situations. Well, pretty much what every library leader must face. Despite these challenges, library leaders have an opportunity to make a real difference. Karl draws upon his years of experience to provide a thought piece about library leadership noting the complexity, the importance of leadership, and the real joy of making a difference in someone’s life. I hope you enjoy this raw look at leadership and that it reminds you of the purpose of leadership.     

Connecting Autoethnography with Service Learning: A Critical Communication Pedagogical Approach

Course: Small Group Communication

Objectives: Students will apply small group communication principles to a service learning project and learn how autoethnography is a means of writing reflexively about their experiences. Specifically, students will do so by (1) applying their understanding of oppression to their own lives, (2) analyzing how their community experiences relate to other experiences in their lives, (3) evaluating power relationships, and (4) creating a coherent piece of writing that reflects their learning about power in society.     

The Impact of the Digital Transformation on Sports Journalism Talk Online

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the impact of the digital transformation on broadcast practices from a producer/studio participant perspective with a focus on sports journalism online. More specifically, the study targets changes in sports talk and interaction as producers re-shape their communicative activities to fit audiences’ new contexts of reception. It discusses how these changes in practices relate to some of the fundamental assumptions in current broadcast talk theory. The textual studies are complemented by interviews with six prominent Swedish media industry representatives in order to shed light on their perceptions of the broadcast to online shift given their respective experiences. The results show how producers/participants adapt to a more casual and relaxed interactional style and tone online than in ordinary broadcasting. The studied sportscasts also largely abandon the traditional broadcast address, as expressed in direct discursive address and looks-to-camera, for an orientation to screen devices where social media active audiences are to be “found,” although still having a traditionally positioned audience to attend to. Although sociability is still the structural principle for producers’ interactional choices irrelevant of platform, the strategies of how to achieve it are changing due to the digital transformation.     

谈图书馆员的工作态度

本文从社会心理学的角度对图书馆员的工作态度进行了分析 ,阐述了态度产生的原因和构成态度的不同成分及其相互关系 ,提出了保持良好的的工作态度的相关建议。     

Raising awareness of campus diversity and inclusion: Transformationally teaching diversity through narratives of campus experiences and simulated problem solving

ABSTRACT

Courses: Organizational Communication, Intercultural Communication

Objectives: This activity encourages students to learn collaboratively about diversity through the sharing of student experiences; deepen and complicate their understanding of organizational diversity; and enhance their ability to apply course material to increasingly complex organizational environments.     

Re-Learning American History: Understanding the Assumptions Underlying Intercultural Communication

Course: Intercultural Communication

Objectives: Students will challenge their assumptions about other cultures and question ethnocentric understandings of other cultures     

“I Now See How I Can Use These Skills”: An Applied Project for the Public Speaking Course

Courses: Public Speaking, Advanced Public Speaking, Argument and Debate

Objective: Students will learn in-depth about a speech or presentation genre they see as relevant to their future, and be able to prepare and present such a speech or presentation     

Standing at the Gates: A New Law Librarian Wonders About the Future Role of the Profession in Legal Research Education

ABSTRACT

There have long been complaints about the legal research skills of law school students and recent graduates. In this article the author focuses on the period between the release of two important reports on legal education, the MacCrate Report in 1992 and the Carnegie Report in 2007, examining how law librarians and other professionals involved were engaged in responding to the problem. The author concludes that if law librarians want to be involved more fully in legal research education, some changes or reexamination of our professional culture and positions may be necessary.     

Pediatricians and speech disorders

The authors present the results of personal interviews with several practicing pediatricians relative to their information about speech disorders and their disposition of speech defective children presented to them.     

Gender on the box: Self-reflexivity as a starting point

This self-reflexive activity acts as an introduction to how we talk about and express gender identity, as well as the assumptions we may have about gender identity norms and expression. The activity illuminates student’s subconscious behaviors and understandings of gender, pushing them to sit self-reflexively with their own understandings of gender as an identity, expression, binary, and potential locus of shame/freedom.

Courses: Introduction to Women and Gender Studies, Intercultural Communication, Media Studies, Gender and Communication, Performance Studies

Objectives: Designed to introduce students to their own understandings and embodiment of gender, this activity asks students to be honest about their preconceived notions regarding gender that they bring with them into the classroom. The activity utilizes predesigned components that test students’ subconscious knowledge of the gender binary. This is a one-time activity that can be conducted in one 50- or 75-minute class period.