Amigos 2015 Annual Member Conference

The world is changing, so libraries are changing, we all know that. What that means and how that’s happening and toward what ends is a little less clear, though. In this talk, I want to lay out some of the surrounding and underlying issues at work, including some of the major forces in play, and then think together a bit about how, and toward what ends, we can all move forward.

The University of Texas at Dallas’ McDermott Library expanded leisure material acquisitions in 2014. This presentation will cover the implementation of leisure periodicals, physical, and downloadable leisure audiobooks. The presenters will also examine the hurdles, successes, failures, and future goals of the programs.

This session will show examples of updated technology and re-purposing of library spaces at Texas A&M University-Commerce's Gee Library. Before and after photos will demonstrate the renovated and re-purposed library spaces. Johnston will elaborate on updated library technology and services. Participants will receive information on how to go about implementing these changes in library spaces, services, and technology.

With the advancement of e-book technology, many libraries have explored the Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) model or Demand Driven Acquisition (DDA) model in their library collection development. But many discussions of PDA methods have only focused on collection development or acquisition aspects. PDA is rarely discussed from the perspective of record management. This presentation will demonstrate how the Metadata Services Department at the University of Texas at Dallas’ McDermott Library manipulates PDA records to facilitate its cost-effective purchase model.

Presenters will point out the fact that PDA discovery records can trigger duplicate purchase, against the expectation that PDA can help to maximize library spending’s cost-value. Based on their experience, the presenters will suggest a way to prevent such overlapping purchase from happening and share their optimized PDA record management workflow. This presentation will cover two different PDA models and strategies that they have developed in their ALMA library management system and share their best practices. Note: Project contributor - Debbie Montgomery, Associate Library Director for Technical Services and Assessment.

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Don’t miss sessions from our vendor partners! Listen to the brief updates and at the end of each session, there will be a drawing, sponsored by McGraw Hill, for two $50 Amazon gift cards per session.

As library needs change, many times we cannot make staff adjustments without having to challenge a job description and rewriting it every time a change is needed. By coming up with a general job description and through policies of cross-training, new staff assignments can be made and transitions of duties can be much simpler. Hardman shows how to accomplish this by implementing principles laid down in the Jim Collins work, "Good to Great" and shows how you can still have specialists, but be able to make adjustments to new and/or reassigned duties without being bound by job description boundaries.

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Learn how the North Richland Hills Library partnered with community makers and other libraries to create a community makerspace that will open in Fall 2015. It will include specifics such as policies, procedures, documentation, processes, equipment considerations and marketing. This project is made possible by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. (2015)

Recently, my library began to consider a change to our reference model. In an attempt to educate ourselves about other possible models and to get a sense of where our approach fell in with (or diverged from) that of other libraries, we reached out to our peer and aspirational peer institutions to see how they were doing reference. The results of our casual study were intriguing, showing wide variations in scheduling and staffing and also broad similarities in terms of the pressures on today's academic libraries to remain relevant in the age of Google. This presentation will share those results and discuss the implications for our reference service as well as the questions that remain and directions for future research.

I will talk about how I went from managing 10 people in one department to being in charge of 40 people encompassing three merged departments. During this time we implemented new procedures through out the departments, added RFID to the entire system and started floating our collections. I hope sharing my experiences, the good and the bad will help others weather through their changes and help them realize that in the end it is all worth it!

On almost every college campus, one thing the majority of students have in common is their use of social media. College students are constantly tweeting, posting to Facebook, Instagram and using SnapChat. How can we as librarians use the same social media to keep students informed on what is going on in the library?

Problem: The library staff members notice two scenarios for group work in the library. Scenario 1: groups of students huddling around one computer in the library, some of them with laptops. They are trying to work on a team project that requires them to create a group research presentation. Scenario 2: groups of students around a table showing laptop screens to each other, trying to conduct research and create a group presentation.

Solution: Create a collaboration space.

Collaboration space furniture and technology can be very expensive. Steelcase and other furniture vendors have collaboration station furniture and technology as a turn-key solution. As with any turn-key solution, there is a cost. These collaboration stations can be $10,000 - $15,000 each. The levels of technology vary depending on the vendor. The collaboration stations from these providers provide good quality furniture with power outlets, computer network connections, and video monitor connections. Most of the collaboration station solutions for the computer monitor connections are wired solutions. This requires the users to connect their device to the monitor via a video cable of some type usually a VGA cable or HDMI cable. For most libraries this would require stocking a selection of adapters to ensure that patron devices can be connected to the monitor.

Exploring solutions: Inexpensive collaboration stations. Are there less expensive alternatives?
Technology involved: What are the key components, and can they be purchased separately?
Future-proofing: How fast will this technology be outdated and need replacing?

Don’t miss sessions from our vendor partners! Listen to the brief updates and at the end of each session, there will be a drawing, sponsored by McGraw Hill, for two $50 Amazon gift cards per session.

Code lets you see better ways to manage library workflows, new ways to serve patrons, and truths about the world around you. In this keynote, I'll share concrete examples of ways librarians have written programs - some of them quite short! - to envision and implement good things for their libraries and the world.