VITAL: Visions & Ideas for Teaching and Learning

RTL Shares is a Harvard Library-wide group that provides programming on topics related to research, teaching, and learning. These community-building events are intended as a forum for presentations, discussions, and general sharing of expertise and experience across library staff.

The group's charge is to plan monthly events that creatively:

• demonstrate best practices in teaching and research support

• showcase library resources for research and learning

• explore timely topics in librarianship

• share knowledge of technologies, services, collections, and history specific to Harvard

• make use of knowledge and skills gained from colleagues’ professional development

If you have an idea for an RTL Shares event, please let the planners know!

RTL Shares planning committee:

Susan Berstler (FAS)

AJ Blechner (HLS)

Micah Hoggatt (FAS)

Ron Lacey (FAS)

Kerry Masteller (FAS) [Chair]

Mallory Stark (HBS)

August 15, 2013

Presenters: Cheryl LaGuardia, Kathleen Sheehan, Laura Farwell Blake

Cheryl LaGuardia, Kathleen Sheehan and Laura Farwell Blake shared what they learned in their work with Nancy Fried Foster and in the CLIR Participatory Design Workshops. They talked about using various ethnographic methods, including video interviewing, observation, student participatory design workshops, and field work. And, they shared what they learned from experiences here and those of our library colleagues at other campuses. Please see below for slides from their presentation, and related documents.

A Practical Guide to Ethnographic Research in Academic Libraries (ERIAL)

Studying Students: The Undergraduate Research Project at the University of Rochester, Nancy Fried Foster, 2007

September 19, 2013

Presenters: Enrique Diaz, Susan Gilman, Ramona Islam

Enrique Diaz, Susan Gilman, and Ramona Islam shared the results of a test usability study they conducted in order to enhance a research guide, focusing on creating fluency through visual design. Ramona introduced the guide in its original form; Susan demonstrated how she used Morae usability software, available to all librarians through the Sandbox Program, to capture a GSD students' verbal and nonverbal feedback in real time; Enrique engaged attendees in an interactive discussion of best practices for information design on the web; and finally, Ramona unveiled the made over guide, explaining how they applied the recommendations and principles to improve the user experience.

• Original guide: Traditions
• Made-Over guide: Traditions2 (Please note that the makeover is not yet complete - much more work is underway)

Session recording

October 17, 2013

Presenters: James Capobianco and Steve Kuehler

James Capobiano, from Houghton Library, facilitated an interactive discovery of sources for digitized books online.

Steve Kuehler, from Lamont Library, demonstrated Fold3, a resource for digitized documents from American history.

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Digitized Books Cheatsheet (created by James Capobianco)

November 21, 2013

Presenters: Scott Lapinski, Greg Eow, and Katherine Leach

Scott Lapinski, from Countway Library, has been integrating altmetrics into his work at Countway and will helped us prepare to support our researchers in discovering, understanding and curating their own impact data.Altmetrics is the creation and study of new metrics for analyzing scholarship based on more than journal Impact Factor, citation counts, or an H-Index alone. By analyzing other contributions, such as blog posts and other items from social media, altmetrics promise to provide more than just a quantification of journal articles and citation counts. Altmetrics utilities empower researchers to identify where, how, and sometimes who is interacting with the various scholarly activities they have contributed to their profession.

Greg Eow, Warren Bibliographer, and Katie Leach, Bibliographic Specialist, presented on the library's recent purchase of the Project Muse/University Press Content Consortium (UPCC) content, which offers over 20,000 fully searchable, DRM free eBooks from scholarly publishers on the familiar Project Muse platform. Greg provided a brief overview of the place the UPCC initiative holds in the developing market for scholarly eBooks, and Katie gave a demonstration of the Project Muse eBook platform and discussed initial plans for conducting an assessment of these eBooks over the coming months.

December 19, 2013

Presenters: Hugh Truslow and Reed Lowrie

Hugh Truslow and Reed Lowrie talked about Europeana, "a single access point to millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe."  After briefly demoing the resource they led participants in a Europeana treasure hunt, complete with prizes.

After the Europeana presentation there was some time for an open-ended conversation on Research, Teaching and Learning.

Europeana Treasure Hunt (created by Vicky Garnett, Trinity College, Dublin)

from http://pro.europeana.eu/web/europeana-cloud/blog/-/blogs/the-europeana-treasure-hunt

January 16, 2014

Presenters: Kyle Courtney, Mindy Kent, and Deborah Garson

Kyle Courtney, the Copyright Advisor for Harvard University, from the Office for Scholarly Communication, spoke about copyright, MOOCs, and library support, as well as his experiences teaching a smaller version of a MOOC, Cyberlaw.

Mindy Kent, Manager, Reference & Research Services at the Harvard Law School Library, spoke about buildling online video tutorials for legal research methods.

Deborah Garson, Head of Research and Instruction Services at Gutman Library, spoke about online writing classes for incoming international students at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, as well as general assessment for online classes.

This session was co-sponsored by RTL Shares and RTL Working Groups. After brief, informal presentations, we divided into breakout groups to discuss topics these topics further.

We suggested that discussion topics could be anything from building video tutorials to supplementing in-class instruction to partnering with faculty to enhance online instruction for EdX courses. We hoped that this forum would be an opportunity to learn from each other about what it takes to build online content; what works; what doesn’t work; what is hard; what we are doing to build community online; how we are assessing learning outcomes; and what we need generally to be supported as we enter the brave new world of online instruction. 

The following are a few readings (provided by Deb Garson and Lisa Junghahn) to serve as prompts for discussion:

Quick Overview

Peter J. Stokes, Is Online Learning a Disruptive Innovation? (2011)

Anant Agarwal, president of edX, discusses common misconceptions with online learning in this podcast (2013)

Crimson article with student feedback on what does not work in the flipped classroom model (2013)

Scholarly Articles

Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (2008). The development of a community of inquiry over time in an online course: Understanding the progression and integration of social, cognitive and teaching presence. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 12(3-4), 3-22.

Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (2011). Understanding cognitive presence in an online and blended community of inquiry: Assessing outcomes and processes for deep approaches to learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 42(2).

Akyol, Z., & Garrison, D. R. (2013). Educational communities of inquiry: Theoretical framework, research and practice IGI Global.

Garrison, D. R., &  Anderson, T. (2003).  E-learning in the 21^st Century:  A Framework for Research and Practice.

February 20, 2014

Presenters: Mary Clare Altenhofen and William Connor

We explored the ARTstor Digital Library and Shared Shelf Commons with Mary Clare Altenhofen and William Connor from the Fine Arts Library.  After an introduction to ARTstor and several similar tools, there was an opportunity for participants to experiment searching for different kinds of visual documentation as well questions/answers and a discussion of the role of visual culture research across disciplines.
 
ARTstor is a nonprofit resource with over 1.6 million digital images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and sciences drawn from member institutions together with international museums, libraries, photo archives, and artist collections.

March 20, 2014

Presenters: Christopher Allison, Stephanie Kenan, Ned Hall, Terry Aladjem, Wendy Derjue-Holzer, James Herron, Ramona Islam, Diana Loren, Jessica Martinez, Katie Vale

Part I: Teaching with Things

In this on-the-ground view of a Gen Ed course, Christopher Allison, Ph.D. candidate in the History of American Civilization, presented on innovative uses of collections in lecture courses - specifically on how collections have enhanced learning in courses such as Tangible Things (USW 30) and American Encounters (USW 12). Christopher also talked about ways in which instructors can adapt the conventions of section teaching to the format of visiting collections.

Chris' PowerPoint Presentation

Part II: The General Education Program and the Instructional Support Services Team (ISST)

What is Gen Ed? How can librarians support the program's mission? Stephanie Kenen (Associate Dean of Harvard College for Undergraduate Education & Administrative Director of the Program in General Education) and Ned Hall (Faculty Chair of the Committee on General Education) will presented a broad overview of the General Education Program's distinct mission and goals. This was followed by lightning-round presentations from members of the ISST (including the libraries, ATG, the Bok Center, the Harvard Writing Program, and the Museums) about how the team works to support Gen Ed's goals in individual courses.

Session recording

April 17, 2014

Presenter: Kyle Courtney

Kyle Courtney, the Office for Scholarly Communication's Copyright Advisor, updated us on orphan works and gave a review of Section 108 and fair use. Kyle shared news of potential new regulations around orphan works, untangled Section 108 complexities, and led an interactive exploration of fair use.

"Is It Fair Use?" recording

May 15, 2014

Presenters: John Overholt, Susan Gilman, Jenny Gotwals, Amanda Strauss

Part I: Creating a Social Media Presence for Houghton Library

Starting with the Houghton Library Blog in 2009, and Twitter and tumblr accounts in 2012 and 2013, Houghton has been working to raise its visibility online and make information about its collections and activities easier to find. John Overholt discussed the different ways Houghton uses each of these platforms to reach interested audiences.

Houghton's blog
Houghton's Twitter
Houghton's Tumblr

Part II: Ways to Engage With Wikipedia: A Conversation

Amanda Strauss, Jenny Gotwals, and Susan Gilman led a discussion about engaging with Wikipedia in your role as a librarian, activist, and/or educator. Topics included: Wikipedia as a reference and instructional tool, the Wikipedia community, how scholars and institutions are contributing to Wikipedia, your experiences and/or how you can get involved.

Schlesinger GLAM page (includes notes from this event)
 
NEA GLAM page (includes “Checklist for Hosting a Wikipedia Event”)

Session recording

June 19, 2014

We came together over food and drinks for an informal sharing of the most interesting, useful, and hilarious aspects of our profesional conference experiences this past year, as well as tested our knowledge of conference trivia.

September 18, 2014

Presenters: Marty Schreiner, Paul Worster, and Kevin Guiney

Kevin Guiney (Instructional Computing Specialist in ATG), Paul Worster (Multimedia Librarian in MMDGI), and Marty Schreiner (Head of MMDGI), shared their three biggest take-aways from the New Media Consortium Annual Meeting this past June. As well, they shared their presentation from the conference: A Teaching and Learning Model for Multimedia Authoring.

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Session recording

October 16, 2014

Presenters: Kristin Lofblad Sullivan, Kimberley Edelman

Kristin Lofblad Sullivan, Program Director, Teaching and Learning Technologies (TLT), and Kimberley Edelman, Kimberly Edelman, Senior Manager, Academic Platform Support, TLT, provided an overview of Canvas, the background on its selection as Harvard University's Learning Management System (LMS) and demonstrated some of the best ways a library could integrate information on services and resources into the course system.
 
During the question/discussion period, the following colleagues were there to offer examples and answer questions:
 
Kevin Guiney
Instructional Computing Specialist
Academic Technology Group
 
Enrique A. Diaz
Designer / Multimedia Specialist
FAS:  Maps, Media, Data, and Government Information
 
Kevin Lau
Head of Instructional Technology Group and Library
Graduate School of Design

Jess Rios
Innovative Learning Technologist
Law School

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PowerPoint presentation

Session recording

Thursday, November 20th

Presenters: Kenneth J. Peterson and Leila Smith

Kenneth Peterson, Head of Resource Sharing and Library Logistics, and Leila Smith, Manager for Resource Sharing Operations and Training, spoke about what services are included in Get It! for our users, the time frame for deliveries and hints on when to use which service. They also provided an overview of the use of the services, a sneak peek behind the curtain of ILL processing and some of the new options offered to users. Lastly, they covered the new Borrow Direct+ agreement and what it means to our scholars and those who come to Harvard to study.

Session recording

Thursday, December 18th

Presenter: James Capobianco

James Capobianco, Reference Librarian at Houghton Library, led us on a historical tour through the Harvard Library, as seen through its call numbers, from the earliest known shelfmarks through to the adoption of Library of Congress classification. Why do a few call numbers in Old Widener have no letters? What are Inferno books? What libraries, if any, used (or use) Dewey? What other marks in Harvard Library books can tell us something interesting? We explored all of these questions and more, with many books featuring the call numbers and marks discussed provided for our viewing pleasure.

Presentation Slides (PDF)
 
 

February 26, 2015

Presenters: Kyle Courtney, Emily Bell, Carol Kentner, Scott Lapinski, Carli Spina

What do you get when you mix Fair Use Week with the Copyright First Responders (CFRs)? An afternoon of always compelling, sometimes amusing anecdotes of the state of fair use at Harvard Library.

The first cohort of CFRs rolled out for active duty in the fall of 2014. Since then, they have been serving as the first line of defense for faculty, students, and staff with copyright and fair use questions.

In honor of Fair Use Week, which runs from February 23rd to the 27th, the CFRs shared some of their experiences thus far and held an open discussion with the community about their training, their CFR work, and opportunities they see to serve the community at large.

March 26, 2015

Scopus is a prominent abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature that includes scientific journals, books and conference proceedings, plus social science and arts and humanities content. Harvard had considered purchasing Scopus several years ago but had passed. After considerable changes to the database and the purchase of it over Web of Science by some peer institutions, we are reconsidering it. This event is a chance for staff to give feedback toward the decision. Members of the working group tasked with evaluating Scopus for purchase led attendees in exploring the database.

April 23, 2015

Presenters: the LibGuides 2.0 Project Team

The LibGuides 2.0 Project Team gave an introduction to the LibGuides 2 system, ahead of the summer 2015 migration from LibGuides 1. The session covered the following topics:

• What's new in LibGuides 2
• Overview of the LibGuides 2 migration timeline
• Live demo of LibGuides 2
• Plenty of time for Q&A

Session recording

May 21, 2015

Presenters: Nick Dials, Emily Bell, Susan Fliss, Odile Harter, Jessica Evans Brady, Mark Shelton, Reed Lowrie, Laura Farwell Blake

Presenters gave short talks about conference sessions and poster presentations from  the 2015 ACRL conference, on the following topics:    

    •    Open access
    •    Library instruction using high, low, & no technology
    •    Ethnographic study of graduate students
    •    Visual curriculum mapping
    •    Race and gender bias in Google searching
    •    and more!

June 25, 2015

Presenter: Peter Suber

Peter Suber, from the Office for Scholarly Communication, gave a short presentation and held an extensive Q&A on open access, including:

• Review of open access policies at Harvard: benefits for authors, measures of success
• Discoverability of DASH materials
• How embargoes work in DASH

The OSC spearheads campus-wide initiatives to open, share, and preserve scholarship, and implements the open-access policies at all Harvard schools. It also manages Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH), the University’s open-access repository, and supports programs to help authors understand the rapidly changing landscape of open access and scholarly communication.

Peter Suber is the Director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication, Director of the Harvard Open Access Project, a Faculty Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet & Society, and Senior Researcher at the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC). He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and a J.D., both from Northwestern University, sits on the boards of many groups devoted to open access and scholarly communication, and has been active in promoting open access for more than a decade through his research, speaking, and writing. His most recent book is Open Access (MIT Press 2012), which Choice named an Outstanding Academic Title for 2013. The book is also freely available in DASH.
 

July 16, 2015

Presenter: Carli Spina

Carli Spina, Emerging Technologies and Research Librarian for the Harvard Law School Library, gave a short presentation with Q&A on best practices for web accessibility – including Libguides 2.0!

As the Emerging Technologies and Research Librarian, Carli Spina teaches classes on legal research and technology topics, conducts research consultations, develops guides to both substantive law and technological topics, and works on a wide range of web projects for the Harvard Law School Library.

Carli's presentation slides can be found on the Tips & Best Practices part of Carli's Accessibility Tools guide.

Session recording

August 11 & 12, 2015

Presenter: Jessica Martinez, Harvard Art Museums

We held a special RTL Shares field trip session on teaching with objects! Jessica Martinez, Head of the Division of Academic and Public Programs at Harvard Art Museums, led a discussion on teaching with objects at the museum’s Arts Study Center.

August 20, 2015

Presenters: Odile Harter, Emily Singley and  Amy Deschenes 

How Students Really Do Research: Preliminary Findings from the Research Confession Booth

The Research Confession Booth study has been collecting screencasts of Harvard library patrons completing research tasks- ”show us your favorite feature of a resource you use for research”; “walk us through a recent research snag”; “show us how you would get started on a topic.” In this presentation, we reviewed some of our preliminary findings and showed a selection of the videos we’ve collected, with lots of time at the end for questions. We’re especially interested in hearing how this study can help colleagues in their work: bring your ideas for future research tasks we could investigate!

The Research Confession Booth study originated out of the Search & Discovery Initiative's Education Working Group. The research team now includes Amy Deschenes, Odile Harter, Ramona Islam, Lisa Junghahn, and Emily Singley.

September 17, 2015

Presenters: Bonnie Burns and Scott Walker

In this hands-on demo to mapping, Bonnie Burns and Scott Walker from the Harvard Map Collection introduced us to some unexpected sources of geographic information, and software tools that enable us to turn that information into simple but effective maps. A web browser and Excel provide a launching point into the world of cartography and even spatial analysis, including determining distances and calculating areas. Bonnie and Scott also demonstrated some of the library’s subscription e-resources for displaying and extracting a variety of contemporary and historical demographic information, including PolicyMap, SimplyMap and SocialExplorer. We expanded our concept of what constitutes a map, and dispeled the notion that thinking, and creating, cartographically is something that only specialists can do!

Session recording

Websites used in session:

• Road Trips!
• Truck Drivers and other jobs
• Immigrant America
• Cultural Geography via Freebase
• Tennis mapping
• WWI in HOLLIS

Tools:

• MyMaps.Google.com
• Social Explorer
• SimplyMap
• PolicyMap

October 15, 2015

Following up on the successful visit to the teaching spaces of the Harvard Art Museums in August, we featured tours of four different Special Collections on the afternoon of Thursday, October 15. This was a great opportunity to visit and find out what teaching and research activities are happening with primary sources and special collections in libraries you may not know a lot about. Locations included are listed below:
 
Special Collections - Ernst Mayr Library of the Museum of Comparative Zoology
The Library’s Special Collections are comprised of approximately 15,000 rare and valuable volumes, art works and objects as well as the Archives of the Museum of Comparative Zoology.  The majority of the volumes in Special Collections date from before 1850. The collection includes older serials, publications by the Museum staff, microforms, sound recordings, and videocassettes.
October 15, 2:00 - 3:00 pm
 
Historical & Special Collections - Harvard Law School
With over 8,000 linear feet of manuscripts, over 300,000 rare books, and more than 70,000 visual images – photographs, prints, paintings, and objects – HSC houses one of the world’s most comprehensive collections of research materials for the study of legal history.
October 15, 3:00 - 4:00 pm
 
Isham Memorial Library - Loeb Music Library
Isham is dedicated to research with primary sources and serves as a major resource for scholarly research in music. Collections housed in Isham include microforms, published facsimiles, rare books and manuscripts, and Harvard dissertations in music. Also housed in Isham are the archival collections of the Loeb Music Library, including the Nadia Boulanger collection, and special collections such as the Sir Georg Solti Archive and the Biblioteca Mozartiana Eric Offenbacher.
October 15, 3:00 - 4:00 pm

Harvard Map Collection (Pusey)
Since its inception almost two centuries ago, the Harvard Map Collection has grown to encompass 400,000 maps, 6,000 atlases, and 5,000 reference books. The library's collections include rare editions of Mercator, Ortelius, and Ptolemaic atlases, as well as large-scale current topographic maps for geographic areas throughout the world.
October 15, 3:00 - 4:00 pm

November 19. 2015

Participating collections: Loeb Music Library, University Archives, and Tozzer Library

While many of us have experience teaching with our own library's materials, the opportunities we have to act as students are far less frequent. Following RTL Shares’ site visits to museum and library collections and this fall’s Strategic Conversation on The Teaching Library, we held a session focused on hands-on learning from objects in our collections.
 
For the first half of the gathering, attendees were invited to see what they could surmise from the objects themselves, and to consider what questions they might ask as part of further research. During the second half, we had a chance to discuss our insights, both about the items in front of us, and about how the experience of asking these kinds of questions might inform (or has already informed) our teaching practice.

Monday, December 14, 2015

Presenters: Ramona Islam, Vegas Longlois, Alexis Gomez, Anna Esty

Harvard College Library launched a pilot Library House Outreach Program (LHOP) in Fall 2014. The program employs undergraduate Peer Research Fellows (PRFs) to engage with students in a more holistic way and to employ the valuable technique of peer instruction. As part of the pilot phase, we hired PRFs in 2 of the 12 undergraduate Houses, Adams and Currier, and matched each of them with a dedicated mentor librarian. We talked about the program’s genesis, the training curriculum, services that PRFs offer, assessment data, and how this has been a rewarding experience for both the Mentor Librarians and the current PRFs. We also heard from the current PRFs about their experiences. In addition, we talked about the future of the program and how you can join us!

February 22, 2016

Presenters: Kyle Courtney and Emily Bell

Kyle Courtney, the OSC’s Copyright Advisor and Program Manager, and Emily Bell, Copyright First Responder and Research Librarian, presented the first installment of a front-line copyright certification program aimed at emboldening Harvard librarians to answer those common copyright and fair use questions that come across your desk:

• Do people ask you if they can use Harvard-owned images in their books?
• Do you have only the vaguest sense of what the library’s new policy on access to digital reproductions of work in the public domain even MEANS?  
• Classes can pretty much use anything they want as long as they put it on the Canvas site (behind a firewall), right? That’s fair use, isn’t it?  

March 29, 2016

Presenters: Danielle Adams, ITS; Susan Berstler, Cabot Library; Karina Grazina, Harvard Library; Emilie Hardman, Houghton Library; Connie Rinaldo, Ernst Mayr Library; Mark Shelton, Harvard Library; Hugh Truslow, Fung Library

Many of us routinely create, track, rely on — and possibly struggle with — many kinds of data as part of our daily work; at the same time, data-based research is becoming increasingly important across many disciplines. But how do we gather relevant and reliable data, interpret it, and then use it to tell vivid, accurate, and effective stories? Come hear several staff members from across the Harvard Library talk about what they learned at a five-day workshop on Storytelling with Data at Boston University's College of Communication. They will talk about tools and approaches to finding, extracting, analyzing, and visualizing data in order to tell better stories, and what they learned from experienced practitioners in data storytelling, many of them data journalists.

April 7, 2016

We had a group viewing of the ACRL webinar "Teaching at the intersections: Aligning scholarly communication and information literacy in the one-shot library instruction session."

Following the webinar, Susan Fliss, Associate University Librarian for Research, Teaching and Learning and Director and Librarian of Monroe C. Gutman Library, and Peter Suber, Director of the Office for Scholarly Communication, led an informal discussion on opportunities to map scholarly communication initiatives to research, teaching, and learning approaches for undergraduate, master’s and PhD students.

April 28, 2016

Presenter: Carla Lillvik, Gutman Library

ProQuest released a new RefWorks platform in January 2016. In preparation for the planned soft migration, Carla and other members of the RefWorks Migration subgroup:

• ​Described the soft migration to new RefWorks planned for August 2016;
• Compared features of the old and new platforms;
• Discussed the necessity and challenges of supporting both the legacy and new RefWorks;
• Outlined summer train-the-trainer plans;
• Provided a demo of the new RefWorks.

RefWorks Migration subgroup members

• Carla Lilllvik, Co-Chair
• Reed Lowrie, Co-Chair
• Dorothy Barr
• Anna Esty
• Jessica Evans Brady
• Emily Kelly
• Steve Kuehler

May 10, 2016

Following our tours of the Harvard Art Museums and various Harvard Library Special Collections, we took a (limited - 20 person) trip to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology.

Every semester, the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology works to incorporate collections into Harvard faculty and students’ experiences of research, teaching, and learning. We toured the museum storage areas and experienced these collections for ourselves, as we discussed the ways in which we engage with objects to inspire new forms of learning at Harvard.

June 16, 2016

Presenters: Katherine Leach, Matthew Sullivan, Laureen Esser

Back in 2014, the Western Languages Division bought their first Project Muse package. Since then they have bought other e-book packages with Project Muse and Oxford Scholarship Online. Katie Leach outlined the difference between Project Muse and Oxford Scholarship Online, newly purchased this year. In addition Laureen Esser, E-Resources Coordinator for the Humanities, covered broadly the licensing agreements and how to the books are searchable in HOLLIS and HOLLIS+. Matthew Sullivan also spoke about a project involving trying new methodology for evaluating print and electronic book usage. They shared graphs and usage data that has been gathered so far in an effort to test the methodology.

September 15, 2016

This was a community roundup of fall library orientations and open houses. Colleagues from across the University presented their tactics for promoting all the Harvard Library has to offer with their local flair.

Presenters:

Reed Lowrie and Hugh Truslow - Freshman Open House at Lamont Library

Arthur Schott Lopez - Houghton Library 75th Anniversary Fellow

Jennifer Beauregard - HBS Baker Library Open House

Jonathan Paulo - Grossman Library promotional video, Grossman Library Welcome Video

Keely Wilczek - HKS Library Orientations

Kerry Carwile Masteller - Loeb Music Library Orientations

Daina Bouquin - Center for Astrophysics Research Education, Summer Research Education Undergraduate Orientation with devices

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Guides: David Osterbur, Interim Director of Countway Library, Director of Public and Access Services & Scott Podolsky, Director of Center for the History of Medicine

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Interested in demystifying physical archives for digital natives? Thinking of using digital archives in a new way? Come join us for a lively discussion of bringing all forms of archives into the classroom. 

Presenters

• Caitlin Schmid, Graduate Student in Historical Musicology and Music Departmental Teaching Fellow
• Ellen Shea, Head of Public Services, Schlesinger Library
• Chris Morse, Senior Research Computer Specialist, DARTH Crimson

Thursday, December 15th, 2016 3:00-4:30 pm

Come playtest games from across Harvard University Libraries* and experience how games and gamification fit into our collections and programs to enrich student experience and further our missions.

*Cabot, Houghton, Law Library, Pusey, Wolbach

Thursday, February 16, 2017, 3:00-4:30 PM, Lamont Forum Room

How do students search for known citations and how do they troubleshoot when they hit a barrier? How do they interpret the “Find it @ Harvard” button in HOLLIS+? How does all of this impact our teaching?

After a presentation of findings from HOLLIS+ Usability Studies, we will gather together to uncover the implications of these findings for teaching and what we could do differently to better meet users where they are.

Friday, February 24, 2017, 9:30-11:00 AM, Lamont Forum Room

As educators, we strive to interact with others in a fair way that’s consistent with our values. But sometimes that doesn’t happen. Jack Cao, a 4th year PhD candidate in Harvard University's Psychology Department, presented on how unconscious biases may play a role. He introduced the group to the Implicit-Association Test (IAT), currently the best method for measuring bias. He also recommended the book Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People.

Thursday, March 16th 3:30-5, MIT Libraries

Attendees met at the MIT Rotch Library and were greeted by Anna Boutin, Librarian for the School of Architecture and Planning (SA+P) and Tom Gearty, SA+P Director of Communications and curator of the Book Marks exhibition. He answered questions while participants viewed Book Marks. Anna led a tour of the library. Refreshments were served at a social with members of MIT's Liaison, Instruction, & Reference Services team, who then led small group tours of other MIT Libraries.

Thursday, April. 20, 2017 3:00 – 4:30 PM, Lamont Library Forum Room

Co-sponsored by RTL Shares and Harvard Library Preservation Services.

Harvard staff responsible for creating exhibits or loaning materials for exhibition are invited to a program that explores the best methods for safe display of books, flat paper and photographs. A combination lecture and hands-on format will offer practical advice about and simple guidelines for putting together small, one-case exhibitions within your library. The group will present useful timelines, resources and checklists as well as offer an opportunity to discuss the best way to safely exhibit library treasures. Hands-on activities and refreshments will be provided. Bring your reusable mug!

Thursday, July 13, 2017, 3:00-4:30 PM, Lamont Library Forum Room

Following on the New Media Consortium’s annual summer conference this year in Boston, the Harvard Library staff who attended NMC invite you to a NMC follow-up open session to share perspectives and build campus community around new media in education. This follow-up meeting will be a step toward identifying a few short term and maybe longer term actionable items for the Library to build upon its current services related to new media as it relates to our work and services provided through the Library.

The New Media Consortium issues the annual Horizon reports, trend and technology forecasts for education, libraries, and museums: 

• NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Library Edition
• NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition

Cabot Science Library Instruction Room, Thursday, November 16, 3:00-4:30

Please join RTL Shares for an introduction to podcasting for and in libraries! Learn about the process of creating the Houghton 75 Podcast, from sound checks to scripting to post-production, and find out how students are using spaces and technology in Cabot Science and Lamont libraries to produce their own podcasts. After the presentations, you’ll have an opportunity to see the Cabot Science Library Media Studios.

Presenters

• James Capobianco, Christina Linklater, and Hannah Spencer-Ferello, Houghton Library
• Susan Berstler and Joanna Huang, Cabot Science Library 

Thursday, December 14, 3:00-4:30, Lamont Library Forum Room

The Law School Library and Baker Library have implemented a new type of research training. How can you teach more people in less time? We suggest the Lightning Lesson - an on-the-go instruction method for training researchers on discrete tasks in five minutes or less. This instruction method occurs in high traffic areas, and is no more than five minutes per interaction. Through trial and error we honed in on what worked and what didn't, adapting and, in some cases, increasing our interactions with students by as much as twenty times!

Take your Lightning Lesson out for a test run or come experience some Lightning Lessons first hand to get a feel for the experience. Presenters will offer their Lightning Lessons at tables throughout the space with selected presenters offering pop up talks on different aspects of Lightning Lessons. Then presenters will come together to discuss the experience, what worked, what didn’t, and what you be taking away with you.

Presenters must sign up in advance; any and all attendees are welcome to come enjoy the experience.

Questions? Please contact ablechner@law.harvard.edu for more information.