Brown Bag Lunch Series
ENY/ACRL Brown Bag Lunches held in the Fall.
The lunches were an opportunity for librarians within a region to get together for lunch and a discussion. The topic for the fall Brown Bag Lunches were “Wikis & Blogs.” Librarians discussed what libraries are doing with wikis and blogs, implementation issues, what works and what doesn’t work, etc. The dates and locations were:
Tuesday, October 16, 2007, Hamilton College
Friday, October 19, 2007, Siena College
Friday, November 2, 2007, SUNY Plasttsburgh
Report on the Lunches
The Eastern New York ACRL Chapter held two Brown Bag Lunches during October and one during November. Organizers of the lunches were Glynis Asu at Hamilton College, Kathryn Johns-Masten at Siena College, and Elin O’Hara at SUNY-Plattsburgh. Christine Rudecoff from Hamilton College created the Bibliography on Wikis & Blogs that was posted on the ENY/ACRL web site. The host libraries provided water and dessert. The purpose of the gatherings was to designate a time when librarians in the same part of the state could leave their library for a few hours to get together to informally discuss a specific topic as well as just talk with each other while eating lunch. The Brown Bag Lunch, “Wikis and Blogs,” grew out of our Spring 2007 Conference, “Who’s Driving the Technology Bus?”
On October 16 ten librarians from various libraries gathered at Hamilton College where they shared their experiences of what worked well with wikis and blogs and what did not. They viewed several wikis and blogs currently in use. Both novices and experienced wiki and blog users benefited from the practical discussion in the small-group setting. The conversation moved on to other topics including reaching the user and the role of new technologies.
Thirteen ENY/ACRL members from six institutions lunched together at Siena College on October 19. They viewed and discussed the use of wikis and blogs. At one college a wiki is used to update the reference manual for internal use, while at another, the creation of a wiki was the class assignment for a library information course. Libraries are using blogs to inform the campus of new resources, library news, and announcements. At one library a blog is used internally to keep staff at the reference desk informed of issues. The conversation moved on to other topics including the library as place, reference desk usage, podcasts for library instruction, federated searching, and the role of the information technologist.
SUNY-Plattsburgh was the site for the November 2 gathering of nine librarians from two local institutions. Librarians discussed the role of wikis and blogs in regional academic libraries. They viewed several examples of wikis and blogs being used in an instructional classroom setting. Further discussion ensued about the applicability of wikis and blogs to areas of the library other than credit-bearing courses, particularly the Reference Services and Information Outreach areas of the library. Participants were particularly interested in the use of blogs as an outlet for student comments about library services.