ENY/ACRL 2008 Spring Conference | OPAC: Dead, Alive or Revived?

Eastern New York Chapter/Association of College & Research Libraries presents:

Spring Conference 2008
OPAC: Dead, Alive or Revived?

Speaker Presentations & Biographies

Keynote Presentation:
Participatory Librarianship and Radical Change Agents

R. David Lankes, Director of the Information Institute of Syracuse and an Associate Professor in Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. Lankes has always been interested in combining theory and practice to create active research projects that make a difference. Past projects include the ERIC Clearinghouse on Information and Technology, the Gateway to Education Materials, AskERIC and the Virtual Reference Desk. Lankes' more recent work involves how participatory concepts can reshape libraries and credibility. This work expands his ongoing work to understand the integration of human expertise in information systems. Lankes is a passionate advocate for libraries and their essential role in today's society. He also seeks to understand how information approaches and technologies can be used to transform industries. In this capacity he has served on advisory boards and study teams in the fields of libraries, telecommunications, education, and transportation including at the National Academies. He has been appointed as a visiting fellow at the National library of Canada, the Harvard School of Education and a senior researcher at ALA's Office for Information Technology Policy.

PennTags: Applications for Social Bookmarking in an Academic Library

Laurie Allen is a member of the Research & Instructional Services Department at the Van Pelt Library at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the Social Sciences Data Services Librarian at Penn, and serves as liaison to the Urban Studies, Women's Studies and Criminology departments. She also served as Chair of the PennTags development team.

Encore & Grokker: Library Tools for Enhanced Searching

Kate Bouman is a reference librarian and bibliographer at Binghamton University. She received her MLS from Syracuse University and her EdD from Binghamton University. She was chair of the Grokker Task Force.

Alesia McManus is Head of Research, Information and Instructional Services at Binghamton University Libraries. She was chair of the Encore Development Team.

Introducing WorldCat Local

Lauren Pinsley, OCLC Services Manager, Nylink

As OCLC Services Manager, Lauren is part of the Member Programs team, and directly supervises Nylink's OCLC support team. A librarian and cataloger by background, Lauren has been a member of the Nylink staff since 1989. Since joining Nylink, she has developed many training sessions, covering topics ranging from cataloging of electronic resources and other non-print formats, searching WorldCat, local holdings maintenance in Connexion, and WorldCat Collection Analysis to data mining concepts. Lauren also teaches and supports users of the Connexion interface. Before joining Nylink, Lauren was a law librarian, and prior to receiving her MLS from Queens College, Graduate School of Library & Information Studies (GSLIS), in January of 1981, her favorite job was being a bicycle messenger in New York City.

eXtensible Catalog Project at the University of Rochester

Judi Briden is Digital Librarian for Public Services at the University of Rochester, River Campus Libraries, and is on the Mellon-funded extensible Catalog Project Team. She leads the Libraries' metasearch group, advises on content and design for their current Web redesign, and participates in anthropological research studying the work practices of faculty and undergraduates at the University. Judi is the subject librarian for Brain and Cognitive Sciences and American Sign Language. She earned her MLIS from the University of Texas at Austin.

Jeff Suszczynski is a Senior Web Developer in the Digital Initiatives Unit at the University of Rochester Libraries.