Extension's Information Use and Need: Surveying, Analyzing and Planning Outreach to Extension Staff

Poster SessionThis study describes how University of Minnesota Extension staff locate and use information to accomplish daily activities. The major findings were: a) seeking for information is a daily or weekly need, b), staff use predominately online resources, from a variety of sources: peer-reviewed journals, technical or research reports, and government information, and use search engines most frequently to locate them, and c) Extension staff are aware of the majority of library resources and services. Extension staff welcome advanced information seeking tools and technique professional development. Since the preeminent information-seeking tool is a search engine, libraries must position themselves to inform extension staff how to setup Google Scholar to link to library licensed materials. In addition, additional tools to make the library presence seamless into extension’s workflow are needed. Librarians must integrate themselves into all areas of extension work, in order to disseminate and integrate library resources and services into extension’s daily activities

The Libraries\u27 Role in the Success of First Year Students

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Creating Interactive Websites with Flash

Flash ActionScript is a powerful and versatile too that can be used to create dynamic and interactive websites. In this session we will present two approaches to using Flash. We will begin with a demonstration of Prezi, a presentation tool, followed by Pachyderm. Both are web-based multimedia programming or multimedia creation experience. Then we will demonstrate how to utilize some basic Flash ActionScript code and programming using Adobe Flash CS3 to create a basic dynamic website

Locating Tests and Measurement Instruments for Assessment

Extension educators, staff, and specialists need to use surveys and other measurement instruments to assess their programming and conduct other research. Challenges in locating tests and measurement tools, however, include lack of time and lack of familiarity with techniques that can be used to find them. This article discusses library resources Extension staff can use for locating assessments along with search techniques and tips

Librarians at land-grant universities working with extension: Three case reports

Librarians and Cooperative Extension Service (CES) professionals in the United States have common missions to make authoritative information available to their constituencies. Both professions have long traditions of service and success in the dissemination of information. This paper explores how librarians can partner with CES and contribute unique skills and expertise. After a summary of the history of CES and the historical connection among land grants, extensions, and agriculture, three case reports are presented that outline how three librarians at land-grant universities have worked with CES

SPEC Kit 361: Outreach and Engagement

ARL SPEC KitLibrary outreach is experiencing a renaissance. Librarians have been reaching out to their communities and developing programming for decades, but libraries are increasingly being asked to demonstrate their value to the communities that they serve. In response, outreach positions are becoming more commonplace and communities of practice are emerging around measuring the impact of library outreach activities. This SPEC Kit was born out of the authors’ struggles and successes in providing academic library outreach services at their local institutions. The survey questions were designed to gather information from ARL institutions to create a picture of library outreach that spans across institutions; a professional baseline. Questions of organizational priorities, vision, goals, resource allocation, staffing models, and assessment come together to paint the picture of how libraries are approaching outreach programs. The survey was sent to the 125 ARL member institutions in July 2018, with 57 (46%) responding by the August 6 deadline. The data gathered suggests that systematic outreach programs are still very much in their infancy and highly dependent on local organizational culture. This SPEC Kit highlights the areas where libraries share approaches to outreach programs while also shining a spotlight on issues that warrant continued research and attention by outreach librarians and library administrators

Resurfacing Historical Scientific Data: A Case Study Involving Fruit Breeding Data

Objective: The objective of this paper is to illustrate the importance and complexities of working with historical analog data that exists on university campuses. Using a case study of fruit breeding data, we highlight issues and opportunities for librarians to help preserve and increase access to potentially valuable data sets. Methods: We worked in conjunction with researchers to inventory, describe, and increase access to a large, 100-year-old data set of analog fruit breeding data. This involved creating a spreadsheet to capture metadata about each data set, identifying data sets at risk for loss, and digitizing select items for deposit in our institutional repository. Results/Discussion: We illustrate that large amounts of data exist within biological and agricultural sciences departments and labs, and how past practices of data collection, record keeping, storage, and management have hindered data reuse. We demonstrate that librarians have a role in collaborating with researchers and providing direction in how to preserve analog data and make it available for reuse. This work may provide guidance for other science librarians pursing similar projects. Conclusions: This case study demonstrates how science librarians can build or strengthen their role in managing and providing access to analog data by combining their data management skills with researchers’ needs to recover and reuse data. The substance of this article is based upon a panel presentation at RDAP Summit 2019