SLA Hawaii-Pacific Chapter Newsletter

April 2004

HLA Conference
by Phyllis Tabusa

Lanai City welcomed the Hawaii Library Association Annual Conference this past December 13 and 14, 2003.  Featuring about 30 local and national speakers, the conference offered a good sampling of programs that urged “Thinking Anew and Acting Anew.”

The two-hotel venue provided respite for both lovers of mountains ‘n mist and sun ‘n surf. Koele Lodge, set in the cool, green uplands, offered chats over tea and scones from deep-cushioned couches and in-room window seats for watching turkeys crossing the lawn. Manele Bay served up the warm Hawaiian sun, a huge swimming pool, and craggy cliffs set against dazzling blue waters. Golfing, hiking, tide pool exploring, and clay pigeon shooting were among the diversions open to information-overloaded conferees on Lanai. Shuttling through the countryside between the lodge and the bay gave us time to decompress and chat with colleagues.

A provocative example of “acting anew” was Rick Anderson’s session on how the University of Nevada at Reno library stopped doing serials check-in so it could use the serials staff more productively. During a yearlong trial, the serials staff replaced check-in with several “pragmatic practices” to discover late or non-received titles, like patron reporting and manual spot-checking of current, shelved serials by knowledgeable staff. The staff reallocated its time to activities supporting patron access to electronic journals. The one-year trial showed an overall improvement in patron access to needed journal content. Read about this innovative approach in “Implementing the unthinkable: the demise of periodical check-in at the University of Nevada.” By Anderson, Rick and Steven Zink in Library Collections, Acquisitions, & Technical Services; Spring 2003, Vol. 27 Issue 1, p61.

Fresh ideas for better, timesaving ways to train student assistants and patrons in routine tasks are always welcome. A humorous and well-executed presentation by Ruth Marie Quirk and Catherine Hamer, both of UH Manoa Libraries, included a live demonstration of how to create online tutorials to do just this. Camtasia Studio is a business training software package (now available at educational rates) that lets you incorporate website clips and an audio narrative into your training piece. Camtasia Studio was used to develop tutorials to train student assistants and assist patrons at UH Manoa's Sinclair Library.

Following the multimedia thread, eyes and ears opened wide for “The Producers: Using Library Videos to Promote Library Services in Academic Libraries.” Tiffini Travis, Jose Aguinaga, and John Hickock, all of California State University, talked about streaming video projects at CSU Fullerton and the University Library at CSU Long Beach. Professional film crews and actors -- relatively easy to recruit in southern California -- were used to produce engaging, contemporary library orientations, which were then integrated with online tutorials to increase student knowledge of library concepts and services. With Hawaii actively inviting the film industry here and the new film school opening at UHM, one couldn’t help but think of future possibilities.

Two presentations showed possibilities that have become realities, both in the form of websites targeted to special user groups. In the first session, "Pounding POI (Pathway to Online Information)," Carolyn Ching and Sarah Jansen showed ePOI, a National Library of Medicine-funded collaboration to produce one gateway to medical and health related electronic journals held by the Hawaii Medical Library and UH Libraries.

In the second session, "Navigating Pacific Resources," Jane Barnwell and Karen Peacock, both of the UH Libraries Pacific Collection, presented a very useful overview of authoritative websites for Pacific Islands scholars, focusing on country information, statistics, culture, history, and catalogs of Pacific Islands libraries. The sources, discovered in the course of many years of answering reference questions, were vetted and culled by these two specialists and are available on the Pacific Collection website.

Jean Ehrhorn, Associate University Librarian at UH Manoa, talked about the LibQual+ survey which UHM Library is using to improve user satisfaction. In Spring 2003, users of UHM library and over 300 other academic libraries, participated in the LibQual+ online survey, developed and administered by the Association of Research Libraries. This presentation touched on the ‘gap theory of service quality,’ the library’s experience in doing the survey, the LIBQual+ team analysis, and UHM libraries follow-up. Survey results covered a wide range of items, but in general, user perception of library staff service was positive while perception of a category called ‘access to information’ was relatively negative. UHM library ran focus groups to target specifics and presented findings to UHM administrators to garner budgetary support of collection content and delivery.

In the last conference slot of the second day, Harry Samuels, of Endeavor Information Systems, presented a lively, accessible overview of Open URL technology, focusing on how this technology can enhance patron access to electronic content. The session made us thoughtful – and hopeful – about leveraging our electronic subscription dollar by getting the right article to the right person at the right time, with Open URL.

To counter the effects of too many protocols, procedures, and bookmarks in the lives of hardworking professionals, sessions like "Intuitive Skills in Everyday Life" and "Napping to Improve Performance" provided some tools for survival. In the evenings, audiences were roused by humor at "The Hollywood Librarian" and by the spirit world at "Ghost Stories at the Lodge."  And if that wasn’t enough to press your reset button, talking to the turkeys at the Lodge was a good bet, too!

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