Elias Tzoc blog!

Today is my last day at work -before the break- and as I’m getting ready to update and finish a “personal statement” for a report, the topics of Tech Skills & Diversity keep coming up and they seem to maintain some momentum/significance in my work and expectations for 2011. Two good examples are:

ALA Discovering Librarianship, my participation in this program will definitely play a major role in my diversity/service work in the next three years. This week, we had the very first webinar and Miguel Figueroa provided an overview of some (historical) data in the field of librarianship, higher education and the US in general; a copy of the Diversity Count Publication is available on the ALA website. The Discovering Librarianship program will officially kick off in January at ALA MidWinter in San Diego. The first year will focus on training (e.g. recruitment and marketing skills); the second year will be the actual field work (e.g. attending career fairs); and the third year will be devoted to assessment. In the short-term, I’m very excited to join this national and diverse group of people who are already involved in diversity initiatives; in the mid-term, I look forward to talking/working with some high/college students; and finally if everything goes as planned (as it should) I think this ALA program will make some key contributions to support existing or new diversity initiatives in higher education at the national level.

2011 Code4Lib Conference, yesterday I received some very good news (something like a x-mas present) the Code4Lib Scholarship Committee has selected my application to receive one of the Minority Scholarships to attend the 2011 Conference in Bloomington, IN. The scholarships are sponsored by Oregon State University and the Western North Carolina Library Network, thanks to all! This will be an excellent venue to meet a large group of library technologists with extraordinary contributions/roles in the fast-changing world of information access and research in higher education. I look forward to attending my very first tech-conference in February and I definitely hope to learn some effective strategies for coding and/or tweaking. I’m positive this experience will be a good addition to a work in progress about professional opportunities for new librarians from underrepresented groups. See you in Indiana

Anyway, now time for a needed break and Feliz Año Nuevo 2011!

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Last Friday, October 29th, I attended the 2010 ALAO Annual Conference in Columbus, OH.  It was my very first time at this one-day local conference and it was a busy day.

As a co-chair of the Technical, Electronic, and Digital Services Interest Group (TEDSIG), this year I helped in creating this TEDSIG poster.

My day started in helping/setting up our table –including some publicity materials, a form for suggestions for the spring workshop, and a membership sing-up sheet –yes, we got some new members!

I also attended the session “Quantitative Assessment of Diversity Goals, Methods, and Tools” presented by Eileen Theodore-Shusta and Christopher Guder from Ohio University.  The presenters talked about the work of the Diversity Committee in administering two surveys (in 2009 and 2010) to assess the progress in meeting their diversity goals –originally set in their strategic plan in 2006.  It was interesting to learn that one of their findings was the need for more training opportunities; I think finding “good incentives” for increasing participation is still very essential for any type of training.

In the afternoon, John Millard and I had a poster session on our recent LSTA summer project.  We basically talked about the major activities completed in this five months project.  We had about 30 visitors and 5 extended conversations with people who were interested in our experience of migration a large collection from CONTENTdm to DSpace.

All visitors received a bookmark, which looks something like this:

In general, I found this conference very worthwhile.  I made some new contacts within the ALAO network and I look forward to going back in 2011.
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Last week (July 10-17), I was in Minneapolis, Minnesota attending the
7th Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians from Traditionally Underrepresented Groups.

It was a pleasure to represent Miami in such a diverse and committed group of new professionals with a passion about the future of librarianship and its contribution to higher education at different levels.  At the end of the week, many of us agreed that the success of the institute relies on at least three factors: a) the ongoing commitment from the founders of the institute: Linda DeBeau-Melting and Peggy Johnson, Associate University Librarians at the UM; b) the cumulative work from the two facilitators: DeEtta Jones and Kathryn Deiss, both with a great deal of experience in the field of librarianship; and c) the investment for professional development from our host institutions and the support from supervisors and colleagues.

The content was divided into two main categories:
Leadership skills, we started the discussion with our reactions to the pre-institute readings (Book: StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath and Article: Managing Oneself by Peter Drucker); then, we moved to Communication Styles and Organizational Culture.  The core message was to understand/accept that every individual has his/her own way of work -based on strengths, culture, values, title, experience, etc.; however, when a group of people need to work for a common project, then it becomes necessary to not only know those (different) qualities but to utilize them in relevant roles in order to achieve excellence at work.  In today’s ever changing environment, there seems to be a greater need to develop a deep understanding of oneself, learn and apply new skills, and decide how one can best enhance an organization’s performance.

Professional skills, for two days we worked on grant writing, the instructor was Lori-Anne Williams, Grant Writer for the UM.  Dr. Williams walked us through the general process of Grant Proposals with a special focus on medium-large federal grants.  We also spent a morning session on tips for searching grant opportunities through specialized websites such as: Community of Science, Grants.gov, GrantsNet, Foundation Center, etc.  One of the trends for successful grant projects seems to be collaboration either at multi-departmental or multi-institutional levels -who knows, maybe someday some of the participants in this institute can work on a joint project.

In conclusion, the institute was an “inspiring” gathering; I enjoyed talking/learning from people who are very committed to the field of librarianship.  I plan to utilize this opportunity to continue to improve my leadership and professional skills for the benefit of Miami.  It’s my goal to take a more proactive role in the groups I currently belong to -including MUL’s Diversity Cluster, Center of American and World Cultures, Association of Latino/a Faculty and Staff, and the Technical and Digital Services Interest Group of ALAO.

Last but not least, during the institute I also got three very good news:

• Jason Michel and I got an acceptance letter for an article on the migration of two image collections from CONTENTdm into Flickr.
• I have received an invitation to convert my ALA poster session into an article and I do have a deadline in a few weeks.
• I have identified at least 3 co-authors for potential publications in the near future (topics on Open Access and Latin America, Maps/GIS and Digital Collections, Technical Skills for new librarians, Diversity and Workforce, etc.)

…ok, I guess that’s it, now back to my DSpace and Manakin work!

We often think of summer as a time to rest/relax and take some time off -well, this summer doesn’t seem to be like that -at least not for me.

One of my top priorities is to create a DSpace theme for a newspaper collection that we’re migrating into DSpace, it’s coming along and/but we just thought about a new possible addition to the project; that is, a mobile experiment using the so popular iPads -we’ll see how things go with that. Other recent activities include: a trip to ALA Annual, a two-days seminar on “Privileges and Allies” at Miami, and (next week) a one-week Institute at the University of Minnesota. Additionally, this month I officially started a two-years term as co-chair of the Technical and Digital Services Interest Group (TEDSIG) of the Academic Libraries Association of Ohio (ALAO).

Regarding ALA Annual, I just came back from Washington DC where I had a poster session “Re-Using Today’s Metadata for Tomorrow’s Research” where I talked about the web-customization we have implemented for our digital collections in the last two years. I had about 20 visitors and at least four extended conversations -I was also happily surprised to learn about a possible opportunity to convert my poster session into an article, I really hope we can work that out sometime this year.

Right after ALA, I attended a two-days seminar at the Marcum Conference Center; the topic was about Diversity and Inclusion and was facilitated by Frances Kendall.  At moments, the conversation got very -touching and reflective- and  made us (me) realized that we all have received some sort of privilege in our lives, but that also implies/means that we all have some sort of responsibility to give something back to society.  In the end, I was very happy to have initiated at least two (possible) collaborative works for the MUL’s Diversity Cluster.

…and next week, I’ll be heading up to Minneapolis for the 7th biannual Minnesota Institute for Early Career Librarians from Traditionally Underrepresented Groups.  It does sound like a “life-changing” experience, I do look forward to meeting a new crew of people interested in the future of libraries in higher education –see you there!

This Saturday, June 26th, I’ll be joining the first group of poster-session presenters at the 2010 ALA Annual Conference. I plan to talk/demonstrate the overall workflow for re-indexing metadata (from CONTENTdm) to generate external features for digital collection’s websites. Additionally, I’ll be ready to show others how to use the web-forms I’ve created to help them create their own search/browse/share features; I understand this work is somehow limited to CONTENTdm users, but with a little bit of tweak any of the scripts can be adapted to another Digital Management System.

Below is a small version of my actual poster, it’s a huge file (82X34 inches); it does seem a little too big for something like this -but who knows- I’ll wait and see how things go, I hope to get some interesting questions and feedback.

There is definitely a lot going on there this weekend, so I look forward to attending some other (interesting) sessions -especially those with a focus on: digital libraries/collections, open source technology, scholarly communication, digital repositories, libraries in latin america, diversity, new leadership, etc.  Last but not least, since this is just my second time at an ALA Annual, I found this page “ALA Conference Survival Tips” quite useful :)  …and of course I also plan to get a live update from South Africa -especially on Saturday & Sunday at 2:30pm.

Saludos!