Reporting from the LAMP Summer Institute 2010

Traveling by land and sea on the Muskegon Ferry, six LAMP scholars and alums spent the weekend of May 20-23, 2010 in East Lansing Michigan at the 4th annual LAMP Summer Institute on the Michigan State University campus.

This was my first institute, and I was impressed right away by the community feeling that has grown up over the years. Returning scholars were excited to reunite, and new scholars (and PAs) fit right in.

I informally polled returning scholars who said this year's accommodations and programming were some of the best that LAMP has had so far. I also chatted with undergrad scholars who are considering librarianship as a profession, and they felt MSU and LAMP struck a good balance between career development presentations that were of use to recent graduates and introductory presentations showing the many different roles library and information specialists can have.

Below, I'll summarize some of the highlights of presentations at the LAMP Institute this year:

Friday, May 21

Job Search Tips:
(presenter: MSU Business Librarian Laura Levitt)

-Even if you're a beginning MLS student, look at job announcements and choose your classes and activities at SLIS to fit jobs that interest you.

-If you have gaps in your resume, ask for practicum and volunteer experiences. You won't know what's out there if you don't ask!

-Laura Levitt suggested that health science librarianship is an up-and-coming specialty area. She also advised students to take instruction/info lit, management, and research methods classes especially if interested in academic librarianship.

-Some online job resources:

libgig.com joblist.ala.org arl.org

Laura Levitt urged new graduates to join LinkedIn for networking.

day in the life of a library wiki provides profiles of professional librarians and is useful for networking

Publishing Tips:
(presenter Business Librarian Laura Levitt)

-Book reviews, encyclopedia entries, blogs, and newsletters are a way to get started with publishing.

-Collaborate with librarians and colleagues who have already been published

-Ask your employer if you can have "research days" or "research hours" built into your schedule

-Check out "A Library Writer's Blog" and ACRL Library News to look for publishing opportunities.

-Finally, have something you want to say.

Library Reference and Instruction Round Table:
(with 3 MSU Instruction Librarians)

-Panelists discussed their jobs in reference and instruction, using online tools like Questionpoint Chat services, LibGuides, Desktracker scheduling.

-Suggested conferences and online resources that will improve your teaching skills:

ACRL Immersion 2010
LOEX
WILU
Library Instruction Cookbook

-Also provided career advice for academic instruction librarians; advised new applicants to ask about tenure requirements at their new institution and to ask what kind of funding or opportunities for continuing education the institution provides its librarians.

Saturday, May 22

Libraries and Government Documents
(presenter MSU Gov Docs librarian Hui Hua Chua)

-Hui Hua Chua introduced the LAMP scholars to the work of a government documents librarian and shared some interesting online resources involving government-funded or produced information. She discussed President Obama's move towards more government transparency. Resources she highlighted included: FAS Project on Government Secrecy, OpenSecrets.org, follow the money, Wolfram Alpha, Chesapeake Project for archiving digitized legal information, govtinfo.org's Ask a Librarian chat service, archive.org's "Fed flicks," and the Google CIC Project to digitize government documents from depository libraries like the University of Chicago and place them into the Hathi Trust (similar to the Google Books Project).

Chinese Film Collection:
(presenter MSU Film librarian Xian Wu)

-With enthusiasm, Wu showed some clips and gave some film reviews of films in MSU's Chinese Film Collection, explaining the educational purpose and various classroom uses of these films. He also discussed challenges of building such a unique collection including DVD 'zoning' (which makes Chinese films difficult to play on most U.S. DVD players), copyright issues, government censorship, and purchasing strategies. Wu also introduced the audience to Tudou (meaning "Potato Net") which is the Chinese equivalent of YouTube or Hulu.

Controversial Materials Cataloging:
(presenter MSU Special Collections Cataloger Ruth Anne Jones)

-In this lively and engaging presentation, Ruth Anne Jones shared selections from several controversial collections at MSU and discussed the stakeholders and freedom of speech concerns related to having such collections at a publicly-funded academic library. She ended her presentation by letting the LAMP scholars peruse boxes of materials from MSU's Special Collections. These included Gay Erotica, Holocaust Denial Literature, Racist Cartoonists' depictions of African-Americans, Radical and Communist materials.