pamryan.info

I suspect my blogging days are numbered given my effort here of late.

However, a quick update on some upcoming events I’m participating in:

Advocating for Libraries and Library Issues: A Plan for Success
Professional Learning Centre, Faculty of Information, University of Toronto
Kathleen DeLong and I co-teaching this 6-week online course.
2 February - 15 March 2009

Northern Exposure to Leadership Institute
I’m looking forward to my 3rd return as a Facilitator at this the 10th anniversary NELI.
26 February - 3 March 2009

Decision Making: Is YOUR Expert Opinion Enough?
ACRL 14th National Conference (Seattle, WA)
12 March 2009

“Debate: Is the Book Dead?”
Exploring Acquisitions (Oxford, England)
15 April 2009

From Creative Commons Canada:

Access Copyright (The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency) and Creative Commons Canada, in partnership with Creative Commons Corp. and the Wikimedia Foundation, invite Canada’s library community to help us test the Canadian Public Domain Registry beta website.

The ground-breaking project – the most comprehensive of its kind in Canada – will create an online, globally searchable catalogue of published Canadian literary works. The Registry’s integrated rights calculator allows users to automatically determine each work’s copyright status on an evolving basis. The Registry will also link to digital versions of the work and provide information about where a paper-copy can be purchased, when available.

In essence, we’re building a public domain library and that’s why we need you (Canada’s librarians) to help test our beta website and ensure the Registry is ready for the public-at-large. We also invite leaders in the library community to get involved with charting a course for its future. Any amount of participation is helpful and welcome. Please contact us now, we will reply with further instructions, directions to the beta test website and the secret password.

What: Canadian Public Domain Registry beta test
When: October 15 - December 15, 2008
Who: The Canadian Library community
Where: Contact marcus@creativecommons.ca for details

Over $100,000 raised in 5 years!

With $29,282 raised in 2008, we met our $100,000 5-year fundraising goal with our grand total of $101,262. Our 2008 team had 177 members participating at 18 run sites across Canada. The Ottawa-Gatineau team was the largest with 22 members and the Edmonton team had the highest fundraising at $8029.

A big thanks to all team members and a special thanks to our run site Team Captains:
Joanna Aegard (Thunder Bay), Jocelyne Andrews (Montreal), Kandise Brown (Halifax), Cathy Freer-Leszczynski (Calgary), Lisa Hagan (Hamilton/Burlington), Kim Hebig (Saskatoon), Julie McKenna (Regina), Heather Moodie (Sault Ste. Marie), Christy Sich (London), Catherine Steeves (Guelph), Danielle Winn (Windsor), Alexandra Yarrow (Ottawa – Gatineau), and Lingbo Yan (Vancouver).

See you all next year!

Useful reading. Have a few copies on hand to pass out to your election door-knockers or drop off a copy at your local campaign offices.

Unlocking the Public Interest
The views of the Canadian Library Association / Association canadienne des bibliothèques on Bill C-61, An Act to Amend the Copyright Act

The first Open Access Day is being held October 14, 2008. Sponsored by SPARC, PLoS, and Students for FreeCulture, Open Access Day is intended to:

…create a key opportunity for the higher education community and the general public to understand more clearly the opportunities of wider access and use of content.

Open Access Day will invite researchers, educators, librarians, students, and the public to participate in live, worldwide broadcasts of events.

Librarians and student organizers are invited to host meetings around the broadcast. To see a list of participating campuses and to sign up, visit the Open Access Day Web site. Also see the Librarians can get involved information.

The fabulous Leah Vanderjagt (UofA’s Digital Repository Services Librarian) has a short piece in the recent Tech + Media issue of Unlimited magazine: Open Source Librarians Embrace the Google Era. A good reminder to not just talk among ourselves in our own publications about what we do.

If you participated on the 2007 Librarians Run for the Cure team, you likely received a notice today from the run organizers that registration is now open for the 2008 run. We’re all set to receive team registrations too.

Join us on Sunday, October 5th, 2008 as a member of the 5th Annual Librarians Run for the Cure Team. We’ve raised $71,780 over our past four years. Let’s aim to top $100,000 in overall fund-raising this year to celebrate our 5th year of participation! Team participation is open to anyone library-friendly and you can run or walk!

When registering, elect to “Join an existing Team” and search for “Librarians Run for the Cure”.

If you’re interested in acting as Team Captain for your run site / city, please contact me.

Follow our progress by joining our Facebook group too.

For three weeks (17-Feb through 09-Mar), I ran a Facebook Ad Campaign targeted to UofA students to promote the Cameron Library Facebook Page. Nothing fancy, just something to create student awareness of Cameron Library on Facebook.

What were the results?

• 399,485 page impressions of the Ad resulted in 503 click-throughs to the Cameron Library Page (0.13% click-through rate)
• 47 new “Fans” (though no way to know if they were click-through folks or friends of click-through folks that had seen their friends become Fans)
• Page Views definitely picked up during the three weeks (428, 489, 235 respectively); post-Ad weekly Page Views have been (115, 55, 94, 90)
• Total spent: $90.88

Initial thoughts? Ads get eyes on your Page. Whether your Page offers anything of use to those looking at it is a different story that needs different measures.

It is internship season in Alberta again. Here are the postings for recent MLIS grads for both public library and academic library internships in Alberta:

• Community Development Librarian (Intern). Edmonton Public Library.
• Volunteer Services Librarian (Intern). Edmonton Public Library.

• Academic Library Internship Positions 2008/2009. University of Alberta Libraries.

Such great support and opportunity for new grads in Alberta!

I didn’t make it to CLA last year in St. John’s so I don’t yet have CLA=May ingrained in my brain; I’m still thinking CLA=June. I’d best be turning some attention to CLA=May as I’ll be joining a stellar cast of Canada’s best in a series of presentations:

• Librarians as Campus Open Access Leaders: the University of Alberta Experience. With Denise Koufogiannakis and Leah Vanderjagt
• The Perfect Storm: Rethinking Service at the University of Alberta Libraries. With Kathleen DeLong, Alexa Jaffurs, and Anne Carr-Wiggin.

• The CACUL Great Debate: Be it resolved that social software is not what users want from the library. With Melody Burton, Lisa Goddard, and Wendy Rodgers.

Those familiar with the Great Debate are aware of the gravity of participating in this annual debate. I’m trying to remember why I thought I’d want to do this but can only vaguely trace it back to this moment in Cambridge last year with Melody (and Kit and Jackie).

I’m also really looking forward to getting back to work on CLA activities as incoming CACUL Vice-President/President Elect. Looks like a great group to work with; certainly one of the best perks of association and committee work.