The BRCC Library Club is active in the community.
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| Library Club members back row: Crawford Wheeler, Kathryn Seidel, Peter Klubek Front Row: Raykaiyyah Donkor, Vanessa White, Delisa Brown |
The BRCC Library Club was very excited to visit the Boys and Girls club on Friday, April, 29. We were a small group of four students and two club advisers. The group photo above shows the book that was read and samples of the puppets made in a group activity.
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| Library Club members reading to the children. |
The club members read the story "If Not For the Cat," by Jack Prelutsky. The children were very interested in the story, and readily called out the answers to questions about the different animals featured in the story.
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| Puppet construction. |
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| Library Club members helping students create their own puppets. |
They then helped the children create puppets based on the story book characters. The overall experience was very good. The Library Club members had a great time, the Boys and Girls Club were very excited, and the project further advanced BRCC within the Baton Rouge community.
The library book sale was hugely popular. The sale was held April 19-21. All of the librarians and student workers helped to set up and run the book sale. Proceeds from the book sale benefit library events and programs. Thank you, to all who purchased books, for your support!
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| Library Student Worker Rikiyyah Donkor proudly showcasing the 2016 library book sale. |
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| Visitors at the 2016 Mid-city library book sale |
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| Associate Dean Jackie Jones assisting at the BRCC Acadian library book sale |
The BRCC Magnolia Library was pleased to present awards to two of our student workers at the annual Student Recognition Ceremony held April 27, 2016. Joshua Johnson was awarded for his excellent work on the centerpieces used at the annual LLA conference. The centerpieces were also featured in last months blog entry. Thomas Craig was recognized for his exemplary service in the library. He is transferring to McNeese State University in the fall, and while we will miss him, we wish him success in all his future endeavors.
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| Thomas Craig and Joshua Johnson, library award recipients with instructor Bea Gyimah |
Results retrieved from the OER survey sent out to all BRCC faculty earlier in the semester have been tabulated. This survey was created by LOUIS as they seek to aid the library in developing OER resources on campus. The full results of the survey were also e-mailed out to BRCC faculty. The findings suggest that there is an interest in using OER at BRCC, but that availability and familiarity about what kinds of resources are out there remains an issue. Keep in touch with your librarian liaisons as we work to develop these new resources.
22. What strategies would be effective at encouraging you to create or adopt OA
or OER resources into courses that you teach?
Offer me the opportunity
Wide adoption across campus in multiple courses. The text for my course is not required, so I wouldn't want to confuse students about the viability of OA sources. They might get
the impression that because the book is not required OA will suffice, rather than a purposeful selection meant to help them.
More enlightenment on what is involved and which materials are available.
Just allowing them to be used and ensuring the availability
For my Introduction to Business courses - I want a course with an etextbook, powerpoints, online homework and practice quizzes. And I want it for less than $50/student. If I
could find that I would have it in place and running by the Fall semester of 2016.
I would need to know more about it.
I'd need some kind of training workshop for one thing, as I have no idea what would be required of me to make something like this work in my classes.
some kind of online training for it, its history, how to use it.
Information sessions
Others who have done it and can build my confidence in using them.
having more resources available in my discipline
If resources including instructor resources are available that are cheaper and available to students, and if students all had portable computers
If, in fact, the materials were reliably accessible. When I've used them in the past, some students had problems seeing the material across different platforms and software.
I need much, much more information about resources and access.
Acceptance by the Department Chair
Students seem to be too busy to even use computers to study. Time is of essence to use the materials. We do use Townsendpress.com. and the Learning Center on BRCC
campus.
n/a. My course does not require a textbook.
I really am open and just need to take the time to look at what is available. I would then need to make the pitch to the department to adopt the free resources.
Ease of use and showing that students will benefit from their use.
perhaps having a fellow faculty member come speak about it.
funding/access
More knowledge about OA and OER resources available for my specific subject area. Knowledge of how/where to find these resources.
23. What strategies would be effective at encouraging you to substitute a course
textbook with library owned-materials like journal articles or ebooks?
Offer me the opportunity and I will do it more
Having the correct ebook available.
Just confirming availability
My students need electronic resources that they can read at home, while on the bus, during their work lunch hour, etc. They don't have time to be searching for materials and
checking them out of the library.
My students run the gamut from having easy access to digital sources at home and being very comfortable with technology to students who know little and are without access
away from campus. I am concerned that moving away from textbooks will be difficult for many of my students. Using both text books and e-sources may create two "classes" of
students and make testing difficult. Unless I completely restructure the class allowing students to team teach to share insights from the text and e-sources.
A list of journal articles or ebooks that could be subbed in for different assignments.
It would have to be easy to find relevant articles that apply to the outcomes I have set.
More information on what is available.
having materials comparable to what is in textbook companies' books
If there were enough copies available for every student in my class
There's not really one strategy for this substitution. We decide books by committee, and therein lies the problem.
Student ease of access to the material; a school server large enough, or even over-large, to handle the load of student access; ebooks would far more effective in my basic
composition class and in my Intro to Poetry and Drama class.
My courses are not at a level to require those materials
I do not need encouraging - rather need to encourage my department.
My course does not require a textbook.
Again, I already do this.
I am looking to do this very soon. Support from my department would probably be the most important.
Students will have unlimited access
probably nothing
research paper assigned
Testimony on how other teachers have implemented OER resources in their classes.
Reprinted from ACRL website http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/archives/11755
Malenfant K. (2016 April, 26) ACRL Insider. ACRL Report Shows Compelling Evidence of Library Contributions to Student Learning and Success. http://www.acrl.ala.org/acrlinsider/archives/11755
A new report issued by ACRL, "Documented library Contributions to Student Learning and Success: Building Evidence with Team-based Assessment in Action Campus Projects" shows compelling
evidence for library contributions to student learning and success. The report
focuses on dozens of projects conducted as part of the program Assessment in Action: Academic Libraries and Student Success (AiA) by teams that participated in the second year of
the program, from April 2014 to June 2015. Synthesizing more than 60 individual
project reports (fully searchable online) and using past findings from
projects completed during the first year of the AiA program as context, the
report identifies strong evidence of the positive contributions of academic
libraries to student learning and success in four key areas:
Students benefit
from library instruction in their initial coursework. Information literacy
initiatives for freshmen and new students underscore that students receiving
this instruction perform better in their courses than students who do not.
Library use
increases student success. Students who use the library in some way (e.g.,
circulation, library instruction session attendance, online databases access,
study room use, interlibrary loan) achieve higher levels of academic success
(e.g., GPA, course grades, retention) than students who did not use the
library.
Collaborative
academic programs and services involving the library enhance student learning.Academic
library partnerships with other campus units, such as the writing center,
academic enrichment, and speech lab, yield positive benefits for students
(e.g., higher grades, academic confidence, and retention).
Information
literacy instruction strengthens general education outcomes. Libraries
improve their institution’s general education outcomes and demonstrate that
information literacy contributes to inquiry-based and problem-solving learning,
including critical thinking, ethical reasoning, global understanding, and civic
engagement.
The three-year AiA program is helping over 200
postsecondary institutions of all types create partnerships at their
institution to promote library leadership and engagement in campus-wide
assessment. Each participating institution establishes a team with a lead
librarian and at least two colleagues from other campus units. Team members
frequently include teaching faculty and administrators from such departments as
the assessment office, institutional research, the writing center, academic
technology, and student affairs. Over a 14-month period, the librarians lead
their campus teams in the development and implementation of a project that aims
to contribute to assessment activities at their institution.
“The findings about library impact in each of the four
areas described above are particularly strong because they consistently point
to the library as a positive influencing factor on students’ academic success,”
said Karen Brown, who prepared the report and is a professor at Dominican
University Graduate School of Library and Information Science. “This holds true
across different types of institutional settings and with variation in how each
particular program or service is designed.”
In addition, there is building evidence of positive
library impact in five areas, although they have not been studied as
extensively or findings may not be as consistently strong:
Student retention improves with library instructional
services.
Library research consultation services boost student
learning.
Library instruction adds value to a student’s long-term
academic experience.
The library promotes academic rapport and student
engagement.
Use of library space relates positively to student learning
and success.
In addition to findings about library impact, participant
reflections reveal that a collaborative team-based approach on campus is an
essential element of conducting an assessment project and planning for
subsequent action. Kara Malenfant, contributor to the report and a senior staff
member at ACRL, noted, “The benefits of having diverse team members working
together are clear. They achieve common understanding about definitions and
attributes of academic success, produce meaningful measures of student
learning, align collaborative assessment activities with institutional
priorities, create a unified campus message about student learning and success,
and focus on transformative and sustainable change.”
Read more in the full report "Documented Library Contributions to Student Learning and Success: Building Evidence with Team-Based Assessment in Action Campus Projects" The executive
summary is available as a separate docuement, formatted to share broadly with campus stakeholders.
