January 13, 2009

In attendance: Kim Hoffman, Michelle Costello, Irina Holden, Darryl Bullis, Nicki Lerczak, Lori Annesi, Jennifer Little, Dana Longley, Sara Hull, Jim Nichols, Karen Shockey

1) Discussion of Teaching Tips from the Trenches - perspectives from organizers, an attendee, and mentors.  Favorite parts of the day: keynote address with Dan Delehanty; breathing and stretching with Tracy Paradis; the mixing of participants for each afternoon session; the variety of experiences represented in our participants, mentors and presenters; mentor participation and encouragement of attendees who were not as willing to speak up; overall learning and sharing among members of the group.

Kim and Michelle shared the idea of a SUNYLA pre-conference workshop incorporating participants from the 1/12 event for further transmission of basic pedagogical skills to "young" librarians.

We discussed the fact that SUNY Oneonta has expressed interest in hosting the next WGIL workshop, possibly in the spring.  Pam Flinton, however, was unable to attend the conference.  We will check to see if there is still interest/momentum.

A suggestion from downstate surfaced as we were marketing the workshop for inclusion of a webinar to reach a greater audience.  Would a webinar be an effective format for a workshop on instruction techniques?  Online communication and interaction can really flourish with such a format.  The group agreed that a *supplemental* webinar would be helpful for further contact, but face-to-face is definitely more advantageous.  There was further discussion on whether or not we should use the existing wiki as a channel of communication as opposed to Moodle.

Irina and Dana both asked for detailed information on the planning of the conference.  It was suggested that a manual be put together.

We will need to see how sustainable ongoing conferences, funded through SUNYLA, will be.  How many per year?  Manpower in planning, volunteerism by presenters and funding/support from SUNYLA (and other partner agencies) must be considered.

2) Jim Nichols reminded us that a proposal to the CIT conference under the "Birds of a Feather" presentation format will be submitted on Monday Jan. 19.  Jim agreed to post his proposal to the WGIL wiki (professional development subcommittee wiki?).  Kim Hoffman (Geneseo) and John Thomas (Jefferson CC) have expressed interest in joining Jim in this proposal.  Anyone else?  Please contact Jim.

3) Update from Communication subcommittee (Irina Holden) - an article regarding the changes to LIC since this summer's open meeting and an article about Teaching Tips from the Trenches will be submitted to Shannon Pritting for inclusion in the upcoming SUNYLA newsletter.

4) Update from Library School Outreach subcommittee (Nicki Lerczak) - a contact from UB and UA has been secured.  Syracuse University has been fairly closed off and difficult to collaborate with.  Bren Price, an attendee at Monday's workshop, is a student at SU and may serve as a potential conduit.  Nicki plans to survey the mentors from Monday's workshop to see who is interested in continued communication with our attendees.  Susan Kraat from New Paltz has identified herself as being very interested in a mentoring project and has been in touch with Nicki.

5) How has communication among WGIL members been?  Too much?  Too little?  Appropriate tools being used?  E-mail remains the best way to communicate.  Despite the collaborative potential of our wiki(s), the tool is not yet part of our "muscle memory."  Mark McBride is in charge of keeping open discussions on the listserv going.  Perhaps he can investigate ways to prioritize use of the wiki.  The conference planning wiki was heavily used, so it is obvious that if the information is important and timely enough, people will seek out the wiki.  If you are bombarded with constant updates to the wiki, you can select to NOT receive the updates.

6) It was agreed that we retain our status as an official committee of SUNYLA, for no greater reason than to be fully supported - financially and otherwise.  The impetus for the change came from Rudy Leon as she believed that since we did not "do the work" of SUNYLA (in contrast to the Membership Development Committee who solicits SUNYLA memberships, for example), there was no need to be an official committee of SUNYLA.  In reality, the proposed change may have been purely philosophical and/or semantic.  A "working group" signifies a more casual relationship between members working on a unified topic, problem, or issue.  WGIL fits similar criteria and relation to SUNYLA as LiSUG, so we are not unique in our situation.  After considering whether or not we are meeting the particular statements in our charge (mission), meeting attendees looked over the charge (on the wiki) and suggested changes in wording.  We will keep the charge (or mission) general and we may consider, in the future, adding values and visions.  This would be in accordance with CACI - Continuous Assessment, Continuous Improvement.  The suggested modifications to our charge will be shared with all members of WGIL (see proposed changes in red at http://suny-lic.pbwiki.com/FrontPage) and we will confirm the final verbage, to then be shared with SUNYLA Executive Council.

7) In relation to assessment, Karen recommended that a future WGIL workshop be focused on issues of assessment.  We discussed previous efforts to share instruction information in regards to assessment with the larger SUNYLA community.  One good example included the two conference sessions offered at last year's SUNYLA meeting where one session highlighted program assessment and the second highlighted classroom assessment.  Susan Kraat and Stephan Macaluso were names suggested for further presentations on assessment.