Let's talk about SACS, baby

Recently, I’ve been appointed to the Office of Planning, Assessment, and Research during part of my time to assist with accreditation for the college. Texas is in SACS territory (Southern Association of Colleges and Schools), so we are following their guidelines for reaffirmation. I am assisting in collecting, organizing, and creating both a paper and digital library of all accreditation documents. This is something entirely new to me, so it’s really helpful to learn more about the college and I’m getting to interact with more faculty and administrators than I would have been able to otherwise.

Although learning in library school that comprehension of the parent institution’s mission and goals is essential in understanding the library’s connection to the college, that understanding didn’t go too much more in depth on the institution side.

How accreditation works is that there are various compliance numbers to consider, such as -- 

Core Requirement 2.9: The institution, through ownership or formal arrangements or agreements, provides and supports student and faculty access and user privileges to adequate library collections and services and to other learning/information resources consistent with the degrees offered. Collections, resources, and services are sufficient to support all its educational, research, and public service programs. (Learning Resources and Services)

-- for example. This one in particular is geared toward the library, of course, but there are others like...

Comprehensive Standard 3.3.1 The institution identifies expected outcomes, assesses the extent to which it achieves these outcomes, and provides evidence of improvement based on analysis of the results in each of the following areas...

So for each, the college needs to gather evidence and also write a narrative reflecting how the standard has been met and incorporate how the evidence proves this to be true. So as for the library and many other areas of the college, instruction, physical space, staff, and more don’t just have their own assessment to consider, but also assessing an area or a program for accreditation purposes.

The tricky part for what I’m working on is that there are hundreds of pieces of evidence, with more being added as time goes on. On top of that, certain pieces can be used for multiple compliance numbers. Although much of our evidence is housed online, I have learned that SACS prefers to view the materials in an offline format (read: PDF), so simply providing URLs is not an option. It’s also preferable to SACS to be able to easily find cited portions of documents in the evidence (save the time of the user). To improve this capability, I am creating one master copy in a master evidence file, and then in each compliance number file, a document with extracted pages (if necessary) and/or highlighting is saved for easy access. This comes in handy when there is a 100+ page piece of evidence! Likewise, in a born-print format, documents must be digitized. As this is the first year a digital and official paper library is being created, there is a lot of organizing and archiving at the outset.

This is certainly a project I will be reporting on as time goes on!

Fanzines book has no fans

I'm a little slow in catching up to post this, but there are some interesting discussions surrounding Fanzines, a new title by academic professor, Teal Triggs. The main discussion I'd like to direct you to is a blog post by Jerianne of Zine World, where she explains the problem with this new text and its implications.

This new book documents zines, with visuals and historical information. Although it is true an academic book about zines and zine history could stand to further legitimize the medium in research and academia, there are some problems here, which I learned from Jerianne's post. These problems center on copyright and accurate factual information. I won't repeat everything Jerianne discusses in her blog post, but do want to point out some key information:

1. Zine images were used without notifying zinesters prior to publication (in most cases, if a zine creator even was contacted, it was an afterthought).
2. Perhaps related to this snafu (lightly-stated), there is information about the zines and zinesters covered in the book that is incorrect.

This translates to: well, zinesters being pissed, and rightfully so due to someone profiting financially and profesionally off their DIY/not-doing-it-for-profit ethos; as well as now having a text covering a topic that is not highly documented -- that will be imprinting incorrect information into history (with not much else in formal print to contest it).

Jerianne quotes Tobi Vail:

As Tobi Vail pointed out in her blog entry about the book: “I think there should be a way to contest ‘false information’ in published works. Because once it’s in a book, it’s a ‘fact.’ People will use this book as a source for further writing on the subject matter. … Because once something is in print, it becomes an authority.”

This is true, and I see it often in student research. If information is printed, it will often be repeated without question. So, what good could come of this situation? It looks like there is no effort or interest on the author/editor or publisher's part to rectify the situation, so what to do? Using this as an example in teaching critical thinking skills in information literacy is a start; I'm not suggesting to purchase the book at all, but explaining the issue to students and showing them how misinformation can appear in authoritative-seeming sources, even by a credentialed professor, is possible.

This example could also be used to show that research is truly a discussion. Look at Wikipedia, with all the arguments that spawn out of incorrect information in entries, or even just differences of opinion. Of course, the book in question is not a matter of opinion, there is simply factual information that is incorrect, but it could be a good segue into also showing Wikipedia can be useful for the zeitgeist and basic information, but it's still necessary to double check, consider motivations, and question "authority." Wikipedia is not the only source that can have faulty information, but could serve as familiar grounds for comparison. And, hopefully, someone with more accurate information might consider publishing a book to rival Fanzines.

Takeaways from ALA MW 11 Emerging Leaders Session

ALA Midwinter 2011... wow. This was my second ALA conference, the first being an Annual while I was still a student. What a huge difference. My main impetus for going was that I was accepted to the 2011 Emerging Leaders class this year; I  feel like it's a great experience so far.

Before starting the program, I read some of the criticism out there to get an idea of what I'd be in for and what to be cautious of. Kim Leeder wrote a great article at In the Library with the Lead Pipe: All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go: A Survey of ALA Emerging Leaders , where much of the problem sounded like unmet expectations of the day-long program itself, as well as the reach and scope of the projects. I have to say those involved in the program really listened to former EL class concerns, because some of these issues were addressed, and some changes were clearly made. And I am very excited about the project I am working on, which is creating a collection development policy for videogames in libraries. I think this project will not only be interesting and even fun, but have a lot of reach, too.

We got some fantastic information on leadership from Maureen Sullivan, Peter Bromberg, Leslie Burger, and Keith Fiels. Andromeda Yelton, another Emerging Leader, has a great write up of what we learned on her blog:

The main takeaways, as Andromeda notes, are:

1. Be scared everyday (and have a drink in your hand)
2. Be generous
3. There is no spoon
4. Relationships

This all really relates back to all the brainstorming we did on good leadership qualities. What works well for us, and what positive attributes we find in those at the top. A big theme that stood out for me is creating buy in. You have to foster relationships with those around you to get anything done; we were told at the session that the reason we were all meeting face-to-face early on was so we could be friends first to be better able to work together in our groups. On creating buy-in, you must also trust in others, which includes being generous enough to offer others opportunities and not micromanage. Working to make ALA yours (or any situation yours) takes effort, and it's true: there is no spoon. As my EL groupmate, Abby Johnson, says in her blog, "ALA is not your mom." If you're not scared everyday (or even almost everyday), what's the point? Trusting in others is a leap, as is trusting in yourself in new, uncomfortable situations. As I commented in Andromeda's blog, I'll often say yes to things before I even have a chance to be nervous. You can always be nervous, but you won't always have a chance to say yes to some of these amazing opportunities.

A couple people were asking me at the conference what I think of the program so far since they were considering applying next year -- at this point in time, I say two thumbs up.

Using zines as an introduction to library research

I've used my zine lesson plan with 5 humanities classes now and posted the information (including handouts) to my portfolio. This is at an urban community college with many typically under-served students that may have low literacy skills and are pretty brand new to research and libraries.


The purpose from the instructor's perspective is to offer another option for the students to complete a final project; this arts appreciation class is one of the first courses a new student might take at this college. From the librarian's perspective, this is a way to introduce students to how publishing works, give them an opportunity for informal research and creativity. By allowing students to choose any topic relating to art that is of interest to them, it takes some of the pressure off potentially intimidating library resources being explored for the first time. This also falls under critical instruction by talking about whose voices get heard in which platforms and why. Who gets published in a magazine or journal, of course, differs from who might publish a blog or zine.


Many of our students are not familiar with zines, nor blogs. One of their other options for an assignment is to create an autobiographical entry in a blog, so I introduce that mini-lesson first and we talk about what blogs are and how they have evolved (most students have never had their own).

After getting an introduction to electronic self-publishing, I introduce zines but only minimally; I don't want to impose my view of zines before the students get a chance to form their own opinions. I break them up into groups and give each 1 zine, 1 magazine, and a Venn diagram worksheet to compare those items and blogs. After explaining how a Venn diagram works, I allow about 10 minutes for groupwork. After they compare and contrast, we discuss as a class and will look at things like appearance, cost, required knowledge/background, subjects covered, credibility, and publishing processes for differentiation. An interesting point that Jenna Freedman discusses in Zines Are Not Blogs is the digital divide. Students will say that blogs are free as opposed to zines and magazines, but that's not necessarily the case. One must have computer and internet access to read a blog, as well as at least *some* computer literacy to create a blog. If there is not a school or library nearby, an individual would be required to pay for computer/internet at home, and that is not free. This is an interesting perspective on where zines and blogs differ; there are people who believe zines are dead and why make a zine when you could just make a blog, but there are still people out there who don't have access to the tools required to read/create the electronic version of self-publishing.

After the discussion, I explain they will be making a mini-zine (1 piece of paper turned into an 8 page zine). They can choose any topic (as I mention above) as long as it relates somehow to the arts. It can be any style they want: typed, drawn, comic, collage, handwritten; they just need to include at least 2 sources in a citation from any library database. I demonstrate how to use one of our most user-friendly databases (Student Research Center) and then show them how to cite a source in the citation management software our library uses, NoodleTools.

I tell the students if they are going to make a zine, it's only fair if I make one too, in exchange (I am looking to collect student zines after grading to display in the library). After using sample search terms for yarn bombing (knit graffiti), I show them my final product so they can get a sense of the assignment from start to finish.

This has been a successful IL session so far and I am in the process of collecting zines from Fall semester and will be getting more from Winter term students! You can have access to learning objectives, the lesson plan, and handouts from my portfolio.