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The "Collections (Current)" and "BIBs and HOLs (Current)" reporting topics have been refreshed with data that is current as of March 1, 2021. All reports run in the Reporting Environment will now include the refreshed data set.
The next data refresh will take place in early April.
Visit the Data Warehouse web page and read the Data Warehouse Reporting Environment User Guide to learn more about the Data Warehouse and running your own reports.
Free Summit Takes Place Virtually April 8-9, 2021
Registration is now open for the 2021 M.O.S.T. State Summit, which will take place virtually April 8-9, 2021.
The theme of the 2021 conference is Using OER to Advance Equity and Inclusion. The COVID-19 pandemic and continuing patterns of racialized violence have brought to the forefront inequities in educational access, preparation, and experiences on our campuses. How might the use of open educational resources (OER) advance equity and inclusion at our postsecondary institutions and statewide?
Attendees will have an opportunity to hear from presenters from across Maryland on how they are tackling these issues and building, growing, evaluating, and sustaining their OER initiatives. Keynote presentations will feature Angela Debarger, Program Officer, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Maha Bali, Associate Professor of Practice at the Center for Learning and Teaching at the American University in Cairo.
There is no cost to attend this Summit.
This message was distributed via the M.O.S.T mailing list. You can subscribe here.
Reminder: The M.O.S.T. Workshop Series on OER continues through April. The next workshop, "Creating OER with Students," is March 10. You can register here.
2021 Theme is "Pivoting in Times of Crisis"; Takes Place Virtually on July 28th
The 6th annual Towson Conference for Academic Libraries will be held virtually on Wednesday, July 28th, 2021.
This low-cost, one-day conference is for all academic library workers and MLIS students. We welcome proposals and attendees from all job levels and all departments.
This year’s theme is “Pivoting in Times of Crisis.” This year, we are looking forward to exploring how the past year working through a pandemic has impacted us and our work. What challenges did we face and how did we overcome them (or not)? What new ways of providing our resources and services can, or should, we continue post-pandemic? What opportunities are there for continued revision of workflows, or completely new offerings we can offer as academic libraries? What self-reflection did you do about why you entered the library profession? We are equally interested in hearing about your big ideas and your glorious failures, which we can all learn from. We will look forward to session proposals that explore this theme from such perspectives as:
- Fresh ideas and innovative perspectives for the 21st century and/or the post-pandemic library
- Tales of successful and/or not successful projects
- Personal reflections on a career in librarianship and/or balancing your personal and professional lives
- Experiences working with new technology
- Challenges to established workflows and philosophies
- Ideas for the future in an interdepartmental, collaborative environment
- Workshops demonstrating hard skills
- Practical problem-solving and skill sharing
- Ideas informed by diverse and critical perspectives
- Innovation and practices from non-library fields
- Strategies for cross-departmental collaboration and empowerment at work
- Helping the local academic library community connect and re-connect
Look forward to calls for proposals and more details in the coming weeks. Please pass this message to anyone who might be interested.
Questions may be directed to tcal@towson.edu.
Organizers:
Adam Zukowski (TCAL Chair, Towson University)
Whitney Blake (Towson University)
Sarah Crest (Towson University)
Megan Davis (University of Maryland Global Campus)
LuAnn Fisher (Hagerstown Community College)
Bill Helman (Towson University)
Paula Langley (University of Maryland, Baltimore County)
Don Osborn (Stevenson University)
Bria Sinnott (Towson University)
Jennifer Wodarczyk (Towson University)
Message originally distributed via usmaicoiall@umd.edu.
Through the Maryland State Library, USMAI libraries have access to live webinars offered by Ryan Dowd's Homeless Training Institute. Staff at USMAI libraries also have access to recorded webinars and the Librarian's Guide to Homelessness through Niche Academy.
The next 1-hour webinar, "Service Animals: Your Obligations Under the ADA," will be held on Thursday, March 11 at 2:00 p.m.
Some of the issues covered:
- Which types of animals are covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)?
- What are the two questions you can legally ask? (Yes, there are only two!)
- Can you legally exclude a service animal if it growls, poops, sets off someone's allergies, or scares someone with a phobia?
If you would like the access info for this webinar, please contact Katia Fowler or comment on this post.
If you would like to receive the access info directly from the Homeless Training Institute (recommended), please fill out this short form. For the last question, enter "Maryland State."
Attend on March 2 or March 3
Join Ted Tyson from Third Iron to learn how the new LibKey services keep the library at the center of the research process, remove the obstacles to access, and streamline library operations. Ted will provide an overview of LibKey, share the benefits libraries using LibKey are reporting, and provide details on the new LibKey Link and libkey.io services.
The demos are being offered on at 1:00 p.m. and at 11:00 a.m. Registration is not required, but will ensure you get a recording after the presentation. Please register here.
Access info is available to staff at USMAI member libraries on the 2021 Vendor Demos page. You will need to log in or create an account to view.
Stew of the Month: December 2020/January 2021
The following is excerpted from the most recent edition of DigiStew:
The CLAS team responded to 152 Aleph Rx submissions and 28 e-resource requests from across the consortium’s libraries in December and January.
COVID-19 Support
CLAS continues to be available to respond to your support requests. Please use our regular support channels if you need any assistance.
Application Upgrades
CLAS completed a number of upgrades in December and January to keep USMAI applications running on supported software versions:
- Aleph v23: Completed on Sunday, January 31st. While there are not any major changes to functionality, the upgrade puts the consortium in good position for sustained use of Aleph, minimizing the need for disruptive maintenance during the ILS migration project.
- USMAI Member Portal: The Portal was upgraded to Confluence v7 on Wednesday, January 27th. There are no major changes in functionality in this version.
- EZproxy v7.0.16: Completed on Thursday, December 16th. The upgrade positions us for a future upgrade this Spring to v7.1. After August 2021 previous versions of EZproxy will no longer be supported by OCLC.
Upcoming Work
Here are a couple of items to look forward to hearing more about in the coming months:
- Data Warehouse additions: Work is nearing completion to add more acquisition attributes to our “Collections (Current)” reporting topic.
- New Ticketing System: Internal planning and investigation continue on this initiative to consolidate and improve the system for making service requests. Once procurement has completed, expect to hear more about this.
Thank you for all the great submissions to the "Name the ILS Migration Project" contest, USMAIers. We had over 20 entries! With very few exceptions–"Bookie McBookface," I'm looking at you–all the entries are on the ballot.
Since we had so many entries, we'll be doing ranked choice voting. Use this form to vote, and please vote only once: https://umdsurvey.umd.edu/jfe/form/SV_5bVmiuGkq65cpkq.
The "Collections (Current)" and "BIBs and HOLs (Current)" reporting topics have been refreshed with data that is current as of February 1, 2021. All reports run in the Reporting Environment will now include the refreshed data set.
The next data refresh will take place in early March.
Visit the Data Warehouse web page and read the Data Warehouse Reporting Environment User Guide to learn more about the Data Warehouse and running your own reports.
Attend on February 23rd or 24th
Chad Simmons and Micaela from WorldArchives.com will be presenting their platform for USMAI later this month. The agenda will include:
- Introductions
- History of World Archives
- Differentiators
- Live Demo
- Q&A Session
The demos are being offered on at 2:00 p.m. and on at 10:00 a.m. There is no registration for this event. The demo will be recorded.
Access info is available to staff at USMAI member libraries on the 2021 Vendor Demos page. You will need to log in or create an account to view.
Staff at USMAI member libraries have access to the Atlas Video Training Library.
The Training Library currently includes over 150 courses for ILLiad, covering topics like workflows, copyright, addons, routing rules, and web reports. The Atlas Video Training Library also includes courses about other topics and products, such as ArchivesSpace, Ares, and more.
Information about finding courses and accessing the library is provided in a new page in the Member Portal.
UPDATE: This course now has its own page in the Member Portal under "Professional Development." (2/8/2021)
In addition to the "Librarian's Guide to Homelessness" training course, the Maryland State Library (MSL) also purchased a license for a new course, "Dismantling Institutional Racism." All staff at USMAI member libraries have free access to the course. See the announcement below for details.
Announcement from MSL
The Maryland State Library has purchased a statewide license to provide online training in the Niche Academy platform to all staff in the state's public libraries on Dismantling Institutional Racism. The presenter is Tobin Miller Shearer, Widerstand Consulting. The Statewide Staff Development EDIA Task Force in public libraries identified the need for such training and identified this resource. The course is also available for staff in academic and school libraries. There is no charge for this training.
The total training time including activities is approximately 4 hours, but the training is presented in short video clips that make it easy to participate over time. Niche Academy tracks your progress so you can simply pick up where you left off.
Public Library Staff can earn contact hours by completing the training. You will need to document your participation by successfully passing the Final Quiz. The staff development coordinator in your library system oversees the approval process for this course and can provide you with the details.
Total Videos Length – 2 hours + 10 minutes
Average time of exercise completions and knowledge tests - 2 hours
Average time of completion without readings – 4 hours and 10 minutes
Average time of completion with readings – 8 hours
This training opportunity is available through October 31, 2021.
Additional Live Sessions – Join others statewide as we work through the course during February 2021. Dr. Tobin Miller Shearer will present two live Zoom sessions to help you get started and stay motivated to finish the course. Please register here to join us on the dates below - https://bit.ly/2L0jrd8
Opening (kickoff) session – February 3, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Closing session – March 3, 1:00 p.m. to 2:00 p.m.
Enroll in the Training
You will need to create a Niche Academy account with username and password so that you are officially enrolled in the training. You must use your work email address to participate. You can get an account and start your training from this URL: https://my.nicheacademy.com/marylandstate-staff/course/16291
If you already have an account, you can go to https://my.nicheacademy.com/marylandstate-staff and select the Dismantling Institutional Racism course.
You will also see two very brief additional courses: How to do a Library Anti-racism Audit and How to Turn Backlash into Buy-in.
Questions? Contact Nini Beegan, Maryland State Library, nini.beegan@maryland.gov
This project is supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act Administered by the Maryland State Library.
UPDATE: This course now has its own page in the Member Portal under "Professional Development." (2/8/2021)
We had great feedback from members who took Ryan Dowd's "Librarian's Guide to Homelessness" training course last year.
Thanks to the Maryland State Library (MSL), staff at all USMAI libraries can register for the course again this year. In addition to the core training course, this year the license also includes about 15 hours of webinars by Ryan Dowd.
See the announcement below for details on how to create an account and get started.
Announcement from MSL
The Maryland State Library has purchased a statewide license from Niche Academy to provide training to all staff in the state's public libraries on serving homeless customers.
The presenter is Ryan Dowd, Librarian's Guide to Homelessness. The Statewide Staff Development Coordinator’s group in public libraries identified the need for such training and identified this resource. The course is also available for staff in academic and school libraries. There is no charge for this training.
The total training time including activities is approximately 4 hours, but the training is presented in short video clips that make it easy to participate over time. Niche Academy tracks your progress so you can simply pick up where you left off.
Public Library Staff can earn contact hours (CE Credit = 4 hours) by completing the training. You will need to document your participation by completing the Downloadable Notes and successfully passing the Quiz at 94%. Both can be printed while participating in the training. The staff development coordinator in your library system oversees the approval process for this course.
This training opportunity is available through October 31, 2021.
Enroll in the Training
You will need to create a Niche Academy account with username and password so that you are officially enrolled in the training. You can get an account and start your training from this URL:
https://my.nicheacademy.com/marylandstate-staff/course/2321
Questions? Contact Nini Beegan, Maryland State Library, nini.beegan@maryland.gov
This project is supported in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act Administered by the Maryland State Library.