Instruction and Reference Program Committee (IRPC) Meeting Minutes
01/17/2005

Announcements:

Communication regarding IT problems:
  • Amy Blumenthal asked for our input on how to notify reference desks about IT problems
  • All reference desks and all staff who work the reference desk should be subscribed to IRPC-L
  • It would help if the person at the reference desk, when referring a question to Libit-L, asked that whoever answers the question for IRPC-L reply to the patron and copy the reference desk from which the question originated.

Nan Hyland gave a brief up-date about the spring IRPC Retreat. The Instruction Working Group is negotiating with Jeff Liles to be the keynote speaker. Details to follow.

Nan Hyland mentioned the message from Bill Arms via CU-LIB soliciting ideas for his programming class. The students would enjoy working on a project that has real applications.

Lynn Thitchener announced the following new members to the Documentation Committee (Gateway HELP and CUL print publications): Ken Bolton, from JGSM, and Jacalyn Spoon, from the Adelson Library at the Ornithology lab have joined, and Camille Andrews, Library Fellow currently in Olin Reference, and Megan Perez, also from Olin Reference will be joining the committee in February. Lynn and Gail Steinhart are current co-chairs. Comments and suggestions for documentation can be sent to any member of the committee.

Agenda Item 1: Faculty Research Grants Program -Fiona Patrick

  • $200,000 was donated for this program. There will be 7-10 projects funded in the Humanities and Social Sciences. It is felt that these disciplines have fewer sources of funding for digital projects and are therefore favored. Applicants must submit a brief summary of the project by March 11th. The full proposal will be due April 8th.  Implementation will be in late August. Those whose grant proposals were rejected last year must re-apply. Those who received a grant last year cannot apply this year.

    For more information:http://dcaps.library.cornell.edu/facultygrants/

    This site is free and open.

Agenda Item 2: BIG - Lynn Brown

  • The Business Information Group (BIG) started meeting informally last October.  They usually meet on the 3rd Wednesday of the month from 10:30AM - Noon.  They meet in various locations around campus. The first goal is to have business instruction on the unified instruction calendar in 2005.

    The sub-groups of BIG meet on their own schedules. Anyone is welcome to attend any of the meetings.     The monthly "show and tell" session was held at ILR last month and will be at the Johnson School this month.

    Minutes from the meetings will be added off of the IRPC web page. A listserv BIG-L is in the process of being established.

    Lynn asked us to fill out a brief survey that will let BIG gain a better idea of what reference staff need to know.

Agenda Item 3: Paul McMillin demonstrated some changes to the gateway that will go into effect this Wednesday.

  • We gave him several suggestions about placement, wording, etc.

    On the find databases page there will be a line: "links to: most popular databases". Paul hopes to be able to offer this by subject.

    The list of on-line journals will be presented in table format-- 3 columns reading top to bottom.

Agenda Item 4: Virginia Cole gave us an up-date on RefWorks on behalf of the Citation Management Working Group.

  • She led a discussion about what to call the gateway link to RefWorks. Citation Tools seemed to be well received. An intermediate page listing all citation tools (style manuals, RefWorks, EndNote, etc) was suggested.

    Off campus connections to RefWorks are a work in progress. Geneva, the medical library and the library at Qatar are included in the subscription.

    RefWorks does not seem concerned about purging their server of materials left by Cornell graduates. Individuals may purge their own materials, and administrators at CUL can also purge materials.

    It is possible to set up a group account so that a team of researchers can work together.

    Since this is a joint project with CIT, we have additional avenues to use for publicity.  CIT will send a memo to deans and department heads.  CUL will provide posters and bookmarks.  Ads will be placed in the newspapers.  CUL will send a draft email that we can edit and send to our department contacts.

    The unified instruction brochures were order last week and should be distributed before the semester begins.
 
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