Government Information in the 21st Century Grant Overview Last June the University of Colorado at Boulder received an Institute of Museum and Library Services grant entitled “Government Information in the 21st Century: Training Librarians to be Government Information Specialists.” The grant provides funding to develop a continuing education program where depository librarians train reference and public services librarians and library workers in a five states (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming). The first year of the grant will be spent developing the Train the Trainer Conference, the lesson modules, and the WebJunction grant website. The second year will center on the participating states’ training programs implementation. WebJunction The grant will use OCLC’s WebJunction as the main conduit for lesson modules, grant participant discussion forums, the Train-the-Trainer Conference venue, and general information about the grant. According to their web site (http://www.webjunction.org), WebJunction is “…a cooperative of library staff sharing and using online resources that enable us to identify and embrace appropriate technologies and apply them to our daily work. To sustain this effort, we partner with library and cultural heritage organizations and those that support them in meeting their objectives through effective use of collaborative, web-based technologies.” Kirsten Clark and Jennie Gerke, University of Colorado at Boulder, recently traveled to Dublin, Ohio for hands-on training with WebJunction staff. The two day training involved an overview of WebJunction’s content management system and beginning work on converting the test lesson module mentioned above to WebJunction. This work will be more visible in WebJunction over the next month but specific details will be discussed in the next newsletter. Lesson Modules The lesson modules mentioned above are a significant part of the grant’s first year. The Grant Planning Committee created a list of module topics based on broad government information categories. The list includes: Later this month a survey will be sent out to all depository librarians in the five-state area to rank these modules according to interest. Modules with highest interest level will be the first to be developed. We will be asking for volunteers from the depository community to participate in module development teams. Each module team will have a team leader and 3-4 other members. Over the past couple weeks, Tim Byrne, Kirsten Clark, Jennie Gerke, and Frank Wilmot (University of Colorado at Boulder) have been developing content for a test module around the topic Demographic Information. This module contains powerpoints, resource lists, handouts, how to guides, case studies, and sample exercises. Once these items have been moved to WebJunction, everybody will be able to see this example of a lesson module, as well as get an idea of the interactivity available through WebJunction. It will also provide a sample to guide for other module development. Mark Your Calendars for the Train-the-Trainer Conferece The Train the Trainers conference will be in Boulder on June 6-8, 2007. Who Should Attend the Train-the-Trainer Conference? During the second year of the grant, participants of the Train the Trainer Conference will do at least two training sessions/workshops in their respective states. In many depository libraries, the depository librarian is already involved in training and instruction for their library. In others, they might be in a less public role. To meet the requirements of the grant, we like to have the most appropriate staff member from each depository library attend the Conference. Please keep this in mind when deciding who will be coming to Boulder in early June for the training.
November 2006 Newsletter
Number 2
The collaborative nature of WebJunction partners well with the Government Information in the 21st Century Grant initiatives to meet the needs of depository and non-depository librarians in the five-state region. More information about specific pieces of WebJunction related to the grant will be discussed in the January newsletter. Till then, take some time to check out WebJunction. There is a link on the home page to an Introductory Tutorial which shows how the website is organized. Grant participants will eventually have to register with WebJunction. Registration is free and there is a register link on the home page as well. You will be asked to choose a “Community Partner Affiliation.” Choose WebJunction, or if you live in Arizona or New Mexico, you can choose your state affiliation.
Travel expenses to the conference will be fully funded by the grant.
