Posts on April 2011

Game collections spreading in academia

Our fearless leader Dave was recently quoted in an article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, which explored the growing prevalence of game collections within academic libraries.

Closings and Spring/Summer Hours

The CVGA room will be closed this Friday & Saturday, April 29-30. We will re-open on Monday May 2 and begin our regular Spring/Summer hours: Mon - Fri, Noon - 7pm; closed Sat & Sun.

Using the New MLibrary Evaluation Forms

Over the past two years, the library has designed a set of evaluation forms for instruction sessions; over the course of fall semester, we generated reports on those evaluations for each instructor. At a workshop in late February, individual reports were given out and discussed. I want to give a sense of what we talked about in that meeting and to share some thoughts about evaluations and their uses for teaching.

iClickered: iClickers in the Real World of Library Instruction

On Thursday, March 17th, 2011, the Instructor College sponsored an informal panel discussion with three librarians -- Gabriel Duque, Rebecca Hill, and Karen Reiman-Sendi -- and Chad Hershock, an assistant director from the UM Center for Research on Learning and Teaching CRLT about the use of iClickers in library instruction.

Using Web-Based Guides in Instruction

On April 11 2011, Karen Reiman-Sendi led an Instructor College-sponsored brown bag discussion of using web-based guides in instruction, touching on the research literature surrounding the use of guides and our local data about patron use of guides. Attendees worked collaboratively to develop a list of best practice statements.

A Collective Effort

Do you have fond memories of working together with your friends on WoW to accomplish a great feat? Read about a notable point in the history of WoW, when people from all over worked together, amassing an enormous list of supplies and defeating terrible enemies in a massive effort to open the Gates of Ahn'Qiraj.

An Interesting Look at Female Characters in Video Games

Authored by Ben Nanamaker: A little while back, one of my favorite web sites for thoughtful articles and analysis about video games, The Escapist, posted a video on an interesting topic of debate: "True Female Characters". The video, part of a weekly series they do called Extra Credits, digs deep into the issue of gender and character in video games.