Author Archives: matthewmurray

Wikipedia ❤s Libraries!

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Learn how to edit Wikipedia with ALA at UBC!

Tuesday, October 22, noon-2pm in the Terrace lab.

This event will include an hour long lesson from noon to 1pm on how to edit Wikipedia and how to understand the editing history and the “Talk” pages that exist behind the scenes of Wikipedia articles. The lab will be open from 1pm to 2pm for editing of Wikipedia articles with ALA student members on hand to help and offer advice. Come with an idea of a Wikipedia article that needs to be edited or created or simply come and spend time exploring the “underbelly” of Wikipedia.

This event is held in recognition of Open Access Week, October 21st-25th.

For more information, please email ala.slais.ubc@gmail.com.

The Terrace Lab can be accessed by ringing the doorbell for entry to the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies (SLAIS) department on the fourth floor of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre. We will be expecting you!

ALA Meeting Minutes: October 15th, 2013

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ALA Meeting Minutes: October 15, 2013

Oct15 2013_ALA Minutes

Trail Room, 1:00pm

Attendees:

Anna Ferri, Matthew Murray, Eka Grguric, Carolyn Heine, Kaylin, Amanda Wanner, Hedda Monaghan, Monica Swamiraj, Nicole Askin, Matthew

Agenda:

  1. Change to the ALA @ UBC Constitution
    1. Motion passed with a majority approval (40/79)
    2. Members are now “encouraged” to be ALA members
    3. T-shirt Order Status
      1. T-shirts are off to be printed
      2. $14.35 per shirt, ALA will cover $1.35 per shirt and the three free shirts (to Eric, Caroline, and our Bellingham contact)
      3. Alyssa gave ALA@UBC full permission to use her logo however we like
      4. ETA to Bellingham: October 28th
      5. Task: Arrange to collect money and distribute shirts

i.      We will need ALA members to help with this (sit in lounge)

  1. Accreditation Review Panel Luncheon
    1. Monday October 21st at 12:00pm
    2. Eventbrite sign up
    3. All chairs have been invited to meet with the review panel at 11:45pm
    4. LASSA sponsored All Chairs Meeting
      1. Last Thursday, October 10
      2. Hoping to make this a once a semester event
      3. Spring panel on publication and distribution

i.      Hopeful collaboration with BCLA/CLA

  1. Calendar is EXTREMELY helpful (studentsatslais.weebly.com)

i.      Matthew will pass off the torch to another student

  1. Treasurer’s Report
    1. $723.62 in the budget
    2. $250 to donate a small library to One to One Charity

i.      Donation includes the $100 made from last spring’s Freedom to Week bake sale

  1. About 20 dollars to reimburse Anna for food items for ALA Roundup
  2. We have been approached by LASSA to provide a monetary sponsorship for the Halloween Event (Oct 30)

i.      We will donate $100.00 to start. If LASSA is desperate for more, we will donate up to an additional $50.00

  1. Motion approved
  2. Wikipedia Loves Libraries Event
    1. Next Tuesday, October 24 in the Terrace Lab
    2. Task: Advertisement of the event

i.      Outside departments (Education department, English department, libraries)

ii.      Eka will develop a poster from the digital sign

iii.      Volunteers to put up posters

iv.      Central repository for WLL to add our event to

  1. The workshop will run from 12pm-1pm with an open lab from 1pm-2pm (for questions and practice)
  2. Upcoming Events
    1. White Elephant Book Exchange

i.      Task: advertisement and organizing a possible bake sale

ii.      Set a date: 27th of November

  1. Executive Elections

i.      Two open positions: chair and treasurer

ii.      Matthew (and possibly Eka) will be doing co-op at UBC and may be able to continue their executive duties

  1. ALA Student to Staff Program

i.      Essay contest for ALA Conference travel scholarship

ii.      Scholarship covers room, food stipend, and cost of conference

iii.      Essays need to be submitted before December 1

  1. Scholarships basically offered on a first come, first serve basis
  2. Student must be committed to going to ALA
  3. Next Meeting
    1. November 5, Trail Room

ALA Meeting Minutes: October 1st, 2013

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ALA Meeting Minutes: October 1 2013

Oct 1 2013 ALA Minutes

Trail Room, 1:00pm

Attendees:

Anna Ferri, Carolyn Heine, Matthew Murray, Grace Romund, Mitchell Meler, Stefania Alexandru, Hedda Monaghan, Nicole Askin, Monica Swamiraj

Agenda:

Money in ALA Locker

  • Record how much money in AMS; give to Jordan to run through account
  • Email Elspeth and/or Chelsea and Nick to figure out what to do with that money
  • One-One Charity donation?

Charter (two proposed changes)

  • Current ALA student chapter requirement for ALA membership:
    • Officers have to be ALA members, but members do not.
    • We want to change the language
      • All members are “encouraged” to be members of ALA
      • ALA membership is one of the more expensive student memberships, so limiting members of UBC student chapter to those who are also members of ALA would be a bad idea
      • Eric: let’s talk about pros vs. cons; but cutting out any fee is a good move because it encourages more people to become members of UBC ALA student chapter
  • UBC student membership vs. ALA student membership: difference in definition
  • Anna will email the proposed change around
    • Any change to the charter needs at least a 50% majority vote (based on the amount of people on the listserv)
    • Addition of one additional chair/exec: Liaison officer
      • Duties: facilitate communication with other student chapters, ALA, and Eric
      • Pros: encourages collaboration between SLAIS student chapters of other organizations (which has been largely absent)
      • However, description of proposed executive position overlaps with current description of the co-chairs
      • Should this position be an ALA executive position? Would it be more appropriate for the LASSA exec team?
      • Course of action
        • Anna and Eka will discuss specific role of co-chair
        • Anna will attend Monday’s LASSA meeting to put a liaison role on the table for the LASSA exec team to see what the discussion brings up

ALA T-shirts

  • Shirts being shipped to Jordan in Bellingham (saves money on each shirt and overall shipping costs)
  • ALA will absorb the cost of shirts for four people: Eric (faculty advisor), Jordan (delivering shirts), Caroline (SLAIS director), and Alyssa (t-shirt designer)

ALA Roundup Debrief

  • “Helpful” and “nice event”
  • “Beneficial to have very different impressions” of the conference
  • Would be useful to have in the future so that students can get a flavor for what happens at these conferences

Wikipedia loves Libraries Event

  • October 22, 12:00pm-2:00pm in the Terrace Lab
    • Anna has reserved the room
    • How do you look at the backside of Wikipedia and understand what is going on. How do you edit a page? How can you contribute information?
    • Specifically tied to Open Access Week
    • Use digital signage in SLAIS
      • Eka is taking care of this
      • Volunteers will be hearing from Anna

Luncheon, ALA Accreditation Week (hosted by LASSA)

  • October 21, SUB 209
  • Specifically for MLIS students, but anyone from SLAIS is welcome
  • External review panel of ALA Accreditation committee
    • We haven’t been given a lot of information about what it’s going to look like
    • They have a preset list of questions that they want answer to from students
    • We want to try and encourage as many students as possible to attend to show support for the department
      • EventBrite form (it’s on the blog, will be sent through email, tweeted, etc.)
      • Not a place to discuss department specific problems (save that for the director’s forum)

Other items on the table: ALA Blog; more member involvement to reach

Next Meeting

  • October 15, 1:00pm in the Trail Room
  • Focus on Wikipedia Loves Libraries event

Meeting Minutes: September 9th

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ALA Meeting Minutes: September 9th, 2013
IKBLC Trail Room, 1:00pm

Sept 9th, 2013 – Minutes

Attendees:
Matthew, Anna, Nadine, Grace, Kendall, Eric, Tracy, Mitchell, Hannah, Robin, Kaylin, Monica, Matthew R., Katie, Elise, Nicole, Amanda, Stephanie, Caroline

Agenda:
Introductions
Officer Openings
Treasurer graduating in November, position opening
New officer:

ALA Roundup: 1st event of the year
Friday, Sept 27th at 5pm
Inspired by attendance to the ALA Conference
Vote: Koerners or Calhouns?
Result of vote: 5 / 7 Calhouns

Need to add Eric to mailing list

T-Shirts
If approved by members will attempt to set a low cost
ALA will swallow the excess cost of the t-shirts, we will set a lower price
Handful of people raised their hands but –
Will have a sale table to fundraise the initial cost of shirts and take orders

Banned Book Week and Book Exchange
Banned Book Week Event fell mid-Sept. this year so we missed it
should plan during the summer next year if we want to have an event
Book Exchange: White Elephant-type event; wrap a book and exchange

Wikipedia Loves Libraries

Open Access Week (last full week of October usually)
Libraries host workshop to learn how to edit Wikipedia entries and improve quality of entires
Week of October 25th (the week of the SLAIS accreditation) _not the 21st_ which is an accreditation event for the students
Goal: Incorporate the editing of stub entries into the event

University of Washington ALA Student Group
Exchange with the UW ALA (Our contact person: Matthew)
They want to do this in January, which corresponds with a holiday for them (Is this MLK Day?)
Matthew is looking into arranging an earlier event
We will need to house exchange students

Other Events
Freedom-to-Read Week
Reading event with fundraiser bake sale
Haiku Event
Tends to fail (low turnout; got cancelled last year)
Distributor / publisher event
Getting to know the publishers and distributors better / getting a grasp on the general situation in the industry via panel or such
Showing of “The Librarian” series of movies and possibly “The Librarian” board game
Scholarship for students going to the ALA conference
Conference roundup will cover the conferences happening in or around Vancouver / Victoria

Update Charter
Membership terms are really vague
Includes the requirement that everyone be an ALA member
Executive positions must be filled by an ALA member (can happen post-election as needed)

ALA Promotion
The blog is going to get more active
Call for promotion ideas / ideas to get in touch with ALA
Trying to mediate the intimidation factor of ALA
ALA is a huge organization so there are many opportunities for volunteering
Lots of possibilities for recognition and professional development
Rob Bittner is a past student who’s ended up on high profile book award committees
Many committees need more people
Amanda: a suggestion is “what student involvement looks like at ALA”
Identifying avenues for involvement for beginner students

New Business
Ran out of time
Next Meeting?

Pre-Order your ALA tshirt!

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The new ALA @ UBC t-shirt is ready to order. The design is from SLAISer Alyssa Feir (Thanks Alyssa!). Placing your order is very simple – just click on this link and follow the directions. Ordering is open until midnight, Wednesday, October 2nd.

The final cost of the t-shirts will depend on the number of shirts ordered, but ALA will cover any cost per t-shirt over $13.00.

 

As soon as the final order is placed, you will be contacted with the final price. We will be collecting money in SLAIS the week of October 7th-11th.

 

Also, there will be a contest next spring to design the next great ALA @ UBC t-shirt, so start percolating a few ideas now!

 

If you have any questions about tshirts, don’t hesitate to contact us.

ALA Conference Roundup, Friday, Sept. 27th, 5pm

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ALA is hosting and ALA Conference Roundup this Friday, September 27th, at 5pm. You are all invited!

What: A chance to hear from fellow SLAIS students about attending the huge ALA Annual Conference held this past summer in Chicago. We will also discuss smaller conference options. Everything from why we went and how we paid for it to what we saw there, how to manage networking and do you need to have business cards even as a student will be discussed.

When: Friday, September, 27th, 5pm

Where: Buchanan B318 – Buchanan is the complex of buildings directly to the right of the Irving K. Barber Learning Canter (if you are facing the front doors). The easiest way to find building B is to go out the back doors of IKBLC and turn right. You will be walking straight towards Buchanan building B.

Afterwards: We will be heading to Calhoun’s cafe at 3035 W. Broadway after the discussion. Join us there even if you cannot attend the earlier event.

(It will make it easier for us to buy some soda and cookies for you all if we have an idea of how many people plan to attend.)

If you have any questions, please email us!

New Semester! New Events!

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Hey all, welcome back to SLAIS! (Or welcome to SLAIS if you’re just starting.)

First Meeting of the Year!
Learn more about ALA, and order a tshirt.
Monday, September 9th, 1pm
SLAIS Trail Room

Discussion Panel: How to Go to a Huge Conference
Several current SLAIS students will describe their experiences attending the huge (almost 27,000 attendees!) ALA Annual Conference in Chicago earlier in the summer.
Friday, September 27th (Exact time and place to be determined)

More events to come this fall! (Including an exchange with our sibling group in Seattle?)

If you want more information, send us an email, follow us on twitter, or join our mailing list.

Email: ala.slais.ubc@gmail.com
Mailing List: groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ubcala
Twitter: ubcALA

Beware of librarians!

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I’m sure that a lot of you have heard something about the recently leaked Library and Archives Canada Code of Conduct which, among other things, characterizes things like conference participation, teaching, and engagement with professional organizations as “high risk” activities subject to managerial approval. And perhaps after hearing about it you thought, “Well, that’s…(okay, for the purposes of a public blog I am not going to type out what you actually though)…silly. Yes, indeed, it’s extremely silly.” And maybe you have wanted to voice your opinion in some meaningful way about just how silly you think it is.

Here’s your chance!

One of our lovely colleagues on the Arcan-l listserv suggested that we need “a fabulous YouTube video showing archivists and librarians doing high risk activities. Skydiving, train hopping, parkour, taking books out of the library, writing something at home with the blinds drawn, entering a university lecture hall – the sky’s the limit!  All the while with that wonderful all-purpose Canadian tool, duct tape, plastered on our faces.”

Sooo…go ahead and start staging some “high risk” photo and video shoots to add to the video! We’ll all be done with assignments soon enough, and what better way celebrate than by contributing to a fun little project that shows solidarity and support to our colleagues in Ottawa and around the country! Send your photos and videos clips to cgshriver at gmail dot com. If your submission is too large to send, just shoot me an email, and I will invite you to a Dropbox. The deadline is April 15.

Thanks so much…and stay risky!

March 12, 2013 Meeting Minutes

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ALA Meeting Minutes: March 12, 2013

IKBLC Trail Room, 1:00pm

Attendees:

Carolyn Heine, Elspeth Olson, Anna Ferris, Matthew Murray

Agenda:

  1. Approval of February 26 minutes
    1. The minutes were approved
    2. Haiku Event
      1. Set for March 19th (one week from today); 11:30-1:30 in the Trail
      2. SLA bake sale is happening at the same time. We should try and coordinate with them.
      3. Marathon Event
        1. Bake Sale results

i.      Just over $100

ii.      What funds do we have available at this point?

  1. Improvements for next year

i.      We have to have better publicizing. Possible strategies include coordinating with librarians and professors (English dept, Creative Writing, Film Studies, MACL), and earlier postings in the dorms

ii.      Possibly a shorter time span (Elspeth closed down at 6:30)

  1. T-shirt Colors
    1. Someone will do color mock-ups and post them online to vote (?). We need to do this ASAP so we can have the t-shirts by graduation (end of May)
    2. Elspeth will speak to Alyssa about using her design
    3. Other
      1. Locker for next year

i.      We would like to see if we can block a locker out for ALA use for future years. Anna will talk with admin to see if this can happen.

  1. ALA chair for next year

i.      Anna plans to do co-op in the fall, and Eka plans to do co-op in the spring

  1. Next Meeting (final meeting of the year)
    1. April 2nd, Trail Room, 1:00pm

 

UPDATES:

Anna has booked the Trail Room

Elspeth has received permission from Alyssa to use her design