California Community College Library Unconference 2014 

May 3, 2014   Contributed by Elizabeth Bowman, Santa Barbara City College

Thirty-three California community college librarians gathered on May 3rd at  Santa Barbara City College (SBCC) to share expertise, discuss, and present about issues of shared concern.

It was a delightful, invigorating, valuable day for attendees.

This is the 2nd unconference SBCC has hosted. In 2013, Canada College hosted an unconference for community college librarians with a focus on Basic Skills students.

The agenda for the day can be found here, and it included roundtable discussions on topics the attendees themselves had suggested ahead of time (and subsequently ranked all suggestions to narrow to the final agenda) and individual presentations librarians made to share or to get feedback on a particular program they are working on.

To give you a sense of the day, the topic discussions were:
DELIVERY OPTIONS FOR LIBRARY INSTRUCTION
A wide variety of practices for library instruction were discussed including course-based instruction vs. stand-alone workshops, outreach to faculty=better attendance, workshops organized through the student club,synchronous office hours, search path tutorials, using a syllabus+assignment to develop a tutorial/instruction prior to teacher request.

LIBRARY VALUE: ASSESSING AND MEASURING WHAT MATTERS

We discussed student surveys and other feedback, what our colleges expect,various methodologies for assessing non-instruction (reference desk interviews, for instance).

E-SSENTIAL RESOURCES FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE LIBRARIES: DATABASES AND E-BOOKS
We discussed vendor-specific benefits and problems, ebook collecting and weeding,

INSTRUCTION ASSESSMENT: ONLINE AND F2F
Issues were course and program assessment vs student assessment, assessment of student learning vs. giving feedback to students.  Various opinions were shared about level and appropriateness of feedback and assessment. SLOs, IL       across campus, service desk and short term instruction assessment were other issues raised.

ACRL Framework in community college setting
We discussed the five (so far) threshold concepts and their potential value in community college settings. Concerns about the language of the Framework and the concepts and how to implement them at community college were raised, as well as the  opportunities for campus-wide collegiality and conversation that might come out of this implementation.

KEEPING STUDENTS ACTIVELY LEARNING: ONLINE AND F2F
A wiki page was created for this discussion.

During the day there were also presentations by individual libraries, on a current project or topic:

•    Assessment in Action Poster Session practice for ALA annual/ Elizabeth Bowman, Santa Barbara City College
•    Executive summary of recent dissertation research findings on the topic of student experiences of conducting research in a community college/ Elena Heilman, Yuba College
•    Using TED Ed to flip and assess info lit instruction/ Ellen Carey, Santa Barbara City College
•    Developing one shot research sessions specifically for students with disabilities/  Annette Young, Chaffey College
•    Outreaching to your Child Development Center/ Sally Romero, Los Angeles Trade Technical College
•    Presentation about research project about evaluative tool for museum website, delivered at 2013 International Humanities Conference/ Don Brown, El Camino College
•    Faculty Outreach methods/ Susan Seifried, NORCO, Mt. San Antonio College

Materials and resources mentioned or otherwise shared in the presentations and topic discussions can be found in the Unconference blog under the tab called: SHARED RESOURCES.

Besides the excellent collaboration and collegiality experienced in the meeting rooms, one of the highlights SBCC's version of the Unconference is "recess" which we design for the afternoon break, to get people moving and thinking about anything besides libraries.  This year we offered maps for participants to take a self-guided campus tour or they could or shake off inhibitions at an improv workshop (offered by an English professor, who volunteered her time). Let's say, that was memorable for all participants!  Why improv? Laughter, of course, but also for library and teaching benefits as well as practical considerations.

Contact Elizabeth Bowman for more information.
We are eager to hear where UNCONFERENCE 2015 will be hosted. NorCal, anyone?