Manitoba Libraries Conference

While the ACRL Framework promotes the use of threshold concepts in information literacy, how these concepts are implemented in the classroom is left open to individual instructors. This session will highlight one useful method for engaging students in a discussion about authority. This very simple activity challenges students to look beyond “good” and “bad” sources to see how authority is constructed and how it can be deployed in different contexts.

Policies are the superstructure of library service, and this half-day workshop will introduce participants to the tools needed to build and maintain that superstructure. This will be a hands-on session with opportunities to create policies for use in your public library. Participants are encouraged to bring existing policies for collaborative review during the workshop. There will also be a lynx. Prizes will be given. This workshop will be of primary interest to CEOs/Directors and Trustees/Board Members working in a public library setting.

Presentation for the 2018 MLA conference sharing an overview of the TD Summer Reading Club and program ideas from the 2017 English language Library Award winners.

“Access to information”. “Breaking down barriers”. “Support for learning”. These phrases are common to both librarianship and the open movement, as are emerging priorities like “marginalized communities” and “connected learning”. There is a clear strategic union between the two communities, and an opportunity for librarians to engage with this sector to better support their patrons within the current state of the educational sector. This session will explore the case for library support of open initiatives, including an overview of key research findings regarding the role of open in education. It will highlight resources to support open initiatives in teaching and research, particularly for patrons not employed in traditional academic institutional roles. Finally, it will suggest simple and time-efficient steps librarians of all stages and sectors can take to get involved in the world of open and education.

Databases continue to be a growing part of the library's offering. Learn how to find the best articles for your research projects and save them on your own personalized web folder for future reference. How about organizing notes on those articles on the web, too? Interested in getting the table of contents from your favourite journal emailed to you? Or, want to get new articles on specific topics emailed to you as they get published? Learn all these things (and more) to make research easier using the library's EBSCO databases. One of our primary vendors in this area is EBSCO Publishing. These databases are upgraded continuously with features such as providing audio, translator options, improved PDF viewer mechanisms and the ability to set up the databases to provide access on mobile devices. The databases also go well beyond research and include everything from book recommendations to providing information on how to do repairs on cars, small appliances and house upgrades. David Lubin presents on all of these features and provides a general overview. His goal is to ensure that libraries use these valuable products to their full potential.

Book Clubs exist in many communities and they are looking to libraries for their resources.  Jake Epp Library has been working on finding a way that allows us to create inexpensive book club kits and also finding ways to share them with other libraries so we can have the statistics return for our investment.  With more libraries involved, the better for all our statistics, and provides a larger pool of resources for our book clubs. 

The Community Development Project is aimed at defining and implementing a new way of looking at community outreach activities throughout the Ottawa Public Library. It starts from the premise that we will engage with the community itself to help us define barriers to library service, identify solutions and work together to implement new initiatives.

The University College of the North agreed to develop and operate a joint Academic and Public Library in Norway House in 2009. Since that time we have signed a contract to develop and operate a joint School/Academic/Public Library in Easterville, and this year have signed a contract to do the same in Pukatawagan. Each of these libraries have common problems, but each is also unique and operates to meet those unique needs. The contents will be made up of three parts: 1) Administrative and Political; how it came about and what is involved; 2) Library Services; what do we do, and what happens to make it possible; and 3) provide a talk about the writing classes helping local people and other community members all over the north write books and get their books published and the Northern Writer’s Reading Series.

The Darakht-e Danesh Online Library for Afghan Educators is a repository of open educational resources (OERs) for teachers, teacher trainers, school administrators, literacy workers and others involved in furthering education in Afghanistan. It uses a multilingual web platform custom-designed for this initiative, and currently houses resources in 14 subject categories, for both primary and secondary teachers, in Dari, Pashto, and English. The Darakht-e Danesh Library aims to increase access to quality resources for Afghan educators, encourage teachers to consult a wide variety of resources in their practice, to use these tools to adapt their own, and to share their own resources with other teachers. This session will describe the process of developing the library and some of the challenges that it has faced in amassing a collection of multilingual, open-licensed content.

Wikipedia is viewed 8000 times each second. The 8th largest referrer to DOIs, Wikipedia has become a ubiquitous starting point for discovery; many students, members of the general public, even professionals like medical doctors use it in their information seeking. Because of this, professionals from libraries, universities, archives, and publishing increasingly recognize Wikipedia's importance as a way to reach where readers already are--on Wikipedia. The Wikipedia Library is an initiative founded in 2012 to facilitate access to research sources for Wikipedia editors. It has since expanded into reference services, research literacy instruction, and outreach to cultural institutions. This session will explore some of these initiatives and how librarians, archivists, and educators can get involved.