Are you interested in learning new job skills that can help you prepare for future job opportunities? How about broadening your understanding of how the Libraries work so that you can better understand the impact of your job? The University Libraries’ Job Enrichment Program was established fifteen years ago to provide opportunities to learn new skills and gain knowledge through work experience in units other than your regular job.
Job Enrichment assignments typically involve working in another unit within the Libraries to learn about another job for a short time each week for several months. Assignments may involve performing a specific job, such as working a shift at a Welcome Desk or Reference Desk, or may be more project-oriented, such as working on a report or helping solve a specific problem. The Job Enrichment Program is structured for flexibility to allow you to pursue your interests – all that is required is mutual agreement between you, your supervisor, and the supervisor in the enrichment unit.
All full-time employees are eligible to participate in Job Enrichment assignments. Talk to your immediate supervisor to start exploring development opportunities and your interests. Getting your supervisor’s approval is the first step. Keep in mind, there may be a variety of reasons that your supervisor isn’t able to agree to a job enrichment assignment at the current time. Work priorities, departmental staffing, and the number of other employees in the unit already involved in job enrichment are some of the factors that need to be considered. Once approved, your supervisor can then facilitate discussions with supervisors in other units where assignments may be beneficial. After a Job Enrichment assignment is identified, you’ll formalize the job enrichment experience by completing an Agreement for Job Enrichment form. See Libraries’ HR guideline UL-HRG-02 for further details and a link to the Agreement form.
Job Enrichment experiences can be a great way to learn more about other units, to understand Library processes that feed your regular work or that use your output, or to better understand and experience the mission of the University Libraries. If you have questions, please contact Rob Harris, Human Resources Manager.
Daily Archives: April 8, 2015
Have a recycling question?
Have a recycling question?
You are not alone. The UL Green Committee gets a fair number of recycling questions. Many are repeat questions. In order to share the information with you, the Green Committee has set up Green Tips.
Submit your recycling questions to the Green Committee at (ul-green-committee@lists.psu.edu) and we will:
1. Send out the question and answer to ul-ulibs with the subject: Green Tips
2. Compile Green Tips questions and answers and post them in the Library News blog
3. Post questions and answers on the Green Committee’s webpages,http://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/greenteam.html, and social media
Sincerely,
the UL Green Committee
First Ever Teaching and Learning Baseline Assessment Survey
The Strategic Plan Working Group on Teaching and Learning has been charged with implementing the Teaching and Learning portion of the strategic plan, and our first step in doing so will be to gather quantitative information to develop a profile of the teaching and learning activities we already perform. This will allow us to develop an action plan for the future. We will gather this information via an online survey that will be sent to Unit Heads on Monday, April 13th.
Unit Heads will distribute copies of the survey to all the Librarians and staff who do instruction in their units, then they will gather the data, compile it, and submit it via the online survey. Please do your best to answer the questions and use your best judgment about how your activities fit in to the definitions we have come up with. Our goal is merely to create a picture of what we do and identify how we can best move forward to implement our goals.
We realize that the quantitative nature of this survey leaves out many important components such as assessment of effectiveness, but it is just a beginning.
A copy of the survey in Word document form can be found on the Strategic Plan Intranet at:
https://www.libraries.psu.edu/psul/groups/intranet/strat_plan_groups.html
(Scroll all the way to the bottom)
Please contact Jennifer Gilley (jrg15@psu.edu) with any questions.
•Jennifer Gilley, (Chair) Head Librarian, Penn State New Kensington
•Dawn Amsberry, Reference Librarian, Library Learning Services
•Megan Gilpin, Outreach Coordinator, Library Learning Services
•Lauren Reiter, Business Liaison Librarian
•Sandy Stelts, Curator of Rare Books and Manuscripts
•Alessia Zanin-Yost, Reference and Instruction Librarian, Penn State Altoona
Leadership Attainment by Asian Americans Academic Librarians: Challenges and Development
submitted by Binh P. Le, Associate Librarian
Binh P. Le, Associate Librarian, presented a paper “Leadership Attainment by Asian Americans Academic Librarians: Challenges and Development” at the ACRL 2015 Conference. Portland, OR. March 25 – 29, 2015. The same paper “Leadership Attainment by Asian Americans Academic Librarians: Challenges and Development” has also been published in Dawn M. Meuller (ed.), Creating Sustainable Community: ACRL 2015 Conference Proceedings. Chicago, IL: Association of College and Research Libraries, 2015, pp. 28-39.
Binh’s poster presentation proposal “Leadership Aspirations of Asian American Academic Librarians” has been accepted for presentation at the Annual Conference of the American Library Association. San Francisco, CA, June 26 -30, 2015.
Binh has been selected to serve as a co-mentor in the ALA International Mentoring Pilot, a joint IRC/ IRRT initiative. Binh’s mentee was a Fulbright scholar and Peace Corps volunteer, and currently is a doctoral student in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. Currently, Binh chairs the ALA International Relations Committee/East Asia and the Pacific Subcommittee.
Binh P. Le has been appointed as Chair of the Nominating Committee of the Asian, African, and Middle Eastern Section of the Association of College and Research Libraries.
Automatically Ignore Annoying Callers with Android Contact Settings
submitted by Ryan Johnson, Technology Training Coordinator
Do you getting annoying calls from companies or individuals you don’t want? Android has a feature to automatically send a caller who is in your contacts to voicemail.
The feature (which is present in the stock Android dialer, but may vary based on your phone’s manufacturer) will skip the ringer for specific contacts. To activate it, find the person you want to ignore in your Contacts app, tap the Edit button, then tap Menu while editing the contact. The option will be at the bottom of the menu. It’s a little out of the way, but it’s worth it if you never want to hear from someone again.
Even if it’s someone you don’t know, create a new contact and add their number. You can then automatically route them to your voicemail everytime they call. I’ve personally create one default contact called “SPAM” and I add new numbers to that contact entry.