By: Erica Dhawan (submitted by Carmen Gass)
People rely on body language and tone to grasp the real meaning of messages. Without these cues, we misunderstand each other more quickly, argue more, and walk away faster from
relationships. In the virtual world—where most business is conducted—it’s even harder to communicate. If you want to build closer relationships with colleagues and clients, digital
body language is your solution. Access the LinkedIn Course here.
Through Mar. 15, 2020, Exhibit: “Indigenous Roots/ Routes: Contested Histories, Contemporary Experiences.” Special Collections Exhibition Space, 104 Paterno Library. Reflections on the past five centuries of colonization and cultural exchange between Indigenous Peoples. Europeans, Africans, and later, Americans.
Please submit event information — and all Library News submissions — to Public Relations and Marketing via its Staff Site request form and selecting the “Library News blog article” button.
By: Lana Munip
The University Libraries will conduct the Ithaka S+R Undergraduate Survey from March 23 to April 20. It’s been four years since we last surveyed our undergraduate population and it will be interesting to see what’s changed.
As before, the sample will include students from all locations with undergraduate populations, including World Campus. At some campuses, the entire undergraduate population will be invited to participate. (These include Beaver, Brandywine, DuBois, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, Hazleton, Lehigh Valley, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Schuylkill, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre, Scranton, York.)
The survey will cover the following areas:
1) coursework, academics, and information practices;
2) perceptions of the role of the library;
3) library space planning;
4) extra- and co-curricular activities; and
5) interest in and opportunities for conducting or contributing to original research.
As an incentive to participate, students who complete the survey will have the chance to enter a drawing for one of 10 $100 Amazon gift cards. Our office is working with Public Relations and
Marketing to promote the survey widely. We’ll share more news about this closer to the date.
The Libraries will receive a summary report of findings from Ithaka S+R approximately three weeks after the survey closes, after which visualizations of the data will be created, similar to the 2019 Graduate and 2018 Faculty Surveys. These visualizations will be filterable to the campus library level. Additional analysis of the data will take place in summer.
If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Lana Munip, lana@psu.edu or 814-863-1939. If you want to see the visualizations from our earlier surveys, please go to:
https://staff.libraries.psu.edu/assessment and follow the links in the left side bar.
By: Leigh Tinik
The Library Assessment Department’s mission is to use evidence-based approaches aimed at reducing uncertainty to inform decision making. The Department strives to increase the transparency of library service and operational data and provide data and analysis in support of strategic and operational needs.
In order to provide faculty and staff with access to library data to better inform decision making, the Assessment Department has developed a University Library Factbook, including up-to-date
information on key library metrics. This factbook contains statistics on circulation, inter-library loan, full-text journal article and ebook downloads, website analytics, reference transactions, study rooms, gate counts, student enrollment, and library personnel.
Data for these metrics is displayed by fiscal quarter. Information is shown by fiscal quarter, rather than academic semester, due to the reporting requirements of the Association of
Research Libraries and the Association of College and Research Libraries. The Factbook contains historical information from FY 18-19 until present and will continue to be updated quarterly. In addition to historical trends, statistics are broken out by Library whenever possible to enable decision making by specific location.
The purpose of this dashboard is to provide up-to-date information for use by colleagues across the many library locations to help inform practices. We would love to hear from
you if there are additional metrics or visualizations that would be useful to you. If you have any questions or comments regarding the Factbook, please reach out to Leigh Tinik at law222@psu.edu or 814.863.1880.
The Factbook can be viewed on the University Libraries Staff Site, at the following location:
https://staff.libraries.psu.edu/assessment/quarterly-statistics
By: Myra Golden (submitted by Carmen Gass)
Customer service people may answer questions accurately and resolve problems swiftly, but the interaction can still end badly if a customer doesn’t feel positive. Learn about how practicing empathy—building a connection—makes customers feel cared about and creates rapport. Access this LinkedIn Learning course here.
By: Ryan Johnson
Microsoft recently released an Office app for iOS and Android. It combines PowerPoint, Word and Excel into one application, and it adds a number of mobile-oriented features.
To learn more about the app and where to download it, check out this article from Microsoft.
Through Mar. 15, 2020, Exhibit: “Indigenous Roots/ Routes: Contested Histories, Contemporary Experiences.” Special Collections Exhibition Space, 104 Paterno Library. Reflections on the past five centuries of colonization and cultural exchange between Indigenous Peoples. Europeans, Africans, and later, Americans.
Please submit event information — and all Library News submissions — to Public Relations and Marketing via its Staff Site request form and selecting the “Library News blog article” button.