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Information and Library Services

Staff of ILS

Information and Library Services

Published: September-October 2007

Category: » Information-and-library-services » Ils-workshops

ILS Presentation at Annual Writing Conference

Reference and Instruction Librarian Robert Miller presented at UMUC's 4th Annual July Writing Conference, hosted at the Inn and Conference Center, Adelphi, by the Department of Communication, Arts, and Humanities together with the Writing Program.

Mr. Miller's presentation, "Publishing Opportunities for Undergraduates," demonstrated how students can gain invaluable research and writing experience, and an outstanding entry on their resumes, by publishing in an undergraduate journal. Mr. Miller had presented a well-received seminar on this topic in three of UMUC's online student academic clubs.

Sharing the information at the Writing Conference helped further collaboration between Information and Library Services and programs throughout UMUC. Publishing as an undergraduate can give our students an advantage when they apply to graduate school. You can view materials from Mr. Miller’s and other presentations at the Writing Conference web site.

ILS Presentation at Distance Teaching and Learning Conference

Julie Arnold, ILS GSMT Liaison and UCSP 611 Course Manager, and Caroline Hoard, previously a Reference and Instruction Librarian at UMUC, presented "Extreme Makeover of a Library Research Skills Course" at the 23rd annual Distance Teaching and Learning Conference held in Madison, WI, on August 8th.

Ms. Arnold and Ms. Hoard discussed changes to the online library research and information literacy skills course, UCSP 611 (Introduction to Graduate Library Research Skills). The course received an "extreme makeover" in fall 2005, with librarians working with a Course Development team of desktop publishers, video producers, course developers, and programmers to add more multimedia to the content in order to meet the increasingly varied learning styles of UMUC’s students.

The presentation was well-attended by librarians and distance education instructors, who showed interest in both the content and the multimedia aspects of the course. Considerable interest was also expressed in creating similar courses at other institutions, suggesting that UMUC continues to be ahead of the curve in information literacy instruction.