Browsing by Subject "Libraries"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 49
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    Art in the Libraries 2010: Tangible Digital Matter
    (2012-12-19) Wallace, Jasmine; Balik, Tonya; Boudewyns, Deborah K. Ultan; Katsiaficas, Diane
    The Art in the Libraries 2010 exhibition Tangible Digital Matter celebrates digital media in the work of undergraduate and graduate students, faculty, and staff from the Department of Art at the University of Minnesota. All of the work in some way is shaped, affected, manipulated or informed by digital technology. Digital prints, ink jet and laser pieces, mixed media works, and installations integrate simple and complex digital facets with fabric, ceramics, photography, drawing, painting, and sculpture. The theme of the exhibit is particularly timely for the University Libraries. As books and information find their way more and more in digital form, researchers are, like artists, inventing and journeying through new paths of research praxis. Not only is the path of research and discovery new, but the end products are, also, finding new form and born digital. Tangible Digital Matter is a reflective and metaphoric show for the Libraries, inviting researchers to contemplate the visual manifestations of digital information as it integrates traditional and technologically formed media.
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    Art in the Libraries 2011: RESOURCE • RETURN • RECYCLE
    (2012-12-19) Balik, Tonya; Ostraff, Josh; Boudewyns, Deborah K. Ultan; Katsiaficas, Diane; Klug, Shannon
    The 2011 Art in the Libraries exhibition features a broad range of work by U of M students and faculty. The artists explore the theme RESOURCE • RETURN • RECYCLE as questions, factors, and implications to be interpreted both literally and conceptually. In this way, the exhibition reflects the condition, process, and cycle, which establish the identity of the artists' work.
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    Creating Videos for Reference and Instruction
    (Archival Practice, 2014-12) Engseth, Ellen
    The author provides a case study of creating screencasts rendered as videos and disseminated as learning objects to support archival reference and instruction. These videos fit into a broader learning object experience at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee (UWM) Libraries. The project's context, implementation, and evaluation and recommendations are provided.
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    "Death is due to lack of knowledge": community practices of a successful multi-partnered health disparities intervention for low-income African Americans in South Carolina
    (2013-05) Littleton, Dawn
    The purpose of this study was to describe the methods--including practices, policies, and roles--used by public and academic library staff in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Racial and Ethnic Approach to Community Health (REACH) intervention that proved successful in reducing or eliminating several diabetes-related health disparities in a vulnerable population. An intrinsic case study methodology was used to identify effective services, resources, and practices for library staff. A semi-structured telephone interview was completed by 11 community partners from a successful multi-partnered, community-based, diabetes-related health disparities intervention that included librarians as community partners. Questions included (a) What were some traditional or innovative library roles, services, or resources used in this successful intervention? (b) How was helicopter research avoided? (c) How was trust with the vulnerable community members established and maintained? (d) How were community members with low literacy included? Data were audio-recorded and transcribed. Eight major themes consistent with transformative adult learning theories were identified from the coded transcripts, including (a) autonomy, (b) community-based and community-led, (c) incentives, (d) a new role for professionals, (e) participants realizing success, (f) church participation, (g) transformation, and (h) perspective of the librarians. The insights and guidelines suggested by this research may be helpful when deciding how or when to participate in community-based health disparities interventions for vulnerable populations.
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    Improvements in Holistic Recommender System Research
    (2018-08) Kluver, Daniel
    Since the mid 1990s, recommender systems have grown to be a major area of deployment in industry, and research in academia. A through-line in this research has been the pursuit, above all else, of the perfect algorithm. With this admirable focus has come a neglect of the full scope of building, maintaining, and improving recommender systems. In this work I outline a system deployment and a series of offline and online experiments dedicated to improving our holistic understanding of recommender systems. This work explores the design, algorithms, early performance, and interfaces of recommender systems within the scope of how they are interconnected with other aspects of the system. This work explores many indivisual aspects of a recommender system while keeping in mind how they are connected to other aspects of the system. The contributions of this thesis are: an exploration of the design of the BookLens system, a prototype recommender system for library-item recommendation; a methodology and exploration of algorithm performance for users with very few ratings which shows that the popular Item-Item recommendation algorithm performs very poorly in this context; an exploration of the issues faced by Item-Item, as well as fixes for these issues confirmed by both an offline and online analysis; and finally, the preference bits model for measuring the amount of noise and information contained in user ratings, as well as a rating support interface capable of reducing the noise in user ratings leading to superior algorithm performance. Supporting these contributions are the following specific methodological improvements: a bias free methodology for measuring algorithm performance over a range of profile sizes; a prototype user-study design for investigating new-user recommendation through Amazon Mechanical Turk; the preference bits model as well as derived measurements of preference bits per rating, per impressions, and per second; and finally a sound experimental design that can be used to empirically measure preference bits values for a given interface. It is our hope that these methodological contributions can help researchers in the recommender systems field ask new questions and further the holistic study of recommender systems.
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    Internationalizing a Campus: Opening Doors for Collaboration and Creating Better Services for All
    (2014-04-11) Farrell, Shannon L.; Bullington, Jeffrey S.
    In 2011, Colorado State University (CSU) developed a relationship with INTO UK, a recruitment agency, to increase the number of enrolled international students on campus and further internationalize the campus and curriculum. To ensure that library service and resource quality would not be negatively affected, the CSU Libraries decided to explore potential impacts. We approached library personnel, numerous CSU campus units, and the two previous US INTO campuses (Oregon State University and University of South Florida) for focused interviews asking, 'How can the Libraries contribute to the INTO partnership to ensure overall student success?' It became clear that continued outreach and collaboration are necessary given the complex university environment to support student success and that addressing service gaps with the increased international student population would benefit the campus overall.
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    IT Competence for all: Propel your staff to new heights
    (Haworth, 2008) Eels, Linda L.; Jaguszewski, Janice M.
    In 2005, the University of Minnesota Libraries charged a task force with the development of a list of core information technology (IT) skills that could be expected of all 300 staff, from technical services to reference services to stacks maintenance. Once this list was developed, the task force designed and administered an online self-assessment survey to identify gaps and patterns in staff computer skills. Both the development of the core competencies and the administration of the assessment are discussed. Also provided are recommendations for next steps, including using assessment reports and data gathered in the process to develop a training and professional development curriculum focused on the specific identified training needs of staff.
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    Layering Time and Motion: Paintings and installation by Joonja Lee Mornes
    (2012-12-19) Mornes, Joonja Lee; Boudewyns, Deborah K. Ultan; Klug, Shannon
    Artist, Joonja Lee Mornes, draws inspiration from watching nature in various lights through the seasons. Seasonal, temporal, and phenomenal changes were a constant part of Mornes’s observations while growing up in Korea. Since then her observations have turned from the rice fields to the prairie landscape. Selected paintings and new window installation pieces will be featured in the exhibit, Layering Time and Motion: Paintings and installation by Joonja Lee Mornes, in the Architecture and Landscape Architecture Library at the University of Minnesota, February 7th through April 29th, 2011.
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    Libraries Offer Key Resources for Managing Private Forests
    (Minnesota Forest Association, 1991) Sandy, John H
    This article promotes the role of Minnesota libraries in helping private forest landowners manage their woodlands.
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    MERGE: Materials Methods Minds
    (2012-12-19) Carlson, Anna; Boudewyns, Deborah K. Ultan; Klug, Shannon
    A juried exhibition of University of Minnesota student and faculty work that showcases the creativity and boundary-breaking taking place within this academic community. The exhibit coincides with the International Surface Design Association conference, where much discussion revolves around the value, use, and merging of materials. By removing dividing lines between campuses and disciplines, the work submitted for this show exposes a cross-section of the multidisciplinary approaches artists and designers are using to combine materials and techniques to produce objects that speak of process, conflict, and reciprocity. The artists and designers used a variety of tangible materials including yarn, paper, ink, and thread to manifest the complex conceptual material derived from memory, contrast, environment, and ecology.
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    Minitex Messenger (April, 1978 : volume 3, number 5)
    (University of Minnesota, 1978-04) Minitex
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    Minitex Messenger (April, 1979 : volume 4, number 5)
    (University of Minnesota, 1979-04) Minitex
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    Minitex Messenger (April, 1980 : volume 5, number 5)
    (University of Minnesota, 1980-04) Minitex
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    Minitex MESSENGER (August 25, 2003 : volume 21, number 1)
    (University of Minnesota, 2003-08-25) Minitex
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    Minitex Messenger (August, 1977 : volume 3, number 1)
    (University of Minnesota, 1977-08) Minitex
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    Minitex Messenger (August, 1979 : volume 5, number 1)
    (University of Minnesota, 1979-08) Minitex
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    Minitex Messenger (December, 1977 : volume 3, number 3)
    (University of Minnesota, 1977-12) Minitex
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    Minitex Messenger (December, 1979 : volume 5, number 3)
    (University of Minnesota, 1979-12) Minitex
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    Minitex Messenger (February, 1978 : volume 3, number 4)
    (University of Minnesota, 1978-02) Minitex