Customer Service Training Course

An online course was developed and implemented for all access service staff in the six branches of the University of Maryland (UMD) Libraries at College Park.   The course was launched in September 2014 and staff had one year to complete four modules related to job skills, job knowledge, customer relations and communication. The course is accessible in Canvas and each module has been designed to address an aspect of customer service skills and provides an individual assessment of understanding. The course has been developed by Judy Kidd, Sharon Epps and Sheridan Sayles from UMD and Toni Negro from Shady Grove.

 

Flipped Information Literacy Pilot Project

During the 2015 academic year Eileen Harrington collaborated with two colleagues at UMD Libraries, Alex Carroll and Nedelina Tchangalova, to implement a flipped information literacy pilot program. The three developed an online course that used the campus course management system, Canvas, and included information literacy modules tailored to health sciences. This model was adapted to suit the needs of different instructors. Three faculty members from the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and two faculty members from the School of Public Health participated in this pilot program. Students worked on the Canvas modules prior to a library session for their class, and then during the in-class session, they prepared 5-minute presentations on their assigned modules using a PechaKucha model. The three librarians received funding for the project from the UMD Libraries’ Research Fund and the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Medical Library Association (MAC-MLA). They presented their preliminary findings on October 20, 2014 at the MAC-MLA Annual Meeting in Alexandria, VA, and a more detailed presentation at The Innovative Library Classroom conference at Radford University in Radford, VA.

 

National Library of Medicine Virtual Internships     

Two students from UMD’s iSchool interned at the National Library of Medicine (NLM)’s History of Medicine Division (HMD) during the fall semester. Both interns worked on projects that promoted HMD’s many digital resources to a broader audience through the National History Day program and HMD’s new Pinterest account.

 

During the spring semester, two other iSchool students also interned at NLM. One worked on improving the search experience for researchers and public health workers who access NLM’s web portals Health Services Research Information Central (HSRIC) and Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce (PHPartners). The other intern created a collection of Tweets on health-related information that could be sent out at any time on the PHPartners Twitter account. She also developed a plan on what types of statistics should be collected related to the Twitter account, and how to best go about doing this.

 

The NLM Virtual Internships grew out of a Memorandum of Understanding between USG, the UMD iSchool and Libraries, the Health Sciences and Human Services Library at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and NLM. These semester-long virtual internships allow students to work for the world’s largest biomedical library, while also fitting in their other classes, work and family obligations. For more information visit our LibGuide.

 

MIM Program – Capstone Projects

Visualization Lab

Pooja Sawant conducted a study that explores the idea of creating and developing a visualization lab in the Priddy Library at USG that enables faculty, student and staff to be creative in presenting and sharing data. The goal of the study was to define space, hardware, software, resources and policies to plan and implement a visualization lab. Research for the project included analyses of existing labs, a literature review, user interviews and student focus groups.

User Research: Priddy Library Website Redesign

A usability study was conducted by Pranali Shetty to analyze the user’s experience and interaction with the Priddy Library website. The purpose of the study was to evaluate the features and functionality of the website. The goal of the study was to collect data for preliminary analysis to help redesign the website and improve accessibility to its contents. The results of the study showed that navigation, terminology and aesthetics are strong but improvements are needed in locating academic resources.

Interactive Dashboard

Under the guidance of the Circulation and Reserves, Sarika Hegde and Abha Molri developed an Interactive

Dashboard. This project was an attempt to develop an interactive component into the data visualization,

and also provide a capability to filter the data across various parameters such as month, fiscal year, and

other variables in order to dig deeper into the data to gain real-time insights into library services provided

and identify issues proactively. Data was exported on ‘Equipment Usage’, ‘Books Borrowed’, ‘Late Night

Hours’, and ‘Films on Demand’ from multiple applications.  A highly-interactive dashboard including

graphs/charts and customization options were built using technologies such as: D3.js, crossfilter.js and

Bootstrap framework. The interactive visualization (dashboard)will be helpful in making staffing decision

and in analyzing how library services are being used by USG patrons. This project also offered valuable

learning opportunity to the graduate students, enriching their educational experience and preparing

them uniquely for the job market.

Montgomery County Public Schols (MCPS)

Katie Chan implemented the “MCPS Professional Library One Stop Search” discovery tool that provided access to research databases and e-journals, making it easier for MCPS employees to conduct their research.

 

Daniel Feinberg ran the trial from October to December 2014. The usage statistics and comments received revealed that the tool was highly used and very useful to the staff. Some of the comments received were:

 

“I am doing an action research project for a graduate program at McDaniel College via Equity and Excellence and I think this was so helpful! It is and will continue to be a vital piece for my research project and proposal.”
 

“It is a real time saver and these days any time teachers can save a few minutes in finding a resource is valuable.”
 

An increasing number of requests for library instruction classes at USG and sessions at MCPS’s new faculty orientation workshops, and Professional Development were requested. The MCPS Librarian has been assisting patrons when visiting the library helping them in their research needs.

 

After seven years of partnership, on June 30, 2015, the agreement signed by MCPS, UMD and USG has been dissolved.  The decision was reached due to pending financial and budgetary restrictions faced by the school district.