LOST in Cyberspace: Projects

GOALS

One of the main goals of the Librarians' Online Support Team (L.O.S.T.) has been to provide online workshops and organized discussion sessions for librarians on a wide variety of topics. As a service to librarians recently acquiring access to the internet, L.O.S.T. will endeavor to keep this material available.

This page contains announcements of upcoming workshops or discussions, and a brief summary for each of L.O.S.T.'s past events. There are links to logs of the past events.

PAST

The rest of this page is devoted to brief descriptions of past events organized by L.O.S.T., with some information about the presenters. At the end of each description are links to actual logs of each event. The topics covered include:
library services and instruction for distance education,
meeting the needs of home schoolers,
medical and health resources on the internet,
finding medicine and health information on the Web,
the annual conference of the American Library Association,
teaching librarianship in the MOO,
Internet access for children,
the Communications Decency Act,
basic HTML for librarians,
copyright issues for librarians,
networking and connectivity for librarians,
museum librarianship,
electronic lists and conferences,
gopher technology.

March 7, 1999 at 1 pm; March 11, 1999 at 7 pm; March 18, 1999 at 7 pm.

These sessions featured an exchange of experiences and ideas between librarians from all over. The sessions were led by Emily Chasse (Central Connecticut State University), and Drew Smith and Ilene Frank (University of South Florida) and addressed the following issues. How does your library support distance education? Can students request ILL for books and journal articles? Can they get the resources that they need? Do you use the Internet, telephone, snail mail? How do they get instruction in how to use the resources that you provide, electronic or otherwise. Does your library meet ACRL guidelines for distance education?

[Original log, March 7 session] [Original log, March 11 session] [Original log, March 18 session]

Tuesday, Jan. 26, 1999 at 1 PM ET and 7 PM ET

The number of families who home school has steadily increased in recent years. By the turn of the century, an estimated 5% of school-aged children will be taught at home. What are librarians doing to reach this population? Is it working? What do home schoolers want? These issues were addressed in a workshop presented by Diane Gaylor who earned her BA Liberal Studies-Elementary Education from Christ College Irvine and her MLIS from San Jose State University. She was a library office manager and reference librarian before becoming Director of Library Services at Concordia in 1997.

[Original log, 1 PM session] [Original log, 7 PM session]

Saturday, October 11, 1998, at 2 PM Eastern Time

This workshop, led by Diane Kovacs, combined the strengths of web-based information and the benefits of personal interaction with an instructor and other students in the session. There was a basic lecture on Medical and Health Resources on the Internet for Healthcare Professionals and Consumers followed by a web-based activity: Consumer Health Resources: Wellness, Patient/Family Support. Discussion of the activity followed.

Wednesday, November 5, 1997 at 12 Noon, EST and Thursday, November 6, 1997 at 3 pm, EST.

The workshop was presented by Diane K. Kovacs, president of Kovacs Consulting - Internet & World Wide Web Training & Consulting and editor-in-chief of the Directory of Scholarly and Professional Electronic Conferences. Diane has earned graduate degrees in Library and Information Science and Instructional Technology and has received many awards for her work in the field. She also has more than 6 years of experience as an Internet Trainer and Consultant.

[Original log, Nov. 5 session] [Original log, Nov. 6 session]

Sunday, June 29, 1997 at 11:00 am EDT

Former journalist Jennifer Gi-won Kim (JenK@DU) is a reference library and bibliographic instruction assistant and second year Library and Information Sciences graduate student at UCLA. While attending the American Library Association annual conference for the first time, she shared highlights from the following events: "Statewide Library Networks and Services: Connecting Citizens to Libraries, Information, and the Internet", "Charting the Future: San Francisco and Beyond" with Michael Gorman, the vendors and exhibits, and the General Session. She talked about her expectations and her experiences being at ALA for the first time.

[Original log]

Saturday, May 31, 1997 at 1:30 EDT

This session was part of the Diversity University Conference which took place in Richmond, Kentucky. Several librarians who have taught within the MOO environment were physically present at the site, and others joined our panel virtually. We shared basic explanations and some experiences to add to our common knowledge base.

[Original log]

Thursday, March 6, 1996 at 2 pm.

Presented by Deanna Wilkes-Gibbs, who is currently a Research Scientist at Bellcore, where she studies how technology can be used to support collaborative and interpersonal interactions among people remote from one another. Prior to joining Bellcore, she served on the faculty of Wesleyan University. Within the M* world, however, she is better known as Sky, cofounder and administrator of Meridian, which is a MOO devoted to the themes of virtual travel and cross-cultural interaction.

[Original log of the noon session] [Original log of the 8pm session] [Original log of LOST's followup discussion] [Edited log]

Feb. 28, 1996 at noon and at 8 pm EST

Presented by Pascal Calarco, MLIS, who is IAIMS Assistant at Cushing/Whitney Medical Library, Yale University. An avid computer user since the age of 14, he currently is working on expanding his knowledge in Perl and Expect unix tools. In his free time, he voraciously collects and listens to a diverse spectrum of music.

Basic HTML for Librarians
[Original log, noon session] [Original log, 8pm session] [Edited log]

Nov. 17, 1995 at 9:30 am EST

Presented by Arlene Bielefield, Assistant Professor in the School of Library and Information Science at Southern Connecticut State University. Dr. Bielefield holds a Juris Doctor degree from the Univerity of Connecticut School of Law and a Masters in Library Science from Southern Connecticut State University. She is the author of several books written since 1992 including: the Neal-Schuman series The Library and the Law, with three books currently out and three forthcoming (co-authored with Larry Cheeseman), The Connecticut Legal Research Handbook for the Connecticut Law Book Company (co-authored with Larry Cheeseman), Maintaining Privacy of Library Records (co-authored with Larry Cheeseman) and Legally Effective Company Communication for Panel Books. She is presently working on a book entitled Copyright and the New Technologies: A Guidebook for the Library and Teaching Professions.

Let's Talk About Copyright: A Librarians's Guide to Current Issues and Concerns
[Original log]

Friday, October 27, 1995, 12 noon EDT

Presented by Scott Brim currently a Senior Technical Advisor in Cornell Information Technologies. He has been active in data networking, both within Cornell and at the national and international levels, since 1979. He has been involved with the Internet and large-scale integration of its components since 1985. From 1985 to 1991 he managed the Cornell Theory Center's networking program, including engineering, integration and operation of the original NSFNet and NYSERNet (the New York State regional network). He has participated in national Internet management groups such as the Internet Engineering Task Force (where he founded the Interconnectivity Working Group and the Topology Engineering Working Group, and contributes regularly to working groups in the Internet and Routing Areas), and the Federal Networking Council's Engineering Planning Group (FEPG). He is also responsible for the original concept and development of Cornell's GateDaemon Project, which makes quality internet routing software freely available. While consulting for the United States Government on Internet engineering issues in 1990-1991, he worked on NREN architecture and was the leader on developing the original international interconnections policy which was issued by the FNC EPG. In 1989-1990 he was a member of the Division Advisory Panel for the NSF's NCRI Division. He has worked on developing and implementing multicast routing algorithms with funding from ARPA, and edited the summary report of the Internet Routing and Addressing Task Force, of which he was a member. He has been active in large-scale multicast routing design, distributed multimedia applications, and network-based learning technology. At this time he is most active in ATM networking, especially low-cost ATM connectivity to the desktop and voice and telephony over ATM.
This workshop sought to define and de-mystify the often bewildering choices and terminology faced by librarians when making computer and telephone connectivity decisions.

A Librarians' Guide to Networking: Understanding ISDN, FDDI, ATM and Other Connectivity Options
[Original log]

Museum Librarianship

Wednesday, June 28, 1995 with a repeated session on June 28

Presented by Tom Bickley, the Smithsonian Institution Libraries' Branch Librarian for the Anacostia Museum of the Smithsonian Institution. Bickley has also served as Assistant Curator for the Dom Mocquereau Collection of Liturgical Manuscripts on Microfilm at the B.T. Rome School of Music at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC; Automated Systems Coordinator for the Catholic University of America Libraries; and Director of Education and the Learning Resources Center for the Texas Medical Center Library in Houston. He has led workshops and courses on database searching, internet access, and electronic resources for African American studies. He is active also as a musician: composing, teaching and performing in order to explore cultural connections via sound. He participates in the ArtsWire electronic community and hosts the New Music Meeting at Diversity University. Born in Houston, Texas, he holds degrees in music, religious studies and librarianship (B.Mus. Univ. of Houston 1977; M.A. in Music, The American Univ., 1983; M.Div., Wesley Theological Seminary, 1987; M.S.L.S., The Catholic University of America, 1990).
This workshop was designed for library school students, faculty and staff and others who might be interested in this form of special librarianship. The workshop will be conducted as a seminar, with participants learning about the day- to-day work of museum librarians, resources for learning more about museum librarianship, and its relationship with other forms of librarianship. Attendees are encouraged to join the discussion with questions and comments.

Museum Librarianship
[Original log, Part One] [Original log, Part Two]
[Edited log]

April 26, 1995 with a repeated session on April 29

Presented by Diane Kovacs, Assistant Professor and Reference Librarian at Kent State University Libraries. Kovacs is Director of the Diversity University Press and also Editor-in-Chief of The Directory of Scholarly Electronic Conferences (published in print by the Association of Research Libraries) and LIBRES: Library and Information Science Research Electronic Journal, a peer-reviewed electronic journal. She is co-editor of the Electronic Journal on Virtual Culture and co-moderator of both Libref-L, a discussion list for library reference issues and Gov Doc-L, a discussion list on government document issues. Kovacs has written and spoken frequently on the topic of scholarly resources on the academic networks, and has taught workshops on using the internet resources for scholarly search.
This workshop was designed for reference librarians, library school students, and others interested in learning more about how to effectively utilize discussion lists for reference work and networking.

Locating and Using Discussion Lists for Information and Inter-librarian Networking
[Original log] [Edited Log, Part One] [Edited Log, Part Two] [Edited Log, Exercises]

April 3, 1995 with a repeated session on Wednesday, April 5

Presented by Linda Warden, reference and interlibrary loan librarian at The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Library in Washington, D.C. Warden received her B.A. degree from the University of California and her M.S.L.S. from the Catholic University of America. She has held library positions at the Smithsonian Institution Libraries and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Scientific Library and is a long-time Internet user.
This workshop was designed for reference librarians, library school students, and others interested in a reference librarian's perspective of these online resources. Participants used actual gopher menus during the session and learned what gopher is and how it works, basic strategies for finding information, how to evaluate the information found.

Using Gopher and the Internet in Reference Work
[Original log] [Edited log]