Did you miss a HOT RUSA webinar? Don't fret, check out the list of recordings available for purchase today:
Supporting an Informed Citizenry with State Legislative Research Strategies and Tools 2/15/2023
State legislative bodies vary greatly, ranging from full-time professional legislatures to part-time institutions with limited staff, and their websites reflect these differences. This session focuses on researching state legislation, including navigating state websites that are not necessarily designed with the average citizen in mind. This webinar highlighted alternative sources of state legislative information and strategies for finding additional information and much-needed context, background, and rationales for bills. The presentation, by Jennifer Horne, is appropriate for public, academic and special librarians as well as students.
Developing Collections on Gender Relations and Feminism in the Twenty-First Century: Part One 4/26/2023
The changes in gender relations around the world have been astounding in the past fifty years. These changes have involved contradictory developments involving both forward movement and backlash. Different currents in feminist theory have also responded to these changes in different ways. The presenter, Frieda Afary, is an Iranian American public librarian, translator, and author of Social Feminism: A New Approach. She is the 2023-2024 co-chair of PEN America's Translation Committee.
Developing Collections on Gender Relations and Feminism in the Twenty-First Century: Part Two 5/7/2023
This second part of the 2 part series offers a guide to works representing additional feminist theories of gender oppression as well as feminist alternatives.
Complimentary Recorded Webinars Available
For African Americans, piecing together family history presents unique challenges. Fortunately, there are now wonderful local and online sources with collections of data that can help. In this new 60-minute webinar, you’ll gain skills to help African American patrons begin researching their family history and better understand their legacy. You’ll learn what types of questions to ask, what types of resources are available, and where to look for resources so you can better assist your community at the reference desk.
Virtual Video Reference: Connecting with Patrons at a Distance 11/7/2018
Speakers: Carmen Cole and Victoria Raish
What is the best way to serve a patron's information need at a distance? Academic and public libraries may utilize virtual chat or email to answer reference questions, but do those reference models always serve as the best communication method? An additional means of providing virtual reference is via video conferencing platforms.
Presenters will discuss practical tips for utilizing video conferencing platforms for virtual reference, establishing rapport with patrons using this medium, and how to determine when video may be an appropriate option for conducting a reference transaction. Situated in quality reference as a whole, the presenters will explore this model of serving patrons no matter their location.
Exploring Local Business and Industry Data 1/15/2019
Speaker: Grace Liu
The webinar will share what the presenter has learned from her unique experience of aggregating more than 200 data programs related to local business and industries. The webinar intends to answer the questions such as "who creates local data?" "What data is available at more granular, below state level?", "What are the hidden treasures that were often neglected by data researchers?", what are the strategies for finding local business statistics and data?"
Speakers: Kristan Shawgo, Therese Trimph, Alice Whiteside, and Emily Jack
Wikipedia occupies an unusual niche in our information landscape; it is both a website an a community of volunteer editors striving to compile the sum of all human knowledge. Librarians are uniquely positioned both to navigate Wikipedia better. Hosting an edit-a-thon can provide entry point for librarians to begin engaging with Wikipedia.
In this session, the presenters will address the many benefits of hosting an edit-a-thon, including community engagement, professional enrichment and opportunities for modeling and teaching information literacy practices; discuss the ways in which edit-a-thons can serve as a platform for advocacy by filling in gaps in Wikipedia's coverage of certain topics.
Online Learning Resources: Creating Instructional Objects - 11/5/2019
Speakers: Amy Bush, Erik Fausak and Melinda Livas
Is your library interested in creating online tools like videos and infographics? This webinar outlines how the library at the University of California, Davis, formed a working group to strategically develop best practices for creating high quality instructional objects. They identified two types of instructional objects: static instructional objects are text and image tutorials and dynamic instructional objects offer audio and video. The working group laid the foundation and trained librarians across the organization to successfully create instructional objects that ensure the following elements: consistency & quality, instructional design & assessment, accessibility & ADA compliance, and metadata & archives.
If you have limited resources and would like to begin creating static instructional objects and video tutorials for your library this is a must see webinar because we will share our experience and resources with you.
Member Only Content: Beginning in March 2020, RUSA held a four-part Webinar Series titled "Data in Libraries" presented by outstanding top-notch speakers. The recordings and corresponding documents are available here.
An Introduction to ShelfReader, Winner of The Best Emerging Technology Award in 2020 - 5/26/2021
Speaker: Corey Wetherington | Moderator: Jason Coleman
Learn about ShelfReader, the 2020 winner of RUSA/ETS’s Best Emerging Technology Application Award sponsored by LibraryH3lp and Chatstaff. ShelfReader is a freely available web application developed by Corey Wetherington and Scott Wagner at Penn State University Libraries. This application is being used by nearly all of Penn State’s libraries to ensure accuracy of shelf reading and to identify item record metadata errors.