ALCTS webinar: Re-engineering the institutional repository

[Cindy Hepfer <hslcindy@buffalo.edu>]

Apologies for cross-posting. This webinar, which will focus on 
why and how the University of Rochester re-engineered its IR, may 
interest some LibLicense-L subscribers.



ALCTS webinar: Re-engineering the institutional repository to 
engage users

Date: June 1, 2011

All webinars are one hour in length and begin at 11am Pacific, 
noon Mountain, 1pm Central, 2pm Eastern Time.

Description: All too many institutions jumped on the 
institutional repository bandwagon, only to find they had 
installed it... and no one came. So what do you do about a 
service/software product in which you've already invested time 
and effort (and committed hardware to), that your users couldn't 
care less about? Do you invest more time and effort into 
marketing? Do you throw more and more person-hours into meetings 
with faculty, either in groups or one-on-one? Beg, borrow, plead, 
"we'll do it all for you"? Or do you stop, and approach the 
problem in a different way, by trying to figure out how your 
users do their work, and what it is they really need and want 
(and why the current system doesn't meet those needs).

This webinar will touch on the initial situation at the 
University of Rochester, explore the ethnographic methods we used 
to address that last question, and how we responded. We will 
delve into the issues of investment and effort (read: $$$) to 
break with the past and start again. For example, the migration 
process was no small task: we will be very forthcoming about 
this. We will also comment on what it takes to run an Open Source 
program (there is no free lunch, as we all know). Finally we will 
cover how our new repository has changed our interaction with 
faculty and graduate students, and expanded the role the library 
now plays in our faculty and graduate students' everyday work 
practices.

We believe in laughing while you learn, so come prepared for a 
fun, informative session and lots of lively interaction!

Audience: Anyone with an interest in the topic can benefit from 
this session and is welcome to participate.

Presenters: Nathan Sarr is a senior software engineer at the 
University of Rochester. He is a graduate of the Software 
Engineering Program (2002) at the Rochester Institute of 
Technology. He has worked on large scale payroll software and 
taught software engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology. 
He is the creator of the IR+ institutional repository software 
system and currently manages the IR+ software project.

Suzanne Bell got her MLS in a galaxy long ago and far away 
(actually the University of Buffalo), and has reinvented herself 
several times since. Since 1998, she has been the librarian for 
Economics and Data at the University of Rochester, and since 2003 
has been the lead "Projects Coordinator" (a title she made up) 
for the University's institutional repository, UR Research. She 
also teaches a course entirely online for the University of 
Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and is the author of The Librarian's Guide 
to Online Searching, 2nd ed.) In her life outside of work, she 
has been known to "sing choruses in public" with the Off-Monroe 
Players, Rochester's Gilbert & Sullivan Company.

This is the fourth in a series of four webinars about 
institutional repositories to be offered between January and June 
2011. The webinars included in the IR series are:

January 26, 2011 - Copyright and Contracts: Moving Beyond Text in 
IRs
April 13, 2011 - Repository Metadata: Challenges of 
Interoperability
May 11, 2011 - Engaging Your Campus in Utilizing Institutional 
Repositories

June 1, 2011 - Re-engineering the Institutional Repository to 
Engage Users

*****************

To Register, complete the online registration form at 
http://www.ala.org/ala/onlinelearning/reg/webinar.cfm for the 
session you would like to attend.

Fees for individual sessions:

Group Rates - ALCTS Members & Non-Members: $99
Individuals - ALCTS Members: $39; Non-Members: $49
Participants outside the United States may register at the ALCTS 
member rate.

Pricing for IR Series: (All 4 webinars)

Group Rates - ALCTS Members & Non-Members: $346 (save $50)
Individuals - ALCTS Members: $120 (save $36); Non-Members: $160 
(save $36)
Participants outside the United States may register at the ALCTS 
member rate.

ALCTS webinars are recorded and registrants will receive a link 
to the recording shortly following the live event.

For questions about registration, contact *ALA Registration* by 
calling 1-800-545-2433 and press 5 or email registration@ala.org.

For all other questions or comments related to the webinars, 
contact Julie Reese, ALCTS Events Manager at 1-800-545-2433, ext. 
5034 or jreese@ala.org

Posted on behalf of the ALCTS Continuing Education Committee.