IS Lab Patron Update 20S Week 3

By April 20, 2020
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Dear Patrons,

As we begin the fourth week of classes, I’m writing to provide you with a synopsis of recent news and links to useful resources and events of interest for the next five days. By now, you’ve probably worked through any technical issues you may have had connecting to digital resources. However, if you encounter any difficulty, please remember that our IS Lab Staff, as well as our dedicated Information Studies librarian, Diane Mizrachi, are available to assist you. Please make sure that you have VPN or proxy set up to access resources from off campus.

Mindful Matters

For those moments when remote work challenges and the uncertainty arising from the pandemic feel overwhelming, this week’s mindfulness resource is the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), a partner of the Norman Cousins Center for Psychoneuroimmunology within the Jane and Terry Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. MARC provides a variety of Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs) and drop-in meditations, workshops, and retreats for the UCLA community. If you have found mindfulness resources that would be useful to others in our community, please send them my way to include in a future update.

Practical Concerns

Week 4 has begun, and we remain at the ready to provide assistance as described in last week’s update.

Alumni engagement

In response to student requests, we have added a new page to the IS Lab website with links to digital portfolios. If you have a digital portfolio you’d like to add to this page, please let us know. More than 50 alumni have joined our effort to support MLIS students with portfolio presentation review. Please register by Wednesday, April 22, to be matched with alumni who will coach you via Zoom in preparation for your digital portfolio presentation in May. We’ll begin connecting MLIS students with alumni volunteers on Thursday, April 23.

Circulation & due dates

A reminder: We have extended the due dates for resources borrowed from the IS Lab through June 10, 2020. All fees and fines that would have accrued since March 1, 2020, will be waived; however, items that are lost and not returned will still be assessed replacement fees. Therefore, if you prefer to return items you’ve borrowed, please contact me to arrange for shipping to a secure address.

Course readings

If you’re having difficulty with access to course readings via CCLE, please let us know. Faculty may grant CCLE access to the IS Lab by assigning Instructional Support permissions to Diana Ascher. We continue to work with our partners throughout the UC library system to codify a workflow to provide e-reserves support for faculty during the Spring and Summer quarters.

The big announcement this week in terms of resource access is the Hathi Trust Emergency Access Service. Thanks to UCLA Library’s partnership with HathiTrust, a consortium of academic and research organizations, UCLA students, staff, and faculty now have temporary access to digital versions of about half of the UCLA Library’s print collection—that’s more than 5.2 million digital volumes—for the duration of the COVID-19 pandemic. UCLA Library users with a valid Bruin Online credential may log in to the HathiTrust Digital Library to check out copyrighted books for online reading through renewable one-hour loans. The items are protected by copyright law, and no further reproduction or distribution is permitted by any means without the permission of the copyright holder. However, one may still read and download books in the digitized public domain volumes via the HathiTrust Digital Library. If you have any questions related to your use of HathiTrust materials, please visit the HathiTrust FAQs page and check out the Guide to Searching HathiTrust.

Forum Friday: Non-Traditional Careers Panel

On the fourth Friday of every month, community members meet in the IS Lab for input on work in progress in an informal session with peers and invited experts. Join us this Friday, April 24, at 12:30pm for a panel discussion on non-traditional LIS career paths. Please register for this event, and stay tuned for more details. 

Interesting links

In an effort to stop bombarding family and friends with interesting links at inconvenient times, I’ve created a new page for coronavirus-related resources that provide historical context through various forms of expression, including investigative journalism, narrative storytelling, and art. Feel free to submit links for inclusion. Our first is a documentary by Retro Report, called, “Coronavirus has a playlist: Songs about disease go way back.”

Jobs board

Despite concern about the effects of the pandemic on the job market, we’ve got lots of opportunities flowing in to our jobs board. Aside from front-line medical personnel, information professionals are among the most instrumental hires an organization can make during a pandemic. Also, please submit job postings when you come across great opportunities. Using this system will cut down on the email deluge, and broadcast the opportunities to our students.

Physical facility

I conducted a walkthrough on Friday, April 17, to confirm that there are no facilities emergencies such as water leaks or mold blooms, and to assess the security of the IS Lab. While the rain caused some damage to ceiling tiles along the southeast perimeter, no equipment nor materials in our collections have been damaged.

Safety at home

In the past several days, we’ve received a couple of Clery Timely Warnings from the UCLA Police Department regarding residential burglaries in the UCLA vicinity. In both recent cases, residents were in their homes when burglars made off with valuable belongings. Even though a majority of people are staying safer at home, there are people out there who are exploiting our sense of impenetrable confinement. Please remember to lock your doors and maintain your regular safety routines. The UCLA Police Department has issued the following reminders to the campus community:

      • Dial 9-1-1 in the event of an emergency.
      • For non-emergencies, program the UCLA PD 24-hour phone number into your cell phone – 310-825-1491.
      • Always be alert and aware of your surroundings.
      • Report any suspicious activity to the police.
      • Do not leave doors to buildings propped open.
      • Secure your residence by locking all windows and doors
      • Avoid poorly-lit or deserted areas when walking at night
Virtual assemblage

Student groups need a place to meet? Need reference support? Want help delivering compelling instruction via Zoom? Need to pick up new practical skills? For all of these needs, and more, we invite you to the new instantiation of the IS Lab as a virtual assemblage.

Workshop Wednesday

If you missed last week’s Workshop Wednesday Resume Clinic, fear not. I’m offering it again this Wednesday, April 22, at 12:30pm. Please come prepared with your resume and a few job ads of interest. We’ll help you craft a resume that presents your skills and experience in ways that will resonate with hiring managers in LIS-related fields. Any experience level is welcome, none is necessary. Register here.

I hope you find these resources useful. We welcome your feedback and suggestions to help us support instructional continuity.

My best wishes for your continued health and safety.

Diana Ascher, PhD, MBA
Director, IS Lab
Digital Instructional Support Librarian