Download Science Bootcamp for Librarians Southeast 2016 Conference Report

Science Bootcamp for Librarians Southeast 2016 Conference Report
Catherine Bowers
Samantha Paul
Laura Wright
Science Boot Camp Conference Report
July 6-8, 2016
Athens, GA
We each attended all the sessions. It was an extremely interesting and dynamic experience.
Wednesday, July 6th -- Climate Change
Session 1: James Porter
"Ancient Texts from Ancient Shores: The Role of Antiquarian Books in Understanding the
Effects of Climate Change on Coral Reefs"
Dr. Porter is a marine ecologist. His presentation on coral reefs was dynamic and engaging. For
instance, coral reefs are one of the most diverse and complex environments that thrive in part to a
symbiotic relationship between coral and algae. His emphasis was on the history of coral reefs
and how recent changes in ocean temperature affect coral reefs - Increased temperatures kill off
the algae resulting in coral bleaching or sterilization. He said the “archival record is the history”
(or something close to that). Dr. Porter has one of the largest collections of coral-related titles
and he uses this archival data in his research and teaching classes. He pointed out that libraries
share and disseminate information, and archive it. Dr. Porter shared an interesting experience
about discovering a new coral species and using the archival record to figure out how that
species had gone undiscovered until the end of the 20th century. Dr. Porter incorporates archive
materials to provide a narrative, which puts information in a context that students are engaged
with and can remember. From John Ellis politely contradicting Linnaeus to now, “students find
unexpected things” and “students can make a difference.”
Session 2: Marshall Shepherd
"Climate Science 101 For Non-Climatologists"
Dr. Shepherd’s lecture was also very interesting. He is an expert in weather and climate; he
focused on climate change. Dr. Shepherd covered a lot of facts about climate change, as well as
debunking popular myths (there is no heat lightning). His emphasis was on the importance of
science literacy. Without science literacy it is difficult to explain to the public how climate
change is occurring and how it affects all of us. He also discussed the far-reaching aspects of
climate change on society. He briefly discussed how climate change is scientific fact but it
remains politically controversial because all the ways to slow it require changes in how people
are currently living (fuel, consumption, etc.). In addition because the stakes are so high, the vast
majority of the public would rather push back with “cherry-picked” data because the reality is
very depressing. Scientists are poor communicators, which does not help spread the message or
raise political capital to propose and implement solutions.
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Science Bootcamp for Librarians Southeast 2016 Conference Report
Suggested Readings: Communicating the science of climate change:
https://www.climatecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Somerville-HassolPhysics-Today-2011.pdf
Merchants of Doubt
Librarian Lightning Talks
These are 5 minute presentations.
1. Courtney Baron, Emory University, “Incorporating threshold concepts into introductory
Biology classes through faculty collaboration”
a. Changed the emphasis of the class to why prefer scholarly materials, and why
prefer primary materials.
b. Discuss where students encounter secondary materials.
c. Incorporated workshops at night or at point of need (the night before paper due).
2. Alexander Carroll, North Carolina State University, “Part of the team: Lab-integrated
research support and information literacy instruction”
a. They used to be a branch library but they were moved into a science library. As a
result they no longer see their professors and graduates as often. They have
embedded themselves in research teams in the College of Engineering and
College of Textiles in an effort to rebuild that contact.
b. Being embedded allows the librarians to get to know the faculty and students,
discover faculty interests (current and potential areas) and learn more about
research techniques.
3. Jan Comfort, Clemson University, “Adding patent records to your institutional
repository”
a. Titles says it all.
4. Jean Cook, University of West Georgia, “Leveraging simple requests into meaningful
partnerships: Breaking the faculty barrier”
a. A pep talk on constantly offering to do more for your liaison faculty.
5. Chapel Cowden, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, “The second time's the charm:
Improving integration of information literacy concepts in an advanced Biochemistry
class”
a. Librarian embedded information literacy concepts in chemistry classes. The
module includes pre-class materials, a 2 hour lab, and activities. Her focus is on
promoting sustainable research behaviors.
6. Debbie Currie, North Carolina State University, “A walk on the wild side: The NC State
Wolfpack Citizen Science Challenge”
a. Talk about citizen science. Zooniverse.org or Scistarter.org. for good starter
resources.
7. Alyson Gamble, New College of Florida, “Gathering wind: Metaliteracy and Aeolus, an
undergraduate science research journal
a. Began an undergraduate research journal. Gave students an insight into
publication ethics as well as an opportunity to practice civil discourse.
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Science Bootcamp for Librarians Southeast 2016 Conference Report
8. Patricia Hartman, Auburn University, “Growing a seed library: The importance of
campus and community engagement”
a. Interesting idea, their library started a small seed library. The librarian has been
working on building campus and community partnerships to support it. It is
unclear how successful it was.
Thursday, July 7th -- Public Health and Science Education
Session 3: Katherine Hendricks "Identifying Meningitis During an Anthrax Mass Casualty
Incident: Systematic Review of Systemic Anthrax Since 1880"
Dr. Hendricks’ presentation was interesting but got bogged down in the nitty gritty of Anthrax
and meningitis descriptions, history, and diagnosis. Dr. Hendricks’ research team needed to find
a way to develop a quick diagnostic tool for Anthrax Meningitis during times of crisis
(bioterrorism/biowarfare). Under crisis conditions, doctors would not have the time or resources
to perform a lumbar puncture on all possible patients. The problem is, Anthrax occurs so
infrequently that you cannot build a model from current cases. The research team included a
number of librarians who assisted with the initial research and article collection. The research
team used existing literature (1880-2013) to do a systematic review, create a diagnostic checklist,
and test the checklist. The presentation also included images of the spreadsheet and search
strings used, both of which could be incorporated into instruction or consultations. Additionally,
Dr. Hendricks described a discovery of a brief anthrax outbreak, spread through shaving brush
bristles.
Session 4: Nina Cleveland
"Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Building Practice and Academic Bridges"
Ms. Cleveland discussed the development of a National Response Framework (2008). This
framework provides structure for who will respond to emergency situations. In a disaster
situation, local governments can be on their own for at least 72 hours. The remainder of this
presentation stressed the importance of being proactive about disaster/emergency planning with
special attention to the vulnerable populations in your community. Suggested participation in
Medical Reserve Corps or CERT. This session included a breakout discussion where groups
were tasked with planning an event at different levels.
Suggested Readings: http://www.fema.gov/pdf/emergency/nrf/about_nrf.pdf
CERT: https://www.citizencorps.fema.gov/cc/searchCouncil.do?submitByZip
Session 5: Patricia Marsteller
"Science Cases: Engaging Students with Evidence"
Dr. Marsteller provided an interesting talk on using case-based learning in the classroom.
Currently Dr. Marsteller has a NSF grant and is working on promoting case-based/problembased learning as a way to open up science and creating a compelling reason to learn new things.
In addition, Marsteller promoted the Science Case Network (http://sciencecasenet.org/) which
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Science Bootcamp for Librarians Southeast 2016 Conference Report
collects links and information relating to case based learning. Case/problem-based learning
overlaps with backwards design and a lot of contextual learning topics.
Session 6: Jordan Rose
"Libraries and Science Festivals: Partners in Science Literacy"
Mr. Rose spent the majority of his time promoting the Atlanta Science Festival and its goals of
building a curious community, fostering connections and highlighting the metro Atlanta area. He
gave information about past attendance at the festival, pre-festival contests, and other ways that
they have been trying to reach a diverse audience. Later, Mr. Rose polled the audience for ways
that we could contribute to the festival which started a Q&A of sorts. Mr. Rose redirected the
audience to come up with ideas for how libraries/librarians could add to the Atlanta Science
Festival.
Librarian Lightning Talks
These are five minute presentations
1. Raquel Horlick, Tulane University, “Librarian in-residence at an innovation &
entrepreneurship “oasis”
a. Was hanging out in science library lobby once a week for a few hours with little
success. However, this increased their visibility and they were invited to
participate in a new project. Optimistic about the future work to be done,
especially after partnering with a collaboratively-minded science faculty member.
2. Sarah H. Jeong, Wake Forest University, “ Flipping a science literacy course with
VoiceThread and Audacity”
a. Presented on how they were able to use VoiceThread and Audacity or an
interactive slideshow in their science literacy course.
3. Valrie Minson, University of Florida, “Supporting discovery, access, and compliance
through an Elsevier and library institutional repository ‘pilot’”
a. Worked on highlighting University of Florida research from 1949 to present
published in Elsevier by linking the institutional repository to ScienceDirect.
b. Wants to extend to other publishers and extend API testing to other repositories.
4. Nancy Schaefer, University of Florida, “Fighting HIV/AIDS with information”
a. Florida has a HIV/AIDs rate higher than the national average – Decided to partner
with existing resources in area.
b. Hosted exhibits and provided instruction, created educational videos and easy-toread resources, and hosted networking events.
5. Plato Smith II, University of Florida, “Initializing and advancing data management
conversations with faculty, researchers and scientists”
a. Talked about data management for a time, but did not seem to reach their main
point.
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Science Bootcamp for Librarians Southeast 2016 Conference Report
b. Raise awareness about data management and data management planning: Keep
system stable and reliable, provide cost effective back-ups, provide more storage
and transfer speed, relax policies for purchasing computer infrastructure.
6. Therese Triumph, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “Women in science
Wikipedia edit-a-thon”
a. Identified that Wikipedia community is skewed towards white males, decided to
hold event focusing on women in science
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/UNC/Women_in_Science_2016)
b. Edit-a-thons improve quality, expand the pool of editors, allows outreach to
specific courses, faculty, etc. Provided further information about some of the
logistical challenges.
7. Barbara Wood, Kennesaw State University, “The Pomodoro Technique for librarians”
a. Highlighted a time management/productivity system that involves being
productive for 25 minutes “a Pomodoro” and then taking a five minute break.
Theoretically can limit procrastination by forcing you to work on things in small
chunks.
8. Laura Wright, Valdosta State University, “Backwards design in Chemistry library
instruction”
a. Focused on the collaborative process of working with science faculty to create an
instruction session that is focused more on chemistry reference books – Finding
articles not a priority. Students felt it was not as repetitive as other instruction
sessions, but could not yet see the value. Importance of continuously
experimenting and improving on session.
Evening event: Tour of the UGA Archives.
The UGA vault is amazing and cold, and huge. The curation and displays were beautiful
and thoughtfully assembled, including recent student art with much older scientific
illustrations.
Friday, July 8th -- Marine Science and Librarians in the Trenches
Session 7: Marine Science panel Jay Brandes, Skidaway Institute of Oceanography
Focused on microplastics. In Cozar et al. (2013) focusing on microplastics in the ocean – 88% of
samples contained microplastics. Plastic industries keep libraries of spectra so even if you find
very small pieces of plastics you can identify the source. Lots of Teflon and other heavy plastics
in marine sediment and estuarine fish. Plastic pollution is on a larger scale now.
Jenna Jambeck. University of Georgia.
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Science Bootcamp for Librarians Southeast 2016 Conference Report
Dr. Jambeck focused on plastic waste inputs into the ocean such as microplastics like microbeads
and microthreads. In addition to being ingested or causing entanglement, plastics can also
transport invasive species. Plastics do not biodegrade. They just get smaller and smaller until we
can’t see them anymore, but we know they are there. Some progress in that products containing
microbeads will be phased out eventually.
Samantha Joye, University of Georgia
Dr. Joye studies oil pollution and other ways that humans impact ocean systems. In the course of
surveying 500 x 200 nautical miles, discovered substantially more oil and gas release from the
ocean depths. Instead of these oils and gases being consumed by the diverse communities that
exist around natural seeps, they are reaching the surface. In addition the oil pipelines are
aging/poorly maintained. Recommended cutting back on meat, becoming vegetarian or vegan,
because we need to limit our oil consumption, etc.
Session 8: Librarians in the Trenches panel:
Ted Bazemore—Librarian at CDC
Julie Gaines—Head of the GRU/UGA Medical Partnership Campus
Barbara Kahn-Aitken—Librarian at Coca-Cola
These panelists addressed the type of work they do. Ted Bazemore described the change in
research over the last several decades, from disparate and scattered conference reports to
databases and increasing convergence. Bazemore contrasted the 70 year history of the CDC with
advances like clearing out parts of the print collection to make room for crisis response teams
using new types of media, including GIS. Bazemore described the different metrics currently in
used for the multiple publications, including the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report
(MMWR).
Next, Barbara Kahn-Aitken described her work as an industrial librarian in competitive
intelligence. Her position is in the Mergers and Acquisitions branch of the corporate office. Like
Bazemore, part of Kahn-Aitken’s work is compiling a weekly report about all the technologies
related to the Coca-Cola universe, including advances in packaging, marketing, supply,
agriculture, and production. Some of her research is conducted through surveying social media;
Kahn-Aitken commented during the Q&A that it would be an important asset to her office if she
could add more researchers who had skills in Spanish, Chinese, Arabic and other global
languages.
Finally, Julie Gaines described her work as a medical partnership librarian. She had some very
persuasive facts about the role of libraries and research with medical professionals (75% of
health professionals handled some aspect of patient care differently due to library research)
contrasted with increasing closures of the medical libraries. Gaines’ work involves participating
in some course work and designing part of the curriculum, calling back to Marsteller’s work with
case-based learning. Additionally, Gaines goes on rounds with the medical students and
participates in faculty research projects.
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