SEAALL Institute: New Territory and Technologies

SEAALL Institute
Law Librarians and Legal Technologists:
Building Synergies in the Net Age
Thursday April 12, 2007

New Territory and Technologies: Getting What Our Users Need When They Need It & Working Together to Meet That Need
Speaker: Pablo Molina, CIO, Georgetown University Law Center

Notes:
Educause

Most breakthroughs come in new uses of existing technology, rather than brand new technology

Freakonomics – information as currency

List of technologies: 2.0, blogs, wikis, repositories, electronic casebooks

GU Systems Management Council

• members: university librarian, law librarian, medical librarian, university CIO, law CIO, others

Museum management software [I can't remember why this was mentioned]

GU Campus Web Group

• campus-wide website – input from multiple areas
• co-chaired by publications/ media director and CIO
• annual web plan

Exchanges

• annual presentations to law librarians and law center administration

Faculty and staff technology retreats

• librarians present at these
• sponsored by the dean

Printing charges go back to library/IT dept for computing expenses

• even though charged, students use due to convenience

Technology Reference Desk

• changed name of help desk to technology reference desk
• made location more prominent (not in back corner)
• changed staffing to 9am-6pm, professionals only (no student workers)
• not just help, but instruction (for students, not faculty)
• some resistance from students at first, but they were told tech learning is part of their educational experience
• satisfaction changed from 50% to 80% then 90%

Annual Student Technology Survey

• items like how many students have Macs
• satisfaction with IT dept
• track diffusion of innovation

Conflicting priorities

• distrust of those we don’t understand – too much jargon
• must be bilingual – English/techie

Thoughts:
Molina's session was full of practical ideas.

I especially like the student technology survey, which sounds like a great way to find out what students' actual tech expectations and skills are and what they're using, as opposed to assuming that because they're young "digital natives" they know what they're doing.

Also: the technology reference desk sounds very cool, and I think it's fabulous that they're insisting students accept instruction instead of just fixing their problems. Teach a person to fish...