SharePoint and Google Classroom and the 3 Steps for Quick Management of the Collection

As the digital age fully takes hold of modern society, the traditional concepts of a library, archives, museum are evolving into something far beyond just a place where books are stored. And as these institutions change, so too must librarians, archivists, curators, and media specialists and the resources they manage (https://tinyurl.com/y9hr2txj).   Google Classroom , just as SharePoint, is designed to help them effectively manage document sharing and provide feedback to the users of their collections on Google Drive for Google Classroom (or MSDE with SharePoint).  Classroom  and SharePoint can replace or work alongside your existing solutions (i.e. integrated library management system, archival collections management system, etc).

Google Classroom, just as SharePoint, is designed to be used by non-IT users without too much input from IT or Tech Support.  Unfortunately, the initial set-up for SharePoint is IT related unless you are using a hosted site giving rights to all of the features available.  Google Classroom only requires a Google account  and then you can build your Google Classroom up as you would a SharePoint site with your choice of modules to use for your work needs in less than 5 minutes per classification.

Do you want to show archived video to your collection’s users?  I had archived videos of a 10 year study I performed on a local natural resource, Lake Artemesia.  To share the videos with students, parents, teachers, and administrators, I created a Google Classroom that allowed all of these user types to experience Lake Artemesia through engaged exercises by answering questions after watching the videos.  This could also be a mini tour of your collection for your collection users to experience before coming to the actual exhibit onsite (see https://librariansandlibrarymediaspecialists.blogspot.com/2017/12/3-steps-for-quick-management-of.html).

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4 Steps to a Possible Archiving of Classroom Management Records

In my previous blog postings, I have identified that discovery programs (maker space) that librarians and library media specialists create require busying the hands of young children when working in elementary schools that cover grades Pre-K to 6^th.  The same could be said when dealing with fellow co-workers during online conferences conducted for office staff.   The topic for the In-house Field trip or office webinar may be developed by a librarian or library media specialist.  4 Steps could be implemented in order to have the ability to busy the hands of children and adults while the guest speaker is talking and interacting back and forth with the audience (see https://librariansandlibrarymediaspecialists.blogspot.com/2017/12/quick-and-dirty-roadmap-to-classroom.html)

Records Management Outreach to Elementary Schools and Colleges

It all started in the beginning of the year.  My school sent out a call to parents and guardians to see who would be interested in coming to our school’s career day.  Guest speakers were sought to provide students with meaningful experiences that motivate and promote career/college readiness.  There had already been curiosity centering on the media center. What did the library media specialist do for the students?

Whenever students had free time (recess and/or lunch), they would volunteer to come and help the library media specialist in the library.  Shelving books was a popular job.  As the same students would come to the media center, they started to make the connection to information collected on them when they would check books out.  What was this all about?

The students started to understand about library records.  The library database could alert the library media specialist when books were overdue or tell her where books were located in the library collection.   All of this information could be found in a record.  The students wanted to know how records could help in different job positions.  To answer this question, Career Day speakers were found to explain their positions which also helped the students understand the importance of records for institutions, media centers, and presidential collections.

Suddenly, the students were exposed to a type of job that they never really thought about—the archivist.  Students found out that this job can be an adventure.  “Without archives many stories of real people would be lost, and along with those stories, vital clues that allow us to reflect and interpret our lives today” (Laura A. Millar, Archives: Principles and practices, p. 74, https://goo.gl/7MVzX2).

This job type helps researchers, such as students, to gain access to information that they may need for various projects during their schooling.  Archivists preserve documents (papers, books, etc.) by keeping them in an order that would help students find the documents when needed but easy to find when stored in bookcases.  The archivist knows the documents and the authors who had written them so that they could better find documents meeting students’ informational needs.  This information can be about something from the past that could help the students understand a topic in the present.

This development started me to create an archive of interested career day speakers who want students to know that people in the information management profession are very important people to know.  This has expanded into a need for my college students as well.

Just because the students are not studying in that major does not mean that they do not want to know about it. They need to be informed that such major and/or position exists.  This will expand and open new possibilities for the students and for all of us.  Actually, this opens new doors to other ways to find information to meet students’  informational needs.

Want to join this archive of career speakers for elementary and college students?  Please fill in the form at this link:  https://goo.gl/forms/ejEOUPImQvveKqzp2

 

 

Latest Edition of SAA’s The Records Manager newsletter, Spring 2016 issue is published

Dear RMRT Members:

Here are the Highlights from the Spring 2016 issue of The Records Manager, newsletter of the SAA Records Management Roundtable:

In this edition of SAA’s The Records Manager, you will find the following postings:

• RMRT Hangouts: ePADD for Email Archives;
• Back to the Basics in Researching- Lorette Weldon;
• Institutional Silences and the Digital Dark Age- Eira Tansey;
• Records Managers: Not Making This Stuff Up, Part the Billionth- Brad Houston

Enjoy the Spring 2016 issue of The Records Manager.

You can retrieve the current issue of the newsletter at

https://www.scribd.com/doc/314715094/Spring-2016-SAA-s-The-Records-Manager

Please remember that the RMRT website can be found at http://www2.archivists.org/groups/records-management-roundtable

The newsletter archives can be found at http://www2.archivists.org/groups/records-management-roundtable/the-records-manager-newslette

Best,
Lorette Weldon

Newsletter Editor, The Records Manager (http://www2.archivists.org/groups/records-management-roundtable/the-records-manager-newsletter)

Back to the Basics in Researching

As a reference librarian, I worked with many library patrons who would ask where they could find books on specific subjects. I would show them how to find possible sources that could answer their questions.  Sometimes they would come back with a narrowed subject.  Then, we would look at other sources that could answer their more focused questions.  Other library patrons would take the sources presented to them and take the information from those sources as the only answers that they could find.  The library patrons who kept asking questions were developing their skills on how to be more effective in reading comprehension.  Unfortunately, the patrons that left with what they had, without further focusing on their subjects, would come back with questions for other subjects and keep asking me for the sources with the answers that they needed.  They did not learn from the first reference interview how to conduct basic research.  I wondered how I could help the novice researcher to be more effective in researching their questions.  I found 6 steps that could help.

How do you preserve a Park in a Library or Archives?

How could we preserve a park for future generations?  Actually, this discussion pertains to a person who has taken photos on a park, documenting a history of a park during specific time periods.   The end result is a book that contains a pictorial documentary of an amateur naturalist’s ten-year travel throughout Lake Artemesia.    Due to an increasingly large number of buildings being built, with the result of less natural areas being saved, deer and other wildlife have started to move into human neighborhoods.  What happened to their natural areas?  Ten years ago, an amateur naturalist started to walk in different parks around the Maryland area.  He pointed out wildlife and plant life that I would never have noticed if I were walking around the park while listening to my mp3 player as I would exercise.  He had shown me how to stimulate my mind with the life all around me. This amateur naturalist wanted to find ways to document information about the park through pictures in case it were destroyed due to floods and other natural/unnatural events.  After ten years walking through Lake Artemesia in Berwyn Heights, Maryland, Ulysses Weldon developed a four-step process to capture different aspects of a park (https://sites.google.com/site/lakeartemesiapark).  This process could be expanded upon to fit many other parks that we never would want to forget.

Picture by Ulysses Weldon, Taken at Lake Artemesia, Berwyn Heights, MD

Latest Edition of SAA’s The Records Manager newsletter, Winter 2016 issue is published

Dear RMRT Members:

Here are the Highlights from the Winter 2016 issue of The Records Manager, newsletter of the SAA Records Management Roundtable:

• In the Winter 2016 issue, Bethany Cron talks about the Next Virtual Hangout: Processing Capstone Email Using Predictive Coding on March 3.
• Brad Houston also covers how to  desensationalize Public Records reporting
• Hillary Gatlin reaches out through a Records Management Program.
• A new series about managing Patients’ Health Records is introduced and explained by a Patients’ Health Records Manager.

Enter the Personal Health Records Librarian (when Managing Patients’ Records, Part 3)

In Part 1 of this discussion of Managing Patients’ Records, a mobile healthcare digital assistant was identified.  It could help patients to be more engaged with managing their medical issues.  In Part 2 of this discussion, the patient, Anne, was described.  Her healthcare was not managed well due to miscommunication or no communication.  It was not because she did not want to follow-up.  She did not know when and for what to follow-up on in her healthcare until it was almost too late.  In order for the patient to understand what is going on, there has to be true patient engagement.

Making the Connections (when Managing Patients’ Records in an information management system like SharePoint , Part 2)

As we discussed in Part 1 of Managing Patients’ Records in an information system like Sharepoint (https://saarmrt.wordpress.com/2016/02/01/managing-patients-records-part-1/), it was pointed out that in the lifetime of a patient, a patient could have one or more physicians that specialize in their different healthcare needs.   With so many healthcare professionals in the patient’s life, there should be a connection to all of them with the patient at the center.  Without the connection, the patient will have difficulty effectively managing their healthcare.  Through the following six steps, that one patient had to endure, other patients can be helped so that this patient and many others will know how healthy they are.

Managing Patients’ Records in an information management system like SharePoint, Part 1

How can you manage patient healthcare when using information management systems’ portals?  Some Clinicians or Primary Care Physicians have attempted to keep their patients engaged with their healthcare by offering them patient portals, over the Internet, which would enable patients to manage their own personal health records.  In the lifetime of the patient, a patient could have one or more physicians that specialize in different healthcare needs of the patient.  The patient can end up having many personal health records that could have information that varies.  Should the patient’s health records connect to one main place?  Would this ensure uniformity in the records and metadata if all of their health information were connected? Physicians need a connection to the patient’s health record assistant so that information is not lost every time a patient has to complete different intake forms for various doctors in their lifetime.