Congratulations to all graduating seniors!  Wherever life will take you after Carthage, we wish you Godspeed and a life of wisdom and wonderment.  Whether you spent much time in Hedberg Library, struggled or excelled with technology, or benefitted from classroom media, we hope you will look back fondly on your time here and consider what you learned at Carthage and use it as a springboard into a successful future.  Take care and stay in touch.

A special thank you and congratulations to our LIS student staff employees:

• Jason Conner
• Brianna Delaney
• Stephanie Finnvik
• Ryan Geary
• Matt Gehrz
• Kristin Korzen
• Derek Kruppstadt
• Emerson Murphy
• Scolastica Njoroge
• Maureen Osogo
• David Rosenberg
• Amy Schwendemann
• Caitlin Zant
• Joe Zenzola

I am very pleased to announce a year of celebratory activities in 2012-13 to observe the 10th anniversary of the Hedberg Library.  Our award-winning library is at the center of academic life on campus and Carthage is justifiably proud of it and what it provides to our students and community.  The celebration will commence during the week of October 5th, when participants will present numerous seminars, performances, panel discussions, and other events for the community. Students, faculty, and staff are already actively planning the events which will incorporate history, literature, theatre, dance, and fine art.   Students and faculty from the departments of Theatre, Dance, Art, English and Creative Writing, Education, Classics and History are already working on their events and they promise to be interesting and very, very fun.  I also want to add a special thanks to student government for their role in helping to involve students in the preparation of these events.

In the spring semester, we will continue the celebration with a day-long workshop in April for school teachers, librarians, and publishers of children’s literature.  The focus of the workshop will be on children’s literature in the digital age.  The workshop will focus on some of the more recent developments in the fusion of digital technology and children’s literature to determine what impact digital technology is having upon children’s literature and the development of children’s reading interests and skills.  Professor Marilyn Ward and her colleagues from the Center for Children’s Literature are leading this effort, so we know it will intellectually stimulating and enjoyable for teachers and librarians from throughout the region.

At the end of June, in conjunction with the American Library Association meeting in Chicago, the culminating celebratory event will be a two-day conference for librarians, instructional technologists, instructors, and publishers.  The conference will employ time series forecasting methods to ascertain how learning and research resources will likely develop and be used at liberal arts institutions over the course of the next twenty years.  We know the impact that technology has had on journals and journal publishing since 1993, so selecting a twenty-year period to look forward is a reasonable and prudent way to help us prepare for tomorrow – today!  I am especially grateful to Clausen Professor Art Cyr, who has volunteered his expertise to help us prepare for this conference.

It will be an exciting year at Hedberg, highlighting the talents and achievements of students, the expertise and interests of faculty and staff, and the learning resources of the ever-evolving library. We will keep you posted in future issues as we get closer to the celebratory events.

Student staff members keep the Hedberg machine running smoothly from media service students who fix classroom equipment on the fly to computer “geeks” who track down viruses and troubleshoot. Many of the services Hedberg patrons encounter are performed by students. Graduating students say working for LIS has given them unique, practical experience to take forward.

Media Services student Emerson Murphy plans to attend Trinity Evangelical Divinity School for a Masters of Arts in Christian Studies this fall. In the meantime, he’s working for Presentation Services at the W Chicago Hotel. Working for Media Services, showed him “how to work under pressure and having deadlines has provided a basic understanding of how the ‘real world’ demands time from us,” he says.

Ryan Geary points to the research skills he learned on the job. Learning about library databases while working for the library helped him achieve academic success, he says. Ryan is volunteering for the Kenosha Sheriff’s Station and election campaigns as he pursues a career in Political Science. He says library databases kept him current on world events.

Ryan and Stephanie Finnvik both point to valuable customer service skills learned on the job. Stephanie will intern at the Johnson Space Center in Houston before attending graduate school at the University of North Dakota in the Space Studies program. “Sometimes it’s a challenge to understand what they need from you,” she says about working with customers, adding it was sometimes challenging to communicate what she wanted to them. “It’s a lesson for all!”

What? I have talked about YouTube in the past.  However, I wanted to mention YouTube in this column again because of all of the great resources that have been added to the Carthage YouTube site during this academic year. There are now over 270 videos uploaded to the site. Uploaded videos include Carthage athletic events, special events, presentations, and trips.

There is also a Carthage Library YouTube page that features videos on using Carthage technologies as well as information about registration, course evaluations, and the Teaching with Technology Series that I offered during this past spring semester.

Why? Carthage has so many interesting and exciting activities during the school year and no one make it to them all. During the summer you can peruse videos from past events that you may have missed; all from the comfort of your own home.

How? The easiest way to browse for videos is to look at the Playlists. When you are on the Carthage YouTube site, click on Videos towards the top of your computer screen. Next, click the link on the left called Playlists. Playlists include Carthage Athletics, J-Term Trips, Let’s Talk, Carthage Is, and Student Voices. You can also do a keyword search in the search bar on the upper right called Search Channel.

Check out the videos available on the Carthage and Hedberg YouTube sites for inspiration and information. If you are interested in creating video content, contact Mike Murphy.

Elvyn Scott in his senior year at Carthage.

Creating an archives exhibit is about helping people connect with the history ofCarthage.  Student worker Annie Zaske (’14) just installed  “A Time to Leap: CarthageCommencement Through the Years,” which sparked the interest of a senior whose great-grandparents attended Carthage in the early 1900s.  Drew Scott (’12), great-grandson of Elvyn Scott (’28) and Mabelle Magin Scott (’31), noticed the commencement exhibit in the library and contacted the library to say that he possessed similar papers from his great-grandfather.  Drew offered to loan us his papers , which included Elvyn’s diploma and graduation announcement.  Make sure to visit our commencement exhibit in the library and check out the addition of Elvyn’s papers from 1928!

–Abbi Brown, Archivist

This past month, 130 documents were updated or added to our information and technology knowledgebase – Albert.  You are invited to browse new information on Google Apps, media in the classrooms, my.carthage.edu, Promethean boards, GIS, YouTube and much more.
Now we need YOU to go out and show us what articles you like.   You can browse by category or search for specific terms.  Once you find a helpful document, scroll down just a bit, and click the circle next to “Helpful,” then click the “Rate It” button.  You can even post a comment by clicking on that link at the right.  Let us know what you think of the articles on Albert. Your feedback is crucial for keeping these articles relevant and informative.

– Carol Sabbar

What is Digital Carthage?  At its heart, Digital Carthage is an acknowledgment that more than ever before, people, and especially young people, are using digital technology to connect, communicate, and accomplish much of their work.  Digital Carthage refers to the technological foundation that allows myriad digital projects to seamlessly support our community, and especially our students, to use pads, tablets, laptops, and other personal technologies to accomplish their academic work and spend as little time as possible on administrative tasks.  Much of our work in LIS is to develop Digital Carthage to support and empower our students in meeting their goals.

Our goal is to make ALL College administrative processes and information available in digital form by 2015.  This is an aggressive timeline to be sure, but it can be done and we are well on our way.  Many of the processes that our students require such as advising, registration, and room selection are now part of Digital Carthage.  A number of other processes are in development and will be coming soon.

Using digital technology is convenient as it allows for communication and accomplishment even when people are in different locations.  It also decreases lines and waiting time so that everyone can use their time wisely.  During the recent online advising and registration period that ended last week, a number of students and advisors were in different locations from each other, but they reported that advising and registration were successful because Digital Carthage was there to support them with the information and processes that they needed.

An added benefit to Digital Carthage is the paper that can be saved when processes and information are born digital and stay digital.  In Hedberg Library alone, students use more than 1,000,000 pieces of paper per academic year.  Going green is good for the environment and saving trees is an excellent way to help.  I would like to report next year that as Digital Carthage expands to include more information and services, the amount of paper used for printing decreases.

Will you help make Digital Carthage even more successful?  Let me know if you have any suggestions for improving or adding services and information to Digital Carthage.  I always appreciate hearing from fellow Carthaginians who want to make Carthage even stronger.

Increasingly, Carthage faculty are going digital in the classroom. A number of faculty are decreasing, or eliminating, the use of paper in assignments. In honor of Earth Week, we explored the ways in which faculty are embracing the digital (and saving some trees.)

History professor Eric Pullin has relied on digital assignments since he began teaching at Carthage. His classes mean large numbers of papers to grade and keep track of. “The biggest gain” he says, “is organization. Everything is where I know it will be.” Further, “date stamps help eliminate excuses and lateness.” Digital assignments mean there is a digital trail he can follow.

The Chemistry department decided to incorporate a supplemental software package into their introductory courses this year. Walter Smith has found the paperless homework package offers many benefits for students and professors alike. The browser-based package allows students to complete homework from any device with an internet connection and gives immediate feedback to students on their answers.

“I particularly like the instant feedback feature,” Smith explains, “and educators agree the utility of homework for improving student learning is directly related to the immediacy of the feedback. You can’t do much better than providing feedback instantly!”  Smith has noted that homework grades have improved with the digital assignments.

Paperless assignments benefit students as well as helping to decrease the amount of paper thrown away each year. In fact, the library is researching cloud printing as a way to cut back on unintentionally printing. Instructional technologist Marta Magnuson and librarian Chris Grugel are both available to meet with faculty interested in exploring the many digital options available for paperless assignments.

Elizabeth Krcya, a junior majoring in Elementary Ed, has scanned and indexed thousands of records for preservation and access.

Carthage is in the process of moving many of our traditional paper and electronic documents into a more organized environment by 2015.  Carthage has strong experience in digitization of paper documents going back the last ten years. Onbase, a document imaging system, is heavily used by the Registrar’s Office , the Development Office, the College Archives, and Faculty Records.

In the Registrar’s Office, preservation and accuracy of records is always at the forefront of their ability to find information. A number of years ago, records retained on microfilm were beginning to get extremely brittle.  Katherine Young , Assistant Registrar, mentioned that “with records going back to the early days of Carthage, it was essential to transfer them to a different environment to ensure that they would never fade or decay.”  There are four students who work with these records to make sure that they are indexed correctly.

In the Development Office, digital imaging is managed by June Leisky, Assistant Director of Advancement Services.  Originally, the main demand for them was the lack of space.  June said, “We need to keep all the history and correspondence of alumni, parents, and friends in one place. Onbase has been an easy to use interface to scan and store records, and is also very secure, since many of our donors are sending in checks or other material that could have sensitive information.” The  Development Office currently has about 700,000 scanned documents.

The main goals of electronic document management are preservation, security, and access.  As documents travel through their life cycle, they may need to be available to some groups of users and then moved to a different set of users for additional input. This workflow process can track who looked at the document, what kind of action or input the user made, and where that document needs to travel next.

As we move towards an environment in which almost all records are born digital, Onbase will manage how users interact with those documents. Admissions, financial aid, and the business office will also use document imaging to manage the many records that each office has to keep.  Eventually, many of these records will be available to students through the portal so that they can see what what used to only be a paper file.

An upcoming OnBase project is the digitization of President Campbell’s papers this summer.  Over 25 years of records from the President’s Office will be scanned into OnBase and indexed by Abbi Brown, Archives and Digital Records Coordinator.  “Using OnBase for the President’s documents makes a lot of sense,” Abbi commented, “OnBase is flexible enough that we can use the document types and keyword structure within the software to replicate our archives hierarchical structure and metadata terms.  Once we have the records in OnBase, users will be able to access the files from their computers instead of requesting paper copies from the Archives.”

In September of 1957, Carthage’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to open a new campus location.  After years of financial challenges, shifts in synodical support, and searches for a suitable location, the Board chose Kenosha.
2012 marks the 50th anniversary of the Kenosha campus.  The Kenosha campus groundbreaking occurred on September 24, 1960 and the campus was dedicated on October 14, 1962.  Although Carthage originally intended to operate two campuses—the old campus in Illinois and the new campus in Wisconsin—circumstances soon forced the college to close the Illinois campus in 1964 and consolidate operations in Kenosha.

The daunting task of searching for a new location, building a new campus, and moving students, faculty, and administration up to Kenosha is documented in the latest archives exhibit in the Hedberg Library.  Created by student worker Sarah Kellogg, the display traces the tumultuous journey from the well-loved campus in rural Illinois to the modern campus along Lake Michigan.

View more photos here.

– Abbi Brown, Archivist