CONCURRENT SESSIONS
SESSION A: ACRL Activities and Initiatives – Husted room 219
Steven Bell, President, Association of College and Research Libraries and Associate University Librarian for Research and Instructional Services, Paley Library, Temple University
The ACRL Officers Speakers Bureau provides fund to give chapters the opportunity to invite members of the ACRL Board and the Executive Director to the region as participants in chapter activities. The purpose of the visit is to speak about the activities and initiatives of ACRL and to learn of members’ interests at chapter level.
SESSION B: User Experience (UX): More Than Just Usability Testing – Husted room 214
Stephanie Hartman, User Experience Librarian, MIT Libraries
User Experience has become a sexy topic in recent years, yet is sometimes limited to discussions of web usability. It can and should be so much more! When the MIT Libraries were reorganized in 2010, the User Experience Group (UX) was established to apply knowledge of usability, design and user research across library services and public spaces, in addition to user interfaces on the web. In this talk, Stephanie will discuss a variety of physical space projects from the last few years. These include:
- “Patron for a Day” (empathy building + usability test of our physical spaces)
- A three-part space study (included observations, a “task” survey and lively flip charts)
- Heuristic evaluations of our physical spaces (little changes = big difference)
She will also discuss the political implications of space improvements (i.e. “everyone” has an opinion), and using data to convince the person with the purse strings!
SESSION C: The Web That Time Forgot – Husted room 204
Alex Wright, Director of User Experience and Product Research at The New York Times and the author of Glut: Mastering Information Through the Ages
Alex will discuss his forthcoming book from Oxford University Press.