The RBC Library is excited to announce a monthly series of brown bag lunch programs. We will be offering faculty, staff, and interested students professional development programs approximately once each month during one of the Tuesday-Thursday open periods between 12:30 and 2:00 PM. We invite you to bring your lunch or a snack along with you to listen to these lectures.

MICHELLE DELANO: TEACHING WITH NEW TECHNOLOGY TOOLS

RBC art professor Michelle Delano will share how she and her art students at Richard Bland College are using new technology tools in their teaching and learning. They're using smartphones, iPads, tablets, digital cameras, and laptops both in the studio and the field, both on-campus and on school trips to conferences and exhibitions. See how our students are using these tools and consider how they might be used in other ways here at Richard Bland.

FREE WEB RESOURCES FOR JOB HUNTERS

FREE PIZZA AND DRINKS! (while supplies last)

RBC Library director Dan Ream has been training public librarians in Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware how to find and use these resources in half-day workshops for several years now and this will be a one-hour condensation that will highlight the sources most useful for college-aged job hunters in Virginia.

Specific topics covered by these websites will include: application and interviewing tips for success; how to find "hidden" job postings with Google searching; finding evaluations by past and current employees of what it's like (pros and cons) to work at certain companies; what training in job hunting and interviewing is offered by local area public libraries; and, using LinkedIn, Google and Yahoo! tools to make connections through friends at hiring companies and prepare for a job interview.

UNDERCOVER BOSS: UCR CHANCELLOR GOES UNDERCOVER

Come watch a screening and discussion of an episode of "Undercover Boss," where Tim White, the Chancellor of the University of California-Riverside, goes undercover to see what is really going on at his institution in these tough economic times. While the university is much larger than Richard Bland College, and not all of the issues match ours, the discussions on technology and student engagement are worth viewing. For more information on the episode, visit UCR's website and watch a preview of it!

Everyone is welcome to bring their lunch and participate in a discussion of the program and what it offers concerning the student experience today. Thanks to Prof. David Majewski for this interesting idea!

BLOGGING WITH SWEENEY

Professor Isaac Sweeney will be sharing how he is using blogging as a teaching tool for his English 101 and 102 students, whose blog entries are posted publicly for all to read. Not only can these blog posts be an interesting way of learning more about our RBC students, but we can (and are encouraged to) post replies to the students’ writings, also publicly. Prof. Sweeney will share students’ reactions to sharing their work so publicly, as well as how well this approach has worked so far. For an advance peak at the students’ blog posts see the links along the right margin of his Sweenglish blog, where the newest always appears at the top.

In addition to using blogging as a teaching tool, Professor Sweeney has also reached a national and international audience (and brought some new attention to Richard Bland College) with his Chronicle of Higher Education blog posts on "The 2 -Year Track" where he has published sometimes provocative essays on classroom behavior, grading, creativity, and the role of the faculty member in both the classroom and the community. Sometimes the numerous, thoughtful responses Isaac elicits rival the blog posts themselves in interest and value. Isaac will share how he became such a public voice of the 2-year faculty, as well as the pluses and minuses such a role entails.

Mark your calendars for February 7, and plan on joining us in the Library Community Room!

TECHNOLOGY PETTING ZOO

Thinking about getting a Nook, Kindle, iPad or other new e-reader or tablet for a Christmas or other holiday gift? Or maybe hoping to get one? The Technology Petting Zoo will offer a fantastic opportunity to learn about—and handle—some of the newer technology tools in a no-sales-pressure environment.

Funded by a grant from the Institute for Museum & Library Services (IMLS) and the Library of Virginia (our state library), librarians from Chesterfield County Public Library are providing Technology Petting Zoos at libraries throughout our region, as other selected libraries are doing elsewhere in the state. When asked if they would bring their road show to a small college library at Richard Bland College they responded with enthusiasm! Faculty, staff, and students are all welcome to attend!

FINDING THE BEST ON THE WEB WITH SELECTIVE WEB DIRECTORIES

How can you find the BEST web resources when researching a new topic? Faculty and researchers can often rely upon their subject expertise to identify the best resources, but that can be time consuming and can involve "kissing a lot of frogs before you find a prince," as some might say. And what of those who have no expertise on the topic they’re seeking? Like most college students? Or even faculty and staff searching outside of their area of expertise?

In this Library Brown Bag Lunch program, we’ll explore selective web directories. These are directories of free web resources, carefully selected by editors, that must have high quality information to be included. Examples include InfoMine for scholarly resources or Kidsclick! for the best web resources for children aged preschool through high school. Other selective directories are often more specialized in scope. We’ll explore these and others in this one-hour session. Bring your lunch and join us!

WHO DO YOU TRUST?: WIKIPEDIA AND THE AUTHORITY OF ANONYMOUS STRANGERS

In this session we’ll explore the strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia and also discuss other anonymously authored sources and their reliability. Should students use Wikipedia? Should you? Do you blush when telling someone you used Wikipedia as your source? Why do some faculty like Wikipedia more than most sources?

If you’d enjoy some provocative advance reading on this topic, see the results of a study published in the journal Nature in 2005 about the accuracy of science articles in Wikipedia versus those in Encyclopedia Britannica. You may be surprised at what they found—Britannica sure was!

No advanced registration is necessary, but if planning to attend one or more of our Library Brown Bag Sessions, please let Dan Ream know so that he might have an appropriate number of printed handouts available to share with you.

GOOGLE LIKE A PRO: USING ADVANCED GOOD SEARCH TOOLS

Since its debut in 1998, Google has changed dramatically. Its tools evolve so quickly and constantly that keeping up with them has always been challenging, to say the least! In this first brown bag session, Library Director Dan Ream will cover the following:

• Google searching techniques for locating the best quality of free web resources, including searching by reading level and searching by licensing permissions (for material you can freely re-use yourself);
• Google Customized Search engines, for creating a Google that searches only the best or your favorite web sites;
• Google Scholar for finding free scholarly literature online;
• Google Books search for searching indexed copies of over 15 million new and old books scanned by Google;
• Google News, including the many foreign language and international editions and creating news alerts.

No advanced registration is necessary, but if planning to attend one or more of our Library Brown Bag Sessions, please let Dan Ream know so that he might have an appropriate number of printed handouts available to share with you.