2017 VLA Annual Conference

This year I took on the job of being chair of the 2017 VLA Annual Conference Committee. The conference committee held its first meeting in December 2016. The past 10 months have been a whirlwind of emails, meetings, and decisions. The conference committee was vital to the success of this conference. From the barrage of memes on social media to planning the details behind the many events, everything we did contributed to what became a great conference. The memes were constant, and hilarious. Here are some of my favorites:

  

#2017VLA was at the Hilton Norfolk The Main in downtown Norfolk. It was a beautiful property with lots of great amenities and restaurants on site. Margot Lee Shetterly was our keynote speaker and she did an amazing job. It was one of the best keynote addresses I had ever heard. Below is the slideshow that I created to run prior to Ms. Shetterly's address.





I also created a version of this slideshow to run during the VLA annual business meeting, which was the closing session of the conference.





Being conference chair was an amazing experience, and one that I am so glad I was able to have. This was my third year working on a VLA conference, and I must say that it has given me a great appreciation for all the work that is put into these events. I'm looking forward to being just an attendee at #20178VLA.

2016 VLA Annual Conference

At the 2016 VLA Annual Conference in Hot Springs, VA. I once again coordinated the volunteers for the conference. I also presented a poster on my library's chat service. The poster can be seen below.

Promoting Instant Message to Increase Virtual Reference Traffic from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

At the end of the conference, my term as the new VLA Secretary began, and I was announced as next year's conference chair. I have a very busy year ahead of me.

VLA Secretary 2017-2018

I am very happy to announce that I have been elected to the VLA Executive Council as VLA Secretary. My two year term will begin at the VLA Annual Conference which is taking place at the Omni Homestead Resort on October 26-28, 2016. I want to thank everyone who voted for me. I am excited to begin this next phase of my VLA journey.

VLA 2017 Elections

I am happy to say that I am running for VLA Secretary this year.

The elections begin today. If you are a member of VLA please consider voting for me. My biographical information and candidate statement are below.

Candidate Statement: VLA has been a huge part of my growth as a librarian since I began my career in 2010. It has helped me find my passion as a librarian, and that passion is service through VLA. Once I began attending VLA sponsored events, I knew I wanted to give back in service to the wonderful librarian community that Virginia has. It is an honor to be nominated for VLA Secretary. Serving as VLA Secretary would be a great professional opportunity, and I believe that my work as Secretary/Treasurer of VLACRL, as well as my work on numerous campus committees, has prepared me for the position. I have learned a great deal about VLA serving in VLACRL, and on the VLA Conference Committee. I would enjoy the opportunity to record meeting minutes, handle correspondence, and establish a calendar of meetings for the Executive Committee and Council, as well as working with the Library of Virginia to maintain the Association Archives. If elected, I plan to put my strong organization and communication skills to use for the Association. Thank you for this opportunity.

Biography: Jennifer Resor-Whicker is a Reference/Instruction Librarian at Radford University’s McConnell Library, where she has been employed since 2010. She holds the faculty rank of assistant professor. She is an active member of the Radford University campus community, serving on various faculty committees and search committees. She is currently serving as McConnell Library’s representative to the Faculty Senate, and as the secretary of the Faculty Senate’s Curriculum Committee. Her BA in English literature and MLIS are both from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a graduate of the 2012 ACRL Teacher Track Immersion Program. She has published in Virginia Libraries, Communications in Information Literacy, Synergy and Internet Reference Services Quarterly. ALA’s Library Instruction Roundtable selected an article she co-authored with her RU colleagues on web evaluation as one of the top 20 articles of 2013.

Jennifer has been a member of VLA since 2008. She served as Secretary/Treasurer of VLACRL from 2013-2015. She served as co-chair to The Innovative Library Classroom conference for the 2014, 2015 and 2016 conferences. She is currently serving as a faculty member for the VLA Presentation Academy. She served as volunteer coordinator for the 2015 VLA Annual Conference, and is continuing her conference committee service as volunteer coordinator for the 2016 VLA Annual Conference.
 

My Shakespeare Favourites

In honor of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death I'm picking my favourites of Shakespeare. These answers would probably change depending on the day and my mood. That being said, I spent way too much time on this.

Day #1: Your favourite play - Romeo & Juliet

Day #2: Your favourite character - Beatrice

Day #3: Your favourite hero - Benedick

Day #4: Your favourite heroine - Rosalind

Day #5: Your favourite villain - Iago

Day #6: Your favourite villainess - Lady Macbeth 

Day #7: Your favourite clown - Dogberry or Touchstone

Day #8: Your favourite comedy - Much Ado About Nothing

Day #9: Your favourite tragedy - Othello

Day #10: Your favourite history - Henry VI, Part III

Day #11: Your least favourite play - Cymbeline 

Day #12: Your favourite scene - Much Ado, Act 5, scene 2
 
Day #13: Your favourite romantic scene - Romeo & Juliet, Act 2, scene 2

Day #14: Your favourite fight scene - Romeo & Juliet, Act 3, scene 1 Tybalt/Mercutio fight

Day #15: The first play you read - Romeo & Juliet

Day #16: Your first play you saw - Julius Caesar 

Day #17: Your favourite speech - Act 3, scene 2 Juliet's "Gallop apace you fiery steeds..."

Day #18: Your favourite dialogue - Othello, Act 4, scene 3, Desdemona and Emilia, "Wouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?..."

Day #19: Your favourite movie version of a play - Scotland, PA

Day #20: Your favorite movie adaptation of a play - Baz Luhrman's Romeo & Juliet

Day #21: An overrated play - Richard II

Day #22: An underrated play - Henry VI, Part III

Day #23: a part I haven't played but would like to: not an actor :)

Day #24: An actor or actress you would love to see in a particular role - Rick Blunt as Petruchio and Ben Curns as Orlando (simply for the wrestling scene)

Day #25: Sooner or later, everyone has to choose: Hal or Falstaff? - Hal

Day #26: Your favourite couple - Macbeth and Lady Macbeth

Day #27: Your favourite couplet - So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

Day #28: Your favourite joke - Hamlet, Act 3, scene 2, "Do you think I mean country matters?"

Day #29: Your favourite sonnet - Sonnet 18

Day #30: Your favourite single line - In following him, I follow but myself; or The fault dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

2016 Conference for Higher Education Pedagogy

My colleagues and I presented on our experiences with the Big Read NRV on Wednesday, February 10 at the 8th annual Conference on Higher Education Pedagogy in Blacksburg, VA. It was wonderful to be able to share our experiences with this great program. It was very rewarding to reach out the our student veterans on campus and the veterans in our New River Valley community. The presentation was well received, and we had a good discussion at the end of it. I hope we inspired others in academia to take on a Big Read project.

It takes a campus: Embracing veterans through common reading programs from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

Creating Effective Presentations in Prezis

I taught an Our Turn for RU faculty and staff last week on Creating Effective Presentations in Prezi. I wanted to give best practices for using Prezi as a presentation medium. Of course the presentation turned into something else. Most of those in attendance had never used Prezi. I think for the next Our Turn I will just have a drop-in session where people can come and ask questions about Prezi.

Presentation Academy 2015

I am currently one of the faculty members for the VLA Presentation Academy. The Presentation Academy is a hybrid experience that: matches prospective presenters together for panels and co-presentations, assists people in writing successful conference proposals (VLA or other), provides Webinars on effective presentation design, and gives feedback to participants on presentations.

We held our initial meeting at UVA on March 2. We had 35 attendees for the half day event. This day was focused on brainstorming activities, and activities focused on creating effective proposals.

After this workshop, participants could submit proposals to us that we would then offer feedback on. Many of these proposals were submitted to the VLA annual conference. Presentation Academy proposals had an acceptance rate of 92%. In June and July we offered webinars on Designing Effective Presentations and Engaging Audiences. Candice Benjes-Small and I presented the webinar on Designing Effective Presentations and Rebecca K. Miller and Nathan Flinchum presented the webinar on Engaging Audiences. The Designing Effective Presentations PPT can be seen below.

Designing Effective Presentations - Slides and Notes from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

Another cohort of the Presentation Academy began at the 2015 VLA annual conference. Our second meeting of that cohort is in March 2016 in Staunton, VA.

We also offered an ALA webinar on our experience planning and facilitating the Presentation Academy. The webinar can be seen here.

We are also scheduled to hold pre-conferences at the upcoming Tennessee Library Association Conference and the joint Maryland/Delaware Library Association Conference.

Big Read NRV

Last year I joined a committee that was tasked with bringing the Big Read to the New River Valley. Librarians, faculty and staff from Radford University, Virginia Tech, New River Community College, Radford Public Library, Montgomery/Floyd Public Libraries, Pulaski Public Library, and the Glencoe Museum and Gallery joined together to make this happen. My co-worker, Lisa Vassady, was the chair of this committee, and so RU took point on this initiative. We chose the book The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien. Thankfully we were awarded a $15,000 grant, and the Big Read NRV began.

Our programming began October 2, 2015, with the kick-off event at New River Community College with at presentation by, Hendrix College professor, war literature scholar and Tim O'Brien expert, Alex Vernon. Dr. Vernon's presentation, "Field Notes from The Things They Carried," was insightful and a wonderful way to start off our programming. Throughout the next 6 weeks there were book groups, art exhibits, a health and wellness event, events focused on children and teens, presentations, movie showings, panel discussions, a conference and a concert.

The Big Read NRV concluded with a presentation by the author himself, Tim O'Brien. The grand finale was held at Virginia Tech, and featured an outstanding talk from Mr. O'Brien. The Grand Finale wrapped up with him sticking around to talk to attendees and sign books.

The copy of The Things They Carried that author Tim O'Brien signed for Lisa, Alyssa and I.

Big Read NRV committee members with author Tim O'Brien at the Grand Finale event.
Photo by Lora Gordon.

My co-worker, Alyssa Archer, and I were there to assist Lisa every step of the way. At the time we took this on, we had no idea what we had gotten ourselves into. This was a huge undertaking, and there is no telling how many hours we put in on this project alone. This project was immensely rewarding though. It was wonderful to see the community come together to share this beautiful work of literature. It was wonderful to be able to reach out to the veterans on campus and in our community. Working with our different partners was a very gratifying experience. We created partnerships that I am sure will continue in the future. It is wonderful to be apart of such an amazing community.

The Innovative Library Classroom Conference 2015

This is year two of The Innovative Library Classroom Conference, and I am very fortunate to be a co-chair of the conference for another year. It was held at Radford University on May 12, 2015. This year's conference had a proposal acceptance rate of 41%. There were 82 attendees, and 38 different institutions were represented from 10 states. I am so very proud of the way this conference has grown.

This year I also co-presented a conversation starter with Katelyn Tucker. This conversation starter was focused on online instruction videos. We wanted to get a dialogue going about how different libraries are handling online instruction videos. We had a great conversation and I feel like everyone left with new ideas on how to create and manage their online instruction videos. Below is the Prezi we used to guide the discussion.



We also published an article on using Prezi to create online instruction videos based on this presentation and the poster that we presented at Metrolina and VLA. The article was published by Internet Reference Services Quarterly in November 2015 and can be seen here.

2015 VLA Annual Conference

The 2015 VLA Annual Conference was held in Richmond, VA on October 21-24. This year I had the honor to be a member of the VLA conference committee and the volunteer coordinator. This was a huge undertaking that I began working on in the spring. I had to manage volunteers for the entire conference. We could not have done it without the wonderful people who volunteered their time. There were 80 sessions and 80+ volunteers that helped everything run smoothly. Volunteers moderated sessions, pointed conference goers in the right direction and assisted with lunch distribution as well as luncheon and social gatherings. It was a great conference, and I got to meet a lot of wonderful librarians. Virginia libraries have created a community like no other.

I'm so proud to have been a member of this committee.

On top of being the volunteer coordinator I also co-presented a session with Candice Benjes-Small on Urban Legends and Practical Pedagogy, and co-presented a pre-conference that began the new cohort of the Presentation Academy with Candice Benjes-Small, Rebecca K. Miller and Nathan Flinchum. It was a busy 3 days for me.

I've agreed to be the volunteer coordinator at next year's VLA annual conference as well. The fun continues.

VLA 2016 Elections

I am honored to say that I was asked to run for Treasurer of VLA this year.

The elections begin today. If you are a member of VLA please consider voting for me. My biographical information and candidate statement are below.

Biographical Information
Jennifer Resor-Whicker is a Reference/Instruction and the Honors Academy Librarian at Radford University’s McConnell Library, where she has been employed since 2010. She holds the faculty rank of assistant professor. Jennifer has been a member of VLA since 2008. She served as Treasurer/Secretary of VLACRL from 2013-2015. She served as cochair to The Innovative Library Classroom conference for the 2014 and 2015 conferences. She is currently serving as a faculty member for the 2015 VLA Presentation Academy, and as volunteer coordinator for the 2015 VLA Annual Conference. Jennifer also serves as a member of the McConnell Library’s Outreach Committee, where she works to provide targeted support to RU’s faculty. She has represented the library as a member of RU’s Faculty Senate since 2013, and served on RU’s QEP ScholarCitizen Planning and Launch Committees. She has also served as a member and chair of McConnell Library’s Personnel Committee, and as chair of the library’s Faculty Committee. She holds an MLIS and a BA, both from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She is a graduate of the 2012 ACRL Teacher Track Immersion Program. She has published in Virginia Libraries and in Communications in Information Literacy. ALA’s Library Instruction Roundtable selected an article she co-wrote with her RU colleagues on web evaluation as one of the top 20 articles of 2013.

Candidate Statement
I am honored to be nominated for the position of treasurer of VLA. I am excited by the opportunity this brings for me to become more involved in VLA. This has been a goal of mine since moving to Virginia in 2010. I am regarded in my library for my organizational skills. In my previous life I was an office manger for a commercial plumbing company, where I handled all the accounting duties. I believe my skill set matches up well with the duties of the VLA Treasurer. Thank you for this opportunity.

2014 VLA Annual Conference

In October 2014, I attended and presented at the 2014 VLA Annual Conference in Williamsburg, VA. I presented a poster with Katelyn Tucker on using Prezi to create online instruction videos. It can be seen below.

Zoom into online instruction: Using Prezi in online instruction videos from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

I also presented for the first time on the research I received IRB approval for concerning McConnell Library's chat reference service. It can be seen below.

ALA's LIRT Top Instruction Articles of 2013

I am so very excited to report that the article that I co-authored with Candice Benjes-Small, Alyssa Archer, Lisa Vassady and Katelyn Tucker was selected as one of the top 20 instruction articles of 2013 by ALA's Library Instruction Round Table. The announcement can be found here. This article, Teaching web evaluation: A cognitive development approach, was published in Communications in Information Literacy in 2013. The article can be seen here. We were also recognized by Senator Mark Warner for this achievement. Needless to say we were all quite excited about this recognition. This may be the best semester ever. :)

Letter from Sen. Mark Warner

9th Annual Metrolina Library Association Conference

My colleagues and I presented on our web evaluation class for the last time at the 9th annual Metrolina Library Association Conference held in Charlotte, NC on Thursday, June 12. I presented this concurrent session with Lisa Vassady, Alyssa Archer and Craig Arthur. We also wrote an article on our constructivist approach to teaching web evaluation that appeared in Communications in Information Literacy in 2013. The article can be seen here. The Metrolina presentation can be seen below.



I also presented a poster with Katelyn Tucker on using Prezi to create online instruction videos. It can be seen below.

Zoom into online instruction: Using Prezi in online instruction videos from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

Roanoke Valley Library Association Presentation

I was invited to speak at the Roanoke Valley Library Association Spring Meeting on May 15, 2014. I gave a presentation about using Prezi as a presentation tool. The presentation can be seen below.

The Innovative Library Classroom Conference 2014

On May 13, 2014, we held The Innovative Library Classroom Conference at Radford University. This conference was the brain child of Candice Benjes-Small and Rebecca K. Miller. I am so fortunate that they asked me to help them out as a co-chair. Organizational skills are a known superpower of mine. :)

Registration for this conference filled up in less than one day! We had 83 participants from 9 different states. It was an amazing day with lots of great presentations and conversations. I do hope we do this again next year.

2013 Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

I co-presented a session on our web evaluation class with Lisa Vassady at the 2013 Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy that was held in Savannah, GA on August 23-24. the presentation can be seen below.

8th Annual Metrolina Library Association Conference

On June 13, 2013, I presented a poster at the 8th annual Metrolina Library Association Conference in Charlotte, NC. The poster was on Prezi and library instruction and can be seen below.

Free to Roam (the Infinite Canvas): Using Prezi in Library Instruction from Jennifer Resor-Whicker

I also co-presented a concurrent session with Lisa Vassady and Alyssa Archer. The session was titled A Novel Approach to Instruction Assessment: Using Worksheet Observation Assessment in One-Shot Instruction Classes and can be seen below.

Reference Questions, 2/6/2013

[8-10 pm shift] Tonight's first shift was busy. A history class has a project due tomorrow.

1. Looking for more computers
2. Had a question about creating a chart in Excel
3. (Chat) Question about evaluating websites
4. (Email) Wanted someone to proofread the reference list for her paper
5. Wanted to know how to look up a dissertation
6. Looking for History Today in print
7. Looking for his textbook
8. (Phone) Wanted to know the difference between a bibliography and a reference list
9. Looking for Book Review Digest
10. (Email) Question about citing a court case
11. Looking for the reserves
12. Looking for the periodical Choice