Assessment of Electronic Information lecture and workshop
In the evening, Piotr Lapo and I attended ballet performances of Carmina Burana and a Carmen Suite at the National Academic Great Opera and Ballet Theatre. The building has just been reconstructed, and it is red and gold inside, with excellent acoustics. We had trouble reserving seats, and had to sit on the side, but the view was fine. Minsk is known for its ballet, and the performances and choreography were excellent.
The next day, Wednesday, I had only one three-hour presentation, on “Assessment of Electronic Libraries: Methods and Tools,” which focused on ARL e-metric standards, web surveys, transactional log analysis, COUNTER standards, and how to analyze the collected data. This presentation was the first of a two-day workshop/presentation on library assessment. The second day would be hands-on, and would take place at the computer lab of the Belarusian State University Fundamental Library. The presentations and exercises for these two days benefited by being scheduled at the end of the week. By now, I had a clearer sense of what was expected, and revised the lectures and exercises accordingly. On Wednesday we would cover theory and techniques.
On Thursday we would do hands-on exercises, both in print and online. I intended to use limesurvey, an interesting web survey creation tool, which Linnea Johnson and I had used before. Its primary advantage is its language packs, which although not complete, are good. It was important to find a Russian language survey tool to use. I had two reservations about using limesurvey. Firstly, it was installed on the GSLIS server, and I was not sure about the network from Belarus to Boston. However, we have used this tool previously with XAMPP as a local installation, obviating the need for the network, so we had a plan B. Secondly, I was not confident that simply turning on the Russian language pack, showing a sequence of steps to write a question, and letting the participants design a survey would succeed as an instructional approach. The lecture on theory appeared to go well.
That afternoon I attended a July 4th reception of the US Charge d’Affaires. The reception was held at the country house of the US embassy, about 35 km outside of Minsk. The political situation with US-Belarus foreign relations is complex, and if someone wants an accurate representation of the US concerns, see: http://minsk.usembassy.gov/ From my point of view, it appears that there is much change and transition at this time. The ambassador and most of the embassy staff had been asked to leave over one year ago. There was only a small staff left, including the public affairs officer (PAO) and the Charge d’Affaires. However, both people in these positions are being cycled out, and the new PAO and Charge d’Affaires were at the reception.
The country house is beautiful, sitting on a lake. The reception was very pleasant, and I met publishers, other librarians, the new embassy staff, the person in charge of IATP – a networking initiative, and others to whom the solicitous IRC librarians introduce me. I stayed to the end of the party.
A minor adventure occurred that evening as it appeared that the GSLIS installation of limesurvey was down. I sent out a flurry of emails, and waited for morning.
Terry
