Rebecca French

Being present, supporting presence: Ideas for online teaching and facilitation

Co-presented with Jody Condit Fagan Presentation given for the ACRL Contemplative Pedagogy Interest Group Abstract Although many campuses are returning to in-person classes and meetings, plenty of libraries are still holding events online. How can you as a facilitator or teacher be more fully present when leading or teaching online? How can you support attendees’ […]

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Developing your personal leadership philosophy

Presentation at the Conference on Academic Library Management Abstract Do you know who you are as a leader? Self-awareness has been described as the “most important capability for leaders to develop” (George et al., 2007), and research shows that it is positively correlated with leadership effectiveness and team performance (Carden et al., 2021). Developing a

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Planning batch cataloging projects

Webinar presented for ALA Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures Abstract Many libraries have uncataloged collections or backlogs which could benefit from batch processing, and much professional development for metadata specialists focuses on software tools that can facilitate this work, but it is not always clear how to get started putting those new skills into action. This

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To discovery and beyond: Using workflow automation as an opportunity for collaboration and education

Poster presentation for The Exchange: An ALCTS/LITA/LLAMA Collaboration virtual conference Abstract This poster describes a project to automate portions of JMU Libraries’ workflow for distributing Special Collections finding aids to various discovery platforms. Through the development of a custom Python app called Spaceport, we were able to greatly improve the efficiency and sustainability of this

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Secrets of the save file: Using Connexion and Microsoft Access for efficient batch cataloging projects

Presentation at the Music OCLC Users Group Meeting, Norfolk, VA Abstract Have you ever wished you could limit your Connexion batch search results to the one OCLC record with the most holdings? Or hoped for a way to confidently match those search results to existing metadata from your ILS without handling each record one by

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Small steps make giant leaps: An incremental approach to technical services workflow automation

Presentation at the Amigos online conference Work Smarter, Not Harder: Innovating Technical Services Workflows Abstract James Madison University Libraries’ workflow for distributing its Special Collections finding aids to various discovery platforms historically involved a significant amount of manual data entry and hand-encoding. Through a series of small steps, we have been gradually improving this process

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Empowering your staff to solve problems: Evidence-based training for strategic thinking

Co-presented with Jennifer Keach Presentation at the Virginia Library Association Annual Conference, Norfolk, VA Abstract Are you teaching procedures or are you teaching problem solving? Discover an approach to help develop your staff’s strategic thinking skills to meet the needs of the 21st-century library workplace. Explore how to apply learning theory and walk away with

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