Assignment+4

= Part A. Two year action plan for Manhattanville College  = Manhattanville College is located in Purchase, NY and host1,700 undergraduate students and 1,200 graduate students is diverse, representing over 48 states and 76 countries. Manhattanville College's School of Education is rated amongst the best in the region along with its other programs. Manhattanville College is one of the few schools that require students to take a one credit class in library skills. Although, Manhattanville faces some difficulties as one notes below overall the school and library are good.

One of the challenges facing Manhattanville College Librarians is collaboration among departments on campus. Over the next two years Manhattanville Librarians will be expected to:
 * Collaboration**


 * Have an outstanding opportunity to learn and share ideas through their collaboration with academic departments at the college by effectively advocating our worth.
 * Take part in strategic planning, direction, and coordination of system wide initiatives.
 * The librarians will engage broadly in the Manhattanville community to promote programs and raise awareness of the library’s resources and services.
 * The librarian will participate actively in forums on the national level related to academic libraries.

Through these activities, the librarians will raise the profile of Manhattanville and its library as an innovative research institution for the twenty-first century.

It is critical that Manhattanville College library align its visions and mission towards the twenty –first century with the overall leadership. Over the next two years it is expected that the library director will:
 * Leadership**
 * Work closely with the College Administration and staff members at all levels.
 * Assess and strengthen organizational structure and operations.
 * Lead staff members to collaborate effectively by aligning them around a shared mission and vision for what the library can become, with clear goals and benchmarks to measure success.
 * Create a learning environment for staff to prepare them for new roles and will promote a culture that fosters innovative approaches, experimentation, and risk taking.

The Manhattanville College Library curriculum needs are changing rapidly due to new technologies and service models. The Library will allocate resources in the most strategic manner possible, focusing on our students needs in order to maximize learning. Over the next two years the library will:
 * Curriculum**


 * Build, sustain, and preserve a collection of information resources that is relevant to current and future campus teaching and research needs.
 * Provide print and digital resources to students in a timely manner. Reduce time to make materials available.
 * Create and sustain innovative programs that promote information literacy to support discovery, learning, and research.
 * Identify and evaluate new services that support students changing information needs.

The Manhattanville College Library's technologies are a bit outdated. Although the students and staff have access to audio, video and computers, technology is changing towards off campus access and mobile computing. Over the next two years we will secure funding to create:
 * Educational Technology**


 * A library learning common that fosters the needs of students to engage in useful learning and knowledge sharing.
 * Implement an open source Integrated Library System that supports mobile technologies.
 * Integration of online tutorials by purchasing Camtasia Screen recording software and sending a librarian to learn the software.

The Manhattanville College Library will provide their librarians and staff professional development to keep up with the twenty-first century learner. We will also provide professional development workshops to college faculty and staff to help learn the benefits that the library can offer each of them. Over the next two years the library will: = = =Part B.=
 * Professional Development**
 * Take advantage of courses in technology at both local and national events.
 * Continue to develop by taking online courses as well as college level courses.
 * Provide instruction to faculty which will advocate the offering of our library.

Please see log form.

=Part C Reflection.=


 * To what extend does the NYSED rubric match the reality of your field service experience?**

Although, I did my observation in an Academic Library one feels that the document is a good metric to determine how well any library program is doing. One is not sure if Library Media Specialist are aware of it, but would tend to think so.


 * Given what you have observed, what do you see as the greatest challanges facing new LMSs?**

Based upon what I observed it seems that the greatest challenge is that of collaboration. On the Academic level this is also an issue. The librarians try to connect with the different departments, but run into problems as the faculty have only a limited time to get their information in, let alone extra time spent in the library. Second, the ability to gauge whether students actually learned the content and how best to assess them.


 * Which specific sections of the rubric do you believe are the most important? Why?**

The most important sections of the rubric are, Information Literacy, Reading, Assessment for learning, Teaching for Diverse Learning Needs, Inquiry Learning and Staffing. The reason for my selection are based on learner outcomes. I believe strongly that our job is to educate our students and ensure that they take away the necessary skills to be life long learners.