News

Throughout April, the CIMC will honor National Poetry Month by featuring children’s poetry on a variety of subjects and themes. Additionally, exhibits will highlight the life and works of celebrated poets and resources for teaching poetry. Accompanying this display is our poetry webliography.

The CIMC celebrates National Library Week from April 18-24! Research shows that students perform better academically when they have access to a school library, and better still when the library is staffed by a trained librarian. Displays will feature materials about libraries, the teacher-librarian relationship, and information literacy.

May is Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. A display featuring literature and other materials will celebrate the rich and colorful culture of Asian and Pacific Americans in the United States.

May will also feature a display with materials to help students and faculty cope with the stress that comes with the end of the semester.

Posted by Erica Arroyo on April 15, 2004

During the past month CIMC staff have been actively engaged in our annual planning process to determine prioriities for 2004-05. This process has included a review of our accomplishments and challenges in 2003-04 as well as an identification of activities on the horizon in 2004-05. This review and identification has resulted in a plan of action for next year that emphasizes the interrelated themes of collections, collaborations and facilities.

The need to look at Collections in 2004-05 is the result of many forces. For a number of years, the CIMC's collection funds have not kept pace with the cost of materials. The CIMC is not alone in this phenomenon.-it is common acrosss the UW System. As a result of this issue the UW System has appointed a Collection Management Task Force which is charged to conduct a through review of collection managemnt issues of import to UW System libraries. Stronger collaborations in developing coordinated and complementary collections across the UW System is a likely outcome of the work of this task force. In addition to stronger collaborations with other UW System libraries, the libraries on the Madison campus have also been conducting a close examination of our collective practices in developing library collections. The opening of the Madison School and Community Education Library will also provide us with another opportunity for collaborative collection development.

Collaborations in developing and providing access to electronic resources will also be important for the CIMC in 2004-05. The changes in focus for the ERIC system have already led to new national collaborations in providing acess to resources in education (see article on the Educator's Reference Desk in the March newsletter). The availability of the Professional Development Collection and Teaching Books.net as part of Badgerlink will also impact our activities. The keyserved software library is a collaborative project of the IT units of the School (see http://labweb.education.wisc.edu/library/) to support shared software needs of the School. In 2004-05 we hope to extend our collaborations with other SOE IT units and with units throughout the campus in order to better serve the needs of the SOE.

Collections and collaborations both involve the third priority area for the CIMC in 2004-05-facilities. During this past year, CIMC staff have been working on the "Big Shift", a project in which we are moving all materials in our PreK-12 collection in order to make room for new materials. In 2004-05, a campus storage facility for low use library materials will be opened in the current Middleton Health Sciences Library. The CIMC hopes to be able to move some of our low use materials to that facility as well as to remove materials from the collection that are duplicated in other campus libraries, are available electronically, or are in superseded formats. These steps are necessary as our shelves are 85-90% full.

As we look at our facilities, we will also consider adapting the CIMC space to meet the needs of the students, staff and faculty of the SOE. During many times of the class day, all study and consulting seats in the CIMC are occupied. Increasingly we are not able to honor requests for use of the computer classrooms as these spaces are already in use. Our circulation desk was designed for a time when card files not computers were used and is becoming increasingly unworkable as we increase the types of electronic and media equipment which is borrowed from that service area.

As we consider steps needed to adapt the CIMC's physical facility to meet the changing needs of the School, there are some things we don't want to change. We want the CIMC to continue to be a place of community; to be a place of hope,growth and possibility-for isn't that what the School of Education is all about?

Posted by Jo Ann Carr on April 15, 2004

Since passage of NCLB in January 2002, this far reaching educational reform act as been both extolled and decried for its impact on American schools. Not only is NCLB a topic in the 2004 presidential election, but it is also the topic of many books, articles, and web sites. The CIMC has compiled a list of resources to assist students, faculty, and staff in their understanding of NCLB available at http://cimc.education.wisc.edu/ed_info/professional_guides/nclb.html

Posted by Jo Ann Carr on April 15, 2004

This significant resource for professional educators includes 751 full text journals, including more than 350 peer-reviewed publications. EBSCO, the database supplier, claims, “This is the most comprehensive and most valuable collection of full text education journals in the world. In addition to full text, indexing and abstracts are provided for nearly 850 journals.”

Available journals include: Curriculum Administrator, Education, Educational Leadership, High School Journal, Journal of Education, Journal of Educational Research, Journal of Learning Disabilities, Phi Delta Kappan and Reading Teacher. A list of the full text titles in this database is available at http://www.epnet.com/titlelists/html/tf_ft_h1.htm The majority of full text titles included in the database are available in native (searchable) PDF, or scanned-in-color PDF files. Full text articles as far back as 1965 are included in the EBSCO Professional Development Collection.

You can explore this new resource by going to the UW Library home page at http://www.library.wisc.edu/ , select “Journals, Magazines and Newspapers”, click on “A” and select “Academic Search (1984-)”, the fifth database on the “A” list. Once in “Academic Search (1984-)”, click on the “Choose Databases” tab in the upper middle part of the page. The resulting page is an alphabetical list of databases. Click on the blue “Professional Development Collection” link, fourth title from the bottom of the list. A quick link for this resource is being added to the CIMChome page and to MadCat.

Posted by on April 14, 2004

TeachingBooks.net, is now available via the UW-Madison’s Library Homepage (http://www.library.wisc.edu).

What is TeachingBooks.net?
TeachingBooks promotes the spirit of and enthusiasm for quality children’s and young adults’ books by utilizing Internet technologies to give all educators easy access to authors and authoritative teaching resources. Through TeachingBooks, educators can better understand the spirit and personality behind the books and discover exciting ways to share these insights with children and teens.

At the website, you can access
• exclusive interviews of authors and illustrators
• discussion guides for specific books
• audio excerpts of books being read
• booklists on various themes
• information about book awards
• links to authoritative online resources

How can I access TeachingBooks.net?
While it may be easy to type the address into your server’s URL address window, that won’t get you the free registration you need in order to access all of the resources on the TeachingBooks website.

Instead, follow these simple steps to sign up for your individual account:
1. Go to the UW-Madison’s Library Homepage (http://www.library.wisc.edu).
2. Click on EITHER the link titled “Reference: Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and more” OR the link titled “E-Books, E-Texts, and Multimedia.”
3. Click on the TeachingBooks link under the “T” section of the alphabet.
4. Click on the link titled “Teachingbooks.net First Time User.” This will allow you to fill out and submit a form which includes the sponsorship access code for UW Madison.

After you’ve registered once, you need only remember your email address and the password you created for your TeachingBooks account. Then you, too, can benefit from all of these children’s and young adult’s literature resources in one electronic location.

Questions?
Call the CIMC Reference Desk at 263-4751.
Or email us at askCIMC@education.wisc.edu .

Posted by on April 14, 2004

CIMC staff will offer five workshops as part of the May Teaching and Learning Symposium, May 18-21, 2004. Workshops include Inspiration and Concept Maps, Beyond Skill to Literacy, Advanced Google, and Creating, Changing and Using Digital Images. As part of this event, Jo Ann Carr will assist in facilitating a panel discussion which addresses ways in which we use technology as an instrument of contemporary and multidisciplinary learning. Are we preparing students to meet this goal?

Plans for summer instruction

This time of year, the CIMC instruction team reviews the Summer timetable with an eye towards which courses could be supplemented by CIMC topics for instruction. CIMC staff will be contacting SoE faculty to learn more about the course taught and to make suggestions for CIMC topics that could be supplemented for the course. To request course-related instruction for summer courses, contact Catherine Stephens at cstephens@education.wisc.edu .

Watch for the summer schedule of workshops and programs to appear online by early May. Topics include an introduction to Learn@UW course web tool, Advanced Google, Organizing Resources with EndNote, and drafting web pages using Dreamweaver.

Please contact Catherine Stephens to offer your suggestion for summer instruction at the CIMC.

Posted by Catherine Stephens on April 14, 2004

The CIMC owns hundreds of educational and psychological tests. To find these tests, search MadCat, and begin by limiting your search to the CIMC collection. Using MadCat’s Guided Search option, you can search by title, author, keyword, or subject.

Some subject headings to try are:
child development testing
personality tests
preschool tests
psychological tests
psychological tests for children
mathematical ability testing
readiness for school ability testing
spelling ability testing

CIMC tests are located in two different locations: the Professional stacks (upstairs) and the restricted collection. Tests located in the professional stacks may be checked out by any patron with a valid UW-Madison ID.

Restricted collection tests require special permission to view or check out. More information and special permission forms can be obtained at the CIMC Reference desk or you may download and print the Restricted Test Authorization Form. These forms must be filled out and signed by either a School of Education faculty member or a State of Wisconsin licensed psychologist or psychiatrist on the University faculty. See a reference librarian for details.

Sample Resources to Locate Tests and Measurements

The ETS Test Collection (Ref LB 3051 E79) - http://www.ets.org/testcoll
Contains thousands of descriptions for achievement in vocational, special populations, cognitive, intelligence, attitude, and personality tests, some of which may be found in the ETS Tests in Microfiche collection. On the Educational Testing Service's (ETS) website, access not only the ETS test collection database, but also research, news, reports and other testing resources. Additional indexing is available at the Ohio State University Libraries online.

Health and Psychosocial Instruments (HAPI) Database
Identify measurement tests used in health, psychosocial sciences, organizational behavior, and library and information science. HAPI can also be accessed from the UW-Madison Libraries Home page: from the main page, click on Journal, Magazine, Newspaper Databases; click on H and then scroll to the HAPI link.

Mental Measurements Yearbooks (Ref Z 5814 P8 B932)
Provides descriptive information, references, and critical reviews of commercially published English language tests. Mental Measurements is also available through the UW-Madison Libraries Home page: click on Reference: Encyclopedias, Dictionaries and more; click on M and then scroll to the Mental Measurements link. The University of Nebraska has created a guide to the online version. The University of Waterloo offers a guide to the print version of the MMY.

PsycINFO Database The American Psychological Association database of citations and abstracts from the world's literature in psychology and related subjects. Also includes links to full-text articles in APA journals.

Related Resources

American Psychological Association - http://www.apa.org
The website of the APA. It provides information about recent research and testing trends, reviews of published resources, and serves as a good general information site for testing. Their Science Directorate FAQ on Finding Information About Psychological Tests covers information on published and unpublished psychological tests and measures, how to locate and obtain them, and how to find computerized testing materials. Detailed information on the coverage of Tests in Print, Mental Measurements Yearbook, Tests, and Test Critiques is provided. The FAQ can be found at http://www.apa.org/science/faq-findtests.html.

The Buros Institute - Includes links and online guides for their publications, including Mental Measurements Yearbook and Tests in Print. A handy classification of tests into eighteen categories can be found at http://buros.unl.edu/buros/jsp/category.html.

Code of Fair Testing Practices in Education -
Prepared by the Joint Committee on Testing Practices, APA.

National Center for Research on Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST)
Information about K-12 assessment research. Also gives access to technical reports and articles related to test effectiveness, construction, and procedures.

For further help, contact the Reference Desk at 263-4751.

Posted by Catherine Stephens on April 14, 2004