Report on the E-Resource Training Workshops Proposal Drafting

 

January 7, 2005

The grant proposal for the second year of the NCC's project to develop a series of E-Resource Training Workshops offered at regional conferences and seminars nationally was submitted to the Japan Foundation on November 1, 2004. The writing of the grant was coordinated by NCC Executive Director Victoria Bestor and assisted by members of the NCC's T-3 Committee and the Regional Training Network Steering Committee. A copy of the project statement for that proposal has been distributed to members.

As stated in the grant request narrative, the long-term objective of this project is to make comprehensive hands-on training in Japanese digital materials available to faculty and students in all parts of the country for use in teaching and research in Japanese studies. By working with regional groups which will co-sponsor workshops and provide considerable in-kind support, this project will effectively leverage the funding received to the benefit of the field of Japanese studies as a whole. Thus far $5,000 in co-sponsoring funding has been received from the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies at Harvard to support one or more regional workshops to be offered at Harvard during FY 05-06; $800 has been received from the Society for East Asian Anthropology (SEAA) for a workshop in conjunction with the 2005 AAA Meetings in Washington DC, and the ASIANetwork has arranged for meeting space and will provide the services of one instructor-librarian.

This effort began during FY 2004-05 when the Japan Foundation generously provided the lead funding for the first year, the Training the Trainers (T-3) Workshops. Year-One progressed according to plan with two workshops training 33 librarian-instructors in the best practices for offering hands-on training to faculty and students; and laying the groundwork for developing the Regional Training Network (RTN) to extend training from librarians to end-users which has now swung into action.

The three principal goals for activities during fiscal year 2005-06 include:

  1. offering up to ten E-Resource Training Workshops employing the 33 librarian-instructors trained in the T-3 Workshops;
  2. developing (on the NCC web site) a web-based archive of lesson plans for training faculty and students created by the instructors, augmented by a series of online tutorials and user guides offering instruction about a broad range of systems and formats for digital information; and
  3. establishing an internet-based discussion group led by T-3-trained instructors, to assist other librarians and faculty who are developing instructional resources, and to answer questions from users and to offer further help on electronic resources in Japanese studies. In this effort we will be building on our experience with AskEASL (As an East Asian Studies Librarian) in which the NCC has collaborated since 2000.

Further details on the project as planned are outlined in the grant proposal narrative which has been circulated to Council Members.