Head Tale

The remainder of my cohort who are still at FIMS are trading info on our Yahoo! group about the courses that might be interesting/useful/fun for summer term and so I, of course, had to chime in with my thoughts.  Here's what I wrote to them:

—
Hey all,



If anybody's interested, I combed through the end-of-term evaluations
that are in a binder in the GRC and recorded the profs/courses that got
over a 6.0 out of 7.0 in their evaluations during the past year or so.



Of course, this shouldn't be the be all and end all of how you make your
choices but it might be a good starting point (or a tie breaker if
you've got a couple courses you can't decide between.) My personal
opinion is that the profs that get these marks are all but guaranteed to
give you a good experience.
The list is on my blog.



I took a quick look at the course list and here are some of my
recommendations (obviously with my public library bias firmly in place):



746 – Collection Development for Academic Libraries – Horoky (I took it,
it was excellent.  My only regret is that it didn't have more practical
assignments like Witten's does but I think the instructor  might be addressing this in
the upcoming session of her class.)



757 – Social Software – Etches-Johnson (heard from many that it was
excellent no matter your comfort level with technology.  Also, the
instruction was just named one of Library Journal's 2007 “Movers and
Shakers” so that's a good indicator of what she brings to her work.)



776 – Children's Materials – McKechnie – (I believe Lynne's proposal to
split children's lit into more than one course has been approved so this
will be specifically about children 0-7 years rather than children AND young adults 0-18 years as our course was
last summer.  At any rate, my personal opinion is that Lynne is the best
instructor at FIMS and you should take this course, even if you have no
interest in children's librarianship.  Seriously.  Plus you get a great
field trip to Toronto!)



561 – Conservation and Preservation – Spanner (if you're into this area,
I think his course has a good reputation.)



759 – Web Usability – Nickerson (like Lauralee said, an excellent prof.
 Good at teaching to the wide range of tech levels in the class.)


(Note: I heard through the grapevine that Gord mentioned me somehow during his course selection presentation.  I'm guessing it's because I use red links on my site – he hates that! )


And you know what?  I might even be inclined to take Jenn Pecoskie's
Reference Course.  Jenn and I had a really good talk right before
I left FIMS and based simply on that, I'd be willing to give her a
second chance.  Plus this course does sound really interesting.