Sabbatical 2001-2002
Sabbatical Leave activities, Kevin M. Roddy, for period August 2001-August 2002

[Note from July, 2020: Hyperlinks below no longer function, but the accompanying text gives an idea of the scope of the work done].

Below is a summary of what I did on my first sabbatical leave from the University, following the instructions provided in Article V, A-8 of the 2001-2003 UHPA/BOR Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The main purpose of my sabbatical leave was to work on a second Master's Degree to meet one of the minimum qualifications for promotion to Librarian IV at UH-Hilo. I enrolled in the MA Program in the Linguistics department at UH-Manoa and earned 21 units of the 30 required for the degree.

I was hired by Hamilton Library's Head of Public Services to work 19 hours per week in a nine- month casual hire/overload position. This did not violate the terms of my sabbatical leave, as the employment did not exceed what I would have received on full salary. In addition to being a full-time graduate student, I managed to complete the following tasks:  

  1. Developed an interactive tutorial for the Expanded Academic Index periodical database. (http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kroddy/eai/)[2009 addendum: UH no longer subscribes to this information service.]

  2. Revised and enhanced an Internet Tutorial I first created for Mookini Library's Instruction Program (http://library.uhh.hawaii.edu/instruction/manoa/web/).

  3. Drafted and implemented new Web pages for “Learning the Library” (http://libweb.hawaii.edu/uhmlib/learnlib/learnlib.html) The Head of Public Services wanted a central access point to Hamilton Library Instructional Services. Working with librarians from various departments, I created Web pages enabling UHM faculty and students to easily locate library instruction services by department.

  4. Developed an Information Literacy Program.  I searched the Web and library literature to ensure that Hamilton Library's nascent Information Literacy Program was current with the latest theories and practices in academic libraries nationwide. I wrote a vision statement and built the foundation for a Web site where more information will eventually be added.

  5. WASC Accreditation Visit. I helped Hamilton get ready for the site visit by acquiring the printed WASC manual and reviewing the sections pertaining to library services.

  6. Library statistics software. After spending a fair amount of time testing various Web-based statistical compilation products librarians could use to record and submit instruction statistics electronically, I recommended the purchase and installation of the following product: (http://www.objectplanet.com/Surveyor/).

    With this product, I created two different interactive forms for librarians to use:

    1. Instructional statistics (http://www.objectplanet.com/survey/survey.asp?s=01244049154245090101)

    1. Reference desk statistics (http://www.objectplanet.com/survey/survey.asp?s=01100083224137036157)

  7. Hamilton Library Web calendars (http://libweb.hawaii.edu/uhmlib/staffonly/calindex.html) I recommended the purchase and implementation of the Web calendar software that Mookini has been using for years. This will enable library faculty and staff working in three buildings to easily reserve electronic classrooms, create interactive departmental calendars and reference desk schedules, etc. I supervised the installation of the product on the server, while a colleague designed the various calendars. Approximately 16 scheduling calendars are now being used by library administration, faculty, and staff.

  8. I spent an average of 3 hours per week providing reference assistance to library users at the Central Information Desk. I occasionally took on extra hours when other librarians had last-minute meetings or other scheduling conflicts.

  9. The development of a library promotion/publicity campaign to announce the official opening of Phase III and the completion of asbestos removal and the re-roofing of Phase II. The report may be reviewed at http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kroddy/hamilton/adcampaign.htm

  10. The digitization of the 1437 page Blount Report, the first U. S. Congressional report of the Annexation of Hawaii. After my nine-month contract with the Public Services department expired in June, I was hired as a graduate assistant in Desktop Network Services. There I served as one of two digitization assistants for the Blount Report. I was responsible for scanning  pages 500-1437 (937 pages). I ran each scanned page through an OCR software program to convert it into an MSWord document. I then reformatted, spell-checked, and proofread each page. Finally, I converted each page into HTML so that it could be searched by keyword using the SWISH program. As of this writing, I am continuing to work on the Report as a community service project, and hope to have it available to the public by November 2002. For a peek, go to: http://libweb.hawaii.edu/digicoll/annexation/blount.html

Summary of Coursework completed for the Master's Degree in Linguistics, UH-Manoa

Summer 2001:

 

Course

Title

Grade

Linguistics 346

Pidgins and Creoles

A

Three credit hours earned. GPA for this term is 4.00.

Fall 2001:

Course

Title

Grade

Linguistics 344

Languages of the World

A

Linguistics 630

Field Methods

A

Linguistics 640G

Cognitive Linguistics

A

Nine credit hours earned. GPA for this term is 4.00.

Spring 2002:

Course

Title

Grade

Linguistics 615

The Nature of Language

A

Linguistics 645

The Comparative Method

A

Linguistics 750F

Topics in Phonology-Prosody

A

 

Nine credit hours earned. GPA for this term is 4.00.

updated: 15 June 2003