Raymond Pun is First Year Student Success Librarian, Henry Madden Library, California State University, Fresno, Fresno, CA. He has been a member of CLS for 5+ years.
Share your CLS experiences. Which committees have your served on? Have you ever attended a Friday Nite Feast? Tell us about CLS programs you’ve attended at ACRL or ALA.
Unfortunately, I haven’t served on any committees (yet) ! But hopefully in the future. I’ve attended an event or two in the past at ALA Annual but would like to stay connected somehow.
Favorite author(s)? Any recent books you enjoyed?
A book I read recently “The War on Normal People: The Truth About America’s Disappearing Jobs and Why Universal Basic Income Is Our Future” by Andrew Yang – Covers different perspectives of universal basic income to economic inequality to automation from a venture capitalist. I enjoy Kristin Wong’s writing on personal finance and her new book “Get Money: Live The Life You Want, Not Just The Life You Can Afford.”
Most amazing library you have ever seen?
In Bukhara, Uzbekistan, there are many sites that were once libraries during the Silk Road period (114 BCE to 1450s CE). They are all pretty fascinating.
How do you keep current with LIS, technology, pedagogy, and other professionally-related topics? What are your favorite journals, listservs, Twitter handles, blogs, journals, and other sources?
Everything! RSS feeds for journals work really well, reviewing Library Journal/American Libraries; reading and participating in social media conversations like Twitter Chats; looking up conference programs (even the ones I don’t attend) can give me plenty of food for thought. Librarian Aaron Tay’s blog on Musings about librarianship can generate a lot of interesting discussions too: http://musingsaboutlibrarianship.blogspot.com/
What tools or software application amazes you or made a huge difference in your work and why?
That changes every year, actually. First it was Prezi in 2013, and then Bepress, Historypin, Omeka, Tableau, etc. I am generally amazed at how these tools and applications can be adapted into library context. Currently I am exploring at Suma from NC State University Libraries, an open source “tablet-based toolkit for collecting, managing, and analyzing data about the usage of physical spaces.” It’s definitely worth investigating!
Have you learned a new skill recently? If so, tell us more!
I taught a one-shot recently, and the class focused on social media. This isn’t really a new skill but something interesting and related: the students were learning how to cite social media sources in APA. These social media sources included SnapChat, Instagram, Periscope, Twitter, etc. It was very interesting to delve into this matter, and show them that anything that gets put out there can be cited and used as an evidence for research and discovery. I thought that was fascinating point to share with students.
Additional contact info. including website, Twitter handle, LinkedIn profile
Contact Ray by email: raypun@csufresno.edu
Follow Ray on Twitter: @raypun101