This is the version of 4 August 2000.
This article provides practical guidance to students who are playing host to visiting speakers in the UCLA Information Studies Seminar (ISS). A companion article, "Hosting a Speaker", located at:
http://dlis.gseis.ucla.edu/people/pagre/hosting.htmlprovides general-purpose advice; this article provides advice that is specific to our own seminar.
Basics. We hold the seminar on Thursdays from 3 to 5 in the GSE&IS Building, room 111. In the past the seminar has sometimes been held from 4 to 6, but this time conflicted with too many other events on campus. In the 2000-2001 school year we will probably have four or five seminars per quarter; in the past we have sometimes tried to schedule a seminar every week, but this proved to be more work than people were willing to do.
Speakers. We are interested in any speaker who relates to the topics of study and research in the Department of Information Studies. This includes library and information science, archives, the social aspects of information and communications technologies, and many others. Speakers include university researchers and people from the public, private, and nonprofit sectors, as well as independent scholars. ISS, however, is a research seminar, and the people who attend regularly will be expecting a research talk. Speakers who do not publish in the research literature and whose main contributions are professional are certainly welcome in our department, but they might be better scheduled in a professionally-oriented seminar series. We don't want to draw obnoxious class divisions between the research and professional sides, of course, and you should use your judgement. The point is just to be aware of the issue.
Identifying suitable speakers. As a graduate student you may not have a long list of professional contacts from which to recruit speakers for the seminar series. That's just fine, and in fact developing such a list is one reason why we want you involved in the series. You are most welcome to track down speakers who are related to your own research interests. Here are some categories of people to try: (1) yourself, (2) other faculty and students of the IS department, (3) people who are part of your own professional network, (4) asking other department members for suggestions, (5) shopping on Web sites of related departments and research groups, (6) visiting faculty and researchers in the department, and (7) people who might be passing through town for a conference that is being held in the Los Angeles area. Because we have almost no funding for the seminar, most of our speakers will be working in the Los Angeles area. This includes UCLA, of course, but it also includes USC, Cal State Los Angeles, the Claremont Colleges, the Art Center College of Design, the Southern California Institute of Architecture, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, UC Riverside, and UC San Diego. It also includes the major local art museums, particularly the Getty. If someone will be driving a long distance to speak at our seminar, you should make extra certain to recruit a good audience for their talk and offer to organize a dinner after the event. (Nobody wants to drive home at 5pm.)
Parking. Speakers who are coming from off-campus will need parking permits. We pay for these. They cost $6, and Lydia Doplemore can make the phone call for you. Tell the speaker that s/he will be placed on a list. You probably cannot get the visitor a space in the most convenient lot, which is lot 5, though you might as well try. The second most convenient lot is lot 4, whose entrance is from Sunset Boulevard. After that it's lot 3, which is clumsy because they have to enter from Hilgard and get their permit at the parking kiosk before looking for the parking lot. Keep in mind that anybody who has not often been to UCLA will find parking a hassle, so provide excellent directions.
A/V equipment. The department's Media Lab wants reservations for A/V equipment to be made at least a week beforehand, so make sure to get the speaker's A/V requirements in plenty of time. The Media Lab people hate it when you order every possible item of equipment just to be sure, so try to get an accurate list. You'll place the order through a Web-based form that you can find from the department home page. The Media Lab people will set the equipment up themselves and take it down afterward.
Catering. Our past practice has been to get coffee and cookies for the seminar. I'm not a big fan of the caffeine-and-sugar routine myself, and other options are available, but it's hard to break the drug habit. In any case, a regular order for refreshments has probably already been submitted, but you can check with Lydia Doplemore to make sure. Because a faculty meeting is often scheduled on Thursdays from 1-3, faculty will not be able to participate in any pre-seminar socializing. The socializing with coffee and cookies, therefore, will probably happen after the event, either in room 111 or in the lounge.
Advertising. We have an electronic mailing list for ISS talk advertisements. For security purposes I'm the only person who can send messages to it, so please e-mail me the announcement and I'll send it out. You'll see other announcements going out; please try to make your announcement similar to those. That helps to establish a "brand name" for the seminar among our friends. Also -- very important -- experience shows that PAPER POSTERS for seminars make a big difference in turning out an audience. These should go in buildings that are related to the topic of the talk. Education- related posters should go in Moore Hall, art-related posters in Melnitz, and so on. If you don't know what departments are in what buildings, this would be a good way to learn. Just get out the campus phone book. This seminar series is our number one opportunity to invite people from other departments to find our building and join our conversation. I hope you'll make a particular effort to advertise the event to people in Education, who are part of the same school as us.
Funding. I mentioned that we don't have much money for the seminar. But we do have some. If you need to spend small amounts of money, for example to pay short-distance travel (like from San Diego) or to put someone up in the UCLA Guest House for a night, by all means ask. You can talk to the department chair's assistant (which I think is a rotating position right now while they recruit someone permanent) what the deal is. Also, particular projects such as the Center for the Book might be able to support relevant speakers.
Dinner. Our practice historically has been to organize an expedition to take the speaker to dinner. You should verify ahead of time that the speaker is willing and able to join such an expedition. If so, the time and place of the dinner should be advertised to the audience immediately before the speaker is formally introduced. You should also tell especially relevant people about the dinner beforehand so they can make plans. If you are unable to play host for the dinner (this happens a lot) then recruit someone to take your place. If you can't recruit a host for the dinner then that means there's not enough interest and you should call it off. The dinner location should be in Westwood Village so that people can walk to it. It should be big enough to hold a large group and cheap enough for graduate student budgets.
Orienting the speaker. If the speaker is not from UCLA, find out whether s/he knows the campus well. If not, you might point out the food court and cafe that's directly to the south of the GSE&IS Building. You can also give a quick tour of the building and point at the bathrooms. Ask the speaker if s/he needs to get on the Internet to read email, and if so point at the public terminals in the IS library. Likewise if the speaker needs to make any phone calls.
Length. The event is scheduled from 3pm to 5pm. We need to clear out of the room by 5pm to make way for an evening class, and you might mention this constraint before you announce the speaker. The speaker's talk should normally go from 3pm (or a little afterward, to let people arrive and make time for announcements and introductions) until 4pm or so. Let the speaker know this in advance. If the talk runs long then there's nothing you can do about it, so just sit back and relax.