1. Amy Harris Houk
Kathy Shields
You Live, You Learn:
Leadership and
Professional
Development for the
Instruction Librarian
8th Annual Metrolina Information Literacy Conference
June 13, 2013
2. Who are we?
Amy Harris Houk
• Information Literacy Program
Coordinator, UNCG
• Supervise one staff member who
helps with instruction
• 9 other librarians do instruction as
part of their liaison duties
• Approximately 600 sessions per
year
Kathy Shields
• Head of Reference and
Instruction, High Point University
• Not a direct supervisor
• Have 3 other librarians who do
instruction, but no true instruction
staff
• Approximately 200-225 sessions
per year
3.
4. Overview
• Leadership
• Tips from the Trenches
• Challenges
• What We’ve Done
• Ways to Train
• Professional Development
• Our Favorite Resources
• Discussion!
6. Tips from the Trenches
• Build relationships
• Buy-in is essential
• Communicate (the Goldilocks rule)
• Advocate for your program
We are all leaders!
7. Challenges
• Leading from the side
• Competing priorities
• Doing more with less
• Generational differences
8. What we’ve done
• UNCG:
• Monthly workshops (sometimes)
• Sandbox sessions
• Updates at Reference meetings
• Drop-in consults
• HPU:
• Workshops in conjunction with staff meetings (sporadically)
• LibGuide on Information Literacy
• Individual consults with new librarians
15. Our Favorite Resources
Conferences
• This one (of course!)
• LOEX
• Lilly Conference on College
and University Teaching
• ACRL
• Immersion (not really a
conference)
• Georgia Conference on
Information Literacy
• Elon’s Teaching and
Learning Conference
(August)
Organizations
• NC BIG (NCLA)
• LIRT (ALA)
• IS (ACRL)
16. Our Favorite Resources
Books
• Classroom Assessment
Techniques (Angelo and
Cross)
• Anything by Joanna
Burkhardt
• Anything by Maryellen
Weimer
• Reflective Teaching,
Effective Learning (Char
Booth)
Journals/Articles
• Communications in
Information Literacy
• “Heart of a Teacher” by
Parker Palmer
• RUSQ
• College and Research
Libraries News
• Hybrid Pedagogy
17. What resources have
you found most
effective for
professional
development in
information literacy?
Not sure if this is the kind of info you meant here; I can edit to match the info you include
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Amy takes charge here
Amy/Kathy splitFor the “doing more with less” I can talk about the limitations of fewer staff overall, but especially the lack of formal instruction librarians besides myself. I can also talk about staff turnover.
Amy
Kathy Ex. "Create opportunities for instruction librarians to get together regularly to share information, vent, grow in skills, discuss new trends and issues." Petrowski (2001)
Kathy takes this sectionOne of the ways that I think we develop our skills as leaders, whether we’re instruction coordinators, librarians, or part-time staff, is through professional development. Professional development is crucial for us to be able to do our jobs well, but often it’s something that gets pushed to the side when we’re dealing with the day-to-day responsibilities and multiple hats that we each wear at our jobs. There’s no one-size fits all method to keeping up with what’s going on in corner of library world, or with the larger picture of where libraries and education are headed.
So some of the ways that we have discussed keeping up are making it a part of your routine. Maybe every morning when you come in to work, you have 3 or 4 blogs or sites that you check. Maybe you set aside an hour or two each month to skim through the latest issues of your favorite journals. Maybe you automatically put a particular conference on your calendar every year and make it a point to go, or even just have regular meetings with another librarian to talk about current trends. All of those are ways to build it into your routine, so it’s easier to forget. However, it’s pretty much impossible for us to stay current on EVERYTHING. Realistically, we’re going to have to pick and choose what areas to prioritize. So, when I first started my job, I wanted to be the social media person. I was going to stay up on all the latest trends in tweeting and meming and vining and whatever. I’ve since realized that while it’s fun, that’s an area that’s been taken over by others librarians, so it doesn’t have as much bearing on my job. I still like to hear about it, but I can’t focus on that when there are other areas that need more attention. Speaking of social media, technology is your friend. There would be no way that I could keep up with trends without the help of tools like Twitter, blogs, RSS feeds (despite the death of my Google Reader), list-servs, and many others that help me check in on what people are talking about and also ask questions about things I’m working on. And, I have also tried to build a network of people who are really good at keeping up in certain areas that I can go to with questions or check in with to get new ideas.
Kathy runs discussion, Amy typesSo, those are a few of our suggestions – we’d love to hear your tips for keeping up with current trends in teaching/info lit?