Recent Submissions
Item Mentoring in Academic Libraries.
Tumbleson, Beth; Burke, JohnThe authors, who have each engaged in mentoring in higher education, surveyed academic librarians in 2017 on their mentoring experiences. Those findings are placed alongside best practices drawn from the literature to discover what motivates academic librarians to participate in mentoring and how it impacts them professionally and personally. Based on this evidence, the authors encourage colleagues to seek professional development through mentoring opportunities.Item Assessment, Analytics, and Analysis: Demonstrating the Impact of LMS Embedded Librarians on Student Learning
Tumbleson, Beth; Burke, John; Long, JessicaItem Technology Skills in the Workplace: Information Professionals’ Current Use and Future Aspirations
Maceli, Monica; Burke, JohnItem Make the Grade: Integrating Making into the Higher Education Curriculum
Burke, JohnMakerspaces provide an avenue for individuals and groups to independently create projects, learn how to use equipment, and tinker away. However, they can also be used by students to complete making-related assignments for courses. How are makerspaces being integrated into the curriculum in higher education? This session will provide examples drawn from academic makerspace literature and from individual makerspaces on how faculty members are including makerspaces and making activities in their courses to meet learning objectives. Along with these examples, methods that academic makerspaces can use to help faculty create assignments and to support these activities will be identified. These may include faculty learning communities, grants, and other instruction and encouragement aimed at creating maker assignments. Taking this one step further, the presentation will also seek to apply the set of makerspace competencies defined by the University of Texas at Arlington Libraries to assignments beyond the ones considered in their project. Can their set of competencies be applied to those assignments, and does categorizing the assignments by competencies shed light on what types of assignments faculty are creating? A final part of the presentation will examine literature and examples of makerspace integration in the K-12 curriculum. Are there approaches used in this setting that might be applied to higher education?Item Assessment, Analytics, and Analysis: Demonstrating the Impact of LMS Embedded Librarians on Student Learning
Burke, John; Tumbleson, Beth; Long, JessicaThe Ithaka S&R US Library Survey 2016 documents that library directors are committed to supporting teaching and learning services in terms of staffing and budget. They are equally committed to supporting student success, but find it difficult to articulate the library’s contribution. LMS embedded librarians are able to assess and validate the library’s contribution. Through a study conducted in 2017, embedded librarians explored the correlation between student success and information literacy instruction, using a rubric to assess student research papers and bibliographies and viewing course analytics. Assessment methodology, challenges, and discoveries from this and other research will be shared. Learning Objectives: Participants will consider the assessment methods currently in use in order to correlate librarians’ impact on student learning in the LMS. Participants will be able to apply rubrics to assess student work in their own library settings.Item Transform the Path of a Library Career: Empowering Librarians Through Mentoring
Burke, John; Tumbleson, BethMentoring empowers the next generation of librarians to assume positions of leadership and expertise in our profession. Successful mentoring requires a combination of commitments from library administrators, professional organizations, and individuals who will provide and receive mentoring. How can we strengthen professional development and retention within library systems, and also draw on the hard-won professional lessons of experienced librarians? The presenters will draw together material from survey results, the library literature, and their personal experiences to address mentorship in academic libraries. Aspects identified and discussed will include... • Approaches to mentoring in librarianship, including formal, informal, peer, team-based, residence programs, communities of practice, regional or national associations, in-person, or online. • Groups likely to benefit from mentoring,such as tenure or promotional track librarians, first year librarians, MLIS student interns, and underrepresented groups in the profession. • What mentees typically seek in a mentor. • How successful mentors connect and coach, and how to negotiate challenges in mentoring relationships such as cross-generational or cultural issues. • Best practices in mentoring, including the frequency and duration of meetings, and communication strategies like shared online accounts, using discussion prompts, and more. Learn how you, your library, and professional organizations can invest in future librarians through mentoring!Item Library Services in Learning Management Systems
Burke, John; Tumbleson, BethThe learning management system (LMS) has become a standard part of the higher education infrastructure, both for online and face-to-face courses. Continuing growth in online course offerings and the mobility of digitally connected students make the LMS essential for sharing course content and enabling communication among faculty and students. Along with instructor-created assignments and instructional modules, faculty add library-licensed content, open access and open educational resources, and other published sources to their LMS courses. Often this leads to questions related to copyright management, content licensing, and the role of the library in these efforts. This webinar will provide an overview of existing LMS systems and their capabilities. We will then address considerations of content provision within the LMS, including the application of Fair Use exemptions, the TEACH Act, and systems that can be added to the LMS that help manage copyright and licensing issues. Finally we will discuss the role of librarians as consultants on content discovery and using licensed and copyright-protected educational materials.Item Making Ends Meet: What Library Makerspaces Need to Succeed
Burke, JohnMakerspaces can be easy to start in academic libraries: just buy a 3D printer and you’re in business, right? But before you start collecting tools and technologies, what questions should you ask, and what possibilities should you consider to help your makerspace stay running beyond your first equipment failure? The creator of an academic library makerspace will share what he and his team have learned over the last 2 ½ years along with lessons drawn from interviews with other library makers. The TEC Lab at Miami University Middletown grew from placing a 3D printer on the circulation desk, then gathering craft materials and equipment into a corner of the library, and now inhabiting a dedicated makerspace room with a laser cutter and a growing array of user expectations. What inspires new additions to makerspaces, and how can you stay ahead of needs to add skills and teach new users? The presentation will include a discussion of budgets, programming options, and ways to sustain your makerspace. Attendees will gain a practical perspective of daily operations and the requirements for supporting a variety of making activities.Item Have It Your Way: Designing a Library Makerspace to Support Creativity and Innovation
Burke, John; HIcks, JenniferMakerspaces are growing in many types of libraries, but have you considered adding one to your library? The creators of an academic library makerspace will share their progress over two years, starting with a 3D printer on the circulation desk, then gathering craft materials and equipment into a corner of the library, and now inhabiting a dedicated makerspace room with a laser cutter and a growing array of user expectations. Key to the development of the makerspace has been holding educational workshops to demonstrate equipment and projects and get people equipped to start making things. Most recently, their focus has been on integrating creative activities into the curriculum through working with a group of faculty members from a diverse set of disciplines. Reflections on these activities will be shared by the presenters as they discuss budgets, programming, and ways to sustain makerspace activities in a small campus setting.Item Embedded Librarianship: Commnicating Our Crucial Value
Burke, John; Tumbleson, BethAcademic libraries spend millions on emerging technologies, digital and print collections, and hiring staff with subject and technology expertise. How do we signal stakeholders this sizable investment is worthwhile when libraries are under siege by funders and often bypassed by potential users? LMS embedded librarianship is the workable solution for a digital, mobile generation of learners who rely on the LMS. Together we will review trends today that impact teaching, learning, and research. We will contemplate our changing yet constant role of providing access to ideas and information, acclimating students to academic culture, preparing graduates for career success, and exposing learners to a vast array of sources and tools so they may develop their research acumen. It is crucial to communicate clearly and proactively with stakeholders who may hold dated and foggy notions of Camelot, of what was, the card catalog, runs of bound journals, and a librarian at the Reference Desk. The educational landscape has shifted radically. Although students may prefer playing in Never Never Land far from the library’s reach, embedded librarians are dedicated to developing students’ research prowess. Only by working with faculty may we accompany students in their LMS learning journey, as guides and consultants, from archival research, to clinical studies, to big data, and beyond. They need to know our name and our game.Item The New Face of Textbooks: Guiding Faculty Toward Alternatives
Girton, Carrie; Burke, JohnAre students at your institution complaining about the high costs of textbooks? Do they continually ask if your library has copies of textbooks that can be checked out? Is it even possible for faculty to require course materials for their students that are not so expensive? Discover how librarians at two campuses have launched a pilot project to work with professors to find cost-effective and appropriate textbook alternatives for their courses.Item Making It Real: Why a Makerspace Might Make Sense for Your Library
Burke, JohnMakerspaces are a growing area of service for all types of libraries. People with varying skill levels create projects in these collaborative environments with support from one another and access to equipment and materials. The resulting space and activities can greatly impact the community served by the library, but are not always seen as a clear application of the library’s mission. What motivates library staff members and librarians to create makerspaces in their libraries? What types of creative activities do libraries offer in their environments? The findings from a survey of library makerspaces will be shared, along with suggestions on makerspace creation from the library literature and extensive interviews with library makers. Come learn how a makerspace could work in your library.Item Sustaining and Enhancing Embedded Library Instruction in the Learning Management System
Kvenild, Cassandra; Calkins, Kaijsa; Burke, John; Tumbleson, BethThis panel will be a lively discussion of embedded librarianship in the online learning management system (LMS). Panelists will forego simply sharing the approaches of their own libraries and will instead pose a series of discussion questions about key issues of LMS embedded librarianship. Audience members will be active participants in the fast-paced, moderated conversation. Panelists will also share their perspectives about how best to enhance the role of librarians in online learning spaces.Item Making Sense: Can Makerspaces Work in Academic Libraries?
Burke, JohnMakerspaces are a growing service area for many libraries in school, public, and academic settings. Participants, or makers, can create digital and physical items in common working spaces using shared equipment and resources. The essential makerspace elements of makers, tools, space, and shared expertise are also often joined by a spirit of individual exploration and discovery through creative activities. One area of balance in makerspaces is in providing group training on specific creative activities while also offering open lab times in the makerspace for individuals to work independently or in small collaborative groups on their projects. This is particularly acute in the academic environment, where lab spaces (whether for computers, biology, chemistry, engineering, or nursing) are often imagined for use by classes of students working on an assignment or project. Can an open, self-directed approach work in an environment where much learning is encapsulated in semester-long courses and student learning is assessed by assignments with relatively rigid timelines and criteria? The alternative, maker-focused mindset would allow for tinkering and play to be utilized by makers as they create and learn. Makerspaces can be a mechanism for encouraging students to experiment and learn beyond the classroom and outside of the normal structure of their assignments. Students are encouraged to examine new means of creation and in doing so they strengthen and apply more broadly the learning they experience in their courses. The following paper presents a positive case for pursuing an academic library makerspace and helpful steps to pursue.Item Academic Librarians' Educational Role Revisited: Three Defining Studies
Tumbleson, Beth; Burke, John; Long, JessicaThree national studies are redefining the role academic librarians will play on campus. First, participants will receive an overview of significant findings from Project Information Literacy: “Learning the Ropes: How Freshmen Conduct Course Research Once They Enter College”; “Ithaka S & R US Library Survey 2013; and “ACRL Information to Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” Then participants will share how they are addressing these information literacy challenges and arriving at sustainable solutions.