LOEX Recap and things for my summer list

I recently attended LOEX in Harrisburg, PA where someone told a story of a colleague who wrote down every time they said they’d do something in the summer. Summer came and they had a very long list of things to do (much like in Kelly Safin’s post 😉). Here are some reflections from LOEX and peep into my own summer list.

LOEX is my favorite conference because of its unique focus on instruction. At ACRL earlier this year, a technical services friend said he had to convince his admin to allow his attendance at ACRL because they saw it as an instruction conference. While there may be sessions about teaching, I see it as a research-heavy conference. LOEX is THE instruction conference.

This year, I found myself targeting sessions that focused on issues around mis- and disinformation. Amber Willenborg and Robert Detmering from the University of Louisville shared results from their research project about if and how librarians are dealing with misinformation in their teaching. In their presentation, “I Don’t Think Librarians Can Save Us:” Anxiety and Resilience in the Misinformation Crisis, Willenborg and Detmering described while librarians are limited by time and know that they alone cannot fix the problem of misinformation, many do engage with their students on the topic in ways that they can. In his session, Teaching Information Literacy in Untrusting Times: Prioritize Research for Understanding (not just Knowledge) Mark Lenker shared just how he engages with students when their trust in experts is in decline, focusing on making meaning in a complex information landscape.

One session that I went to on a whim was Creating a Values-Based Future: Reflection & Planning to Support the Creation of Sustainable Library Practices. In this session, the presenters shared activities from a team workshop that helped them create a vision and mission statement for their department. It was a challenge to do these activities just as an individual and I don’t think it was exactly the right time for me professionally, because we are anticipating organizational changes in our library. However, I am excited to dive into these activities with my own team when the time is right.

On my to do list

• Lead a Reading Circle about teaching and learning
• Plan out a new tiered-approach to research skills instruction
• Create digital learning objects for sustainable and scalable use across the disciplines
• Hang out with my family!