It's Academic

Building My Scholarship Through Teaching

February 13, 2024

Building my scholarship through teaching.

I have been on the tenure track for my position for the past two years. Within this time, I have learned there are many aspects of my role that are helping me to grow to the point at which I will be ready to apply for my full tenure ship . One of these aspects is the role I play as a teacher, which was an ancillary role previously but has now become a primary role in my current experience. With no formal educational preparation other than my librarianship courses, I am an advocate of including educational teaching principles and pedagogical frameworks into the basic librarianship preparatory courses. That being said, my experiences have led me to adapt my current philosophy that teaching is sharing and learning is a continual process. With this in mind, I have come up with three quick thoughts that I include in a self-reflective moment that I try to have prior to meeting with either one- on -one sessions or group trainings ,that I have found helpful when I have to “teach” (share learning).

1.Concepts can be difficult, so consider your audience – change how you present foundational concepts and ideas

2.Vocalize support and show empathy and understanding. Learning environments should be safe spaces to grow within.

3.Reinforcing concepts and gauge how the audience is feeling . I ask myself, am I making any sense in conveying the main points?

Happy Teaching!

Connect and Communicate Series Call for Proposals

February 5, 2024

tags: call for proposals, connect and communicate series, events

by colemanluzerne

The Pennsylvania Library Association’s College and Research Division (CRD) is looking for presenters for the 2024 Connect and Communicate Series. The division is seeking presentations and sessions on a wide array of topics that are of interest to academic librarians and academic library staff workers in Pennsylvania. We are currently planning on holding events in the following months:

February

March

April

September

November

December

If you are interested, please fill out the proposal form at this link:https://forms.gle/GUMVi5N2Sxnmy1Ej9.

We will be able to offer a stipend of $300 per presentation (to be split in the case of multiple presenters) to PaLA members. This series is made possible, in part, by a grant from the U.S. Institute of Museum and Library Services as administered by the Pennsylvania Department of Education, through the Office of Commonwealth Libraries and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro, Governor.

Thank you very much,

Paul McMonigle, 2024 CRD Connect and Communicate Series Chair

Data Literacy vs. Information Literacy

January 24, 2024

tags: ai, digital literacy, education, Information Literacy, Technology

by Darren G. Poley

As librarians we are very familiar with the concept of information literacy, it’s rather long in the tooth, and yet there isn’t a single pat answer these days as to what it is. Case in point, does information literacy include data literacy, another concept that has been around for quite a while? The one glaring difference between these concepts is that librarians and educators talk about information literacy and business leaders and IT professionals talk about data literacy.

Figure 1 from https://internetofwater.org/valuing-data/what-are-data-information-and-knowledge/

The 1989 ALA Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report states, “Information literacy is a survival skill in the Information Age.” The ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education from 2000 defined information literacy using a quotation from that same earlier Final Report: “Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to ‘recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.’”

The charge of the Task Force that produced the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education adopted in 2016 recommended expanding the definition to include digital literacy because librarians see data, information, and knowledge as interrelated.

“In other professions, the words ‘knowledge,’ ‘data’ and ‘information’ are used interchangeably. However, in library science they are three related but distinct things,” wrote Reed Hepler and David Horalek in Introduction to Library and Information Science (College of Southern Idaho, 2023). And that’s true, and not just for library science. The Internet of Water Coalition very succinctly maps this out in “What are Data, Information, and Knowledge.”

In the late 1950s Peter Drucker coined the term “knowledge worker” to describe the primary post-modern employee. And a lot has happened since, The Information Superhighway and Big Data to name just a few. So, if we as librarians are supposed to be educators of information literacy that would mean we should at least be aware of what data literacy is.

A good way to get started is to find out how data literate you are. The Data Literacy Project has a simple online quiz “How Data Literate Are You?” which will plot you somewhere between Data Avoider to Data Guru. Then explore their courses to Learn the Language of Data. “A Culture of Data Literacy,” “Understanding Data,” and “Introduction to Data-Informed Decision Making” are all free.

PaLRaP Call for Submissions

January 10, 2024

by Alex K.

Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice (PaLRaP.org) is accepting submissions for research, practice, feature, and commentary articles as well as news items for the Spring 2024 issue (vol. 12, no. 1).

Research, practice, feature, and commentary manuscripts are welcomed at any time; however, for full consideration for the spring issue, please submit your manuscripts by February 28, 2024.

News item submissions (staff changes, awards/recognitions, events, initiatives, etc. happening in PA libraries that may be of interest to other libraries) are also welcome at any time. However, for full consideration for the spring issue, please submit your news items here by April 1, 2024.

For more information about PaLRaP, including submission guidelines and section policies, visit http://www.palrap.org.

PaLRaP is a peer-reviewed, online, open access publication of the Pennsylvania Library Association’s College & Research Division. This journal provides an opportunity for librarians in Pennsylvania to share their knowledge and experience with practicing librarians across the Commonwealth and beyond. It includes articles from all areas of librarianship, with a special focus on activities at or of interest to Pennsylvania’s academic libraries.

Published biannually: May and November

Co-Editors: Kate Cummings & Roseanne Perkins

Peer reviewers: Members of the Pennsylvania library community

Virtual Journal Club Spring 2024

January 4, 2024

by Alex K.

Greetings and Happy New Year!

You are cordially invited to participate in the Spring 2024 series of the Virtual Journal Club, sponsored by the College & Research Division of the Pennsylvania Library Association!

Please use this form to indicate which topic(s) you would be interested in reading about in the fall series, as well as indicate your scheduling preferences.

You are welcome to attend one, two, or all three of the meetings to discuss the readings. If you are interested in participating, please feel free to sign up – there is no cost and no commitment beyond your time to read and discuss the articles.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our Fall 2023 series on artificial intelligence!

Please feel free to reach out with any questions.

Thank you, and have a great day!

—

Melissa Correll (she/her)

Student Success Librarian

Assistant Professor

Liaison to the School of Education & HAPS

Arcadia University