It's Academic

How Students Feel Matters

June 4, 2021

This past year I incorporated something very simple into my instructional sessions, a question asked at the start of class: How do you feel about research and research papers? I posed this question (or some form it) using the internet anonymous polling tool Mentimeter, which allows for quick, easy, and visible participation. Predictably, the answers to this question consistently spoke to student anxiety: including such words as dread, pain, and struggle, and always prominently displaying the words overwhelming and stress/stressed/stressful.

At first, I didn’t have a rationale for starting class this way and wondered whether it was a good use of class time. Still, amidst the pressures and challenges of the pandemic, taking a minute to gauge the emotional temperature in the room felt right. And as I persisted in asking this question, I came to appreciate the way it helped to build community in the room and normalize students’ feelings. Those who felt anxious or worried could literally see the evidence in front of them that they were not alone, and I, as their instructor, was situated to authentically speak to their fears and to offer encouragement, support, and help.

This past spring, attending ACRL 2020 Virtual, I was delighted to hear a pedagogical argument for this type of question in Liz Chenevey’s presentation: An Emergent Pedagogy of Presence and Care: Addressing Affect in Information Literacy Instruction. Chenevey makes the case that teaching for affect (emotions, moods, motivations, and attitudes) can positively impact not only students’ mental health but also learning, cognition, and behaviors. One way to do this she shares is through the nine principles of Emergent Strategy developed by adrienne maree brown:

Small is good, small is all (the large is a reflection of the small)
Change is constant (be like water)
There is always enough time for the right work
There is a conversation in the room that only these people that this moment can have. Find it.
Never a failure, always a lesson
Trust the people (if you trust the people they become trustworthy)
Move at the speed of trust. Focus on critical connections more than critical mass
Less prep, more presence
What you pay attention to grows

I am only myself beginning to explore how emergence may inform or transform my teaching, but I see my seemingly inconsequential question reflected in Emergent Strategy – it’s a small but good way to find a conversation between myself and my students, it’s a conversation that happens in the moment and not one that I can entirely plan for, and it’s worth the time it takes.

Planning for a Really Big Welcome

June 1, 2021

by Kelly Safin

Every fall is an exciting time on campus – but this fall might be the most interesting yet.

Like many librarians supporting hybrid learning during the pandemic, we’ve given some thought to how our undergraduates have spent the past year-plus. Most rising third-year students only spent a semester and change learning on campus before March 2020. Meanwhile, incoming first-year students are probably raring to go for a steady, in-person learning experience.* And then, we have our second-year students.

The phrase “sophomore slump” comes to mind – I’ll link to some reading at the end of this post for a deeper dive. The 2021-22 year could potentially be a sharper slump, because some second-year students may not have spent much (or any) time on campus during their first year of classes. When these students arrive for fall term in a few months, they will have limited background experience to draw from.

Planning for ways to support students during this transition is on our library’s agenda this summer, particularly for the second-year group. We’ll see all the first-year students in sessions with their seminar classes, but that won’t be the case for their second-year counterparts. For all students, we want to amplify who we are and how we can help. We’re hoping to expand on some existing outreach, including:

Promotion in the residence halls and dining hall – We’ve shared digital and print content in these spaces, so these will be simple updates to better position our services among unfamiliar students. Clear calls to action and simple design elements will be key. One example: We may revamp a past bulletin board notice that included tear-off strips with a link to our consultation scheduling page.
Social media planning – A more consistent schedule of work-study student takeovers, faculty, staff or student book recommendations, and similar content would help build engagement and awareness of our collections and services in the fall term.
Continued and new collaborations – These partnerships have always been important, and are even more critical now. Our creative and thoughtful colleagues across campus are eager to see more students for in-person activities and classes. By collaborating on workshops, events and instruction, we can support their work and connect with students as well.

These are just a few of the plans we’ll talk about, along with other projects. Summer will go by quickly!

If you’re interested in initiatives related to sophomores, here are a few of the many resources out there:

Black, E. L. (2019). The Credo second-year transition guide: Extending retention and student success efforts beyond the FYE. Credo Reference. http://hdl.handle.net/1811/91864

Hulseberg, A., & Twait, M. (2016). Sophomores speaking: An exploratory study of student research practices. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 23(2), 130–150. https://doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2014.981907

Kuglitsch, R., & Burge, P. (2016). Beyond the first year: Supporting sophomores through information literacy outreach. College & Undergraduate Libraries, 23(1), 79–92. https://doi.org/10.1080/10691316.2014.944636

*let it be both steady and in-person, please.

Last Chance to Submit a Proposal for the PaLA Annual Conference!

May 23, 2021

by Michele G. Anfuso

I would like to share this message from Kim Snyder-Wise of the Pennsylvania Library Association.

REMINDER: May 31, 2021 is the Deadline to Submit a Proposal for a Poster or Lightning Talk for the Pennsylvania Library Association Virtual Conference!

Poster sessions & lightning talks provide a forum for library professionals to share their findings or successful ideas or innovations with colleagues without a formal presentation. The 2021 Pennsylvania Library Association (PaLA) virtual conference to take place September 27 – 29, 2021 will provide the opportunity to engage with hundreds of library professionals in an informal, idea-sharing format.

In the virtual conference platform, these presentations will take place in a designated area with the capability to display a poster and/or video recording, upload handouts and links. Presenters will be assigned a 90-minute window on either Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of the virtual event to be present in their session area and engage with attendees via chat or video calls. Your presentation materials will also be available at other times for viewing only, without presenter interaction.

For more information and the link to submit a proposal by May 31, visit our Posters/Lightning Talks FAQ page on the PaLA website.

CRD Virtual Journal Club Spring Wrap-up

May 21, 2021

by crdvirtualjournalclub

This past spring, the College & Research Division hosted a virtual journal club, which met online three times during the semester to discuss scholarship in the library science field. The CRD Journal Club was originally established in Summer 2018, and typically runs in the summer, spring, and fall of each year. The theme for the Spring 2020 semester was adapting to our new virtual environments during COVID-19.

For the first session, the participants read and discussed “In support of online learning: A COVID-19 one shot case study,” by Jennifer Joe, published in Codex: The Journal of the Louisiana Chapter of the ACRL. During this session, the participants reflected on the case study and what worked well for them as institutions made the transition to online learning, while considering all the technological and psychological issues of everyone working, teaching, and learning during the pandemic. A few technologies mentioned were Nearpod, Poll Everywhere, Zoom breakout rooms, and Google Docs.

At request from the participants, the second session focused on provisioning asynchronous online instruction. For the second session, participants read two articles: “Asynchronizing with the Framework: Reflections on the process of creating an asynchronous library assignment for a first-year writing class” by B. Grantham Aldred published in College & Research Libraries News and “Redesigning an online information literacy tutorial for first-year undergraduate instruction” by Kimberly Y. Franklin, Kendall Faulkner, Tiffanie Ford-Baxter, and Sheree Fu published in The Journal of Academic Librarianship. The participants discussed the tools used in the articles (Google Forms and Articulate Storyline 360) as well as the other platforms they had used to create asynchronous lessons (ex. LibWizard, LMS), but also the types of content best suited to that type of instruction (directional and skills-based content vs. high-level concepts like source evaluation). Also discussed is the importance of buy-in from the students to complete the modules, the faculty to distribute the modules, and other librarians for utilizing the modules.

For the third and final session, the participants read and discussed “Google forms in library instruction: Creating an active learning space and communicating with students,” by Elena Rodriguez published in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Innovative Pedagogy. While much of the discussion focused on delivering content, the discussants also mentioned the confusion of the definition of “online sources” for students (websites vs. databases) and how instructors sometimes allow only specific types of resources, especially research articles which students may have never had to use in research before and are difficult to analyze and explain in a short information literacy session. The participants also discussed the limitations of platforms with embedding content and shared examples of resources they have successfully used in the virtual classroom.

This series was particularly useful in identifying different tools to use in online instruction, whether in-person synchronous classes or in developing asynchronous modules. Many of these can be utilized during both in-person and online instruction. The discussion did identify issues with teaching primarily online, particularly during a pandemic, but participants willingly shared success stories as well as some of the resources they found and created with each other, which led to some great ideas for new methods to try.

We will be hosting a summer session- please join us if you can! Sign up to participate and let us know what you’d like to discuss.

Libraries are Stories

May 17, 2021

by clblibrarian

I apologize in advance for any rambling, mixed metaphors, or lost trains of thought. It’s the end of the semester and the end of another long academic year. But this isn’t going to be another post about the pandemic – at least not directly.

I recently finished reading Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern – with a day to spare on my library loan btw. I’m not going to write a review about the book but, it has a great premise. The Starless Sea and its Harbor is a place of stories – it is basically a cross between a library and the Hotel California Side note: I’ve recently discovered that I’ve come to an age where my cultural references often aren’t relatable anymore, so if you aren’t familiar with the song, check out the YouTube video I’ve linked to. Visitors can wander through the rooms and hallways lined with books and manuscripts, and can stay as long as they like (unlike the Hotel California you can actually leave, but why would you want to?). They can use the space to write and read and share with others. It is a magical utopia kind of place. But libraries, and bookstores, are often portrayed this way in stories. They are safe place of escape, a place to find answers and to even find yourself.

In real life what libraries do can often be seen as magic by our communities. We can get them any book from anywhere (almost) and provide access to everyone – without paying for a subscription or giving us their first born. We have the latest toys and gadgets (like virtual reality systems and makerspaces), but we also have ties to the past (genealogy resources, archives, and special collections). We exist for no other reason than to serve our communities in nearly whatever capacity they need.

In the past year or so though, COVID has changed things. We’ve lost a lot of what made us magical. Reduced hours, loss of programming and browsing. Reduced funding and loss of staff and volunteers. Because of the virus we could no longer be a safe physical safe, and while we tried to offer virtual alternatives to our services it was rarely the same. SPOILER ALERT: At the end of Starless Sea, a disaster strikes the Harbor as well. It is flooded by the Starless Sea and reached the end of its own story. But the novel ended on a note of hope, not one of despair. The Harbor was given an opportunity to rebuild itself again.

That a new Harbor was created out of its “disaster” is really where my meandering began. I started to ponder how we, as libraries, could rebuild ourselves. We will not be the same after the pandemic. Some of the lost staff and resources will not come back, and we will suffer from those losses. But we also have the opportunity to start fresh, to try new things and to cast aside bad habits. Most academic libraries, by the start of Fall 2021, will have at least half of a student body that has never known a “normal” library on their campus. We don’t have to fall back into the same routines as before the pandemic and perhaps can use this opportunity to become more than what we were.

This process can be daunting though. If we have a clean slate, then where do we start? How do we decide what we want to be? Maybe we should start with the story we want tell of ourselves and listen to the stories that our communities tell about us. Why not think big and abstract? We’ve focused on the real-world details for far too long during the pandemic. How can we get back to being that welcoming and safe space for our patrons? What can we do to become that haven for creativity and learning? Right now we may not think that we’re magic, but maybe we are… or at least can be. There has been enough pain and worry so why not take an opportunity to begin a new story where anything is possible?