It's Academic

Learning to Teach

February 10, 2020

I have a confession to make…I’m an instruction librarian who never learned how to instruct. Learning to teach information literacy skills was not part of my schooling. There was no Teaching 101 in library school for me, no Educational Theory 405. I didn’t learn the ins-and-outs of different ways our brain learns new ideas or how to best keep college students engaged.

Because of this, I usually walk away from a teaching session asking myself “did the students listen to me? Did they pay any attention? Did they learn anything at all?” I’m a librarian. I’ve had the training and the experience to know how important information literacy skills are and want nothing more than to share that knowledge and understanding with the students. So how do I as an untrained teacher develop engaging lessons about, admittedly, not the most exciting topics?

This is something I have been thinking about ever since I started observing my colleagues teach and then as I began to teach myself. My initial thought was “how can I make info lit interactive so I talk less and the students do more?”

After reading Amy Boykin and Allison Willson-Metzger’s article “A Murder in the Library” I got inspired. A Murder Mystery seemed like the perfect idea to get students engaged, especially with the rising popularity of escape rooms and the like. Reading this article led me to discover Carleton College’s Annual Library Mystery Event where they created an interactive Murder Mystery complete with clues where students learned about library resources and services. This seemed perfect to me and a great way to get incoming freshmen familiar with the library during their orientation. Using this as a base, I created my own “Mystery at the Library: the Quest for the Holy Grail” where a history professor went missing on his search for the Holy Grail. The freshmen students had to retrace their steps to find the missing professor and Holy Grail, all the while learning in a hands-on way about our resources and services. The event was successful, but I thought how can I take this fun activity and bring it into the classroom?

Mystery at the Library: The Quest for the Holy Grail poster

I read a lot of articles and listened to presentations on different ways this could be possible with my ultimate end-goal being an engaging lesson from which students will learn and have fun. I turned towards Canvas, my institution’s learning management system, to develop a digital scavenger hunt.developed what I hope (key word: Hope) will be an engaging way to get students to a) learn the importance of information literacy skills and b) have fun. This digital scavenger hunt I created asks students questions about printing money, databases, InterLibrary Loan, and more. After each question the students are given a clue to a cypher. Once they answer every question, gather the clues, and put them in the correct order, the cypher reveals a call number to a book revealing that the missing professor and the Holy Grail are located in the stacks near the book.

Currently, graduate and undergraduate students who work in the library are testing the digital scavenger hunt. So far I have received great feedback, though with the overall feeling that I made it too difficult. Whether or not this is due to my own design skills or the questions being too difficult, I’m unsure. If the questions are too hard, I like to believe if the students had an info lit class prior to taking it, they would be able to get through it more easily. This of course leads to a bigger discussion on what and how we are as librarians teaching students and how we can make this better. I will continue to edit the questions and rethink how to make the Quest a great companion to a lecture in my information literacy classes. I’m determined to speak less, have the students do more, and create enthusiasm around library instruction.

I certainly don’t have all the answers, and don’t know yet if this digital scavenger hunt will have a positive effect on student learning outcomes. Until I become the superhero teacher I wish to become, I do know I will continue to learn through my own research and experience to find what works and doesn’t in the classroom, and will always seek to make learning fun.

What Are You Reading?: Organizing Inter-Campus Book Displays

February 6, 2020

by Annie Jansen

Books displays are hard. Even with an investment in fancy shelves or display cases, getting students, faculty, and staff to pause and pick up books from a display table as they’re on their way to class or tutoring is a challenge. Though we switch out displays weekly and link the content or theme of each table to something going on in the larger campus community or in the world, browsing of these displays rarely happens.

Conversely, if we think about how books are displayed in bookstores, we see a lot more engagement. People pick books up and read the back covers or inside of the jacket. Granted, they are there because it’s a bookstore and they want to browse or purchase a book, but something about that particular table and that particular book has caught their eye. What can libraries do differently to get this type of reaction from our displays?

If you’re like me, one of the places you check out when first walking into any bookstore is the staff recommendations shelf. There is always something surprising on the shelf; always a title I’ve never heard of and want to pick up and take a closer look at. I also know from working in a bookstore that staff really enjoy coming up with suggestions and sharing their favorite titles with patrons. We took this idea and ran with it on our campus, and we’ve gotten some good results!

One of our librarians contacted different units on campus (admissions, athletics, student affairs, etc.) and asked them to submit the titles of their favorite books. Once enough titles were received from individuals in each department, we gathered multiple copies of each title, sometimes in different formats, and put them on a display with digital signage making clear which department on campus recommended these titles. Once on display, an email was sent to that department inviting them to come and see their display. Individuals also get a bit of library swag when they come over, as a thank you for participating.

This may seem like a simple idea, but it’s gotten engagement from members of the departments who submit their titles, other faculty and staff who are interested in what their colleagues are reading, and even a few students who pick up the books on display. I also think it’s also helpful that there are multiple copies of each title on the table. Just like the last piece of cake, no one wants to take the single copy of a book on display. I’m sure there is some psychological theory that explains why that is, but in the meantime, I’ll just be happy that our display tables are getting more traction!

Open and FAIR go Together Like a Horse and Carriage

February 3, 2020

tags: Open Data

by Darren G. Poley

The State of Open Data Report has been produced 2016-2019 by Digital Science and Figshare. What’s different about 2019? The number of respondents, which remained relatively the same for the first three years, quadrupled to over 8000 world-wide according to Briony Fane, “What is the State of Open Data in 2019?” in The State of Open Data Report 2019 (Digital Science, October 24, 2019), 8-12.

Fane goes on to say, the value of a citation to a dataset was rated highly or more highly than was a citation to a standard research paper. What makes this attitude interesting is that while a third of respondents published their first peer-reviewed article in the 2010s nearly half already have tenure and over a third are professors. So, the idea that researchers who have already passed over the coveted professional thresholds care only about traditional forms of scholarship is not a truism. But this may be the case because researchers who are established in their careers are less concerned about getting scooped by sharing their data and are more interested in collaborating with other scholars.

Fane, “What is the State of Open Data in 2019?” 9.

It may seem logical that over a third of respondents have concerns about misuse of data. However, the second most frequent concern was uncertainty about copyright and licensing. It is encouraging though that the percentage of respondents who don’t know what license covered their data when it was made openly available has dropped significantly since the first report four years ago.

The sad reality these reports reveal is that most researchers still don’t know what FAIR principles are when it comes to open data. But on the positive, a majority “of respondents who had never used open data in their research would be willing to do so” (Fane 11).

Some other “Big Takeaways” identified by Briony Fane, a Data Analyst with Digital Science:

“full citation (61%), co-authorship (42%), consideration in job reviews (45%) and financial reward (38%) all ranked highly as important mechanisms for researchers as credit for sharing their data openly”
“65% of respondents reported that they curated their data for sharing either privately or publicly”
“79% of 2019 respondents were supportive overall of a national mandate for making primary research openly available.”

There have been tremors in the research publishing community since an open letter with now over 60 signatories was sent late last year to petition for a White House Executive Order to require open access for publicly funded research. Based on The State of Open Data Report 2019, an important step a librarian can take is to educate researchers about the FAIR principles and ensure research data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable.

Call for Presenters – Share Your Ideas, Knowledge, & Experience at the Pennsylvania Library Association 2020 Conference!

January 31, 2020

by Andrea Pritt

The 2020 Pennsylvania Library Association Conference, Mountains of Possibilities! will take place October 18 – 21, 2020 at Kalahari Resorts & Conventions in the Poconos.

The 2020 Conference Program Committee is currently accepting proposals for sessions to take place during the conference, to include more than sixty educational sessions on topics of interest for the library community. Suggested topics

If you are an expert on a topic that you feel will be of interest to this group, we invite you to submit a session proposal!

The deadline for submissions is noon (EST) on Monday, March 16.

For more information on the conference, and the submission link and requirements, CLICK HERE, and by all means plan to join us at Kalahari! You won’t want to miss it!

Outreach Efforts to Computer Science Students and Faculty

January 30, 2020

tags: academic libraries, computer science, outreach, students

by Andrea Pritt

As a STEM Librarian I serve a diverse group of students enrolled in science, engineering, and technology related disciplines. I have been in my current role for almost two years now and I have been successful at making inroads with several engineering departments as well as the biology department. However, a new goal that I have in mind is to increase my outreach to our computer science students and faculty. I want to do more beyond adding relevant books to our library collection.

After reading about how great the book is and having conversations with fellow librarians who found it insightful, I have started reading Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble (2018, New York University Press). I am only halfway through the book right now, but I will note that my colleagues have steered me in the right direction. I do not intend to write a book review here but if you have any interest in algorithm bias, machine learning, or search engines – I highly encourage you to read this work. At last year’s PaLA’s annual conference one of our colleagues gave a brief lightning talk about bias in computer science programming (it was enlightening) and just yesterday I attended a Library and Information Technology Association (LITA) webinar called “Engaging with Algorithm Bias: How Librarians Can Meet Information Literacy Needs of Computer Science and Engineering Students” presented by three librarians and one computer science faculty member. The presenters discussed their recent work on surveying computer science student’s perception of search engines and algorithm bias. They used their survey results and discussions with students to create a learning module all about algorithm bias that they’ve deployed at three different institutions to different audiences. I thoroughly enjoyed the webinar and would encourage you to reach out to the presenters with any questions. While I still need to finish Algorithms of Oppression, both the book and webinar have already given me ideas on how to increase my outreach to the computer science department.

In the future, I am planning on reaching out to the department again (my first attempt last year was not as successful as I hoped) to build connections with faculty and the program director. I know that I need to learn a lot more about their department, courses, and students before I can embark on a meaningful relationship. It seems the topic of algorithm bias and the oppression of certain users by search engines would fit well in a course on computer ethics. I will be investigating the computer sciences course that are offered on my campus to determine possible entry points and areas of collaboration. One opportunity for growth in this area is to reach out to the computer science capstone courses and offer research assistance relevant to their capstone projects as I do with our engineering courses. As I learn more about the discipline and the needs of computer science students on my campus, I am hopeful that my outreach efforts will be successful.

If you are a librarian with computer science liaison duties and/or interested in algorithm bias – I would love to hear your suggestions! Have your outreach efforts to computer science students been positive experiences? Is there something you would or would not do again? Please feel free to comment on this post or contact me directly at alp5088@psu.edu.