Weeks 14, 15, and 16: Whirlwind End of the Semester!

It is hard for me to believe we are already at the end of the semester! I've continued to assume additional responsibilities as the semester has gone on, putting in extra hours to attend committee meetings, observe and assist with unique info lit sessions, and prepare for our upcoming LOEX presentation. Here's a quick rundown of some of the highlights:

University of Dubuque, Charles C. Myers Library 

• After having life-sized cut-outs of people in the library for April's abuse/assault awareness, we spent one morning dismantling the display so it could travel to its next destination (quite a moving display showing the names, ages, and the story of how they died as a result of domestic abuse).
  
• LOEX prep, LOEX prep, LOEX prep. (Did I mention LOEX prep?) Anne Marie and I have worked hard to complete both the paper and presentation, sharing our experiences from our internship/mentorship semester, as well as recommendations from the literature. See you in Fort Worth in just a few days! (Here's a sneak-peak at our Prezi: http://bit.ly/LOEXMentoring2011)
• Crafts (not just for elementary teachers, dear friends)! Between helping prep multicolored note card packets (complete with stickers) for the Great American Poetry Race (more on that in a bit) and transcribing colorful handwritten concept maps into electronic form, I was all about being crafty and creative!
• We had a master's student studying communication host a workshop for the library staff. We talked about effective communication, our habits as a staff, effective leadership, diversity of views & how that helps groups come up with new ideas.
• Web meeting: What do we like about what we have? What would we like to change? What new technologies would we like to incorporate into our library services and how would that be reflected in our website?
• Ref desk coverage for a colleague and my regular shifts--always something new there!
• The Great American Poetry Race: Students work in small groups, racing through a set of cards to find critical sources on their chosen poems. After a brief refresher on library resources, particularly those they'd likely use for this task, the students are on their own to find quality resources (with one "help card" they can cash in for librarian assistance). Progress is charted on the wall and the first group to complete all of their cards receives an awesome prize! The students were really involved with this activity and, while it was competitive, the competition didn't overshadow the learning objectives.
• Evaluation time! Anne Marie and I scheduled some time to go over the evaluation forms from IU as well as just discuss the internship experience. I won't go into too much detail here, but I am so thankful to have found a place for my internship that matches my student-first philosophy, one that has given me an abundance of opportunities and realistic experience that I can take with me anywhere, not to mention the new friends I have made!
• Jenny Parker and I prepared and led a book discussion over Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach. The meeting at the end of last week went really well, and reminded me that despite my colleagues having more experience than me, they continue to face the same challenges in and out of the classroom. By opening a dialog and sharing successes and frustrations, I think we were able to better understand each other as librarians and educators. At the end of the discussion, Mary Anne expressed an interest in regularly scheduling other discussion times to continue the professional sharing that happened during our meeting. 
• OCLC visit day! We hosted a meeting with the Iowa OCLC rep and invited the Loras library folks to join us as we learned about what is available through OCLC's Web-Scale Management Services, what will be available in the near future, and offered suggestions regarding features we like with the current system that aren't readily available through OCLC's product.

Anne Marie Gruber & Cara Stone

It has been a fantastic semester, and I would recommend this experience to anyone interested in librarianship! Many thanks to those who helped coordinate details between Bloomington and Dubuque, and to the UD faculty and staff for helping to develop me as a librarian!

Article 7: Communities of Practice at an Academic Library

Henrich, K. J., & Attebury, R. (2010). Communities of Practice at an Academic Library: A New Approach to Mentoring at the University of Idaho. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 36(2), 158-165.

Communities of Practice are made up of a group sharing a common goal. The environment created is one in which participants feel safe to share professional ideas. Benefits include efficiency of professional development; innovation, collaboration, and project success; and raised awareness about current happenings within the larger organization. Best practices for creation of Communities of Practice in libraries include having a common interest in the topic, inclusion of information and communication technologies, sharing common knowledge and experiences, promotion of publishing opportunities; and ensuring leadership is done from within the group. Promoting a Sense of Community, and making the Community of Practice meetings as part of the professional workday help add legitimacy to the development and sharing process. Challenges to Communities of Practice include finding and maintaining focus on the issue/s, allotting the time and effort to the group (it is a commitment), it can be difficult to sustain and leadership may lose momentum. When forming the group, the librarians at the University of Idaho kept the following points in mind: the goal is to benefit all members; they outlined how the time would be spent, who the facilitator was, what the goals were, how disagreements would be handled, and how they would stay on track. The group was limited to library faculty and they discussed research ideas and gave feedback to their peers. Participation was voluntary, and the environment was promoted as one that was confidential and an open space for sharing ideas without the threat that their research idea would be stolen. Meetings were held once per month the structure was that of presentation and discussion.

Week Seven: Web Meetings, Career Week Displays, and Scheduling Reference/Instruction

The week began with a meeting that returned to an earlier discussion about the library's "How Do I?" page. Jenny, another intern, shared some examples with the committee and we discussed the features we liked and those we didn't. Quite a bit of time was spent discussing: purpose, audience(s), format(s), and the features themselves. While students are the primary audience for the FAQ/How Do I? page, we still need to keep in mind faculty and other library patrons. There is a heavy lean toward Information Literacy as the focus, but there are still elements that are straight forward Q & A. Many of us liked the clear language and the white space found on the University of Central Florida's website. We also liked the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee's simple, browsable, one page format. Though fairly well hidden (those unfamiliar with the website would have to look carefully to find it), the page presents basics using headers to categorize questions (that use jargon-free language). A sub-committee (made up of Jenny, Anne Marie, Becky, and me) are going to review the websites and create an outline of the content and presentation we would like to see for the new version of the "How Do I" page. What was left of Monday was spent reviewing professional literature.

The library is almost to the implementation stages for the Library Student Worker Career Development Program, where students are paid to visit with a representative from the Career Services Office. I worked with Diana Newman, the library secretary, to finish up the brochure that will be given to students. The rest of the week was spent preparing materials for the Career Week display. I looked up various items in the catalog (general suggestions were given by Trina, our contact in the Career Services Office), printed off my list, and explored the stacks to find materials for the physical display. My cart filled with résumé writing guides, discipline-specific career guides, books geared to help students find their vocation, and popular movies about students finding their way in college and the "real world." I changed all of the items' status to "on display" should anyone be looking for them, and set them up on the reference shelves on the main floor of the library (near the main entrance). Right after I set the items up, a student came to the reference desk asking about cover letters--I was able to directly to the display and grab a book that helped her prepare her application to become a Dorm Resident Assistant!

I was also able to review my teaching with Anne Marie (who had observed me the week before). In the next few weeks I'll be assuming more solo teaching and reference desk responsibilities. We also discussed institutional repositories, library assessments, reporting library statistics to various agencies, and University accreditation (more on that in the future). Jenny and I are also going to be working together to facilitate a professional development book discussion with the librarians (happening in early April).