The Academic Teaching Librarian's Handbook 9781783304646

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Praise for The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook ‘Claire McGuinness’ The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook is a timely and substantive contribution as we face rapid changes in the publishing and scholarly communication environment. While library instruction was once about basic information literacy for students, now we must also include topics such as research data management, research integrity and research evaluation, to name a few, and involve a wider audience including researchers at different career stages. The role of librarians as teachers, advocates and leaders is well described and discussed in this book. I would recommend every librarian has it on their shelf as you are sure to need it from time to time!’ Dr Lai Ma, University College Dublin. ‘This inspiring publication is an essential resource for academic teaching librarians and students on professional LIS programmes, offering comprehensive guidance to those library and information professionals engaged in teaching from a theoretical and practical perspective. The publication will enhance the professional skill set amongst academic teaching librarians and the critical insights it provides will encourage the practitioner to engage in reflective self-development and reassess the role of the teaching librarian as they harness the opportunities and possibilities provided by an array of digital technologies. This timely book offers significant value for professional librarians who teach, providing them with the latest research and best practice in teaching, and a distinctive wealth of knowledge and expertise which will revitalise and empower them as teaching librarians in an ever-changing information services environment.’ Philip Russell, Deputy Librarian, Technological University of Dublin

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The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook

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Every purchase of a Facet book helps to fund CILIP’s advocacy, awareness and accreditation programmes for information professionals.

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The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook

Claire McGuinness

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© Claire McGuinness 2021 Published by Facet Publishing, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE www.facetpublishing.co.uk Facet Publishing is wholly owned by CILIP: the Library and Information Association. The author has asserted her right to be identified as such in accordance with the terms of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Except as otherwise permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, with the prior permission of the publisher, or, in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of a licence issued by The Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to Facet Publishing, 7 Ridgmount Street, London WC1E 7AE. Every effort has been made to contact the holders of copyright material reproduced in this text, and thanks are due to them for permission to reproduce the material indicated. If there are any queries please contact the publisher. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978–1–78330–462–2 (paperback) ISBN 978–1–78330–463–9 (hardback) ISBN 978–1–78330–464–6 (ePDF) ISBN 978-1-78330-516-2 (ePUB) First published 2021 Text printed on FSC accredited material.

Typeset from author’s files by Flagholme Publishing Services in 10/13 pt Palatino Linotype and Open Sans. Printed and made in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY.

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Contents

Figures and tables Acknowledgements Introduction PART 1

CONSTRUCTING THE ACADEMIC TEACHING LIBRARIAN

ix xi xiii 1

1

Shaping the academic teaching librarian 1.1 Introduction: critical issues for academic teaching librarians 1.2 Conceptions of literacy: terminology and the academic teaching librarian 1.3 New frameworks: information literacy in context 1.4 Critical information literacy 1.5 Social media and filter bubbles: the rise of ‘fake news’ 1.6 Learning analytics 1.7 E-research and datafied scholarship

3 3 3 12 20 27 34 44

2

Defining the academic teaching librarian 2.1 Introduction: who is the academic teaching librarian? 2.2 Professional identity and ‘teacher identity’ 2.3 Roles and responsibilities of academic teaching librarians 2.4 The information-literate self 2.5 Reflective practice for academic teaching librarians 2.6 Developing a personal teaching philosophy

51 51 54 62 71 76 85

3

Becoming an academic teaching librarian 3.1 Introduction: choosing the academic teaching librarian pathway 3.2 Looking inwards: self-analysis and the teaching role 3.3 Does a ‘teaching personality’ exist? 3.4 Mapping your teaching profile 3.5 Planning and developing your teaching role 3.6 Keeping current with teaching trends 3.7 Documenting and showcasing your work: teaching portfolios for librarians

97 97 102 104 106 115 118 121

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PART 2 4

EXCELLING AS AN ACADEMIC TEACHING LIBRARIAN

Technology and the academic teaching librarian 4.1 Introduction: the digital environment for academic teaching librarians 4.2 Teaching, learning and technology: key concepts 4.3 The digital imperative in higher education 4.4 Digital education in higher education (HE): state of the art 4.5 Digital learning and the academic teaching librarian 4.6 Digital learning knowledge domains: a framework for academic teaching librarians 4.7 Levels of skill and expertise for digital learning 4.8 Additional digital learning competence frameworks 4.9 A reflective approach to planning and designing digital learning 4.10 A final word on digital learning

129 131 131 133 137 138 143 145 150 155 161 169

5

Leading and co-ordinating for the academic teaching librarian 5.1 Introduction: leadership, management and culture 5.2 Leadership and the academic teaching librarian 5.3 Co-ordinating your library’s information literacy programme 5.4 Creating an information literacy culture in your institution 5.5 Engaging with the wider community of teaching librarians

173 173 174 183 188 200

6

Advocacy and the academic teaching librarian 6.1 Introduction: reflecting on advocacy 6.2 Advocacy and libraries 6.3 Advocacy and academic teaching librarians 6.4 Information literacy: communicating value 6.5 Ways of engaging in advocacy 6.6 Writing for academic publications: a reflective view

215 215 216 221 223 226 231

References

243

Index

269

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Figures and tables

Figures 1.1 2.1 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 4.8

IFLA infographic: ‘How to spot fake news’ Gibbs’ Reflective Learning Cycle Teaching librarian development plan template Teaching development micro-planner Teaching portfolio template Digital learning knowledge domains (DLKDs) for academic teaching librarians Academic teaching librarians’ levels of skill and expertise for digital learning The Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) Mayes and Fowler’s Conceptualisation Cycle Oliver and Herrington’s Model of Instructional Design for Web-based Learning Visual representations of learning components Visualisation of ‘learning tasks, resources, supports’ approach to instructional design

33 81 115 118 123 150 153 157 160 165 166 168 168

Tables 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 3.1 3.2 3.3

Dominant 21st-century literacies Conceptual differences between academic and critical information literacy ‘Fake news’ typologies Learning analytics and library codes of ethics Research-focused services offered by academic libraries Self-perceptions of academic librarians Comparison of teaching-related knowledge and skills in library competence frameworks ACRL roles and strengths of teaching librarians: summary of key elements Brainstorm example for a teaching philosophy statement Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) Sample job titles, duties and requirements in adverts for instruction librarians Characteristics and behaviours most valued in teachers Core values of librarianship

9 23 29 41 47 55 65 70 90 93 99 105 112

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3.4 4.1 4.2 5.1 6.1

THE ACADEMIC TEACHING LIBRARIAN’S HANDBOOK

Typology of professional development activities Levels of skills and expertise: sample scenario Mapping the digital learning frameworks Common traits of librarian ‘teacher leaders’ Reflective exercise: the value of information literacy

120 154 162 177 225

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Acknowledgements

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to family, friends, colleagues, and all who supported and encouraged me through the process of writing this book. Special thanks to the editorial team at Facet Publishing for their guidance and positivity, and to my good friend and collaborator, Dr Crystal Fulton, for reading chapters. This book is dedicated to all students who have participated in my teaching librarian course at University College Dublin since 2004. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the unfailing joy and inspiration you brought to class each week. And to future students – I can’t wait to meet you.

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Introduction

For academic teaching librarians, the world has changed radically in the past two decades. The shifting technological and educational landscapes have not only brought opportunities and challenges, but have also called into question the assumptions, practices and frameworks that were once the foundation of information literacy instruction and constituted the basis for articulating and communicating the librarian’s teaching role. While we may have gained greater status and acceptance as educators in our institutions (Cowan, 2014), and reflective practice and expression has given us a deeper appreciation of the nature and purpose of our role (Corrall, 2017), we find that our responsibilities and role expectations are in a constant state of flux. We understand ourselves perhaps better than ever before; however, this understanding also demands a closer, more forensic examination of our role and purpose, and several authors and practitioners have begun to question some of the basic principles of our practice that were previously considered immutable. A good example of this type of questioning is found in Julien’s article ‘Beyond the Hyperbole: information literacy reconsidered’, in which she challenged the ‘immense burdens that we have placed on the term information literacy (and its synonyms)’ by equating it with ‘sustainable human development, participatory civic societies, sustainable world peace, freedom, democracy, good governance, and fostering of intercultural knowledge and mutual understanding’ (Julien, 2016, 126). Her contention was that, although ‘we see ourselves at the forefront of these great goals when the notion of information literacy is invoked’ (p. 127), the goals are beyond the means of what is achievable by librarians working alone. Ultimately, she proposed a reappraisal of our role in relation to the facilitation and promotion of information literacy in different contexts: ‘Above all, what is needed is a sense of perspective. Information literacy is not a silver bullet to slay the world’s ills, nor sufficient to achieve all of humankind’s loftiest goals, but it is an important goal, and should remain on our practice and advocacy agendas’ (p. 130). Articles like this suggest a conceptual rebalancing that may

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seem at odds with the goals for information literacy and the role of librarians that were established in influential, high-level documents, such as the Alexandria Proclamation on Information Literacy and Lifelong Learning (Garner, 2006), and the report of the Information Literacy Meeting of Experts (Thompson, 2003), otherwise known as the Prague Declaration. These manifestos set a high bar for us as teaching librarians, aligning our work with human rights, economic prosperity, competitive advantage and the ‘social, cultural and economic development of nations and communities, institutions and individuals in the 21st century and beyond’ (Thompson, 2003, 1). Cowan also challenged the status quo, but from a different perspective; her starting point was that academic librarians have now ‘won the battle’ to embed information literacy in higher education, and she claimed that ‘information literacy as an educational practice is perhaps the most profound evidence of success in the modern academic library. It is evidence of an assertion of relevance that still has potent force at academic institutions’ (Cowan, 2014, 27). She contended that as teaching librarians, our focus is now ‘almost entirely on the day-to-day work of “doing” information literacy’, and we are ‘in all senses completely in the thick of it’ (p. 27). Cowan’s concern was not that we have gone about things the wrong way, or have aimed too high; rather, it was that in claiming information literacy primarily as a library function and under the jurisdiction of librarians, we are missing (or ignoring) the opportunity to safeguard it for the future, which we could do by reframing it to fit the changing educational landscape and by relinquishing some of our ‘turf’ to other stakeholders in our institutions: Information literacy is alive and well. And should be. But perhaps not by that name, and perhaps not in the hands – at least not mostly in the hands – of librarians. Information literacy must, like so many other library services, enter the educational commons, in the sense of a collaborative network of pedagogies and practices that crosses internal and external institutional boundaries and has no ‘home’ because it lives in no one place. (Cowan, 2014, 30)

So, where do we find ourselves now? They are just two examples of how the academic teaching librarian’s role is currently under review, and it gives us pause for thought as we move forward. It is interesting to examine these challenges in relation to the recent history of academic teaching librarianship. Just a decade ago, it appeared that the information literacy movement had achieved one of the highest forms of recognition with the United States Presidential Proclamation, which was issued to launch ‘National Information Literacy Awareness Month’ during October 2009. In it, the then US President

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INTRODUCTION  XV

Obama called upon the people of the USA ‘to recognize the important role information plays in our daily lives and appreciate the need for a greater understanding of its impact’. In Europe, large-scale national initiatives, such as the UK-based Scottish and Welsh National Information Literacy frameworks, were helping to advance the agenda through a combination of research, lobbying and outreach, and international organisations such as the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) expressed support for the continued development and promotion of information literacy at the highest levels. Alongside this public recognition, the teaching role of the academic librarian continued to evolve, both conceptually and in the dayto-day details of professional practice (McGuinness, 2011). While the overall view was positive and progressive, some research studies and anecdotal accounts suggested a degree of uncertainty and anxiety among practitioners regarding this aspect of their work (Davis, 2007). For instance, Julien and Genuis highlighted this in their study where they noted, ‘while instructional work is important, librarians are not universally accepting of their instructional roles. Previous research suggests ambivalence, and sometimes hostility, towards instruction’ (Julien and Genuis, 2009, 927). A strong emergent theme during this time was the lack of formal pedagogical training available to librarians to prepare them for teaching work in their institutions (Walter, 2006; 2008), as well as the ongoing debate about the nature and extent of knowledge and skill required by librarians to be effective teachers. The question of collaboration with faculty and other institutional stakeholders to embed information literacy into academic curricula and programmes also loomed large in discussions of the librarian’s teaching role. During this period, the increasingly teaching-oriented role of academic libraries in response to changes in the educational landscape was viewed as a paradigm shift: In the area of student learning, academic libraries are in the middle of a paradigm shift. In the past, academic libraries functioned primarily as information repositories; now they are becoming learning enterprises . . . This shift requires academic librarians to embed library services and resources in the teaching and learning activities of their institutions . . . In the new paradigm, librarians focus on information skills, not information access . . . ; they think like educators, not service providers. (ACRL, 2010, 37)

However, the dependence of librarians on ‘one-shot’ information literacy sessions within academic programmes was frequently identified as a barrier to effective curriculum-integrated teaching, and a source of frustration for

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librarians (Zai, 2015). A small number of qualitative studies at the time had also begun to explore academic librarians’ subjective experiences of teaching and teacher identity, and to identify the issues and challenges that affected their sense of self-efficacy and confidence in relation to their teaching work (Walter, 2008; Julien and Pecoskie, 2009; Julien and Genuis, 2009; 2011). In 2015, Vassilakaki and Moniarou-Papaconstantinou published a comprehensive account of the core themes and issues affecting the development and perception of academic librarians’ teaching roles over this period in their systematic review of emerging roles for LIS professionals. They identified the ‘Librarian as Teacher’ as one of six main roles for LIS professionals, with the observation that ‘the role of librarians as educators is proving to be more important than ever’ (Vassilakaki and Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, 2015, 37). Their analysis also identified several significant factors reported as affecting or impeding academic librarians’ teaching work, including: ■ academics’ disagreement and the misconceptions of information professionals

acting as partners in the learning process ■ the need for the academics and librarians’ roles to be clarified to build

working relationships ■ the need for effective collaboration among the two groups ■ the confidence that collaboration should extend from personal to institutional

level ■ the need for time commitment for teaching preparation and work ■ the librarians’ knowledge to assume teaching responsibilities, and the level of

required pedagogical knowledge ■ the way the librarians develop this knowledge and how it contributes to their

teaching activities ■ the need for LIS professionals to expand their professional expertise and

obtain knowledge in pedagogy within the framework of LIS education. (Vassilakaki and Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, 2015, 41)

Ariew’s historical account also provided a succinct overview of the status of teaching librarianship as it stood during this period, and affirmed the issues of institutional support, pedagogical approaches and teacher identity that were highlighted by Vassilakaki and Moniarou-Papaconstantinou: the role of the teaching library was not quite on solid ground in the early part of the 21st century; it was still subject to the politics of administrative support, somewhat ambivalent attitudes towards the role of academic librarians, a lack of understanding about the teaching mission of the academic library, and a

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INTRODUCTION  XVII

disagreement about what content should be taught by librarians, if indeed they were teaching at all (Ariew, 2014, 216)

So, as we enter the third decade of the 21st century, it is time to reflect. How have the changes of the past 20 years affected our practice – and what are the important issues and trends which exert the most powerful influence on the academic teaching librarian’s role today? These are the principal questions at the core of this book, which seeks to provide a reflective framework for developing, enhancing and above all, enjoying your career as an academic teaching librarian, regardless of your starting point.

Who should read this book? This book is relevant for all academic library professionals, including students on professional LIS programmes, who wish to pursue an instructional role in their work and to develop this aspect of their professional lives in a holistic way throughout their careers. It is suitable for early-career professionals at the start of their teaching journey, as well as mid- and late-career librarians who may have moved into managerial roles, and who wish to advance their teaching role to the next level. The theme of reflective practice runs throughout the book, and readers are free to use the various exercises as much or as little as they choose. It is also a useful resource for LIS instructors who teach courses on instructional skills for information professionals. Overall, the book has four key objectives: 1 To provide a comprehensive resource on teaching and professional development for an audience which includes LIS students, LIS instructors and practising information professionals at all careers stages. 2 To explore the current landscape of teaching librarianship, and highlight and discuss the important developments, issues, and trends that are shaping current and future practice. 3 To examine the roles and responsibilities of the academic teaching librarian in the digital era, and explore the essential areas of development, skill and knowledge that will empower current and future teaching librarians to perform well in these roles. 4 To inspire prospective and current teaching librarians to adopt a broad conception of the role that goes beyond the basic idea of classroom-based teaching, and to give them practical tools to engage in personal development and career planning in this area.

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The content is presented in two parts. The first, which covers Chapters 1–3, focuses on Constructing the academic teaching librarian and addresses the early stages of choosing to follow a teaching pathway in your career and developing your sense of professional identity, as you reflect on the role, consider the issues shaping it, and plan for the future. To set the scene, Chapter 1 explores the landscape of academic teaching librarianship and identifies six critical issues with the potential to disrupt and reshape the role of the academic teaching librarian as we currently experience it. Chapter 2 invites you to reflect on what it means to be, and to become, an academic teaching librarian through considering how professional identity is constructed, how ‘teacher identity’ is formed, and what roles and responsibilities are associated with the role of academic teaching librarian. It also explores the contribution of reflective practice to identity formation and gives you an opportunity to develop a personal teaching philosophy statement, which captures the beliefs, values and motivators that influence and shape your approach to teaching. Chapter 3 encourages you to explore your suitability for an academic teaching librarian role by reflecting on your career aspirations and the professional choices you can make that will align with your own values, attributes and goals. It also provides some practical tools for career planning and professional development, as well as a teaching portfolio template for you to document and showcase your instructional work. The second part, covering Chapters 4–6, focuses on Excelling as an academic teaching librarian, and covers the areas of practice and professional development you might expect to encounter as you progress further in your career. Chapter 4 zeroes in on the transformative potential of digital learning within higher education and explores the impact of recent technologies on pedagogical practice, student engagement, instructional design and the work of academic teaching librarians. The Digital Learning Knowledge Domains model presented in this chapter offers a framework for you to develop an enhanced understanding of yourself in relation to the use of technology in facilitating student learning. Chapter 5 turns to the managerial and strategic aspects of academic teaching librarianship and invites you to reflect on leadership and co-ordination in the context of your work, as well as consider how an institutional culture conducive to information literacy might be fostered in your workplace. It also explores the personal and professional benefits of participating in the wider community of academic teaching librarians. In Chapter 6 the concept of advocacy as it relates to the role of academic teaching librarians is considered, and you are encouraged to reflect on how you might develop this aspect of your professional identity. Practical strategies for advocacy are discussed, and a specific focus on writing for academic publication brings this book full circle, as you reflect on how you

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INTRODUCTION  XIX

might choose to write about your own experiences for publication in the future. Rather than present basic teaching skills, competences, and methods which are very effectively covered elsewhere (e.g. Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2009; Booth, 2011; Blanchett, Powis and Webb, 2012), the focus of this book is on professional self-development and reflection – understanding and constructing your identity as an academic teaching librarian, as you move in and out of different roles and responsibilities during your career. This sense of identity is partly shaped by the informational, educational and professional landscapes in which you operate, and by the trends, conceptual shifts and breakthroughs which lead to the most profound changes in thinking and practice. Sometimes these changes feel organic – other times, it seems as though they are imposed by external forces. Either way, it is our responses to these changes – individual, institutional and global – that determine how our role will develop and evolve. The first step begins with reflection and understanding. Each chapter contains ‘personal reflection points’, reflective pauses and exercises at various stages, which you can use as helpful prompts to guide your individual reflection, or as starting points for wider group discussions or debates.

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PART 1

Constructing the academic teaching librarian

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CHAPTER 1

Shaping the academic teaching librarian

1.1 Introduction: critical issues for academic teaching librarians Since the beginning of the 21st century, the landscape of academic librarianship has undergone significant transformation, with changes in technology, scholarly communication and publishing, models of educational delivery, student learning preferences and the re-imagined use of space contributing to a constantly shifting service paradigm, with a corresponding effect on the roles that academic librarians are required to fulfil. In this chapter, we discuss six critical issues that have been identified as especially influential in shaping the work environment and professional identity of academic teaching librarians. The critical issues include conceptions of literacy; new literacy frameworks; critical information literacy; social media and ‘fake news’; learning analytics; and e-research and datafied scholarship.

1.2 Conceptions of literacy: terminology and the academic teaching librarian Personal reflection points ■ What terms do I currently use to describe my teaching work when explaining it to others? Why do I use those terms? Do I use different terms in different contexts? ■ For what reasons might I select one term over another? ■ Do names matter? Do the terms that I use to describe my teaching work have any effect on my teaching practice, or on how it is perceived by others? ■ What existing conceptualisations or perspectives of information literacy, digital literacy or other ‘literacies’ am I currently aware of?

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■ What is my personal understanding of information and digital literacy, and

how do I articulate it? In order to support students effectively, it is important for academic and professional services staff to have a nuanced understanding of the terminology in the digital and information literacy fields. (Secker, 2018, 3)

For 21st-century academic teaching librarians, the terms we use to describe our work carry history and power and convey important information about our role in the academy and society. At a time when competing ‘literacies’ seem to jostle for position with information literacy, Secker emphasised the importance of terminology in clearly delineating roles and responsibilities in relation to student learning in higher education, where she suggested that ‘whether we call it media and information literacy (UNESCO, 2015), metaliteracy (Jacobson and Mackey, 2013) or digital literacy, terminology matters because it helps academics, librarians, learning developers and learning technologists develop a shared understanding of their aims’ (Secker, 2018, 10). The critical importance of consulting with academic colleagues and achieving consensus on terminology when it comes to determining the focus of instruction was underlined by Fister: If IL [information literacy] is truly to be a joint venture, we cannot leave faculty out of the conversation in which we name what our students should learn. We cannot carry important concepts, like tablets inscribed with ‘thou shalts’, down to the people to guide them. But we can, as librarians, be intentional about encouraging the act of naming. (Fister, 2017, 75–6, emphasis added)

Fister contended that it is essential to find language ‘that works across disciplines’ (p. 76). Most pragmatically of all, Grassian and Kaplowitz asserted that we risk being stymied in our work, if we fail to adequately define information literacy: . . . defining what we mean by IL is central to our task as instructors. If we do not know exactly what IL is, then how do we teach it, and even more important, how do we know if we have succeeded in our instructional endeavours? (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2009, 3)

As academic teaching librarians, there are many good reasons for you to reflect on your use and interpretation of terminology. For instance, reflection empowers you to:

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SHAPING THE ACADEMIC TEACHING LIBRARIAN  5

■ ■ ■

■ ■

understand how you perceive and rate your own self-efficacy in relation to what you are expected and equipped to teach articulate your teaching role in connection with the overall mission and strategic priorities of our institutions, and societal goals at large gain clarity about your goals, expectations and desired outcomes for supporting student learning, and understand how they relate to the students’ overall educational and life goals create a basis for shared understanding, communication and productive collaboration with colleagues within and outside the academy build a strong sense of professional identity that is anchored in history, research, shared experience, and appreciation of diverse perspectives and understandings.

The aim of this section is to introduce you to the issues and trends which shape our understanding of information literacy, to explore alternative and overlapping literacies which ‘compete’ with information literacy, and to examine how our approaches to information literacy instruction may be influenced by the terms we use in practice.

1.2.1 The name of the game: does information literacy (still) matter? ‘Information literacy is more significant now than it ever was, but it must be connected to related literacy types that address ongoing shifts in technology’ (Mackey and Jacobson, 2011, 62). Precisely 30 years after the publication of the seminal report of the Presidential Committee on Information Literacy (ALA, 1989), which placed information literacy on the map, linking it to critical thinking, effective learning and higher educational reform in the ‘Information Age,’ Fister asked if we are on the verge of a ‘third wave of information literacy’ (Fister, 2019, para. 2). This signifies an era defined, not only by the powerful opportunities afforded by the internet, social media, online communities and the mobile web, but also by the widespread commodification and commercialisation of our personal data and digital footprints by a small number of large private companies and by the critical issue of how we should respond to it. ‘If we think it matters,’ she stated, ‘we have a lot to do, and it’s all so entangled and complex that it’s hard to know the best way to approach teaching students about how information works in the world we inhabit today’ (para. 6). That information literacy still matters is not in question; in 2019, the annual Educause Learning Initiative survey of the higher education community identified ‘digital and information literacy’ as one of 15 Key Issues in Teaching and Learning, describing it as ‘nurturing student competencies in finding,

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PART 1 CONSTRUCTING THE ACADEMIC TEACHING LIBRARIAN

evaluating, and creating digital information’ (Educause, 2019). Moreover, the UK-based Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals’ (CILIP) Professional Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB), the organisation’s principal framework for professional self-development, identifies both ‘information literacy’ and ‘digital literacy’ as core knowledge and skills areas, under the professional expertise category of Literacies and Learning. Similarly, the Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians in the USA includes ‘appropriate expertise in information literacy and instruction skills and abilities, including textual, digital, visual, numerical, and spatial literacies’ as a core competence that is essential to professional practice (RUSA, 2017, 4). In the past five years, two leading library organisations – the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in the USA (ACRL, 2015), and CILIP in the UK (CILIP, 2018) – have revised their official definitions of information literacy to reflect 21st-century trends and influences, as well as incorporating a context-sensitive conceptualisation of information literacy replacing the previous skills-and-attributes-based definitions and standards that were common in the early years of the information literacy movement (Robinson and Bawden, 2018; Julien, 2016; ACRL, 2015; CILIP, 2018).

1.2.2 Terminology in transition As a term-in-use, however, information literacy remains a ‘phrase in quest of a meaning’ (Foster, 1993, 344), and over time has been criticised for being obtuse, inherently meaningless and value-free, lacking in descriptive power, too library-focused, and overly ambitious in scope. Although the subject of several major research studies over the years (e.g. Bruce, 1997; Delaney, 2014), it has been defined primarily in relation to the contexts in which it is used (e.g. academic, workplace, citizenship), the attributes, skills, knowledge and attitudes it implies (e.g. ability to find, access, evaluate, etc.), and the practices it describes (identifies an information need, uses information to solve a problem, etc.). Belshaw (2009) contended that, although it was coined almost five decades ago, ‘information literacy’ persists, but has ‘undergone a number of transformations to keep it current and relevant’. The evolving models and definitions, or ‘warp and weft’ of information literacy over the years (Fister, 2017) reflect the tremendous social, technological and cultural changes that have impacted on information behaviour, learning, and library practice; from the ‘first wave’ of library-centred bibliographic instruction, which focused on print documents and analogue systems, through the ‘second wave,’ which addressed the changes wrought by the advent of the internet and online information, up to the present day (Fister, 2019). Mackey and Jacobson echoed Fister’s ‘third wave’ description where they observed that, ‘the information

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age, which initially inspired the information literacy movement, has transformed into a post-information age of decentered content producers in an expansive global network’ (Mackey and Jacobson, 2014, 34). Roberts (2017, 528) suggested that ‘discussion has shifted from the idea of literacy being equated with printed text and the ability to read, to the concept of multiple literacies needed to function in increasingly complex daily life – visual literacy, numerical literacy, digital literacy, media literacy, and others’. Broadly, it is possible to discern two major transformations in how information literacy has been defined over the years; these transformations have, in turn, influenced the instructional approaches adopted by teaching librarians: 1 First transformation: from information skills to the ‘informationliterate person’ The first transformation, from the mid-1990s – 2010s, was characterised by a conceptual change from skills-based, highly prescriptive definitions and information literacy standards, to a ‘relational’ view of information literacy, focusing instead on the subjective experiences and perspectives of the ‘information-literate person’ in a diverse range of contexts (McGuinness, 2011). This transformation was influenced greatly by Bruce’s ‘Seven Faces’ phenomenographic research, which framed information literacy as a personal construct, anchored in individual subjective experience and expression, rather than an imposed or ideal set of desired competences and attributes (Bruce, 1997). Discussion of this transformation continues today; however, it is now understood that earlier information literacy models, such as the ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000) did not adequately reflect the complex and non-linear nature of a person’s engagement with information, and the diverse information practices that are appropriate in different life contexts and cultures (Lupton and Bruce, 2010; Foasberg, 2015; Hicks, 2016). This is an immensely influential perspective which remains at the core of ‘best practice’ in information literacy instruction: ‘That we need to move beyond purely operational/functional competencies and recognise the importance of nurturing higher order, critical thinking and problem solving skills is widely agreed and at the core of much of contemporary education policy’ (Dore, Geraghty and O’Riordan, 2015, 15). 2 Second transformation: from information literacy to multi-literacy frameworks The second transformation, which is ongoing, represents a move away from early efforts to distinguish and separate information literacy from

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other similar constructs through highlighting differences (e.g. comparing IL with computer literacy, ICT literacy or functional literacy), towards efforts to instead integrate and reconcile the ‘multi-literacies’ that have been identified, primarily in response to the rapidly changing technological landscape and participatory web culture that has emerged in the past 10–15 years. Mackey and Jacobson referred to this in presenting their case for a ‘meta-literacy’ where they stated that, ‘rather than separate information literacy from other forms of literacy, we argue that a comprehensive understanding of information and related competencies are central to these literacy concepts’ (Mackey and Jacobson, 2011, 68). It is also evident in publications such as UNESCO’s Conceptual Relationship of Information Literacy and Media Literacy in Knowledge Societies, which ‘adopts an integrated approach towards new literacy training by establishing a literacy framework of “21st Century Competencies”’ (Lee et al., 2013, 4). It is closely aligned to the perspective which sees information literacy as part of a literacy continuum, rather than a binary construct which identifies people as ‘literate’ or ‘not literate’ (Lupton and Bruce, 2010; Panke, 2015). Two distinct approaches have defined this transformation: (a) efforts to identify and map overlapping skills and competences, often graphically, to illustrate how the different literacy concepts are interrelated (e.g. JISC, 2015; All Aboard Digital Skills in Higher Education, 2017); and (b) efforts to construct a unifying conceptual framework of understanding, which either draws each ‘literacy’ under one umbrella concept (e.g. metaliteracy), or frames it in the context of an individual’s ‘reading’ or construction of meaning across multiple formats (e.g. trans-literacy). At the time of writing (2020), the dominant terms that are used in relation to information-based teaching and learning in the current technology-infused educational landscape include: ■ ■ ■ ■ ■

information literacy digital literacy or digital competence media literacy or media and information literacy (MIL) meta-literacy trans-literacy.

Table 1.1 opposite illustrates these commonly used terms with a selection of popular definitions. As Dore, Geraghty and O’Riordan pointed out: the language and terminology used commonly refer to skills, literacies or competencies and sometimes to all three used together or interchangeably. These

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multi-literacies include the overlapping elements of information and data literacy, media and visual literacy and an evolving range of academic, communication, creative, and participative domains. (Dore, Geraghty and O’Riordan, 2015, 12)

Typically, ‘literacies’ are defined in terms of the interrelated abilities and dispositions they encapsulate, the outcomes they facilitate, and the personal, social, civic and economic benefits those abilities afford to the individual and society. Table 1.1 Dominant 21st-century literacies Information literacy

‘Information literacy is the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use. It empowers us as citizens to reach and express informed views and to engage fully with society’ (CILIP Information Literacy Group, 2018) ‘Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning’ (ACRL, 2015)

Digital literacy/ Digital competence

‘We use the term “digital literacy” to describe the ability to harness the potential of digital tools. IFLA promotes an outcome-orientated definition – to be digitally literate means one can use technology to its fullest effect – efficiently, effectively and ethically – to meet information needs in personal, civic and professional lives’ (IFLA, 2017) ‘Digital Competence is the set of knowledge, skills, attitudes (thus including abilities, strategies, values and awareness) that are required when using ICT and digital media to perform tasks; solve problems; communicate; manage information; collaborate; create and share content; and build knowledge effectively, efficiently, appropriately, critically, creatively, autonomously, flexibly, ethically, reflectively for work, leisure, participation, learning, socialising, consuming, and empowerment’ (Ferrari, 2012)

Media literacy/ Media and information literacy

‘Media literacy concerns different media (broadcasting, radio, press), different distribution channels (traditional, internet, social media) and addresses the needs of all ages. Media literacy is also a tool empowering citizens as well as raising their awareness and helping counter the effects of disinformation campaigns and fake news spreading through digital media’ (European Commission, 2019) ‘Media and Information Literacy (MIL) is a basis for enhancing access to information and knowledge, freedom of expression, and quality education. It describes skills, and attitudes that are needed to value the functions of media and other information providers, including those on the Internet, in societies and to evaluate and produce information and media content; in other words, it covers the competencies that are vital for people to be effectively engaged in all aspects of development’ (Grizzle et al., 2013) Continued

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Table 1.1 Continued Meta-literacy

‘Meta-literacy is an overarching, self-referential, and comprehensive framework that informs other literacy types. Information literacy is a meta-literacy for a digital age because it provides the higher order thinking required to engage with multiple document types through various media formats in collaborative environments’ (Mackey and Jacobson, 2011). ‘an overarching set of abilities in which students are consumers and creators of information who can participate successfully in collaborative spaces. Meta-literacy demands behavioral, affective, cognitive, and metacognitive engagement with the information ecosystem’ (ACRL, 2015).

Trans-literacy

‘the ability to read, write and interact across a range of platforms, tools and media from signing and orality through handwriting, print, TV, radio and film, to digital social networks’ (Thomas et al., 2007) ‘Trans-literacy is concerned with mapping meaning across different media and not with developing particular literacies about various media. It is not about learning text literacy and visual literacy and digital literacy in isolation from one another but about the interaction among all these literacies’ (Ipri, 2010)

1.2.3 Digital literacy The increasing popularity of the term ‘digital literacy’ (Secker, 2018; IFLA, 2017) has partly come to define the debate, but has also further contributed to the terminological confusion: ‘The various domains contributing to the concept have led to a “jargon jungle not easy to breach”’ and to a ‘multiplicity of definitions that make it difficult to achieve consensus’ (Dore, Geraghty and O’Riordan, 2015, 12). Digital literacy has been discussed and critiqued by multiple authors, including Gilster, who originated the term in 1997, Bawden (2001; 2008), Lankshear and Knobel (2011), Ala-Mutka (2011), Littlejohn, Beetham and McGill (2012), Alexander et al. (2017), Secker (2018) and Reedy and Parker (2018). The evolution of digital literacy parallels, and is frequently interchangeable with, information literacy and other ‘network, internet, multimedia- and hyper-literacies’ (Bawden, 2001, 246), which reflect a reflective, critical, participatory, and context-sensitive approach to meaningmaking and information seeking, use, creation and sharing across multiple formats. However, unlike information literacy, digital literacy has gained more widespread ‘cachet’ in domains outside librarianship, and has led to some practitioners questioning whether it might be a more strategic term to adopt, particularly with the aim of increasing the visibility of libraries in highlevel initiatives and policies, where the term is frequently used (Cox, 2018). As Secker observed in her discussion of how to foster strong collaborations between different stakeholders in higher education to support student

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learning: ‘One suggestion is that given its currency, the term ‘digital literacy’ might move us closer together, towards a common understanding of the abilities that underpin learning’ (Secker, 2018, 8); however, she also urged caution, as digital literacy is also not a clearly defined concept. This is especially relevant when considered from an inter-cultural perspective, where different aspects of digital literacy are emphasised according to cultural and socio-economic priorities: Digital literacy is a complex phenomenon . . . when considered internationally. Nations and regions are creating ways to help their populations grapple with the digital revolution that are shaped by their local situations. In doing so, they cut across the genealogy of digital literacies, touching on its historical components: information literacy, digital skills, and media literacy. Taken together, globally, there is a large-scale, big picture move towards transforming learners and users into digital creators. (Alexander et al., 2017, 12)

The concept of ‘digital fluency’ has also been suggested as a way of holistically capturing the sense of individual confidence and seamless ability to navigate the digital information landscape that is implied in the range of literacies described above, and is closely aligned with meta-literacy and trans-literacy. Lalonde described it as ‘being able to move nimbly and confidently from one technology to another,’ focusing on the ‘metacognitive skills required to transfer those digital skills from one technology to another, and to make sound, nuanced decisions about technology use’ (Lalonde, 2019, para. 7). It is seen ultimately in the ability to create new content in different media, and understand which digital tools are most appropriate for different tasks, rather than simply the ability to access and use them. Interestingly, ‘digital fluency’ replaced digital literacy in the 2019 Educause Horizon report, based on the expert panel members’ agreement that ‘more nuanced skills of cocreation, in combination with the ability to leverage continuously evolving technologies, constitute competencies beyond what we once considered as literacy’ (Alexander et al., 2017, 13). As an academic teaching librarian, you might take some time to explore the different conceptions of literacy and reflect on how these definitions relate to your teaching role. While you may choose to be ‘terminology-fluent’ and use terms interchangeably or strategically depending on context, it is useful to highlight some common themes extracted from the definitions presented in Table 1.1, and which reflect current understanding: 

‘Literacy’ is constantly reframed in relation to the information landscape that is dominant at any one time in a culture, and the challenges and

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opportunities that arise within that landscape (e.g. ‘fake news’; social media; participatory culture and Web 2.0). ‘Literacy’ can be enacted in relation to specific documents, tools or media, but is more broadly understood as a framework for negotiating the information landscape in relation to specific purposes or needs. ‘Literacy’ implies engagement in a wide range of diverse practices, typically centred on finding, accessing, evaluating, interpreting, creating and sharing information. ‘Literacy’ is ultimately viewed as a means of individual and collective empowerment, in terms of fulfilling information needs, supporting lifelong learning, engaging fully with civic society, achieving personal progress in multiple life contexts, and advancing equality, inclusion and human rights. ‘Literacy’ is also a marker of exclusion and the digital divide, with profound effects on personal, civic and socio-economic well-being (Micklethwaite, 2018). ‘Literacy’ is viewed as both a facilitator of learning, and an essential educational goal, which evolves as the learning landscape changes in response to technological advances: ‘Digital literacy should be positioned as an entitlement for students that supports their full participation in a society in which social, cultural, political, and financial life are increasingly mediated by digital literacies’ (Spires and Bartlett, 2012, 4).

The following section explores the ways in which current models, standards and frameworks of information literacy reflect a more nuanced and fluid conceptualisation that encourages us to fundamentally rethink our approaches to teaching information literacy and has the power to deeply influence our identity as educators.

1.3 New frameworks: information literacy in context Personal reflection points  What do I understand by a situated as opposed to generic view of information literacy (or other literacy)?  Does my teaching reflect a particular conceptualisation of information literacy?  What information literacy models, standards or frameworks am I currently aware of?  Do I have a particular preference for one (or more) specific model(s) or framework(s)? If so, can I explain why is this?

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 What expectations do I have of models and frameworks in relation to my

teaching activity or to student learning – what purpose do they have (if any)?

One of the most profound shifts to influence our practice as academic teaching librarians relates to how information literacy is understood at a conceptual level, and how these constructs filter down and translate into the practical approaches we employ to support and facilitate student learning. It is likely that your understanding of information literacy and how to teach it have been significantly influenced by your knowledge of the models, standards and frameworks that have been created over time to capture the skills, knowledge, attributes and processes associated with being or becoming information literate. For many librarians, models and frameworks have served as mechanisms through which the intention to teach information literacy is converted into practical approaches. They shape, and are shaped by, the conceptions of information literacy and learning that prevail at any one time. When figuring out what and how we should teach, it is natural for us to turn to ready-made frameworks that offer guidance and suggestions for how we can articulate and structure our learning activities to engage our students and achieve our learning objectives. Consciously or sub-consciously, we absorb the messages that the models and frameworks convey about what information literacy is, how it relates to learning, and how we can design our learning approaches to support it. Models and standards also serve a broader communicative purpose, in that they offer us an intellectual basis for articulating our work to outsiders, as well as helping us to clarify our own role conceptions. Early models, such as Eisenberg and Berkowitz’s Big6 process model of information problem-solving (Eisenberg and Berkowitz, 1988), the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education (ACRL, 2000), and the first iteration of the UK-based Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model (SCONUL, 1999) represented a detailed, structured and prescriptive approach, which aimed to set standards of attainment, articulate learning objectives and outcomes, identify information processes and behaviours, and identify performance indicators which could be used to guide the development of information literacy programmes within higher education settings. However, although widely used and referenced, these skills-based constructs have ultimately fallen out of favour due to their lack of sensitivity to context. This is captured in Lupton and Bruce’s GeST model (Lupton and Bruce, 2010), which described how information literacy can be perceived through different ‘windows,’ namely Generic, Situational and Transformative. Through the Generic window, for instance, ‘information literacy is seen as a set of discrete skills and processes used for finding and managing information. These skills and processes are observable and measurable’ (Lupton and Bruce, 2010, 11).

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Similarly, Foasberg (2015, 702) observed that some of the older information literacy models ‘frame information as a commodity external to the learner, which can be sought out, possessed, and “used”’ and imply that information literacy can be attained through effort, practice and approximation of the desired level of competence. Information, in this context, resides outside the individual, is organised and communicated through systems, and can therefore be located, accessed and used, through learning the skills to effectively navigate these systems. From early on, the skills-based standards and frameworks were criticised, with observers suggesting that the generic ‘tick-the-box’ approach to becoming information literate which they embodied do not reflect ‘the messiness of pedagogical reflection and curricular evaluation’ (Jacobs, 2008, 258), and that setting out a list of ‘universal’ skills that can be transferred across all cultures and contexts is an unrealistic goal. Specifically, the frameworks fail to account for the active role of students in constructing meaning from the information they encounter and ignore ‘the nature of information as communication and the role of students in transforming and challenging the materials they work with through their own scholarly endeavors’ (Foasberg, 2015, 713). Pinto, Cordón and Díaz captured this sense of dissatisfaction with the skills-oriented conceptualisations that was apparent at the time of their historical review: The concept of IL cannot remain as merely instrumental or as a definition of the competencies that individuals must possess to resolve their information need; rather it must go further to include a critical dimension that will allow it to be understood as a culturally grounded phenomenon based on the way that communities construct their interpretation of reality and the outcomes of this interpretation. (Pinto, Cordón and Díaz, 2010, 5)

Lupton and Bruce’s ‘situated window’ captured the new way of understanding information literacy that was distinguished from the generic, skills-oriented perspective: Within the situated window, information literacy is regarded as a range of contextualised information practices (discipline-based, work-based, family-based and community-based) . . . Information is regarded as having different meanings in different disciplinary, professional, community and indigenous contexts, and the knowledge that is produced, stored and passed on will have different meanings in these contexts. (Lupton and Bruce, 2010, 12)

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This conceptual change is exemplified most clearly by two developments in the discourse and practice of information literacy in higher education. First, through the concept of meta-literacy, proposed by Mackey and Jacobson in 2011; and secondly, through the ACRL’s replacement of the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education in the USA with the new Information Literacy Framework, a transition which was completed in early 2016, when the Standards were rescinded. Underpinning these developments is the idea that ‘all information is embedded in a social context and cannot be understood outside of that context’ (Foasberg, 2015, 713), and that literacy is more accurately understood in terms of socially constructed identity and practice, and ‘not just as the ability to operate a machine, or decipher a particular language or code, but the ability to creatively engage in particular social practices, to assume appropriate social identities, and to form or maintain various social relationships’ (Jones and Hafner, 2012, 12). In particular, the role of the student as active agent in scholarly or disciplinary communities, and as a ‘prod-user’ or ‘pro-sumer’ (both producer and user/consumer) of information is a core element of these constructs. As we saw in the previous section, many emerging definitions of information literacy (and other literacies) emphasise context, and propose that an overarching awareness of the competences, tools and practices that are required in any specific circumstances, as well as a metacognitive appreciation of one’s own information and learning behaviours, are at the core of being ‘literate’. Several trends in the technological and educational landscape have precipitated this change: 



First, a re-conceptualisation of information literacy that rejects the idea of a functional, generic skillset, and turns instead towards a focus on people’s information practices, which are ‘socially and culturally situated, mediated, and co-constructed with others in their social and cultural milieux’ (Julien, 2016, 117) A more complex information and technological ecosystem, which repositions students as collaborators and producers, rather than just consumers, of information and sees them as contributors to the scholarly conversation, as reflective learners, and as valued partners in education. ‘Meta-literacy’ emerged from the idea that existing conceptualisations of information literacy failed to account for the participatory aspects of web culture, where individuals not only consume information, but also collaboratively create and share it: ‘they do not address the now pervasive online environments in which many forms of information are fluid and information seekers might become information contributors at almost any time and in a public setting’ (Mackey and Jacobson, 2011, 63).

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A reconsideration of the credibility profile of information that is communicated via newer media, and a reappraisal of the validity of the peer-review process; traditional sources may not always be as trustworthy as they are assumed to be: ‘it is simply not true that vetted resources are prima facie superior to unvetted resources located via a Google search or a Twitter feed’ (Banks, 2013, 185). The circumstances under which information is created are viewed as equally important as the media by which it is communicated and consumed. A strong imperative to ‘functionally, physically, strategically, and organizationally’ reposition academic libraries within their institutions (Cox, 2018, 2), in order to clearly articulate their contribution to the overall institutional mission and demonstrate their value in respect of the institution’s key strategic priorities (ACRL, 2010).

1.3.1 New frameworks reflect new literacy conceptions Information literacy [in the ACRL Framework] is understood not as the mastery of a set of de-contextualised skills, or steps in the research process, but rather as a ‘complex social practice that holds meaning only within specific communities of discourse’. (Foasberg, 2015, 707)

The language and approach in early information literacy models was straightforward; the ACRL Standards, for example, enumerated five clear standards, articulating what an ‘information literate student’ should know, do and understand, in order to develop as a critical thinker and lifelong learner in the context of higher education. Connected to each standard were a series of performance indicators, identifying how the student should demonstrate their knowledge, skill and understanding, and long lists of learning outcomes that suggested practical ways in which instructors could incorporate the standards into their teaching and assessment, through articulating specific behaviours. Essentially, these models were concerned with ‘reproducible skills that students could carry from context to context’ (Foasberg, 2015, 712) and pragmatic teaching approaches could be developed to support the attainment of these skills, which were articulated in terms of observable behaviours. This was a key factor in their uptake and popularity; as Grassian and Kaplowitz (2009, 122) pointed out, standards and frameworks are ‘excellent places to look for ideas about your own instructional goals and objectives’. It is worth noting that many other literacy frameworks are still based on this structured, segmented approach. For example, the European Commission’s

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Digital Competence Framework 2.1 (Carretero, Vuorikari and Punie, 2017) is structured dimensionally, and includes five ‘components of digital competence,’ namely information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem solving, under which specific sub-competences are identified, and can be measured across eight levels of proficiency, ranging from ‘foundation’ to ‘highly specialised’. Similarly, the Open University’s Digital and Information Literacy Framework consists of five ‘competence areas,’ which are divided into levels and stages, designed to determine the complexity or depth of learning involved (Open University, n.d.). Each competence area/level/stage includes a set of key competences which indicate the level of achievement a student should attain at each stage, as well as sample learning materials and examples from practice. By contrast, a less formulaic, more conceptual approach is apparent in several alternative models that have emerged in recent years. The most prominent example is the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which doesn’t specify generic skills or competences and standards of attainment, but instead comprises a ‘cluster of interconnected core concepts, with flexible options for implementation’ (ACRL, 2015, 2). The six information literacy ‘frames’ are informed by discipline-focused conceptual understandings or ‘threshold concepts’ which are defined as ‘those ideas in any discipline which are passageways to or portals to enlarged understanding or ways of thinking and practising within that discipline’ (p. 3). They were agreed as:      

Authority Is Constructed and Contextual Information Creation as a Process Information Has Value Research as Inquiry Scholarship as Conversation Searching as Strategic Exploration.

It is recommended that you pause at this point of the book to access the ACRL Framework if possible, and read through it carefully, before moving on. It is located here: www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework. The idea is that once a student grasps a ‘threshold concept’ (e.g. that information does not have inherent value or meaning, but is valued and negotiated differently within different scholarly communities and contexts), their way of thinking about information creation, dissemination and evaluation fundamentally shifts, akin to a ‘eureka moment,’ enabling them to engage in a more knowing and critical way with their disciplinary knowledge base (Bauder and Rod, 2016). For instance, it might mean that they

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move away from trying to find information which is only deemed ‘valuable’ through the application of traditional academic evaluative criteria, towards finding information which has value for them in the specific context they encounter and use it. According to this view, students are cast as active agents and contributors within scholarly communities, rather than passive consumers; consequently, the Framework is more in line with the view of critical information literacy expressed by Critten, which construes a person’s relationship with a text as ‘fundamentally, a discourse in which meaning is continually negotiated and filtered through one’s own lived experiences and values’ (Critten, 2016, 19). This perspective understands the reader, not as someone who seeks to merely understand the author’s intent in writing the text, but rather as a constructor of meaning – so when a student reads a text, ‘they are “authoring” it through their interpretation and ideologies. They are giving it a meaning that is personal and filtered through their own lived experience’ (p. 24). This is a strikingly different way of considering the role of students in scholarly communities, but one which aligns with the general shift towards a participatory and collaborative web and social media culture that blurs the traditional boundaries that existed between producers and consumers of information: ‘The Framework asks for a restructuring of our ideas of what information literacy is by moving from an approach that stressed skills to one that privileges a world of ideas that supersedes particular behaviors and skills, which will change as technology and academic cultures change’ (Julien, Gross and Latham, 2018, 267). Therefore, in order to move on from a generic approach to IL instruction, teaching librarians must ground their practice in disciplinary culture or subject context, and that it is about understanding academic practice within different disciplines – in other words, how they write, read, carry out research and communicate in their communities (Hicks, 2013). The ANCIL project (Secker and Coonan, 2011), which produced a modular curriculum for embedding information literacy into higher education, was based on a similarly contextual approach that was ‘grounded in a broad reading of information literacy which sees IL not as a set of competencies but as a fundamental attribute of the discerning scholar and as a crucial social and personal element in the digital age’ (Secker and Coonan, 2011, 4). The curriculum consists of ten ‘thematic strands’ which cover a spectrum of information literacy ‘facets,’ including Becoming an independent learner; Mapping and Evaluating the Information Landscape; Presenting and Communicating Knowledge; and Social Dimensions of Information. The facets or strands fall into five overall ‘learning categories,’ namely, Key Skills; Academic Literacies; Subject-Specific Competences; Advanced Information Handling; and Learning to Learn. Each strand contains indicative learning outcomes,

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and example activities and assessments, although they are not designed to be prescriptive. Educators can construct their own teaching strategies from the strands, through incorporating multiple elements at strategic learning points, but the curriculum is designed for use across the duration of an academic programme, rather than for one-shot sessions. For academic teaching librarians, this shift in thinking from a behaviourist view of information literacy (expressed in terms of measurable skills and attributes) to a constructivist view (expressed in terms of conceptual change) has several implications for practice, including: 











Replacing an instructional focus on the superficial elements of information resources (e.g. currency, style, author’s credentials, etc.) with an exploration of how authority is conferred within different scholarly communities, the structures that privilege certain types of information within those communities, and ‘understanding how the value of information changes as it moves between contexts’ (Foasberg, 2015, 709). Adopting a truly student-centred approach, through empowering the student to reflect on and understand how meaning and value are constructed and negotiated in different academic, social, political and cultural contexts, rather than helping them to identify and collect the ‘correct’ information sources from ‘acceptable’ channels. Encouraging students to reflect on and understand the personal lenses through which they interpret information, and how those interpretations influence the meaning they extract from texts and other media documents, rather than focus on trying to grasp the intended meaning of the author or creator. Helping students to see themselves as potential contributors to the scholarly conversation, and challengers of the status quo, even as novices or non-experts. Moving the focus of instruction outside the traditional parameters of ‘academic’ information resources to include social media channels, usergenerated content, open access sources and non-traditional media, to broaden the information landscape for students. Prioritising collaborative over individual approaches to learning to facilitate the exchange of ideas and co-construction of meaning amongst peers, as well as supporting the co-creation of information artefacts in multiple media formats.

The shift in perspective towards a more constructivist view of information literacy is progressive, and aligns with the current focus on critical thinking and reflection in education; however, for academic teaching librarians at the

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front line, it raises the question of how the more ‘skills-based’ type of instruction can be reframed. For example, librarians who find themselves in a ‘one-shot’ class with a request to teach reference management or database searching might wonder how to design the session to encourage students to take a more situated view of what are typically quite mechanistic tasks. McGuinness (2011, 84–91) suggested ways of reframing instructional scenarios to reflect constructivist, social and relational learning theories. The following section delves deeper into the constructivist approach through considering how critical information literacy approaches may be incorporated into the work of academic teaching librarians.

1.4 Critical information literacy Personal reflection points  What is my current awareness and understanding of critical information literacy?  As an academic teaching librarian, how do I view my responsibility towards the students I teach? How do I articulate it?  What is the purpose of higher education for students? How can libraries serve that purpose?  Should libraries be ideologically neutral? Or do we have a responsibility to take a stand on issues of critical social importance?  What are my hopes and fears around adopting a critical approach to my teaching? Our teaching practices should present libraries as more than the Bank of Sources, from which usable phrases can be withdrawn as needed. They should be workshops, labs, studios, or hacker spaces, where students engage with ideas and invent their own, through conversation with others interested in the same things. They should be places where students develop their own identities as they learn the critical habits that civil society requires. (Fister, 2013, para. 12)

The conceptual changes described in the previous sections opened the door to a renewed focus on critical information literacy (CIL), which is a way of thinking about and practising information literacy instruction that aligns with the view of information literacy as seen through Lupton and Bruce’s (2010) ‘transformative’ window. While this perspective includes the ‘situated’ view of information literacy, it goes much further, focusing on the social, cultural and political structures within which information is produced and disseminated and questioning the potentially discriminatory or exclusionary effect

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that these privileged structures have on specific strata in society, e.g. concerning race, gender and sexuality, amongst others. From this perspective, information literacy is ‘seen as a range of information practices used to transform oneself and society [through which] information and knowledge are questioned by asking: Who generated the information? For what purposes? Whose interests are served? Who is silent?’ (Lupton and Bruce, 2010, 13). As academic teaching librarians, CIL urges you to think beyond your immediate academic environment and to consider how your work might ultimately influence your students’ engagement with issues of social importance, such as inequality, bias, information poverty, and so forth. CIL casts the purpose of information literacy instruction in a social justice light and is concerned with the ways in which ‘librarians may encourage students to engage with and act upon the power structures underpinning information’s production and dissemination’ (Tewell, 2015, 25). It is based on a concept of learning that draws on critical pedagogy theories articulated by 20th-century educationalists Paolo Freire and Henry Giroux amongst others, who contended that since educational institutions ‘enact the dominant ideology of their societies,’ they are inherently political, and therefore that education can never be neutral or apolitical. This suggests that what teachers do in the classroom (physical and virtual) must always either perpetrate or disrupt the prevailing socio-cultural and economic structures, which are advantageous to some but disenfranchise others (Elmborg, 2006; Cope, 2010). Critical pedagogy also draws a distinction between pedagogical approaches that view students as passive and uncritical recipients of information who lack individual agency (i.e. the ‘banking’ model), and approaches which seek to raise a ‘critical consciousness’ in students by encouraging them to ‘identify and engage significant problems in the world’ and ‘become active agents, asking and answering questions that matter to them and to the world around them’ (Elmborg, 2006, 193). Ultimately, CIL is about challenging the status quo, critically addressing power relationships and oppression in society, and examining ‘how and why the dominant culture reinforces certain discourses and marginalizes others’ (Tewell, 2015, 26). An important objective of CIL is that it ‘seeks to enable individuals to understand the impact of authorial and institutional biases’ (Lawson, Sanders and Smith, 2015, 3); so, rather than suggesting to students that there is one ‘authoritative’ approach to information creation and use in academia, they should instead be encouraged to constantly question and challenge the structures, traditions and protocols by which authority in academia is traditionally conferred: ‘A critical theory of IL seeks to engage students as active social subjects charged with interrogating the social world and developing their own capacity for informed questioning. [It would]

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entail a move away from the demonstration of technical search processes and simplistic claims that certain sources are “authoritative” because authorities have decided that they are’ (Cope, 2010, 25). For academic teaching librarians, adopting a CIL perspective might mean taking a different approach towards teaching about peer review, for example. So, rather than encourage students to exclusively seek out and use peerreviewed sources in their research, you might instead pose questions to the students which address the issues of privilege and exclusion that are raised by the existing system of peer review in scholarly publishing. For instance, who is more likely to get published, and who might be disadvantaged by the traditional system of peer review? Who has access to subscription-based published research, who is excluded, and what does this mean for academia and society? Does the current system of peer review encourage or suppress radical or alternative viewpoints in scholarly publications? The objective with CIL is not only awareness-raising, but also empowerment to act – in this way, students are viewed as potential agents for change in systems that may perpetrate socio-political and economic imbalances. It encourages students to ‘actively engage with information and information literacy competencies in order to develop a critical consciousness and to see themselves as people with agency and the ability to affect their own conditions’ (Saunders, 2017, 63). It also recognises the value of bringing students’ own experiences and perspectives into the classroom and critically addressing issues of importance through a more personalised frame of reference, where their own biases and assumptions may be examined in a constructive way. As academic teaching librarians, it is helpful to become familiar with some of the key dimensions of CIL. In summary, critical information literacy 







is concerned with the political, social, cultural and economic dimensions of information, which determine the circumstances in which it is created, disseminated and consumed, who has access to it and who is excluded, who benefits from it and who is disadvantaged, amongst other questions is focused on raising ‘critical consciousness’ among students and promoting active engagement with social issues, rather than knowledge acquisition and de-contextualised information skills is based on active engagement with real-world problems and encourages and inspires students to act on oppressive power structures where they have the chance to do so challenges the traditional structures of academic publishing and scholarly information use, particularly the concept of ‘authority’ as it is filtered through the lens of peer review and sources which are deemed prestigious in scholarly publishing

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is inherently reflective and asks both student and teacher to interrogate their own conscious and unconscious assumptions and biases around information structures is not limited to instruction; rather, it is ‘a way of thinking about information literacy as a whole as it is expressed across various sites, from libraries’ educational efforts to the professional and societal forces that shape these activities’ (Tewell, 2018, 11).

Some of the conceptual differences between information literacy in an academic context and CIL are outlined in Table 1.2. Table 1.2 Conceptual differences between academic and critical information literacy Academic information literacy

Critical information literacy

Focuses on information use in context of learning and research in academic programmes

Focuses on critical issues in society, and how learning can raise awareness and lead to action

Concerned with scholarly, disciplinary or professional information in relation to academic tasks and learning objectives

Concerned with the political, social and economic dimensions of information, including its creation, access and use

May question, but does not overtly challenge the prevailing structures and systems underpinning information creation, access and use in scholarly contexts

Directly and explicitly challenges the sociocultural, political and economic structures which determine the production of, and access to scholarly information

Supports the development and growth of the student as active contributor and information creator within scholarly communities

Supports the development and growth of the student as active agent in challenging and disrupting oppressive power structures in society

Conceptualises information literacy as a constellation of situated and contextdependent information practices

Conceptualises information literacy as ‘critical consciousness’ leading to transformative action

Involves authentic learning activities which empower students to engage confidently with peers and scholarly communities

Involves authentic learning activities which empower students to interrogate their own biases and assumptions and view the world in a social justice light

1.4.1 Critical information literacy: a role for academic teaching librarians? Information service in the interest of social, cultural and economic well-being is at the heart of librarianship and therefore librarians have social responsibility. (IFLA, 2016)

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In 2019, a speech by CILIP CEO Nick Poole made clear the central role he sees for the library profession in serving as advocates for equality and justice: ‘I want people to know when they meet a librarian that they are dealing with someone who has made a lifelong commitment to fighting inequality and injustice and to securing universal freedom of thought and expression’ (Poole, 2019). Critical information literacy represents the practical embodiment of this commitment and is viewed not only as a constructive response to generic information literacy models, such as the ACRL Standards (ACRL, 2000), which neglected to take into account the social, cultural and political contexts within which information is produced, distributed and shared, but also as pushback against an educational system that is perceived as commoditised and overly focused on workplace preparation and employment-oriented skillsets, to the detriment of a broader engagement with issues of importance in society (Drabinski, 2017; Saunders, 2017). It emerged partly from concerns about the influence of neoliberalist policy on education, a capitalist ideology based on ‘an economic system in which the “free” market is extended to every part of our public and personal worlds’ (Birch, 2017), an issue which is at the core of radical librarianship (Lawson, Sanders and Smith, 2015). Critical pedagogy and critical information literacy question what the true purpose of an education should or could be, and therefore what the role of the educator should be. It represents a shift from a primary focus on what and how students learn and how this prepares them for the workplace, to one which asks from a societal perspective what they can do with the knowledge gained when they leave the classroom. Could they, for instance, use what they have learned to contribute in a positive way to society, to seek social justice, and to challenge the status quo where inequalities are seen to exist? CIL poses stimulating questions about your role as academic teaching librarians, and the role of libraries in society, and asks you to examine your assumptions and expectations about the purpose of your teaching and your sense of responsibility towards your students and society. The question of whether libraries should have a social justice responsibility at all is frequently a subject of debate among practitioners, some of whom believe that they should endeavour to maintain a position of objectivity and neutrality, while others argue that this is impossible, since libraries themselves are situated within socio-political structures and engage in practices and protocols that privilege certain population strata. Saunders (2017, 56) pointed out that ‘the adoption of information literacy as a social justice concept has not always been easy or comfortable’ although many of the current definitions of information, digital and media literacy focus on individual empowerment, civic participation, and social inclusion, framing all types of literacy and equal access to information as basic human rights. Some librarians question whether

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it is possible to truly capture the value and impact of CIL practices, while others believe that while social justice action might sometimes result from the information literacy work they do with students, it should not be the academic librarians’ primary responsibility – rather they perceive that their focus should be on helping students to engage with their disciplines and succeed academically (Tewell, 2018). For some of you, adopting a CIL mindset may be about finding a sense of meaning in your work that goes beyond the library or institutional walls; for instance, in Gregory and Higgins’ analytical review of recent seminal CIL texts, the authors found that ‘librarians in each text express that the critical orientation of working toward a more just society makes their work more meaningful’ (Gregory and Higgins, 2017, 398, emphasis added). Similarly, an exploratory study of academic librarians was carried out in 2015–16 by Tewell, to investigate the extent to which they incorporated CIL into their instructional work, as well as the challenges and benefits they perceived as associated with it. Through surveying and interviewing academic librarians, he identified five benefits of adopting CIL practices, including: increased engagement; meaningful for students; meaningful for librarians; connecting with faculty; and creating community (Tewell, 2018, 24). In terms of the personal benefits for librarians, he noted that: The sentiment that ‘there has to be something more than this’ was reflected by several interviewees in regard to their library work prior to learning about and developing a critical approach. For librarians who discovered critical IL, it appears they have found what that ‘something more’ is and have continued on a path of using theory, practice, and reflection to help inform what they do in their work and how they do it. (Tewell, 2018, 25)

Adapting your teaching to reflect a CIL perspective takes effort – it requires an active choice on your part, and a sustained commitment to practices which allow students to engage with and explore real-world issues of social justice and equality. It might mean confronting uncomfortable or awkward facts, and critically dissecting your own perspectives, as well as the professional and institutional structures which underpin your work (Saunders, 2017). It could mean that librarians must ‘loosen their control in the classroom and get out from behind the podium, literally and figuratively’ (Peterson, 2010, 72). Furthermore, it may mean that you find yourself at odds with academic colleagues whose requests for specific information literacy instruction in their courses leave little room for the in-depth reflection and discussion that these important topics ideally require. Linked to this is the perennial issue of the

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‘one-shot’ or elective information literacy session, which constitutes a typical barrier (Peterson, 2010): A common difficulty for academic librarians who teach, and in particular those who wish to use a critically informed approach, is finding ways to address broader conceptions of information within the constraints of a brief standalone session. Moreover, for non-credit-bearing classes, the content a librarian addresses may be in large part determined by the suggestions of teaching faculty. This makes collaborative relationships with faculty a substantial factor in successfully incorporating critical methods. (Tewell, 2018, 15)

Academic librarians have nonetheless demonstrated creativity and ingenuity in transforming their practices to incorporate a CIL approach (Accardi, Drabinski and Kumbier, 2010). Some methods you can consider include: 











using classification schemes to demonstrate ‘how tools such as subject headings contribute to the discovery or obfuscation of information while also reifying dominant ideologies and the oppressive representations this entails’ (Tewell, 2018, 16) using search examples related to social justice issues, e.g. Black Lives Matter, to raise consciousness in students and demonstrate to marginalised students ‘that their struggles are recognized’ (Tewell, 2018, 16) exploring information privilege, i.e. examining the economic power structures that exclude non-academics from accessing certain types of information, and ‘how peer review can lead to quality control or suppression of newer or more radical views’ (Tewell, 2018, 16) using a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) approach, which shifts the focus from the teacher to the students, allowing them space and time to discuss and debate issues with peers, before sharing with the rest of the group (Peterson, 2010) comparing news coverage of specific topics in different media, to promote understanding of media bias and manipulation, as well as trustworthiness and balance in news reporting examining the effect of corporate media on information access and representation, including bias in search algorithms (Noble, 2018; Head, Fister and MacMillan, 2020).

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1.5 Social media and filter bubbles: the rise of ‘fake news’ Personal reflection points  When I hear the term ‘fake news,’ what or who typically comes to mind? Why is this?  What are my views regarding the influence of the internet and social media on individual and collective decision-making and behaviour?  Am I aware of any distinct tone or bias in the information I receive via social media channels, if I use them (e.g. Twitter, Facebook newsfeed)?  How do I perceive my role as an academic teaching librarian in relation to the ‘fake news’ phenomenon?  Whose responsibility do I consider it to be, to address the issues around ‘fake news,’ filter bubbles and their effects on individuals and society?

1.5.1 What is ‘fake news’? Defining ‘fake news’ should be straightforward – according to Allcott and Gentzkow (2017, 212–13), it can be simply defined as ‘news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers’. Similarly, Rochlin (2017, 387) described it as ‘a provocative headline that is shared and believed at face value, with no thoughtful investigation’. However, in recent times, the phrase has been increasingly used as a signifier within specific socio-political narratives, which has contrived to twist its basic meaning (Wardle and Derakshan, 2017). For instance, it’s possible that many of us first encountered the term in a viral media soundbite, circulated on news and social media channels, that emanated from the Trump administration in the USA. A good example was the infamous press conference held in January 2017, during which the recently elected president, Donald Trump, attempted to exclude CNN senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta by refusing to allow him to ask a question, shouting ‘I’m not going to give you a question! You are fake news!’ when Mr Acosta persisted (Jamieson, 2017). This use of the phrase in this context, combined with regular tweets and other similar social media communications and soundbites, has meant that while ‘fake news’ is still used to describe information that is not truthful or based on facts, it is now also sometimes used to refer to information that is perceived as biased, or which does not fit or conform to a desired narrative. According to MIT researchers Vousoughi, Roy and Aral, who carried out a ground-breaking study comparing the diffusion rates of true and false news stories on Twitter: ‘Although, at one time, it may have been appropriate to think of “fake news” as referring to the veracity of a news story, we now believe that this phrase has been irredeemably polarized in our current political and media climate’ (Vousoughi, Roy and Aral, 2018, 1146).

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From this perspective, ‘fake news’ is part of a broader commentary about political journalism, and bias or partisanship in news reporting – which is not the same as mis- or dis-information, although it is related. Seargeant and Tagg addressed this confusion, where they described Facebook’s adoption of the alternate term ‘false news,’ which was intended to signify ‘a specific notion of evidence-free or purposefully fabricated stories, disseminated for profit or political manipulation’ (Seargeant and Tagg, 2018, 184). The aim was to distinguish it from ‘fake news,’ which instead refers to ‘a broad state of anxiety about the role and identity of journalism in an era of social media and populist politics’ (p. 184). Other authors have found it useful to develop typologies of ‘fake news,’ to differentiate and clarify the different forms of content that are increasingly referred to as ‘fake news’. For example, Wardle and Derakshan used the term ‘information disorder’ to describe three types of misleading information, differentiated according to the underlying intent in sharing the information:  Mis-information is when false information is shared, but no harm is meant  Dis-information is when false information is knowingly shared to cause harm  Mal-information is when genuine information is shared to cause harm, often

by moving information designed to stay private into the public sphere (Wardle and Derakshan, 2017, 5).

Wardle’s typology of ‘problematic content’ (2017) also identified seven different types of mis- and dis-information which vary according to the intention to deceive that is behind them, while Tandoc, Lim and Ling (2018) analysed 34 academic articles that used the term ‘fake news’ between 2003 and 2017 to identify the different ways in which the term has been conceptualised in the literature. Their typologies are represented in Table 1.3 opposite. Wardle also explored possible motivations behind the deliberate creation and dissemination of ‘fake news,’ including: poor journalism; to parody; to provoke or to ‘punk’; passion, partisanship; profit; political influence; and propaganda. She included a linked matrix relating each type of mis- or dis-information to the motivations that potentially influence its spread (Wardle, 2017). The authors of a recent report by DEMOS in the UK coined the phrase ‘Information operations’, which they defined as a ‘non-kinetic, coordinated attempt to inauthentically manipulate an information environment in a systemic/strategic way, using means which are coordinated, covert and inauthentic in order to achieve political or social objectives’ (KrasodomskiJones et al., 2019, 12). They also contended that the current widespread focus on ‘fake news’ is too short-sighted, as the case study analysis they undertook suggested that ‘much of the information shared during information

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Table 1.3 ‘Fake news’ typologies Wardle (2017)

Tandoc, Lim and Ling (2018)

Satire or parody – no intention to mislead, News satire – mock news programmes, but could inadvertently do so which use humour and/or exaggeration to report news items Misleading content – misleading use of information to frame an issue or individual

News parody – like satire, but uses nonfactual information to inject humour/makes up fictitious news stories

Imposter content – genuine sources (e.g. Twitter accounts) impersonated to mislead

News fabrication – articles with no factual basis but published in the style of news articles to create legitimacy

Fabricated content – news content which is false and intentionally designed to mislead

Photo manipulation – use of software and digital tools to manipulate real images or videos to create a false narrative

False connection – headlines, visuals or captions do not support content

Advertising public relations – advertising materials in the guise of genuine news reports as well as press releases published as news

False context – genuine content shared with false contextual information

Propaganda – news stories created by a political entity to influence public perceptions

Manipulated content – genuine information or imagery manipulated with intent to deceive

operations is not “fake”, but the selective amplification of reputable, mainstream media stories to fit an agenda’ and that they are ‘as likely to exploit cultural and social division in a country as they are to target an individual political event’ (p. 7). This view was echoed by Wardle and Derakshan, who described ‘fake news’ as ‘woefully inadequate to describe the complex phenomena of information pollution’ (2017, 5).

1.5.2 The spread of ‘fake news’ Fake news needs the nourishment of troubled times in order to take root. Social tumult and divisions facilitate our willingness to believe news that confirms our enmity toward another group. It is in this context that fake news finds its audience. (Tandoc, Lim and Ling, 2018, 149)

According to the recent EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World 2018, ‘The exposure of citizens to large-scale disinformation, including misleading or completely false information, is a major challenge worldwide’ (Council of the European Union, 2019, 31). The current focus on ‘fake news’ is

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frequently traced back to 2016, when two dramatic political events on both sides of the Atlantic converged to highlight the phenomenon and its socio-political effects. One event was the unprecedented result of the Brexit referendum in the UK in June 2016, in which the British electorate voted to leave the European Union; the second was the outcome of the US Presidential election in November of that year. In both cases, the outcome of the vote was the opposite to what had been predicted by multiple polls, leading to speculation that the influence of information – particularly ‘fake news’ – that was shared and circulated on social media during the campaigns had been far greater than could have been predicted, exerting a disproportionate influence on voter behaviour. In particular, a systematic campaign of disinformation attributed to sources within the Russian Federation is widely viewed as a key factor in influencing the outcome of the US election (Neely-Sardon and Tignor, 2018). In that same year, Oxford Dictionaries declared ‘post-truth’ as its international word of the year, used to describe an era ‘in which facts and evidence have been replaced by personal belief and emotion,’ (Rochlin, 2017, 386). Also in 2016, the Stanford History Education Group published their study into civic online reasoning, in which the researchers sought to analyse ‘young people’s ability to reason about information on the internet’ through administering 56 assessment tasks to students at middle school, high school and college level across 12 States. Assessments administered to students included asking them to distinguish between an online news items and an advert, to determine whether a photo was genuine or had been faked, and to evaluate tweets as a source of reliable information. The findings showed that many students struggled with these tasks; the researchers summarised the overall outcome as ‘bleak,’ noting that ‘when it comes to evaluating information that flows through social media channels, they [young people] are easily duped’ (Stanford History Education Group, 2016, 4). The seismic effect of social media on news reporting and dissemination is cited as a major catalyst in the spread of ‘fake news’: ‘Not only did social media change news distribution, it has also challenged traditional beliefs of how news should look. Now, a tweet, which at most is 140 characters long, is considered a piece of news, particularly if it comes from a person in authority’ (Tandoc, Lim and Ling, 2018, 139). The rise of ‘citizen journalism’, in which non-journalists can ‘also contribute to stories through live tweeting events or sharing their eyewitness account of an event which is breaking news’ (Craigie-Williams, 2018) is an additional factor that further muddies the waters, since content can be posted with none of the editorial checks and balances that govern normal journalistic practice. Allcott and Gentzkow also suggested several reasons why ‘fake news’ is spreading, including the lowering of barriers to entry in the media industry, the sharp rise in the adoption and

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use of social media, and a general decline of public trust and confidence in mass media news reporting (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017, 214–16.) Sullivan (2019, 94) also cited factors such as ‘the loss of trust in expertise . . . or the media . . . , the relativism of our supposedly post-truth era . . . and deepening political polarization’. In their 2018 study, which analysed how major news stories spread across Twitter, Vousoughi, Roy and Aral found that ‘fake news and false rumors reach more people, penetrate deeper into the social network, and spread much faster than accurate stories’ (Meyer, 2018). They suggested two possible reasons for this rapid spread: one, that ‘fake news’ typically seems more novel than real news and that ‘novelty attracts human attention, contributes to productive decision-making, and encourages information sharing’ (Vousoughi, Roy and Aral, 2018, 1149), and two, that ‘fake news’ evokes much more emotion than the average tweet, raising the likelihood that it will be shared. They also discovered that it was human action more than ‘bots’ that was responsible for sharing ‘fake news’ tweets. This suggests that the influence of personal information behaviour on ‘fake news’ is key. Seargeant and Tagg (2018) suggested that tech-based solutions, such as ‘modifying the algorithm’ or using fact-checkers, can only be partially effective, since online information sharing is ultimately determined by social factors. People essentially create their own ‘filter bubbles’ through their actions online – i.e. liking and sharing items that chime with their beliefs and preferences, ‘following’ or ‘friending’ people who seem to share their values and rejecting or ignoring information and people who don’t. In their study of how users engage with Facebook, Seargeant and Tagg also found that ‘rather than engaging others in debate, people more often reported quietly ‘unfriending’ people who offended them or blocking their posts from appearing in their news feed – in effect, helping to contribute to the filter bubble effect by filtering out opposing views’ (pp 181–2). Rochlin (2017, 386) agreed: ‘unlike traditional news sources, social media as a news aggregator allows users to create a bubble of news stories that only pander to their beliefs and opinions. If a person on my contact list posts articles I do not like, I delete them from my list. I do not need to see that.’ When it comes to dissemination, the veracity of information on social media platforms may therefore be less important than the social relationships and perceptions of trust between users. Social media users are more likely to unthinkingly share a piece of information if it has come from someone they like and trust. As Wardle (2017, para.14) suggested, ‘we all play a crucial part in this ecosystem. Every time we passively accept information without double-checking, or share a post, image or video before we’ve verified it, we’re adding to the noise and confusion. The ecosystem is now so polluted,

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we have to take responsibility for independently checking what we see online.’ This suggests that educating the user to be self-aware of their behaviour, and knowledgeable about how social media and search personalisation works is the most obvious place to start.

1.5.3 ‘Fake news’ and academic teaching librarians Librarians are virtually unanimous in their conviction that they have a central role to play in the fight against fake news. (Sullivan, 2019, 96)

The ACRL identified ‘fake news and information literacy’ as one of the 2018 top trends in academic libraries, noting that while librarians have been quick to respond to date, ‘the impact of the fractured and contested media landscape is well worth further consideration and action from the profession, and opens possibilities for partnerships with other people on our campuses who face the same concerns’ (Palazzolo et al., 2018). The issues at the heart of the rise of ‘fake news’ are perceived as fundamental to information and digital literacy, embedded in the emerging media landscape; as Seargeant and Tagg (2018, 185–6) suggested, ‘people’s ability to make informed decisions about how they communicate depends on understanding not just how the technology works, but how it works socially’. Batchelor framed the librarian’s role in relation to ‘fake news’ as an important civic responsibility: ‘In an environment filled with inaccurate information, the importance of critical thinking skills is more apparent than ever. Because an informed electorate is essential to democracy, both public and academic librarians have a professional and civic obligation to promote critical thinking skills among patrons’ (Batchelor, 2017, 143). There is a strong perception that this is work with which librarians are familiar, and have been doing for a long time; the current high profile of ‘fake news’ is seen as an opportunity for them to increase their visibility, demonstrate their value (Eva and Shea, 2018; Llewellyn, 2019) and apply their skills within the evolving social media landscape: ‘As proven authorities on information literacy, librarians are well positioned to lead learners through a politically and digitally polarized environment and advocate for the development of digital citizenship’ (Copenhaver, 2018, 107). In the past few years – and particularly evident during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic – there have been numerous examples of librarian-driven initiatives, aimed at helping people to identify ‘fake news’ and consider its potential effects (Sullivan, 2019); for example, the infographic How to Spot Fake News has been circulated widely since 2016 (IFLA, 2020a; see Figure 1.1 opposite), and a range of LibGuides, websites and handouts have been

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Figure 1.1 IFLA infographic: ‘How to spot fake news’

created by individual librarians to deal with the problem – multiple examples are provided by Batchelor (2017), Ireland (2018), and Musgrove et al. (2018). A core element of these approaches involves giving advice – for example, how to identify mis- or dis-information, and what to do, or not do, when you encounter it. This focus on education aligns with Rochlin’s view that, ‘The goal should not be to hide fake news and report fake sites, but to instil a system of education and advocacy, which will empower the population with the literacy and knowledge to identify misinformation’ (Rochlin, 2017, 391). To date, programmes by librarians aimed at educating students on news, media literacy and ‘fake news’ include case studies described by NeelySardon and Tignor (2018), Wade and Hornick (2018) and Jeffries et al. (2017), representing a blend of approaches to support learning in this area. The ‘fake news’ phenomenon has been treated as a call to action by librarians, to step into the breach, and to serve as the self-appointed ‘generals’ in the ‘war of information’ that is raging (Rochlin, 2017, 391); the underlying question seems to be, if librarians do not do this work on a systematic basis,

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then who will? However, some observers suggest that it is not as simple as it might seem; while there are superficial elements that we can and do address, the challenges run deeper and are more difficult to solve: Librarians have, quite understandably, positioned themselves as a solution to the crisis, rushing in with CRAAP tests and LibGuides and lesson plans on how to spot fake news. We do not have the solution. The problem is not spotting falsehoods, it is that a large percentage of our population has lost faith in the very idea that there is a shared reality and a common set of tested methods we can use to understand it. The deeper lessons of a critical approach to IL offer far more potential to address this crisis, but they are not an easy, ready to hand solution. (Fister, 2017, 76)

This view was supported by Sullivan; he contended that much work is yet to be done by librarians, including ‘a pressing need for LIS professionals to engage with theories of democracy as they pertain to how informed citizens ought to be’ (Sullivan, 2019, 96), and a need to ‘draw on and contribute to a larger body of research pertaining to misinformation, biases, and critical thinking’ (p. 105). Given its connection to critical information literacy, ‘fake news’ presents you with an ideal opportunity to reflect once again on how you view your responsibility to your students, your institutions and society at large. Rather than view yourself as a lone warrior, you might consider how to strategically reposition yourself as an equal contributor to a collective effort that includes multiple stakeholders – for example, technology companies, media organisations and watchdogs, government departments, journalists, educators, researchers and parents. As Rochlin pointed out: Educational programs illustrating the multiple facets of fake news should be viewed as an important part of a library’s services, for both public and academic libraries. Programs discussing the power and importance of clicks should be considered equally important. As leaders of research and instruction in the creation, dissemination, access, and evaluation of information, library and information professionals have the responsibility to adopt the epidemic of fake news as a central concern. (Rochlin, 2017, 391)

1.6 Learning analytics Personal reflection points  What do I know about learning analytics? What happens in my institution currently?

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 As an academic teaching librarian, how do I express the value that I attach to

my instructional work? How do I document its impact on overall student learning?  How do I articulate the alignment and contribution of my instructional work to overall institutional goals and graduate outcomes?  What do I currently believe about the factors that affect student engagement and success? What evidence of these factors am I aware of in my own student groups?  What is my ethical position in respect of the use of learning analytics, including library-usage data, to target interventions for at-risk students? In order to avoid library-centric conceptions of instruction, librarians need to view instruction from a campus wide standpoint. From a campus perspective, library impact occurs where campus needs, goals, and outcomes intersect with library resources and services. (Oakleaf, 2011, 67)

Another critical trend identified by the ACRL in 2018 concerns learning analytics, data collection, and ethical concerns, which they defined as ‘the mining and analysis of student data to make improvements or predictions based on past student behaviour’ (Palazzolo et al., 2018). Recognised as a trend which has ‘intensified across higher education’ in recent years (Palazzolo et al., 2018), this growth in activity has been linked to serious concerns within the higher education (HE) sector about poor student retention and completion rates and the personal and socio-economic consequences that can emanate from this, as well as the potential damage that poor performance in these areas can do to an institution’s reputation and ranking in a highly competitive educational marketplace (Jantti and Heath, 2016; Jones and Salo, 2018; Oakleaf, 2018a; Oakleaf, 2018b). While seeking to understand the reasons for student attrition and lack of engagement is obviously not a new phenomenon, the growing ability in recent years to mine and analyse the ‘digital trails’ that students leave in information systems has enabled data-driven insights, which ‘hold the potential to cast light into the black box of learning and student life’ (Jones and Salo, 2018, 304). Jones et al. (2020, 570) referred to this stream of data as ‘gold,’ which can be mined in order to ‘effect positive educational outcomes’. ‘Learning analytics’ (LA) may be a term you are only vaguely familiar with, even though ‘academic libraries have rigorously evaluated their services and collections with quantitative and qualitative methods for decades’ (Jones and Salo, 2018, 308). Many of these studies have focused on evaluating the library user experience with a view to improving and developing library services,

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rather than on the relationship of the library services – including (critical) information literacy instruction – to student outcomes and success, which is difficult to measure accurately: ‘For years, library circulation software has enabled tracking of useful statistical data, such as circulation rates and analyses of collections’ (Boulden, 2015, 56). However according to Oakleaf et al., the pressure on academic libraries to visibly demonstrate their value and contribution to their broader institutional missions means that this is changing: ‘Since the 2010 publication of ACRL’s Value of Academic Libraries report, many librarians have embraced the use of assessment and research to explore links between student library interactions and student learning and success measures’ (Oakleaf et al., 2017, 454). More recently, Oakleaf (2018a, 6) also noted that while LA are now used across virtually all sectors in HE, the exception to this has been academic libraries, where engagement to date has been marginal, experimental and low-key; she referred to it as a ‘nascent field for librarians,’ although Jones and Salo (2018, 308) contended that ‘research projects have begun to consider the relationship between library services and grades, retention, and achievement, representing a “significant turn” in assessment and evaluation’. Some examples of LA in academic libraries have begun to appear in the literature, including Jantti and Cox (2013), Soria, Fransen and Nackerud (2013), Stone and Ramsden (2013), Soria, Fransen and Nackerud, (2014), Jantti and Heath (2016), and Soria et al. (2017). Recently, Jones et al. (2020, 571) observed that ‘library LA projects and research have grown out of administrative pressure to demonstrate returns on investments and a desire to confirm which library practices and resources contribute to institutional priorities and impact student learning’. Croxton and Moore (2020) also reported on a large-scale project on student engagement and success at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, in which the library and several other academic support units agreed to submit their co-curricular and extracurricular student data to a centralised repository; alignment and analysis of this data over time will ‘allow the library and university leaders to identify key resources, services, and activities within their units that are positively associated with student success’ (Croxton and Moore, 2020, 400). One of the library’s key aims with this project was to ‘quantify the library’s impact on student success,’ which has traditionally been difficult to achieve, due to the separation of library data from student data which relates to assessment and achievement (e.g. GPA data). For academic teaching librarians, LA is connected to a perennial dilemma of our practice – namely, how can we assess the short- and long-term impact of our instructional practices, and link them in a meaningful way to student success, institutional outcomes and graduate attributes? In 2011, Oakleaf

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described how some academic libraries were ‘moving beyond assessment of individual learning outcomes to a larger scale value assessment: the demonstration and articulation of the impact of libraries on institutions of higher education’ (Oakleaf, 2011, 62). However, at that time, the ‘silo-ing,’ or lack of integration between library systems and other institutional systems, meant that documenting, capturing and tracking the impact of library services on student learning depended chiefly on library efforts (Oakleaf, 2011, 77). However, going it alone means that only limited insight can be reached; crossdepartmental collaboration is key, especially when it comes to the intensive data analysis involved in LA: ‘While libraries and library researchers have pursued data mining for niche projects, larger-scale, big data-style mining has proven difficult until libraries began working with other campus departments to develop data warehouses and analytic capacity’ (Jones and Salo, 2018, 308).

1.6.1 Understanding learning analytics According to Siemens (2013, 1382), LA is defined as ‘the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of data about learners and their contexts, for purposes of understanding and optimising learning and the environments in which it occurs’. Jones and Salo (2018, 304) also described it as ‘educational data mining,’ or a ‘a type of Big Data practice,’ which is employed to help HE institutions ‘address urgent concerns related to low retention rates and extended time-to-degree measures, which can then improve on the efficiency and effectiveness of institutional practices’. It is frequently couched in terms of helping institutional stakeholders to identify appropriate points of intervention, by developing systems which track ‘individual student engagement, attainment and progression in near-real time, flagging any potential issues to tutors or support staff. They can then receive the earliest possible alerts of students at risk of dropping out or under-achieving’ (Sclater and Mullan, 2017, 6). Effectively, LA aims to: 1) help educators discover, diagnose, and predict challenges to learning and learner success; 2) enable instructors to identify and enact necessary changes to improve and customize educational content, delivery; 3) empower learners with insights into their own learning; and 4) point the way to successful and active interventions that benefit students, especially those who may be less familiar with the unwritten rules of higher education, including first-generation students, community college students, students of color, students with disabilities, and veterans. (Oakleaf, 2018a, 11)

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LA has been made possible through ‘the establishment of data warehouses that organise, con-join and report data and metrics from multiple business functions; advances in computational processing; and implementation of learning technologies with inbuilt analytic packages and/or functionality’ (Jantti and Heath, 2016, 204). Systems available for data mining in academic institutions include ‘enrolment management, relationship management, business intelligence/reporting, learning management system activity/achievement monitoring, integrated planning and advising, early-alert warning, and degree mapping’ (Oakleaf, 2018a, 11), in addition to learning management systems (LMSs), and the use of learning technologies in academic programmes (e.g. online polling, online tutorials, etc.). Data includes ‘student demographic information, admissions data, online activity, participation or engagement with academic and learning services, assessment data and academic progress data’ (Jantti and Heath, 2016, 203). The ability to monitor students’ progress in real time, e.g. through activity in the institutional LMS, means that interventions can be made on an ongoing basis, sometimes at the point of need. Data on current students can then be compared against historical student data, using predictive modelling to identify students who may be at risk of dropping out, or struggling in other ways academically. Once ‘at-risk’ students are identified through analysis, LA can essentially work in two ways: 1 Through direct interventions by academic and support staff to support the students at risk, as identified through analysis of the available data, e.g. through meeting with at-risk students face-to-face, providing extra learning resources or applying other remedial measures. 2 Through sharing data with the students themselves, to encourage them to change their own behaviour. However, to date ‘the level of access a student has to data and analytics about herself is still low’(Jones and Salo, 2018, 308). LA can also be employed to determine which interventions were most effective, after they have been implemented. However, Jantti and Heath urged caution regarding the interpretation and effectiveness of the data gathered for LA, noting that ‘it is important to acknowledge that the optimal learning experience is driven by pedagogy – excellent curriculum design is critical to student learning outcomes. What learning analytics has enabled is an instrument to drive earlier and more frequent contact with students’ (Jantti and Heath, 2016, 206). In particular, it is important to avoid an over-reliance on the analytics available within LMSs, as they may not offer true insight into students’ actual engagement and learning; as Jones and Salo (2018, 313) contended, ‘LA data are often inaccurate because they cannot discern when

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students are actively reading and interacting with a resource based on clickstream data alone’. Rather, multiple datasets should be combined to offer a more holistic overview of a student’s engagement and performance.

1.6.2 Learning analytics and academic teaching librarians Ethical considerations must be addressed prior to the implementation of learning analytics methodologies (Jantti and Heath, 2016, 206)

As academic teaching librarians, and depending on our institutional context, the trend for LA in higher education has the potential to affect our practice directly; it may be the case, for example, that you have already had some experience with the analytics dashboard of the LMS in your institution, and are interested in the broader issues surrounding its use and application. Or perhaps you remain unaffected and feel that you are unlikely to engage in any sort of LA in the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, LA raises questions about learning, impact, control and personal privacy that demand our close attention: ‘Regardless of the admirable aims and potential benefits of learning analytics, the privacy issues implicate intellectual freedom and complicate the degree to which librarians can participate in the sociotechnical practice’ (Jones, 2017, 7– 8). On the surface, LA may sound like an unequivocally positive development, with student welfare and academic progress ostensibly placed front and centre. After all, who wouldn’t want detailed insight into how their students engage with and respond to their teaching and learning activities, and how this ultimately feeds into overall educational outcomes and student success? Furthermore, academic libraries’ increasing – in some cases, pioneering – involvement with digital learning modes has opened up multiple opportunities to engage in LA: ‘One consequence of digital instruction has been the generation of data that describe online learning. Library instruction is no exception, with many libraries using digital learning objects (DLOs) such as quizzes, tutorials, surveys and forms to facilitate, quantify and verify students’ learning’ (Sherriff, Benson and Atwood, 2019, 102). For academic teaching librarians, LA may seem like an excellent opportunity to: (a) demonstrate the value and impact of their instructional activities, amongst other services, through showing how they directly contribute to overall student achievement and success; and (b) achieve greater campus-wide recognition, and work collaboratively with other institutional departments to combine multiple datasets in order to provide a holistic overview of student performance and engagement. According to Oakleaf, ‘librarians can also consider unprecedented options to support institutional

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student success work, determine what libraries could or should contribute to the larger picture of student success at their institution, and envision the ways in which libraries could transform their services and resources to better meet student learning needs’ (Oakleaf, 2018a, 60). However, while the possibilities suggested by LA are acknowledged, several commentators have expressed serious reservations about the ethical implications inherent in the mining of large sets of personal student data, as well as the potential conflicts that may exist between LA practices and the various ethical codes which underpin library and information work (Jones et al., 2020; Croxton and Moore, 2020). From the general perspective of ‘big data’ practices, Jones and Salo highlighted the problems of gathering data without a specified research purpose, for which appropriate participant consent would normally be required: ‘The Big Data ethos, however, motivates actors to develop boundless datasets to be used in ways that are often unanticipated at time of collection . . . Immense datasets, made possible by aggregating and intertwining disparate and diverse sources of data, no longer require painstaking curation of scientific, statistically powerful samples’ (Jones and Salo, 2018, 305–6). From the point of view of library and information practice, Jones and Salo also pointed to several principles within the ALA Library Code of Ethics that appear to conflict with the practices suggested by LA. These principles are also reflected in the IFLA Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information Workers, which are applicable on a global basis, as well as many national library codes of ethics, such as CILIP’s Ethical Framework in the UK (CILIP, 2018). Table 1.4 opposite includes a selection of the relevant principles drawn from each code. Specific concerns raised about the use of LA, and how they may contravene the principles set out in the various codes of ethics include: 



Concerns about the general issue of invasion of privacy, when data on students’ information behaviour is scrutinised in order to make practical decisions that may potentially affect them in future, even if these decisions are made for their benefit. Librarians have traditionally defended libraries as ‘surveillance-free’ spaces where users are free to pursue their own intellectual interests without fear of judgement. Since ‘learning analytics is inherently a surveillance technology in that it requires institutions to develop rich data stores stocked with behavioral data and social, academic, and personal information’ (Jones, 2017, 8), librarians may perceive the practice as counter to their professional ethos. Concerns that students could be ‘nudged’ by their instructors towards the use of specific resources and away from others following analysis of their information behaviour, or that certain resources will be ‘suppressed’ in favour of others, to support specific vendor interests. It is

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Table 1.4 Learning analytics and library codes of ethics ALA

IFLA

CILIP

II. We uphold the principles of intellectual freedom and resist all efforts to censor library resources.

Librarians and other information workers reject the denial and restriction of access to information and ideas most particularly through censorship whether by states, governments, or religious or civil society institutions.

As an ethical Information Professional I make a commitment to uphold, promote and defend: Human rights, equalities and diversity, and the equitable treatment of users and colleagues. Intellectual freedom, including freedom from censorship Impartiality and the avoidance of inappropriate bias.

III. We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted.

Librarians and other information workers respect personal privacy, and the protection of personal data, necessarily shared between individuals and institutions. The relationship between the library and the user is one of confidentiality and librarians and other information workers will take appropriate measures to ensure that user data is not shared beyond the original transaction.

At all times I will work to uphold and advance: The confidentiality of information provided by clients or users and the right of all individuals to privacy.

IV. We respect intellectual property rights and advocate balance between the interests of information users and rights holders.

Librarians and other information workers recognise the intellectual property right of authors and other creators and will seek to ensure that their rights are respected.

I expect my professional body to support me in this by upholding, promoting and defending: Information governance and practice that protects the privacy of individuals The development of balanced and fair open access and copyright systems.



argued that this compromises students’ intellectual freedom by channelling them towards resources that are endorsed by the institution, and away from those that are not. Concerns that tracking students’ use of resources and information strategies in general might cause them to change their information behaviour and act as a constraint on their intellectual freedom to use the

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sources they perceive as most useful for them in a particular context, e.g. they might only access the resources in the LMS that have been linked by their instructors, as they are aware their behaviour is being tracked: ‘surveillance practices inhibit a library user’s ability to maximize her intellectual freedom’ (Jones, 2017, 8). Concerns that intellectual property (IP) negotiations between digital content vendors and libraries could be affected by the insights drawn from LA.

The JISC Code of Practice for Learning Analytics (Sclater and Bailey, 2015) stated that the objectives for the use of LA in an institution must be clearly articulated in advance and made transparent to students: ‘The data sources, the purposes of the analytics, the metrics used, who has access to the analytics, the boundaries around usage and how to interpret the data must be explained clearly to staff and students’; furthermore, consent must be obtained from the students before any interventions based on LA can be carried out. To try to overcome ethical conflicts, Jones and Salo (2018, 315) suggested that librarians should seek ‘to advocate for library values and ethical positions by participating in conversations about and design of LA systems at their institutions and within the profession’, and aim to embed their values in institutional LA policy. In 2019, global guidelines on ethics in LA were issued by the International Council for Distance and Open Education, in order to ‘identify which principles relating to ethics are core to all, and where there is legitimate differentiation due to separate legal or more broadly cultural environments’ (Slade and Tait, 2019, 6). In Europe, the effect of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) on LA requires extra consideration; a key question is whether institutions must seek the consent of students to gather and use personal data for the purpose of LA. JISC in the UK addressed this issue in their 2018 document, Learning Analytics and GDPR: what you need to know (Sclater, 2018), as well as the Code of Practice for Learning Analytics, referred to previously. To date, the most in-depth exploration of the potential of academic libraries in relation to institutional LA is the Library Integration in Institutional Learning Analytics (LIILA) project, which was funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services in the USA and launched in 2017 (Oakleaf, 2018a). Based on three meetings that were convened with multiple stakeholders from within and outside academia, the report examined the rationale for academic libraries’ potential involvement in institutional learning analytics, suggesting several strategies for library integration. In the main, this was a ‘vision’ document, outlining a range of scenarios in which librarians could potentially contribute to, and benefit from, LA initiatives in

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their institutions. Barriers to librarian participation in LA activities were identified in the report, including: 

   

lack of awareness within the library community of learning analytics and the overall landscape of data-focused student success initiatives across higher education a dearth of library financial, technical, and personnel resources with the capacity to engage in learning analytics work institutional perceptions of librarians as uninvolved in student learning and success efforts institutional perceptions of library data as disconnected from and not contributing to understanding student learning and success priorities fear that data-driven investigation may show that libraries make little or no impact on student learning and success (Oakleaf, 2018a, 60).

The report also examined the positions academic librarians could potentially take in respect of LA, ranging from ‘doing nothing,’ which was referred to as an ‘understandably alluring path forward . . . in what is clearly controversial territory,’ to making a proactive choice to explore the possibilities opened up by LA to improve student learning and understand the factors that affect student engagement and how libraries can contribute to student success. Ultimately, the report concluded that: Based on their longstanding commitment to students, it seems likely that – in order to facilitate learning, improve assessment, partner with other educational organizations, help higher education institutions respond to the challenges of improving student learning and increasing student success, and remain contributing and valued partners in the lives of their institutions – librarians will choose to participate in the maturing conversations about learning analytics in higher education and guide the ethical use of learning analytics to improve student success outcomes. (Oakleaf, 2018a, 9)

To respond to the emerging LA trend, IFLA issued a briefing for libraries on Education Technology and Student Data in July 2019, with the aim of providing guidance for librarians who may feel pressured to ‘use more performance tracking and learning analytics tools to benchmark their users’ progress and demonstrate performance’ (IFLA, 2019, 1). In it, they addressed the key issues concerning ethics and privacy that we explored earlier, asking pertinent questions about the storage and security of data, as well as the broader issues of equity that arise from extensive data mining in this content. They suggested

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that libraries should aim to ‘safeguard the interests of students, and maintain the position that adopting such educational technology which would collect sensitive data requires both safeguards and major critical considerations’ as well as ‘to promote responsible and ethical use of Edtech, as well as to shape its future development’ (p. 3). In addition, the briefing emphasised some practical principles that can serve as a basic framework for libraries, including:    

encouraging the use of user and community feedback to inform the design of data-intensive educational technologies limiting the collection of educational data to strictly and clearly defined purposes user participation on an opt-in basis guaranteeing the security of all data collected (IFLA, 2019, 4).

1.7 E-research and datafied scholarship Personal reflection points  How do I conceptualise the needs of researchers and research students in relation to academic library services?  What do I know about scholarly communications and e-research – what is my awareness of the research eco-system and researcher practices in the current digital landscape?  How do I view my teaching role in relation to researchers and research students?  From my experience, what challenges and opportunities do I see emerging from the current research eco-system?  What personal concerns, if any, do I have about new research-related roles attributed to academic librarians? DIL [data information literacy] represents an opportunity to expand information literacy from the library into the laboratory. In much the same way that libraries’ information literacy programs have gone beyond the ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, librarians will need to go beyond a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to data management and curation literacy. (Carlson and Johnston, 2015, 30)

In their 2017 report, Mapping the Future of Academic Libraries, the UK-based SCONUL named ‘datafied scholarship’ as one of several major nexuses, or confluences of interrelated trends, that have the greatest potential to radically transform the ways in which academic libraries support their researcher communities. ‘Datafied scholarship’ is a broad umbrella term which

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encompasses specific trends such as open access (OA), open science, big data, data science and digital humanities, amongst others. When considered together, the impact of these trends encapsulates a set of developments that are likely to lead to a situation where research in all disciplines becomes increasingly underpinned by larger and more complex sets of data . . . and digital artefacts, and where research outputs, which take a wide range of forms (text, data, visualisations, simulations, etc.), are made open by default and available to be automatically crawled, mined and then surfaced in various personalised ways using continually adapting algorithms operating at a network level. (Pinfield, Cox and Rutter, 2017, 16)

As a result of these transformations, ‘researchers may find that they need new skills and knowledge to work most effectively and take advantage of the new opportunities that this age of data-driven research presents’ (Federer, 2016, 35). These are increasingly recognised patterns within research communities, which carry significant implications for how academic and research libraries can develop and implement their services for researchers – including the type of teaching and learning support that is needed. Carlson and Johnston referred to e-science or e-research, which describe technology-driven research practices that have evolved on the basis of ‘ready access to high-bandwidth networks, the capacity to store massive amounts of data, and a robust and growing suite of advanced informational and computational data analysis and visualization tools’ (Carlson and Johnston, 2015, 12), while Federer (2016) pointed to the exponential increases in the volume and variety of research data continuously generated, that can no longer be adequately handled by the traditional data processing and storage methods. Carlson and Johnston (2015, 12) contended that ‘the complexity and scale of e-research in turn requires an evolution of traditional models of scholarly communication, library services, and the role of librarians themselves’. While researchers and graduate research students in higher education have always presented with considerably different needs to undergraduates in respect of the library services and support they require (Fleming-May and Yuro, 2009), the dramatic changes within the scholarly and digital landscapes over the past decade have moved the goalposts yet further for academic librarians, and it has been necessary to re-evaluate how this user group is served (Federer, 2016). While support for researchers in academic libraries has traditionally centred on ‘information discovery, collection development, and some elements of information management’ (Corrall, Kennan and Afzal, 2013, 637), the rapid adoption of e-research practices means that these services are no

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longer sufficient to meet the needs of the scholarly research community. Pan and Breen (2011) referred to ‘higher end researcher support’ to signify the shift towards more complex service offerings, which includes data management skills that are not typically taught as part of research curricula in higher education. For instance, Corrall (2014, 8) noted the ‘perceived requirement for libraries to develop more specialized interventions to provide point-of-need research support and advice around the whole knowledge creation cycle: from ideas generation and project conception, through data acquisition, manipulation and interpretation, to the deposit of results, publication of findings, and assessment of impact’. Corrall, Kennan and Afzal (2013) explored how academic libraries have been responding to these changes, which in some cases have included significant restructuring and the creation of new service units (e.g. ‘Research Impact Measurement’), or new positions (e.g. Bibliometricians, Research Support Librarians).

1.7.1 Bibliometrics and research data management Corrall, Kennan and Afzal’s study (2013) focused on two key areas of research service provision in which academic libraries have been most active, namely bibliometrics and research data management (RDM). Bibliometrics, defined as ‘a range of quantitative measures that assess the impact of research outputs using citation counts’ (Maynooth University Library, 2020) has been partly driven by the linking of research grants to concrete publishing performance metrics by funding agencies, in addition to the requirements of academic job-hunting, and tenure and promotion processes, as well as the broader issues of international benchmarking and institutional quality rankings. Research data management refers to ‘the active curation of data throughout the research life-cycle’ (University of York Library, n.d.), and incorporates such activities as collecting, describing, preserving and integrating data, to ensure that researchers who were ‘not involved with the project can find, understand, and use the data in the future’ (Strasser et al., 2012, 1). According to Carlson and Johnston (2015, 13), the rapid advances in e-research and large institutional, cross-sectoral and international research collaborations have led to the challenge of ‘data deluge’ – ‘that is, the need to store, describe, organize, track, preserve, and interoperate data generated by a multitude of researchers to make the data accessible and usable by others for the long term’. In addition, many funding agencies now require candidates to submit a ‘data management plan’ with their grant applications, e.g. the National Science Foundation in the USA (Federer, 2016); this has created an urgent training need for researchers who may not have been required to consider this aspect of their research previously.

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Corrall, Kennan and Afzal’s 2012 survey of 219 academic libraries across the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand asked participants to indicate the nature and extent of their library’s activities in a range of pre-identified services within each category (see Table 1.5). Their service lists offer a helpful overview of the tasks and processes that have emerged within the research eco-system, ‘reflecting the migration of scholarship to the web and the influence of social media’ (Corrall, Kennan and Afzal, 2013, 666). Table 1.5 Research-focused services offered by academic libraries Bibliometrics

Research data management

• Bibliometrics training/bibliometrics literacy • Citation reports • Calculations of research impact • Grant application support • Evaluation of candidates for recruitment, promotion, or tenure • Disciplinary research trend reports • h-index calculations

• Assistance to use available technology, infrastructure and tools • Guidance on the handling and management of unpublished research data, for example data literacy education and/or training • Support for data deposit in an institutional repository • Support for data deposit in external repositories or data archives • Finding relevant external datasets • Technical aspects of digital curation • Developing data management plans • Developing tools to assist researchers manage their data • Development of institutional policy to manage data

Interestingly, across all of the countries, bibliometrics training or literacy was the most popular service offered, with bibliometric services in general more common in the institutions surveyed; by contrast, research data management services were less developed, with institutional repository services most prevalent. For academic teaching librarians, the idea of ‘data literacy’ and supporting the development of researchers’ and students’ data management skills might be seen as a natural extension of their existing remit. This is the view taken by Carlson and Johnston (2015), whose study investigated the potential role for academic librarians in developing data information literacy (DIL) programmes in HE institutions. They argued persuasively in favour of librarians stepping into this gap, due to their long history of information literacy support, and general expertise with the tools, materials and practices of scholarly communication: Data management skills also provide the opportunity for an evolution of instruction in libraries. Academic libraries offer information literacy courses and programs as part of the educational mission of the institution. Extending

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information literacy to include programs on data management and curation provides a logical entry point into increasing the role of libraries in supporting e-research. (Carlson and Johnston, 2015, 12)

The authors viewed the responsibility for supporting DIL development in HE institutions as part of the librarians’ role, although in collaboration with faculty. Carlson and Johnston’s study produced a set of core competences for data information literacy, which could be adapted as learning objectives for DIL programmes. They include:            

introduction to databases and data formats discovery and acquisition of data data management and organisation data conversion and interoperability quality assurance metadata data curation and reuse cultures of practice data preservation data analysis data visualisation ethics, including citation of data.

Underpinning Carlson and Johnston’s work was their belief that DIL is a ‘logical outgrowth of information literacy and therefore expanding the scope of information literacy to include data management and curation is a logical extension of information literacy concepts’ (2015, 37). According to them, academic librarians ‘have a role in developing these education programs and will need to actively engage in these discussions’ (Carlson and Johnston, 2015, 14). This was echoed by Eddy and Solomon, who perceived a similarly central role for academic librarians in open access and academic publishing: ‘The scholarly communication crisis, for example, has provided libraries with the opportunity to offer critical guidance on open access and other alternative publication venues, and to develop new support services around the many inherent and unique considerations for copyright, licensing, digitisation, and content curation in these venues’ (Eddy and Solomon, 2017, 121).

1.7.2 Implications for academic teaching librarians While on the surface, services related to e-research seem to represent an

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important new avenue for academic teaching librarians, and a way for us to further demonstrate our value within our institutions, some caveats exist. For instance, the degree of knowledge and expertise we require to successfully deliver these services is a major consideration. Corrall, Kennan and Afzal (2013) asked their study participants to identify the constraints which they perceived to have hindered the establishment of bibliometric and research data management services in their institutions. Results showed that the most commonly identified constraint across the institutions was that librarians require additional knowledge, skills and confidence to successfully provide services in these areas. Within this, specific skill areas, such as quantitative methods and statistics, knowledge of bibliometrics tools and techniques, data curation skills and knowledge of research processes, among others were identified as necessary; Petersohn (2016, 180) referred to similar desirable skills, such as ‘being able to handle databases as complex sources of information, and knowing about specific publication types and discipline-specific behaviors in scholarly communication’ and ‘accurate and careful data cleaning and handling, as well as knowing how to correctly interpret and attribute metadata’. However, Corrall, Kennan and Afzal’s study also showed that most librarians learn those skills on the job or through self-study, rather than during their professional education, a finding also reflected in Petersohn’s interviews with German and UK-based academic librarians about their bibliometric training. The availability of scholarly communications training in LIS professional programmes seems inconsistent, although elective rather than core modules in this area appear to be the most common approach. For academic teaching librarians, our ability to offer e-research and related services lies at the intersection of our information literacy and teaching skills with the bibliometric and data management skills described above. As Petersohn observed, ‘librarians need a firm educational background in bibliometrics to be able to fulfil their educational mandate to empower their users properly’ (p. 188). The question of subject-specific knowledge is another caveat; according to Corrall (2014, 19) ‘others have questioned whether libraries have sufficient expertise for such roles, particularly the technical understanding and domain knowledge needed for data management and curation in different disciplines’. Positioning the librarian as partner with faculty in the research process offers one solution to this dilemma: for example, embedding librarians as ‘scholarly communications specialists’ in large-scale research projects. This is a familiar path for academic teaching librarians, since the key to successful curriculum-integrated information literacy instruction has always been consistent collaboration with faculty: ‘The cornerstone of an information literacy program that flourishes and endures on a campus is the powerful partnership between faculty and librarians’ (Curzon, 2004, 29).

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Exercises 1 Setting the scene You have been invited to serve as a consultant to a movie screenwriter, who wishes to write a scene that is set in a university library in 2050. Based on the changes you have observed over the course of your career (or learned about in your MLIS programme), and the issues impacting academic libraries now, what do you think the academic librarian’s role will look like by then? Create the scenario that you think the screenwriter should use in the movie. 2 Future-proofing teaching librarians As an invited lecturer, you have been asked to develop a new course for the MLIS programme in your local university, entitled ‘Future-proofing Teaching Librarians for the 21st Century’. Draft the course outline you would present to your line manager, including the topics you think should be covered, and the skills that you think students should learn on the course. Include any readings and resources which you think should be core. 3 Creating an interview schedule You are part of an interview panel that has been convened for the recruitment of a librarian to fill the newly created position of Digital Learning Co-ordinator in your library. Your task is to put together a schedule of questions to ask the candidates. Create a list of questions that you believe will reveal the best person for the job.

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CHAPTER 2

Defining the academic teaching librarian

Personal reflection points  How would I describe my (current or prospective) role as academic teaching librarian to those outside the LIS profession?  What do I believe it takes to be a successful academic teaching librarian?  What steps do I think people should take to prepare for an academic teaching librarian position?  What is stressful or challenging about my role as academic teaching librarian?  If asked to measure the contribution of academic teaching librarians to student learning and institutional goals, what factors would I choose to show this in a tangible way?  What (if any) are/were my preconceptions about the work of academic teaching librarians, and how do/did they compare to the reality?  If asked to recruit an academic teaching librarian for my institution, what are the attributes/skills/experience, etc., that I would look for to differentiate candidates?  What are my beliefs about how learning happens, and my role in facilitating this?

2.1 Introduction: who is the academic teaching librarian? As active contributors to the educational mission of their institutions, academic librarians are well positioned to support student learning and success. Librarians can expand student access to learning, ensure students are able to persist and attain their goals, and scaffold student experiences to aid attainment of independent learning capacity. They can teach information literacy as well as

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disciplinary and general learning outcomes. They can support students as they develop productive self-awareness, metacognition, and self-actualisation in a variety of contexts, including their immediate learning environments, the broader community, and the world around them. In short, librarians can help students learn, develop, and achieve. (Oakleaf, 2018a, 10)

In the first chapter of this book, we explored the major conceptual, technological and operational shifts that have transformed the professional landscape of the academic teaching librarian in the 21st century, and reflected on what these changes might mean for us as practitioners, regarding how we approach our teaching and engage with our students. Chapter 1 highlighted six current ‘critical issues,’ including the ongoing debate on the evolution of terminology and meaning, and how definitions and models of information and digital literacy have changed over time to reflect more complex, situated and socially constructed frameworks and practices, with a corresponding effect on teaching and learning approaches. The emerging practice of critical information literacy was identified as an important conceptual change, representing a globally centred mindset that has the power to utterly transform traditional approaches to information literacy instruction. The effects of social media and ‘fake news,’ as well as the emerging influence of learning analytics and datafied scholarship, were also discussed as powerful role-shapers. The aim of this chapter is not to articulate a persuasive rationale in support of a teaching role for academic librarians; while this may have been a critical point of departure at one time, it is no longer necessary. The role of teaching in the professional remit of academic librarians appears increasingly beyond dispute: ‘Librarians teach . . . the subject of much angst, soul-searching and self-justification by academic librarians . . . , this statement would now be accepted almost without argument both within the library world and largely by our colleagues in the wider academic community (Powis, 2008, 6) – albeit with the caveat that some research shows a degree of ‘practitioner ambivalence and even resentment towards their instructional role’ (Cox and Corrall, 2013, 15). The pro-teaching arguments for academic librarians have been articulated many times before (e.g. McGuinness, 2011, 12–18), and the work and advocacy of our predecessors have improved the perception and status of academic teaching librarians, both within and outside the profession. For instance, Cowan referred to our teaching status as a ‘battle’ that has been won through dedication and unwavering commitment to the cause: ‘We won in so many ways. Who got to first define information literacy? We (librarians) did. Who was and is still at the table when information literacy standards at institutions are discussed and implemented? We were, and in many cases still

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are.’ (Cowan, 2014, 27). Cox and Corrall observed that while academic librarians’ involvement in teaching reaches back as far as the 19th century (although some date it back to the 17th century, e.g. Drabinski, 2016), the role has ‘expanded and developed significantly in the last 30 years and also become specialized and professionalized’ (Cox and Corrall, 2013, 15). They also suggested that this role ‘is complex in both the range and context of the activities undertaken’ (p. 15), and is referred to by multiple titles, including ‘tutor librarian’ and ‘instruction librarian’; other role labels noted elsewhere include ‘professor librarian’ and ‘learning support librarian’. More recently, findings from a systematic literature review of the emerging roles of library and information professionals have helped to reinforce the centrality of the teaching role in academic librarianship, with the authors concluding that ‘librarians as teachers assume a range of responsibilities associated with teaching and learning and, thus, their educational role continues to develop in a way that incorporates them entirely into the academic community’ (Vassilakaki and Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, 2015, 41). However, while the broad idea of an ‘academic teaching librarian’ is increasingly recognised and accepted both inside and outside the LIS community, on closer examination there is less consensus on what the role involves from the perspective of day-to-day practice. What identifies a ‘teaching librarian’? Is a ‘teaching librarian’ different from a ‘librarian who teaches’? Is it possible, or desirable, to distinguish the role from other activities which support and facilitate student learning, but may not involve ‘teaching’ in the traditional sense? Julien and Genuis suggested that the extent to which academic librarians perceive themselves as teachers can determine the success or otherwise of their programmes and courses: ‘Information literacy will fail if librarians fail to see themselves as educators’ (Julien and Genuis, 2011, 105). This echoes previous comments by Walter, who also noted the high stakes attached to academic librarians’ self-perception of teacher identity: ‘Lack of a consistent teacher identity among academic librarians may hinder their effectiveness in meeting these expanding instructional responsibilities in a changing organisational environment’ (Walter, 2008, 65). This chapter addresses the question of what it means to be, and to become, an academic teaching librarian through exploring how ‘teacher identity’ is formed, and by analysing how the role has been defined and represented in frameworks and standards in term of the responsibilities, attributes and competences associated with it. We also explore how self-perceptions of information literacy can have a powerful influence on one’s identity and selfefficacy as a teaching librarian. Finally, the chapter highlights reflective practice as a critical component of professional identity development and effective teaching, and discusses the important role that creating a teaching

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philosophy statement can play in revealing the assumptions, beliefs and perceptions that shape your teaching identity and approach, leading to a deeper understanding of what motivates and drives you as an academic teaching librarian and how you might develop this in the future. To begin, here are some questions to prompt reflection about your current perception and understanding of the academic teaching librarian role (if you are an instructor on a professional education programme for LIS students, this exercise can be undertaken effectively in groups). Reflecting on each question will encourage you to think about the attributes and other factors that you perceive as important and relevant to the role: Reflective pause – who is an academic teaching librarian?  ‘I refer to myself as an academic teaching librarian because____’ OR ‘I don’t perceive myself as an academic teaching librarian because____’  ‘People who are/have ____ make the best academic teaching librarians’ OR ‘People who are/have ____ might not be comfortable in the role of academic teaching librarian’  ‘The best academic teaching librarians can be recognised by their____’ OR ‘Under-performing academic librarians can be identified by their____’  ‘If hiring an academic teaching librarian for my library, I would look for____’ OR ‘If hiring an academic teaching librarian for my library, I would not consider candidates who____’

2.2 Professional identity and ‘teacher identity’ Identity is the core of who we are as individuals. It shapes how we present ourselves, our expectations of how we interact with others and their treatment of us, and forms the basis of what we believe are our capabilities and potential . . . professional identity is also a dynamic concept that shifts in response to institutional and social changes. (Hussey and Campbell-Meier, 2016, 343)

The academic teaching librarian role has proven difficult to capture, even in terms of the time allocated to it by practitioners relative to their other professional duties. For example, would you say that an academic teaching librarian is: 

a librarian, whose principal or exclusive role is supporting and facilitating student learning, whether in the classroom, online or in a blended learning structure?

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a librarian, who engages in activities related to teaching and learning on a daily or regular basis, but who also wears other hats in the course of their duties, e.g. information desk, research support, etc.? any librarian working in any institution in the 21st century?

In the recent set of guidelines, Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians (discussed in more detail later), a teaching librarian is defined as ‘a librarian who teaches in various contexts, and for whom teaching may be all or part of their professional responsibilities’ (ACRL, 2017). In the absence of a clearly articulated external role description, the influence of self-perception is key. An interesting research project carried out by Wheeler and McKinney sought to investigate ‘the variation in conceptions of their own teaching skills among academic librarians who teach IL in higher education (HE)’ (Wheeler and McKinney, 2015, 111). One of the questions explored during interviews with six study participants was how they described themselves in relation to their teaching role. The participants’ responses yielded four distinct role conceptions, reflecting the different perceptions held by the librarians regarding their status and contribution as teachers in their institutions. These perceptions (p. 118) are depicted in Table 2.1. Table 2.1 Self-perceptions of academic librarians (after Wheeler and McKinney, 2015) I teach

I do not teach

I am a teacher

Teacher-librarian I am a teacher AND I do the same teaching as other teachers

Learning support I am a teacher BUT my teaching is not the same as other teachers’

I am not a teacher

Librarian who teaches I am not a teacher BUT I do some teaching

Trainer I am not a teacher AND I don’t teach

The librarians ranged from those who perceived themselves as fully equal to academic faculty in terms of the teaching they carried out, to those who were reluctant to describe themselves as teachers at all, preferring to describe their work as ‘training,’ which to them represented a more ‘skills-focused,’ and less ‘complex and high-level’ level of practice than the teaching carried out by academics. While some participants did describe themselves as teachers, they believed that they engaged in a different type of teaching to the academic staff and would therefore not be considered equal to them. Other factors influencing the librarians’ role conceptions included the extent to which they perceived teaching as central to their library role, and their beliefs about the need for specific qualifications, in order to lay claim to a bona fide teaching role.

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The role question is undoubtedly complex, and this complexity is not exclusive to the teaching remit, but more broadly rooted in a profession (library and information work) that is constantly in flux, as technology and the changing demands of users, institutional management, and society in general keep moving the goalposts. As Corrall (2010, 584) pointed out: ‘the complexity of both the information landscape and the organisational arena demand both breadth and depth in skills and knowledge for jobs that require cross-functional and highly-specialised competencies’. Chapter 1 has already provided some insight into this changing environment, the trends that are precipitating these changes, and the questions that have consequently been raised about the contribution and purpose of libraries in the 21st century. Role conceptions are intimately bound up with perceptions of identity, and in this context, it is helpful to consider how a professional identity is formed and the effect it can exert on practice. Caza and Creary described professional identity as ‘an individual’s image of who they are as a professional . . . the constellation of attributes, beliefs, values, motives and experiences that people use to define themselves in their professional capacity’ (Caza and Creary, 2016, 4). This is a more holistic way of considering one’s experience as a worker than ‘role,’ which has more functional connotations, and is defined as ‘the position or purpose that someone or something has in a situation, organization, society, or relationship’ (Cambridge Dictionary Online, 2020b). Professional identity can be an important lens through which people assign meaning to themselves, and in addition to influencing work attitudes, affect and behaviour in the workplace, it can ‘shape the way the members of a profession interact with their clients and society’ (Hicks, 2014, 251). Conversely, the absence of a clear professional identity can be detrimental, particularly for librarians, who have often struggled to define and communicate the role they play in their institutions and society in general (Walter, 2008). According to Julien and Genuis (2009, 927), ‘If librarians’ identity salience is unclear, especially if they are juggling multiple roles (such as the more traditional roles of reference service provider or collection developer) with more recent expectations for teaching, significant stress may result.’ By contrast, a ‘well-formed sense of purpose and responsibility can permeate librarians’ actions and help realize the discipline’s objectives’ (Sare, Bales and Neville, 2012, 179). A strong sense of professional identity is equally important for psychological well-being, and is linked to self-efficacy, selfesteem and job satisfaction.

2.2.1 The construction of professional identity Professional identity is constructed in multiple ways, encompassing factors

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that are intrinsic and extrinsic to the individual, and connected to their direct experience of the professional environment, as well as the information they receive about it: ‘people’s identities are constructed according to the social environments in which they work and live, and to the role expectations arising therein’ (Julien and Genuis, 2009, 928). From their review of the research on teachers’ professional identity, Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop extracted four features that they considered essential to teachers’ professional identity development:  Professional identity is an ongoing process of interpretation and re-

interpretation of experiences, i.e. rather than a fixed state, it is a dynamic, lifelong learning experience.  Professional identity implies both person and context; for instance, while certain professional attributes and expectations may be present in the teaching culture of an institution, a teacher may impose their own interpretation on those expectations and act accordingly, depending on the value they attach to them.  A teacher’s professional identity consists of several sub-identities that are more or less in harmony; it is important for identity development that these subidentities do not conflict.  Agency is an important element of professional identity; this means that teachers must be active in the process of professional development. (Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop, 2004, 122–3)

Overall, the authors argued that ‘professional identity is not something teachers have, but something they use in order to make sense of themselves as teachers’ (p. 123, emphasis added). Essentially, professional identity construction is an abstract, albeit active, process, constituted through doing, acting and interacting in a range of professional contexts. However, our understanding of how librarians come to develop a sense of teacher identity is hindered by the ‘dearth of literature that focuses on how academic librarians develop their identities as educators’ (Nichols Hess, 2018, 12). What do you perceive as the most powerful factors in professional identity development for academic teaching librarians? Take a few minutes to consider the following factors – for example, are professional identities based on: 

the pre-conceptions held by an individual before entering the profession – which may, in turn, be influenced by portrayals of librarians in the media, by peers or family members who are already in the profession, by career guidance counsellors, by personal library experience, etc.?

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the intensive period of training required to attain a professional qualification, e.g. MLIS? short-term work experience gained before or during professional training? exposure to the theoretical and professional body of LIS knowledge? exposure to cognate theoretical and practice-orientated bodies of knowledge (e.g. the technological and pedagogical knowledge domains described in Chapter 4)? exposure to core LIS competence frameworks and codes of practice? interactions with peers during professional training (socially and through teamwork)? experiences in employment post-graduation, i.e. a form of ‘apprenticeship’? participation in professional networks and communities of practice (in-person and virtual)? involvement in professional committee work, community outreach or advocacy? contribution to the scholarship of the profession, e.g. publishing papers and books, or presenting at conferences? informal networking with colleagues, both in-person and online?

All the above exert an influence on professional identity formation, although there is no universal ‘mix’ of elements that produces a shared or typical identity – your professional identity is unique, and a product of your internal and external experiences. The importance of socialisation as a critical factor in the shaping of professional identity was also emphasised by Caza and Creary: ‘Socialization is the key period within which individuals begin to form identification with their profession as they internalize the norms, values, behaviours and attitudes expected of their new roles . . . From a social identity perspective, socialization provides a basis for attachment to one’s new professional group and reinforces this with social ties among group members’ (Caza and Creary, 2016, 9). Hoffman and Berg (2014, 225) described professional identity development for librarians as a process of enacting and experimenting with different roles ‘as they start to embody the practice of their profession and take on specific associated activities, and as they develop relationships with professionals who can serve as role models, give feedback, and be part of a support network’. In their research into the role of identity in learning how to teach, Horn et al. (2008, 62) framed identity development and learning by recently qualified teaching interns as ‘arising out of the interns’ interactions with various figured worlds . . . the socially-constructed roles, meaning systems, and symbols of the cultural contexts they encountered’, which included the

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‘world’ of their professional teacher training, the ‘world’ of their teaching practice post-graduation, and the ‘real world’ of their own past experiences. In the study, which followed the interns over several years, the stated reasons they gave for adopting, modifying or rejecting specific pedagogical practices were connected to their perceptions of ‘good teaching,’ which in turn were linked to ‘the kind of teacher selves they have developed and seek to create – namely, their emerging identities as teachers’ (p. 63). This is similar to the idea of ‘embodying the practice’ expressed by Hoffman and Berg (2014) – academic teaching librarians’ professional identities form as they negotiate the different practices and expectations linked to the ‘worlds’ or environments they inhabit at different points – e.g. LIS school/department, library (as user), library (as trainee or practitioner), professional and scholarly communities (as volunteer, attendee, contributor, etc.). Other contributors have also sought to expand the body of knowledge on teacher identity development in librarians through research and critical analysis. For instance, earlier small-scale empirical studies into academic librarians’ qualitative experience and conceptions of their teaching roles (e.g. Walter, 2008; Julien and Pecoskie, 2009; Julien and Genuis, 2011) identified a complex mix of factors that shaped teacher identity, such as: the nature of their professional relationships with academic colleagues; role conflicts and the stress of competing work demands on their time; deficiencies in professional education in terms of teaching preparation; the critical importance of institutional support for their teaching; intrapersonal challenges that affected confidence and self-efficacy; and the persistent stereotypes and misconceptions about their work and its value that continued to frustrate them. Julien and Genuis (2009) also explored the concept of ‘emotional labour’ in librarians’ instructional work through 56 interviews with library staff in academic and public libraries across Canada and diaries kept by 14 library staff with instructional responsibilities. Their study found that the participants’ affective responses – which occupied the full spectrum from joy and satisfaction to misery – were heavily influenced by their relationships with students and faculty, and the visibility or invisibility of instructional outcomes. Other influences included inadequate preparation to teach, insufficient resource allocations for instructional work, ambivalence on the part of library administrators towards them, and in some cases, a personal dislike of teaching. More recently, Drabinski’s fascinating conceptual approach to exploring teaching-librarian identity took the concept of kairos – a term drawn from Ancient Greek which signifies the right or opportune moment for action – and applied it to the LIS discourse ‘to analyse contemporary discussions among professional teaching librarians about what constitutes their

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professional work. These discussions work to produce professional identities, associations, and discursive formations’ (Drabinski, 2016, 28). In her paper, she explored how key ‘kairotic’ moments of debate and disruption in the historical trajectory of academic librarianship have produced fundamental changes in thinking and practice, and consequently in the professional status of librarians. She traces major debates from the 17th century until recently, when the discourse and dissent around the revision of the ALA Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education exposed key questions relating to librarians’ status and their role in relation to information literacy and the academy, leading ultimately to ‘a significant shift in thinking about information literacy for the field’ (pp 33–4). Drabinski linked professional identity construction to these kairotic instances of debate through framing them as moments in which librarians are compelled to discuss the ‘truth’ of their practices: ‘Discourses around professional practice may present themselves as investigations into the correct way to be or act as professionals’ (2016, 34). From this perspective, professional identity, including teacher identity, is shaped to an extent by the discussions that practitioners have amongst themselves about what they do, and what they think they should be doing; the impact of these discussions may have greater or lesser impact depending on contextual factors that are influential at any one time. The current discourses around the phenomena of ‘fake news,’ big data, open access, and librarians’ roles in relation to them, might be understood as examples of ‘kairotic moments,’ as described by Drabinski; the effect of the 2020 global pandemic might also ultimately be read as a ‘kairotic moment’ due to its seismic impact on the practice of librarianship, and on Higher Education in general. The most recent research into academic librarians’ teacher identity is by Nichols Hess, who carried out a mixed-methods study with academic librarians to identify the factors which ‘play roles in academic librarians’ perspective transformations about their roles as educator’ (Nichols Hess, 2018, 13). She applied Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory to the question of how academic librarians’ teacher identity develops over time. Transformative learning is an approach to adult learning that ‘considers how individuals reconcile the roles and views prescribed to them by social or cultural structures with how they see themselves and their places in their world’ (p. 17) through an active process of cognitive engagement in critical thinking, discourse and reflection which transforms their worldviews and perspectives over time. This process is typically initiated when the person encounters a ‘disorienting dilemma,’ or an experience which is at odds with their current frame of reference – e.g. a major or ‘epochal’ event, such as a new job, or a mix of other external catalysts, such as work experiences or

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interpersonal interactions with faculty, students and other colleagues, which lead to a more gradual change in perspective over time. Through her research, Nichols Hess uncovered an extensive range of factors which feed into the transformative learning experience of academic teaching librarians, shape their teacher identities, and potentially lead to changes in how they conceptualise teaching. They included:  



the powerful influence of interpersonal connections with students, disciplinary faculty, library colleagues and administrators professional components, e.g. formal and informal professional learning experiences, teaching as training to teach, the influence of technology on teaching practice other external influences, such as shifting work environments, changes in employment, changes in librarianship as a profession, and impacts from supervisors and leaders.

According to Nichols Hess, this process of learning is closely aligned with identity formation: ‘Developing an identity as an educator can be a rational and analytical process, developed through critical discourse with others; it can also be more affectively driven and honed through personal reflection and critical introspection’ (p. 24). The sense of disorientation or discomfort you might feel in an unfamiliar situation can be harnessed for personal or professional growth, but the process must be intentional – you must apply metacognitive strategies to embrace and reflect on the changes while they are taking place or shortly afterwards. In this sense, identity development is an active, immersive process, based on what you experience, how you process these experiences, and the transformation in your worldview that consequently takes place. To summarise, the formation of a professional teacher identity is based on three types of information, gained via multiple passive, active and interactive experiences, i.e. 

 

what you learn about the profession through reading, listening, watching or conversing with others, either during professional training, as a selfdirected learner or unintentionally what you observe practitioners doing or experiencing in professional practice – for example, as an LIS student, colleague or library user what you experience first-hand as a practitioner, pre- or post-qualification, and how you process or make sense of those experiences, e.g. through reflection or writing.

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Identities, therefore, can be narrow and limited or expansive and diverse, depending on one’s access to information, training, work experience opportunities, and professional peers and networks. In its Guidelines for Professional Library/Information Educational Programs, the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA) stated that professionalisation should begin during the training period for librarians: ‘Opportunities to gain and demonstrate professional competencies should be a part of the educational programme. An awareness of professional concerns should permeate the programme’ (IFLA, 2012). This was echoed by Croxton (2015, 125), who asserted that ‘promoting students’ development of identities as library and information science professionals is an important component of MLIS degree programs’. In their study of librarian teacher identity, Julien and Genuis discovered a close connection between preparation to teach during professional training, and subsequent identification with the teaching role: ‘those who participated in formal preparation for instruction were more likely to expect to have teaching roles when they began working in libraries, to feel prepared for this role, and to view instructional work as integral to their professional identity’ (Julien and Genuis, 2011, 109). Professional identity can, however, exist separately from the role that a librarian currently occupies; for instance, it is possible to identify strongly as an academic teaching librarian, even while working in a position that does not require any input to teaching and learning. Professional identity is just one factor to consider in articulating who the academic teaching librarian is, and what they do in practice.

2.3 Roles and responsibilities of academic teaching librarians The question of teacher identity aside, as a professional role, ‘academic teaching librarian’ is often pragmatically framed in terms of the attributes, tasks and proficiencies the role requires in daily practice, and which are typically identified through the criteria listed in job specifications, as benchmarks for performance evaluation, or as topics that should be taught in teaching courses for librarians in their professional programmes. In terms of how these attributes, tasks and proficiencies are identified, this can be addressed in two ways: 1 Through examining and enumerating the actual tasks and activities connected to the role that are performed on a regular basis in practice, i.e. inductively, which involves moving from analysis of authentic work practices (e.g. Bewick and Corrall, 2010; McGuinness, 2011; Julien, Gross and Latham, 2018), towards a generalised statement of what the role, or roles, entail. This type of approach could, for example, involve surveying

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teaching librarians about their day-to-day routines and responsibilities, or analysing the essential and desirable criteria listed in job advertisements for teaching librarian positions (e.g. Cox and Corrall, 2013). This approach poses the question ‘What do academic teaching librarians do now to support student learning, and what would be the ideal way of doing those things (or alternative things)?’ 2 The second way is through considering and analysing the critical issues that are shaping and influencing the role at a particular point in time, and from which relevant attributes, tasks and proficiencies may be deduced, i.e. deductively, based on an analysis of the role from a more conceptual point of view, which attempts to match the remit of the academic teaching librarian to the demands emerging from technological, socio-cultural and other broad shifts that underpin LIS and educational agendas (e.g. Corrall, 2010). This approach asks the question ‘What do academic teaching librarians need to do or be, in order to position themselves to successfully respond to the learning needs of students that are being shaped by these critical issues?’ To date, the former approach has dominated the discourse. In the same way as information literacy was originally conceived as prescriptive lists of specific skills, knowledge and abilities, many attempts to define the role of the academic teaching librarian over the past 30 years have incorporated the broadly similar approach of producing competence guidelines or frameworks, which list the teaching skills and proficiencies required to perform the job effectively on a day-to-day basis (e.g. Shonrock and Mulder, 1993; Peacock, 2001). Another approach involves expert consensus-seeking on what academic librarians need to learn, to successfully undertake instructional roles – i.e. what should a teaching curriculum in an LIS programme look like? In 2005, participants in a pan-European project entitled Library and Information Science Education in Europe: joint curriculum development and Bologna perspectives identified four categories of knowledge and skills related to instruction, which they deemed important to include in an instructional course for trainee librarians, namely: 1 curriculum design and planning: identifying learners’ needs, developing learning outcomes, assessing learning outcomes, alignment of teaching, learning and assessment, use of technology in learning environments, course evaluation 2 understanding learners and learning theory: models and theories of learning, different learning styles, needs and characteristics of student groups, information behaviour research

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3 understanding basic concepts, theories and practice of teaching: concepts of and approaches to teaching, methods, tools, collaborative learning 4 understanding the context for teaching and learning: educational policy, lifelong learning, teaching in different sectors, the role of information literacy in LIS profession, role of the teaching librarian, promotion and advocacy for information literacy (Kajberg and Lørring, 2005, 71–2). In 2008, the Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators were published by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) to establish a framework of ‘twelve skill categories that can serve as a measure of a librarian’s ability as an instructor’ (Bryan, 2016, 340). The 12 categories were chosen to also incorporate a librarian’s potential role as manager or co-ordinator of instructional programmes, rather than just focus on proficiencies directly related to teaching practice. The skill categories included were: 1. Administrative skills; 2. Assessment and evaluation skills; 3. Communication skills; 4. Curriculum knowledge; 5. Information literacy integration skills; 6. Instructional design skills; 7. Leadership skills; 8. Planning skills; 9. Presentation skills; 10. Promotion skills; 11. Subject expertise; and 12. Teaching skills. Each category further contained a list of proficiencies, or action statements that purported to capture what an ‘effective’ instructor or co-ordinator is able to do in their role; for example, ‘The effective instruction librarian creates learnercentered course content and incorporates activities directly tied to learning outcomes’ or ‘The effective co-ordinator of instruction seeks potential partners to create new instruction opportunities’. In total, the document listed 41 core proficiencies for instruction librarians and 28 proficiencies for instruction coordinators. One of the aims stated by the creators of the Standards was to enable academic libraries to ‘begin with a common definition for the scope of responsibilities for instruction librarians and co-ordinators of instruction programs’ as well as to clearly articulate the responsibilities associated with teaching-related positions, and to identify professional training needs among their staff. These Standards offer a snapshot of how the role of academic teaching librarian was perceived at the time; this changed in 2014, when the process of revising and updating the Standards began. While competence frameworks exist that are specific to teaching librarians, the teaching-related knowledge and skills deemed important for librarianship in general, or in relation to particular areas of specialisation, are also included in core competence frameworks for librarianship that exist in different jurisdictions. Examples from the English-speaking world include the American Library Association (ALA)’s Core Competencies of Librarianship,

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which define ‘the basic knowledge to be possessed by all persons graduating from an ALA-accredited master’s program in library and information studies’ (ALA, 2008), CILIP’s Professional Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB) in the UK, and Cooperative Action by Victorian Academic Libraries (CAVAL’s) Competencies for Academic and Research Librarians in Australia (CAVAL, 2017). The teaching-related knowledge and skills in each document are compared in Table 2.2. While there are commonalities across the documents, it is also clear that there is considerable variation in how the teaching and learning role for librarians is viewed within each jurisdiction, as well as the types of knowledge and skills that are considered essential. Notably, teaching-related competences are categorised under a range of different descriptors, including Reference and User Services, Literacies and Learning, and Learning and Teaching, which demonstrates the cross-specialisation that often characterises the teaching role in library and information services. None of the generic competence frameworks, however, offer a fully comprehensive picture of a teaching librarian. Table 2.2 Comparison of teaching-related knowledge and skills in library competence frameworks ALA Core Competencies (USA)

CILIP Professional CAVAL Competencies for Knowledge and Skills Base Academic and Research (UK) Librarians (Australia)

5. Reference and user services 5C. The methods used to interact successfully with individuals of all ages and groups to provide consultation, mediation, and guidance in their use of recorded knowledge and information.

8. Literacies and learning Supporting users and teaching them how to work independently. Incorporates information literacy, reading literacy, digital literacy and learning and teaching skills, and includes reader development and training users.

5. Learning and teaching Academic and research librarians working in learning and teaching should have a strong understanding of and competence in the following:

• Client relationships – building and managing relationships and 5D. Information 8.1 Information literacy – partnerships with literacy/information Knowing when and why you researchers, faculty, competence techniques and need information, where to students and methods, numerical literacy, find it, and how to evaluate, professionals, and and statistical literacy. use and communicate it in communicating an ethical manner. information and resources 5E. The principles and to a range of clients. methods of advocacy used 8.2 Reading literacy and to reach specific audiences reader development – • Information services – to promote and explain Understanding the providing advice and concepts and services. importance of reading and instruction to enhance the role of information access to relevant and professionals and reliable information Continued

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Table 2.2 Continued ALA Core Competencies (USA)

CILIP Professional Skills and Knowledge Base (UK)

5F. The principles of assessment and response to diversity in user needs, user communities, and user preferences.

information agencies in • Sources of information – developing literacy, knowledge of core finding promoting reading and tools, databases and supporting learning across resources at a level society. A particular aspect is appropriate to the position Reader Development, which (e.g. subject expertise, eencompasses schemes and book access, open initiatives that aim to educational resources). improve the reading skills of • Institutional teaching the population and enhance and learning – knowledge their enjoyment of reading. of institutional curriculum to effectively embed 8.3 Digital literacy – information literacy as Appreciating the set of appropriate. attitudes, understanding and skills needed to find, • Learning and teaching communicate and use theory and practice – information effectively in a knowledge of learning variety of media and formats. models and strategies, 8.4 Writing, numeracy and creativity – Understanding the importance of writing and numeracy skills and the role that information professionals and services can play in developing and encouraging these through service provision. Providing opportunities for users to develop their creative skills and develop their imagination. 8.5 Frameworks and curricula for education and training – An understanding of these aspects relevant for any particular environment or user group.

CAVAL Competencies for Academic and Research Librarians (Australia)

pedagogy, current educational technologies for the academic environment, and learning analytics to provide scaffolded training and skills development opportunities for clients. • Learning management system (LMS) – knowledge of the structure and the use of campus learning content management system. • Digital content creation – developing, creating and implementing online learning modules. • Scholarly literacies – knowledge of current terminology, principles and practice relevant to sourcing, using, evaluating, creating and sharing of information in an academic and digital environment (e.g. information, digital and academic literacies). Continued

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Table 2.2 Continued ALA Core Competencies (USA)

CILIP Professional Skills and Knowledge Base (UK)

CAVAL Competencies for Academic and Research Librarians (Australia)

8.6 Teaching and training skills – Understand and apply skills for effective teaching and training; awareness of how people learn and understanding of the learning experience, design and deliver a range of learning activities for specific audiences/users; undertake assessment and give feedback; evaluate experiences.

• Digital literacies – nimble, flexible, and efficient selection and use of appropriate technologies to read, search, evaluate, organise, create, connect and communicate effectively.

8.7 Supporting users – Helping users to find the information they need; help them to appraise, understand and evaluate information/resources and enable them to help themselves in future.

• Learning and teaching trends – awareness of new developments in learning and teaching and potential for library services and programs (e.g. immersive environments). • Ethical use of information – awareness of copyright law, contract obligations and plagiarism in the learning and teaching context.

8.8 Virtual Learning Environments – Understand the use of VLEs and appreciate how they can be used for information literacy instruction and providing library/ information services.

In 2011, McGuinness collated and compared the different guidelines, lists and frameworks that existed at that time, and suggested that the various skills and competences for academic teaching librarians could be categorised under three broad headings, namely: 1 pedagogical/andragogical knowledge and skills 2 political and strategic skills 3 professional development and competence. (McGuinness, 2011, 29)

Under each heading were listed detailed competence areas that might form the basis for a teaching module in LIS curricula to prepare trainee librarians

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for practice. While the basic areas remain the same, emerging trends such as learning analytics have introduced additional dimensions to the knowledge base: 1 Pedagogical/andragogical knowledge and skills ■ applying theories of learning (e.g. behaviourism, constructivism, etc.) ■ accommodating different learning styles ■ understanding of and ability to gather information on the characteristics of different student groups, including adult learners, international students, and students with access issues ■ identifying the instructional needs of different student groups ■ composing instructional goals, objectives and learning outcomes ■ knowledge of different teaching approaches, methods, tools and platforms, including institutional learning management systems (LMSs) ■ content creation – developing original learning objects in multiple media formats (e.g. videos, animations, podcasts, webinars, virtual classroom, classroom polling, etc.) ■ knowledge of when and how to use technology appropriately for teaching, and how to design effective online and blended learning experiences; practical skills in using various digital learning technologies ■ assessment and evaluation techniques and tools – aligning assessment to learning outcomes and teaching approaches ■ ability to facilitate collaborative and peer learning ■ presentation and delivery skills, using visual media, etc. ■ awareness of ethical issues in teaching, including student access issues, universal design, intellectual property and learning analytics/use of student data. 2 Political and strategic skills ■ communication – including negotiation, conflict resolution, leading discussions ■ promotion – advocacy for information and digital literacy, promoting instruction to academics and students, initiating collaboration with academics, representation at local, national and international level ■ leadership – articulating the library mission, proactively seeking out instructional opportunities, instigating discussion and debate with colleagues, contributing to campus initiatives ■ social and critical – understanding how the library can contribute to the goals of the institution, society and the world at large (e.g. the UN Sustainable Development Goals, UNESCO Media and Information Literacy).

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3 Professional development and competence ■ understanding and developing one’s own information or digital literacy ■ understanding and articulating one’s own teaching philosophy ■ understanding one’s own role (and the role of the library) in student learning and educational support in general ■ knowledge and understanding of theories of human information behaviour (hib) and cognate theories ■ keeping current within relevant subject areas and embracing new areas of responsibility (e.g. research data management, open access, etc.) ■ commitment to and regular participation in continuing professional development (CPD) activities to keep skills fresh ■ engaging in reflective practice, understanding oneself as a teacher ■ understanding the wider context of teaching and learning – lifelong learning, educational and public policy, etc.

2.3.1 Roles and strengths of teaching librarians A major change was initiated in 2014, with a complete revision of the 2008 Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators in the USA; the new framework, which was approved in 2017, shifted the focus from ‘proficiencies’ to ‘roles,’ and from ‘skills’ to ‘strengths,’ with the aim of presenting ‘a more holistic perspective of the range of work done by teaching librarians rather than a list of skills needed to do a specific job’ (ACRL, 2017). This is a context-sensitive approach that recognises the differing levels of knowledge, skills and abilities that are activated in different situations, and acknowledges that a broader, more flexible set of concepts is needed to reflect the reality of an academic teaching librarian’s experience, as they move in and out of varying ‘innovative and creative’ roles throughout their professional lives. In total, seven connected roles were identified to capture the potential working life, and personal and professional development of an academic teaching librarian. They are Advocate; Co-ordinator; Instructional Designer; Lifelong Learner; Leader; Teacher; and Teaching Partner. Each role label is annotated with a detailed role descriptor, and a list of several ‘strengths,’ which are not intended to be prescriptive, but instead represent ‘the characteristics which enable librarians to thrive within those roles’ (ACRL, 2017). The new framework recognises that there is no ‘one-sizefits-all’ role for academic teaching librarians – over the course of a career, librarians might find that they step into several different roles with varying levels of responsibility, although all are related to teaching and learning. None of the roles in the document are identified as more important or dominant

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than others; the seven roles are presented as equal and interconnected. The document is also not intended to suggest that a teaching librarian must necessarily strive to ‘tick the box’ for every single role during their career; rather, it demonstrates the potential scope and variety of the overall teaching librarian role, and captures the range of activities, skills, traits and characteristics that are connected to effective performance in each area. This allows you to reflect on the various roles and strengths, to help you to visualise what a role might entail, and what professional development needs you might have, to fulfil that role effectively. The full document can be accessed here: www.ala.org/acrl/standards/teachinglibrarians. Table 2.3 summarises the key elements of the different roles. Table 2.3 ACRL roles and strengths of teaching librarians: summary of key elements Role

Key elements

Advocate

• Articulating and communicating the value of information literacy to campus colleagues • Promoting curriculum-integration and teaching partnerships with faculty and other stakeholders • Advocating for training and development opportunities for teaching librarian colleagues

Co-ordinator • Managing and maintaining all aspects of the library’s information literacy programme • Networking, collaborating, and communicating with institutional stakeholders • Supporting teaching librarian colleagues • Endeavouring to foster an information literacy culture across the institution Instructional • Designing and implementing effective educational experiences across Designer multiple platforms, media and formats • Utilising personal knowledge of pedagogy and learning theory to create sound, student-focused learning and assessment activities • Keeping up to date with emerging learning approaches, methods and instructional technologies Lifelong Learner

• Making a commitment to continuing professional development for the duration of one’s career • Participating in conversations on teaching and learning with professional colleagues nationally and internationally • Making an active contribution to relevant professional associations

Leader

• Leading by example through modelling best practices and committing to continuous improvement • Taking the initiative to establish productive collaborations with institutional colleagues to embed information literacy as a strategic priority • Navigating institutional politics to successfully manage change and create an institutional information literacy culture • Building a solid reputation for information literacy expertise across the institution. Continued

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Table 2.3 Continued Role

Key elements

Teacher

• Adopting a student-focused, needs-based approach to the design, delivery and assessment of learning activities for information literacy • Creating positive, engaging and context-sensitive learning environments for students • Drawing on pedagogical expertise and professional guidelines to craft high-quality learning experiences for students that situate information literacy within their academic programmes and subject disciplines • Demonstrating enthusiasm and positive commitment to teaching through professional development and reflective practice

Teaching Partner

• Building strong and enduring working relationships with institutional colleagues that are based on mutual respect and trust • Seeking opportunities to collaborate with academic faculty and other colleagues based on areas of shared professional interest, not necessarily limited to instructional activities • Collaborating in the development of student learning experiences, which effectively harness the unique skills and knowledge of each collaborator

The ACRL roles and strengths document can be used in various ways; for instance, to inform and guide your initial choice of career as an academic teaching librarian; to evaluate your current situation, and identify future career aspirations, in addition to the professional learning you may need to undertake to reach your goals. Armstrong suggested that the roles and strengths document, which emphasises lifelong learning, could be considered in combination with the ACRL Framework (2015), to ‘help us recognize how we can use the Framework to strengthen our role as lifelong learners by applying the Framework’s concepts to our own praxis’ (Armstrong, 2019, 379).

2.4 The information-literate self Personal reflection points  What is my understanding and experience of information literacy (and/or other literacies)?  How do I describe or identify someone who is information-literate (or literate in other contexts)?  What value do I see in being information-literate (or literate in other contexts)?  How do I evaluate myself as an information-literate person (or literate in other contexts)?  How does my self-perception of information literacy influence my teaching?

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Information professionals who undertake the responsibility of offering information services and teaching information literacy skills, should have high sense of efficacy both in information and computer literacy which directly and strongly is bound to affect the success of their work performance. (Serap Kurbanoglu, 2003, 635)

In this section, we turn our attention to reflecting on the self as an informationliterate person, and the impact that this can have on your sense of self-efficacy as a teacher, on the instructional practices that you engage in your work, and on your relationships with your students, colleagues and other stakeholders. As Kajberg and Lørring pointed out in relation to LIS professional education, ‘LIS students need to understand themselves as information literate people, and understand IL holistically, before they can start teaching someone else about it’ (Kajberg and Lørring, 2005, 68, emphasis added). A recent smallscale study by Inskip, in which a number of LIS professionals were interviewed about how they came to develop the competences needed to do their work, found that ‘In terms of their skills and competences as users, the participants identified the importance of how their own IL skills contributed to their delivery . . . particularly as a deeper understanding of IL practices led to an increase in their confidence’ (Inskip, 2017, 490). Occupying the role of academic teaching librarian can imply that you are already an ‘information expert’ and are therefore naturally qualified to facilitate student learning in this context. However, this may be at odds with how you view your own abilities in this regard, even in the face of positive feedback about your work. This sense of disconnection between actual achievement and self-perception of competence is not uncommon in LIS work. Writing about imposter syndrome, which they define as the feelings a person experiences when they deservedly achieve success, but do not believe they merit it, Clark, Vardeman and Barba (2014, 255) observed that it can occur among college and university librarians who ‘often serve as liaisons to faculty with more education and experience, which can exacerbate those feelings’. Martinez and Forrey (2019, 334) also wrote about the issue of ‘imposter phenomenon’ among early-career librarians in particular, noting that ‘the librarian’s role as instructor is one of the daily activities that can arouse feelings of self-doubt’. Their survey of 172 librarians revealed feelings of ‘insecurity and fraudulence’ to be quite common, with causes ranging from lack of instructional training and opportunities for practical experience during their professional training, to not knowing where to turn for help in their current situation, to try to dispel these feelings and increase their feelings of competence. Self-perception of information literacy (or other literacies), and the way in which you evaluate your competence and ability, are closely linked to your

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perception of self-efficacy in respect of your teaching work. How do we understand the idea of self-efficacy? According to Serap Kurbanoglu (2003, 636), ‘self-efficacy refers to a belief in one’s ability to successfully perform a particular task’ or ‘a belief in one’s own capabilities to organize and execute the course of action required to attain a goal’. Perceptions of self-efficacy serve as motivators for behaviour, and are influenced primarily by an individual’s previous experiences, amongst other factors. According to Bandura (1997), a person’s sense of self-efficacy derives from four main sources, namely: (1) mastery experiences – successfully mastering tasks oneself, and experiencing the effects of self-efficacy first-hand; (2) vicarious experiences/social modelling – observing the successes and failures of others; (3) social persuasion – direct verbal influence from others, e.g. friends, relatives, colleagues, mentors; and (4) physiological and emotional states – the influence of a person’s emotional state or mood on their confidence, e.g. anxiety, stress, etc. Perceptions of self-efficacy matter, because they exert a powerful influence on motivation and on a person’s propensity to take risks or persist during challenging circumstances: ‘Self-efficacy beliefs provide the foundation for human motivation, well-being, and personal accomplishment. People have little incentive to act or to persevere in the face of difficulties unless they believe that their actions can produce the outcomes they desire.’ (Serap Kurbanoglu, 2003, 638). For academic teaching librarians, a sense of self-efficacy arises from what you perceive in relation to (a) your ability to help students learn (pedagogy) and (b) your knowledge of the subject matter that you wish the students to learn, however it is defined. Since the early 1990s, the ‘subject matter’ for academic teaching librarians has been described as ‘information literacy,’ although rooted in different disciplinary and scholarly contexts. However, as we have seen, this is a simple descriptor that masks the complexity of librarians’ actual practice. In Chapter 1, we explored the extent to which the concept of information literacy has transformed radically in the years since it was first adopted by the academic LIS community, and how it is no longer viewed as a binary, objective state that is attainable through developing specific skills and attributes, but rather as a personal, context-dependent, social construct, requiring more fluid and adaptable perspectives. In its broadest sense, it is conceived as a constellation of overlapping, interrelated literacies, anchored in scholarly communities, and shaped by existing, systemic power structures, which makes it difficult to define in more concrete terms. By comparison, in the past, the relatively fixed definitions and generic models of information literacy (e.g. the ACRL Standards) appeared to place a natural boundary around the body of knowledge and skill that academic teaching librarians might be expected to possess in order to successfully carry

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out their jobs (e.g. how to find, access, evaluate information, etc.). To counteract these limitations, in her landmark article on reflexive pedagogical practice for librarians, Jacobs urged a view of information literacy that ‘not only incorporates the recurrent concepts of identifying, locating, evaluating, and using information but also encompasses engendering lifelong learning, empowering people, promoting social inclusion, redressing disadvantage, and advancing the well-being of all in a global context’ (Jacobs, 2008, 257). This mirrors the multi- and meta-literacies landscape described in Chapter 1, which focus not on what being literate is, but what it enables people to do, in order to improve their own lives and society in general. Take a few minutes at this point to consider your self-perception of information literacy, through reflecting on these questions: Reflective pause – the information-literate self  I perceive myself to be information-literate when I . . .  An example of an act or event which demonstrates a high level of information literacy was/would be . . .  An event or situation in which I considered myself to be inadequately information-literate was . . .  An event or situation in which I perceived that I was not adequately information-literate was . . .  As a teacher, I would consider a successful information literacy outcome to be . . .  The effects on society of low levels of information literacy are/would be . . .

How did your answers to those questions make you feel? Being reflective as an academic teaching librarian means delving deep to discover what you believe and value about learning, and the purpose, outcomes and impact of that learning; equally, supporting students to become ‘literate’ requires honest reflection on what that means in the 21st century. If we do not have a clear picture of the desired end-point of our instruction (for example, students who have become more ‘information-literate’ or ‘critically literate’), then it is impossible to create and facilitate learning situations that will achieve this aim. As Grassian and Kaplowitz (2009, 3) asserted: ‘Developing this insight is crucial to our decisions about what and how we will teach and the ways in which we talk about the concept with people outside our profession . . . defining what we mean by IL is central to our task as instructors.’ Secker (2018, 7) also emphasised the link between professional identity and the words and phrases we use to describe what we do: ‘Terminology is extremely important and is very much tied up with professional identities, particularly in the learning support field.’ However, our professional LIS training may

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not adequately support the development of this aspect of our professional identity; according to Nichols Hess (2019, 55), ‘Researchers have established that academic librarians generally experience limited or inadequate exposure to information literacy in library school’, which suggests that opportunities to consider what it means to be ‘information-literate’ may only arise in contexts post-graduation – for example, in one’s first library position, or through CPD. In 1995, Beijaard suggested that teacher identity emerges from the intersection of three core categories, namely:   

the subject one teaches the relationship with students the teacher’s role and role conception.

For academic teaching librarians, the concept of ‘information literacy’ (or whatever term you use) surrounds and permeates these categories and poses perhaps the greatest challenge in articulating and enacting our role; Jacobs (2008, 260) referred to the issue of how to teach information literacy as ‘our discipline’s million-dollar question’. This is especially the case if we perceive information literacy as a state that we must attain, or a set of skills we must master before we can legitimately teach it. In contrast to this, Foster suggested that a meta-approach to defining the ‘subject matter’ for teaching librarians may be more useful than outlining a fixed body of knowledge and skills: ‘A teaching programme aimed as a preparation for professional practice has . . . to accommodate more than a definitive statement of the subject, it must be an introduction to thinking, asking questions, and interpreting, and should instil the same critical thinking skills that are prerequisites for information literacy’ (Foster, 2006, 492). In other words, the ‘subject matter’ for academic teaching librarians can be viewed as essentially the adoption and enactment of a critical literate mindset and associated practices, which can be modelled, shared and imparted to students in different contexts. As an academic teaching librarian, how do you go about fostering this mindset? There are several steps you can take: 



honestly acknowledging and articulating the conceptualisation of information literacy that you currently hold and considering how this conceptualisation has shaped and influenced your teaching practice and sense of self-efficacy to date, from both positive and negative perspectives committing to challenging and expanding your current conceptualisation by actively engaging with and reflecting on alternative

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definitions, models and frameworks, such as the examples provided in Chapter 1 building your awareness of how literacy is enacted and valued in different contexts and in relation to different purposes, through engaging with discourses outside LIS, e.g. in different sectors, scholarly communities, disciplines, etc. considering information literacy not from the point of view of the knowledge and skills you should possess in order to teach students, but rather in terms of how it can help students to engage with their disciplines, understand their roles within scholarly communities, develop as researchers, challenge the status quo, etc., depending on context choosing to engage with the practice of critical information literacy and in understanding the power of questions in exposing and addressing systemic imbalances and injustices in current regimes and political systems accepting that, like your students, your self-conception as a literate person is a work in progress, and that a willingness to be flexible, reflect, adapt and revise is of greater importance than mastering a fixed body of tooloriented knowledge and skills that will be rapidly outdated.

Regarding the last point, in her discussion of how to foster a theoretically informed praxis in LIS, Jacob’s suggestion of incorporating ‘creative, reflective dialogue’ in our work empowers us to view our role in a different way; rather than focus on mastery of content, we position ourselves instead as co-learners with our students: ‘In terms of information literacy pedagogy, one of the best ways for us to encourage students to be engaged learners is for us to become engaged learners, delve deeply into our own problem posing, and embody the kind of engagement we want to see in our students’ (Jacobs, 2008, 261). The best way to inculcate a problem-oriented, critical approach in our students, she argues, is to embody it ourselves in our daily practice. The crucial role of reflection in this process is explored further in the next section.

2.5 Reflective practice for academic teaching librarians Personal reflection points  What do I understand by the idea of being ‘reflective’ or engaging in ‘reflective practice’?  How would I describe a ‘reflective practitioner’?  What value, if any, do I perceive in reflective practice in professional contexts, especially teaching?

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 What does ‘being reflective’ look like in action?  Is there such a thing as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ reflective practice?  Do I consider myself a ‘reflective practitioner’? Why? Why not?  What practical steps can I take to incorporate reflective practice in my work?

In definitions of professional identity, the concept of ‘self,’ often combined with other concepts . . . appears to be essential . . . through stories, a person generates a sense of self. These stories are based on experiences and, by telling these stories, either in writing or verbally, a person shapes his or herself. In this respect, ‘reflection’ is seen as a relevant concept’. (Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop, 2004, 113–14)

While Beijaard, Meijer and Verloop’s words above contextualised reflection as a vehicle for developing and enhancing one’s sense of professional identity, reflective practice for librarians is increasingly written about in relation to several different, yet interconnected, purposes. Although it is a comparatively long-standing developmental practice in other professions such as nursing and general teaching, the adoption of reflective practice within the LIS community, and by teaching librarians specifically, is less well established (Grant, 2007). As Corrall (2017, 23) observed, ‘reflective practice is generally recognised as an important dimension of library and information work but is currently underdeveloped in comparison with other professions’, although she recognised that the value of reflection for continuing professional development in LIS has been ‘properly acknowledged and well documented’ (p. 34). Corrall also noted the dearth of books and guides on reflective practice that have been written specifically for library and information professionals; she points to just one recent dedicated text, Reale’s Becoming a Reflective Librarian and Teacher: strategies for mindful academic practice, which was published in 2017, although Booth’s 2011 text, Reflective Teaching, Effective Learning, also fits this category and is a valuable source. It is likely that as an academic teaching librarian you have had some experience with reflection in your work or during your professional education, although it may have been casual and unstructured, and you may not have recognised it as ‘reflective practice’ per se. Your experience might have involved reflective writing (e.g. in a journal or blog), a series of discussions with a mentor, writing a letter of application for a job, or simply taking time after an activity to think about how it went, and what you might do differently next time. Moon (2006, 1) noted that while being reflective might come naturally to some people, for others ‘the process would seem to come about only when the conditions in their environment are conducive to reflecting, perhaps when there is an incentive to reflect’. It may be the case,

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for example, that reflection was one of the requirements for your professional accreditation or registration, e.g. for CILIP in the UK, or part of the assessment in a training course that you undertook. Like many concepts that have been described in this book, the idea of reflection or reflective practice defies universal consensus, and it is defined in multiple ways. Corrall (2017, 24) referred to it as ‘a deceptively simple idea that is easy to grasp at a basic level but may be hard to put into practice in a professional context’. A popular definition by Moon explained reflection as a means of drawing upon our inner resources to deal with unfamiliar or challenging situations, namely, ‘a form of mental processing that we use to fulfill a purpose or to achieve some anticipated outcome. It is applied to gain a better understanding of relatively complicated or unstructured ideas and is largely based on the reprocessing of knowledge, understanding and possibly emotions that we already possess’ (Moon, 2005, 1). Earlier proponents of reflective practice for teaching librarians, such as Elmborg (2006) and Jacobs (2008) viewed reflection as the key to connecting theory and knowledge to workplace activities, in order to promote the development of a ‘theoretically-informed praxis’. In the context of work and professional development, reflection is conceptualised as active and deliberate, and involves ‘engaging in a dialogue between what we think, what we believe in, and what we do’ (Baker, 2004, 2). It means ‘consciously stepping back from routine everyday action to identify and critically examine the assumptions, beliefs, prior experiences and tacit knowledge that influence decision-making and action, to deal with unexpected issues, inform future action, solve difficult problems or improve on existing practices’ (McGuinness and Shankar, 2019, 174). From a teaching perspective, Booth framed reflective practice as transformative, describing it as ‘a mindset that transforms teaching into a learning experience and helps educators become more thoughtful about their decisions and actions’ (Booth, 2011, 18). In Ireland, the link between reflection, effective teaching and professional development was reinforced in the National Professional Development Framework for All Staff Who Teach in Higher Education (including librarians), which placed Evidence-based Reflection at the centre of the process: ‘At its core the framework is underpinned by a reflective evidence-based approach to professional development of those who teach in higher education. Guided by the values, types of learning and domains, the framework encourages a cyclical reflective process’ (National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2016, 9). Corrall (2017) also highlighted the important link between reflective practice and critical information literacy (CIL), which we discussed in Chapter 1. Adopting a critical mindset, which draws on the power of questions in order to expose injustices and inequalities and to inspire action, is

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fundamentally a reflective process: ‘Critical reflection, including critical selfreflection or “self-critical reflection” is central to these emergent conceptions of IL and professional practice, and often involves instructors using reflective questions “to reflect intentionally on their work” and also posing reflective questions to students’ (Corrall, 2017, 40). A recent survey (Greenall and Sen, 2016) into the nature and extent of reflective practice among academic librarians offered some basic insight into the reasons why practitioners might choose to engage in the practice, and why they might not. The survey of 424 library practitioners, drawn from the British mailing list JISCmail, revealed that ‘learning from significant incidents’; ‘CPD’; and ‘identification of gaps in skills and knowledge’ were the most cited benefits of reflective practice by survey participants (p. 141). Barriers to engaging in reflective practice that were mentioned by the librarians included ‘lack of time’; ‘lack of motivation’; and ‘not supported by organisational culture’ (p. 142). Interestingly, 92% of the participants selfidentified as ‘reflective practitioners,’ although no description of this term was provided in the questionnaire to contextualise their response; a smaller number indicated that they had engaged in reflective writing, which is more tangible evidence of reflective practice. Greenall and Sen concluded their paper by recommending the development of clear and specific guidelines for LIS practitioners – particularly in respect of reflective writing – as well as the provision of appropriate training to enable librarians to select the methods of reflective practice that work best for them. More recently, Sheila Corrall’s paper, Crossing the Threshold: reflective practice in information literacy development (2017), offered an unparalleled overview of the genesis, development and theoretical foundations of professional reflective practice both from a general perspective, and more specifically as it relates to the LIS domain. Her comprehensive, in-depth analysis summarised the conceptual roots of reflective practice articulated by the seminal thinkers who are historically most closely associated with influencing its initial development, including John Dewey, Paolo Freire and Donald Schön, and went on to describe more recent critiques, conceptualisations and processes proposed by theorists such as Van Manen, Cowan, Gibbs and Mezirow, which both extended and challenged the earlier principles. Since the 1980s, multiple frameworks have been developed which capture reflection as staged, cyclical/looped or purpose-oriented processes, with varying foci and objectives. Most models invoke a temporal dimension, which defines reflection in terms of when it takes place – for instance, before, during or after events, experiences and activities. This approach derives from the early work of Schön, who famously distinguished between two forms of practice, namely ‘reflection-on-action,’ which takes place after an event or situation, and

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‘reflection-in-action’ which encompasses active and conscious awareness of events and behaviours as they take place. Booth viewed the idea of reflectionin-action as essential to one’s development as a teacher: ‘Reflective practice is a process of understanding and shaping your skills and abilities as you teach, not just assessing your performance at the end of an interaction’ (Booth, 2011, xvii). The idea of ‘reflection-for-action,’ encompassing a future and forward-looking dimension, was incorporated in later models (e.g. Cowan). Corrall’s paper included useful comparative tables which extract the key principles of each theoretical model and explain them in an accessible way. Examples of prominent frameworks designed to support, and guide structured reflection include:     

Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle (Kolb, 1984) Gibbs’ Reflective Learning Cycle (Gibbs, 1988) Atkins and Murphy’s Model of Reflective Practice (Atkins and Murphy, 1994) Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper’s Framework for Reflective Practice (Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper, 2001) Johns’ Model for Structured Reflection (Johns, 2015).

A common feature shared by these frameworks is that reflection is prompted through posing questions; for example, Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper’s Framework for Reflective Practice is structured around three simple questions (What? So What? Now What?), which incorporate descriptive, theoretical and action-oriented levels of reflection. Each core question branches out further into sub-questions, which may be applied depending on the situation or event in question: 



What? (Descriptive) – What was my role in the situation? – What was I trying to achieve? – What actions did I take? – What was the response of others? – What were the consequences? So What? (Theoretical/Knowledge-building) – So what does this tell me/teach me/imply/mean about me? – So what was going through my mind as I acted? – So what did I base my actions on? – So what other knowledge can I bring to the situation? – So what could/should I have done to make it better?

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Now What? (Action-oriented) – Now what do I need to do in order to make things better/stop being stuck/resolve the situation/ etc.? – Now what broader issues need to be considered if this action is to be successful? – Now what might be the consequences of this action?

Gibbs’ Reflective Learning Cycle, which is one of the best-known models of reflective practice, depicts reflection as a situational, iterative and actionoriented process, also invoking a series of descriptive and analytical questions designed to prompt practitioners to view their experiences from a critical perspective. Gibbs’ cycle is depicted in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 Gibbs’ Reflective Learning Cycle

More recently, a model of evidence-based reflection for professional development published in the Irish National Professional Development Framework for All Staff Who Teach in Higher Education (National Forum for the

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Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2016) framed reflection as a cyclical process, incorporating four core elements: A. Reflecting on current knowledge and experience (Taking stock/Identification) – What do I already know, or what have I experienced in the different elements of each domain? – What learning activities have led to the development of such knowledge and skills? B. Reflecting to self-evaluate based on evidence (Identification/documentation) – Reflecting on the learning activities. – What types of learning are associated with each of the learning activities identified? – What kind of evidence could I provide to support my evaluation? C. Reflecting on what evidence to gather and how to store it. Selfassessment (Documentation/Assessment) – Choosing the evidence to use. – How will I store my evidence? – Identify where I am currently, based on my self-reflection. D. Reflecting to identify plan and prioritise future learning. External assessment and/or certification of learning to date (Assessment/Certification) – Identify my key short and long term learning goals, based on reflection and evidence. – Consider external assessment and/or certification of my learning to date. The questions, stages and processes that constitute these frameworks are not applied in isolation, but typically in the context of concrete reflective activities and practices – for example, you might use Gibbs’ cycle to impose a coherent structure on an account of your practice in a reflective learning journal entry or blog post. McGuinness (2011, 149–78) suggested some practical activities that can encourage and support a reflective approach for academic teaching librarians, including: reflective journals (print or online) and blogging (public or private); creating a teaching portfolio, including a statement of teaching philosophy (explored further below); using student feedback and assessment to improve your teaching; peer mentoring; writing grant and award applications. Reale’s recent text (2017) also included a range of practical strategies and tips for

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academic teaching librarians who wish to become more reflective in their practice.

2.5.1 Benefits of reflective practice Forrest described reflection as a means of breaking away from an uncritical dependence on familiar, comfortable practices and habits that may not serve us well or prevent progress and development: ‘When we begin to reflect we need to move beyond the standard ‘bag of tricks’ of our professional education, by developing the confidence to challenge core beliefs and assumptions. In this way, we can empower ourselves with a greater understanding and knowledge of the skills required’ (Forrest, 2008, 230). Taking a ‘helicopter view’ of situations or events can enable you to see how the pieces fit together in a way that would be impossible from the inside. The benefits of reflective practice (RP) ‘span both personal and professional contexts’ (McGuinness and Shankar, 2019, 174). For example: 













RP can help to develop a deeper awareness and understanding of your personal teaching style and preferences, to identify the strengths and weaknesses that characterise your approach, and to develop strategies for improving and enhancing your skillset. RP empowers you to explore and challenge your assumptions and beliefs about teaching and learning, to learn from experience, solve difficult problems and to identify and dismantle barriers that may be hindering the attainment of learning outcomes. RP contributes to closing the theory–practice gap, through providing space for considering how theory connects to and underpins professional practice, through the thoughtful, intentional application of knowledge to workplace activities and dilemmas. RP can support and assist the development of a clearer sense of teacher identity and role salience, which helps to boost confidence and reduce teaching-related stress and anxiety. RP enables you to identify specific professional development needs through exposing areas of practice that you might feel under-equipped to handle successfully. RP acknowledges the affective side of LIS work, and the potential influence of emotions on day-to-day practice and on longer-term decision-making and career development. RP encourages an open-minded and proactive approach to seeking constructive feedback on your work from external sources such as

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students and peers, and to use this information to adapt and modify your approach where needed. RP allows you to consider how your membership of several distinct, yet interconnected communities (e.g. librarians, faculty, students, managers, etc.) influences your sense of identity, self-efficacy and practice, as you negotiate the relationships and norms within and between them.

In her paper, Corrall (2017) proposed that the importance of critical reflection to professional practice is such that it warrants ‘special status,’ and should be designated as a ‘threshold competence’ for the LIS profession, rather than simply included as one of the generic competences required by qualified practitioners. In Chapter 1, we learned how threshold concepts were defined in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education as ‘those ideas in any discipline which are passageways to or portals to enlarged understanding or ways of thinking and practising within that discipline’ (ACRL, 2015, 3). According to this view, rather than treating reflection as an add-on practice that is only engaged in respect of specific contexts and situations, ‘critical reflection’ is instead enshrined as a non-negotiable element of effective and personally fulfilling library and information work. In this context, all workplace and professional development activities are predicated on a reflective approach; it permeates and is indistinguishable from your professional role. From a broader perspective, and linked to the discussions in Chapter 1 about the rapidly evolving and frequently conflicting views on the nature and purpose of information literacy (and other literacies) and how to foster it in students, Jacobs suggested that adopting a critical reflective mindset and attitude of openness could ultimately be the key to reconciling the complex strands of the debate and discourse that can sometimes complicate the picture for teaching librarians: What I am suggesting is that the dialogues we have surrounding information literacy instruction strive to find a balance in the daily and the visionary, the local and the global, the practices and the theories, the ideal and the possible. One of the ways we can begin to do this in our daily teaching lives is to work toward creating habits of mind that prioritize reflective discussions about what it is that we are doing when we ‘do’ information literacy. This means thinking about pedagogy and talking about how we might work toward making the global local, the visionary concrete, the theoretical practicable, and, perhaps, the ideal possible. (Jacobs, 2008, 258)

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2.6 Developing a personal teaching philosophy What brings a teaching philosophy to life is the extent to which it creates a vivid portrait of you as a person who is intentional and authentic about teaching practices and committed to your vocation as a teacher. (Carusetta, 2010, para. 5)

Each action we take as an academic teaching librarian is based on a decision, or a series of decisions, that we make about what is best, or most realistic and achievable, or what we feel we can handle, in a particular context and within the boundaries of our current situation. In the pressure of the moment, however, the internal and external forces that drive us to select a specific course of action – for better or worse – are not always clear to us. While we hope that our teaching is intentional and driven by conscious, informed and measured decision-making, it is likely that a degree of what we do is characterised by routine action and shaped by the dominant teaching culture of our institution, the tacit knowledge we gain from observing our colleagues, our self-perceptions of our abilities and competence, or by a passive acceptance of ‘that’s the way it has always been done’. Ultimately, a person’s approach to teaching and learning stems from their core beliefs about how learning happens; however, sometimes help is needed to illuminate those beliefs and shed light on why we approach teaching in a particular way, and to consider whether this is the best approach in a given scenario. Booth (2011) recommended maintaining a state of mindful awareness while one teaches, and a range of micro-activities to capture self-reflections as they occur, such as jotting down what did and didn’t work in a session shortly after it finishes. This embodies Schön’s theory of ‘reflection-in-action’ discussed in the previous section (Sen and Ford, 2009), in which the main purpose is ‘to seek to understand what has or is happening, and to explore the performance thus revealing tacit knowledge and providing an opportunity to improve performance’ (Wilson, 2008, 177). Biggs and Tang (2007, 16) suggested that all teachers could start this process by simply asking themselves two basic philosophical questions to uncover their theories of learning, namely: ‘Learning is. . .?’ and ‘Teaching is. . .?’ A teaching philosophy statement represents a more expansive and structured approach to this process and is defined as ‘a statement of reflection and a philosophical framework of your personal approach to teaching and student learning. It explains the rationale behind what guides your practice, what factors impact on you as an educator and what values underlie your practice,’ (O’Farrell, 2014, 2). In addition to the influences on your practice that may be known or explicit to you, reflecting in this way can help you to uncover any subconscious beliefs harboured by you, which may have a

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powerful impact – or distortive effect – on your approach to teaching. As Carusetta (2010, para. 2) pointed out, ‘We all have a philosophy by which we live although many of us never stop to put this philosophy into words and some of us remain blissfully unaware of it.’ A teaching philosophy should ideally inform overall course design, the selection of teaching and assessment methods, and the structure and sequence of the students’ practical learning experience. Carusetta stated that a statement of teaching philosophy addresses two core questions:  

Why do I teach? How do I teach?

In practical terms, a teaching philosophy statement is ‘a one to two page narrative that conveys your core ideas about being an effective teacher in the context of your discipline’ (University of Minnesota, 2020). It is always written in the first person and should include specific activities or artefacts from your teaching practice that are carefully chosen to exemplify the principles, values and beliefs outlined in the statement – for example, ‘course topics, assignments, assessments and strategies drawn from actual courses and curriculum’ (Resilient Educator, 2020). Teaching philosophy statements can be used for several different purposes; for instance, it might be a required component for job, promotion, tenure, grant or professional education applications; it can serve as the introduction to your teaching portfolio; it can help you to articulate and communicate your vision and values as a teacher to your students, colleagues and the wider professional community, by adding it to your institutional profile page, or personal website or blog; or it can simply serve as a vehicle of reflection which enables you to step outside the cycle of routine action and ‘auto-responses’, to consciously explore the aspects of teaching and student learning that resonate and are meaningful to you, the theories you subscribe to, and the ways in which your expressed values and beliefs translate to practice. Writing a teaching philosophy statement is a personal, heartfelt and honest process of reflection and articulation, which involves giving expression to the beliefs, conceptions, assumptions, motivations, values, theories, emotions, hopes and plans that underpin and characterise your teaching practice. Some of these, derived from experience, are deep, intrinsic and long-held; others are drawn from study, observation and dialogue; yet others may be imposed on you by external policy or in the context of accepted practice at your current workplace. Zauha (2009, 64) observed that a teaching philosophy for librarians should ‘make explicit the teacher’s commitment to quality teaching and learning, establish definitions of what those look like, and map out how

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they are implemented in her classroom’. Ultimately, it is a revelatory act, which represents an integrated vision of your approach to teaching and lays bare the reasoning behind your pedagogical choices. For academic teaching librarians, the benefits of writing a teaching philosophy statement are clear:  













It enables you to clearly communicate your goals as a teacher, and the associated methods and strategies that you put in place to achieve them. It promotes mindful awareness of your practice and compels you to think critically about the approaches and activities you engage in your teaching. It encourages you to think deeply about what effective teaching means for you in different contexts – how do you define it, what criteria can be used to evaluate it, what tells you that you have achieved it? It contributes to your emerging teacher identity; giving concrete expression to your beliefs, values and core ideas about teaching and student learning helps to foster a deeper and clearer sense of yourself as a purposeful, motivated, informed and autonomous teaching professional, who is committed to best practice and self-improvement. It encourages you to untangle and elucidate your conception and understanding of information literacy and your beliefs about how it can be fostered in students. It allows you to consider the pedagogical theories that are most influential for you, and to examine if and how they connect to what you do in practice. It motivates you to create optimal learning environments, i.e. that are student-centred and conducive to active learning, collaboration and critical engagement with learning materials. It encourages you to think about how you might engage with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), both as reader and contributor.

2.6.1 Writing a teaching philosophy statement The idea of articulating a teaching philosophy can seem daunting, especially if you are not used to expressing yourself in this way or have never opted to delve too deeply into your beliefs and motivations. To condense abstract, nuanced and occasionally emotional concepts into concise verbal expression may feel like a tall order, or even an unwelcome one, if introspection is not a typical choice for you. A useful way of thinking about your teaching philosophy statement is to look at it from the perspective of who might be

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reading it – what would you like people to know about you as a teacher after reading your statement? What is your ‘teaching footprint’? Like a digital footprint, your teaching footprint can be imagined as your profile, or the information about you that exists as a result of your teaching choices, activities, preferences and interactions with others. So, for example:       

the pedagogical theories, frameworks and concepts that you ‘like,’ and the practitioners, theorists, researchers or scholars whom you ‘follow’ the teaching tools and activities that you ‘create,’ ‘share,’ ‘download,’ or ‘curate’ the values, beliefs and ideas you express in your public teaching ‘profile’ or ‘bio’ the ‘clicks,’ ‘feedback,’ ‘retweets,’ ‘backlinks,’ and other evidence that tells you if your teaching has been effective the feedback you receive about your teaching through your students’ and colleagues’ ‘comments,’ ‘DMs’, and ‘votes’ the continual improvement of your teaching practice through regular ‘updates’ the ‘stories,’ ‘posts,’ and ‘status updates’ that describe your day-to-day practice and observations.

Although some teaching philosophy statements are presented as a continuous narrative, you might find working to a content template helpful at first, to gather and structure your thoughts. Practically, there are different ways of structuring or narrating a teaching philosophy statement, but most are typically constructed around several key components: 



Your core beliefs about learning and teaching – how and when do you believe that learning happens? – how do you perceive that teaching facilitates learning? – what role do you think that teachers play in enabling learning? – what is the role of students in learning? – how do you define ‘good’ teaching? – what theories of learning and teaching influence your teaching practice? – (for academic teaching librarians) what do you believe about information literacy? Your educational purpose and goals – what goals do you set for your students? – what knowledge, abilities, behavioural or conceptual changes do you wish students to achieve through working with you? – what goals do you set for yourself as a teacher?

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Your teaching methods – how does your teaching practice reflect your goals, values and beliefs? – how do you operationalise your teaching philosophy in your practice? – what examples can you give to show how you enact your core beliefs about how learning occurs and your role in this? – how do you create learning environments that are inclusive and conducive to learning? Your assessment methods – what do you view as evidence that learning has taken place? – what methods and tools do you use to assess your students’ learning? Your teaching development strategies – how do you obtain feedback on your teaching? – what measures do you take to grow and develop your teaching?

An alternative template was suggested by Chism (1998), who outlined the following components:     

conceptualisation of learning conceptualisation of teaching goals for students implementation of the philosophy personal growth plan.

Getting started is often the hardest part. The first port of call is the many teaching philosophy samples that are publicly available online and can be found through a quick web search; reading others’ statements can help to inspire your own. It may also help to adopt a creative approach at first, to stimulate the flow of ideas and expression. For instance, you might try out one of the following scenarios, some of which are informal (and even fun to do). Each exercise could also be carried out in pairs or groups in a teaching module for LIS students: 



Brainstorm the key terms that describe your views about teaching, and how you see yourself as a teacher; use prompts like ‘Learning is’, ‘Good teaching is’, ‘My teaching approach is’ or any others that appeal to you. Stick to single words or short phrases and generate a list that you can later flesh out into longer sentences and paragraphs. See Table 2.4 on the next page for some examples. Imagine you, as a teacher, are the protagonist or main character in a movie; write a script for how the narrator would describe you in the opening scenes of the movie (a soundtrack is optional!).

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Table 2.4 Brainstorm example for a teaching philosophy statement Learning is

Good teaching is

My teaching approach is

Transformative Essential Powerful Difficult Worthwhile Frightening Individual Everything A human right Joyful

A privilege Hard work Engaging Collaborative Constructive Student-focused Challenging Critical Passionate Empathic

Systematic Spontaneous Student-led Flexible Constructivist Discursive Challenging Building rapport Conversational Energetic















Describe an experience you have had in your teaching that has remained with you for either positive or negative reasons (or both). Describe what made this experience memorable or significant, and how it has influenced your actions (or will in future). Imagine that you are the perfect candidate for an academic teaching librarian job. Write the job description that matches you, including essential and desirable characteristics. Envisage a scenario where you have been asked to present a teaching excellence award to yourself; write the speech you would give explaining why the award was deserved. Imagine a colleague has agreed to do a peer evaluation of your teaching. How would your teaching approach appear to someone observing it? Describe what they would see, and how they might draw conclusions about your underlying teaching philosophy. Identify one or more teachers who have inspired you in the past. Write the speech that you would give at their retirement party, describing what was inspirational about their teaching, and how it impacted on you as a learner. What books about teaching and learning (and information literacy) have resonated most strongly with you in the past? Make a list of the books and consider what you would say if you were to recommend them to a colleague (or to your students, if teaching on a LIS graduate programme). Think of a metaphor that would describe you as a teacher – for example: a shepherd, a GPS, a chessboard, a wizard, a chef, a signpost, a compass. Explain the attributes that led you to choose this metaphor and indicate what it conveys about your approach.

Another means of teasing out your values, beliefs and perceptions about teaching and learning is to reflect on some guiding questions, which can help

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you to put abstract concepts into words. For example, the following questions were suggested by O’Farrell (2014, 2–3):                

What do I mean by learning? What happens in an effective learning situation? What evidence can I quote to support my conception of learning? What evidence can I quote to support my conception of what happens in a learning situation? What do I mean by ‘Good Teaching’? How do I make sure that my teaching is ‘good’? What goals do I set my students? How do I help them reach these goals? How do I check that they are pursuing these goals? If they achieve these goals, how will I know? What rules do I expect my students to follow? What philosophy of teaching am I demonstrating in my classroom? How would an observer of my teaching describe my philosophy? How do I gather information about how my students experience my teaching? What do I do with this evidence? What are my future goals for growth as a teacher?

For academic teaching librarians, the focus on information literacy (or other literacies) sets us apart from schoolteachers, or academic faculty, who typically teach to defined curricula or course content linked to research or scholarly discourse. It is helpful to include some additional questions for reflection that address the more complex elements of our teaching that we do not share with other professionals. For example:     

How do I perceive information literacy (or other literacies)? What relationship do I see between information literacy and learning? What do I believe that students gain from learning to be ‘informationliterate’? How do I see my teaching role in academia, compared to faculty? What kind of relationship do I have with academic faculty and other staff of the institution?

2.6.2 Teaching philosophy frameworks It may help to think about your teaching in relation to existing frameworks that have been developed to encourage teachers and librarians to reflect on

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and contextualise their overall approaches, and to identify where a shift in thinking might be beneficial. Three useful frameworks for this purpose are included here, namely: Pratt’s Teaching Perspectives Inventory (Pratt and Associates, 1998; Collins and Pratt, 2011); Bruce, Edwards and Lupton’s Six Frames for Information Literacy Education (Bruce, Edwards and Lupton, 2006); and Biggs and Tang’s Levels of Thinking About Teaching (Biggs and Tang, 2007). The Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) The TPI, developed and tested over many years of research by Pratt and Collins, is an instrument which measures individual teachers’ profiles in relation to five contrasting views of good teaching; it is a ‘45-item inventory that assesses teaching philosophy, focusing specifically on an individual’s interrelated set of educational beliefs and intentions that gives direction and justification to his or her actions’ (Robertson, Fowler and Juve, 2017, 1). The teaching perspectives identified in the inventory (see Table 2.5 opposite) are classified as transmission, apprenticeship, developmental, nurturing and social reform. Six Frames for Information Literacy Education The Six Frames model was developed specifically for teachers of information literacy (IL), and based on the premise that ‘people’s approaches to IL and IL education are informed by the views of teaching, learning and IL which they adopt either implicitly or explicitly in different contexts’ (Bruce, Edwards and Lupton, 2006, 1). The six frames contain descriptions which capture the varying conceptions that people may hold of the purpose, format and content of IL education, as well as the teaching roles associated with their conceptions. Unlike the other frameworks, this model expands the conceptualisations of teaching and learning to include a corresponding view of information literacy for each frame: 



The Content Frame – like the transmission perspective in the TPI, the focus here is on what students need to know about information literacy. In this context, the teacher’s role is as subject expert, who transmits the content effectively. IL is perceived as ‘knowledge about the world of information’. The Competency Frame – here, the focus is on what students should be able to do as a result of instruction, and the level of skill they should attain. The teacher’s role is to analyse and break down tasks and to set appropriate corresponding learning paths for students to master the tasks. IL is viewed within this frame as a collection of skills and competences.

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Table 2.5 Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) Teaching Perspective Description Transmission

From this perspective, good teaching is perceived as mastery of subject content, and the responsibility of the teacher is to transmit the content to learners as efficiently, accurately and memorably as possible. Effective teachers are committed to, and passionate about, their subjects and their learning tasks and approaches are structured and scaffolded to enable learners to attain their own mastery of the content.

Apprenticeship

Here, good teaching is conceptualised as demonstrating or ‘performing’ authentic best practice to students, who learn through observation and hands-on practice, in contexts which approximate to ‘real-world’ practice as closely as possible. Effective teachers are experienced practitioners who are also skilled at translating tasks and concepts into learning approaches that are accessible and attainable for learners at all levels. Guidance is gradually scaled back until learners achieve independence.

Developmental

In this category, the starting point for good teachers is what the learners already know about the content or subject in question; the aim is to change or restructure the way learners think about the content, and to increase cognitive complexity through a process of posing questions and activating ‘bridging knowledge’ that helps learners to make desired conceptual leaps. Effective teachers invoke meaningful examples to assist learners in moving from simple to more complex forms of reasoning.

Nurturing

The nurturing perspective places the learner’s self-concept at the centre; good teaching is perceived as a holistic process, which takes into account the motivation and self-confidence of learners, rather than focus solely on their intellectual engagement with learning content. Effective teachers are encouraging and supportive and recognise the importance of effort in learning; setting clear expectations and attainable goals for learners, as well as realistic challenges, are core elements of teaching.

Social Reform

Here, good teaching is viewed primarily as an instrument of social change, rather than an experience that is centred on the individual. Effective teachers are strongly committed to social issues and ideologies and strive to inculcate a critical perspective in learners with the aim of encouraging collective social action. Challenging the status quo and interrogating prevailing discourses and power structures are core elements of this perspective.



The Learning to Learn Frame – this frame focuses on the question of what it means to think like an information-literate professional, and how information processes can be applied to problem solving. The teacher’s role here is to facilitate collaborative and conceptual learning. IL is viewed as a way of learning in this context.

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The Personal Relevance Frame – the focus in this frame is on learners’ conceptions about what information literacy can do for them and relates to motivation and personal meaning. The teacher’s role is to support and encourage the students, and IL is understood as context-bound and situated. The Social Impact Frame – this frame focuses on the question of how information literacy impacts on society, and how it can help to solve problems and address injustices. The teacher’s role in this context is to adopt a critical stance, and to pose challenging questions about the status quo. IL is conceptualised as important to society. The Relational Frame – the final frame focuses on helping learners to conceive of information literacy in more powerful and complex ways. The role of the teacher here is to lead students to understand how IL can be experienced differently in various contexts. IL is viewed as different ways of interacting with information.

Levels of Thinking About Teaching While not a theoretical or empirical framework per se, Biggs and Tang’s construct offers a means for considering your teaching philosophy in terms of the factors that you perceive are most influential in determining learning outcomes (Biggs and Tang, 2007; McGuinness, 2011): 1 Level 1 Focus: What the student is: This way of thinking about pedagogy holds the student responsible for their learning; teachers who think this way believe that there are ‘good students’ and ‘poor students,’ and engagement with learning activities depends on the choices, motivations and inherent abilities of individuals. As such, teachers see their own role as transmitting information, rather than ‘facilitating learning’. A student’s failure to learn is perceived as a lack of motivation or ability, rather than a problem in the learning environment. 2 Level 2 Focus: What the teacher does: This conception focuses on the skills and competence of the teacher – the responsibility for whether learning takes place depends on what the teacher does in the classroom to facilitate this learning. Similar to above, therefore, there are ‘good teachers’ and ‘poor teachers,’ and those who have a larger and more varied portfolio of instructional tools and methods are often perceived as more competent. 3 Level 3 Focus: What the student does: From this perspective, the focus is on the student’s engagement with learning activities, his or her understanding of concepts and achievement of learning outcomes. This is a wholly student-centred view of pedagogy – learning is not viewed as

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solely the responsibility of student or teacher, or as transmission of content, but rather the creation of appropriate learning activities designed to facilitate the attainment of specific learning outcomes. The perspectives and orientations encapsulated in these frameworks can be useful when you are trying to figure out what your teaching philosophy is, or searching for the words to articulate how you feel about your work; however, like most teachers, it is unlikely that your views and attitudes will fit neatly into one specific category or level. The frameworks are not intended to be prescriptive but are rather indicative of ways of thinking and operating that are influential and dominant at a particular time. Your philosophy will remain fluid and flexible as you encounter new situations and ideas, develop confidence and grow your knowledge base throughout your career. As O’Farrell (2014, 8) pointed out, a teaching philosophy statement is ‘a dynamic document, and one that will change and grow as your academic development does’.

Exercises 1 Narrating your identity Either in writing, or through an audio recording, narrate the story of how you came to be in your current position (i.e. as a working academic teaching librarian, an LIS graduate student, a library manager, other, etc.). Describe your background, your motivations, what led you to choose this path, how you got here, how you see and experience your role, the challenges you have faced and the successes you have enjoyed, and where you would like to go in future. 2 Reflective writing Moon (2006, 161–3) identified four levels of reflective writing, namely:   



Descriptive – an account of events with no reflection, analysis or questioning Descriptive with some reflection – limited reflection, some questions posed, but no analysis Reflective writing (1) – a degree of analysis, elements of selfquestioning present, effects of emotions acknowledged, other perspectives possibly mentioned Reflective writing (2) – in-depth analysis, self-questioning, multiple perspectives included, metacognitive approach evident.

Choose an example of a recent teaching-related event you have experienced, e.g. a class you have taught, a seminar you have facilitated,

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etc. Write an account in the style of the first and fourth levels of reflective writing, i.e. Descriptive and Reflective writing (2). What are the key differences that you note between the two approaches? Which did you find most useful? 3 Teaching philosophy statement Prepare a teaching philosophy statement, using the strategies outlined in this chapter. If you currently have a staff profile on your institutional website, request that the statement is included when complete. While the format of the statement is up to you, you can prompt reflection by considering the key components described above:     

your core beliefs about learning and teaching your educational purpose and goals your teaching methods your assessment methods your teaching development strategies.

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CHAPTER 3

Becoming an academic teaching librarian

Personal reflection points ■ What do I think defines a successful academic teaching librarian? ■ Do I think I am suited or unsuited to an academic teaching librarian role?

Why is this? ■ How do I feel about my current teaching role (if I have one) – if I find it

unfulfilling, what is the source of this, and how can I resolve it? ■ What actions can I take to get started, or to develop and enhance my role

further as an academic teaching librarian? ■ How can I demonstrate or showcase the value I contribute as an academic

teaching librarian?

3.1 Introduction: choosing the academic teaching librarian pathway Choosing a career in academic librarianship means choosing a professional pathway that will almost certainly involve some form of teaching or learning support role to a greater or lesser extent. As the previous chapters showed, the critical issues shaping scholarship and research, evolving conceptions of literacy, new learning environments and pedagogical practices, socio-political and cultural trends, the demands of the workplace, institutional priorities and the shifting digital landscape have reshaped and revitalised the academic librarian’s role, pushing instruction and learner support further forward as a core service, intertwined with other emerging services such as research data management, research impact support, bibliometrics and Open Access (Vassilakaki and Moniarou-Papaconstantinou, 2015; Pinfield, Cox and Rutter, 2017). According to Tait, Martzoukou and Reid, (2016, 8) ‘within the fast

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changing environment of academia, there are not only new emerging roles for academic library staff (for example, research and data management), but also traditional roles (for example, information literacy instruction) that have evolved with greater demands placed on technological, interpersonal, IT and transferable skills’. We also saw how specific competences relating to teaching, and information or digital literacy are now embedded in professional competence or accreditation frameworks for librarians across all sectors (CILIP, ALA), although this is inconsistent across jurisdictions. Writing about careers in academic libraries, Dority (2016, 54) stated that ‘academic librarians working within the public or user services arena will find themselves in a strong teaching and coaching role with students (and occasionally faculty)’. She also observed that the changing learning environment and move towards digital learning has resulted in ‘many reference librarians developing a new set of collaborative skills around theories of learning styles, lesson plan development and instructional design’. Corrall (2019, 8) described the instructional role of the academic library as ‘increasingly prominent’ in library mission statements, ‘with commitments to support the curriculum, teach information skills and facilitate lifelong learning featuring strongly in statements from both teaching-oriented and research-intensive institutions’. Furthermore, she noted that while teaching information literacy has traditionally been part of the remit of reference, subject or liaison librarians, ‘today many academic libraries have established positions or highly specialized practitioners for whom instruction is a primary, full-time responsibility’ (p. 9). In a recent SCONUL survey, which was described in the report Mapping the Future of Academic Libraries, a sample of UK library staff were asked to indicate which library services they believed would still be offered in 10 years’ time. The 261 responses suggested that services directly related to teaching and learning, including information/digital literacy support services, learning spaces and academic literacy/study skills were perceived by the majority as library services that they believe will still be provided by their institutions, either with library involvement (e.g. in collaboration with other units) or with library leadership (Pinfield, Cox and Rutter, 2017, 48). While the format and focus of these teaching-related services will continue to change and evolve, the need for academic librarians to pay attention to this aspect of their professional education and development is unlikely to disappear, at least in the foreseeable future. The demand for teaching-related knowledge, skills and experience in academic library jobs is high and increasing. For example, a brief snapshot of academic library job listings on the website ALA JobLIST (https://joblist.ala.org) that was taken in January 2020 illustrates the sheer range and diversity of teaching-related job titles, duties and requirements that appear in job adverts that are aimed at instruction librarians (Table 3.1)

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Table 3.1 Sample job titles, duties and requirements in adverts for instruction librarians Sample job titles

Sample duties

Sample job requirements (mandatory, desirable or preferred)

• Reference and Instruction Librarian • Librarian – e-learning • Research, Instruction and Data Services Librarian • Research and Education Librarian • Access Services and Instruction Librarian • Associate Dean for Research and Learning • Data Management Education Specialist • Learning and Research Librarian

• Actively contribute to innovative library engagement, providing instruction for courses, workshops, and programs • Provide library instruction, including course integrated instruction, credit instruction, workshops, and consultations • Develop and maintain LibGuides and other online self-directed learning materials for assigned departments and outreach areas • Lead a team-oriented approach to the design and development of high-quality, scalable, and multi-modal information literacy learning and training experiences for all University learners, faculty, and staff • Manage the training and development of curricular and program design collaboration with instructional designers and faculty • Assess programs, resources, and processes within the Research and Learning environment to ensure impactful practices • Engage in collaborations with faculty to integrate information literacy into the curriculum • Develop online instructional materials that facilitate the use of information resources and services • Develop and conduct information literacy instruction and develop online learning objects for faculty, staff and students

• Working knowledge of current best practices and trends in education librarianship • Knowledge of current trends in instruction and outreach relevant to academic libraries • Experience in teaching and facilitating the learning of individuals from diverse backgrounds and levels of readiness • Working knowledge of current best practices and trends in affordable learning, including open access textbooks, OERs (Open Educational Resources), and course reserves • Experience in teaching information literacy classes • Experience in teaching and facilitating the learning of individuals from diverse backgrounds and levels of readiness • Demonstrated knowledge of online learning theories, instructional design, information literacy and other educational pedagogies • A minimum of 2 years professional experience in academic library instruction, including teaching and/or training in group, class, or one-on-one settings • Demonstrated experience in the design and delivery of user-centered information literacy instruction • Experience developing tutorials, webinars, and research guides and using LibGuides, Canvas, or similar platforms

Continued

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Table 3.1 Continued Sample job titles

Sample duties

Sample job requirements (mandatory, desirable or preferred)

• Incorporate current and emerging instructional practices, methodologies and technologies into in-person and online information literacy instruction • Identify student and faculty research needs and develop appropriate programming, research guides, tutorials, videos, and other tools to meet their needs • Work with faculty to integrate relevant information literacy instruction content into [LMS] and develop class assignments using library resources • Align information literacy instruction with course learning outcomes • Utilize available technologies and social media to support instruction and research • Seek out opportunities to discuss with faculty course and program learning outcomes, the ACRL Information Literacy Framework and relevant strategies to address information literacy needs • Develop instructional content for specific programs, topics, and populations • Co-ordinate the creation of instructional guides, tutorials, and videos by librarians • Facilitate assessment of instructional services, including in-person and online instruction and the information literacy program overall • Co-ordinate, coach and provide leadership for other librarians in support of their teaching and collaboration with faculty

• Experience with outcomesbased assessment • Working knowledge of pedagogical theories and the capacity to apply that knowledge in collaboration with librarians, library staff, and disciplinary faculty for a diverse population of students • Demonstrated knowledge of assessment methods for teaching and learning • Ability to instruct library users in person, in group settings and virtually • Experience with e-learning and virtual instruction design

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While it may be possible to avoid a direct face-to-face (F2F) teaching role in an academic library – for example, in some Technical Services positions – it is not possible to avoid contributing to or participating in, the culture of learning that permeates the professional remit of academic librarians, and is embodied and enacted in multiple ways; helping students learn, acquiring and providing access to learning materials, supporting faculty and other teaching staff to develop and run their programmes, creating and contributing to online learning resources, designing comfortable and inspiring learning spaces, etc. The work of all staff in academic libraries is focused on meeting the information, learning and research needs of its student and faculty populations, in line with the overall strategic mission and priorities of the parent institution. A commitment to learning is a non-negotiable part of being an academic librarian. As a reader of this book, you may be approaching a decision about academic librarianship – or even teaching librarianship specifically – from one of several different positions. For example:  





as a student in an LIS graduate programme, who has yet to settle on a defined career path within library and information work as a mid-career professional, not necessarily in a higher education institution, who is seeking a change of direction but who also wishes to remain in the world of library and information work as an academic librarian, who finds that although your teaching responsibilities are increasing, you feel unprepared or anxious (or both) about the direction your job seems to be taking as an academic teaching librarian who proactively wishes to develop your knowledge and skills further, as well as enhance your sense of confidence and self-efficacy in your work.

From each of these positions, decisions must be made about whether a teaching role is a good fit for you – for instance, depending on which of the above situations apply to you, you might ask:    

Should I aim for a job in an academic library straight away when I graduate, or look to a different sector (with less teaching or none at all)? Is this the direction in which I wish to take my career, or would something else suit me better (with less teaching or none at all)? Am I happy with the way my work is developing, or is it causing me stress and anxiety – should I transfer to a different unit (or job)? How do I feel about my work as a teaching librarian at this point in time – am I energised, enthusiastic and confident, or does it feel stale and uninspiring after so long? Am I starting to doubt my performance in the role?

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Deciding whether to pursue this career path, or to continue along it, is a process that involves much more than ticking off the attributes, competences and skills listed in job descriptions, or striving to develop the relevant competences through formal and informal education, although this is part of it; as Walter observed, ‘simple mastery of basic instructional competencies . . . will not help librarians to develop the sort of teacher identity that research in teacher education suggests is important to their ongoing professional development’ (Walter, 2008, 60). What is required instead is a holistic, or whole-person approach, that encourages you to look inwards as well as outwards to assess whether an academic teaching librarian job – of any flavour – is likely to bring you joy and fulfilment in your professional working life, or whether it would be preferable to choose a different role or sector. The themes of reflection and reflective practice were introduced in the previous chapter, but they form the cornerstone of the approaches discussed here – choosing a teaching role, or deciding how to enhance and develop the teaching role you already occupy, are fundamentally reflective acts, influenced by a host of intrinsic, as well as extrinsic, factors.

3.2 Looking inwards: self-analysis and the teaching role Before taking steps to figure out if this is the right role for you, take a few moments to carry out this quick brainstorm; sometimes, placing yourself ‘on the spot’, as it were, can help to reveal some of the assumptions, ambitions and fears that you might hold regarding a potential teaching role. Select the statements that are most relevant to you and simply write out what comes into your head spontaneously (words, phrases or full sentences). Alternatively, you could audio-record or video yourself answering these questions, if you prefer to work that way, and then play the audio or video back to digest and analyse what you said. Like most exercises in this book, this can also be adapted for peer or group learning in LIS programmes or CPD workshops. This exercise will help you to establish your baseline feelings about teaching – you should try to be as spontaneous and honest as possible in your answers. Reflective pause – what I think about teaching  Teaching appeals to me because . . .  I enjoy the teaching that I have done/am doing because . . .  I feel . . . when I am asked to do some teaching  The only thing(s) I like about teaching is (are) . . .  Immediately after a teaching session, I feel like . . .  The thought of teaching makes me feel . . .

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 I worry about teaching because . . .  I think I could be a good teacher, because . . .  I don’t think teaching is for me, because . . .  I think/don’t think I have the right personality to teach because . . .  I find . . . really challenging in my teaching work  I really love . . . about my teaching work  . . . scares me about teaching  I admire . . . about other people’s teaching

Your responses to these questions will identify both reasons in favour of teaching, as well as reasons you might have to avoid it – the exercise explores the positive and negative aspects of a teaching role. It may be the case that, in spite of your being positively disposed towards the role in general, the downsides prevail. This has been explored previously. For example, a study of teacher anxiety among academic librarians in 2007 uncovered several causes of anxiety and attempts by librarians to avoid teaching; they included ‘displeasure for public speaking and insecurities about engaging students,’ as well as ‘negative self-talk’ and other ‘worries about uncooperative technology’ (Davis, 2007, 87–8). Your willingness to address and overcome these concerns, if they exist for you, is an important part of deciding whether to pursue this role. It can also be helpful to think about your career development from a more general point of view – it is possible that you are making decisions about teaching librarianship within a broader context of, for example, a career overhaul, mid-career stock-take, or as a new professional starting out. In her book Rethinking Information Work, Dority set out a list of what she called ‘career competencies,’ which constitute a type of framework that you can apply to ‘start moving your career in a direction that brings you work that will sustain you, financially and intellectually, for tomorrow and for a lifetime’ (Dority, 2016, 6). This list offers useful points of reflection that you can activate when considering if a teaching-related role is what you wish to pursue as part of your career as a librarian. According to Dority (pp 7–9), the attitudes and assumptions that should underpin your overall approach to career development are:     

an understanding of who you are, who you can be, and who you want to be a determination to accept reality a focus on solutions rather than obstacles an understanding and acceptance of change a willingness to adapt skills to the environment

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a willingness to look for opportunity an ability to anticipate a willingness to take risks a willingness to continue learning an enthusiasm and willingness to engage in the work an ability and willingness to continually reinvent ourselves.

A theme that runs through Dority’s list is the idea of reframing situations to make them work for you, e.g. reframing an obstacle as a learning opportunity, or applying your skills in new areas unrelated to your existing role. What is also notable about this list is that it calls for a spirit of openness, flexibility and positivity as you consider your position, although anchored by an acceptance of the aspects of your environment that cannot currently be changed, and a willingness to embrace change where and when it occurs (except in situations, for example, where change is toxic, damaging, prejudicial, illegal, unethical or imposed without consultation or consensus). Aside from the parameters of your external environment, which includes factors such as the availability of suitable jobs, your salary needs, your personal or family circumstances, health conditions, your ability to relocate for work, etc., your decision to actively pursue or continue in a teaching librarian role is also based on consideration of a number of intrinsic factors, including:     

what your innate aptitudes and strengths are what teaching-related skills and knowledge you have acquired what you enjoy doing – and conversely, what you prefer to avoid what aligns with your personal values and worldview what motivates and drives you.

To be able to answer these questions in relation to a teaching role, however, we will first reflect on the attributes, strengths and personality traits that are viewed as consistent with effective teaching. In the previous chapters, we explored some of the knowledge domains and skillsets that a teaching librarian might need; here, we will explore the more abstract qualities that indicate whether or not a person might be suited to this role.

3.3 Does a ‘teaching personality’ exist? Is it possible to identify attributes that are common to ‘good teachers’? A simple online search throws up multiple compilations purporting to list the ‘qualities of good teachers,’ which typically include attributes and

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competences, such as ‘good classroom management skills’; ‘respectful to students and a good listener’; or ‘ability to design engaging learning activities’ – all of which are important and valid observations. However, a more meaningful and authentic approach to this question might be to explore the attributes, behaviours and skills that students value in teachers, and which they perceive are central to a great learning experience. Take a few minutes at this point to think about a teacher you had who impressed and inspired you when you were a student. What was it about that teacher that made them stand out? Did they possess certain characteristics that elevated them above your other teachers? A recent survey carried out by Ireland’s National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2019) offered critically important insights into students’ perceptions of highly effective teachers, and the impact that good teaching can have on the student experience. An observation in the foreword to the study emphasised the importance of looking beyond teachers’ skills when assessing excellence: ‘Certainly, students tell us that our best teachers possess the requisite skills to enhance teaching, but these skills are not sufficient in and of themselves. They need to be complemented with particular behaviours and human characteristics’ (p. iii, emphasis added). The survey, which canvassed the views of almost 4000 students in higher education, sought to establish the characteristics which students valued most in their teachers, as well as the ‘behaviours and skills’ that they ranked most highly. The findings showed that the top ten most highly ranked by students in both categories were (in order) those shown in Table 3.2. Table 3.2 Characteristics and behaviours most valued in teachers, National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2019) Most valued teacher characteristics

Most valued behaviours and skills

Entertaining/interesting Passionate Kindness and caring Supportive Inspirational Approachable Knowledgeable Engaging Humorous Enthusiastic

Helpful Communicates well Generous with time Encouraging Offers advice Includes all students Above and beyond Provides quality notes Professionalism Dedicated

When combined, the survey results reveal a picture of ‘exceptional teachers’ that blends innate personal attributes with overt behaviours and actions that serve as the embodiment of those traits in practice:

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Exceptional teachers are entertaining–interesting, kind and caring, supportive, inspirational, passionate and approachable. They are helpful, encouraging, generous with their time and go ‘above and beyond’. They help students to learn, to develop, to progress, to be successful. They make a difference to students’ learning and their lives. (National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2019, 12)

Another perspective was offered by Reale, who cited Larrivee’s (2005) list of the ‘the ten attributes of authentic teachers’. According to her, authentic teachers: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

walk their talk know and trust who they are are aware of both their strengths and weaknesses say what’s on their mind without blame or judgment experience and display their emotions are clear about their motives challenge others’ inauthenticity are not afraid of being wrong admit their mistakes and try to correct them are always learning and changing. (Reale, 2017, 42–3).

While these lists of characteristics, attributes and behaviours might seem intimidating, the core qualities of kindness, caring, communicating well, being willing to help, openness, self-awareness, and treating students as individuals might equally apply to the library and information profession in general. Choosing a library career is frequently based on a desire to help and support people and contribute to society in a meaningful way. As Pressley (2009, 7) observed, ‘librarianship, as a field, is grounded in its professional ethics and values. Librarians have the opportunity to learn something new and help other people every day, just by the virtue of their job descriptions.’ If you have chosen librarianship as your career, it is likely that you already possess many of the qualities that are valued by students in their teachers.

3.4 Mapping your teaching profile Choosing a library teaching role from the start of your career, deciding to remain in one that just kind of ‘happened,’ or proactively aiming to develop and enhance the role that you have occupied for some time, can all benefit

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from a structured approach; as Markgren and Allen (2013, 3) suggested, ‘no matter where you may be in your professional life, getting started in an exciting yet often frightening process that requires planning, motivation and patience’. Unless you are overtaken by events (e.g. restructuring, redundancy, etc.), the first step should be a period of self-analysis, in order to understand yourself in relation to your career choices. In this section, you will have the opportunity to explore three core aspects of your character in relation to a teaching role:   

your aptitudes your values your motivators.

3.4.1 Exploring your aptitudes The Cambridge Dictionary defines aptitude as a ‘natural ability or skill’ (Cambridge Dictionary Online, 2020a) while Macmillan describes it as a ‘natural ability that makes it easy for you to do something well’ (Macmillan Dictionary Online, 2020). Aptitudes refer to your innate talents, or the skills and competences that come to you easily, as opposed to those in which you must invest a great deal of time and effort to learn. While you may also have to learn to do the things for which you display an aptitude, the learning process in these cases is much less challenging. So, for example, you might have an aptitude for mathematics, public speaking, interior design, playing the piano or doing your accounts – given the right opportunity, environment and support, you may find that you excel in these areas, while others in the same environment, with the same opportunities, struggle to perform at a similar level. When it comes to career choice, being aware of your aptitudes is an important step; however, Dority cautioned against allowing aptitudes to be the only consideration: ‘Nearly every career book has some sort of aptitude checklist, but basically what you’re looking for is the cross point between those things you’ve always been good at, and those you’ve always enjoyed doing’ (Dority, 2016, 21, emphasis added). It may be the case that you have an aptitude (or several) for teaching but have never been in a professional environment that has enabled you to express it (or them). Have there been signs or hints in your life to date that you may be suited to this kind of work? For instance, have you ever found yourself: 

demonstrating or explaining how things work to people (e.g. equipment, technologies, systems, processes, etc.) – you might find you’re the ‘go-to’ person in your job when a colleague is learning a new process, tool or system?

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creating quizzes or puzzles (e.g. for table quizzes, treasure hunts, etc.)? enjoying in-depth and robust discussions with people about current affairs, philosophy, politics, etc.? coaching a sports team in a voluntary capacity? creating YouTube video tutorials on different topics (e.g. cooking, makeup, ‘life hacks,’ hobbies, etc.)? speaking or presenting to groups in different contexts (e.g. school/college debating society, activism, hobbies, etc.)? giving tours to groups (e.g. in museums, tourist attractions, historical sites, etc.)? creating visual presentations for different purposes (e.g. posters, infographics, slides, videos, etc.)? writing guidelines, procedures or handbooks for organisations or committees that you’ve been involved with?

While none of these activities alone offer cast-iron proof that a teaching librarian role will be one that you’ll enjoy, they indicate that you may be suited to it. It is a good place to start. Aptitude testing is a recognised step in formal career consultation; apart from the well-known personality and temperament tests such as Myers-Briggs and Keirsey, there are many private companies that offer psychometric and aptitude tests, e.g. those provided by the Institute of Psychometric Coaching in Australia, or Team Focus in the UK. There are two forms of psychometric test that are typically used in career counselling, or by employers seeking to ensure that the most suitable candidate is hired for the position in question, namely skills tests and personality tests. Skills tests evaluate how well an individual can carry out a particular task; aptitude tests, as part of that, measure a person’s potential to learn a new task, rather than evaluate the skills they already possess. Personality tests, by contrast, explore motivation, attitude and preferences. Such tests often seek to measure the Big Five Personality Traits, which are based on McCrae and Costa’s (2003) Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality traits, defined as ‘descriptions of people in terms of relatively stable patterns of behavior, thoughts, and emotions’ (Parks-Leduc, Feldman and Bardi, 2015, 3). The five core personality traits in the model include:   

Openness to experience: the extent to which people tend to be imaginative, creative, curious, flexible, open-minded, etc. Conscientiousness: the extent to which people tend to be efficient, organised, responsible, dependable, etc. Extraversion–introversion: the extent to which people tend to be sociable, assertive, reward-seeking, ambitious, etc.

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Agreeableness: the extent to which people tend to be good-natured, sympathetic, helpful, friendly, co-operative, etc. Neuroticism: the extent to which people tend to be stable, resilient, calm, well-adjusted, etc.

These traits are also often expressed as the acronyms OCEAN or CANOE. According to the model, everyone manifests these traits to a greater or lesser extent – in the test, each trait is measured along a spectrum from low to high expression of that trait. Personality tests that apply this model aim to ‘estimate how high or low one is on each trait relative to other people,’ and are ‘used to help understand and predict relationships between personality traits and success in social, academic, and professional circumstances’ (Psychology Today, 2020). In testing, the traits are typically measured by asking people to agree or disagree, on a scale of 1 to 5, with a series of statements. Test results will show where you fall on the spectrum for each trait. Some websites offer free personality testing, although you mostly have to pay for a full analysis of the results. However, while tests such as these cannot offer a complete picture of your personality or determine with total accuracy which careers or jobs might suit you best, they can offer an indication of the types of roles in which you might feel most comfortable or enjoy the most. For example, in terms of teaching, it is likely that those who tend to obtain higher scores along the spectra of agreeableness, extraversion, openness to experience and conscientiousness, and lower on neuroticism, may find that they slot more naturally into the teacher role, although this might not be the case for all; there is no ‘magic’ blend of traits that will ensure a perfect role fit. Personality traits are only one part of the picture, when considering a teaching role.

3.4.2 Exploring your values The second aspect to consider relates to your personal values, such as achievement and security, which are described as ‘rather stable broad life goals that are important to people in their lives and guide their perception, judgments, and behaviour’ (Parks-Leduc, Feldman and Bardi, 2015, 3). Our values drive us, guide our behaviours, and encapsulate what we consider important in our lives. Their influence spans all life contexts and situations – personal, family, professional, social, etc. Values tend to be organised in terms of ‘personal hierarchies,’ in the sense that different people ascribe more importance to certain values than to others in their lives. Your ‘value hierarchy’ is unique to you, although you may not be consciously aware of it.

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According to the Theory of Basic Human Values developed by Schwartz (2012), it is possible to identify ten broad, universal values that are defined according to the motivation underpinning each one. The values can also be grouped according to a ‘higher order’ value that reflects a compatibility in motivation that connects individual values. They are: 1 Openness to change  Self-direction: independent thought and action  Stimulation: excitement, novelty, and challenge in life 2 Self-enhancement  Hedonism: pleasure or sensuous gratification for oneself  Achievement: personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards  Power: social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources 3 Conservation  Security: safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self  Conformity: restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms  Tradition: respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that one’s culture or religion provides 4 Self-transcendence  Benevolence: preserving and enhancing the welfare of those with whom one is in frequent personal contact (the ‘in-group’)  Universalism: understanding, appreciation, tolerance, and protection for the welfare of all people and for nature. Schwartz (2012, 8) observed that ‘actions in pursuit of any value have consequences that conflict with some values but are congruent with others. For example, pursuing achievement values typically conflicts with pursuing benevolence values.’ Unlike the personality traits we discussed previously, a person’s values might not in fact be expressed or activated in their behaviour – while they might intrinsically value a particular state, e.g. security, this may not actually manifest in their life choices, for a variety of circumstantial reasons. Thus, while values are fundamentally motivational or guiding constructs, their activation depends on multiple factors, including environment and opportunity. So, what do you think are your guiding values when it comes to work and career? Take some time at this point to reflect on what you think has influenced the choices you have made in your working life to date. One way

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of doing this is to make a list of the personal values that you believe have affected your career direction so far (they don’t have to match the values in Schwartz’s list) – for example, security, stimulation, creativity, social justice, achievement, etc. A quick online search can retrieve many sample lists of personal values that you can use for inspiration, if you need to. If you find this challenging to do, another way of approaching the task might be to consider memorable or meaningful moments in your professional life that you could analyse to uncover the values that you may have been honouring at the time. For example: moments or events connected to your work when you felt overjoyed and fulfilled; moments or events connected to your work when you felt conflicted or frustrated. Parks-Leduc, Feldman and Bardi (2015, 6) noted that values, although not inherently emotive, ‘can elicit negative emotions when they are violated, or positive emotions when fulfilled’. So, what elicited those feelings at the moment or events you remember? Did they connect to, or conflict with beliefs that you hold deeply, or did they cause you to experience a strong internal feeling of ‘rightness’ or ‘wrongness’? An alternative approach might be to identify colleagues whom you admire or whom you consider to be professional role models. What do you admire about them? What values do they appear to embody in their work? Do they reflect values that are currently important to you, or to which you aspire? After writing down the personal values that you believe are important in guiding your career choices, check to see if there is any overlap, and try to reduce them to a list of 8–10 ‘core values,’ listed in order of how important they are to you. Which values do you think are at the top of your list when it comes to guiding your behaviour or life decisions? Which are of lesser importance, but still influential? Do you have the opportunity to reflect these values in your current position? Reflective pause – my career values My personal values

My top ten core values 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

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In choosing a career, or a specialisation within that career, it is helpful to reflect on the degree of compatibility between your personal values, and the values espoused in that profession. For library and information work in general, much has already been done in this area. For example, Gorman (2000) proposed eight ‘enduring values,’ which he conceived as guiding principles for the practice of librarianship; several years later, the American Library Association subsequently agreed on, and articulated an ‘essential set of core values that define, inform, and guide our professional practice’ which are updated and refined as necessary (ALA, 2019). The core values of librarianship suggested by Gorman and the ALA are listed in Table 3.3: Table 3.3 Core values of librarianship Gorman’s ‘Enduring Values’ (2000)

ALA’s Core Values of Librarianship (2019)

• • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Stewardship Service Intellectual Freedom Rationalism Literacy and Learning Equity of Access to Recorded Knowledge and Information • Privacy • Democracy

Access Confidentiality/Privacy Democracy Diversity Education and Lifelong Learning Intellectual Freedom The Public Good Preservation Professionalism Service Social Responsibility Sustainability

However, professional core values also vary according to culture and geography; in a study which compared the ethical codes of national library associations in 36 jurisdictions to Gorman’s ‘enduring values,’ Foster and McMenemy found that although there was some consensus around a common set core of values, ‘the culture of a country clearly influences how the librarians in those countries have codified their values’ (Foster and McMenemy, 2012, 261). This should be borne in mind in any discussion about professional values in librarianship. In terms of teaching in general, values play an influential role: according to Barni, Danioni and Benevene (2019, 1), ‘Teachers’ personal values drive their goals and behaviors at school. Moreover, values can support subjective well-being and an individual sense of self-efficacy.’ Their study of the relationship between schoolteachers’ personal values, and self-efficacy showed that their participants accorded the most importance to selftranscendence and conservation values; overall, they ‘recognized the importance of values like the welfare of ingroup members, tolerance, social justice, world beauty (i.e. benevolence and universalism, conformity, security, and tradition)’ (p. 4). For academic teaching librarians, the question of values is

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twofold; not only must we evaluate the compatibility of our personal values with a teaching role, we are also obliged to take a broader view, and consider the alignment – or conflict – of our values with our profession as a whole. One example that we discussed in Chapter 1 centred on the question of critical information literacy and social justice, and librarians’ perceptions of their role and professional responsibility in relation to this – research has shown that while some librarians view it as fundamentally in line with the overall value system of librarianship (and probably with their own personal values), others maintain that adopting and maintaining a position of neutrality in their work is more appropriate. Values, and how we perceive them, are powerful influences on our choices, and the actions that follow. Taking steps to explore your values in these contexts is a further step in deciding if a teaching role is for you.

3.4.3 Exploring your motivators The final aspect to explore concerns your motivators, or the principal factors that determine your career choices, and to consider how they relate to a potential role as a teaching librarian. For instance, what led you to choose library and information work as a career? Or if applicable to you, why did you choose academic librarianship specifically? Understanding the pragmatic, as well as the abstract, factors that influence your decisions and actions is another useful step in your self-analysis, that will help to bring clarity and purpose to your current and future choices. In general, the motivations behind choosing a career in librarianship appear complex and varied. An interesting study carried out by Oliver and Prosser (2017) collected survey responses from 1872 academic librarians to gain insight into their career motivations. Their findings, which were limited to academic librarians who entered the field via the traditional means of obtaining a postgraduate qualification, revealed that some of the key motivators behind choosing to pursue a graduate LIS degree, and enter a career in librarianship included:   

dissatisfaction with current job or job prospects and desire for a career change developing an interest in librarianship while pursuing a graduate degree in a different field developing an interest in a professional library career through working in a library.

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From a more general perspective, we might consider career motivators in terms of several different categories. For example, your choice of job might be based primarily on the workplace environment, incorporating practical lifestyle considerations such as location, salary and benefits, public or private sector, flexibility (part-time options), opportunities for advancement or tenure, or other similar issues. Your preferred working style may also have influenced your choice, e.g. team-based or solo, project-based or regular work routine, client-facing or behind-the-scenes, etc. Or your motivation might be centred around the meaning and contribution of your work, and your desire to honour the personal values that are most important to you. Alternatively, your prime motivator might simply have been the availability of a library position at the precise time that you needed a job, and your ‘drift’ into librarianship might have been based on that, rather than a proactive decision. In terms of pursuing an academic teaching librarian role, take some time to reflect on what your motivators might be. For example, they might include:        

a preference for working in a front-facing role with students and other library users, rather than a ‘backroom’ role a previous background in academia or teaching that you wish to bring into your current role a preference for ‘non-routine’ or relatively unpredictable working days finding enjoyment and fulfilment in teaching – alignment with personal values a strong personal commitment to critical information literacy and social justice drawing energy from interactions with others an openness to working alone or in teams (e.g. co-teaching) a preference for a specialist rather than generalist role in the library.

To help you to figure out your motivators, consider the following questions to guide your reflection: Reflective pause – my career motivators My ideal (or ‘fantasy’) library role would be . . . My current role could be improved by . . . If . . . was different, my role would be perfect / I could pursue my preferred library role If it weren’t for . . . , I would be happy to take on a teaching role If a teaching librarian job came up within or outside my organisation, I would/would not apply because . . . A teaching role would allow me to . . .

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3.5 Planning and developing your teaching role If you decide that a teaching role is a good fit, and one that you would like to pursue, or you would like to develop your existing role, you might find it useful to take a structured approach to your planning. The work that you have already done in figuring out your aptitudes, values and motivators feeds into a process of deciding what you wish to achieve and what you have to do to get there. The following template can serve as your developmental record, as you move towards a role as an academic teaching librarian, or in enhancing your current practice. The first section captures the self-analysis which provides the basis for your decision-making and goal-setting; it reflects your preferences and priorities in relation to your career, and to teaching librarianship in particular. The second section encourages you to think about the knowledge and skill gaps that you need to fill, and the steps to take to prepare for, or enhance the teaching role. The third section consists of concrete goals that you can set which will move you closer to your overall aim of beginning, developing or excelling in academic teaching librarianship.

3.5.1 Teaching librarian development plan Use the template in Figure 3.1 to document your academic teaching librarian journey, whether you are just starting out, deciding whether to continue in a teaching role, or considering how to progress and excel in your current role as an academic teaching librarian. Self-analysis 1. Your general career overview Prompts: What general career area(s) are you interested in, or what is your current professional role? Where would you like to see yourself professionally in the future? What factors are influencing your career choices? What are you happy with/what do you find challenging?

2. Your views about a teaching role Prompts: What do you know about/ what is your experience of the kind of teaching done by academic librarians? What do you think about a teaching role? What do you/would you enjoy, or what do you/would you find stressful about this role?

Figure 3.1 Teaching librarian development plan template

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3. Your aptitudes and skills Prompts: What do you find easy to do? What do you enjoy doing? What skills do you have (e.g. technical, transferable, etc.)? What did you learn during your professional training to prepare you for this role? Have you ever taken an aptitude or personality test and if so, what did it tell you? How do your aptitudes and skills align with a librarian teaching role?

4. Your personal values Prompts: What are your core values? How do you/can you express these values in your work? To what extent do you think these values are compatible or in conflict with the values associated with effective teaching? How can you align your values with an academic teaching librarian role?

5. Your motivators Prompts: What are the most important factors driving your career development? Are you motivated by practical considerations, or by more abstract issues?

Self-development 6. What knowledge, skills and attributes do you require to successfully pursue or develop a teaching librarian role, and how do you plan to develop them? Prompts: What knowledge and skills gaps have you identified? (Chapters 2 and 3 will help you here.) What kind of training can you access to fill these gaps, e.g. CPD? Are there other ways for you to develop such knowledge and skills?

7. What professional activities can you engage in/resources can you access to increase your knowledge and experience of this role? Prompts: Include details of any associations, committees, websites, seminars, webinars, learning communities, etc., that you believe would be helpful for your induction into, or development of this role.

Figure 3.1 Continued

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Goals What concrete goals will you set for the next six months/year that will help you to develop your teaching librarian role (add goals as appropriate)? Goal 1:

Activities

Timeline

Potential obstacle(s)

Solutions?

Support/resources needed to support this activity

How will I monitor my progress?

Figure 3.1 Continued

3.5.2 Teaching development micro-planner Aside from the broad planning that goes into your career and role development, you may find that while you are satisfied overall with your academic teaching librarian role, it might be helpful to adopt a more structured approach to the individual activities and goals that contribute to role enhancement. The teaching development micro-planner enables you to translate intention into action by breaking down your teaching goals and activities into a series of steps that will clarify what you need to do to put your plan into practice. This approach allows you to consider any potential obstacles that may crop up, as well as avoiding duplication of effort by identifying work that has already been done or resources that have already been created, which you could adapt for your own purposes. It also encourages you to set a realistic timeframe for achieving individual goals, which incorporates any time for training or upskilling that you might discover that you need. Two sample goals have been outlined in the planner in Figure 3.2 on the next page, to demonstrate the process:

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Teaching goal/activity

What do I need to do?

1. Develop an interactive – Search for existing online tutorials online tutorial on ‘fake news’ (i.e. open educational resources) to to be embedded in library gain insight into others’ work in this website and institutional area. Is there anything that I could LMS where possible adapt (i.e. under CC licence?) – Identify and speak to library colleagues who have already done this – any potential collaborators? – Contact EdTech support or Teaching and Learning unit in my institution for advice – Discover which software packages are available in-house (e.g. Articulate, Adobe Presenter, etc.). If none, are there any free-to-use, or affordable? – Sign up for in-house training, if available – Create tutorial learning outcomes – Start to develop a storyboard of tutorial content, including ideal interactive elements (e.g. quizzes, hotspots, word-matching, etc.)

Ideal timeframe 6 months

2. Present a conference – Make a list of relevant conferences 6–12 months paper or poster on an that are within reach for me (e.g. interesting teaching accessible, budget-friendly, etc.) programme that I created, – Using this list, create a conference or a piece of action research table for the current year, including that I was involved with locations, conference dates, fees, submission dates for proposals/abstracts, submission dates for final papers, available bursaries, etc. – Select conference that seems to be the best fit and best suited to your schedule (e.g. LILAC in the UK). Look at past papers to get an idea of the scope of the conference – Put submission deadlines for different conferences in my calendar – Ask colleagues A and B to review and comment on proposals before submission Figure 3.2 Teaching development micro-planner

3.6 Keeping current with teaching trends An essential aspect of developing and enhancing your teaching role is ensuring that you keep up to date with developments in the profession, and

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pedagogical trends, approaches and tools in general. While you may have experienced formal instructional training during your professional LIS graduate programme, or via another educational programme, it is unlikely that this has equipped you with a sufficient body of knowledge and set of skills to account for every situation you will encounter during your career. In fact, some of you may not even have received any formal training at all, and perhaps much of what you do in practice has been self-taught or learned ‘on the job’. As Lierman (2015, 88) noted, ‘the majority of teaching librarians, however, are largely self-taught instructors for whom teaching is only one of an overwhelming number of responsibilities’. This lack of formal instructional training for librarians has been consistently reported for many years (e.g. Peacock, 2001; Walter, 2008; Bewick and Corrall, 2010; Wheeler and McKinney, 2015). A commitment to lifelong learning must therefore be an important part of your teacher identity. Being able to access and participate in continuing professional development (CPD) opportunities is one way of keeping current; however, this depends on a variety of complex factors unique to your personal situation: ‘Depending on the cost, level of institutional support and the available opportunities, librarians can mix-and-match from a wide range of CPD activities, both in and out of the workplace, to keep themselves up to date with developments in professional practice, or to fill existing gaps in their armoury of professional competencies’ (Corcoran and McGuinness, 2014, 178). Cost is naturally a key consideration, as well as time and availability. However, CPD need not be restricted to formal, structured and costly options; ideas such as ‘attending virtual conferences, using Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, e-mail lists and wikis, volunteering for committees, getting a mentor, reading the literature and writing for publication’ (p. 81) offer alternative means of staying engaged and up-to-date. For some, a structured approach to CPD works best. In Ireland, the National Professional Development Framework for All Staff Who Teach in Higher Education (National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning, 2016) was created to support and encourage HE staff, including librarians, to ‘create, discover and engage in meaningful personal and professional development,’ underpinned by a set of core values, and incorporating an evidence-based reflective approach (p. 1). The framework comprises five domains, which were chosen to reflect the core dimensions of a person’s professional life, namely: 1 2 3 4 5

Personal development: The ‘self’ in teaching and learning Professional identity, values and development in teaching and learning Professional communication and dialogue in teaching and learning Professional knowledge and skills in teaching and learning Personal and professional digital capacity in teaching and learning.

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Each domain is further extended by a list of ‘elements,’ which outline the attributes and activities that contribute to professional development within the domain in question. The purpose of articulating the domains and elements in this way is to offer a structured framework for participants to reflect, review, and take stock of their current professional skills and knowledge, to identify the areas in which they perceive that development or enhancement is needed, and to plan their future professional development needs relevant to each domain, based on a cycle of evidence-based reflection. The framework also includes a useful typology of professional development activities, which includes accredited and non-accredited options, as well as formal and informal, structured and unstructured (see Table 3.4). Table 3.4 Typology of professional development activities, National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (2016) Non-Accredited 1. Collaborative Non-accredited (informal)

2. Unstructured 3. Structured 4. Accredited Non-accredited (non- Non-accredited (non- (formal) formal) formal)

The learning from these activities comes from their collaborative nature

These activities are independently led by the individual. Engagement is driven by the individual’s needs/interests. Individuals source the material themselves

Organised activities (by an institution, network or disciplinary membership body). They are typically facilitated and have identified learning objectives

Accredited programmes of study (ECTS or similar credits)

Examples – Conversations with colleagues, peer networking, peer observations, online blogs/discussion forums

Examples – Reading articles, following social media, selfstudy, watching video tutorials, keeping a reflective teaching journal or portfolio, preparing an article for publication

Examples – Workshops, seminars, MOOCs, conferences, summer schools, structured collaborative projects

Examples – Professional Certificate, Graduate Diploma, Masters, PhD, EdD in: Teaching and Learning, eLearning, Leadership in Education, Education Policy

If you are not currently in a position to access formal professional development activities, you can also connect to the profession in a variety of ways that are free or low-cost. For example, in addition to the formal activities outlined in the typology in Table 3.3, you could: 

Create a personal Twitter stream that flows with teaching updates, advice, events and expertise (if you have a Twitter account) – through

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‘following’ recognised teaching librarian experts, organisations, conferences and publishers, and participating in Twitter chats (e.g. #uklibchat, #critlib), you can create a virtual network that is up to the minute and a goldmine of information. When you are aware that a relevant conference or seminar is taking place, but you are unable to attend in person, check to see if there is a livestream that you can access from your desktop or on the go. Alternatively, follow the official conference hashtag on Twitter for live updates – virtually all conferences now create a hashtag for attendees and non-attendees to use. Some conferences now also record sessions to make them public later on, so checking a conference website’s ‘archive’ section can uncover a wealth of resources. Subscribe to teaching or information literacy blogs or newsletters that are regularly updated and have a wide range in terms of their geographical and topical scope (e.g. Information Literacy Blogspot). Keep a lookout for relevant video tutorials or webinars that are free or low-cost to access. Free and subscription-based websites such as TED, Coursera and LinkedIn Learning are additional sources of nonaccredited learning materials that are either completely free of charge or potentially affordable (and certainly cheaper than formal courses and programmes). Start or join a journal club, either in your workplace or within your wider professional community and review a relevant recently published article relating to teaching issues on a weekly or monthly basis.

3.7 Documenting and showcasing your work: teaching portfolios for librarians While the role of reflection has been emphasised throughout this book so far, the importance of carefully and regularly documenting evidence of your teaching work and professional development activities warrants equal attention. Apart from the benefits of adopting a reflective approach to your work as a teaching librarian and for your career in general, there are several other reasons why it makes good sense to maintain a progressive, detailed and carefully curated record of your teaching activities, both from individual and institutional perspectives: 

Providing documented evidence of successful teaching and learning support activities, as well as showing a commitment to continuous improvement, are critical components of job, promotion or tenure applications.

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From a strategic point of view, demonstrating the tangible value and impact of teaching programmes and courses is increasingly emphasised in HE, and used as a basis for decision-making about funding and resource allocation. For programmes that are developed and taught by library staff, demonstrating ‘return on investment’ can be more challenging than for academic faculty, due to our position on the margins of subject-specific curricula and their associated assessment processes. Documenting our teaching-related and professional development activities enables us to gradually build up an impressive ‘showcase’ of our work and accomplishments that we can use to describe and communicate our value and contribution to external stakeholders, or to seek out collaborative opportunities with colleagues both within and outside our institutions. For librarians in some jurisdictions, documented evidence of work experience and accomplishments, as well as professional development activities, may be required for professional registration or accreditation (e.g. CILIP Professional Registration in the UK).

One means of collecting evidence in a structured and reflective way is through creating and maintaining a teaching portfolio, which was described by Mills as ‘a purposeful means of documenting teaching reflection and philosophy, as well as an accumulating evidence about teaching activities and accomplishments over a span of time, rather than a single course or year . . . It is both an evaluative tool and a learning process for the creator’ (Mills, 2015, 528). Although widely used in pre-service teacher training, little is currently known about the nature and extent of teaching portfolios among librarians in general, and academic librarians in particular. One recent account was provided by Mills, who described the implementation of librarianship portfolios by staff at Robert Morris University, for the specific purpose of permanent status evaluation and rank promotion within the context of unionised faculty contract negotiations. In this case, the objective of the librarianship portfolio was to offer a librarian-oriented equivalent to the teaching portfolios that academic faculty were required to submit, and in that respect, was designed to capture the academic librarians’ professional activities in the university over a period of time. While the structure of the librarianship portfolio was modelled on the academics’ teaching portfolios, it differed in the sense that it allowed the library staff to choose among five specialist categories to identify their principal work specialism, i.e. education and communication, information access support, collection development, professional development and continuing education or achievement in special projects. Within their

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chosen specialism, the librarians were required to include a range of compulsory and optional components to ‘to illustrate and highlight their work as reflective practitioners over time’ (Mills, 2015, 538). Examples of portfolio components included a librarianship philosophy statement, a description of primary librarianship responsibilities, student outcomes data, collection development policies, plans or proposals, and academic or professional certifications and/or degrees. Another account by Hampe and Lewis described an initiative in a health library to implement an e-portfolio tool for library staff to ‘to record their professional development activities, store documentary evidence of their professional development and actively reflect on any activities undertaken’ (Hampe and Lewis, 2013, p. 7). In essence, a teaching portfolio serves two purposes; firstly, as a vehicle for reflecting on your personal practice and development and documenting your growth as a teaching librarian; and secondly, as an artefact or product that can be used in the practical scenarios described above (i.e. for job applications, promotion, performance evaluations, etc.). It is a unique, living collection of documents, artefacts, evidence and reflection, that changes and grows along with your teaching experience and learning activities.

3.7.1 What to include in a teaching portfolio? Like most developmental tools, the structure and contents of teaching portfolios can vary considerably, according to local requirements and the purposes for which they are intended. For academic teaching librarians, the unique role we occupy means that some of the information and artefacts that we include with our teaching portfolios will differ from portfolios kept by schoolteachers and academic faculty. However, it is useful to consider a broad template that can be modified and adapted as required. The template in Figure 3.3 can be used as a kind of checklist when compiling your own portfolios, although not every element needs to be included.

Section 1: Teaching philosophy and goals • Teaching philosophy: as described in the previous chapter, your teaching philosophy is a 1–2 page ‘statement of reflection and a philosophical framework of your personal approach to teaching and student learning’ (O’Farrell, 2014, 2). • Teaching information literacy (optional): a brief statement of how you understand information literacy (or other preferred terms), and its importance for students and society (this could also be included as part of your teaching philosophy). Figure 3.3 Teaching portfolio template

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Teaching goals: a short outline of your major teaching goals for the next few years, including a provisional timetable for attaining each goal. The teaching development micro-planner in Figure 3.2 on p. 118 could be used for articulating these goals.

Section 2: Teaching practice and artefacts • Teaching responsibilities: a list of the classes, workshops, seminars, programmes or full courses that you have designed and taught in the past 2–3 years, including the number of attendees (if available), the number of times sessions were offered, whether they were elective or embedded in subject curricula, and the schools/faculties you liaised with (if applicable). For clarity, a table could be used here instead of a bullet-point list, if preferred. Add any other details as you see fit. • Teaching approaches and methods: this includes contextual information about your teaching, for example: – A description of your general teaching approaches, e.g. online, blended or F2F, synchronous or asynchronous, solo, co- or team-taught, problem-based, active learning, groupwork, demonstrations, etc. – A description of the specific teaching methods, activities or tools that you use, and your rationale for using them. – A description of how your teaching is embedded into specific subject curricula (if applicable). – A description of how you promote your teaching to the academic and research community, and how you engage stakeholders in collaborative teaching. – Any critical incidents that highlight particular aspects of your teaching. – Any interesting or innovative teaching-related collaborations that you may have been involved with, e.g. student peer-mentoring scheme, students-as-partners initiatives, Wikithons, job shadowing/swap, etc. – How you ensure inclusiveness and incorporate universal design into your teaching – this is defined as ‘a principle-based approach to designing university teaching and learning to meet the learning needs of all students’ (Padden, O’Connor and Barrett, 2017, 1). • Teaching artefacts: this section includes representative teaching materials from your practice, for example: – Programme or class outlines, including learning outcomes, content overview, method and assessment or evaluation approaches. – Detailed lesson plans for selected classes (carefully chosen to showcase your teaching variety and innovativeness). – Sample handouts, worksheets, exercises, reading lists, etc. – Examples of LibGuides or other similar materials you have created. – Examples of any visual materials used, e.g. slides, images, photographs, diagrams, infographics, etc.). – Descriptions and examples of digital technology used in teaching (e.g. videos, podcasts, online polling, wikis, blogs, e-tutorials, recorded lectures, social media, etc.). – Screengrabs and links to online learning resources (internal and external). – Sample assessments (if used).

Figure 3.3 Continued

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– Surveys or pre- or post-tests that you have distributed (if used). – Materials that you have created to promote your teaching, e.g. posters, videos, social media posts, etc. Section 3: Teaching impact and effectiveness • Teaching outcomes: evidence of student attainment of learning outcomes. This might include: – Samples of student work, e.g. projects, completed worksheets, videos, blogs, reflective journals, etc. (if applicable). – General figures and statistics – e.g. attendance rates, grade distributions (if applicable), etc. – Data from commercial standardised information literacy tests, if used in your institution, e.g. Project SAILS, Threshold Achievement Test for Information Literacy (TATIL). – Learning analytics obtained from the institutional LMS, online quizzes, etutorials, etc. (if you have access to it). – Reports of formal research that you may have conducted on the impact of your teaching. • Teaching evaluations: perceptions of students and colleagues about teaching effectiveness, for example: – Structured peer feedback on your teaching practice and materials from invited colleagues. – Student evaluations, including quantitative and qualitative survey results, quotations from focus groups or open-ended survey questions, e-mails from students (anonymised), thank-you cards, messages on social media, etc. – Testimonials from colleagues, for example letters from collaborators, coteachers, faculty members, employers, etc. Section 4: Teaching development and contribution • Teaching enhancement: evidence of your commitment to regular professional development and learning, for example: – Any teaching-related qualifications you hold, e.g. postgraduate certificate or diploma, undergraduate degree in education, etc. – Evidence of teaching-related CPD you have attended, e.g. workshops, seminars, webinars, online courses, etc. – A description of how you keep up to date with developments and trends in teaching and learning, e.g. membership of relevant associations, journal clubs, mailing lists, subscriptions to blogs, conferences attended, Twitter chats, webinars, etc. – Details of any teaching-related achievements you have – this could include teaching excellence or course design awards (solo or team), publications in peer-reviewed journals, grants awarded, teaching fellowships, memberships or associateships achieved, blog awards, invitations to speak at seminars and conferences, give keynotes, etc.

Figure 3.3 Continued

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Teaching engagement: evidence of teaching-related contributions to your local and wider professional communities, including: – Service on institutional or professional teaching and learning committees, working groups, task forces, etc. – Teaching-related conferences, seminars or events organised. – Conference presentations given and journal articles/books/book chapters published. – Participation in communities of practice, ‘teachmeets,’ etc. – Hosting or regularly contributing to a teaching-related blog, website or social media account. – Creating and publicly sharing open access teaching resources, e.g. slide presentations on Slideshare, etc.

Figure 3.3 Continued

3.7.3 E-portfolios The format of your teaching portfolio is up to you; while some prefer to keep materials together in hard-copy files, digital or e-portfolios are becoming increasingly popular, due to their flexibility, convenience and presentation features: ‘a digital portfolio, which is easy to update, can be quickly accessed via electronic files and search boxes, is attractive and not overwhelming to the end user, and can showcase existing and emerging technologies’ (Keller, 2016, 20). This is especially important, as many of your teaching artefacts are now likely to be in digital format; links or screengrabs in a print document don’t have the same impact as being able to view or interact with them online: ‘a digital portfolio can be designed to showcase the teacher librarian’s technology skills for teaching, using a variety of software programs and Web 2.0 tools’ (Keller, p. 21). Hampe and Lewis (2013, 5) listed three key purposes of e-portfolios, namely:   

E-portfolios may act as assessment tools for documenting progress and the attainment of standards or competences. They may act as tools of reflection and digital stories that encourage critical thinking and deeper learning. They may act as accessible resumés to showcase abilities and achievements.

They also noted that e-portfolios have long been ‘recognised as tools that can guide and support active learning, reflection, skills acquisition and career development’. Barriers that can hinder the adoption of e-portfolios by librarians include lack of time, concerns about confidentiality and ownership, and lack of guidance and access to suitable training.

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In terms of your choice of platform for creating an e-portfolio, Hampe and Lewis suggested that there are two basic options: ‘either a licensed preexisting product, or an open-source software solution’ (p. 8). Some learning management systems, such as D2L (Brightspace), have e-portfolio functionality built-in; however with this type of system, portability is a concern, as a staff member can lose access to the system if they move on to a different institution. Other available platforms, some of which are opensource and free-of-charge, include Mahara, Foliospaces, Google Sites, Livebinders, PebblePad, WordPress, Weebly, Blogger and Wix. Some of these sites (e.g. WordPress, Weebly, Google Sites) are also used to create personal websites and blogs, which can serve as a form of public eportfolio of your work (although only with content that can ethically be made available publicly). Websites such as LinkedIn, while not e-portfolio sites, can also be used to document and showcase your teaching, as they allow you to curate collections of digital media within your profile, including documents, videos, images and other artefacts, which expand the basic career and education information that is typically included. Most platforms and sites include sharing and privacy options such as password protection, which allow you to determine who can access your e-portfolio. One major advantage of e-portfolios is that they can be easily and regularly updated with content. Some tips for creating high-quality e-portfolios are: 







Ensure that your materials are well organised and easy to navigate and locate – it is a good idea to lay out the structure of the e-portfolio on paper first before translating it to the digital format. The headings listed in the teaching portfolio template can be used to identify the different sections. Undertake to check your links and ‘live’ content such as videos or etutorials regularly, to ensure that they are working properly and don’t lead to broken links and ‘dead ends’. Select a clean design and a clear, readable font that is set at an accessible size. Keep clutter to a minimum – don’t be tempted to add extra ‘decorative’ images or gifs. When sharing with another person, make sure that the process is smooth and seamless for them – try to avoid the hassle of passwords that don’t work, or having them ‘request permission’ to access. They should just be able to click-and-go.

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Exercises 1 Careers talk Consider a scenario where you have been invited to speak to a group of second-level school pupils about choosing a career in academic librarianship. What information do you think they will need to make an informed decision? Create the handout, set of slides, exercises, etc., that you would bring with you to present to the group. 2 Academic library values In this chapter, we have discussed Gorman’s Enduring Values, as well as the ALA’s Core Values of Librarianship. For this exercise, (in groups, pairs or individually) create your own list of 21st-century academic library values. What do you think should be the core values underpinning this area of the profession? 3 Teaching portfolios Create a useful guide for your colleagues (e.g. a LibGuide) on how to compile and curate the perfect teaching portfolio. What information do you think should be included in this guide? How should it be presented to your colleagues? 4 Mentoring Imagine you have been called upon to speak confidentially with a colleague who is experiencing feelings of doubt and lacking confidence in their teaching work. What advice would you give them?

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PART 2

Excelling as an academic teaching librarian

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CHAPTER 4

Technology and the academic teaching librarian

Personal reflection points  Is digital learning part of my day-to-day working life? If not, why is this?  Do I feel pressure or encouragement (or both/neither) to implement digital learning approaches in my work?  What is my library or institution’s policy on digital learning (if there is one)?  What are my perceptions and beliefs about the role of technology in student learning?  Do I generally have neutral, positive or negative feelings about digital learning?  What connections do I see between digital learning and information and digital literacy (and/or other literacies)?  What impact do I think digital learning might have from socio-cultural or economic perspectives? Or other perspectives, e.g. environmental, ethical, etc.?

4.1 Introduction: the digital environment for academic teaching librarians Digital-age learning (or Learning for a Digital Age) acknowledges that, almost without exception, life, work, study and leisure take place for all citizens today in a pervasive, highly internet-connected and digitally mediated world. Learning in and for this digital age represents a new challenge for educators and their students. (Kampylis, Punie and Devine, 2015, 39)

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The purpose of this chapter on digital learning for academic teaching librarians is reflective; rather than provide step-by-step guidance on how to incorporate specific digital tools and apps into your teaching practice, it aims more broadly to support and encourage you in developing an enhanced understanding of yourself in relation to the use of technology to facilitate student learning. As in previous chapters, your personal professional landscape constitutes the backdrop for examining your role as teaching librarian. Here, the primary focus is to encourage you to first explore the current environment where you work, and the opportunities and limitations around digital learning that encourage and constrain action in your world; second, to reflectively evaluate your present state of knowledge, ability and perceived self-efficacy, as well as your assumptions and beliefs in relation to digital learning; and third, to consider how your instructional role might ultimately evolve in this context. Knowing why and when digital learning should be incorporated into your practice is just as important as knowing what and how – perhaps even more so. But everyone has a different starting point, and the integration of technology into teaching and learning is never neutral: ‘technology use in the classroom is context bound and is, or at least needs to be, dependent on subject matter, grade level, student background, and the kinds of computers and software programs available’ (Mishra and Koehler, 2006, 1032). Ultimately, your experience of digital learning depends on where you live and work in the world; there is wide regional, national, and even institutional variation in terms of infrastructure, access and what is referred to as ‘digital readiness’ – namely, ‘people’s preparedness, such as their digital skills and their trust in technology, which may influence their use of digital tools, separate and apart from their access to them’ (Horrigan, 2016, 6). You may feel greater or lesser pressure or encouragement to adopt digital learning practices, depending on your institution’s strategic priorities, and the attitudes of senior management staff. Research and anecdotal experience have shown that multiple contextual factors determine if, how, and to what extent, digital learning modes are incorporated into HE: For new technologies to be used in an effective, efficient and trustful way in teaching and learning in higher education, certain framework conditions need to be met. New technologies need resources, infrastructure and human resources to use them. They equally need to be integrated into curricula, while learning outcomes acquired through using new tools need to be assessed and trusted at national level and abroad. Action required for the implementation of these changes needs long-term strategic planning, changes in the legal environment and financial resource allocation. (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2018, 75)

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This chapter takes an analytical and reflective approach to digital learning, which places your identity as academic teaching librarian front and centre, enabling you to self-audit and analyse the internal and external factors that determine where you stand – and where you may go – in relation to technology-enhanced learning approaches.

4.2 Teaching, learning and technology: key concepts As with many evolving fields, the terminology associated with technology use in teaching is inconsistent and lacks standardisation. Descriptors in the English language such as e-learning, online learning, technology-enhanced learning and digital learning/education are used interchangeably in both practice and discourse, and no universal meaning has been ascribed to any of these terms. Terms used in other languages and cultures might also carry different meanings and nuances for those who use them. As noted by IFLA (2019), ‘The precise definitions and boundaries of the concept vary – it can range from technologies used in classroom interactions to related management systems like security or administration.’ It is important, therefore, to set out definitions for some of the key terms, to indicate how they are conceptualised in this chapter and the rest of the book, especially for readers whose first language might not be English.

4.2.1 Educational technology (EdTech) EdTech is primarily a technical term, which describes the actual hardware, software, platforms, tools, apps, etc., that facilitate the practical integration of technology into teaching and learning. Educational technologists are expert personnel trained in the application of technology to instruction and educational management: Education technology (EdTech) refers to the practice of using technology to support teaching and the effective day-to-day management of education institutions. It includes hardware (such as tablets, laptops or other digital devices), and digital resources, software and services that help aid teaching, meet specific needs, and help the daily running of education institutions (such as management information systems, information sharing platforms and communication tools). (Department for Education (UK), 2019, 5)

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4.2.2 E-learning E-learning is an overarching descriptor that is typically used to refer to all forms of teaching and learning that are delivered using digital technologies in any setting, including online via the internet: The term e-learning . . . is a generic expression for all learning involving the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) to support both learning and teaching . . . The term may refer to the use of various technologies and tools to support learning in different contexts, including face-to-face settings and distance learning, separately or in combination, in which case e-learning is usually called blended learning. (Gaebel et al., 2014, 17)

4.2.3 Technology- or web-enhanced learning These terms refer to learning situations where face-to-face (F2F) delivery is complemented or enhanced by a relatively small amount of digital or webbased resources or activities. So, for example, it might include a traditional F2F course where certain components, such as online quizzes, are embedded in the LMS or where students are asked to complete online activities before attending class, e.g. watch a YouTube video or listen to a podcast. It might also involve using live online polling to elicit student responses during class, or the use of lecture-capture technology, to provide access to the lecture content after class has taken place. Technology- or web-enhanced learning represents the first step towards a blended approach and is usually where most teachers begin. 4.2.4 Online learning Online learning is a term that is often used interchangeably with e-learning, and sometimes distance learning; however, while there is overlap, online learning relates exclusively to learning activities which are delivered synchronously or asynchronously via the internet: according to Siemens, Gašević and Dawson, online learning is a form of distance education where technology mediates the learning process, teaching is delivered completely using the Internet, and students and instructors are not required to be available at the same time and place. It does not include more traditional distance education instruction methods, such as print-based correspondence education, broadcast television or radio, videoconferencing in its traditional form, videocassettes/DVDs and standalone educational software programs. ( Siemens, Gašević and Dawson, 2015, 100)

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However, the authors also observed that technology-supported teaching and learning is increasingly located in the online space due to the various affordances it offers: ‘educational IT is now predominately located on the web (or cloud) and is more socially oriented . . . The adoption of smart devices, the wider use of the Internet, and the gradual lowering cost of technology . . . have all played a part in redefining learning and teaching practice in the 21st century’ (p. 60).

4.2.5 Blended learning Blended learning, also known as hybrid or mixed-mode learning, is an approach to teaching and learning which seeks to strategically combine the most appropriate learning modes, tools and resources to support student attainment of learning outcomes in different educational settings. Its scope includes all forms of learning activities, resources and tools, delivered synchronously or asynchronously, remotely or in person. Pomerantz, Brown and Brooks (2018, 4) described it as ‘everything between the poles of fully face-to-face and fully online learning’. In the 2019 Horizon report, the authors’ definition of blended learning placed greater emphasis on the pedagogical soundness of the approach than on the physical attributes of the tools: ‘Previously defined by the proportions of face-to-face versus online coursework, blended learning is typified by the integration of those digital solutions most applicable for achieving the learning outcomes of the course’ (Educause, 2019, 12). Blended learning also incorporates the ‘flipped classroom’ approach, in which students are required to complete a significant number of learning activities in advance of F2F sessions, to free up time for active learning during class time. In recent times, adopting a blended learning approach is viewed as more complex than simply replacing F2F activities with digital objects; rather, it entails ‘the redesign of the educational environment and learning experience, thus contributing to the creation of a “community of inquiry”’ (Gaebel et al., 2014, 17).

4.2.6 Digital learning Following an analysis of several different approaches in their review of technology-supported learning in HE, Siemens, Gašević and Dawson (2015, 45) concluded that ‘the increasing diversity of educational programs, learning personalization, and modes of assessment merits the development of a more comprehensive and unified construct’. As a result, they proposed ‘digital learning’ as an overarching descriptive term for the use of technology in education, which combines existing aspects of distance, online and blended

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learning, and is sufficiently flexible to account for future technological advances that may ‘change our understanding of what fits under the online, distance, or blended learning umbrella’ (p. 121). In this chapter, and the book in general, ‘digital learning’ rather than ‘e-learning’ is the adopted term and will be used to describe any learning modes supported by any type of technology, except when it is important contextually or historically to use more specific terminology.

4.2.7 Digital learning categories Thousands of proprietary and free-to-access tools, apps and platforms exist that can be used to support digital learning; the list of resources changes on an almost daily basis, including upgrades to existing technologies. For example, the ‘Padagogy Wheel’ alone, which was developed by Allan Carrington of Designing Outcomes Adelaide, matches 100+ iPad apps with Bloom’s Taxonomy learning domains and activities in its latest version (V5) (Carrington, 2020). Multiple ‘Top 100’ lists are compiled on an annual basis to capture the most up-to-date and widely used educational technology resources, including Jane Hart’s Top Tools for Learning surveys, which have been available each year since 2007 (Hart, n.d.). The continually shifting boundaries make it impractical to suggest a definitive list of resources for digital learning. A more useful way of classifying digital learning technologies is suggested by Siemens, Gašević and Dawson (2015, 60), who proposed that technologies for learning can be divided into three broad categories, based on their purpose in facilitating learning activities and engagement, i.e. what they enable students and teachers to do, rather than their physical or technical features: 1 information technologies that support the delivery of and access to information (e.g. Learning Management Systems, PowerPoint, etc.) 2 communication and interactive technologies that mediate user interaction (e.g. discussion boards, messaging apps, virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom) 3 social software technologies that support group-based activities such as decision-making, planning, as well as higher-order learning activities (e.g. G Suite, WhatsApp, Slack). These categories help us to match resources to learning outcomes, activities and supports, when designing and integrating digital learning activities. They will be discussed later, particularly in relation to Oliver and Herrington’s Learning Design framework (2001).

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4.3 The digital imperative in higher education In the past decade higher education provision has undergone an unquestionable if unspectacular change. This is the entry of e-learning into the physical confines of universities, with the result that technological innovation is a now a key factor tending to transform the very nature of teaching and learning in higher education and to extend its coverage well beyond the bricks and mortar of individual institutions. (Gaebel et al., 2014, 13)

Why do you need to consider digital learning? As academic teaching librarians, you operate within broad and diverse educational landscapes, in which your work is shaped not only by institutional strategic priorities and goals (Pinfield, Cox and Rutter, 2017, 12), but also by national and global issues that filter down to influence the services we provide, and the decisions you make about what to prioritise when planning the best ways to serve your users. In these early decades of the 21st century, one of the most pressing issues for educators is the question of how to effectively integrate digital technology with teaching and learning at all levels of education – primary, secondary, tertiary and beyond. Digital transformation, or the development of digital capacity for teaching and learning, is viewed in many countries as an issue of critical importance within higher education (HE), exacerbated by the unprecedented socio-technological, economic and digital developments of the past two decades, and the resultant pressure ‘to educate students to be successful in a complex and interconnected world that faces rapid technological, cultural, economic, informational, and demographic change’ (Kampylis, Punie and Devine, 2015, 7). Demand is also driven by students, whose technology-infused daily lives can create similar expectations when it comes to their learning experiences: ‘Students are increasingly demanding an education on their terms, one that is technology-based and customizable’ (Dewan and Steeleworthy, 2013, 279). Breeding (2019) listed several ‘tech expectations’ of current HE students, including a ‘reasonably modern computer . . . reliable Internet connection . . . and spaces conducive to study and online collaboration’. From the perspective of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI), digital learning is also viewed as a game-changer, potentially bringing previously excluded individuals and groups into the educational fold: ‘Digital technologies potentially may broaden access to higher education and to lifelong learning. They give learners the opportunity to participate in education in a more flexible way – both in time and in space’ (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2018, 74–5). For HE institutions, the economic and competitive advantages of reaching geographically distant markets with their online learning offerings are further catalysts for change. The measures

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taken during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 accelerated the digital imperative, with many HE institutions suddenly finding that teaching and learning had to be delivered remotely, as physical campuses were shut down. As academic teaching librarians, your perception depends on where you are located, both geographically and in terms of your personal and professional experience. You may feel that there is a disconnect between the possibilities afforded by digital learning, and the reality of your day-to-day work – it might seem like it’s all happening out there without you and passing you by. Perhaps you feel energised and excited about digital learning – or maybe you are overburdened, stressed and struggling to ‘keep up’. Grassian and Kaplowitz (2009, 293) described teaching librarians as being in a ‘semipermanent transitional state’ when it comes to using technology for teaching, as they may ‘be worried about being bypassed by popular new technologies’; or they simply might not be sufficiently well-resourced to access them. For example, some of the technologies that experts predict will have the most powerful impact on education in the near future include such high-level, cutting-edge concepts as artificial intelligence (AI) conversational interfaces, predictive analytics, digital credentialling, Blockchain, augmented reality, and smart campuses. It is a lot to absorb, especially in HE institutions that struggle with limited budgets and resources, or inadequate infrastructure and support. There are also concerns about approaches to digital learning that focus primarily on the capabilities and innovativeness of the emerging technologies, rather than on the extent to which they address the actual learning needs of students: ‘The relentless stream of innovation in the digital world and the interests of commercial enterprise are increasingly dictating the pace of change and the process of how higher education makes use of technology. Whether this is the best way forward is open to question’ (National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2015, 8). This question of technology-push versus market-pull in digital learning has always loomed large in discussions of best practice, and caution is urged when considering whether students’ learning needs are always best served by digital learning modes: ‘Existing paradigms in technology education must be shifted towards a focus on critical thinking and communication skills and away from “gee-whiz” gaping over new technology tools’ (Hobbs, 2010, xii). Booth reiterated this point, noting that ‘becoming an effective instructional technologist involves striking a balance between technolust and technophobia’ (Booth, 2011, 78, emphasis added).

4.4 Digital education in higher education (HE): state of the art What is the current landscape of digital learning in HE, and how does it shape

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your experience? While there is no instructor or student experience of digital learning that can be identified as universal, it is possible to discern broad patterns. However, your individual digital learning landscape is unique and determined by multiple forces: ‘the practices of digital learning are diverse, shaped by values, epistemologies and learning models in specific institutional and socio-cultural contexts’ (Blayone, 2018, 426). Digital transformation occurs, not in a vacuum, but against complex backdrops of social, cultural, political, economic, educational and technological circumstances, that enable and constrain practice in different environments. Regional or national approaches to digital transformation in higher education can be discerned from the multiple reports, policies, surveys and strategic frameworks that are issued from the highest levels of government, and a sense of what the core issues are can be deduced from them. In Europe, for example, digital learning policy has been outlined in the Digital Education Action Plan, adopted by the European Commission in 2018, which proposed ‘11 actions to support technology use and the development of digital competences in education’ (European Commission, 2018). The actions address a range of technology trends, such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, learning analytics and reflective learning. Similarly in the USA, the National Educational Technology Plan or NETP (US Dept of Education, 2016 (updated 2017)) ‘describes specific actions the United States should take to ensure learners of all ages have opportunities for personal growth and prosperity and remain competitive in a global economy’. Crucially, the NETP also acknowledges the essential role of librarians as educators within the new digital learning landscape: ‘the roles of PK-12 classroom teachers and postsecondary instructors, librarians, families, and learners all will need to shift as technology enables new types of learning experiences’ (p. 3). While strategic priorities and infrastructure differ from region to region, digital learning policy is typically developed within three broad overlapping contexts, often framed overall as ‘digital transformation’ or ‘enhancing digital capacity’ in education. These contexts relate to the affordances and impact of digital technology in relation to skills, learning and equality: 1 the skills imperative: digital transformation viewed as a critical means of ensuring the fulfilment of national digital and skill agendas: i.e. improving graduate employability and resilience, raising national economic competitiveness, redressing essential skill shortages in the population, and enhancing citizens’ quality of life in multiple ways 2 the learning imperative: digital transformation viewed as a means of transforming students’ educational experience, and enhancing teaching, learning and assessment practices: i.e. through improving student

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outcomes, streamlining administrative processes, facilitating active learning, enabling more fluid communication between educators and students, supporting student collaboration and peer learning, and enabling creative expression 3 the equality imperative: digital transformation viewed as a means of widening and democratising access to educational opportunities for people in all sectors of society: i.e. facilitating affordable, flexible and virtual learning options that can overcome resource, time or geographic restrictions, can reach large numbers of students, and expand opportunities for lifelong learning beyond the traditional educational routes. Trends in the adoption of specific technologies and platforms in HE are captured in numerous national and international surveys, e.g. Learning and Teaching in the European Higher Education Area (Gaebel and Zhang, 2018), as well as systematic reviews of practice, e.g. Preparing for the Digital University (Siemens, Gašević and Dawson, 2015). Student experience of, and attitudes towards, digital learning are also revealed in various reports, for example, the Student and Faculty Technology Research Studies published regularly by the Educause Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR), or in studies carried out by researchers at Project Information Literacy or the Pew Research Center. From a wider perspective, the annual Educause Horizon reports identify and analyse educational technology innovations and trends that are considered to have the most powerful influence on digital learning in HE, in order to ‘help learners, instructors, and leaders think more deeply about the educational technology choices they are making and their reasons for doing so’ (Brown et al., 2020, 4). The most recent report (Brown et al., 2020) identified six emerging or evolving technologies and technological applications that were identified by experts as likely to have a significant impact on teaching and learning in HE, including adaptive learning technologies, artificial intelligence education applications, analytics for student success, elevation of instructional design, learning engineering, User Experience design in pedagogy, OERs (open educational resources) and XR (extended reality) technologies (p. 29). While some of these trends (e.g. instructional design, OERs) have already permeated practice to a greater extent than others, they are all distinguished by a critical need for robust debate regarding their applicability, from both pedagogical and ethical perspectives. Educause and other experts predict that in the near future, HE learning environments will gradually shift from an overdependence on institutional learning management systems (LMSs) with restricted functionality to a new type of learning environment architecture, comprising a diverse range of

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pedagogical applications, tools and services, all connected by means of open standards. It is suggested that existing systems will be replaced by the Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE), conceptualised as ‘an ecosystem – a learning environment consisting of learning tools and components that adhere to common standards’ (Educause, 2015, 1). Rather than focus on administrative support, it is predicted that these systems will directly support authentic student learning, and to achieve this objective, ‘next-generation environments must address five dimensions: interoperability and integration; personalization; analytics, advising and learning assessment; collaboration; and accessibility and universal design’ (p. 1). Underpinning these trends is the need for a fundamental re-imagining of how teaching and learning should be supported within the digital environment, i.e. a holistic approach, grounded in pedagogical understanding, that examines digital learning from the perspectives and needs of students, rather than simply focusing on the capabilities of the technologies in question: ‘Building digital capacity is about much more than developing a capacity for online course provision and the use of digital tools. It is about developing new ways of dealing with information, working and learning in a digital environment, using time and information differently, and developing new versatility when it comes to interaction in learning environments’ (National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 2015, 8). Placing the student front and centre is at the heart of successful digital learning. As Siemens, Gašević and Dawson pointed out: the greatest impact on student performance is gained through ‘pedagogically rich strategies’ that include instructor participation, interaction with students, and facilitation of student collaboration as well as continuous monitoring and moderating discussions. In order to sustain the instructor’s role and provide effective support for the pedagogical features that will foster learning, some of the instructor’s roles could be (or need to be) delegated to students. (Siemens, Gašević and Dawson, 2015, 118)

To summarise, the current state-of-the-art of digital learning in HE reveals several notable trends, which you may recognise to a greater or lesser extent in your own environment: 

A recognition that digital learning cannot be simply layered on top of existing pedagogical structures and practices and treated as an ‘add-on extra’. Rather, it requires educators to creatively re-imagine approaches to teaching and learning, with student needs placed firmly at the centre: ‘Digital transformation has also had a significant impact on the

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knowledge economy leading to new digital pedagogies with a move from didactic teacher-centred approaches to a learning approach which is active, personalised and social, mediated by technology’ (Llewellyn, 2019, 131). A focus on space, and how to design learning environments – physical, virtual and blended – that are user-centred and flexible and most effectively support student learning in different contexts. According to Allen and Taylor (2017, 1), this requires a library to ‘explore and repurpose its physical space while redefining its virtual, online space to align with the needs of those who are native to the digital age’. This trend is reflected in the growing number of learning commons in academic libraries, which are described as ‘technology rich, flexible and agile spaces that support different learning styles and trends’ (Llewellyn, 2019, 142). A concern for accessibility and universal design, to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to avail of digital learning opportunities, and that the use of digital learning applications does not exclude or disadvantage specific student populations (Padden, O’Connor and Barrett, 2017). The emergence of blended or hybrid learning as a preferred approach to teaching and learning, which seeks to combine the strongest aspects of face-to-face (F2F) and digital learning in order to support the attainment of student learning outcomes and transform the learning experience. The predominance of the learning management system (LMS) as the premier digital learning platform in HE institutions, although they are used mainly for administrative or information repository-related purposes, rather than to facilitate fully interactive learning experiences. A growing emphasis on reflective and critical approaches to the integration of digital technology in education, involving a shift in focus away from efforts to incorporate the most up-to-date, cutting-edge technologies, and towards more informed, theoretically grounded decision-making with regard to the most appropriate use of digital tools and platforms to support students’ authentic learning needs. In addition to infrastructural redesign, an acknowledgement that educators require specific and sustained training to incorporate digital learning in the most pedagogically appropriate way in their courses and programmes.

These digital learning trends form the backdrop of your work as an academic teaching librarian to a greater or lesser extent, depending on your professional landscape. The following sections focus more specifically on the ramifications

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of digital learning for academic teaching librarians, particularly the knowledge and skill domains that underpin practice in this area.

4.5 Digital learning and the academic teaching librarian A sea change in higher education is shaping the way many libraries deliver instruction to their students and faculty. Major studies such as the Horizon report, ACRL’s Top Ten Trends, the ECAR report, and Project Information Literacy consistently show traditional models of education giving way as technology drives change, mobile devices proliferate, massively open online courses (MOOCs) challenge existing structures, and student expectations change (Dewan and Steeleworthy, 2013, 278)

In 2017, the SCONUL report Mapping the Future of Academic Libraries identified ‘connected learning’ as one of the trends that are predicted to have the most significant impact on academic library operations during the next few years (Pinfield, Cox and Rutter, 2017). This conflates several related trends, including ‘changing pedagogies, learning analytics, students as customers, social media and mobile computing,’ the combined influence of which could potentially lead to radical changes in how academic libraries structure their services in support of learners. The report highlighted two key patterns: first, that ‘learning is increasingly seen as social and more intensively technologyenabled’; and second, that teaching is consequently becoming ‘more of a process of facilitation and involves blended delivery of content’ (Pinfield, Cox and Rutter 2017, 17). Dewan and Steeleworthy (2013, 280) referred to a ‘paradigm shift’ in education fuelled ‘largely by developments in technology’, which is leading academic libraries to reconsider how they provide learning support services. Yang and Li identified a wide range of emerging technologies transforming the work of academic librarians, including ‘cloud computing, digital libraries, discovery layers, next generation library systems, online instructions, semantic webs, social networking services, virtual references, wireless and mobile technologies’ (Yang and Li, 2016, 13). They also highlighted multiple ways in which academic librarians have adopted technologies to support online learning, such as web conferencing, interactive online tutorials, videos and web-based learning programmes (pp 103–5). As academic teaching librarians, we recognise that when it comes to digital technology, the only constant is that it is constantly evolving. According to Booth (2011, 64), ‘the two biggest challenges in instructional technology are maintaining current awareness and adapting to constant change’. In Chapter 1 we explored how the rapid emergence of social media, the participatory web, user-generated content and the rise of the online ‘pro-sumer’ have

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changed the ways in which information literacy is conceptualised and taught. While the effective use of technology may once have been viewed as a specific skill set to be imparted to students under the broader remit of information literacy instruction (for example, OPAC or database searching), the goalposts have shifted. Digital technology is now seamlessly woven throughout the practices, tools and daily tasks that comprise our work, and is so endemic to our daily lives, that it has become all but invisible. For many, information today means digital or online information; searching means going online, checking your phone, watching a video, or simply ‘Googling’ the information you need. As Mackey and Jacobson noted more than a decade ago: ‘The relationship between information literacy and technology is critical to lifelong learning because it has become increasingly difficult to develop one set of skills without the other’ (Mackey and Jacobson, 2008, xvi). As we have seen, meta- and trans-literacy constructs have been proposed, which supersede the earlier enumerative models of information literacy that treated computer skills as separate. Furthermore, it is clear that the broader questions around critical information literacy, equality and human rights are also frequently framed in relation to the effects of digital technology, particularly in the context of information evaluation, ‘fake news’ and the digital divide, etc. In the 2019 Educause Horizon report, ‘advancing digital equity’ was identified as a ‘wicked challenge’, i.e. a global problem that is difficult to both define and address on a practical level: ‘It goes beyond just access and bandwidth to whose voices are dominant online and whose are excluded or invisible due to a range of complex issues’ (Alexander et al., 2019, 18). From the perspective of information literacy instruction, technology and digitisation are not simply about information access, searching and evaluation, or even content creation and sharing, but are intimately connected to our wider remit of access to information, ethics and equality. According to Breeding (2019, 10), ‘libraries have a natural role in supporting and conducting eLearning programs’. For academic teaching librarians, however, the promise of digital learning is in a transitional state, like the broader educational landscape. While hundreds of discrete examples and case studies of creative digital learning practice in academic libraries exist, wide variation in practice remains. For instance, the most recent survey of information literacy instruction practice in US academic libraries produced mixed findings regarding the perceived role and impact of digital technology on teaching practice and student engagement (Julien, Gross and Latham, 2018). While most of the survey participants (n=622) agreed that technology has had some effect on their practice, only 61% believed that information technology (IT) had affected instructional delivery ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a great deal,’ while fewer than 50% expressed the belief that instructional content had been

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affected ‘quite a bit’ or ‘a great deal,’ or that the use of IT had improved students’ interest or participation in instructional opportunities (Julien, Gross and Latham, 2018, 184–5). The librarians reported using technologies such as web tutorials, hands-on instruction in computer labs, video recordings (e.g. YouTube), social media, flipped classrooms and courseware, although the extent of this use varied. The librarians’ open-ended responses offered deeper insight into their perceptions and attitudes: for example, they cited various benefits of digital learning, including being able to provide content that was ‘more active, fun, personal, and relevant to students’ daily lives,’ allowing students to manage and organise their learning to suit their personal needs, connecting academic technology use with the students’ day-to-day digital experience and helping students to develop key transferable skills. However, comments also revealed a belief that technology was not ‘a silver bullet that can cover up a poorly designed or prepared instruction’ (p. 185), which supports the view that digital learning must be combined with sound pedagogical practice to be truly effective.

4.6 Digital learning knowledge domains: a framework for academic teaching librarians The ACRL’s Role and Strengths of Teaching Librarians identified ‘instructional designer’ as a major role, which involves creating learning experiences ‘through designing instructional materials, and developing learning outcomes, assessment tools and learning objects across diverse learning environments’ (ACRL, 2017). Learning environments include not just faceto-face classroom settings, but also blended, and online only. The ‘strengths’ associated with the role of instructional designer suggest that to thrive and flourish in this role, teaching librarians need to:  

   

analyse the instructional environment, and target instruction delivery toward appropriate audiences identify learning needs of students, and creatively address identified needs across multiple contexts drawing on a repertoire of tools, methods, and theories define goals and outcomes for learning experiences create innovative and appealing lessons with supporting instructional materials aligned with and supporting learning outcomes assess the success and impact of learning experiences and make appropriate adjustments to improve student engagement and learning stay current with trends and innovations in learning and instructional technologies.

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While these activities constitute a broad overview of the requirements of the teaching role, the reality is complex and situation-specific; Mishra, Koehler and Cain (2013, 13) suggested that effective teaching ‘depends on flexible access to rich, well-organized, and integrated knowledge from different domains, including knowledge of student thinking and learning; knowledge of subject matter; and increasingly, knowledge of technology’. As an academic teaching librarian, you might find that you are required to simultaneously access several specific knowledge areas or ‘digital learning knowledge domains’ (DLKDs) when it comes to this aspect of your role. These overlapping knowledge domains provide the basis for:  

  

developing, enhancing and maintaining your personal digital literacy teaching students how to access and use specific digital tools, resources and apps in different contexts and for different purposes (technology in learning) using digital technology to facilitate and support effective student learning and assessment (technology for learning) supporting students’ digital literacy development maintaining awareness of the ethical and socio-cultural aspects of digital learning.

Let us explore each of these digital learning knowledge domains (DLKDs) in detail.

4.6.1 Digital learning knowledge domain 1: developing and maintaining our personal digital literacy ‘The ubiquity of digital devices and the duty to help students become digitally competent requires educators to develop their own digital competence’ (Redecker and Punie, 2017, 4). Since academic teaching librarians operate daily in an environment where digitisation is pervasive, it is frequently assumed that they are naturally competent and confident users of digital technology. As Allen and Taylor (2017, 4) pointed out, ‘academic LIS [Library and Information Specialists] are expected to remain current and skilled in emerging technologies which could affect their ability to serve users’. In the same way as librarians are expected to ‘become information literate themselves’ (Kajberg and Lørring, 2005, 67) before they can successfully support their students’ information literacy development, they are also required to develop and demonstrate a high level of digital competence before they can effectively integrate it into their teaching and learning practices. Allen and Taylor described this as ‘the dual challenge and responsibility of

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learning how to use new technologies while helping patrons maneuver through hybrid interfaces’ (Allen and Taylor, 2017, 4). However, expert digital literacy among teaching librarians cannot be universally assumed; for example, a study of digital literacy skills among university librarians in Nigeria revealed that the majority of participants self-rated their proficiency level as ‘moderate’ or ‘low’ (Emiri, 2015, 157). The International Federation of Library Associations emphasised the importance of developing librarians’ digital literacy in their Statement on Digital Literacy (IFLA, 2017): ‘For librarians to be able to teach digital literacy, they may need training themselves. It may be necessary to form partnerships with external actors in order to provide best service to users.’ Developing and maintaining our personal digital literacy involves being aware of our need for additional training or continuous professional development (CPD), and taking steps to obtain it, whether through direct learning opportunities or through consultation and collaboration via our professional networks.

4.6.2 Digital learning knowledge domain 2: teaching students how to access and use specific digital tools, resources and apps in different contexts and for different purposes As academic teaching librarians, it is likely that your work partly involves supporting students in learning how to access, navigate and use specific digital and online tools to accomplish different objectives, within a range of academic and perhaps non-academic contexts. While this may take place within a broader conceptual context of critical literacy, research skills or problem solving, a degree of mechanistic, skills-based instruction is typically involved; for instance, guiding students in how to find, access, log in to and navigate the library’s e-resources, demonstrating how to use specific reference management software to manage a literature search, providing sessions on how to use collaborative authoring tools, social media, GIS, etc. It may involve direct face-to-face instruction, or the creation of resources and guides to aid self-paced learning. This can be described as technology in learning and ‘requires us to develop a good awareness and understanding of the IT skills and knowledge that students need to acquire to function effectively in the modern information environment’ (McGuinness, 2011, 44). In a similar vein, Booth described ‘teaching about technology’ as incorporating the creation of ‘learning experiences that effectively address the “What’s in it for me?” potential of search, communication, and academic productivity tools’ (Booth, 2011, 75). Students not only need to learn how to use tools and apps, but also when it is most appropriate to use them, and how they will add value to their lives. This domain works at two distinct levels: being able to physically

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navigate tools, platforms and apps, and understanding the contexts in which their use is appropriate.

4.6.3 Digital learning knowledge domain 3: using digital technology to facilitate and support effective student learning The third domain focuses on the effective and pedagogically grounded use of digital technology to enhance the learning environment, facilitate student engagement and support interactive learning and assessment activities, either exclusively online or within a blended learning structure. It encapsulates the pedagogical basis of digital learning and is based on student learning outcomes as the principal drivers of action. This knowledge domain is centred around the core guiding principle of placing pedagogy before technology, when planning digital learning approaches: ‘The use of multi-media should focus on its values in the learning context, rather than a desire to excite with its “richness”’ (Stiles, 2000, 3). This can be referred to as technology for learning, which comprises our understanding and ability to apply pedagogical theory and effective instructional design, in addition to technical knowledge and mastery of the digital tools and platforms that are available to support student learning and engagement. This knowledge domain may require the blending of general theoretical pedagogical frameworks, such as constructivism, behaviourism and social learning, with theories and principles that relate specifically to digital instructional design; for example, Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning (Mayer, 2014) which suggests that people have two separate channels (visual and auditory) for processing multimedia information, that each channel has a limited capacity, and that individuals attempt to make sense of incoming information by engaging in active cognitive processing to construct coherent mental representations of their experience. The TPACK and ‘DigCompEdu’ frameworks discussed later in this chapter will offer additional scope for evaluating and reflecting on this aspect of your digital knowledge and expertise.

4.6.4 Digital learning knowledge domain 4: supporting students’ digital literacy development An additional aspect for academic teaching librarians concerns their longstanding role in supporting students’ information literacy development, which has evolved to include related literacy types such as digital literacy that reflect changes in technology over time and are captured in broader frameworks such as meta-literacy. Digital learning and digital literacy go

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hand in hand; students’ growing sense of themselves as digital learners feeds into a wider self-concept of digital self-efficacy that transfers to everyday life. Cohn and Hewitt pointed out that merely bringing digital devices into the learning environment is not sufficient to ensure digital literacy development: ‘Device ownership alone doesn’t make people digitally literate; rather, digital literacy is about how and why they use devices to achieve particular goals and outcomes’ (Cohn and Hewitt, 2019, para. 1). Digital literacy should not be considered a by-product of digital learning, but rather as a core learning outcome. In your role as teaching librarian, it requires effort to ensure that students appreciate the transferability, applicability and value of digital skills outside their immediate academic environment.

4.6.5 Digital learning knowledge domain 5: awareness of the ethical and socio-cultural aspects of digital learning As explored in Chapter 1, digital technology in education raises a number of critical concerns around ethics, privacy and access that may bring us into conflict with our codes of practice as librarians. This is increasingly the case, ‘as a class of technologies has emerged that relies on tracking and analysing vast amounts of student behavioural data [including] cameras, sensors, audio recordings and trackers to measure the activity, participation or wellbeing of students’ (IFLA, 2019, 1). The earlier discussion of learning analytics highlighted this issue, and emphasised the importance of awareness, advocacy and action on the part of academic librarians when engaging in digital learning to any extent. Ethical concerns can also include issues such as copyright and fair dealing when it comes to re-using and re-purposing learning materials; privacy and security measures when using external online or web-based platforms to support instruction; and ensuring that all students have equal access to the digital tools and resources that may be used to support learning activities. The critical aspect of digital literacy was highlighted by Jones and Hafner (2012, 98), who explored how the affordances and constraints of technologies ‘embed particular ideologies and the agendas of particular people or groups’. They emphasise the importance of taking a conscious stance, which ‘puts you in the position to ‘interrogate’ the ideologies and agendas promoted in the texts that you encounter via digital media and by digital media themselves’ (p. 98). These different digital learning knowledge domains that influence academic teaching librarians’ engagement with digital learning are represented in Figure 4.1 on the next page.

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Domain 1: Personal digital literacy

Domain 5: Ethical and socio-cultural aspects

Domain 2: Technology in learning

DIGITAL LEARNING

Domain 4: Supporting students’ digital literacy

Domain 3: Technology for learning

Figure 4.1 Digital learning knowledge domains (DLKDs) for academic teaching librarians

4.7 Levels of skill and expertise for digital learning From a practical perspective, digital learning also incorporates varying levels of skill and expertise that may be required by academic librarians in order to be effective teachers; as Koehler, Mishra and Cain (2013, 13) observed, ‘teaching is a complicated practice that requires an interweaving of many kinds of specialized knowledge’. In the context of digital learning, this includes not only what we can describe as basic, mechanistic digital skills, but also a broader awareness of the appropriate pedagogical concepts which underpin instructional design and delivery in digital environments, and how these concepts support specific (critical) information literacy goals and objectives. The different levels are articulated as follows: 1 Level 1: Basic mechanistic This level incorporates awareness of the existence of digital learning tools, how to access them, and the skills to use them. It covers not only the EdTech tools available within your home institution, but also external online tools, platforms and apps that can be used to support learning and assessment. Examples would be knowing how to populate a course area in a learning management system, create a

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PowerPoint presentation, or set up and administer an online poll or quiz. Basic mechanistic skills can be time-consuming to develop; however, until they are mastered, they may act as a barrier to the conceptual and creative deployment of technology for digital learning. 2 Level 2: Advanced mechanistic This level includes the ability to use and combine an array of digital tools to support and facilitate learning in creative and flexible ways, to incorporate external tools seamlessly into institutional learning platforms and to troubleshoot technical glitches which may disrupt learning activities. For instance, it could involve using proprietary e-learning software to create a suite of interactive online tutorials, or hosting a remote synchronous class entirely online using the virtual classroom function in the learning management system. 3 Level 3: Contextual This level refers to the pedagogical expertise and instructional design skills that are required to create effective digital learning experiences; it involves thinking beyond the mechanistic or functional affordances of the tools to consider how using digital resources will enhance the learning experience, contribute to the attainment of learning outcomes and enable students to increase their sense of selfefficacy and confidence as digital learners. An understanding of pedagogical theory and how students learn (technology for learning) is the starting point for contextual digital learning skills. 4 Level 4: Ethical As described previously, this level relates to an overarching awareness of critical issues such as privacy, access and intellectual property rights, which constitute the ethical basis of digital learning. Expertise in or knowing where to find information on, for example, copyright law and licensing, data privacy and protection legislation (e.g. GDPR in Europe), and learning analytics comprise major points along the ethical skill and expertise spectrum. Long lists of basic and advanced mechanistic digital skills have been suggested for teachers; for example, the Educational Technology and Mobile Learning blog (2013) refers to the 22 Digital Skills every 21st-century teacher must have, including: creating and editing audio; using social bookmarking to share resources with and between learners; using blogs and wikis to create online platforms for students; and using digital images in classroom. Similarly, although situated in the broader context of librarians’ roles and responsibilities, the 23 Things programme (begun as Learning 2.0 in 2006), is an immersive online learning experience which aims to expose librarians to a range of key digital tools and apps that are considered essential to modern information work; although various iterations of the programme exist, and the content is continuously updated, the list of ‘things’ typically incorporates

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items such as blogging, using Wikipedia, creating videos and podcasts, and using different social media apps, such as Twitter and Facebook. Basic and advanced mechanistic skills involve knowing how to access, use, combine and embed digital tools and resources from a functional perspective; however, the next two levels of skill and expertise locate these skills within the appropriate pedagogical context. As Grassian and Kaplowitz pointed out, research has shown that digital tools may be unsuccessfully applied to teaching and learning ‘if they are not accompanied by professional development efforts to help instructors consider how such technology can help their learners better achieve pedagogical goals and learn practical means of helping them do so’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2009, 295). The levels of skill and expertise are represented in Figure 4.2 opposite. Each digital learning situation requires you to draw on different domains and levels of skill and expertise; for instance, consider a relatively simple scenario where a faculty colleague might ask you to create a short 10-item quiz on plagiarism and academic integrity, which is to be embedded into the LMS for an undergraduate course and taken by the students as part of graded assessment. The levels of skill and expertise you might identify as necessary to carry out this request, as well as the digital learning knowledge domains that are activated for each stage, are outlined in Table 4.1 on page 154. Although, for simplicity, this suggests a linear view of digital learning development, the reality is that different knowledge domains and skill levels are accessed continuously and simultaneously as you plan and work through a learning activity from start to completion. For example, basic and ethical could be activated straight away, as you select a web resource for inclusion in the digital learning activity (‘How do I inset this link in the LMS and make it visible?’ ‘Can students view the resource without setting up an account or leaving a digital trail?’). Your conscious awareness of a skill and expertise gap often becomes apparent only when you encounter an obstacle, and discover that you are not sure how to proceed – for example, you may get stuck on setting the parameters for your quiz, and cannot move on until you have figured it out, either alone or through accessing help. Mastery of basic and even advanced mechanistic levels of skill and expertise, however, frees you up to devote more time and attention to the contextual and ethical issues that frame the digital learning experience; uncertainty and lack of confidence, by contrast, can lead to a majority of time spent on learning the mechanics of a system or tool, rather than focusing on their pedagogical applications. Some questions you can ask, to assess your level of readiness in different learning situations, to plan an appropriate sequence of learning activities, and to pinpoint areas where you require assistance or training include the following:

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Figure 4.2 Academic teaching librarians’ levels of skill and expertise for digital learning

Reflective pause – your digital-learning readiness  What learning outcomes have been set for this situation? Is it my role to develop learning outcomes, or have they already been set by another teacher, e.g. academic faculty member?  What learning and assessment activities will allow students to achieve these outcomes?  What overall learning approach and sequence of activities is appropriate in this situation?  What learning tools and resources would be useful in this situation, including EdTech?  To which EdTech tools and resources do I currently have access?  Am I aware of tools and resources that would be useful, but to which I do not have institutional access? Which of them are free and which of them require a fee or a subscription? Are they worth paying for, and if so, am I in a position to arrange the purchase or subscription? Whom do I need to persuade to release the funds?

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Table 4.1 Levels of skills and expertise: sample scenario Digital learning task: embedding a quiz on plagiarism into the LMS for an undergraduate course Digital learning Level of skill and knowledge domain expertise

Digital learning activities

DLKD3

Basic mechanistic • Access LMS (log in, navigate to course) • Create quiz using built-in quiz tool (add, delete and change questions and set parameters, i.e. timing, due dates, scoring, display, feedback, etc.) • Link to, or exclude quiz results from LMS grade centre • Make available to students or hide from view

DLKD3

Advanced mechanistic

• Enhance quiz with links, images or videos embedded in questions • Include links to external learning supports, e.g. library plagiarism guide, video tutorial, ebook, etc. • Locate link to quiz in appropriate area in LMS • Alternatively, create quiz using external tool, and convert into format for uploading to any LMS • Run system reports to view completion data, number of attempts, time spent on quiz, etc.

DLKD3, DLKD4

Contextual

• Examine course or unit learning outcomes and discuss with faculty member if quiz is most appropriate digital learning activity; consider and suggest alternative approach if necessary • Decide point of course most appropriate to release quiz to students, e.g. linked to lecture or seminar • Ensure necessary learning and technical supports are in place, including the means of contacting instructor for assistance

DLKD5

Ethical

• If using videos, images or other external resources, ensure that they are licensed for re-use in LMS • If using any external online tools, check if there are any risks for the students of unwanted data trails or tracking • Awareness of how student progress is tracked in LMS, and who has access to student data, including grades • Awareness of consequences of noncompletion or failure for students, and possibilities for remediation • Ensure universal design to make quiz accessible to all students

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 Which tools and resources am I able to use without difficulty and which

 

  

 

would I need to spend time learning? How much time do I have overall? Is it worth it to learn to use a new tool in this situation, or can I use tools and resources with which I am already familiar? If the learning activities are delivered via the LMS, what form of access do I have to the course content? Is my access mediated through a course instructor? Will the students need instruction on how to access and use any of the tools and resources? Could this be incorporated into the learning activities, either through direct instruction, or providing supporting documentation? Can all students use these tools and resources, including students with access issues? Are there any legal restrictions on the use of the tools and resources, e.g. copyright? If using external digital tools and resources, will students need to create an account or enter personally identifying information to access them? Will their use leave a digital trail on the web? Will the students’ digital activities be formally tracked and analysed? To what purpose? What is my position on this? If something goes wrong, can I fix it, or do I require additional tech support?

4.8 Additional digital learning competence frameworks To enable you to reflect fully on your readiness to incorporate digital learning into your practice, two alternative knowledge and skill frameworks, which present slightly different ways of considering teachers’ competence and ability in relation to digital learning, may offer useful points of departure: Mishra and Koehler’s Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and the European Commission’s Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu). Both models are described below. 4.8.1 Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework The Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, developed originally by Mishra and Koehler (2006), is a useful model for reflecting on the types of knowledge that effective teaching with technology requires. The framework includes three core types of knowledge that are needed by teachers in any context to integrate technology into their practices, and is based on the view that development of all three of the knowledge areas and the complex interactions between them is ‘critical to effective teaching with technology’ (Mishra, Koehler and Cain, 2013, 13). The framework is a metacognitive tool, which encourages you to consider your personal knowledge base in relation to the different knowledge types, which are:

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Technological knowledge (TK) TK refers not only to awareness and mastery of specific technological tools and resources, and but also to a deeper, more situated understanding of how technologies can be successfully applied to different objectives, tasks and problems in multiple situations; this is similar to DLKD 2 in the academic teaching librarian framework described above. Content knowledge (CK) CK concerns the subject matter that is to be taught (the ‘what’ of learning), including core concepts, theories, methodological approaches, frameworks, ideas, applications and knowledge practices in relation to a specific field or discipline. However, the way in which content knowledge is defined for the work of academic teaching librarians is less clear than, for example, secondary school teachers who cover specific subjects such as Geography, Biology or Economics, which have standardised core curricula. In addition to LIS ‘content knowledge,’ which comprises a wide range of topics from Boolean searching to research data management, subject librarians may also need to draw upon the ‘content knowledge’ of the disciplines to which they are assigned, e.g. Biochemistry, Sociology or Veterinary Science. In a sense, this knowledge area relates to DLKD 4, which focuses on supporting students’ digital literacy development, and might be considered as ‘content’ for academic teaching librarians. Pedagogical knowledge (PK) PK relates to teachers’ familiarity with the theories, processes and practices of pedagogy, encompassing ‘how students learn, general classroom management skills, lesson planning, and student assessment’ (Mishra, Koehler and Cain, 2013, 15); it addresses the ‘how’ of learning, and has at its core an assumption of student-centredness. This knowledge category relates most closely to DLKD 3 in the academic teaching librarian framework.

The three core knowledge types are depicted as overlapping circles, which highlight the importance of the interactions between them in teaching situations (see Figure 4.3 opposite). These intersection points are described in terms of the blended knowledge they encapsulate: 

Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) This refers to the transformation of the subject matter for teaching, or the ways in which a teacher interprets content to facilitate student learning most effectively. In academic teaching librarian terms, a simple example would be Boolean logic, which is fundamentally a conceptual topic; how do you teach this in a way that will ensure that students actually apply the principles to their search behaviour in practice? Or how do you transform this content

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Figure 4.3 The Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework





into learning activities that will promote an understanding of how the concept of Boolean logic translates into effective searching, and ultimately, better research? Technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK) This encapsulates an understanding of the affordances and constraints of technologies to determine how (or if) they can be best used to facilitate learning; it involves looking beyond the functional attributes of technologies and considering them from the perspective of how learning takes place. For a specific learning situation or set of learning outcomes, the application of TPK might result in the decision not to use a technological solution at all. Technological content knowledge (TCK) This relates to the impact of technology on the discourse and practices of individual fields and disciplines; it represents ‘an understanding of the manner in which technology and content influence and constrain one another’ (Mishra, Koehler and Cain, 2013, 16). Each subject area has a unique relationship with technology, with some fields more overtly affected than others (e.g. STEM subjects more than Arts and Humanities).

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In a similar way to the academic teaching librarians’ digital learning knowledge domains, Mishra and Koehler emphasised the importance of being able to fluently access and draw upon each knowledge base as determined by the requirements of each learning situation, rather than attempt to impose generic technological solutions on individual cases: developing good content requires a thoughtful interweaving of all three key sources of knowledge: technology, pedagogy, and content. The core of our argument is that there is no single technological solution that applies for every teacher, every course, or every view of teaching. Quality teaching requires developing a nuanced understanding of the complex relationships between technology, content, and pedagogy, and using this understanding to develop appropriate, context-specific strategies and representations. (Mishra and Koehler, 2006, 1029)

They espoused a view of teaching as ill-structured, involving ‘highly complex, dynamic classroom contexts . . . that require them [teachers] to constantly shift and evolve their understanding’ (Mishra, Koehler and Cain, 2013, 13). This perspective is similar to the ‘situated’ view of information literacy discussed in Chapter 1, which is based on the premise that information and its associated information practices are situated or embedded within particular socio-cultural contexts, and do not make sense outside those contexts. In the TPACK framework, conceptions of and approaches to teaching are similarly determined by the multi-dimensional environments in which they take place, requiring situation-specific knowledge blends to be successful. For the authors, the total convergence of the three knowledge areas ‘is an emergent form of knowledge that goes beyond all three “core” components (content, pedagogy, and technology)’ (Mishra, Koehler and Cain, 2013, 16) and instead represents an understanding that emerges from the interaction between the three. It characterises the teacher as a reflective, fluid practitioner, who integrates different knowledge areas as appropriate in specific learning situations and incorporates technological measures only when they represent the most appropriate solution from a pedagogical perspective. The TPACK framework was not designed as a measurement or benchmarking tool; rather it offers a conceptual structure which encourages you to step back and examine how you make decisions about your teaching approaches, what you focus on when using technology tools to support student learning and where the gaps in your knowledge might be.

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4.8.2 Digital Competence Framework for Educators (DigCompEdu) The second alternative model is the recently published European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu), which was created to provide a set of specific, tailored competences aimed at helping all educators to ‘fully exploit the potential of digital technologies for enhancing teaching and learning and for adequately preparing their students for life and work in a digital society’ (Redecker and Punie, 2017, 12). The framework sets out 22 basic digital learning competences for educators, grouped into six core areas which reflect different elements of teaching and learning practice, as well as educators’ wider professional landscape. The competences were developed through a process of comparing and analysing existing digital learning competence models and synthesising them to produce a new overarching framework. Also included is a ‘progression model’ that identifies and describes six different stages of proficiency through which a teacher’s digital competence might typically develop, enabling them to periodically take stock of their progress and identify the points at which training, or intervention may be required. The overall framework is depicted graphically in Figure 4.4 on the next page, in an extract from the original document. The six core areas of teacher activity, which are further classified as professional, pedagogic or learners’ competences, include: 1 Professional engagement This refers to the use of digital technologies to facilitate and enhance communication and collaboration with colleagues, learners, parents and other professional stakeholders, in addition to supporting one’s own professional development. 2 Digital resources This area includes activities related to selecting, creating, modifying and sharing digital teaching and learning resources in a variety of educational contexts. 3 Teaching and learning This is a broad area which addresses the appropriate and effective use of digital technologies to support, facilitate, and enhance student learning and to create a student-centred, constructively aligned learning environment in a wide range of contexts, and at different stages of the learning process. 4 Assessment Inextricably linked to Teaching and Learning, this relates to the appropriate and effective use of digital technologies to enhance assessment activities and reporting in various learning contexts. 5 Empowering learners This area concerns the creative and conscious use of digital technologies to ensure access and inclusivity for all learners, as well as to facilitate personal learning pathways for students, and to enhance engagement.

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Figure 4.4 European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu). Source: Redecker and Punie (2017)

6 Facilitating learners’ digital competence The final area is linked directly to the competence areas that were originally set out in the general EU Digital Competence Framework for Citizens (Carretero, Vuorikari and Punie, 2017), and focuses on supporting students to use digital technologies effectively for information, communication, content, creation, wellbeing and problem-solving. The progression model accompanying the competence areas identifies six ascending proficiency levels, captured in ‘motivating’ role descriptors, which purport to describe the typical characteristics and attributes of an educator at each level, e.g. A1 Beginner, C2 Pioneer. For each of the six competence areas, each proficiency level incorporates indicative digital teaching and learning activities as well as proficiency statements, exemplifying typical activities for that level, which enable users of the framework to reflect on and identify their own proficiency levels and to evaluate the steps they need to take to progress to the next level. This is presented in the form of rubrics, which may be used as practical self-assessment tools for educators to manage their own development as digital learning practitioners. The creators of the model emphasise, however, that it should not be viewed as a normative framework, or as an instrument to be used for performance appraisal or comparison. Rather, it is intended as a practical tool for continuous professional development in digital learning; a means for educators to reflect on their overall readiness to create and facilitate digital learning activities, to identify and map the knowledge and skills that they need, and to create a personal development pathway to increase their proficiency in each area of the framework.

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4.8.3 Mapping the digital learning frameworks All three of the frameworks discussed in this chapter offer slightly different perspectives on the knowledge, skill and expertise required by educators to effectively implement digital learning and are designed to encourage you to step back and consider your own position in this regard. Crucially, all of them emphasise the importance of looking beyond the physical and technical affordances of the digital tools and resources, and instead focusing on the pedagogical and contextual concerns that determine their use in learning situations. For academic teaching librarians, general consideration of digital learning knowledge and skill includes additional aspects that relate to our unique role in the academy:  

 

a presumption (by others) of digital expertise and sophisticated use of online tools that may or may not be true for all librarians a ‘content base’ that is difficult to define clearly in relation to our teaching; for example, the ‘subjects’ of library and information work can range from database searching to digital reputation management to scholarly communication, depending on context a long history of information literacy instruction that continues to evolve with the changing information landscape opportunities to teach students that are mediated through faculty course directors, which may impose limitations on the nature and extent of digital learning that is possible.

Table 4.2 on the next page maps the different components of each framework to highlight the overlaps between them.

4.9 A reflective approach to planning and designing digital learning In order for learning to take place, learners need to have their minds focussed on activities that cause them to mindfully consider what they are doing, to reflect on the activity with which they are engaged and to purposefully plan and deal with consequences of these actions. (Oliver and Herrington, 2001, 25)

Having reflected on your own state of knowledge, skill and expertise in relation to digital learning, we now turn to consider some general approaches to developing and structuring your teaching activities to support the most pedagogically focused use of technology. In her book, Booth suggested a ‘three-stage experiential instructional technology literacy process’ approach

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Table 4.2 Mapping the digital learning frameworks Digital learning knowledge TPACK domains

DigCompEdu

• Developing, enhancing and maintaining our personal digital literacy

• Professional engagement

• Teaching students how to • Technological knowledge access and use specific (TK) digital tools, resources and apps in different contexts and for different purposes (technology in learning)

• Digital resources

• Using digital technology to facilitate and support effective student learning and assessment (technology for learning)

• Teaching and learning • Assessment

• Pedagogical knowledge (PK) • Technological pedagogical knowledge (TPK)

• Supporting students’ digital • Content knowledge (CK) literacy development • Pedagogical content knowledge (PCK)

• Facilitating learners’ digital competence • Empowering learners

• Maintaining awareness of the ethical and sociocultural aspects of digital learning

• Empowering learners

to integrating what she called SICTs (social, information and communication technologies) into your teaching practice. She defined the stages as: 1 Experience Gain hands-on, authentic insight into emerging social, information, and communication tools. 2 Evaluate Critically evaluate their potential to achieve specific learning outcomes. 3 Customize Integrate tools into instruction based on the needs and objectives of a learning scenario (Booth, 2011, 64)

With this approach, the focus remains on the students’ learning needs and the desired outcomes of the learning situation, rather than the features and capabilities of the tools. Booth also suggested that technologies can be evaluated in relation to ten specific attributes or affordances, which the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines as the ‘the qualit[ies] or propert[ies] of an object that defines its possible uses or makes clear how it can or should be used’ (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, 2020b). The attributes proposed by Booth were assessment, collaboration, communication, customisation, documentation, play, portability, productivity, sharing and visualisation.

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Auditing individual tools and apps in terms of what they enable you and your students to do, enables you to align them with the overall goals or outcomes of your programme or session, and to ensure that the tools are integrated in ways which support the attainment of those goals and outcomes – rather than the other way around. Other considerations, such as the cost of the technologies, or whether they are ‘FLOSS’ (Free (Libre) Open Source Software) are also be factored in, based on the resources already available in your institution. The different factors are united in Booth’s proposed ‘Toolkit’ approach to evaluating instructional technologies, which involves experimenting with and examining the affordances of digital tools in order to ‘build a personal technology “toolkit” that connects specific SICTs to instructional and learning outcomes’ (Booth, 2011, 72). It promotes a thoughtful approach from the start, grounded in both hands-on experience of the tools, and in sustained reflection on the pedagogical soundness of the planned learning activities. As the importance of digital learning grows, you might avail yourself of several instructional design models, which were developed to support a holistic, student-centred approach to digital integration, rather than modes which simply ‘add on’ digital tools to existing courses and programmes without a corresponding realignment of the learning outcomes, methods and assessment. Two models in particular support an approach to digital learning which considers EdTech primarily in terms of how it supports the construction of knowledge and understanding in an active and collaborative learning environment that is enhanced, but not dominated by, digital tools. They are Mayes and Fowler’s Conceptualisation Cycle and Oliver and Herrington’s Model of Instructional Design for Web-based Learning.

4.9.1 Mayes and Fowler’s Conceptualisation Cycle The first model starts with a consideration of how learning takes place. It aligns with the constructivist theory of learning, which is based on the idea that new knowledge is not passively acquired but is rather constructed by learners through their active engagement with the environment, and in encountering new information and experiences. Social interaction is a critical element of constructivist learning, as students construct meaning and develop understanding through absorbing and processing the multiple perspectives of their instructors and peer learners. Mayes and Fowler (1999) envisaged learning as a three-stage cycle, which depicts an ongoing process of conceptual change and understanding, as students encounter new information, conceptualise and apply it through learning activities, and then reflect on and reinforce their understanding, supported by their instructor and peer engagement. Each stage is described below:

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Conceptualisation stage The stage during which students first encounter other people’s ideas or concepts, which they attempt to integrate with their existing knowledge frameworks, e.g. through reading, viewing, attending class, etc. Construction stage The stage during which the students apply new ideas and concepts through the performance of meaningful learning tasks, e.g. through solving problems, taking tests, presenting to their peers, creating artefacts, etc. Dialogue stage The stage during which students test and develop new concepts and understanding through active dialogue with teachers and peers, e.g. through receiving constructive feedback, or engaging in discussion with teachers and peers.

So, how does this cyclical view of knowledge construction translate to digital learning modes that facilitate effective student learning? Conceptualising learning in this cyclical way encourages us to connect or map specific technologies to the different stages of the cycle, by classifying them in terms of the types of learning activities that they support. In the model, educational technologies are therefore classified as primary, secondary and tertiary, depending on the stage of the cycle to which they are mapped. Technologies are specifically chosen to facilitate learning at each stage: 





Primary This refers to EdTech that is designed to support the delivery or provision of information to students, e.g. online lecture notes, instructional videos, slides, websites, etc. This is mapped to the conceptualisation stage. Secondary This refers to EdTech that is aimed at supporting students to engage in meaningful learning tasks, which allow them to apply the information previously gained during the conceptualisation stage, e.g. interactive online tutorials, authoring tools, quizzes, etc. This is mapped to the construction stage. Tertiary This refers to EdTech which supports two-way dialogue between students and teacher, or multi-way conversations and discussions between peers, e.g. online chat, discussion boards, videoconferencing, etc. This is mapped to the dialogue stage.

The stages and associated EdTech categories are depicted in Figure 4.5 opposite. Approaching digital learning in this way encourages you to think of educational technologies first and foremost in terms of how they can support meaningful engagement and conceptual change, rather than myopically

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Figure 4.5 Mayes and Fowler’s Conceptualisation Cycle

focusing on their overt functionality (Mayes and Fowler, 1999). It offers a framework for the careful planning of learning activities (not just digital) to enable students to move progressively through each stage of the cycle, thus putting their learning needs first. However, research has shown that the use of LMSs in particular often focuses principally on the ‘conceptualisation’ stage of learning, with platforms used mainly as information repositories or to facilitate effective course management; for example, the ECAR 2017 Student and Faculty Technology Research Study found that when it came to the LMS in their institutions, ‘what faculty find critical and most satisfying are functions that enable asynchronous interaction: pushing out documents such as a syllabus and handouts, pushing out and collecting assignments, and posting grades in the gradebook’ (Pomerantz, Brown and Brooks, 2018, 3). Framing the learning experience as a continuous conceptual cycle of information encountering and knowledge construction helps to challenge this limited approach to digital learning, and to also explore the ‘secondary’ and ‘tertiary’ affordances of EdTech.

4.9.2 Oliver and Herrington’s Model of Instructional Design for Webbased Learning The second model, devised by Oliver and Herrington, also supports the design of learning environments that enable knowledge construction, and

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promotes a macro rather than micro view of digital learning, in which technologies are considered primarily in relation to the learning tasks which form the core of the student learning experience, and are derived from learning outcomes. For Oliver and Herrington (2001, 20), ‘online learning settings that support knowledge construction, by their very nature, are of a task-centred form’. The critical constituent elements for designing online learning settings are identified as Learning tasks, Learning resources, and Learning supports, which are considered holistically in the design of any digital learning experience (see Figure 4.6).

Figure 4.6 Oliver and Herrington’s Model of Instructional Design for Web-based Learning 

Learning tasks In this framework, learning tasks ‘underpin and form the focus of the learning design’ (Oliver and Herrington, 2001, 21), and everything else flows from them. The constructivist approach to learning places students at the centre and understanding develops through active engagement with meaningful tasks that are aligned to learning outcomes and embedded in authentic contexts that reflect real-world scenarios. Much constructivist learning is based around active problem solving, often in collaborative settings, where students grapple with ill-formed questions and dilemmas, seek information as required, and adopt a trialand-error or investigative approach to the issue at hand. An important factor is authenticity, i.e. tasks should ideally reflect contexts outside the classroom. Examples of tasks might include learning activities such as

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role play, problem-based learning (PBL), case studies, team projects and presentations, creating videos and animations, report writing, online tutorials and quizzes. Learning resources Learning resources refer to the materials that students may require to undertake the learning tasks at hand but are not themselves the centre point of the learning environment: ‘The resources are a means to an end and not an end in themselves’ (Oliver and Herrington, 2001, 22). While it is important to create an information-rich setting, populated with a carefully curated blend of relevant multimedia resources, which students access seamlessly, the spotlight remains on the learning tasks that determine the format and range of materials provided. Learning resources might include links to the library and external websites, e-books, videos, slide presentations, lecture notes, e-journal articles, etc. Learning supports The third element includes static resources that offer guidance and direction to students as they engage with the online learning environment, as well as interactive and collaborative tools to enable communication with staff and peers. These might consist of announcements, course syllabi, reading lists, step-by-step task guidelines, e-tutorials, discussion forums, FAQs, and live chat sessions. Learning resources can also count as learning supports, and vice versa.

When designing online or blended learning experiences, one approach has been to represent each of the three components with a shape, and to create visual sequences of learning events (see Figure 4.7 on the next page). Learning activities, sessions or programmes are designed with the learning tasks at the centre, supplemented by resources and supports. This approach encourages a holistic way of thinking about your teaching – learning resources and supports are considered only in relation to the tasks, which are carefully planned around learning outcomes. For example, consider an online asynchronous session on identifying ‘fake news’ delivered by an academic teaching librarian via the institutional LMS. The planning process might look like this, based on the learning outcome: ‘Students will demonstrate that they can identify news items that consist of mis- or dis-information’. In this example (Figure 4.8), placing the learning tasks at the centre promotes careful consideration about the types of resources and supports that are most useful; rather than adapting the tasks to fit the content, the opposite approach is applied; resources and supports are selected to support the tasks. The simple visualisation using shapes helps to create a sense of balance and ensures that the overall learning experience is adequately resourced and supported.

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Figure 4.7 Visual representations of learning components

Learning resources

Crash Course Video

Learning tasks

Watch Crash Course Navigating Digital Information video on ‘The Facts about Fact Checking’

Learning supports

Guidelines on writing Press Releases

Read two online news articles, one fake and one genuine

IFLA ‘How to Spot Fake News ‘

Fake News LibGuide

In groups, write a ‘press release’ debunking the fake news item including reasons why

Collaborative Authoring tool in LMS

Group Discussion Forum on LMS

Figure 4.8 Visualisation of ‘learning tasks, resources, supports’ approach to instructional design

The inherent value of each model is that the decision to incorporate EdTech (or even not to incorporate it) is made solely in relation to the learning tasks, and therefore the learning outcomes that have been set for the session or programme. It promotes an approach to digital learning design that is not based on the attributes, sophistication or novelty of digital tools, platforms and apps, but rather on what is best for the students in a specific learning context. In this way, instructors are encouraged to go beyond what has been referred to as a ‘digital facelift,’ and instead to ‘create transformative blends through an intentional course redesign process’ (Graham and Stein, 2014, 9).

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4.10 A final word on digital learning For academic teaching librarians, the teaching and learning landscape is increasingly digital; as Johnston suggested, ‘with the focus in higher education on the importance of graduate attributes and the increasing number of teaching and learning activities being delivered via technology, online information literacy courses appear to be an effective way of delivering information literacy and information technology skills to students’ (Johnston, 2010, 208). However, the ability to engage confidently and successfully with digital learning depends on multiple extrinsic and intrinsic factors, some of which are outside your control and depend on your institutional or even geographical circumstances. This chapter also acknowledges the subtle – or not-so-subtle – pressure to integrate digital tools into teaching that can sometimes result in approaches that are disconnected from pedagogical best practice, and ineffective for students. The aim of this chapter has been to provide you with the time, space and tools to reflect on your role in digital learning – where you are now, where you would like to go, and how you might get there. You have had the opportunity to consider:   

 

how the various terminology related to digital learning is defined and understood in different contexts the key issues, challenges and trends that are shaping the current digital learning landscape within HE, and academic libraries in particular the broad, overlapping areas of knowledge, skill and expertise that you may need to draw upon in your self-development as a facilitator and designer of digital learning experiences for students the importance of a pedagogically grounded, student-focused approach to the design and implementation of digital learning experiences frameworks for planning digital learning experiences that place the students’ needs front and centre, and support a collaborative, constructivist approach to student learning.

Exercises 1 Creating a digital learning strategy for your library Imagine that you are the Head of Digital Learning in your library (or, if in a group situation, you are a member of the Digital Learning Taskforce). You have been asked to write a plan for your library that clearly sets out the digital learning strategy for the next three years. In particular, your library director has asked that you consider how the library strategy might align with the ACRL Information Literacy

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Framework, or other frameworks that you might deem relevant. It has also been suggested that your strategy follows the format set out in the Digital Learning Planning Guidelines published by the Professional Development Service for Teachers in Ireland (Professional Development Service for Teachers, n.d.): Prepare your strategy, using the following prompts drawn from these Guidelines to structure your report:        

your library details your library vision/mission statement brief account of the use of digital learning technologies in your library to date your plan for gathering evidence to inform the digital learning strategy the focus of your digital learning strategy a summary of your library’s strengths with regards to digital learning what you are planning to focus on to further improve digital learning practice in your library your digital learning strategy, which includes: (a) the targets for improvement you have set; (b) the actions you will implement to achieve these; (c) who is responsible for implementing, monitoring and reviewing your improvement plan; and (d) how you intend to measure progress and check outcomes.

2 Reflecting on your ‘digital readiness’ Consider a recent project or workplace activity involving digital learning technology in which you were involved (similar to the example given in Table 4.1) – for example, you might have been asked to create a video tutorial, develop a LibGuide, teach a class on data management, etc. Map your experience in detail using the different ‘digital learning knowledge domains’ and levels of skill and expertise that were set out in the chapter. Can you identify any gaps in your knowledge and expertise that came to light during the process? What were the challenges that you experienced (if any), and what would help to resolve those challenges if you were required to repeat the task? How would you have rated your overall digital readiness with regard to this specific task or project? If you like, you can also refer to the two additional competence frameworks (TPACK and DigCompEdu) to deepen your reflection. 3 Building a digital learning experience For this exercise, you may use a real-life learning scenario, or create a fictional one, depending on your circumstances. Using Oliver and Herrington’s learning tasks, resources and supports model as outlined in

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the chapter, create a blended learning session or programme on a topic of your choice, using both synchronous and asynchronous digital learning technologies. You can map the session or programme using the visual icons, as was demonstrated in the example provided in Figure 4.8.

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CHAPTER 5

Leading and co-ordinating for the academic teaching librarian

Personal reflection points  What does leadership mean to me in the context of academic teaching librarianship?  Do I/could I see myself as a leader? Why? Why not?  What can I do to feel confident in taking on a leadership role?  How does my institution support or hinder the work of academic teaching librarians?  What do I think an ‘information literacy culture’ should look like in HE institutions?  What kind of professional relationships do I have with other stakeholders in my institution (e.g. academic faculty, administrators, IT or EdTech support, Teaching and Learning units, etc.)?  How would I describe my professional community?  How does my professional community support me and my work?  How do I/could I contribute to my professional community?

5.1 Introduction: leadership, management and culture Now that you have reflected on whether you wish to actively pursue a teaching role in your career as an academic librarian, and explored how you can develop, maintain and document this role on a medium- and long-term basis, we move on now to explore the potential next stage of your professional development journey. Whether you are looking down the road into the future, are on the cusp of stepping into a management-level role or are currently working in a formal leadership position, the topics discussed are of relevance to you. In this chapter, we expand our previous focus on the

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frontline teaching role and turn to examine the managerial and strategic aspects of academic teaching librarianship. In the sections that follow, you are encouraged to reflect on your understanding and experience of leadership in the context of your instructional role and responsibilities, to consider how an institutional culture that is conducive to information literacy development and the mission of academic teaching librarians might be fostered in your institution, and to understand the personal and professional benefits of engaging with, and contributing to, the wider community of academic teaching librarians.

5.2 Leadership and the academic teaching librarian Instructional leadership refers to a teacher’s influence beyond the classroom environment to initiate change among peers, administrators and within the institution. (Saunders, 2011, 264)

Before delving into this section, it is a good idea to take some time at this point to reflect on what leadership means to you, both from a general perspective and more specifically in relation to the academic teaching librarian’s role. The following prompts are provided to help to tease out your perceptions, to encourage you to think about what you perceive as leadership attributes and to express how you believe that leadership is demonstrated and recognised in practice. They are also designed to allow you to reflect on your selfperception of leadership, and to identify the personal and environmental factors that you believe have helped or hindered you on your leadership journey to date. If applicable, this exercise can also be carried out in groups in a classroom setting, where participants are comfortable sharing and debating their personal perspectives. Reflective pause – perceptions of leadership  People, whom I would consider to be leaders (both famous and those personally known to me, living or dead, in any professional domain, academic field, life context, etc.), include . . .  I consider these people to be leaders because . . . ? What identifies them as leaders?  A leader is someone who . . .  Leadership is demonstrated by . . .  People become leaders by/through . . .  Leaders differ from followers by . . .  Leadership is needed when/in order to . . .

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 An academic teaching librarian leader is recognised by . . .  Leadership is important in academic teaching librarianship in order to . . .

What did this short exercise reveal to you about your perceptions of leadership? Did you find that you had a very fixed idea of who or what a leader should be, or were you less sure of how to identify and recognise leadership in different contexts? Perhaps you concluded that it is not possible to generalise in this way, and that there is no generic way of describing leadership. The ACRL guidelines Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians (ACRL, 2017) that were introduced in Chapter 2 specifically address the concepts of leadership and co-ordination as they relate to the academic librarian’s teaching role. Perhaps pause at this point and skip back to the relevant pages, for a reminder of the role descriptions and strengths outlined under the headings of ‘Leader’ and ‘Co-ordinator’. Alternatively, you can access the guidelines at this link: www.ala.org/acrl/ standards/teachinglibrarians. You might perceive considerable overlap between the role attributes and corresponding strengths described for these two roles; both invoke similar qualities, goals, characteristics and activities, and the lines between the two may seem blurred. This is frequently borne out in practice. By definition, many academic teaching librarians who take on a co-ordination role are also those who occupy a formal leadership position in their libraries. At a more granular level, the differences between the leader role and the co-ordinator role, as articulated in the document, are similar to the differences between ‘leader’ and ‘manager’ highlighted by Grassian and Kaplowitz (2005, 37): ‘Leaders know where they want their organizations to go. Managers get the organization to that goal. Leadership deals with direction, while management deals with speed.’ In other words, leaders are understood to be those who articulate a vision for their organisation, who inspire and motivate their colleagues to act in pursuit of that vision, who understand how to nimbly navigate organisational politics to connect with key stakeholders, and who are ultimately perceived as role models by their colleagues – they ‘walk the talk,’ so to speak. By contrast, managers or co-ordinators are those who use and apply their extensive practical knowledge of organisational structures, policies, personnel and procedures in order to skilfully turn that vision into reality. Management tends to be associated more with specific job titles and roles, while leadership, in a sense, could be viewed as akin to a state of mind – although they often can be, the de facto leaders in an organisation are not always those at the top of the management chain, with the weightiest responsibilities and matching job titles (and salaries). While both roles are fundamentally based on the idea of influence, this can be played out differently in practice; the influence of a leader can exist at an

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abstract level, in the extent to which they inspire others, ignite the imagination of their co-workers or drum up enthusiasm for innovation and change, whereas the influence of a manager or co-ordinator is primarily vested in their ability to mobilise colleagues and efficiently deploy resources in order to get things done – i.e. to effectively manage change, implement innovative ideas in practice or simply ensure that things run smoothly on a day-to-day basis. Think of some of your colleagues whom you might consider to be natural leaders – do they hold official senior management positions, or is there just something intangible about their attitude and conduct that conveys a sense of leadership? The purpose of this section is to examine leadership in a broader sense than the traditional organisational or hierarchical perspective, and to explore how you might take on a leadership role at any point in your career as an academic teaching librarian. In the following sections, we will explore what it means to be a leader, and how you can endeavour to take on a leadership role.

5.2.1 Who is a leader? Twenty-first century education is calling for a transition from authority-centered leadership to more learning-centered models that focus on leading for learning. (Dotson and Jones, 2011, 80)

While much has been written about leadership attributes in different domains, and lengthy lists of ‘What it takes to be a great leader!’ can easily be found through simple online searches, to date ‘the research on library leader skills and traits has not produced a consensus on leadership skills needed to be successful’ (Martin, 2018, 803). What do we know about the attributes of leadership in the context of academic teaching librarianship? One version was suggested by Grassian and Kaplowitz (2005), who described the personal qualities and characteristics that are most frequently associated with being a leader – they cited vision, passion, courage and integrity as core leadership qualities, while their leadership characteristics included ‘communicates passionately, empowers others, encourages diversity, takes risks, builds relationships, and seeks out learning opportunities’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2005, 14–15). They linked the importance of leadership to effective change management in libraries: ‘Change keeps happening at a faster and faster pace. We must be adaptable, agile and intelligent in order to deal with this incessant barrage of frequent change’ (p. 3). From a similar perspective, they described good managers as skilful operators and planners, who are highly organised, efficient and goal-oriented, who delegate appropriately, offer constructive feedback, and generally move things along in an effective

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way. In the context of information literacy instruction, Grassian and Kaplowitz suggested that leadership in practice can be demonstrated in multiple ways, ranging from the on-the-ground innovative instructional activities of frontline teaching librarians to the far-reaching advocacy efforts of individuals and groups who strive to embed information literacy across institutional academic programmes and policies, and to install it on the national political agendas of their countries. Saunders’ view of ‘teacher leaders,’ while anchored in the idea of inspiring and propelling change, is also contextualised as instructional influence and improvement, and framed as practitioners who act as an inspiration for others: ‘Often dubbed “teacher leaders”, these instructors do not necessarily hold management positions, but they exhibit the qualities and skills which allow them to inspire colleagues and administrators and to motivate change to improve teaching practice’ (Saunders, 2011, 265). Her insightful study into the attributes and characteristics that are common to librarians who are identified as ‘teacher leaders’ elicited a range of personal, interpersonal and organisational traits that appear to be influential in those who display leadership in this context. These are summarised in Table 5.1. Table 5.1 Common traits of librarian ‘teacher leaders’ Personal traits

Teacher leaders: • take responsibility for their own continuous learning and professional development, through for example, CPD and contribution to scholarship • use research and data to inform their decision-making • assume a ‘learning orientation’ in their work • possess a significant amount of teaching experience and demonstrate expertise about teaching and learning • engage in reflective practice – frequently take time to step back and think critically about what they are doing • identify areas of concern and seek methods to improve • are innovative and willing to take risks in the classroom • create an environment ‘where it is alright to fail’.

Interpersonal traits

Teacher leaders: • can effectively communicate their vision of instruction to colleagues within and outside the library • endeavour to build productive collaborative relationships with faculty across campus • ‘reach beyond faculty to collaborate with other campus partners such as writing centers, academic support departments, and academic technology or instructional design centers’ (Saunders, 2011, 267) • understand how to gain the trust of their academic colleagues • create positive word-of-mouth about their instructional work. Continued

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Table 5.1 Continued Organisational traits Teacher leaders: • possess ‘emotional intelligence’ and ‘situational knowledge’ in relation to their workplace – i.e. the ability to read and understand different environments • understand the political landscape of the institutions and organisations within which they function • understand how to effect change within the organisational structure of their institutions • are politically savvy and understand how to build political support within their organisations • can identify and work with ‘key players’ and other influential individuals in order to achieve goals for their information literacy programmes.

Another study, by Johnston, offered a similar perception of teacherleadership, in that it can be derived from knowledge, skill and expertise, rather than conferred via a formal leadership role; she contended that ‘teacher leadership goes beyond the scope of the teacher leading students in a classroom; teachers are empowered within a culture of learning, taking authority from pedagogical expertise, and focusing on improving instruction and student learning’ (Johnston, 2015, 40). A different study, carried out by Jordan, used the Delphi method with a group of public library directors to establish a set of 18 research-based leadership competences that can be used for the ‘development of training opportunities for librarians who wish to be successful in their positions as directors’ (Jordan, 2012, 37). The Delphi method is a research approach that is ‘designed to obtain the most reliable consensus of a group of experts’ (Pickard, 2013, 149). Like the general competence frameworks discussed in Chapter 2 (e.g. the Professional Knowledge and Skills Base in the UK), the purpose of the study was to develop a structure to enable aspiring library managers to identify their knowledge and skill gaps in relation to leadership and to plan their professional education pathway accordingly. The 18 leadership competences, which the library directors agreed as the most critical to effective leadership, were: Enthusiasm; Demonstrating leadership; Delegation; Accountability; Planning; Integrity; Risk taking; Credibility; Resource management; Customer service; Interpersonal skills; Communication skills; Flexibility; Vision; Political understanding; Maturity; Problem solving; and Advocacy skills (Jordan, 2012, 42). More recently, in contrast to the traditional approach of linking particular personal traits and characteristics to effective leadership, Martin proposed that leadership is better explored through soliciting the perceptions of followers, due to their key role in determining who is accepted as a leader in any organisational context. He contended that leadership ‘might be better

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seen as a leadership/followership process’ (Martin, 2018, 801), since without the voluntary acceptance of followers, leaders may not exist. From this perspective, leadership is shaped by the attributes, skills and competences that are valued by followers in specific contexts. His study involved asking a sample of 318 US-based academic librarians to ‘describe the three traits of past library leaders who have had a positive impact on the daily work life, and the three traits they think future library leaders will need to have a positive effect on the work lives of librarians’ (p. 817). Several key ‘leadership themes’ emerged from the results of the study, reflecting the attributes that were observed and valued by the academic librarians in leaders, with whom they had worked previously, or with whom they would like to work in future. The themes were: 

   

 

Emotional intelligence: i.e. is self-aware, manages his or her and others’ emotions, is highly empathic, and builds and maintains relationships with those in the library; is a complete person unafraid to show his or her many sides and has a positive attitude and outlook. Empowering: i.e. is supportive, trusting and enabling of followers, and one who mentors and develops followers toward their full potential. A visionary thinker: i.e. is highly intelligent, has a vision for the library and is politically savvy. Communicator: i.e. is skilled at all forms of communication, communicates regularly, listens to others, and is approachable and visible. Librarian/manager: i.e. is hardworking, with a strong understanding of all areas of academic libraries and possesses the fundamental skills of a good manager. Trustworthy: i.e. is honest, transparent and fair and has a strong sense of integrity and personal accountability. Catalyst for change: i.e. is innovative, flexible, open-minded, and not afraid to take risks.

Overall, Martin’s research with academic librarians revealed a preference for a library leader who ‘possesses strong inter- and intrapersonal (emotional intelligence and people first) and communication skills, can successfully lead change, and can create a vision for the future of the library’ (Martin, 2018, 816).

5.2.2 Leadership is for everyone Leadership emerges from the interactions of the different individuals within a group where essential skills and knowledge are dispersed among many. (Johnston, 2015, 40)

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The lists of traits, attributes and competences described in the previous section, as well as the ‘roles and strengths’ outlined in the ACRL document, might have the effect of suggesting that leadership roles only favour certain types of people, e.g. those who naturally possess the associated traits, or who have the opportunities and motivation to pursue training to develop the required competences. However, there is another way of thinking about leadership that might be helpful to those of you who are concerned that you don’t fit the leadership mould. This entails a shift away from a focus on specific leadership traits and competences, and towards a situated conception of leadership that focuses on the knowledge and skills that are needed in specific situations and for defined purposes. In their book, Grassian and Kaplowitz contended that leadership should not be considered as the sole preserve of those who occupy ‘official’ leadership roles or who display particular traits, but rather that it is a concern of each and every member of an organisation. Depending on what a situation calls for, every person in an organisation has the potential to take on a leadership role, if given the opportunity. From this perspective, every member of an organisation is potentially a leader, within their own sphere of knowledge and skill, and everyone has something to offer: ‘Leadership . . . is not dependent on job title or position in the institution. It consists of a conglomeration of traits, skills, abilities, beliefs, and characteristics. A person may take on a leadership role in a single situation or in many different areas over time’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2005, 2). The concept of leadership as a state or position that derives from the knowledge and expertise that is required for a particular task or within a particular context, rather than associated with occupying a formal authority role, is explored by Johnston in her research on the applicability of distributed leadership theory to the work of teacher librarians in a school setting. Distributed leadership is based on the core idea of purposive collaboration, where individuals ‘bring ideas and expertise together so that their collective action achieves more than their individual actions’ (Johnston, 2015, 39). This view of leadership focuses on maximising the expertise of organisational players, and on finding ways of working together effectively that are based on collective action and consensus, rather than top-down or imposed directives. Leadership, in this context, ‘revolves’ to those who possess the specific skills or knowledge that are needed for a particular purpose, over the course of a project, or in response to a situation that has arisen. As the amount of project-based work in academic libraries increases (Serrano and Avilés, 2016), this is a useful way of framing leadership. From your perspective as an academic teaching librarian, reflecting on your leadership potential does not mean focusing only on whether you possess, or

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can develop, the qualities and characteristics traditionally associated with being a leader, although this is part of it; rather it also involves taking stock of the specialist skills, knowledge and expertise you possess that can be leveraged for different purposes, and seeking to ensure that when the opportunity arises you are positioned as the ‘go-to’ person, to whom leadership might revolve when these skills and knowledge are needed in a given situation. For example:  



A background in quantitative research and data analytics might lead to you chairing a sub-committee on learning analytics in your library. Previous experience in digital learning might result in a prominent role for you in leveraging the library’s involvement in delivering instruction via the institutional LMS (learning management system) or other online platforms. Prior work experience in graphic design or digital marketing could position you front and centre in the library’s instructional outreach and marketing efforts.

This view of leadership as collaborative and situation-dependent was strikingly exemplified by the recent crisis precipitated by the global COVID19 pandemic in 2020, during which most academic libraries were required to physically close their doors to their users. This emergency necessitated an immediate and unified response from librarians in order to ensure the continuation of essential services for students, researchers and academic faculty. With most librarians working off-site during this period, a key strategy of the emergency response involved moving as many services as possible online, including all teaching and learning support. Library staff drew on their individual strengths and expertise to craft innovative responses to the crisis. Some of the approaches implemented by librarians included:     

enabling virtual reference services to allow patrons to communicate remotely with library staff providing live webinars instead of F2F classes, i.e. using platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams to deliver class sessions negotiating emergency deals with publishers to make subscription-based content freely available online during the period of shutdown creating instructional videos and other asynchronous tools and materials (e.g. LibGuides) to support and facilitate remote learning creating virtual exhibitions and promoting existing digital content to support learners and researchers at a distance

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collating and distributing important materials relating to COVID-19, including accessible guides to self-isolation, hygiene, mental and physical wellbeing, local healthcare services, social and financial supports, and general medical and epidemiological information amplifying their efforts to promote the critical importance of factchecking information, especially erroneous messages relating to the COVID emergency, that may have been circulating on social media and other public channels providing facilities to assist healthcare workers during this time, e.g. offering the use of Makerspace 3D printers to manufacture protective face-shields.

While library managers undoubtedly played a key role in co-ordinating the overall response, the ‘all hands on deck’ approach required staff members at all levels to step forward and display leadership qualities, taking control of the response within their own areas. During the crisis, many of the librarians who emerged as leaders were those who had previously developed knowledge and expertise in online teaching: for example, creating video tutorials or screencasts, hosting live webinars through software such as Zoom and MS Teams, supporting students via chat software, or delivering class sessions via the virtual classroom in the institutional LMS. The concept of distributed leadership aligns well with the ‘leader’ and ‘coordinator’ roles outlined in the ACRL Roles and Strengths guidelines – the roles are considered to be equal and interconnected, rather than organised in a hierarchical structure. The intention is to represent and describe the different roles that academic teaching librarians may occupy over the course of a career. It is likely that a leadership role will ‘revolve’ to you at some point if it hasn’t already. What this discussion shows is that leadership can be defined in several different ways: 



formally, in relation to traditional generic leadership and management functions such as strategic thinking and planning, operational management, conflict resolution, policy development, human resource management, public engagement, advocacy and outreach, financial planning and asset management informally, in relation to influence, expertise and vision, i.e. through modelling excellence in practice, inspiring innovation, contributing new ideas and approaches, motivating colleagues, and proposing plans for the future development of the organisation

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strategically, in relation to specific projects or situations, for which particular knowledge or skills are required, and which involve passing the leadership hat to different people at different times and for defined purposes, e.g. for funded projects or emergency responses to a crisis casually, in relation to specific individuals who exert an intangible yet powerful and inspiring influence on colleagues and the organisation as a whole, through their enthusiasm or innovative approaches to teaching and learning.

So, what has been your experience of leadership in your career to date? Before moving on, it is helpful at this point to reflect on a time (or times) where you acted in a leadership capacity, in any of the contexts described above – it doesn’t have to be in relation to a formal role, or even related to teaching. Part of this reflection involves considering what you had to offer, that led to this position – for instance, was it a particular skillset, a formal qualification, your previous experience in another role, or even just your reputation that meant you were singled out to take on the role. As always, this exercise can be carried out in a collaborative group setting, if participants are willing to share their experiences with others. Reflective pause – your leadership experience Can you think of a time when you took on a leadership role, either in the workplace, education, or in another context? Take a few minutes to reflect on this experience, perhaps using the following prompts to organise your thoughts:  How did you come to take on this role? E.g. Did you actively pursue the role,     

or were you asked to take it on? Was it part of a project/event? Was there a specific reason for you to assume the role, e.g. desirable knowledge, skills or attributes that you possessed? Why did you consider this a leadership role – what distinguished it from your other workplace roles? What were you required to do in this role? How would you describe the experience? What went well? What didn’t work, in your opinion? What would you advise someone who was about to take on a similar role?

5.3 Co-ordinating your library’s information literacy programme What does an instructional co-ordinator do? A quotation from an anonymous participant in Seymour’s ethnographic study on the experiences of academic

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information literacy instructors offers insight into the range of duties that an instruction co-ordinator might be expected to carry out in practice: As the Instruction Coordinator I plan and schedule the first-year writing workshops and general workshops and also manage the statistics and assessment analysis. I am also responsible for training the reference librarians on new instructional techniques, pedagogies, and technologies as appropriate. Finally, I also provide instruction for the reference librarians on the creation of Research Guides (LibGuides) and online tutorials. (Seymour, 2012, 51)

In terms of the specific activities and duties that might typically be included under the co-ordination banner, a good place to look is in job specifications that are created to recruit for this type of position. One job advertisement for an ‘Information Literacy Coordinator’ that was posted online on the Government Jobs website by Colorado State University-Pueblo in 2018 offers a useful insight into the practical requirements of this type of role. The major job responsibilities listed for this position included the following: 1 Manage and co-ordinate the library instruction program, including:  develop goals, strategies, and curriculum  develop and implement student learning outcomes and appropriate assessment tools to measure student success  lead the campus in aligning the ACRL Framework to the curriculum  work with library and departmental faculty to develop collaborative teaching and learning projects  in collaboration with the Outreach Librarian, educate faculty, staff, and students about the program  co-ordinate the development of LibGuides, tutorials, and other web-based instructional materials  oversee daily operations of the library’s instruction program, including: – contacting academic departments to co-ordinate library instruction offerings – scheduling all library instruction classes – assigning library faculty to teach appropriate classes – providing support and training for library faculty who teach 2 Serve as liaison to Composition and General Education programs to integrate information literacy instruction for novice students into selected lower division courses:

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 collaborate with and support faculty in course-specific ways, including

leading efforts to align course learning outcomes within the ACRL Framework  provide point-of-need instruction sessions and assignments  participate in library assessment processes for student learning outcomes  create research guides and/or tutorials  identify library materials relevant to courses to embed in Blackboard, place on reserve, or include in course packs  provide consultation to faculty and students in the department related to research, information literacy, and scholarly communication  manage collection development for assigned subject areas  provide reference services at the Research Help Desk or via LibAnswers as scheduled 3 Perform sustained inquiry into one’s discipline leading to practical application within the library as well as research resulting in published or presented scholarly output. 4 Serve the Library, the University, and the Profession through active membership on boards, committees, panels, etc.

This job description not only encompassed the practical aspects of planning, designing and delivering instruction and learning supports, but notably specified a commitment to evidence-based practice, including research and publishing, as well as additional service responsibilities across the institution as a whole, and within the professional LIS community. Clearly, the role of instruction co-ordinator is multifaceted, and is not only concerned with the design and delivery of sessions and programmes, but also with preparing the ground for the overall development, co-ordination and implementation of the library’s instructional activities and with the assessment and reporting of their impact and effectiveness afterwards. Instruction co-ordinators are also typically frontline teachers themselves, who take on the co-ordinator’s role following several years of experience. The instruction co-ordinator maintains a bird’s-eye view of the overall teaching activities offered by the library and decides, either individually or as part of a team, how best to implement the library’s overall instructional mission in practice. As mentioned previously, co-ordinators are also managers: ‘the people throughout an organization who have the resources (both materials and personnel) to help the leader’s vision become a reality’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2005, 36) – although in reality, many co-ordinators are also instructional visionaries, and play a key role in formulating the library’s instructional mission. This typically involves a complex mix of duties and responsibilities, formal and informal, that varies widely according to the size,

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mission and management structure of the institution in question. In some libraries, ‘where the organizational structure is team-based, the role of the instruction co-ordinator may be shared by multiple team members’ (ACRL, 2008, 4), while in others it is a dedicated, specialised role carried out by an individual who has been specifically recruited, or promoted internally to the position. Some libraries don’t treat co-ordination as a separate role; rather, the functions associated with co-ordination are blended with the other duties carried out by Information, Reference or Subject Librarians, depending on the management structure and library workflow.

5.3.1 Focus on relationship building A core aspect of the work of the instruction co-ordinator centres on the development, maintenance and nurturing of good working relationships with other institutional stakeholders, such as library colleagues, academic faculty, educational technologists, administrators and other support units; ‘The skills and labor involved in library instruction coordinator work – developing pedagogical training, coordinating information literacy (IL) curricular integration and assessment, and training teaching librarians – includes an intense investment in the quality of relationships with others’ (Arellano Douglas and Gadsby, 2019, 2). This includes, for example: 

    

networking with faculty and other university units to seek out opportunities for embedding instruction into subject curricula and programmes collaborating closely with library and other institutional colleagues to develop and sustain programmes over time mentoring library colleagues who are new to instruction, or who are seeking to enhance their knowledge and skills negotiating conflicts within the library, and with other institutional colleagues and units persuading managers and administrators to allocate resources for instructional programmes supporting colleagues through major changes in the library’s instructional mission.

Grassian and Kaplowitz highlighted three ways in which managers ‘make things happen,’ namely Communicate, Collaborate and Create Teams, all of which involve careful and considerate people management: ‘IL managers should focus their energies on cultivating relationships with the key people on whom they are dependent to get their ideas implemented’ (Grassian and

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Kaplowitz, 2005, 44). Arellano Douglas and Gadsby (2019) described this as ‘relational work’, which involves a high degree of ‘emotional labor’ on the part of staff in these roles. Over the past decade, the concept of ‘emotional labor’ has gained a lot of attention as a critical occupational stressor in librarianship; Matteson and Miller (2012, 177) defined it as ‘the awareness of the emotional expressions required of a job, and the strategies used to express those emotions’, and it is frequently expressed as a type of stressful dissonance between the emotions that a librarian is required to outwardly display as part of their work, and the emotions that they might naturally be feeling in a situation, e.g. suppressing anger and frustration in a class where the students are distracted or bored. Findings related to this type of emotional dissonance were also a key outcome of Julien and Genuis’ (2009) study of the experiences of librarians engaged in instructional work. Arellano Douglas and Gadsby’s study of the experiences of academic library instruction co-ordinators shed further light on the nature and expression of this work in practice. In their paper, they identified and described four types of relational work that instructional co-ordinators commonly carry out, namely: 

 



emotional strategising: building and sustaining relationships so that they can do their job effectively; maintaining connections that are needed for the health of the library’s instruction programme preserving: taking on administrative tasks or ‘doing the library housework’ for the good of the instruction programme overall mutual empowering: providing emotional support and mentoring to fellow teaching librarians and library school students or interns, in order to contribute to the instruction programme’s effectiveness creating team: creating and maintaining an environment that makes it easy for people to work together.

Arellano and Douglas contended that this work can often seem invisible, since its success is demonstrated by the smooth and seamless implementation and running of instructional programmes; the extensive relationship building that takes place behind the scenes to get the programmes to this point is intangible and difficult to measure. This means that it can go unrecognised, or that people who are more naturally suited to this kind of person-oriented work may assume, or be assigned, a disproportionately high task load. The centrality of ‘relational work’ to the role of instructional co-ordinator in academic libraries is a long-standing theme; for instance, the discourse on information literacy instruction has been dominated over the years by the issue of faculty–library collaboration, and how to foster and maintain it,

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particularly in terms of facilitating curriculum-integrated or embedded instruction (McGuinness, 2011). A study published by Julien and Pecoskie, which sought to explore Canadian academic librarians’ self-perceptions as teachers, highlighted the extent to which librarians may consider their working relationships with faculty to be the key determinant of the success of their programmes: ‘The faculty/librarian relationship is so critical that sometimes instructional “success” was defined by these study participants as successful faculty negotiation and relations, rather than in terms of students’ learning’ (Julien and Pecoskie, 2009, 151). This is explored more fully in the following section.

5.4 Creating an information literacy culture in your institution Getting information literacy taken seriously at the institutional level is a critical requirement to improving instructional success. These challenges also involve the library culture. (Seymour, 2012, 64)

How do you think that the work of academic teaching librarians is perceived by the different stakeholders in your institution? Do you believe that your institutional culture is one that is supportive of your efforts, and of the work of academic teaching librarians in general? If no barriers existed, what would be your ‘dream scenario’ in terms of how the work of academic teaching librarians could be integrated across your institution? If applicable to you, take a few moments at this point to reflect on your experience of running instructional sessions or programmes in your institution. Think about a specific instance (or more than one, if it helps) where you, either individually or part of a team, delivered an information literacy session or programme and consider the following questions: Reflective pause – your experience of instructional delivery  What was the aim(s) of the programme/session?  How did it come about? (e.g. were you or your team invited to provide a session by faculty, or did you develop it independently and invite participants afterwards? Was it developed in response to a certain event or situation, e.g. the recent COVID-19 pandemic)?  Did you experience any challenges or frustrations during the development or delivery of the session/programme? If yes, what were these challenges?  Were there any institutional conditions or factors that you believe helped or hindered the development and delivery of the session/programme? If yes, what were they?

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 What did you need to do, to ensure that your programme/session got up and

running?  Were there any ways in which you felt you had to compromise, in order to

deliver your programme/session, or were you happy that you were able to provide the session you wanted?  From an aspirational point of view – what institutional conditions do you think would create the perfect environment for the work of academic teaching librarians?  How do you think you and your library colleagues could contribute to putting those conditions in place?

Badke explored the reasons for the perceived ‘invisibility’ of information literacy on university campuses, which is exemplified by the continuing popularity of the one-shot or so-called ‘remedial’ information literacy sessions that dominate librarians’ instructional work at the expense of more fully integrated learning experiences. He contended that academic faculty’s apparent reluctance to enter into teaching and learning partnerships with librarians is due to multiple overlapping factors, which are grounded chiefly in misunderstandings and cultural differences that exist between library staff, academic faculty and administrators. Overall, he concluded that the main reason for the invisibility of information literacy in colleges and universities is ‘because so few people recognize that there is a problem to address’ (Badke, 2010, 139), including academic faculty who are the de facto gatekeepers to academic programmes and curricula. Badke’s work is just one example in a lengthy ongoing debate that reaches back to the earliest days of library or bibliographic instruction. Over time, multiple factors have been suggested, which contribute to the difficulties experienced by academic librarians in creating sustainable, embedded instructional programmes in their institutions. They include: 



Librarians’ over-reliance on short-term, discrete collaborations with ‘library-friendly’ faculty (or so-called ‘academic champions’). Although potentially successful for a while, these forms of arrangement tend to disintegrate when the faculty member (or librarian) moves on, changes their approach, becomes overwhelmed with other work, or simply loses interest (McGuinness, 2007, 2011; Bowles-Terry and Donovan, 2016). A perceived reluctance among librarians to relinquish the ‘one-shot’ sessions that have dominated their instructional approaches to date, and have afforded them valuable capital with academic faculty, despite their lack of scalability and overall long-term unsustainability: ‘In a sense, instruction librarians are victims of their own success as they have

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excelled at teaching within a specifically limited context, without influencing student learning as broadly or systematically as possible’ (Bowles-Terry and Donovan, 2016, 138). A disconnect between academic faculty and librarians in terms of how information literacy is conceptualised, its importance to student learning and research, and how learning activities can be designed and implemented to foster its development. This was described by Christiansen, Stombler and Thaxton (2004, 118) as an ‘asymmetrical disconnection’ between librarians and academics, whereby ‘faculty perceive no serious problems in relations between the two groups, nor do they identify any negative consequences arising from this disconnection’. A lack of explicit links between an institution’s strategic plan and the contribution that librarians can make to it, particularly in regard to the teaching and learning mission of the institution. This is a ‘positioning’ problem for academic libraries in general, where their value to the institution and to student learning in particular is difficult to quantify and express in concrete terms. Some faculty members’ or administrators’ perceptions of the library’s function as relating chiefly to information acquisition and access; or, as the availability of networked, online information resources continues to grow, as ‘a purchasing agent with minimal ties of any significance to the faculty’ (Trzeciak, Maclachlan and Shenkar, 2011, 202).

5.4.1 Institutional culture and information literacy The complete success of an information literacy program depends on the commitment at the institutional level. (Lau, 2006, 20)

What is your understanding of institutional culture, and why is it so crucial to your work as teaching librarians? Grassian and Kaplowitz framed organisational culture (sometimes used interchangeably with institutional culture) as a system of collective beliefs, assumptions, rules and values that ‘tells people which activities are acceptable and which are not . . . , establishes ground rules for people and sets expectations and priorities . . . , determines the nature and use of power within the organization [and] sets patterns about how people interact and how they resolve conflict’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2005, 22). Understanding your institutional culture can help you to make informed decisions that are based on an in-depth knowledge of what we might refer to as the ‘Seven Ps’ of institutional culture:

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1. Who has the power and authority to make changes, to give the green light to new initiatives, and to phase out existing ones? 2. Who needs to be persuaded in order to obtain funds and resources to put your plans in place? 3. What are the processes you need to follow, to get your ideas across, and your plans in motion? 4. What are the policies that govern action and progress in your institution? 5. Who are the people, inside and outside your organisation, whom you need to bring on board or collaborate with, to attain your objectives? 6. What are the internal politics of your organisation (e.g. inter-, and intradepartmental, faculty), and how can you best navigate them? 7. What are the organisational principles, values, or ethos that you need to consider when planning your initiatives? The critical importance of institutional or organisational culture in establishing sustainable information literacy programmes on campus is a core theme, and much of the recent discourse is filtered through this lens (e.g. Bennett, 2007; Seymour, 2012; Saunders, 2013; Wilkinson and Bruch, 2014). This asks you to consider how factors relating to organisational structure, interpersonal relations, strategy and mission can support or hinder the work of academic teaching librarians; as Grassian and Kaplowitz asserted, ‘organizational culture sets the stage for how things get done’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2005, 23, emphasis added). While institutional culture is most often framed as deeply embedded ‘patterns of norms, values, practices, beliefs, and assumptions that guide the behavior of individuals and groups in an institution’ (Saunders, 2013, 138), another perspective suggests that institutional culture is not fixed but is socially constructed and reflects a ‘pluralistic, occasionally cacophonous, landscape’ which is constantly debated and renegotiated by its members (Tierney and Lanford, 2018, 2). Tierney and Lanford suggested a conceptual framework for interpreting and understanding institutional culture that consists of six core elements: mission, environment, socialisation, information, strategy and leadership (p. 3). They proposed that these are the elements that hold the key to understanding the status quo in individual academic institutions. The six elements are described below: 

Mission Typically articulated in an institutional mission statement or strategic plan, this describes the core activities and values of an institution which determine, for example, how resources are allocated, who or what is considered important or essential in the institution and the relationship an institution has with its surrounding community.

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Environment This refers to both the influence of the geographical community in which an institution is located, and the extent to which institutional culture is reflected in the decisions made about the physical campus environment. For example, an institution that prioritises and values technology-enhanced learning is more likely to have a high number of advanced digital learning spaces on campus. Socialisation This describes how members of an institution figure out which values and character traits are valued by their institution, and which are not. Understanding how the socialisation process takes place can enable understanding of why people ‘interpret and react to institutional actions in a certain fashion’ (Tierney and Lanford, 2018, 4). Information Another core element of institutional culture concerns the processes by which individuals become aware of where valuable information is held in an institution, who holds it, through which channels it is distributed, and who controls the nature of information about the institution (i.e. the ‘brand’) that is communicated publicly. Strategy This refers to how strategic decision-making takes place within institutions, e.g. according to principles of shared governance and academic freedom, or via top-down, hierarchical processes that privilege a small, elite group of administrators. Leadership The final element addresses the question of formal and informal leadership in institutions, and the recognition that the individuals who have ‘the most palpable impact on institutional practices’ at any time may not be those in official leadership roles (Tierney and Lanford, 2018, 5).

These six elements offer a useful framework for compiling a picture of how institutional culture is formed in your own institution. What do you observe in relation to each of these elements in your own situation? What do they tell you about the individuals, outputs and priorities that are currently valued in your institution? Understanding this is the first step to mapping out a sustainable approach for your instructional services – wherever that might lead. In relation to academic libraries specifically, Lau set out a number of strategic actions that libraries can undertake to secure ‘institutional commitment’ for information literacy programmes; his recommendations included interventions relating to change management, leadership, challenges and institutional culture; regarding the latter, he suggested that librarians should ‘analyse the dynamics of politics, personnel, and budget at your institution and its learning communities’ and ‘identify your institution’s own organization style of working’ (Lau, 2006, 21).

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More recently, the US-based ACRL guidelines, Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices (ACRL, 2019), listed the features of an institution’s administrative structure and approach to programme sequencing (amongst others) that are most conducive to embedding information literacy instruction in undergraduate education, if applied in practice. According to the guidelines, the conditions that need to be in place to support the full integration of information literacy include the following: Administrative and institutional support Administration within an institution:  Assigns information literacy leadership and responsibilities to appropriate

librarians, faculty, and staff.  Understands the nature of the work of instruction librarians as described in

‘ACRL’s Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians’.  Provides sufficient funding to establish and ensure ongoing support for

teaching facilities, current and appropriate technologies, appropriate staffing levels, and professional development opportunities.  Appoints and supports librarians and other professionals who exemplify and advocate for information literacy and lifelong learning; are knowledgeable about curriculum development and assessment of student learning; and apply appropriate processes in the systematic development of instruction, including analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation of instruction.  Rewards individual and institutional achievement and participation in the information literacy program.  Provides staff regular evaluations about the quality of their contributions to the program and areas for improvement. Program sequencing Program sequencing within the curriculum for an information literacy program:  Identifies the scope, depth, and complexity of understandings and practices to

be acquired on a disciplinary level and at the course level.  Sequences and integrates understandings, practices, and dispositions

throughout a student’s academic career, progressing in sophistication.  Uses local governance structures to advocate for institution-wide integration

into academic or vocational programs.  Specifies the programs and courses where information literacy instruction will

occur.  Is formalized and disseminated throughout the institution.

(ACRL, 2019)

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5.4.2 Unpacking institutional culture When we think about institutional culture in this context, we are focusing on both the tangible and intangible conditions in a specific workplace environment that enable or hinder teaching librarians in establishing the programmes, courses and interventions that they would like to. Bennett’s work with academic librarians, academic officers and learning support staff who participated in a series of workshops designed to promote collaboration for information literacy development in HE institutions identified three closely interrelated features of campus culture that appeared to signify an institution’s readiness to support and enable the integration and development of IL programmes, namely ‘curricular review and redesign, undergraduate research, and the library as place’ (Bennett, 2007, 164). For example, a focus on ‘revisioning’ the student learning experience that an institution wished to provide offered a significant opportunity for campus libraries to strategically align their teaching and learning activities with the broader goal of the institution and to garner support for their IL activities. Similarly, an increased emphasis on integrating undergraduate research into academic curricula opened another door to academic library staff, who were primed to provide multiple opportunities for active, resource-based learning. Finally the transformation of library spaces from collections of physical materials to resource-rich, networked learning hubs represented a fundamental ‘identity shift’ that was used to effectively reposition the library’s role in relation to the institutional learning strategy. In summary, Bennett concluded that ‘the key to success in programs of information literacy is that they become institutional initiatives rather than solely library initiatives’ (p. 162, emphasis added). Seymour also sought to explore ‘how instructional librarians form a cohesive culture that can be studied and described, and which supports their practices’ (Seymour, 2012, 11). She proposed that a significant aspect of this challenge is the distributed nature of academic librarians’ work, in which they might move between several different professional ‘sub-cultures’ in the space of a working week, or even a day. This can lead to a kind of ‘cultural conflict,’ as librarians seek to reconcile their different roles and responsibilities, which makes it difficult to create an overarching learning or information literacy culture within their institutions: ‘It is clear . . . that IL librarians exist in a complex environment that straddles the cultures of reference librarians and non-library faculty’ (p. 54). Seymour’s study concluded that ‘the most effective way to educate the university community about the library instruction program is individually through face-to-face communication’ (pp 60–1). Saunders’ work also focused on the concept of ‘faculty culture’ and sought to understand why instruction and assessment for IL seemed to ‘be stalled at the course level on most campuses’ (Saunders, 2013, 137) rather than fully

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integrated at programme level. Her research was based on the idea that while an overarching ‘institutional culture’ does exist, the key barriers for teaching librarians may arise more specifically from the academic ‘sub-cultures’ that are evident at departmental level, or in relation to the particular research and teaching traditions that are associated with different subject disciplines: ‘These differences across and within disciplines affect how the department supports and promotes the institutional mission and goals, including learning goals such as information literacy’ (p. 138). For a long time, the idea of ‘faculty culture’ has been at the centre of discussions relating to the barriers experienced by academic librarians when seeking to embed their instructional services into course curricula (Hardesty, 1995; McGuinness, 2011; Gardner and White-Farnham, 2013). Factors at this level include: 





 

a heavy emphasis on research productivity and publication (for tenure and promotion), which can lead to a reduced focus on teaching enhancement and innovation the burden of extremely heavy workloads, encompassing research, teaching and service commitments, which adversely affect academics’ availability (and energy) for collaboration and change the centrality of academic and professional freedom to faculty life, and the existence of disciplinary ‘silos,’ which make it difficult for outsiders to gain admittance and exert influence varying, sometimes oppositional, perceptions of what constitutes ‘research’ between members of different disciplinary traditions a belief that motivated students can develop information literacy skills individually through normal academic activity, or that the skills are learned elsewhere in their programmes.

Saunders contended that it is a question of endeavouring to ‘speak the same language’ as the faculty you are seeking to persuade, and of being sensitive to the discipline-focus of the faculty with whom you are communicating: ‘Because culture guides communication and interactions, confusion or misunderstanding can arise when people from different cultures need to work together’ (Saunders, 2013, 138). She suggested that there are several ways in which a teaching librarian can seek to reconcile these cultural misunderstandings and secure faculty buy-in, namely to: 

create openings, and avail oneself of every opportunity to raise awareness among academic faculty about the library’s instructional services – the more it is spoken about, using language that relates specifically to their field, the more likely they are to consider it to be important

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take a wider view – teaching librarians should endeavour to ‘spend more time on the methods of inquiry and evaluation and the broader sources of information that are most relevant to the discipline’ (p. 145, emphasis added), rather than just tailor instruction to individual course-specific assessments or topics seek to ensure alignment between the information literacy competences that the faculty consider to be the most important for their students to develop, and the instruction offered by the librarian; for instance, avoid a tendency to focus more on finding and accessing information, at the expense of the evaluation and use of sources.

The importance of sharing a common ‘vocabulary’ with faculty was also echoed by Gardner and White-Farnham in their description of a first-year writing programme that was developed collaboratively between librarians and faculty at the University of Wisconsin-Superior. In this case, the process of revising the information literacy component of the programme was grounded deeply in a series of productive discussions that took place between the two groups, and which ‘helped provide much needed insight into ways forward and different perspectives on research and scholarship’ (Gardner and White-Farnham, 2013, 240). To lay the groundwork for these types of discussions with faculty, some questions you can ask, which might help in developing a shared understanding in relation to information literacy instruction, include:      

What are the dominant research approaches in this discipline? What are the dominant approaches to teaching and learning in this discipline? Through what major channels does the ‘scholarly conversation’ occur in this discipline (ACRL, 2016)? What academic conventions are applied in this discipline? How do undergraduate and graduate students in this discipline learn about research and scholarship in their programmes? In your experience, how do faculty in this discipline typically engage with library services?

5.4.3 Focus on library culture While much of the previous section has focused on the institutional culture as a whole, the question of resistance to change that might arise within your own library requires equal consideration. Wilkinson and Bruch (2014) suggested that building an ‘IL-friendly culture’ where none currently exists

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in your library may first require the uprooting of the deep and long-held values, assumptions and beliefs that characterise the internal culture of the library and which may stand in the way of change. Think about what’s considered important in your library – what are the core principles which define your library’s mission, and determine the nature of services that are provided? What image or brand does your library like to project? From an organisational perspective, Wilkinson and Bruch differentiated between firstorder and second-order change, in discussing where librarians should target their efforts. First-order change, in this context, refers to relatively nondisruptive changes in policies or procedures that can be introduced without affecting the overall organisational culture – i.e. small changes that are easy to make, and for which staff buy-in is unchallenging. Second-order change, by contrast, involves a fundamental change in the underlying mission or value system of an organisation, which targets the ‘conflicting and underexplored underlying assumptions [that] can make IL program implementation difficult and can hamper the quality of instructional practice’ (Wilkinson and Bruch, 2014, 84). This is ‘transformative change’ that requires an across-the-board shift in thinking and effectively seeks to change the existing culture of an organisation. This reflects the changes proposed by Bowles-Terry and Donovan in their article ‘Serving Notice on the One-shot,’ where they strongly argued for academic librarians to step back from providing multiple one-shot sessions or ‘guest lectures’ when requested, and instead to adopt a more strategic approach, which repositions them as equal partners or collaborative consultants with faculty, seeking to integrate information literacy and research into programmes and curricula: ‘a shift in thinking about information literacy will be a monumental undertaking due to the simple fact that the very people who have worked so hard to create acceptance of information literacy instruction must be those who lead the change in its fundamental delivery format’ (Bowles-Terry and Donovan, 2016, 138). To achieve this extensive transformation or cultural change, Wilkinson and Bruch recommended four steps to a managed change process, aimed at creating a positive and sustainable IL subculture within organisations (2014, 88–92): 1 Conduct organisational assessment Use tools such as the Competing Values Framework to discover the underlying values and assumptions, and to ‘diagnose’ the change-readiness in your library in light of the proposed transformation. 2 Encourage courageous conversations Instigate constructive conversations about teaching, learning and assessment in your library, especially if they are not currently the norm. An important aim of these

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conversations is trust-building and creating a basis for cohesive communities of practice. 3 Recognise and address change resistance Endeavour to understand the reasons for some colleagues’ resistance to the proposed changes, including the affective or emotional impact of the change, and seek to find constructive ways to alleviate concerns and move forward. 4 Foster an inclusive dialogue/Implement an action plan Create an environment that is conducive to the proposed changes, based on the information gathered in the preceding steps, and develop an agreed plan for action that allows space for conversation and consensus.

5.4.4 Practical approaches to creating an information literacy culture Fostering an institutional culture that is conducive to information literacy means taking a broad and inclusive approach, which requires building and sustaining relationships with institutional colleagues, initiating constructive dialogue, seeking to align with institutional priorities and meeting academic faculty and administrators on their own ground to establish a common understanding of the learning needs of undergraduate and graduate students. Rather than seeking to painstakingly capture instructional ground inch by inch through persuading individual faculty members to collaborate or embed information literacy into their curricula, academic teaching librarians can instead ‘focus on the strategic approach . . . and reflect on how their instructional practices align with the critical issues, not just within education, but in society at large’ (McGuinness, 2011, 61). Taking this type of ‘top-down’ approach to developing an information literacy culture in your institution might include the following strategies: 

Seek to consistently increase and improve the visibility of the library in general, which according to Lawton (2015, 215) is described as ‘first, whether the librarian is recognised by name or by reputation. Second, whether what the librarian does is understood. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, whether the job and contribution of the librarian to the organisation is valued.’ To accomplish this, she described a range of visibility-enhancing strategies for academic libraries, which include: moving from reactive to proactive reference services, which include, for example, remote chat and research consultations; experimenting with a ‘roving librarian’ model instead of desk-based information service; seeking ways to align with key educational and technological trends, e.g. Educause Horizon annual reports; promoting librarians as partners in research; maintaining (and measuring) a strong digital library presence;

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promoting institutional research repositories and Open Access; and collaborating with all key institutional stakeholders, not just faculty (pp 280–7). Avail oneself of all opportunities to ensure that information literacy (or other literacies) is explicitly included in institutional strategic plans or ‘Teaching and Learning’ manifestos or missions; this might be via academic council, sub-committee, or task force membership, or through submitting carefully crafted responses to institutional calls for input. Aim to be a consistent voice in all available forums and channels. Create and maintain a strong presence during undergraduate and graduate orientation events and Open Days/Evening, e.g. via ‘pop-up’ library stands, library-based games or quizzes (with prizes) and information ‘clinics’ – aim to be a part of the student experience from the beginning of their academic programmes. Request a presence at staff induction programmes, to offer an overview of instructional services and outline your commitment to collaboration from the beginning of faculty members’ time at the institution. Publicly articulate the library’s alignment with national and international initiatives, e.g. Media Literacy Ireland’s ‘Be Media Smart’ Campaign (Russell, 2019). Link in with international high-profile events, such as UNESCO’s annual Global Media and Information Literacy Week and run associated events in your own library. Create collaborative and inclusive high-profile events, which specifically highlight the teaching mission of the library – e.g. an ‘Information Literacy Week,’ a three-day ‘Fake News Blitz’. Embrace opportunities to develop and submit applications for internal and external funding and research grants, either individually or in collaboration with academic faculty, for projects that are centred on innovative approaches to teaching and learning, including digital learning. Articulate a framework for integrating information literacy into academic curricula that is transferable across subjects and clearly demonstrates to academic staff where, when and how information literacy competences can be embedded into their programmes. For example, in Ireland, against a background of curriculum reform, Maynooth University Library’s competence-based information literacy framework was adapted from existing IL frameworks to identify five key information literacy competences for students (Dodd, 2017, 39); these were then mapped to the university’s new critical skills framework for undergraduate education to indicate the role that the library could play in supporting the implementation of critical skills in practice.

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Invest in social capital, which is defined by De Stricker (2015, 15) as ‘the reputation we build as we contribute to the communities in which we move professionally and personally, and . . . the “brand” or “label” we attach to ourselves through those contributions. It involves the “bank account” of trust and rapport we draw on when we need support for an idea or outright help in a specific situation.’ This involves building a reputation with academic faculty through the ‘micro transactions’ that take place on a regular basis – examples might be to always send a follow-up e-mail after a formal or informal meeting with a colleague, to send congratulations for promotions, grant awards or other accomplishments, or to regularly respond to their social media posts in a constructive way, etc.

5.5 Engaging with the wider community of teaching librarians As librarians engage in new and evolving roles, there is a growing need to unite information literacy educators to extend and share their learning about evidencebased teaching. (Laverty and Saleh, 2019, 321)

For some academic teaching librarians, the work of creating and nurturing the conditions for an information literacy culture in your institution can feel like a lonely road, as you endeavour to deal with setbacks, misunderstanding, closed doors and other challenges. This is especially the case if you are a part of a small team, or even a lone operator. The importance of a solid support network of like-minded librarians is paramount in sustaining you in your work. While you may enjoy the support of workplace colleagues, you are also a member of a global community of academic teaching librarians, many of whom experience the same issues and problems, and who can offer solidarity, useful advice and inspiration to carry you forward. Equally, it is also likely that you have much to contribute, with the knowledge and experience gathered during your career so far. Participating in the wider professional community also supports the enhancement of professional skills and knowledge. For example, many opportunities for instructional leadership are available both within and outside your place of employment; for many teaching librarians, leadership experience is obtained, and skills are developed and honed through extra-curricular participation in professional committees and forums related to teaching, learning and research. As we saw in the sample co-ordinator’s job advert earlier, contribution to a professional community can be viewed as an essential or desirable attribute, alongside the practical duties and responsibilities of the position. What are the different

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ways of engaging with, and contributing to, your local and wider professional community, and what are the benefits that engagement can afford you? Some of the options you might consider include:   



joining professional groups, associations and committees starting or joining a professional community of practice (CoP) creating a personal learning network (PLN), to support your personal growth and development as a teacher, and to contribute to others’ learning journeys participating in the worldwide virtual community of teaching librarians.

The following sections explore each option in more detail.

5.5.1 Joining professional groups, associations and committees The most obvious way to engage with your wider professional community of academic teaching librarians – or with like-minded colleagues in other fields and sectors – is to seek involvement with ‘groups, committees, and associations that can provide a community of support, an external knowledge base, and an alternative outlet for professional communication’ (Markgren and Allen, 2013, 71). Professional groups, committees and associations can exert an incredibly powerful and long-lasting influence on professional practice, on the future direction and development of an area of professional activity, and on how it is communicated to the wider world (Lawton, 2015). The roots of the information literacy movement as we recognise it today lie in the early 1970s when librarians, who were active in teaching at the time ‘banded together . . . to talk and share ideas and approaches to teaching and learning’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2009, 19). It was through the establishment of teaching-related professional groups and associations, some of which still exist today, such as the California Clearinghouse on Library Instruction, the Library Orientation Exchange (LOEX), and the Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT), that teaching librarians began to develop a unified voice, and established collective professional bodies which could promote the librarian’s teaching role, offer mutual support for learning and development, and advance the information literacy agenda beyond the library walls. Nowadays, national and international professional groups and associations which support teaching librarians include IFLA’s Information Literacy Section and CILIP’s Information Literacy (special interest) Group in the UK, as well as those focused specifically on academic librarianship, such as the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) in the USA, the Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL), and the Teaching and Learning

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group of Ireland’s Consortium of National and University Libraries (CONUL). Depending on your professional goals and where you are in your career, involvement can be on several different levels, for instance: as ordinary member; as a member of a specific task-oriented organising committee, e.g. for an annual conference or seminar; as a member of the board or inner council; or in a key role such as secretary, treasurer or even chair, co-chair or president, depending on the structure of the group or association. Or perhaps you possess a specific skillset or have extensive experience in a particular area of practice, that marks you out as an ideal fit for a defined role, such as social media coordinator, webmaster or events co-ordinator. Many groups and associations also support and encourage student membership and, in some cases, permit student members to take on a principal role, so it is not always necessary to wait until after graduation from a professional programme. Often, membership of a professional group or association can lead to participation in national and international conferences (potentially at a reduced rate), which also helps you to keep current in your field, supports networking and can introduce you to innovative practices and tools ahead of the curve. There are several key benefits to becoming involved, at whichever level suits you best: 



Quid pro quo While your contribution might require a substantial amount of work that is mostly in addition to your normal working hours, the return on this investment of time and effort is worthwhile: ‘In return for what you provide the organization, you are rewarded with professional networks, leadership opportunities, and the ability to shape the professional agenda and contribute to the professional conversation’ (Markgren and Allen, 2013, 77). Professional growth Membership of a professional group or association enables you to connect with colleagues who are at different points in their career, and who bring a range of different experiences, skills, knowledge and perspectives to the table. The opportunity to develop relationships with, and learn from, colleagues outside your immediate workplace is a crucial part of the process of professional socialisation and identity formation, during which you become familiar with, and gradually take on, the values and behaviours of the profession. If feasible for you, membership of an international association can be a golden opportunity to both increase your awareness of cross-national perspectives on professional issues, to network with colleagues across the globe, and to contribute to the direction of your profession across international boundaries.

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Profile-building Another important benefit of joining professional groups and associations is the opportunity that it provides for you to start building up your public professional profile, and getting your name known in relation to your particular area of practice and expertise: ‘By going outside your workplace and engaging in the larger profession, you are becoming known and getting noticed’ (Markgren and Allen, 2013, 78). From a more general perspective, it can increase your recognisability as the ‘go-to’ person when certain input is required, e.g. as the person who creates amazing posters, or who can design a great survey questionnaire. Personal satisfaction Finally, participating in these types of organisation can often result in an important boost to your professional confidence and sense of self-efficacy, as you take on challenging tasks and roles, and push yourself to the edge of your comfort zone, if you choose. The safety net and support of your committee colleagues can make it easier to take risks and try new activities (e.g. chairing a conference panel, organising a seminar, delivering a live webinar), experiences which you can then channel back into your job.

5.5.2 Communities of practice Communities of practice provide an opportunity for groups of professionals to come together on a regular basis to discuss topics of strategic relevance to their institution and their profession, and to deepen their knowledge and expertise. (Osborn, 2017, 168)

A community of practice (CoP), a construct which emerged from the work of Lave and Wenger (1991), is defined as ‘a group of people who share a common concern, a set of problems, or interest in a topic and who come together to fulfil both individual and group goals . . . sharing best practices and creating new knowledge to advance a domain of professional practice’ (Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, 2002, 4). CoPs are founded on the concept of learning as a situated, social process, which takes place when ‘people who have a common interest in some subject or problem collaborate over an extended period to share ideas, find solutions, and build innovations’ (Wubbels, 2007, 226).The difference between CoPs and general-interest or discussion groups, for example, is the focus on practice that gives shape to the activities and discussions that take place in CoPs – the members are connected through their mutual engagement in shared practices and activities, their desire to improve and enhance their practices, to solve problems, and to share experiences and innovations with fellow practitioners, although they may

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come from different institutions, fields or even sectors. An important aspect of a CoP is its focus on the social relationships that develop between members: ‘A CoP is a group of individuals who come together to learn about something and who, through their learning interactions, develop relationships and build a sense of connectedness to one another and to their purpose’ (Laverty and Saleh, 2019, 322). Kirker (2018, 312) described CoPs as ‘social learning communities’, which allow ‘the transfer of cultural knowledge through professional socialization, observation, and informal learning activities’. She also noted the opportunities for professional identity formation that arise from CoPs – not only in relation to the emerging cultural identity of the CoP itself, but also the individual professional identities of the CoP members, which are in turn influenced by their participation in the community. Osborn (2017, 162) reported that an ‘increasing number of librarians are adopting this model for workplace learning, mentoring and for inducting new professionals’. While CoPs often involve regular face-to-face meetings, the increasing ubiquity of technologies such as shared online repositories, collaborative authoring software, and virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom and Microsoft Teams, means that CoPs can function effectively across geographical boundaries. Although they are often established in formal workplace contexts, membership of a CoP is typically voluntary, and can sometimes arise due to a perceived lack of institutional support or a shortage of formal professional training opportunities. While there is no standard CoP format, Wenger (1998, 125–6) suggested a list of indicators that enable us to recognise when a CoP has been formed. They include:          

sustained mutual relationships shared way of doing things together rapid flow and propagation of information no introductory preambles necessary – the process is continuous and mutually understood shared perceptions of who belongs to the CoP knowing what others know and what they can do specific tools and other artefacts local lore, shared stories, inside jokes jargon and shortcuts to communication shared discourse which reflects a certain perspective on the world.

While CoPs do not necessarily need to have a very formal structure, their sustainability depends on good internal leadership, i.e. members or internal facilitators who commit to organising regular meetings on topics of mutual

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importance, maintaining the group’s shared resources, keeping everyone informed and in the loop, suggesting ‘showcase’ and social events, recruiting and socialising newcomers, and ensuring continual flow of communication between members using appropriate channels. For academic teaching librarians, CoPs offer the opportunity not only to engage in constructive discussion and learning about teaching-related issues and challenges, but also to dip your toe into a leadership role, and to contribute your own knowledge and expertise to the community, as you move from newcomer, or ‘legitimate peripheral participant’, to full participant over time. Laverty and Saleh (2018, 322) suggested that ‘CoPs are especially well-suited to the library environment where service provision in a changing information landscape calls for situated learning akin to cognitive apprenticeship’. As with institutional roles, leadership can ‘revolve’ to different members of the CoP at different times, depending on the focus of activity, e.g. a member with particular expertise might lead a discussion and share resources on a specific topic during a meeting. Hildreth and Kimble (2004, ix) also suggested that CoPs increasingly reflect the move within some institutions away from hierarchical or ‘siloed’ organisational structures to ‘those based on more fluid and emergent organisational forms such as networks and communities’. Laverty and Saleh described their experience of a teaching-related CoP that evolved from its original iteration as a librarian teaching and learning working group, which was convened to support the development of effective information literacy assessment practices in light of a forthcoming quality assurance exercise that required library input. Over time, the members of the working group recognised its evolution into a CoP, due to the presence of ‘enabling’ factors such as creating a learning environment, building relationships, sharing ideas and experiences, providing opportunities for selfreflection, organising meetings and workshops and creating learning materials, amongst others (Laverty and Saleh, 2018, 326). In this case, the CoP was viewed as a means of offering the library ‘a mechanism for developing scholarly approaches to teaching and as a pathway to invigorating learning and professional development across the organization’ (p. 322). In another case study, Kirker (2018) described the establishment of a roundtable and workshop-based CoP at her institution, which was designed to facilitate communal learning and discussion around the newly published ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education (ACRL, 2015).

5.5.3 Personal learning networks Writing for school librarians, Moreillon highlighted the wider professional

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benefits of shared learning and professional development in supporting the establishment and sustainability of collaborative practitioner networks and communities: ‘These shared learning and networking opportunities are important for building a cohesive cadre of library professionals and for meeting the specific needs of practicing school librarians’ (Moreillon, 2017, 65). However, since in-person modes of collective professional development, such as training courses and seminars or attendance at national and international conferences, may not be available to all, ‘the further development of the Internet and rise of social networking tools’ (p. 65) has meant that teaching librarians can now take advantage of multiple online opportunities to create and curate online personal learning networks (PLNs), which are free from time and geographical restrictions – and also frequently cost-free, bar the existing overheads that are required, i.e. a computer or tablet, broadband or Wi-Fi connection (Cooke, 2012). A PLN is defined as ‘an informal learning network that consists of the people a learner interacts with and derives knowledge from in a personal learning environment’ (Mackley, 2014), the latter (PLE) referring to a form of integrated environment where learners access, organise and share the tools and resources they require to support their learning needs. Loertscher (2011, 22) described a PLE as a ‘portal to the world of information that leads to the development of a personal learning network and results in a portfolio that exhibits our abilities’. Tools such as electronic discussion lists, webinars, blogs and social media networks can all be creatively harnessed to establish a PLN based on your personal professional development needs as an academic teaching librarian. What makes a PLN different from a learning management system, for example, is that it is not pre-designed or hosted on a standardised platform. Rather, it takes time and effort to build; the onus is on the learner to gradually establish a collection of channels, tools and resources that comprise a unique learning network, through which they connect and interact with professional peers and engage with resources. As learner, you are the chief architect of your PLN; it is entirely self-curated, linking you to people, groups and communities that you have selected because they display the knowledge and expertise that you need to support your development. PLNs are founded on the idea of self-directed or self-regulated learning, the success of which depends on intrinsic motivation – your own internal driver to seek personal or professional development. Although PLNs can be considered similar to CoPs, and often do comprise a group of learners engaged in the same tasks at more or less the same time – e.g. in iterations of the ‘23 Things’ learning project format (Stephens, 2013) – they are, by nature, loosely structured and informal, lacking the regular meeting schedules and more structured approach of CoPs. While CoPs might conceivably emerge from connections

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between like-minded individuals who interact in PLNs, their key purpose is in forging networks to support individual learning. A PLN might consist of: 







   



 

several professional or academic blogs that you subscribe to, read regularly, and occasionally contribute to by sending items for inclusion, or participating in discussions that arise in the comments sections under posts hosting your own reflective learning or practice blog (e.g. on WordPress or Tumblr), where you can invite feedback and discussion from peers, as well as sharing ideas and resources a network of professional peers or experts whom you follow on Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and other social networks (and who may also have followed you back); Cooke hailed Twitter as a particularly useful channel for PLNs; she noted that the interactive nature of the format has resulted in ‘a 24/7, and in many instances instantaneous, network of likeminded people with similar academic interests’ (Cooke, 2012, 7) hosting, moderating or participating in scheduled ‘Twitter chats’ that focus on professional or teaching-related topics and questions, e.g. #uklibchat attendance at free or low-cost professional webinars on topics of professional interest following conference or seminar livestreams and official hashtags on Twitter, if in-person attendance is not possible a subscription to a YouTube channel, such as TED or TEDx Talks joining public or private online discussion forums and communities, through which you both ask and answer questions related to professional issues subscription to a listserv or electronic discussion list related to an area of professional practice, e.g. ILI-L Discussion List (information literacy instruction) participating in informal online chat sessions with professional peers using virtual meeting platforms such as Zoom using platforms such as Hootsuite to manage social media feeds and conversation threads in one place.

5.5.4 Participating in the worldwide virtual community of teaching librarians While PLNs harness the tools and channels of the internet and social media to support a connected, collaborative approach to professional learning and development, the same media and technologies also support engagement

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with your professional community in a general sense; no longer restricted by geographical boundaries, your community membership now stretches beyond the horizon of your immediate locality, and even your country or continent, to encompass the global body of librarians (and academic teaching librarians) practising in all parts of the world. As Markgren and Allen (2013, 44) pointed out, ‘we need to be online, and we need to be smart about it’. Participating in, and contributing to, this wider community is important for a number of reasons, some of which we have mentioned before: 









to make connections with professional peers that may lead to fruitful collaborations on international research projects, online learning programmes, conference papers, etc. to build up a professional network that you can draw on for advice and answers to tricky questions, that will provide moral support in challenging situations, will alert you to professional opportunities, etc. to open up your world and introduce perspectives from different cultures and traditions to your teaching practices; as academic teaching librarians, we may be in the habit of ‘sticking with what we know,’ and avoiding content and approaches that are unfamiliar to us to take opportunities to disseminate your work and accomplishments more widely, e.g. campaigns or initiatives in your library, papers you have had published, conference presentations you have given, awards you have won, or training you have completed to curate and communicate your online personal brand as a teaching librarian. As with most professions in the 21st century, your online librarian persona is now almost as important as your offline persona when it comes to relationship building, professional advancement and even job seeking. According to Markgren and Allen (2013, 44), ‘whatever your online identity encompasses, it is up to you to 1) discover it; 2) wrangle it into something professional; 3) develop, curate, and groom it; and 4) maintain it’.

Establishing a powerful personal brand that is closely associated with your work as an academic teaching librarian involves more than relying on the profile that appears on your institutional website, although that’s a good place to start. It also means more than damage limitation, i.e. removing content such as photos, videos or previous posts and tweets that you feel project an inaccurate or inappropriate image, although that is important to do. To create an online brand or identity that connects you to your virtual professional community in a positive way requires a proactive approach.

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Reflective pause – your professional online persona Take a few minutes at this point to consider your online persona or ‘brand’ as it is now. If someone searches for you online, what are they likely to see first? Enter your full name into one of the major search engines now, on its own at first, then in conjunction with other identifiers that you think people might append to your name when searching (e.g. your workplace, the city you are in, your academic qualifications, the university you attended as a student, a committee you serve on). Preferably, use a device that you don’t normally use, i.e. where your own search history and engagement with websites and social media has not been logged. The results you obtain from this search will give you an idea of what other people see when they search for you online – and what they don’t see, which you might consider equally important, if you wish to project a particular professional image. What is missing, that you would like to be linked to your name? What did appear, that you would prefer wasn’t there? Overall, what do you think an online search would reveal about you as a professional?

How can you go about creating your academic teaching librarian persona online? Some of the approaches you can consider include: 



Your institutional profile Depending on how much flexibility you have, ensure that your online institutional profile strongly reflects your instructional work – if your official job title doesn’t directly convey this aspect of your work, try to make sure that your bio contains descriptive terminology that does, as well as highlighting activities and accomplishments that project your interest and involvement in teaching and learning. Creating a personal website Platforms such as WordPress, Tumblr and Google Sites have made it easier for those of us who are not trained as web designers to create simple, easy-to-navigate websites that serve as online portals to our professional personas. Your website can contain a personal bio, contact details, links to presentations you have given, papers you have published, projects you have been involved in, media you have created, or any other content that contributes to your teaching ‘brand,’ as long as you have the requisite permissions to embed the content in your site. A ‘News’ section or blog can be regularly updated with details of your professional activities. If you are interested or experienced in a particular area of practice (e.g. flipped classroom, blended learning, games and gamification), a good idea is to devote a section of the website to relevant content which showcases this interest – as a result, people searching for information on this area might be directed to your website.

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Separation of personal from professional If you are seeking to develop an online professional brand, you should endeavour to ensure that personal content will not appear at the top of the search results (or at all) if people search for you online. To direct searchers to your professional content, ensure that the security on your social media pages is at the highest level – i.e. available to friends and selected followers only. Some people divide social media sites into those they use solely for personal content, and those used only for their professional lives. For example, you might decide that Twitter and LinkedIn are for work, while Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest are for content that reflects your personal and social life. The privacy settings on each of these sites or apps should therefore be set accordingly. Curating your social media Social media such as Twitter and LinkedIn can be rich sources of professional contacts, information and resources. Other people may connect with you through your existing connections on either site or app, so part of building your professional profile online is in ensuring that your networks reflect the persona that you wish them to. This means following key people and organisations that are connected to teaching librarianship, and inviting them to follow you back, if the opportunity presents. Online connections can follow from inperson meetings (e.g. at conferences, networking events, etc.), so be sure to close those loops where you can. Interacting on social media Curating your social media websites and apps is just the first part of the process; your professional online persona depends significantly on how you connect with members of your network, and the quality of your interactions. Twitter, in particular, is a format that supports high levels of positive interaction, whether it’s through retweeting or resharing tweets on other social media platforms, liking and responding to tweets, conversing through direct messages, or contributing to Twitter threads. Similarly, LinkedIn supports multiple forms of engagement, such as reacting to posts and announcements, congratulating your connections on their career accomplishments, ‘endorsing’ your connections for specific skills and knowledge, writing public recommendations, resharing posts and sending direct messages. Or if you have chosen Instagram as a platform for your professional brand, regularly updating your ‘stories’ with snippets and reflections from your teaching life can garner interest in your work. Positive online interactions are a key means of developing your online professional persona. Maintain a consistent presence Finally, it is important to present consistent profile information across the different platforms that you use. For instance, a high-quality, standard profile picture that makes you

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instantly recognisable on each website or social network, a brief descriptive and up-to-date bio that is repeated across each channel, and reliable contact information, that always includes a link to your workplace profile, and cross-links to the other social media platforms that you use. If you use print business cards, the links to your online sites and accounts should also be included, in addition to basic contact information.

Exercises 1 Information literacy culture Individually, or as part of a group, consider the following scenario: You are a member of a team planning the development and building of a new private college, that is being generously funded by a group of wealthy donors (you can decide the subject specialisations for the fictional college). As the librarian on the planning committee, you want to ensure that information literacy instructional services are part of the institutional culture from the very beginning. What do you need to specify in advance to ensure that this happens, both from the perspective of the physical building, and the educational mission of the college? As funding is not a barrier in this case, you are in a position to make significant demands – in many ways, this is a dream scenario. As part of your task, make a list of the conditions that you think should be in place to ensure that your goal of an information literacy culture is achieved when the institute is up and running. 2 Mapping your professional profile Create a visual map of your online professional profile, as it appears to you now (i.e. the social media sites where you have a public profile, the websites and pages retrieved when you search for your own name online, your presentations, papers and other online artefacts that are retrievable, etc.). You could use a grid structure, as in the example below. Alternatively, you might prefer a mind map structure to organise your profile items. Consider whether you are happy with the professional impression that is conveyed by your online profile. How do others see you online? Are there changes that you think you need to make to improve your online profile? Use this mapping exercise to formulate a strategy for the enhancement of your online professional profile over the next 2–3 months. This might involve a) updating your existing accounts and websites to reflect current information and activities; b) ‘cleaning up’ existing profile bios, removing outdated or irrelevant content, and ensuring that privacy

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Social media

Websites/pages

Artefacts (conference presentations, journal articles, videos, reports, etc.)

Other

LinkedIn

My work profile page

Slides from my LILAC paper My running group 2017 website (photos)

Twitter

My Google Scholar Citations

My 2016 article in Journal of Pinterest board on Information Literacy Impressionist art

Instagram

My Academia.edu page My Dec 2018 Post on Medium.com

Pinterest

My Researchgate.net page

JustGiving page I set up for Fun Run 2019

My Jan 2020 contribution to My book reviews on local library blog GoodReads

My personal blog hosted on WordPress (updated every 6 weeks approx.)

Newsletter item when I joined current workplace

settings are fixed to control what can be viewed publicly; or c) creating new websites, pages or social media accounts to reflect your professional activities and associations. 3 Personal learning network In Chapter 3, the teaching librarian development plan included a goalsetting template to enable you to plan research, learning and other activities for a 6–12 month period. As a reminder, here is the template for setting individual goals: Goal 1: Activities

Timeline

Potential obstacle(s)

Solutions?

Support/resources needed to support this activity

How will I monitor my progress?

Use this template to set 2–3 specific learning goals for the next 12 months. Under the column for ‘support/resources needed to support this

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activity,’ create a list of free online learning resources or platforms that you might use to develop a personal learning network to support the attainment of these goals. Indicate how each resource will contribute specifically to these learning goals.

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CHAPTER 6

Advocacy and the academic teaching librarian

Personal reflection points  I would define ‘advocacy’ as . . .  Activities typically associated with advocacy include . . .  When I hear the term ‘library advocate’, I think of . . .  In my opinion, librarians should/shouldn’t act as advocates within their communities, because . . .  In my view, the value of academic libraries is demonstrated by . . .  Advocacy in relation to information literacy and the work of academic teaching librarians involves . . .  Is there a difference between advocacy and promotional and outreach activities? If so, how would I articulate that difference?

6.1 Introduction: reflecting on advocacy In this final chapter, we go beyond the institutional setting to explore the concept of advocacy for academic teaching librarians. You are encouraged to reflect on your understanding of advocacy and what it means for your work, for libraries, and for information literacy on the global stage. ‘Advocate’ has been identified as a key role for teaching librarians (ACRL, 2017); however, it is a nuanced term, and in order to see how you can develop this aspect of your professional identity, advocacy is presented here through a series of different lenses, each carrying specific implications for the librarian’s role. Effective advocacy is based on the twin pillars of value and communication, which determine how you connect with your audience. Practical strategies for advocacy are discussed, along with a specific focus on writing for

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academic publication, which can also be considered a form of advocacy in the shape of professional storytelling.

6.2 Advocacy and libraries Successful advocacy must become a permanent element for everyone associated with libraries. (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2011, 12)

Advocacy is defined in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary as ‘the act or process of supporting a cause or proposal’ (Merriam-Webster Dictionary Online, 2020a). If asked about it, many of us would probably associate advocacy primarily with social justice causes – i.e. people and organisations who advocate or speak for fellow members or groups in society who are vulnerable, unrepresented, disenfranchised, powerless or trapped in some way; or in the context of more general causes, we might think of advocacy as seeking to transform societal structures as a whole and improve conditions for all citizens in a country, region or even globally. Some of us might think of it as a legal term, i.e. in relation to the work of lawyers advancing arguments in a courtroom on behalf of their clients. Horton (2011, 263) conflated advocacy with ‘lobbying,’ a term with political connotations, usually contextualised as individual or collective efforts to influence elected officials in order to gain advantage or to receive favourable treatment with regard to policymaking. This is echoed by Green, (2016, 214), who referred to advocacy as ‘the process of influencing decision makers to change their policies and practices, attitudes, or behaviours’. Koukourakis (2016, 10) defined it as ‘a planned, deliberate and sustained effort to raise awareness of an issue . . . a continuous process during which support and understanding of the issue are gradually increased over an extended period of time’. The Global Libraries Advocacy Guide described advocacy as an umbrella term, covering a host of related activities or ‘tactics’: ‘there are many ways to describe what advocacy is: communications, public relations, outreach, marketing, branding, and lobbying,’ each of which ‘describes tactics used in a true advocacy effort’ (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2011, 9). With a slightly different twist, Polger and Okamoto framed it in terms of public relations and image management: ‘Librarians may be viewed as “spin doctors”, a term coined for public relations professionals who always need to communicate a favorable image of the organization, despite any potential negative event or scenario’ (Polger and Okamoto, 2013, 236). They concluded that ‘librarians are responsible for raising the profile of the library through various communication channels’ (p. 237).

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When advocacy is discussed in relation to libraries, what usually comes to mind? Depending on how you see it, ‘library advocacy’ typically suggests one of two perspectives: 



advocacy for libraries, i.e. to prevent library closures or service cutbacks, to secure capital investment and additional resources, to attract increased usage, establish collaborative partnerships, etc. advocacy by libraries, i.e. libraries as democratic institutions that respect and support the rights of all populations in society, that seek to protect individual and collective freedoms, provide a sanctuary for marginalised citizens, help to reduce societal inequalities, etc.

Thus, libraries are in the somewhat unusual position of both needing, and acting as, advocates. As a result, librarians can often find themselves in the position where they must rally support, and advocate on behalf of their libraries and their profession in general, in addition to supporting and advocating for the communities they represent, although both are intricately entwined. From each perspective – advocacy for and by libraries – the articulation of advocacy is often bound up with attempts to express the value of libraries and librarians, the nature and importance of their contributions to individuals and society, their defence of democracy and human rights, their position as bastions of neutrality, etc., all of which are closely aligned with the professional values underpinning our codes of practice. The Illinois Library Association defined it in very simple terms: ‘advocacy simply means to actively support a cause. Libraries are our cause’ (Illinois Library Association Advocacy Toolkit, n.d., 1). In this context, they described a ‘library advocate’ as a person who:     

believes in the value of libraries supports equitable access to information in a democratic society works with others to get the message out on the importance of libraries does not have to work in a library or be a library board member loves the library for the many services it provides.

6.2.1 Advocacy for libraries Much of the familiar rhetoric around library advocacy relates to concerns regarding threatened library closures, funding reductions or withdrawal, scaling back of supports, declining usage or even possible future extinction (Castillo, 2010; Reed, Nawalinksi and Kalonick, 2013; Lawton, 2015). For example, in the UK, where the past decade has seen hundreds of public

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library closures (Busby, 2019), the Big Issue Group, which has provided support for homeless members of society over many years, launched a #WhyBooksMatter campaign in 2017, focusing on the crucial role that public libraries play in supporting basic literacy and providing irreplaceable community services: ‘This campaign is not only about giving the marginalised in society a fighting chance. It’s about keeping communities together and libraries open’ (Burns, 2017). Ewbank (2015, 26) emphasised the need for advocacy in the face of ‘austere budgets and waning support for public institutions,’ noting that ‘many libraries are under increasing threat of budget reductions and de-professionalization’. The main problem, as Lawton (2015, 2) suggested, is that ‘the value of public libraries and librarians is invisible to key decision-makers’. In relation to advocacy in school libraries, Smith emphasised that ‘if we, as librarians, do not share stories that proclaim our value and worth, our students may take for granted the trained professional who is thrilled to be of service to them each day’ (Smith, 2017, 30). For academic libraries, the perceived existential threat is most often attributed to the increasing availability of digital and online resources, which has reduced in-person library visits and face-to-face consultations with library staff: ‘In a world where most people’s starting point for finding information is no longer the library but an Internet search engine, the relevance of information professionals to modern life is under question’ (De Saulles, 2012, 5). Castillo asked, ‘Are Libraries an Endangered Species?’ noting that ‘it is obvious that our “libraries” are moving from dedicated, stand-alone buildings into our computers and becoming portable’ (Castillo, 2010, 1161). Polger and Okamoto also contended that academic libraries are at the mercy of economic instability: ‘this advocacy role of marketing is more important than ever given the current climate of fiscal austerity prompted by the global economic crisis’ (Polger and Okamoto, 2013, 239). Advocacy efforts in this context focus on describing, documenting and communicating the benefits and advantages that libraries bring to their scholarly communities, as well as publicising the structural, digital and service changes they make to adapt to the changing teaching, learning and research environment, including student learning preferences and behaviours. Library value is most frequently framed in relation to proxy indicators such as student retention and improved engagement, enhanced student performance and success, institutional research outputs and grant income, hi-tech infrastructure, expressed user satisfaction, and correspondingly healthy library-usage figures, on- and offline. Lawton suggested that value is a function of the visibility of a library, which encompasses three things: ‘First, whether the librarian is recognised by name or by reputation. Second, whether what the librarian does is understood. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, whether the job and

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contribution of the librarian to the organisation is valued’ (2015, 215). However, the actual value and impact of academic libraries are historically difficult to determine. The ACRL-commissioned Academic Library Impact Report (Connaway et al., 2017) highlighted the disparate approaches to measuring library value in academic institutions: ‘because there is a lack of consensus on how to measure library value for student learning and success, these measures often are left to individual campus units to determine . . . Across the entire educational landscape, there is even less agreement on how libraries might show substantial contributions to measures such as accreditation, student retention, and academic achievement’ (p. 1). Creating a coherent and powerful message to advocate for increased funding and investment in a competitive environment is a perennial challenge that is faced by academic libraries; the Academic Library Impact Report authors suggested that to engage in persuasive communication with decision makers, it is essential that a library ‘matches its assessment to its institution’s mission, enhances teaching, quantifies its impact, is included in data collection activities, and collaborates with the principal stakeholders’ (p. 2).

6.2.2 Advocacy by libraries The advocacy by libraries perspective is closely linked to the themes discussed in the section on critical information literacy earlier in the book, i.e. the social justice work done by librarians, and their role in seeking to challenge systemic inequalities, increase social inclusion, and proactively engage with issues of disempowerment and marginalisation. As mentioned in Chapter 1, a commitment to human rights and social justice is enshrined in professional guidelines such as IFLA’s Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information Workers (2016). Although social justice is a universal term that signifies the process of striving to ensure that all people have equal opportunities to fulfil their societal roles, as well as the equitable distribution of resources and power across society, its meaning in practice is context-specific – for some, a library’s social justice work is connected to its support of functional literacy and lifelong learning, while for others it is associated with freedom of speech and opposition to censorship. Academic libraries can also be considered from a social justice perspective. For example, in a paper which addressed the role of libraries in relation to diversity and social justice, Morales, Knowles and Bourg stated that, in the face of an increasingly diverse society, ‘we believe that libraries can and should play a key role in promoting social justice; and that a commitment to diversifying our profession, our collections, and our services is critical to social justice work in and for librarianship’; they contended that in order to successfully do this, ‘the profession must confront

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diversity, power, and privilege in a number of areas: library staff, library collections and access, and the variety of services libraries offer in their communities’ (Morales, Knowles and Bourg, 2014, 440). Similarly, a paper by Gibson et al., which critically examined libraries’ responsibilities in regard to systemic racism, suggested that librarians must adopt ‘an active, critical approach to engaging with community needs that explicitly acknowledges the influence of social, cultural, financial, and political power on information access and information behavior’ (Gibson et al., 2017, 752). Conceptions of advocacy that are associated with libraries’ social justice role imply not only a responsibility to respond equally to the needs and concerns of all groups within the communities that they serve, but also a commitment to selfexamination, in order to root out existing structures and practices which may inadvertently contribute to the exclusion of specific populations (Ettarh, 2018). Some questioning of an uncritical acceptance of librarians’ social justice role is to be found in an article by Fobazi Ettarh (2018), on what she calls vocational awe, defined as ‘the set of ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries as institutions are inherently good, sacred notions, and therefore beyond critique’. Prompted by stories that emerged in 2018 about public librarians in the USA who had been trained to administer the anti-overdose drug Naloxone as part of their jobs, Ettarh submitted the proposition that the ‘sacred duties of freedom, information, and service’ that cast librarianship as a vocation fuelled by passion, rather than a paid occupation or career, can result in negative outcomes, such as librarian burnout, a reluctance to request appropriate compensation and healthy working conditions, gradual job creep, and an unwillingness to question the flawed aspects of the profession as a whole (Ettarh, 2018, para. 14). She contended that ‘the problem with vocational awe is the efficacy of one’s work is directly tied to their [librarians’] amount of passion (or lack thereof), rather than fulfillment of core job duties’ (para. 23). It is a perspective worth keeping in mind as we discuss advocacy in general, and its application to our work as academic teaching librarians. At this point, you may find it useful to pause, and reflect on how you perceive your job, and the value of libraries and librarianship in general, perhaps using the following prompts to organise your thoughts: Reflective pause – perceptions of librarianship  For me, the most satisfying aspects of my job as a librarian are . . .  I believe librarianship is a worthwhile career because . . .  When I talk to other people about my work, I tend to emphasise . . .  I feel . . . when I talk about my work as a librarian  I think that libraries are important to society because . . .

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 The aspects of my working conditions I would like to change are . . .  The issues in librarianship I would like to fix are . . .  Libraries should/should not be neutral, because . . .  The advice I would give to someone who is considering a career in

librarianship is . . .

6.3 Advocacy and academic teaching librarians When it comes to your work as an academic teaching librarian, the idea of advocacy takes on a slightly different complexion. Typically, information literacy advocacy is located within one of three different contexts, each of which carries specific role implications for academic teaching librarians: 1 Advocacy for the library’s instructional services This is more accurately framed as engaging in promotional and outreach activities, marketing instructional services to staff and students, seeking to foster collaborations with faculty to embed information literacy into academic programmes and ultimately seeking to establish an information literacy culture within the institution. The role implication associated with this context is that of librarian as seller or marketer of the library’s instructional services, who engages in targeted outreach and promotional activities designed to persuade local stakeholders of the benefits of information literacy programmes (O’Clair, 2012). Polger and Okamoto suggested that instructional and promotional activities are often treated as inseparable by academic librarians; for example, one respondent to a survey they carried out into librarians’ promotional work observed that, ‘the duties of instruction and outreach are so closely aligned that they are generally understood to be the same by most people’ (Polger and Okamoto, 2013, 241). By this, they mean that the librarians’ work in supporting student learning is their key selling point; success in this context can lead to increased uptake, improved visibility, and perhaps more opportunities for collaboration. 2 Advocacy for information literacy as a critical life skill The second context refers to promoting the importance of information literacy (and other literacies) as a critical life skill and basic human right on a national, international, or global scale, e.g. UNESCO’s Global Alliance for Partnerships on Media and Information Literacy. The role implied here is of the librarian as global advocate for information literacy, stepping outside the library to become a voice on the national or world stage, and seeking to have information literacy (or other literacy) recognised as a skillset or area of competence that is critical to all societies. Historically,

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librarians have been cast as the chief global advocates for information literacy in the absence of other voices; it was librarians who sought to ensure its inclusion in national policies, frameworks and strategic initiatives, and to present it as a part of the solution to critical issues in society, such as educational inequality, poverty, mis-information, digital exclusion and national workplace skill shortages. Examples of their success included the establishment of national information literacy frameworks (e.g. Scotland, Wales), and high-level recognition, as exemplified by the 2009 Presidential Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month by the then US President Barack Obama, as well as its inclusion in regional and national educational accreditation standards and as a key competence in reports relating to workforce needs (Weiner, Jackman and Prause, 2013, 7). Nowadays, the idea of partnership is at the core of global advocacy for information literacy, and other literacies; the trope of the librarian as the sole voice for information literacy has been replaced by a more complex picture, which includes librarians as an important cog in a more complex advocacy wheel. 3 Advocacy for information literacy as social justice tool This includes the promotion of information literacy as a means of helping individuals and communities to understand and access their rights, become better informed, reduce inequality in different contexts, and give voice to disenfranchised groups in society, e.g. combatting mis- and disinformation, supporting health literacy in socially disadvantaged communities, etc. Although overlapping the previous conception, the role implication here is aligned with the perceived social justice responsibility of librarians within their immediate communities and is sometimes framed as radical librarianship or activism: ‘regardless of location, the librarian can wield a great deal of social power and influence. Like it or not, intended or not, the librarian can bring about and effect social change . . . Therefore, librarians inherently are social activists’ (Epstein, 2016, para. 4). Much of what you read about advocacy and information literacy in higher education is related to the first context, which concerns local actions and reflects librarians’ internal endeavours to embed information literacy into academic programmes, attract participants to their elective offerings, and increase the visibility of their instructional work across their campuses. One of the earlier articles on advocacy and information literacy explicitly addressed this context; according to Stubbings and Franklin (2006, 2), ‘the library [at Loughborough University] believes that academic librarians have

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to be the main advocates to further the information literacy agenda across campus and that they need certain skills and hooks to help them achieve this’. The ‘Advocate’ role outlined in the ACRL Roles and Strengths guidelines also reflects this perspective; here, it is noted that ‘advocacy is required when working with library leaders and the college or university administration to promote and advance information literacy, student learning, and the information literacy program within the overall library organization’ (ACRL, 2017). In this sense, it is often conflated with promotional and outreach activities, designed to demonstrate the library’s role in the educational mission of the institution, and its critical support of student learning (McGuinness, 2011, 117–20), as well as efforts to foster an institutional information literacy culture that we explored in Chapter 5. Horton’s definition of advocacy is also rooted in the need for librarians to persuade key stakeholders of the benefits of information literacy and to influence their actions; however, his words imply a broader scope of advocacy that is aligned more closely with the global advocate perspective: By ‘information literacy advocacy’ I mean the actions that one takes to influence decision makers (whether policy makers in governments, business executives in private companies, or administrators in NGOs) to formally, officially, and publicly acknowledge, accept, and act upon proposed information literacy initiatives, in whatever form(s) they may be packaged – as plans, programs, projects, conferences, training workshops, seminars, colloquia, and so forth. (Horton, 2011, 263)

The view of information literacy advocacy presented by Weiner, Jackman and Prause focused on how to raise awareness of an issue among policymakers, using the previously mentioned information literacy presidential proclamation project as a case study. According to them, successfully placing an issue such as information literacy on a political agenda can be achieved by associating it with ‘major societal policy issues that require multifaceted and systemic solutions’ (Weiner, Jackman and Prause, 2013, 8). Examples of major issues that have been linked to information literacy in this way have included ‘educational reform from preschool through higher education; workplace readiness of graduating students; lifelong learning; an informed citizenry; [and] a globally competitive workforce’ (p. 8).

6.4 Information literacy: communicating value In all of these contexts, two key concepts are at the core of advocacy for information literacy, namely value and communication – i.e. identifying,

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articulating, demonstrating, and persuasively communicating the tangible and intangible benefits that being information literate affords in multiple life contexts. As Rockwell-Kincanon (2007, 246) pointed out, ‘information literacy is not an end unto itself. Nobody aspires to it. Its habits of mind serve an individual for multiple purposes at varying times, but simply the state of being information literate has no value to anyone.’ Information literacy (or any other literacy) is only valuable in the extent to which it facilitates change, action or improvement. Effective advocacy in any situation means being able to tap into the critical issues affecting your target population, and to connect your message clearly and directly to their experience and concerns. It requires you to ask ‘What matters here?’, and ‘How can our work help/contribute/support?’ In their guide to creating successful library advocacy campaigns, Reed, Nawalinksi and Kalonick (2013, 8) referred to the importance of identifying specific talking points: ‘in setting up talking points, it’s important to share not what we do, necessarily, but why what we do matters’. Horton also advised that it is essential to ‘link information literacy to important and long-standing, intractable national or institutional or organisational goals and reforms, rather than attempt to justify the concept purely or largely “in the abstract” or on philosophical grounds’ (Horton, 2011, 273), as the latter approach is unlikely to resonate as deeply with those whom you are seeking to persuade. Some of the definitions of information and other literacies that we examined in Chapter 1 represented attempts to capture the abilities, attributes and competences associated with information, media, digital and meta-literacy, which imbue them with value; for example, being able to use technology to meet information needs in one’s personal, civic and professional life, the ability to think critically and make balanced judgements about any information we find and use, and countering the effects of disinformation campaigns and ‘fake news’ that are spread through digital media. Whichever form of advocacy you aspire to, being able to articulate the value of information literacy (or other literacy) and convey this value to your audience in messages that will resonate with them most powerfully, are the keys to success. This means not just considering the positive benefits that accrue from embracing information literacy, but also giving attention to the negative consequences that can arise from low or limited information literacy. Formulating a persuasive message encompasses the ability to demonstrate both the value-added that accrues, as well as the disadvantages that could potentially be avoided, by including information literacy as a key competence, strategic goal, accreditation standard, or whatever your goal is. In keeping with the focus on reflection and self-examination that is the key aim of this book, the reflective exercise outlined in Table 6.1 opposite offers a starting point for you to consider – or expand your conception of – the value that

• Scholarly information seeking • Foundational research skills • Awareness of disciplinary traditions • Critical thinking • Academic integrity • Digital skills • Social justice awareness

Example: Undergraduate education

Digital inclusion

Environmental issues

Areas of impact

Context • Higher-quality and more relevant resources • Improved understanding of research approaches in different disciplines • Better quality evidence to support arguments in essays and papers • Reduction in plagiarism • Accurate citing and referencing • Awareness of free and subscription-based online resources • Ability to critically question sources and identify misinformation

Potential effects of enhanced IL

Table 6.1 Reflective exercise: the value of information literacy

• Unsuitable/non-scholarly resources used • Only internet sources used • Narrow view of disciplinary research • Unsupported arguments • Basing arguments on personal opinion • Focusing on one side of the story • Lack of academic integrity – intentional or unintentional • Lack of understanding of disciplinary traditions

A New Curriculum for Information Literacy (ANCIL)

ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education

Potential effects of limited Relevant definitions/standards IL

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information literacy affords in different contexts. It is a simple exercise, and not designed to be exhaustive – rather it aims to stimulate thinking about the messages that you could potentially focus on, when advocating for the inclusion of information literacy in any context. As with most exercises, it can also be carried out in groups. The exercise can be adapted to target any context that is relevant to your situation – by means of example in the table, ‘undergraduate education’ has been included as the core context and included examples of how this type of analysis might look in practice. The column on the right is reserved for any documentation that you feel supports your reflection. Other suggested core contexts include ‘environmental issues’ and ‘digital inclusion’. You can add your own as desired.

6.5 Ways of engaging in advocacy Examples of librarian-driven information literacy advocacy in multiple contexts abound. For instance, Wagg, Secker and Goldstein (2016) described the advocacy activities of CILIP’s Information Literacy Group (ILG) in respect of digital inclusion in the UK, which includes strategic partnerships with organisations outside the library sector, including the Tinder Foundation (now the Good Things Foundation), DEMOS, Age UK and Ofcom. Their activities include funding individual projects up to £10,000 to promote digital and information literacy outside the HE sector, as well as organising Teachmeets across the country. In Ireland, several representatives from the Library Association of Ireland (LAI) sit on the Media Literacy Ireland (MLI) Working Group Panel, collaborating with representatives from other sectors, including higher education, broadcast media and journalism to combat the mis- and dis-information that is disseminated via media channels, including social media. In 2019, MLI launched its Be Media Smart campaign to coincide with European Media Literacy Week; this was a multi-pronged campaign involving TV and radio adverts, a dedicated website, social media communications and media awareness events (Russell, 2019). Recent work by IFLA focused on articulating the role that libraries can play in helping to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which were adopted by all United Nations member states in 2015, and focus on developing strategic global partnerships to tackle critical issues such as poverty, climate change, education, health and sanitation. To do this, IFLA identified 20 SDGs ‘which implicitly or explicitly refer to the need for access to, and the ability to use, information’ (IFLA, 2020b). The IFLA International Advocacy Programme (IAP) was a capacity-building programme that ran from 2016 to 2018, designed to promote and support the role libraries can play in the planning and implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda and the SDGs. Their approach

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included a raft of awareness-raising activities, including regional workshops, training sessions, funded projects and end-user campaigns. Other activities included adding SDG stories to the interactive Library Map of the World (https://librarymap.ifla.org/stories) and building a collection of expert insights into how information and libraries contribute to individual SDGs (IFLA, 2020b). The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic elicited a flurry of responses from librarians, which demonstrated the contributions that their work could make to alleviating the crisis, including collecting and curating trustworthy data and resources related to the spread of the virus, providing online instructional services and contributing to the global effort to combat misinformation through circulating criteria for evaluating news, media and internet sources. The United for Libraries Power Guide for Successful Advocacy (Reed, Nawalinksi and Kalonick, 2013) recommends practical strategies that library advocates can adopt to develop their campaigns, such as: flyers, yard signs, buttons [badges], letters to the editor, meetings with newspaper editorial boards, radio and television public service announcements (PSAs), newspaper advertisements, petitions, postcards, speakers’ bureau, phone banks, web presence, e-mail campaigns, Twitter, Facebook and Pinterest. The guide recommends that strategies ‘should be designed to be compelling, informative, and ubiquitous’ (p. 11). Consider some of the approaches to advocacy in the following sections that you might activate in different circumstances and for different purposes. The word ‘cause’ is used here as shorthand for any advocacy goal you might have, ranging from library fundraising to seeking the inclusion of information literacy on a national political agenda.

6.5.1 Social media activity (or activism) Co-ordinated use of social media channels and networks raises awareness and delivers a unified message related to your cause, and engages constructively with those who might challenge or oppose your message through discussion and debate. Developing a strong, recognisable, active social media presence can help to build a community centred around your library or cause. Ewbank identified Twitter, in particular, as a powerful social media platform for advocacy, noting its increasing influence on how library advocates ‘communicate and spread messages’ as well as facilitating dialogue between professionals, which can contribute to building strong advocacy networks. When you are building support, the key advantages of a platform like Twitter are speed and reach – for example, the use of hashtags (words and phrases preceded by the # symbol which classifies a tweet) can ‘coordinate information and public discussion on news and political topics, among others,

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and allow ad hoc publics to form around emerging issues and acute events at incredible speed’ (Ewbank, 2015, 28). However, to avoid creating an echo chamber, in which supporters are talking only to each other, recruiting influential and highly-connected Twitter accounts to the cause can be a way of ensuring that the message breaks free from the closely knit social networks that may have originally formed.

6.5.2 Engaging local or national government support This could be simply by writing, e-mailing, messaging or arranging to meet your local representative or other key decision maker (depending on context) to introduce your issue, explain its importance, clearly outline what you are asking them to do, and potentially secure its inclusion on an agenda higher up the chain. In these situations, Green (2016, 4) recommended adhering to the ‘rules of good lobbying,’ namely, ‘know what your targets can and can’t deliver; treat them like human beings; persuade by appealing both to altruism and self-interest’. At a more radical level, it might involve organising rallies, marches or protests, depending on the seriousness of the cause, the level of public support and the potential consequences of inaction.

6.5.3 Persuasive writing or contributions to popular media Examples are setting up a dedicated blog, recording a weekly podcast, contributing posts to existing blogs, writing articles for newspapers, newsletters and magazines and contributing pieces to websites such as medium.com or theconversation.com. Blogs are typically part of wider social media campaigns, which harness cross-platform communication to amplify the message and reach a wider audience, e.g. tweeting links to your blogposts with hashtags, sharing via your LinkedIn profile, etc.

6.5.4 An online petition Online petitions are a recent way of ‘crowdsourcing’ support for a cause, e.g. via Change.org (www.change.org), Care2 (www.thepetitionsite.com) or My Uplift (https://my.uplift.ie). For example, in 2019, the ALA organised an online petition, urging the CEO of Macmillan Publishers to reverse a new policy that would have the consequence of limiting libraries’ ability to purchase e-books. The #eBooksForAll petition (https://ebooksforall.org) has now gathered more than 250,000 signatures from readers, authors, library staff and patrons across the USA.

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6.5.5 Running or hosting public events Examples are lectures, seminars, webinars, workshops or exhibitions designed to highlight your cause, share experiences and resources, link in with global events, or to showcase the services provided by your library, in order to demonstrate its value. Inviting influential decision makers (e.g. local government representatives) to give a short talk, present an award, or participate in a panel discussion is another means of raising awareness and gaining support for your cause.

6.5.6 Organising high-profile symposia For example, ‘think tanks and colloquia to debate the meaning of information literacy for society at large’ (McGuinness, 2011, 65), such as the seminal ‘Information Literacy Meeting of Experts’ in Prague (Thompson, 2003). Inviting participants from different sectors external to LIS can enable a mutual understanding of the meaning and impact of information literacy in different contexts and spheres, and the opportunity to collaborate on relevant initiatives.

6.5.7 Community engagement This involves going outside the library and into community spaces, in order to connect with individuals and groups who can benefit from your services, and who may in turn help to spread positive ‘word-of-mouth’ support for your cause or library. It could be through offering to help out at events, contributing time or resources to existing organisations or organising ‘popup’ stands at major events, etc. For example, Children’s Books Ireland (CBI) ran a ‘Book Clinic’ at the popular Irish music festival Electric Picnic in 2019, with ‘Book Doctors’ available to offer advice to young readers. Each child left ‘with a CBI Reading Passport, and a prescription for their next read to take to their local bookshop or library’ (Children’s Books Ireland, 2019).

6.5.8 Recruiting ambassadors One example of this indirect approach by librarians was the Information Literacy Advocates scheme at the University of Nottingham, in which medical and health sciences students from second year upwards were recruited ‘to facilitate development of information literacy skills and confidence, as well as communication, organisation and teamwork, through the provision of peer support’ (Curtis, 2016, 334). During the scheme, advocates provided support and guidance to peers in areas such as searching databases and library

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catalogues, referencing and finding books in stacks, in addition to assisting at librarian-led information skills sessions. This resulted in several positive outcomes, including improved peer information literacy, extended library ‘reach,’ and self-development and increased confidence for the advocates.

6.5.9 Teamwork and support One of the most important aspects of advocacy is that of team, or community – although sometimes it might be necessary to go it alone, the most effective campaigns are inevitably the result of a team effort, with members bringing different perspectives, skills and contacts to the table. As Reed, Nawalinksi and Kalonick (2013, 2) pointed out, ‘developing an advocacy campaign . . . is not rocket science but it does take dedication, hard work, a core group of people who are passionate about the cause and the support of many, many people in your community’. To support your advocacy efforts at any level, several practical guidelines and toolkits are available that have been designed specifically for libraries and can be adapted to your local needs. For example, the Global Libraries Advocacy Guide (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, 2011), the Illinois Library Association Advocacy Toolkit (Illinois Library Association, n.d.), the Power Guide for Successful Advocacy (Reed, Nawalinksi and Kalonick, 2013) and the IFLA Library Policy and Advocacy Blog (IFLA, n.d.). The final word on information literacy advocacy is reserved for Horton (2011), whose long career in librarianship included extensive and high-level experience in international advocacy. His ‘ten commandments’ for effective information literacy advocacy offer an insightful blend of practical guidelines and confidence-building advice and tips: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Patience and Perseverance Find an In-House Champion Aim for the Top Link Information Literacy to Specific Long-Standing Goals and Reforms Link to the Twenty-First Century and to the Global Information/Knowledge Society 6. Resistance to Change Is ‘Normal’ 7. Don’t Bite Off More Than You Can Chew 8. Pilot Test, Experiment, and Compartmentalize 9. Advocacy Is Not for the Faint of Heart 10. Do Your Homework.

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6.6 Writing for academic publications: a reflective view In this final section, we come to the topic of academic writing. In a book that aims to encourage you to reflect on multiple aspects of your role as an academic teaching librarian, you might count writing for academic publication as an activity which exemplifies professional reflection at its most challenging. Unlike the kind of introspective personal reflection we have explored in previous chapters through exercises and reflective pauses, the form of reflection activated in academic writing is fundamentally expository in nature. It requires us to set out our professional stall for public consumption, whether through describing our research projects, proposing new theoretical or practical perspectives, or through simply recounting our teaching practices and experiences through descriptive case studies. But the act of writing in this way can also enable us to deepen our own understanding, structure our thoughts, and figure out practical problems; in other words, ‘to examine what worked and what did not, and to make comparisons to how other libraries have handled the situation’ (Hahn and Jaeger, 2013, 238). The notion of academic writing as a reflective activity for librarians is highlighted by Fallon: Writing offers an opportunity for librarians to reflect on their practice. It is potentially a powerful tool to help identify where we have come from, where we are now, and how we want to develop. In addition to enhancing curriculum vitae, writing for publication offers an opportunity to join in national and international dialogues on professional issues and concerns. (Fallon, 2010, 35–6)

In a similar way, Moon described reflection as a way to make sense of ‘relatively complicated, ill-structured ideas for which there is not an obvious solution’ (Moon, 2006, 37). She likened reflective writing to ‘using the page as a meeting place in which ideas can intermingle and, in developing, give rise to new idea for new learning’ (p. 17). Referring specifically to academic writing for librarians, Broussard also linked writing for publication to learning, where she observed that ‘both librarians and libraries are missing out on a key opportunity for truly deep learning if writing for publication is not part of their continuing education repertoire’ (Broussard, 2016, 430). This close link between writing and learning inspired the ‘Writing to Learn’ movement (WTL), which is based on the idea that ‘the process of writing helps the writer work out what they have to say, develop ideas and learn through writing’ (Fallon et al., 2019, 3). What is your experience to date of writing for academic publications? Perhaps you have already had one or more articles published in a scholarly

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journal or contributed a chapter to an edited collection; you might even have written or co-authored a book. Or maybe you have just dipped your toe into the pool of scholarly publishing, and written a couple of book reviews, or short articles. However, if you have published, this places you among the minority – it has been well documented that many practising academic librarians choose never to publish in scholarly journals (Fallon, 2009; Ogbomo, 2010), although among the librarians who do publish, academic librarians are the most prolific (Chang, 2015). A study by Finlay et al., which examined articles in 20 library and information science (LIS) journals published between 1956 and 2011, found that just 31% of those articles were written by librarians, while the majority were authored by non-librarians (67%). The study also identified a decrease in the proportion of articles written by practising librarians between 2006 and 2011, a trend they identified as a cause for concern, noting that if it continues, ‘the character of LIS literature may shift away from many issues relating to practical librarianship’ (Finlay et al., 2013, 403). A more recent study of librarians’ contributions to Open Access (OA) LIS journals between 2008 and 2013 painted a more positive picture, with 51% of the articles examined written by librarians, and 33% by researchers (Chang, 2015). There are several reasons why librarians may be reluctant to write for academic publications; according to Broussard (2016, 428), the LIS literature identifies ‘three main barriers that prevent librarians from publishing in the scholarly literature: lack of institutional support, time, and confidence’. Focused on their day-to-day work, many librarians do not have the time to read, let alone contribute to the scholarly literature. Inadequate training in research and writing on pre-service professional LIS programmes is another barrier which may partly account for a lack of confidence, especially among those with little prior experience of research. Another explanation might be the fact that evidence of research activity and publication in prestigious scholarly journals are not, for the most part, significant criteria in recruitment, promotion and tenure for academic librarians, although some institutions where librarians enjoy faculty status equal to the academic staff do have these requirements; when this pressure to publish is removed, other motivators to write need to be found. An interesting observation was made by Finlay et al. (2013), in discussing the results of their study; they suggested that the rise in professional blogging and social media engagement among librarians may partly account for the downward trend in librarian-authored scholarly publications, as librarians migrate to this format, finding it more suited to their professional publishing needs. Since they are mostly not required to publish for reasons of promotion, the less formal approach of online blogging might be perceived as a more natural outlet for their writing, and a better channel for their target audience, which is frequently other librarians.

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Broussard (2016, 427) also observed that while librarians eagerly consume professional knowledge in the form of conferences, webinars and social media, ‘writing for publication is often overlooked as a way for librarians to learn and improve their job performance’. At this point, it is useful to take a few minutes to reflect on your own attitude towards writing for academic publication. If you haven’t already done so, what has stopped you? And if you have already published, what were the motivators that prompted you to write? Use the following prompts to structure your reflection: Reflective pause – my experience and views of academic writing  In my view, academic librarians should/shouldn’t write for academic publication because . . .  I think writing for academic publications is good for academic teaching librarians, because . . .  I think that most academic librarians don’t write for academic publication because . . .  The main reasons why I haven’t published a scholarly article so far are . . .  I would like to write for academic publication, but can’t at the moment because . . .  To be able to write for academic publication in my job, I would need . . .  I found that the main factors that motivated me to publish an academic article were . . .  I found the process of academic writing to be . . .  The benefits I gained from publishing a scholarly article were . . .

Broussard (2016, 428) suggested that ‘for librarians who are not required to publish, the benefits seem too small and abstract’. However, the professional and personal benefits that can accrue from writing for academic publication have been identified by many authors (e.g. Lamothe, 2012; Schrimsher and Northrup, 2013; Hahn and Jaeger, 2013; Ivins and Pemberton, 2019). They include the following: 

Career progression ‘Career advancement is another reason for librarians to publish. Publishing has greatly increased the chances of authors being hired’ (Lamothe, 2012, 158). As noted previously, for some academic librarians with faculty status, carrying out original research and publishing in scholarly channels is part of the promotion and tenure requirements for academic libraries, e.g. in the USA and Canada. Apart from that, a record of scholarly publishing can lead to increased recognition and respect from colleagues and peers both within and

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outside LIS, as well as demonstrate exceptional motivation and commitment to professional advancement and scholarship, when included on a résumé or job application. Sharing best practice ‘Creative ideas can be of value to all librarians, whether they come from corporate, business, health, legal, public, or academic libraries. What has been accomplished in one library can sometimes be of great benefit to another’ (Lamothe, 2012, 157). One of the most important benefits of academic writing for librarians is the opportunity to share innovative practices. Describing how a problem was solved, sharing useful resources, explaining how a new programme was implemented or an existing programme transformed, can all make valuable contributions to the body of knowledge and resource base underpinning library practice. Keeping up to date In the normal course of events, librarians have little time to read scholarly publications; there is also a perceived longstanding disconnect between the research published in LIS journals, and the practical concerns of library work (Pilerot, 2016). However, writing for academic publication also involves consuming scholarly literature, as authors seek to locate their work within the appropriate discourse. Librarians can use the opportunity to bring themselves up to date with current developments in the field, and to engage with research that supports new practice innovations. According to Ivins and Pemberton (2019, 6): ‘Publishing not only will help you build expertise, but it also will demonstrate to the community that your library cares enough about its services to reflect meaningfully on them.’ Becoming part of the conversation Academic writing also means contributing to a discursive space, where LIS professionals can exchange ideas and debate issues that are central to research and practice. As Lamothe (2012, 156) observed, ‘advancement in any field can only be achieved when participants distribute their ideas and experiences’. We will explore this further in the next section, especially regarding librarians’ contributions to non-LIS scholarly communities. Continuing professional development Writing for academic publication can also be part of a librarian’s continuing professional development journey, as a way of keeping up to date, honing research and writing skills, and immersing oneself in the professional, technical and scholarly discourse. Personal satisfaction Intrinsic motivation and the pursuit of personal goals can also prompt some librarians to write for academic publications. Hahn and Jaeger (2013, 238) noted the personal benefit of ‘enjoying the

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satisfaction of accomplishment – it is a wonderful feeling to see your name in print’.

6.6.1 Academic writing and advocacy Librarians are great at sharing best practice with each other through the literature, through social media, on blogs and Twitter and on Wikis. However, they are not so good at sharing this with the broader community, by publishing outside of the field of library and information science (LIS) and by partaking in conferences outside of LIS. (Lawton, 2015, 9–10)

As academic teaching librarians, it is clear that one of the most powerful means of advocacy that we have is for us to tell our stories in ways which resonate most deeply with the audiences we are trying to reach, and through selecting the media for our messages that are most likely to deliver the greatest impact. In our previous discussion of information literacy advocacy, we explored a range of approaches in multiple media formats that can be creatively engineered to raise awareness, galvanise others into action, and communicate the value of our work in different scenarios. Effective communication for advocates lies in identifying and articulating the ‘talking points’ that are of mutual interest, and which can serve as a springboard to further conversation and possible future synergies; it can mean finding a common ‘story’ that strikes a chord – or even deciding to write a new one together. As academic teaching librarians, whose work places us directly at the heart of scholarship, writing about information literacy and our teaching and learning work for academic publications is a form of professional storytelling that connects us with the scholarly communities who constitute our most important – and arguably our most elusive – audience. As Schrimsher and Northrup (2013, 88) pointed out, ‘writing is a communication tool in our professional battery. Writing well will improve your relationships with all individuals with whom you interact.’ While beneficial for the reasons we have listed, an especially valuable outcome of writing for academic publications for librarians, if we choose to embrace it, is the opportunity it affords us to become active and equal participants in the scholarly conversation, which is defined in the ACRL Framework as where ‘communities of scholars, researchers, or professionals engage in sustained discourse with new insights and discoveries occurring over time as a result of varied perspectives and interpretations’ (ACRL, 2015). This was echoed by Fallon, where she highlighted ‘the value of developing practice and research into articles for peer-reviewed and professional journals, book chapters and other outlets in order to reflect,

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gain insights, share experiences and knowledge and be part of a vibrant community of academic authors’ (Fallon, 2016, 107). In this way, academic writing becomes a tool of advocacy, as we engage faculty and researchers on their own ground to discuss information literacy and learning in the common language of scholarship. Along similar lines, Mallon, Hays and Bradley (2019) argued convincingly for academic librarians to contribute to SoTL, or the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, which refers to a distinct body of original published research on teaching and learning practices in higher education that has been growing since the early 1990s. They emphasise the parallels between recent information literacy models, such as the ACRL Framework and the core values of the SoTL movement, namely a focus on understanding and improving the student learning experience, exploring different theoretical perspectives and research paradigms, and an overall goal of transforming practice: ‘Librarians can use this connection, as well as their expertise in information literacy, to connect with faculty to explore SoTL projects as well as to embark on answering their own SoTL questions about student learning’ (Mallon, Hays and Bradley, 2019, xiv). A number of case studies describing academic librarians’ engagement in SoTL in Europe and North America are presented in their edited volume, The Grounded Instruction Librarian: participating in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. In addition to contributing to the existing SoTL literature, for academic teaching librarians, ‘the development of our own “scholarship of teaching and learning” is a crucial support for our efforts, and a further means of legitimising our work’ (McGuinness, 2011, 176). Writing for academic publications is also a critical means of facilitating progressive development, through sharing experiences and expertise: according to Grassian and Kaplowitz, ‘a discipline stifles, atrophies and may wither away if no one seeks new information to add to its knowledge base . . . welldesigned and properly conducted research is essential to the continued growth and development of ILI [information literacy instruction] as well as librarianship at large’ (Grassian and Kaplowitz, 2005, 147). One criticism of librarians’ contributions to academic publications, however, is that they seem to be primarily talking to each other – that a reluctance to publish in journals from other disciplines has led to a type of scholarly echo chamber, where innovations in research and practice are reported only in LIS journals, and read only by LIS practitioners and researchers, rather than connecting with scholars in other disciplines, where teaching collaborations might be possible (Weetman DaCosta, 2007). As Swoger (2010, para. 6) pointed out, ‘faculty are much more likely to read pedagogical publications in their own disciplines, and librarians need to reach out to faculty in order to facilitate effective information literacy instruction’.

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Targeting non-LIS journals as well as other scholarly outlets, such as conferences and seminars, applying for teaching-related grants and for institutional and national teaching awards, are a means for us, as academic teaching librarians, to demonstrate that our concerns are also the concerns of every teacher in higher education, and that our contribution to the discourse is equally valuable. Fallon suggested that through sharing their unique perspectives on teaching and learning in this way, academic librarians can contribute to raising the library’s profile on campus, transform practice, and open the door to potential collaborations: Academic writing helps promote the visibility of the Library within the University. It also helps facilitate the sharing and dissemination of knowledge, experience, skills and practice that do not exist in the same framework elsewhere in the University. This sharing can bring about changes at both the Library and the University level and has the potential to open up new dialogues, new partnerships and new ways of seeing and thinking. (Fallon, 2016, 107)

In particular, publishing in open access journals can help to increase your visibility beyond academia – OA journals can be easily accessed by people outside the LIS field, and outside the scholarly community. Overall, OA journals support wider circulation, higher visibility, faster publication, larger readership and increased citations. When choosing a channel for your publication, it’s a good idea to consult the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) to explore the different OA options available to you: https://doaj.org.

6.6.2 Generating ideas for academic publications If you decide that you would like to start your journey into writing for academic publications, deciding what to write about is the first step. For academic faculty and researchers, publications are most often based on their ongoing or recently completed research projects; however, as a practising librarian, you may not have had the opportunity to carry out research and must therefore draw on your professional practice for ideas. There are a number of ways to generate ideas to write about. For example: 

ideas that emerge from your day-to-day practice of librarianship and daily library operations – for instance, the introduction and impact of new technologies or systems, implementing innovative approaches to teaching and learning, both face-to-face and online, collaborating with academic colleagues to embed information literacy into their curricula.

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observations made about the information behaviours, characteristics and preferences of the communities you serve; for academic teaching librarians, this can include observations about learning preferences and approaches in different student populations, challenges encountered by specific cohorts, changing information and learning behaviours in light of mobile technologies and social media, etc. solutions to specific workplace problems – for example, a popular topic in 2020 was the ways in which academic libraries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the solutions they reached in order to continue providing library services during lockdown; dealing with the reductions in funding and resources as a result of the pandemic will generate further issues worth researching. ideas sparked through attending professional events – conferences, webinars, panel discussions, etc.; for example, a presentation that made something click for you, or a conversation with another conference attendee that leads to a collaboration. ideas based on what you read in the scholarly literature (not just LIS), or in less formal publications such as blogs, websites and newsletters; for academic teaching librarians, perusing the literature on educational research, or around trends in online and blended learning can open up a world of inspiration that can be applied to our own practice. follow-on work from papers you wrote during your professional LIS training; while attending graduate school, you may not have had the time to convert your high-quality papers to publication format. For early-career librarians, revisiting your higher-quality graduate papers might be means of generating publishable content. As Lamothe (2012, 160) noted, ‘there is nothing preventing you from recycling your previous work as long as it is suitable’. papers based on surveys carried out in your workplace; with this approach, Lamothe suggested that ‘you might be surprised by what you learn. You can report on usage, collection building, personnel or collection management, policy implementation, current trends, patron needs, and so forth. Many elements of your work experience can be valuable to another professional’ (Lamothe, 2012, 160). Before writing a full paper, you might consider contributing a book review, which is a low-pressure way of gaining experience in academic writing: ‘Writing book reviews is often a good way to begin academic writing. It can help you get your name known in your field and give you valuable experience of publishing before you write a full-length article’ (Feinstein, 2017).

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An excellent overview of the steps that academic librarians can take to generate ideas for an article or piece of research, choose a publication type, and select an appropriate publication channel for the piece is provided by Hahn and Jaeger; their article includes a helpful table which provides ‘general guidance for thinking about different types of journals and magazines and the potential audiences they reach’ (Hahn and Jaeger, 2013, 240), as well as one which categorises publication channels in terms of how challenging it is to get an article accepted. Other useful resources, for those of you who wish to take the first steps into writing for academic publication, are the highly readable book, How to Write and Get Published: a practical guide for librarians by Ivins and Pemberton (2019), and the detailed article, Helpful Hints for Every Librarian’s Nightmare: publishing an article by Schrimsher and Northrup (2013). Helen Fallon’s Academic Writing Librarians blog (Fallon, 2020) also offers extensive writing support and tips, as well as a ready-made community of librarians who have made the choice to write for academic publication.

6.6.3 Motivating yourself to write If you want to become a successful academic writer, it might not be enough simply to learn more about the technical skills; it might be equally important to invest time in developing your confidence through new types of writing activity . . . The trick is to get to grips with these potential risks, work out which ones are holding you back and discuss them with trusted colleagues who want you to succeed. (Murray, 2013, 30–1)

The final word on writing for academic publication concerns your motivation to write – which, as Murray pointed out, can be more of a question of confidence than skill. What are your fears about academic writing? At the beginning of this section, we referred to the expository nature of writing for academic publication; that in publishing, you are opening up your work to potential criticism and there is a vulnerability connected to that, especially if you are new to the process. It can also be difficult to find time and sustain momentum – running out of steam is a common problem, and not just among novice writers. One approach suggested by Murray is to engage in incremental or ‘snack’ writing, rather than attempt to ‘binge write’ – fitting in small chunks of writing whenever you get a chance, rather than trying to force it all into extended sessions can be a more manageable way of approaching a paper: ‘Regular writing can have the effect of removing the fear. Each increment is small enough to be manageable, rather than daunting’ (Murray, 2013, 75). However, it is also important to set goals and carve out time for writing in your schedule; preparing a plan that not only includes the

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actual writing, but also time to read relevant literature and examine the requirements in your journal of choice is an essential part of the process. Fitzmaurice and Farrell (n.d.) suggested several strategies for managing the academic writing process:  



 

 

As far as possible, make time to write; schedule regular writing time, even if just small chunks of ‘snack writing’ in the evenings after work. Identify the things that typically distract you from your writing, and take steps to avoid them, e.g. silence social media notifications on your devices; keep your phone in another room where you can’t hear it. Start a writing session by reading what you have produced so far and spend some time editing or clarifying sentences to get into the writing mode. List the headings and sub-headings of the section you are about to write and aim to ‘fill in’ these sections. When you come to the end of a section, don’t stop there for the day – instead, continue on with a couple of sentences of the next section. Then, when you come back to the writing, you can pick up from where you left off, which is easier than starting with a blank page. Avoid stopping to revise and correct in the middle of a section; this can break you out of the flow and make it more challenging to restart. Make sure to reward yourself for meeting your writing targets.

Exercises 1 Documenting value The government in your country has just announced an investment of €100 million (or your equivalent currency) for the enhancement of digital capacity in higher education over the next three years. A significant proportion of this investment is intended for the development of students’ digital skills during their education, to ensure their readiness for a society where digital technologies increasingly permeate every aspect of life. To determine how the money is to be allocated, submissions have been invited from the various HE institutions, to outline their priorities for funding, and to indicate where the money will be spent. As the Instructional Services Co-ordinator for your library, you have been asked by your line manager to prepare a two-page submission, indicating how the library can contribute to digital skills enhancement for students, and to justify why funding is needed to ensure high-quality and innovative service delivery in this area. Your first step is to convene a sub-committee to carry out this task.

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Focusing on the value-added that the library’s instructional services bring to students’ digital learning experience, your job is to prepare a compelling brief which describes what your library would like to do, and how funding will help to achieve these goals. 2 Creating a campaign Draw up the outline of a time-limited campaign you could put together, to promote the role of libraries and librarians in combatting mis- and disinformation in the run-up to the next general election in your country. You can refer to the Power Guide for Successful Advocacy (Reed, Nawalinksi and Kalonick, 2013) to support the drawing up of your campaign schedule. Items to consider include:     



the core message you wish to communicate the key goals you wish to accomplish the title of your campaign, and a slogan you might use the ‘talking points’ that will determine the direction of your message the strategies you will adopt to reach your target audience (e.g. social media, flyers, posters, videos, public talks, media appearances, political lobbying) the metrics you could use to determine the reach and impact of your campaign.

3 Planning your publications Develop a personal publication plan for the next 2–3 years, using the Research Publications Planner (Peacock, n.d.). In the Research Publications Planner, the planning template on pages 10–11 can be adapted to your needs, and to the personal timespan that suits you best. If you prefer instead to focus on conferences for your work, the template on pages 22– 3 will help you to plan the events that you might target, and the types of presentation that are most appropriate for your work.

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Index

‘23 Things’ programme 151–2, 206 academic information literacy 23 academic librarianship increasing role of teaching and learning 97–101 academic teaching librarians acceptance of teaching role 52–3 advocacy 215–41 alternative role labels 53 career planning and development 115–27 choosing a career 97–102 co-ordinating instructional programmes 183–8 critical issues shaping the role 3–50 developing a personal teaching philosophy 85–95 digital learning knowledge domains 146–50 engaging with the professional community 200–11 importance of terminology 4–5, 74 influence of self-perceptions of literacy 71–6 influence of technology on role 131–69 leadership 174–83

professional identity 54–62 reflective practice 76–84 role conceptions 54–6 roles and responsibilities 62–71 Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians 69–71 sample job specifications 99–100 teaching-related skills and proficiencies 63–9 understanding and developing professional/teacher identity 51–62 Academic Writing Librarians blog 239 ACRL see Association of College and Research Libraries advocacy and academic teaching librarians 221–3 and librarians’ social justice role 219–20 by libraries 219–21 definition 216 for instructional services 221–3 for libraries 217–19 practical strategies 226–30 toolkits 230

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ALA see American Library Association algorithms 26 American Library Association Core Competencies of Librarianship 64–7 Core Values of Librarianship 112 JobLIST 98–100 Library Code of Ethics 40–1 Presidential Committee on Information Literacy, report of 5 ANCIL see New Curriculum for Information Literacy aptitudes 107–9 aptitude testing 108 artificial intelligence (AI) 138, 139, 140 Association of College and Research Libraries 201 Academic Library Impact Report 219 Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best Practice 193 definition of information literacy 9 definition of meta-literacy 10 Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education 15–20, 71, 84, 205, 236 Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education 7, 13, 15–16, 24, 60 Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians 55, 69–71, 145, 175, 182, 223 Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators 64, 69 Value of Academic Libraries report 36

Atkins and Murphy’s Model of Reflective Practice 80 bibliometrics 46–9 see also research data management barriers for academic teaching librarians 49 services offered by academic libraries 47 Big6 model 13 big data 45 and learning analytics 37, 40 Biggs, J. levels of thinking about teaching 94–5 blended learning 135, 142 see also digital learning Model of Instructional Design for Web-Based Learning 165–9 Blockchain 138 blogs 119, 207, 152, 232 and advocacy 228 Blogger 127 Booth, C. effective teaching with technology 138, 147 experiential approach to instructional design 161–3 reflective practice 77–8, 80, 85 Brexit 30 Brightspace (D2L) 127 Bruce, C. GeST model of information literacy 13–14, 20–1 Seven Faces of Information Literacy 7 Six Frames for Information Literacy Education 92–4 California Clearinghouse on Library Instruction 201

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Care2 228 career assessing career suitability 102–14 career competencies 103–4 choice of academic teaching librarianship 97–102 development plans 115–18 factors influencing career choice 104 planning and development 115–27 CAVAL see Cooperative Action by Victorian Academic Libraries change management and creating an information literacy culture 197–9 Change.org 228 Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals definition of information literacy 9 Ethical Framework 40–1 Information Literacy Group 9, 201, 226 Professional Knowledge and Skills Base (PKSB) 6, 65–7 Children’s Books Ireland (CBI) 229 CILIP see Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals citizen journalism 30 committees 201–3 community see also professional community engagement for advocacy 229 communities of practice (CoPs) 203– 5 Competing Values Framework 197 Consortium of National and University Libraries (CONUL) 201–2 constructivism 166–7

Continuing professional development 119–21, 147 types of professional development activities 120–1 conversational interfaces 138 Cooperative Action by Victorian Academic Libraries Competencies for Academic and Research Librarians 65–7 co-ordination 183–8 Corrall, S. changing role of academic librarians 56 instructional role of academic librarians 53, 98 reflective practice 77–80, 84 Council of Australian University Librarians (CAUL) 201 Coursera 121 COVID-19 32, 137–8, 181–2, 227, 238 critical information literacy (CIL) 20–6 adoption of mindset 75–6 comparison with academic information literacy 23 critical pedagogy 21 effect on academic teaching librarian role 23–5 key dimensions 22–3 social justice 21, 222 suggested instructional approaches 26 teaching about peer review 22 culture creating an information literacy culture 188–200 cybersecurity 139 D2L see Brightspace data and changing research practices 46

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datafied scholarship 44–9 definition 45 data information literacy (DIL) 44, 47–8 core competences for data information literacy 48 Delphi method 178 digital competence definitions 9 digital credentialling 138 digital fluency 11 digital humanities 45 digital learning 132, 135–6 competence frameworks 155–63 current trends 141–2 influence on work of academic teaching librarians 143–5 instructional design models 163–9 knowledge domains 146–50, 154 levels of skill and expertise 150–5 transformation of higher education 137–43 digital learning knowledge domains (DLKDs) 146–50, 154 digital literacy 8, 10–11 definitions 9 personal digital literacy 146–7 students’ digital literacy 148–9 ‘digital readiness’ 132, 170 Directory of Open Access Journals 237 dis-information 28 educational technology 133 see also digital learning Educational Technology and Mobile Learning Blog 151 Educause Horizon reports 11, 135, 140, 144   Learning Initiative Survey 5–6

Center for Analysis and Research (ECAR) 140 Student and Faculty Technology Research Study 165 e-learning 134 see also digital learning Electric Picnic (music festival) 229 emotional labour 59 and instructional coordinators 187 e-portfolios 126–7 e-research 44–9 see also datafied scholarship definition 45 implications for academic teaching librarian role 48–9 need for professional training 49 e-science see e-research European Commission definition of media literacy 9 Digital Competence Framework 2.1 16–17 Digital Education Action Plan 139 European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators (DigCompEdu) 159–60 European Union (EU) Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy 29 event organisation 229 Facebook 152, 227 faculty culture 194–5 faculty-library collaboration 187–90, 195–7, 236–7 fake news 27–34 defining 27–9 IFLA infographic 33 journalism 28 role of academic teaching librarians 32–4 spread of 30–1

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INDEX  273

typologies 28–9 filter bubbles 31 Five Factor Model (FFM) of Personality Traits 108–9 flipped classroom 135, 145 Foliospaces 127 Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education see Association of College and Research Libraries GDPR see General Data Protection Regulation General Data Protection Regulation 42, 151 GeST model (generic, situated, transformative) 13 and critical information literacy 20–1 Gibbs’ Reflective Learning Cycle 81 Global Libraries Advocacy Guide 216 Google Sites 127, 209 Google Suite (GSuite) 136 Gorman, M. enduring values 112 Government Jobs (website) 184 grants 199, 237 Herrington, J. Model of Instructional Design for Web-Based Learning 136, 165–9 higher education (HE) and digital learning 137–43 Hootsuite 207 Horizon reports see Educause hybrid learning see blended learning IFLA see International Federation of Library Associations Illinois Library Association 217

imposter syndrome 72 information disorder 28 information literacy see also data information literacy ambassadors 229–30 communicating value of 223–6 conceptual transformation of 6–8, 73 continuing relevance of 5–6 culture, creating an 188–200 criticism of skills-based models 14 definitions 9 description of skills-based models 16–17 effect on instructional approaches 19–20 effect on perception of selfefficacy 72–3 impact of technology 143–4 models, standards and frameworks 12–20 national frameworks 222 self-perception of academic teaching librarians 71–6 shift from behaviourist to constructivist view 14–16, 19–20 student ambassadors 229–30 ‘third wave’ 5–6 value of 223–6 Information Literacy Blogspot 121 Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education see Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Meeting of Experts 229 ‘information operations’ 28–9 Institute of Museum and Library Services 42 Institute of Psychometric Coaching 108

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institutional culture 190–6 core elements 191–2 support for information literacy integration 194–6 instruction librarians see also academic teaching librarians sample job specifications 98–100 Standards for Proficiencies for Instruction Librarians and Coordinators 64, 69 instructional co-ordinator 183–6 sample job advertisement 184–5 instructional design Booth’s experiential approach 161–3 models 163–9 role 145–6 intellectual property 42 International Council for Distance and Open Education global guidelines on learning analytics 42 International Federation of Library Associations Code of Ethics for Librarians and other Information Workers 40–1, 219 definition of digital literacy 9 Educational Technology and Student Data briefing 43 fake news infographic 33 Guidelines for Professional Library/Information Educational Programs 62 Information Literacy Section 201 International Advocacy Program (IAP) 226–7 Statement on Digital Literacy 147 iPad 136

JISC see Joint Information Systems Committee Joint Information Systems Committee Code of Practice for Learning Analytics 42 Learning Analytics and GDPR: what you need to know 42 Johns’ Model for Structured Reflection 80 journal club 121 kairos 59–60 and professional identity formation 60 Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle 80 leadership 174–83 comparison with management and co-ordination roles 175–6 distributed leadership 180–3 during COVID-19 pandemic 181–2 librarian ‘teacher leaders’ 177–8 perceptions of 174–5 perceptions of followers 178–9 professional community engagement 200 learning analytics 34–44 barriers for academic teaching librarians 43 conflict with library codes of ethics 40–1 definition and understanding 37–9 effect on academic teaching librarian role 39–44 ethical concerns 40–2 GDPR 42 IFLA briefing 43 implications for digital learning 149

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JISC Code of Practice for Learning Analytics 42 learning management systems 38 LIILA see Library Integration in Institutional Learning Analytics project Learning and Teaching in the European Higher Education Area 140 learning management system (LMS) 136, 142, 150, 152–5, 165, 181 librarianship competence frameworks 64–7, 98 perceptions of 220–1 library culture 196–200 transformation of library space for digital learning 142, 194 value and advocacy 217–19 visibility 198–9, 237 Library and Information Science Education in Europe: Joint Curriculum Development and Bologna Perspectives 63–4, 72 Library Association of Ireland (LAI) 226 Library Integration in Institutional Learning Analytics project 42–3 Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) 201 Library Map of the World 227 Library Orientation Exchange (LOEX) 201 LIILA see Library Integration in Institutional Learning Analytics project LinkedIn e-portfolios 127 Learning 121 online persona 210 personal learning network 207

literacy dominant 21st-century literacies 9 themes reflecting current understanding 11–12 Livebinders 127 lobbying 228 conflation with advocacy 216 Mackey, T. P. and Jacobson, T. E. meta-literacy 8, 10, 15 post-information age, the 6–7 Mahara 127 mal-information 28 marketing 221 Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning 148 Mayes and Fowler’s Conceptualisation Cycle 163–5 Maynooth University Library information literacy framework 199 media and information literacy (MIL) definition 9 media literacy 8 Media Literacy Ireland 199 Be Media Smart campaign 226 medium.com 228 meta-literacy 8, 15 definitions 10 Microsoft Teams 181, 204 MIL see media and information literacy mis-information 28 mixed-mode learning see blended learning Model of Instructional Design for Web-Based Learning 136, 165–9 motivation exploring career motivators 113–14

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multiliteracies 7–8 MyUplift 228 National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education Making a Difference: A Student View of Excellent Teaching 105–6 National Professional Development Framework for All Staff who Teach in Higher Education 78, 81–2, 119–20 New Curriculum for Information Literacy 18–19 Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE) 141 Oliver, R. Model of Instructional Design for Web-Based Learning 136, 165–9 ‘one-shot’ classes 20, 26, 189, 197 online community 207–11 online learning 134–5 see also digital learning online persona 209–11 online polling 134, 151 open access 45, 48, 199, 237 open educational resources (OERs) 140 open science 24 Open University Digital and Information Literacy Framework 17 organisational culture see institutional culture ‘Padagogy Wheel’ 136 Pebblepad 127 pedagogy and digital learning 148, 151 peer support 229–30

personal brand see online persona personal learning network (PLN) 205–8 personal learning environment (PLE) 206 personal teaching philosophy 85 see also teaching philosophy statement personality tests 108 traits 109 petitions 228 Pew Research Center 140 Pinterest 207 advocacy 227 PKSB see Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals ‘post-truth’ 30 Power Guide for Successful Advocacy 227 PowerPoint 136, 151 Prague Declaration see Information Literacy Meeting of Experts Presidential Proclamation of National Information Literacy Awareness Month 222–3 problem-based learning 26, 167 professional community (of librarians) 200–11 involvement with groups and associations 201–3 virtual 207–11 professional development see continuing professional development Professional Development Service for Teachers (Ireland) 170 professional identity see also teacher identity formation and development 56–62

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INDEX  277

communities of practice 204 competence frameworks importance during professional training 62 importance of socialisation 58 involvement with groups and associations 202 key factors in development 57–8 role conceptions 56 professional network see professional community Project Information Literacy 140 propaganda 28 psychometric tests 108 radical librarianship 24, 222 Reference and User Services Association Professional Competencies for Reference and User Services Librarians 6 reflection see reflective practice reflective practice 76–84 activities supporting a reflective approach 82–3 barriers for academic librarians 79 benefits for academic teaching librarians 83–4 choosing a teaching role 102–14 definitions 78 influence on teaching approaches 85–6 link to critical information literacy 78–9 models and frameworks 79–82 planning and designing digital learning 161–70 relationship-building 186–8 research changing support needs of researchers 45–6

librarians as partners with faculty 49 research data management 46–9 see also bibliometrics need for professional training 49 services offered by academic libraries 47 Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians see Association of College and Research Libraries Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper’s Framework for Reflective Practice 80–1 RUSA see Reference and User Services Association satire 29 scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) 236 SCONUL see Society of College, National and University Libraries Secker, J. advocacy for information literacy 226 digital literacy 10–11 importance of terminology 4, 74 New Curriculum for Information Literacy (ANCIL) 18–19 self-efficacy 73, 203 Seven Faces of Information Literacy 7 Six Frames for Information Literacy Education 92–4 Slack 136 social capital 200 social justice see also critical information literacy and advocacy 216, 219–20, 222 and the role of libraries 24–5

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social media activism 227–8 and fake news 30 filter bubbles 31 online persona, creating an 209–10 Society of College, National and University Libraries (SCONUL) Mapping the Future of Academic Libraries 44, 98, 143 Seven Pillars of Information Literacy model 13 Stanford History Education Group 30 storytelling 235 students and threshold concepts 17–18 and social justice 21–2 as active agents in scholarly communities 15, 18 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 68, 226–7 teacher anxiety 103 teacher identity see also professional identity and role conceptions 54–6 importance for academic teaching librarians 53 intersection of core categories 75 Mezirow’s transformative learning theory 60–1 teaching attributes associated with good 105–6 authentic 106 knowledge and skills in library competence frameworks 65–7 mapping your profile 106–14 personal attitude towards 102–3 ‘personality’ 104–6 skills and proficiencies for librarians 63–9

student views of effective 105–6 teaching development microplanner 117–18 teaching librarian development plan 115–17 Teaching Perspectives Inventory (TPI) 92–3 teaching philosophy statement see also personal teaching philosophy benefits for academic teaching librarians 87 brainstorming scenarios 89–90 definition and purpose 85–6 relevant frameworks 91–5 templates 88–9 writing a 87–91 teaching portfolios 121–6 template 123–6 Team Focus (UK) 108 teamwork 230 Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework 155–8 technology-enhanced learning 134 see also digital learning TED 121, 207 theconversation.com 228 Theory of Basic Human Values 110 threshold concepts 17, 84 trans-literacy 8 definitions 10 Trump, President 27 election 30 Tumblr 207, 209–10 tutorials online 151 web 145 Twitter and advocacy 227–8

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continuing professional development 120–1 digital skills for teaching 152 diffusion of fake news 30–1 online persona 209–10 personal learning network 207 UNESCO see United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization United for Libraries 227 United Nations 226 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization Conceptual Relationship of Information Literacy and Media Literacy in Knowledge Societies 8 Global Media and Information Literacy Week 199 Media and Information Literacy 68 United States Department of Education National Educational Technology Plan (NETP) 139 United States Presidential Election 30 universal design in learning 142 User Experience design 140 values core values in librarianship 112

exploring personal values 111–12 influence on career choice 109–13 influence on teachers 112–13 Theory of Basic Human Values 110 virtual classroom 151 virtual community see online community ‘vocational awe’ 220 webinars 121, 229 website personal website 210 Weebly 127 WhatsApp 136 Wix 127 WordPress 127 personal learning network 207 personal website 209 writing for academic publication 231–41 and advocacy 235–7 barriers for librarians 232 benefits of 233–5 generating ideas for 237–9 in non-LIS journals 236–7 motivation 239–40 reflective practice 231–5 Writing to Learn (WTL) 231 XR (extended reality) 140 YouTube 134, 145, 207 Zoom 136, 181, 204

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