Down the rabbit hole… the road to academic and librarian partnership

 Lindsay Cottingham and Juliet Ibbotson

Abstract below..

Our research focuses on how we evaluated and revised the Academic Librarian team’s information literacy session for academic staff following inconsistent and largely developmental feedback from participants. Our standalone session sits within a wider programme, which is designed for new academic staff and colleagues developing their role in teaching and learning. This structure posed challenges in designing the session as historically there were conflicting expectations regarding the session aims and objectives. These conflicts arose from disparity between the perceptions of the library team delivering the session, the overarching academic course team and the diversity of participants.

Our research links to the themes as through collaboration and acknowledgement of the conflicting professional identities we were able to triangulate the opinions of all interested parties. The common aim was to improve the learner experience and participant engagement with the library session. Historically the session was delivered using a behavioural framework of instruction; content was driven by an opportunistic library-marketing agenda. Participant feedback proved that this approach did not work. The revised session engages students as partners in the learning process utilising a constructivist approach (Bowles-Terry, Davis and Holliday, 2010:226). This has been achieved by taking an aspect of the participants practice to evaluate within the session. The incorporation of problem-based learning enables participants to identify how the learning assists their day-to-day practice (Kenedy and Monty, 2011). 

Like Alice’s journey in Wonderland we have found that nothing is quite what it seems. Our research has forced us to reconsider and redefine roles and relationships, to improve the learner experience. We evaluate the challenges of non-educators teaching academics; as teachers become learners and librarians become teachers. We invite delegates to join us on our adventure down the rabbit hole, to learn from our journey as we share good and bad practice, as well as lessons learnt on our road to library and academic partnership.

References

Bowles-Terry, M, Davis, E, & Holliday, W., 2010. "Writing information literacy" revisited application of theory to practice in the classroom. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 49(3), pp. 225-230.

Carroll, L., 2006, Alice in Wonderland. New Edition. London: Penguin Classics.

Kenedy, R, & Monty, V., 2011. Faculty-librarian collaboration and the development of critical skills through dynamic purposeful learning, International Journal of Libraries & Information Services, 61(2), pp. 116-124.