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The Beginning of the Middle

Today is the 5th anniversary of my job as an information literacy librarian, my first full-time library position. Five years: while it’s not all that long — certainly many of my colleagues have much more experience than I do — it seems momentous in some ways. In my previous two careers I had serious reservations about whether to continue down each path by the five year mark, and it’s wonderful to have none of those doubts this time around. Instead this seems like the very beginning of the middle of my career, and feels like a good time for reflection, for both looking back and projecting forward.

The past five years have flown by as I’ve worked on and learned about information literacy and library instruction, my library and institution, the research expectations for the tenure track, and service at my college, university, and beyond. In my first couple of years I spent lots of time engaging with new faculty at my college and new library faculty across my university, and I have to admit that I sort of miss it. I was in a meeting the other day with a Biologist in her first year at the college and her energy and enthusiasm was infectious (pun intended). I see announcements posted about meetings for new or junior faculty and realize somewhat wistfully that’s not me anymore, as I was (happily!) promoted last September.

While I’m a bit nostalgic for the strong camaraderie of the newbie experience, I’ve enjoyed transitioning into the role of a more knowledgeable colleague who (I hope) can offer support. The first few times I was asked for advice by colleagues it was genuinely surprising to me, but it’s less unexpected and more comfortable now. I’m also just about at the halfway mark in a leadership role in a large faculty development grant at my college. I’ve had the opportunity to work with new and seasoned faculty from across the college, and that’s definitely had an impact on my knowledge and self-perception.

This Spring both the college and the library where I work are creating five-year strategic plans. For me the immediate future seems fairly clear: I have two more years until I go up for tenure, I’m in the midst of writing up a big research project, our library instruction team is starting to pilot strategies we hope will help us reach more students with more relevant information literacy instruction. But farther out than that seems less certain. One aspect of being a faculty member that I’m very grateful for is that I have some freedom in considering projects to work on, especially in my own research but also as a librarian. And libraries and higher education are in a constant state of flux, from the introduction of new technologies and tools to the fact that the population we serve is ever-changing as students enter college and progress through their degrees, so certainty may be elusive.

If you’re at the beginning of the middle, do you have a five-year plan for yourself? Have you taken on new responsibilities as you’ve become a more experienced librarian? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Posted: March 18, 2013 by Maura Smale in Just Thinking, library careers.
Tags: careers, reflection, strategic planning, work experience
Comments: 1

3-D Printers

One aspect of being a new librarian is the feeling of having arrived late to a party where everyone is already deep in conversation. You lurk with your drink and canapés hoping to hear something that resonates on which you can say something intelligent. Or perhaps you just blurt out what you’re thinking to the delight or horror of your new peers.

So I hear things about 3-D printers and think I have something to add. My gig before science librarian was equipment manager for a Cell & Developmental Biology department. So I have some years of experience evaluating, purchasing and subsequently training people on highly technical equipment. The value of centrally funded equipment is fairly clear to me, and you can see cool examples of how a 3-D printer might save money in lab. But this single blog post gets trotted out too frequently as a justification for 3-D printers. There’s been some pushback on 3-D printers – Hugh Rundle and Jacob Berg both come to mind. And they make good points – like you may have way more important things to do with your time, or maybe the main library isn’t the best place for these things. But they also reference “technolust” (Rundle) and “wish fulfillment” (Berg) as a dig at the motivations for getting a 3-D printer. Fair enough, but I think a library is a pretty good place for these things if they are coming to your campus, unfortunately you probably don’t have the time to make them really useful.

Most lab equipment is poorly utilized. Very few pieces of equipment get used daily in a lab, – pH meter, spectrophotometer, benchtop centrifuges, and thermocyclers (perhaps) all get regular use. But there probably isn’t enough demand for a single lab or most departments to own a 3-D printer and use it to capacity. In the cost saving link above, the author made some electrophoresis combs – that can probably be used for years. I’ve closed out a lot of labs, and there are multitudinous gel combs and molds floating around, you’re just not going to be cranking them out daily. Having access to a 3-D printer is a potentially huge benefit to scientists trying to replace a small plastic bit of a machine (cost $50-75 from manufacturer) or to engineering students working on something like a robotics project. However, not many lab groups would be using them daily, so sticking them at the individual lab seems like a waste.

Even if an individual lab can justify the time and space, individual labs are often terrible, and I mean truly awful, at sharing. Dispositions run the gamut, but my memories of negotiating for access to a piece of equipment reminds me of baksheesh.  Having a place where scholars can go, get training, and not get entangled by reciprocity has a lot of time saving value. The grapevine is also a poor way to inform a community of new technology.

Scientists (and I imagine other scholars) like to see things in action before purchase. Scientists generally ask their peers and poke around before purchase, so getting a 3-D printer could also serve as a proof of concept to the community. Most will probably conclude they don’t need one for themselves. But the thing about 3-D printers is labs are only the most obvious users, and if a printer is put there they will most likely be the only users. Off the top of my head, 3-D printers have applications for art, education, and archaeology in addition to STEM fields.

All that said, I’m a bit leery of bringing 3-D printers into the library because they squirt hot polymer compound through tiny holes. Entropy is a tremendous enemy of devices like this and I fear they would be rapidly beaten into uselessness in a shared use environment. I’m sure they are well engineered and easy to clean (down sales reps, down) but … hot plastic, tiny tubes. Also, even if they are plug and play, designing something cool must take some training – and who provides that time and expertise? That said, I’ll leave folks with some nuts and bolts questions to help them access whether a 3-D printer is right for their library.

  1. How much is a service contract for this machine? If I don’t buy a contract, what are the hourly service rate, the travel allowance and per diem cost for a technician to visit? Alternately, do we send it in for repair? If so, what are the packing requirements and typical turnaround time?
  2. What is the consumable cost? How much time does it take to switch consumables (for example – plastic colors) and does that take special training? Do I have to purchase consumables from you or are there third party solutions? Consumables also include things like motors and belts – over time every moving part is a consumable.
  3. What routine maintenance is required? How long does cleaning take and how often must it be performed?
  4. What operating systems do you support? Do we get free updates to the software? How about the firmware? Do we get free upgrades to the software? Can you import schematics from other programs?
  5. What circumstances void the warranty and/or contract?

Any good rep should have this info off the top of their head or very quickly. 3-D printers are cool and relatively inexpensive. Given the range of applications, a library is a pretty good fit. But the time and energy they may require for user training and maintenance should be investigated pretty thoroughly before purchase.

Posted: March 2, 2013 by imccullough in First Year Academic Librarian Experience, Just Thinking, Technology Issues.
Comments: 2

Flipping Out: Preflip Planning

One of my current professional goals is to experiment with new ways to improve my library instruction sessions and grow as an instructor. So when our residency librarian decided to lead a group of instruction librarians to test the “flipped classroom” in library instruction, I welcomed the opportunity to discover how “flipping” might transform my classes. Given the previous interest in “flipping” here at ACRLog, I’ve also decided to share a bit of my planning, implementation, and reflection to continue the discussion about “flipping out” in the library world.

At first, re-envisioning my instruction sessions was a bit overwhelming – although I am still a newbie library instructor, I spent a great amount of time last semester crafting lessons and developing my own teaching style. I can only image how daunting this may seem to more experienced instructors who have honed their own lessons and style over several years of teaching!

Although I’ve used different lesson planning methods during graduate school classes and in my first semester of teaching, (e.g., Backward Design and Madeline Hunter’s model), I had trouble using these methods to plan my flip. Pretty soon, I found myself falling back to the “5 W’s” -  Who, What, When, and Why - to organize my thoughts. My considerations for each question are below.

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Photo: By Ted Hood (Courtesy of State Library of New South Wales)

WHO: Who are the students in my flipped class? Who is the professor? Which class will lead to the most successful flipped experience?

If considering only learning outcomes and session materials, nearly any of my instruction sessions could be flipped. However, since the professor for my assigned freshman seminar class is equally interested  in trying out new instruction techniques, I decided his class would be a good match for the trial flipped sessions. Due to his support and investment in the process, I feel confident he will actually distribute pre-class materials to students and will motivate students to complete the assigned pre-class work. (As an added bonus, I also have three, 75-minute instruction sessions with this class, which leaves a cushion to “catch-up” if for some reason the entire flipped experience falls apart.)

WHAT: What are the student learning outcomes? What will students learn through pre-class materials? What activities will students complete during class to cement learning?

Answering these questions has been the most difficult part of planning my flipped classroom. During my “regular” classes, I already try to involve students with hands-on, active learning experiences whenever possible. The challenge with the “flip” has been to make those activities more complex, pushing students to deeper levels of learning, as well as to identify what types of pre-class background students need to successfully complete those activities. Our residency librarian presented this as “What are the basics students should come to class knowing? What are the complexities that in-class sessions will address?”

Like many of the librarians in our “flipping” group, I am using the library’s existing collection of online tutorials as the basis of my flipped materials. I decided to give students 2-3 short videos to watch before class to cover  basic skills, like the “click-by-click” mechanics of searching a database and the beginnings of constructing a search. Then, in-class activities will challenge them to apply those skills to their group research project at increasingly challenging levels.

WHERE: How will flipped materials be organized and delivered to students?

I’m already a big fan of using Google Forms to collect student feedback at the end of instruction sessions. Since I wanted to pair the pre-class videos with a measure of how many students completed the activities and how well they understood the material, Google Forms once again turned out to be an easy solution. For each flipped session, I created a Google form with links to videos along with quiz questions, and the course professor will distribute the form to students before our session.

WHEN: When should students complete pre-class activities?

The week before our in-class session, students will have access to the pre-class materials. Any earlier and I worry the connection between pre-class videos and in-class activities would be lost. This decision was fairly easy to nail down, and getting the date on my calendar is a good reminder finish materials with enough time to review the plan with the professor, distribute to students, etc.

WHY: Why is “flipping” an method I want to try for library instruction?

Although “flipping” is one way I’m fulfilling my goal to explore new instructional techniques, the deeper I dig into planning, the more I think it’s a model that can be useful in library instruction. Most of the librarians I work with or have observed are already moving away from lectures and database demonstrations. But it’s hard to jump into more complex applications and exploratory activities during a traditional 50 or 60 minute class if students don’t have a basic foundation on which to build advanced skills. Off-loading the procedural instructions, like how to navigate the library’s website or basic catalog searching, to pre-class activities can free up in-class time for librarians to help students work through more complex activities.

My flipped experiment is also allowing me to carve out a c

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