Indiana University, American Library Association

Student Chapter

General meeting, March 25, 2008

4pm, L030

Attendance:

President: Stacey Costabile

Vice President: Virginia Vought

Social Chair: Sarah Morrison

Secretary: Rebekah Kati

Treasurer: Janet Anderson

Webmaster: Eyad Makki (not present)

Advisors: Mary Popp (not present)

            Tom Nisonger (Not Present)

Officer Reports:

Vice President:

• Reference is topic for next meeting
  • Prof Meho and a rep from the public library will be speaking

Social Chair

• Scheduled grad party for 5:30 at Yogis on May 2
  • ALA will provide appetizers
• See Sarah to join the Social Committee

Guest Speaker – Carrie Donovan, Instructional Services Librarian at the Information Commons               

• SLIS alum
• Worked as instruction librarian in three different libraries, including IU
• Instruction can apply to all types of libraries, not just academic libraries
• Rewards of running an instruction program
  • Get to work in a place that’s important to everyone on campus
  • Can make an impact on people and their classroom experience
  • Opportunity to learn about new resources and services in library
  • Opportunity to learn about yourself
• Challenges of running an instruction program
  • Many librarians don’t start out wanting to teach so the experience can be  uncomfortable
  • Need to find ways to be an asset to community and users
    • Partner with classroom faculty
    • Discipline specific instruction - Connect library skills with student research
    • Usually start with freshman
    • Partner with other librarians to help them realize their roles as teachers
• Most academic institutions have instructional librarians
  • Many instructional librarian positions are so new that no one has ever held them before
  • Work with people who are interested in teaching and learning
    • Opportunity to get people excited about teaching
  • Libraries looking for people who are generalists, who can teach
• Public libraries are more focused on training patrons, so instruction is not as important as academic libraries
• Professional associations
  • ALA library instruction roundtable
  • ACRL instruction section

• Shift from bibliographic instruction to information literacy in library instruction
  • In the late 1990’s ALA set up standards defining what instruction librarians should teach
  • Bibliographic instruction is about sources, facts
  • Shift to teaching people the concepts behind research process
    • Know what audience needs and what their expectations are
• Everyone has a good teacher in them
• Use SLIS as a training ground  
  • take opportunities outside the requirements (internships, independent research)
  • Be courageous – come to student group meetings, speak up to make your ideas known
  • Use professors and library system as a resource
  • Do lots of reading
• Don’t worry about finding a job, focus on what you want to do
• To find out more:
  • Contact Carrie ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it ) if you are interested in becoming an instruction assistant
  • Take S573 – Education of Information Users in Summer II