Home IIL Immersion Faculty

Immersion Faculty

Craig Gibson
Associate University Librarian for Public Services
George Mason University
jgibson1@gmu.edu

Craig Gibson is Associate University Librarian for Public Services at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA, where he is responsible for system-wide reference and instruction, interlibrary loan and document delivery, the Libraries' Web Page, and for access services in the main library. He also holds a one-quarter time appointment as consultant in the University's Department of Instructional Improvement and Instructional Technologies, a new organization whose purpose is to assist faculty and students integrate information technology resources into the curriculum. Previous positions include those at Washington State University (1988-1996), Lewis-Clark State College (1986-88), and the University of Texas at Arlington (1985-86). He proposed and developed for Catholic University's graduate library science program the course, "Theory and Practice of Bibliographic Instruction," and teaches the course each year at Catholic University's extension site in northern Virginia. He has given numerous presentations and workshops on critical thinking and research skills, staff development, and the concept of the learning library, and has written articles on critical thinking, assessment, and distance learning. His professional activities include memberships in various ACRL Instruction Section committees, and serving as Member-at-Large for the Section, 1995-98. In 1999, he was selected as a member of the Instruction Section's "Think Tank", for which he co-authored a working paper on assessment of information literacy skills.  Currently, he is working with members of the ACRL Task Force on Information Literacy Competencies to write the final draft of the Information Literacy Competency Standards for higher education. Since 1996, he has also been a member of, and recorder for, the National Forum on Information Literacy.
 
Debra Gilchrist
Director of Library/Media Services
Pierce College
dgilchrist@pierce.ctc.edu

Debra Gilchrist is Director of Library/Media Services for Pierce College, a community college in Lakewood, Washington.  She is responsible for leadership and management of the library and media services for a multi-campus district. Prior to her position at Pierce, she was Instruction Librarian at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. Debra has given presentations and published in the areas of library instruction, outcomes assessment, the teaching library mission, and faculty/librarian collaboration. She is currently facilitating the implementation of an information competency requirement that is based on student outcomes and focused on measuring library effectiveness based on student learning objectives. Her professional activities include ALA Councilor (1994-2001), Chair of the ACRL Community and Junior College Library Section Instruction Section Committee (1995-1997), SRRT Action Council (1991-1994) as well as other appointments to ALA, local, and regional committees. She was co-recipient in 1997 of the ACRL Instruction Section Innovation in Instruction Award. Debra holds a B.S. in Recreation/Social Service from California State University, Northridge (1977), her M.L.S. from the University of Denver (1983), and an M.S. in Geography from South Dakota State University (1987).

Carol Hansen
Professor and Instruction Services Librarian
Weber State University
chansen@weber.edu

Carol Hansen is Professor and Instruction Services Librarian at Stewart Library, Weber State University, Ogden, Utah. She provides the vision, leadership and coordination for the information literacy program and campus wide information literacy requirement. She coordinates library services for distance learners and information literacy instruction for the College of Arts and Humanities. Carol co-developed and team-teaches a multidisciplinary General Education course, Humanities on the Internet.  She was a founding member of the statewide team who collaboratively developed Utah's first fully Web delivered course, the Internet Navigator. Before coming to Weber State, Carol worked in academic, public and special libraries in Iran, Los Angeles and Salt Lake City. In 1992-93 Carol was an ALA/USIA Library Fellow at Universiti Utara Malaysia in Sintok, Malaysia. She  has provided Internet training in Hungary, Romania, Brunei and at other locations in Malaysia for governmental and educational organizations. She currently chairs the Utah Academic Library Consortium's Professional Development Committee and serves as a member of the Utah LSTA Advisory Council for overseeing the grants provided by the Library Services and Technology Act. Carol received her BA from Johnston College at the University of Redlands (1973) and her MLS from University of Southern California (1975).

Randy Hensley
Head, Public Services
University of Hawaii
rhensley@hawaii.edu

Randy Hensley is the Public Services Division Head at the University of Hawaii at Manoa Library and is responsible for the seven departments that provide reference, instruction, and collection development services. Previously he was Head of Central Information Services at the same institution. He has worked collaboratively with library and teaching
faculty to develop a three credit information literacy course, taught by librarians, as part of the learning communities programs for first-year undergraduates. Prior to joining the faculty at U.H., he was Assistant Head of the Undergraduate Library at the University of Washington (1982-94) where he taught the user education theory and practice course at the U.W. Graduate School of Library and Information Science. In collaboration with writing instructors at the University of Washington, he developed a model for teaching the evaluation of sources. He has held numerous elective and appointed positions in state and national library associations, including Chair, ACRL Instruction Section (1997-98) and President, Washington Library Association(1993-94). He has presented and published in the areas of learning styles, instructional design, teaching methods, learning communities, first year undergraduates instruction, and technology-based instruction. Randy holds a B.A. in History from the University of California, Santa Barbara, an M.L.S. from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.A. in Sociology from California State University, Chico, and a Training Specialist Certificate from the University of Washington.  He is the 2002 recipient of the ACRL Instruction Section Miriam Dudley Instruction Library Award.

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe
Coordinator for Information Library Services and Instruction & Associate Professor of Library Administration
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
ljanicke@uiuc.edu

Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe is Coordinator for Information Library Services and Instruction and Associate Professor of Library Administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her previous positions were as the Library Instruction Coordinator at Illinois State University and Reference Librarian at Parkland College. Lisa holds master's degrees in both library science and educational psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and an undergraduate degree in philosophy from the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota. She has taught instruction courses at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois, both in-person and online, and undergraduate courses in critical thinking at Illinois State University and Parkland College. Lisa is the Editor of Research Strategies and author of the Neal-Schuman Electronic Classroom Handbook (2001). Her research interests the role of information literacy in the general education curriculum, the role of technology in library instruction, the connections between motivation and information literacy, and students' transitions from high school to college. Lisa joined the Immersion faculty in 2003.

John Holmes
Coordinator, UWill Project
University of Washington
jwholmes@u.washington.edu

John Holmes has been Coordinator of the UWill Project at the University of Washington Libraries since April, 2000.  He is the principal investigator for the UWill, a grant-funded, Web-based information literacy project designed to make it easier for instructors to integrate information literacy objectives into their courses by providing templates for online tutorials that may be customized from the desktop and linked to course Web pages. John has been a reference librarian at the Odegaard Undergraduate Library at UW since 1996, has served as Coordinator of the user education program, and has been the instructor for both LIS 560: User Education and Informatics 220: Research Strategies in International Studies in the UW Information School.  He was a curriculum developer and trainer in the Washington State Library’s Information Literacy Project, training library staff from across the state, in all library types and at all levels of service, to deliver information literacy instruction to their communities. His publications and presentations have focused on instruction for re-entry students, e-learning issues, and promoting collaborations among public, school, and academic libraries to provide coordinated community learning in information use across the lifespan. Before moving to Seattle, he trained undergraduates at Michigan State University to teach baseline information competencies to their peers at a high-volume information and referral desk.

Joan Kaplowitz
UCLA Biomedical Library
jkaplowi@library.ucla.edu

Joan Kaplowitz has a doctorate in Psychology as well as a master's in library science. She has been at UCLA since graduating UCLA's Library and Information Science program in 1984. She began her UCLA career at the Education and Psychology Library and is currently Interim Head of Reference at the Louise M. Darling Biomedical Library. She also serves as the Psychology Specialist as well as the liaison to both the School of Medicine and the Psychology Department for the library. Joan has been heavily involved in library instruction at the local, state and national levels for her entire career. In collaboration with UCLA's Esther Grassian, she proposed and developed the UCLA library graduate program's course, "Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Technique" which she and Ms. Grassian take turns presenting each year. Joan's numerous presentations and publications have focused on the psychology of learning and cognitive styles, evaluating instruction, computer assisted instruction, teacher peer appraisal, and mentoring within the profession. Joan has been awarded several research grants from the Librarian's Association of the University of California to support her research and publication efforts. She has held several offices in ALA's New Members Roundtable and the California Clearinghouse on Library Instruction. Her most recent professional commitments involve ALA scholarship and awards committees. She has also served on several ALA Committee on Accreditation external review panels for various library schools and programs around the country. Joan's book Information Literacy Instruction: Theory and Practice, which she co-authored with Esther Grassian, was recently published by Neal-Schuman.

Sharon Mader
Dean of Library Services
Earl K. Long Library
University of New Orleans
smader@uno.edu

Sharon Mader is Dean of Library Services at the University of New Orleans, where she is responsible for managing all aspects of the library and for providing campus leadership for the integration of information resources and technologies into teaching and learning. Previous positions include serving as Library Director at Christian Brothers University in Memphis (1995-2000), where she taught a Web-based graduate Education course on “Using the Internet for Instruction”, and as Associate Director for Information and Research Services at DePaul University in Chicago (1987-1995). Her teaching background also includes service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tunisia, where she taught English as a foreign language. Her professional activities include serving as chair (1992-93) and secretary (1987-88) for the ACRL Instruction Section. She has served on five U.S. Air Force teams to evaluate extended campus degree programs offered by universities and colleges on Air Force bases. Her grant-supported projects included a presentation skills workshop for librarians and a librarian/faculty workshop series on critical thinking. Her presentations and publications have focused on library instruction, faculty/librarian collaboration, extended campus library services, and librarians as leaders. Sharon holds a BA in History from Oberlin College, an MLS from Rosary College, an MS in Education from University of Memphis, and an Ed.D. in Instructional Technology and Distance Education from Nova Southeastern University.

Beth S. Woodard
Central Information Services Librarian
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
bswoodar@uiuc.edu

Since 1983, Beth Woodard has served as a reference librarian and coordinator of the Information Desk, a separate highly visible ready reference and referral point staffed by nonprofessionals, at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She coordinates graduate assistant training and continuing education, and participates in library-wide instructional planning and development. Previously she was a reference librarian at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. From 1993 to 1995, Beth team-taught a course in library use instruction in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois. She has served as a consultant for improving instruction programs and teaching skills for librarians at several universities in the Midwest, ranging from one-day sessions to five days. She has served on numerous ALA committees, and has served as the Instruction Section secretary and chair of Continuing Education, as well as the Task Force to Amend the Standards for Instructional Programs. She is currently chair-elect of the Instruction Section.  Beth holds a B.A. in English from Illinois Wesleyan University, and an M.S. in library Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She joined the Institute Faculty in June 1999.

Dane Ward
Associate Dean of Public Services
Illinois State University
dmward@ilstu.edu

Dane Ward is Associate Dean of Public Services at Illinois State University’s Milner Library where he is responsible for facilitating the development and enhancement of user services. Prior to his current position (which began in March 2002), he worked in academic libraries for ten years, most notably as Coordinator of Information Literacy at Wayne State University, and as Coordinator of Library Instruction at Central Michigan University. He is a frequent workshop presenter and author of articles on information literacy and collaboration. In 2000, he co-edited and co-authored the popular ACRL publication The Collaborative Imperative: Librarians and Faculty Working Together in the Information Universe. More recently, he has been interested in the relationship between organizational culture and the development of information literacy programs. Among his professional activities, he has been active in ACRL’s Education and Behavioral Sciences Section and the Michigan Library Association’s (MLA) Information Literacy Roundtable. He is recipient of the MLA Information Literacy Award (2000), and a participant in the Snowbird Leadership Institute (1996). He is a graduate of Indiana University (twice) and Florida State University, with an undergraduate degree in Anthropology (IU), and graduate degrees in Education (FSU), and Library and Information Science (IU). Prior to his library career, Dane worked for the Peace Corps as an English Teacher Trainer in the West African country of Senegal. He subsequently taught social science courses at several small colleges before turning to librarianship.

Susan Barnes Whyte
Library Director
Linfield College Library
swhyte@linfield.edu

Susan Barnes Whyte has recently become the library director at Linfield College in McMinnville, OR. Hired by Linfield in 1990, she originally served as reference/instruction and distance library services librarian and supervisor of interlibrary loan and circulation. In the summer of 1998, she became the Public Services Librarian, adding educational media services to her supervisory repertoire and managing distance education library services. In addition to teaching many course-integrated library instruction classes, Susan has team taught since 1993 in the Division of Continuing Education (DCE). She co-created a DCE research/writing class for returning adult students delivered through computer conferencing. Since fall 1995 she has team-taught a required course for Communications majors. While on sabbatical in the fall of 1997, she and her colleague wrote a handbook to accompany this class. She has been active with the Distance Learning Section of ACRL, most recently co-chairing the Communications Committee and serving as member-at-large on the Executive Committee. She has also served as the President of the Oregon ACRL chapter. She has presented and published about her distance teaching experiences as well as her teaching in the residential setting. In 1995 she was given the Edith P. Green Distinguished Professor award for her teaching at Linfield. She has a B.A. in French from Earlham College and a M.Ln. from Emory University.

Karen Williams
Digital Library Initiatives Team Leader
University of Arizona Library
kwilliam@bird.library.arizona.edu

Karen Williams is the Digital Library Initiatives Team Leader at the University of Arizona Library where she has worked since 1983. Her first professional position there was as the administrator of the Library Skills Program, a workbook program integrated into all freshmen composition classes. She has been actively involved in information literacy efforts since that time and was one of the authors of RIO, a web-based tutorial in use across campus. She is currently Chair of the ACRL Instruction Section. She is a founding member of the University of Arizona Learning Technology Partnership, a campus collaboration that fosters the meaningful integration of new learning technologies and information literacy into the curriculum. Karen holds a B.A. in English and Secondary Education from the University of Michigan-Flint, and an A.M.L.S. from the University of Michigan.

Anne E. Zald
Head, Map Collection & Cartographic Information Services
University of Washington
zald@u.washington.edu

Anne E. Zald is Head, Map Collection & Cartographic Information Services at the University of Washington. Anne has been active in UWired since its inception in 1994, working in various capacities to bring technology and information evaluation instruction into the Freshman Interest Group program curriculum, peer instructor training, and 'linked' courses. Anne participated in the ACRL IS Think Tank 3 "Information Literacy and the Technological Transformation of Higher Education" during the ALA 1999 Annual Conference. Professional activities have included stints with ACRL IS Managing Instruction Committee and as a task force chair in SRRT. After receiving her AMLS from the University of Michigan, Anne worked at Wayne State University and Oberlin College prior to joining the University of Washington Libraries as Documents Reference Librarian in 1991. Anne joined the Institute faculty in June 1999.