Thinking Like a Designer: How Blended Librarians Can Use Design Thinking for Better Information Literacy Collaboration

Live Webcast
August 5, 2008
11 a.m Pacific | 12:00 p.m. Mountain | 1:00 p.m. Central | 2:00 p.m. Eastern

1.5 hours

Registration is now open.

Seminar Leaders:
Steven Bell, Temple University and John Shank, Penn State University

Workshop Goal:
To help participants identify techniques and tools that will enable academic librarians, faculty members, information technologists, instructional design professionals, et al. to discover or develop and implement new approaches for collaboration, to achieve maximum integration of the library into the teaching and learning process throughout their institutions. To help guide such collaborative efforts toward library, curricular, and other related institutional goals - especially those of advancing information literacy.

Workshop Description:
There is an extensive body of literature on information literacy and the importance of librarian-faculty collaboration in achieving it. The workshop will bring a new perspective on information literacy and collaboration through a conceptual framework the workshop leaders refer to as "Blended Librarianship."

External forces threaten to marginalize the role of the academic library: these forces increase the need for "information literacy" knowledge and skills among students, faculty, and others whose professions require their effective use of new information resources (e.g., growing emphasis on "undergraduate research" projects). Consequently, it is essential to further the librarians' integration into the teaching and learning process and the ability of faculty and other academic professionals to work collegially with librarians.

A blended librarian is one who combines traditional library and information technology skills with instructional design and technology skills as well as knowledge of collections of instructional resources and current trends in developing and distributing instructional resources. The blended librarian uses this combination, along with a heightened emphasis on pedagogy, to collaborate with faculty, information technologists, and instructional technologists/designers on the design of information literacy that is tightly integrated into the individual instructor’s courses and with broader programmatic curricular goals.

Participants will draw on the experiences of the workshop leaders and other academic professionals in exploring new forms of collaboration. The instructors will engage their librarian and non-library faculty, administrative, and information technologist colleagues in seeking innovative ways (including the use of newly available tools that support collaborative work and related communication) to use collaboration to further campus-wide information literacy initiatives.

The workshop will address the following issues:

What are the new kinds of services and resources that faculty and students need for which librarians are likely to be among the best-qualified to provide? E.g., helping faculty find, evaluate the quality of information about, and select instructional resources that are well-matched with specific instructional needs, goals? Most faculty are overwhelmed with the new challenge of "keeping on top" of attractive instructional resources that are likely to be relevant to their own courses. Most students are naïve about what can and cannot be done via the Web.
What is blended librarianship, why is it important, and what are the principles that form its structure?
Instructional design and technology principles for academic librarians: what do we need to know and how can we integrate these skills into our own? What do such librarians need to learn about pedagogy, professional development, etc.?
How is courseware becoming an essential technology for collaboration and the integration of library resources into the teaching and learning process?
What are the complementary relationships between the library’s electronic resources (including informational or learning objects) and what faculty are doing in the classroom – and how can we take advantage to facilitate information literacy and collaboration?
How can faculty members and librarians (and others) collaborate most effectively to influence institutional policy to facilitate the integration of information literacy more widely and thoroughly into the curriculum?

For more information, visit the Blended Librarians Web site at http://blendedlibrarian.org

Registration
ACRL member: $50
ALA member: $75
CACUL member: Can$90 (charges will be made in U.S. dollars)
Nonmember: $90
Student: $40

Group*: $295

* Webcasts take place in an interactive, online classroom environment with one user/one login. If you select the group rate, one person must register, login, and keyboard during the event. A group registration allows an institution to project the Webcast to participants in the same location.

Registration is now open.

You will need to log in with your ALA ID & password. If you do not have an ALA ID & password, you will be asked to create one in order to register.

Download and complete the PO registration form.
Submit the form along with your actual PO to ALA registration (fax or mail; see form for details).
You will not be considered registered for the course until both your PO and the registration form have been received and processed by ALA registration.

Member rates apply to personal memberships only. Want to join ACRL or ALA? Complete the online membership form, available on the ALA Web site. If you join ALA/ACRL within five days of registering, we will adjust your fee (please fax a copy of your completed registration form to ACRL at 312-280-2520).

Payment may be made by credit card or purchase order (PO) only.
If paying by PO, the PO number is required at the time of registration.

Class size is limited to 60 participants. Full refunds will be granted up to 14 days prior to the start of the seminar.