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CONFERENCE CIRCUIT
Being immersed: Feedback from ACRL's Institute for Information Literacy's regional and national Immersion programs
C&RL News, November 2004
Vol. 65, No. 10
by Joan Kaplowitz
Summer 2004 was a banner year for information literacy in California as ACRL’s Institute for Information Literacy’s Regional Immersion Program was held here for the very first time. Immersion came to California thanks to the sponsorship and hard work of the Southern California Instruction Librarians group. A great big thank you also goes to the libraries at the Claremont Colleges for providing space for the program.
ACRL’s Immersion Program provides instruction librarians with the opportunity to work intensively for four-and-a-half days on all aspects of information literacy. The Immersion Program provides instruction librarians with the intellectual tools and practical techniques to help build or enhance an instruction program. The institute is taught by a faculty of nationally recognized librarians, and participation is limited to ensure an environment that fosters group interaction and active participation.
Four UCLA librarians (Cheryl Bartel, Patti Caravello, Aura Lippincott, and Pauline Swartz) joined 41 other California librarians plus 8 non-California librarians from as far away as Paris in an exciting, stimulating and exhausting immersion into the theory and practice of information literacy instruction. As one of the faculty who had the extreme pleasure of working with this amazing group, I can attest to the fact that it was a wonderful event and that a good time was had by all. Working with them made me proud to be able to call myself a California librarian. But don’t just take my word for it, here is Aura Lippincott’s review of the program:
“I found the California Immersion Program Track immensely beneficial for my own development as an instruction librarian and for the Management Library’s new information literacy campaign. Not only was my understanding of information literacy concepts and practices deepened, but I was able to spend concentrated time and effort exploring ways to move our program forward. My work was informed by highly relevant sessions led by the ACRL Immersion faculty, who are not only practitioners, but excellent teachers and leaders in the field of information literacy. I’ve returned to UCLA full of ideas and with an action plan in hand!”
And Pauline Swartz adds: “It was nice to have the time to focus on instruction.”
The national Immersion program was held the following week in Seattle with UCLA’s Dominique Turnbow in attendance. Here is what Turnbow had to say about it: “Immersion was an unforgettable experience that inspired me to reflect upon my own teaching pedagogy and create a repertoire from which to build to improve my skills. The Immersion faculty are clearly experts in their field, with a passion for passing on their knowledge. I would highly recommend all librarians with instruction responsibilities to attend the program.”
With both the 2004 regional and national programs behind us, we now have a total of nine librarians who have participated in the Immersion experience. For those of you who have not had this opportunity, applications are now being accepted online at www.acrl.org (click “Events & Conferences” then “Upcoming Events”) for the National Immersion ’05 Program to be held at Eckerd College, July 29–August 3, 2005. The deadline for application is December 6, 2004.
About the Author
Joan Kaplowitz is head of research, instruction and collection services at the UCLA Biomedical Library, e-mail: jkaplowi@library.ucla.edu
© 2004 Joan Kaplowitz
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