Claremont Colleges Library wins 2015 LIRT Innovation in Instruction Award

For Immediate Release
Fri, 02/27/2015

Contact:

Lorelle Swader

Director

HRDR

312-280-4278

lswader@ala.org

CHICAGO — The Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) is pleased to announce that the 2015 Innovation in Instruction Award will be presented to the Claremont Colleges Library (CCL) at ALA 2015 Annual Conference in San Francisco.  Created to recognize a library that demonstrates innovation in support of information literacy and instruction, this year’s award specifically recognizes the Visual Curriculum Mapping project created by librarians at the CCL. The project team included:

Char Booth, director of Research, Teaching, & Learning Services, CCL
Dani Cook, Information Literacy & Learning Technologies coordinator, CCL
Natalie Tagge, Social Sciences Team leader, CCL
Sara Lowe, educational development librarian, Indiana University-Purdue University
       Indianapolis (IUPUI), former CCL assessment Librarian
Sean Stone, dental librarian, IUPUI, former CCL STEM Team Leader

The Claremont Colleges Library serves the five undergraduate colleges and two graduate institutions that make up the Claremont University Consortium in Claremont, California.  Committed to fostering intellectual discovery, critical thinking and life-long learning, the library ties the academic community to varied cultural and scholarly traditions.  The Visual Curriculum Mapping project involved visually mapping the Library’s curriculum with the support of a 2013 IMLS Sparks! Innovation Grant. According to project lead Char Booth, the mapping process “provided unexpected insights and created an unprecedented resource for the Claremont Colleges, one that enables consortial conversations and allows us to rethink the way we as liaison librarians approach information literacy instruction, outreach, and information resource development.”  Booth was quick to point out that the award recognizes the work of all of the Subject Specialist librarians at the CCL who engaged in the project and the mapping process. “This project emphasizes the importance of program planning for effective pedagogical and outreach activity, which has provided a unique perspective on our colleges and facilitated productive collaborations among our faculty, librarians, and students, particularly in the area of cross-colleges grants and initiatives,” Booth explained.

In addition to applauding the project’s initiatives and success throughout the Claremont Colleges, the Awards Committee also noted the work that the project team put forth in making the mapping templates available to other institutions under a Creative Commons license.  “The work that the CCL team did in mapping their curriculum is noteworthy in and of itself,” said Sherri Brown, 2015 Awards Committee Chair, “but the fact that they readily shared their templates for other institutions to use clearly ties into the award’s recognition of low-cost and easily reproducible innovations.” The Visual Curriculum Mapping template materials can be found at http://scholarship.claremont.edu/ccct_cmaps/52/, and the final Visual Curriculum Mapping IMLS Grant report can be accessed at http://bit.ly/ccl-imlsreport2014.

The Library Instruction Round Table was started in 1977 with the intent to bring together librarians who provide library instruction across all types of libraries -- academic, public, school, and special libraries. 2015 is the second year that the Library Innovation in Instruction Award has been awarded. The Claremont Colleges Library will be presented with a $1,000 cash prize and a plaque at the LIRT awards ceremony, scheduled for 5:30-6:30 p.m. on June 28, 2015 at ALA Annual in San Francisco.  The Claremont Colleges will also receive a $500 travel stipend for its librarians attending ALA Annual.

Find out more about LIRT, its mission, and the awards at: http://www.ala.org/lirt/mission

LIRT Innovation in Instruction Awards Committee:
Sherri Brown, Georgia Institute of Technology (Chair)
Jonathan Dembo, East Carolina University
Jeff Knapp, Pennsylvania State University Altoona