I am ACRL Member of the Week

Curious, restless, disciplined.

Most of my personal learning comes from listening to podcasts while I run. Some of my favorites are 99% Invisible, The TED Radio Hour, Milk Street Radio, Travel with Rick Steves, and Radio Lab.

Collaborative, informative, engaging.

The personal connections that I have been able to make with colleagues across the profession with whom I would not have otherwise had the opportunity to work. Serving on committees within the division and the Instruction Section has enabled me to collaborate with librarians across the country oninitiatives that we care about. Some of these collaborations have continued after the committee work has ended, and they have really helped to make my professional life rewarding and fulfilling. Also, ACRL has provided me the opportunity to grow as a librarian and help to see myself as a leader.
 

I think a lot of academic librarians are keen collaborators and really get to know a lot about the various units on their campuses, what they do, and what is important to them. This reinforces libraries’ critical role(s) in supporting the work of our institutions. In addition, it helps us to be good connectors for our colleagues, something that is really important but often remains invisible. For me in particular, that is thinking about how we can partner with instructors and other teaching and learning colleagues to help students develop their information literacy, critical thinking, problem solving and research skills. In addition to providing strategic direction to University Libraries’ Teaching & Learning Department, including thinking about necessary staffing and resources, I am working very specifically with my colleagues on an instructor development workshop called Meaningful Inquiry (https://uitl.osu.edu/endorsement/meaningful-inquiry), which is based on the article for which I received the 2020 Instruction Section Ilene F. Rockman Instruction Publication of the Year Award. In this workshop, we intend to help instructors integrate information literacy into their courses using an equity mindset. Colleagues who have participated in the workshop are eligible to apply for a Meaningful Inquiry Grant, in which they receive incentivization to work with librarians and Writing Across the Curriculum to transform their courses based on the Meaningful Inquiry Workshop’s content. We recently awarded our first six grants and are incredibly excited to continue our work with those instructors!
 

Growing up I never imagined that I would become a librarian, but it makes perfect sense given my desire to be learning constantly. I can’t imagine a more perfect profession for that! I think this might true now more than ever, giving the continually changing information and technological landscapes. I’m excited for what the future holds, both for the profession overall but for my own learning and development.