Preconference podcasts
Introducing The LibParlor Podcast, an Open Peer Review Podcast for Information Professionals
Amber Sewell, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Charissa Powell, University of Delaware
This pre-conference podcast will introduce The LibParlor Podcast, an open peer review podcast created for information professionals. The co-presenters of this pre-conference podcast will talk about where the idea came from, why they believe this model of engaging with scholarly work is beneficial, and why feminist scholarly communication is important. Their goals for The LibParlor Podcast are to foster an inclusive, supportive community of information professionals interested in research.
The co-presenters will provide insight into how the roles of researcher and reviewer took advantage of the affordances of this new model and how it differed from that of a more traditional informal peer review. Listeners will be encouraged to check out the pilot episode of The LibParlor Podcast and consider participating as either a researcher, reviewer, or minisode guest. The co-hosts will provide a Twitter hashtag for listeners to use to engage in discussion around the pre-conference podcast.
Listen now.
Download transcript.
Show notes
What evidence? Whose evidence? Bringing a critical pedagogy perspective to the teaching of evidence-based practice in the health sciences
Stacy Torian, New York University; Jamie Conklin, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Evidence-based practice requires clinicians to use the best research evidence available, their knowledge of the patient’s preferences and life situation, and their own clinical expertise to provide optimal care (American Physical Therapy Association, 2020; University of Maine Fort Kent, 2020). But how is “best available” defined, who is missing from the evidence, how is the evidence being obtained, and who decides what expertise counts?
During this podcast, two health sciences librarians discuss the historical roots of evidence-based practice and talk to three clinicians working to expand the evidence base in health care. Listeners will hear how evidence-based practice plays out in “the real world” and its implications for policymaking and advocacy. While reflecting on the clinicians’ insights and their own experiences, the librarian hosts propose strategies for teaching evidence-based practice through a critical librarianship lens and offer ideas for engaging in dialogue about the concept within and beyond the library.
Listen now.
Download transcript.
Recruiting for Critical Instruction & Student-Centred Teaching
Annie Pho and Nicky Andrews, University of San Francisco
Recruitment can be challenging for job applicants and hiring committees within academic libraries. Consisting of long-entrenched processes and power dynamics concentrated outside of the library, the recruitment process creates barriers to employment, particularly for early-career and BIPOC library professionals. Furthermore, it has been well-documented that Instruction and Teaching Librarians are largely expected to learn how to teach while on-the-job.
With these realities in mind, how do we recruit for Instruction and Teaching staff in a way which meets institutional needs but does not penalise job candidates for lack of experience or formal prior learning? How can we employ radical empathy, and humanize the recruitment process to remove barriers for the librarians most impacted by academic and white supremacist power structures?
Tune into this podcast session to join two librarians as they reflect on the challenges and opportunities they worked through during two recent Instruction Librarian recruitment cycles at their institution. In particular, this session seeks to highlight ways the two hiring committees worked to address potential biases and inequities in the hiring process, and ways they sought to create a candidate-centred approach to recruitment.
Discussion points include developing a rubric to evaluate diversity statements, honoring candidate privacy during the recruitment process, setting clear expectations for candidates, and ways we showcase institutional values during an interview. Listeners will also gain some ideas of how to measure teaching interest and competency - in ways that apply both to aspiring and experienced teachers.
We will also briefly share our own experiences as job candidates, and recall hiring practices that felt inclusive, and practices that are themselves a teachable moment for employers. While we will be frank about our own experiences and specific about the processes we have been able to implement institutionally, we will not be sharing any specifics about any of our applicants.
Wednesday, November 2
Session block 1
9am PT/12 pm ET
Indigenous voices and the Crabtree Collection: a case study in creating space for Indigenous perspectives
Marco Seiferle-Valencia and Jylisa Kenyon, University of Idaho
Critically-engaged counter-storying seeks to create new narratives to disrupt the existing, damaging standard rhetoric that contributes to the marginalization of oppressed people, rhetoric that is too often upheld and disseminated by mainstream archives and special collections (Solórzano & Yosso, 2002). In this case study presentation, we will share our efforts to counter-story the Donald Crabtree Collection by seeking counter-stories to the collection’s accepted and embedded narratives. We will also share how collaborating with an Advisory Board of Native librarians, archaeologists, and anthropologists offers further opportunities to de-center Crabtree and trouble/critique the practices, appropriation, and anti-Indigenous erasure that created this collection and still persists today. Attendees will be asked to think critically about their own collections; consider how they can make visible the voices, stories, and histories that have been lost and actively ignored; and examine how their personal and professional identities may affect how they “story” collections.
Being taught to be professionals vs. workers: critical consciousness and LIS education
Yoonhee Lee, University of Toronto
This session will explore the question “what if we--in the library and archives field--were taught to think of ourselves as workers--under racial capitalism?” Looking at the ALA core competencies, standards for ALA accreditation, and LIS curricula, I will point to examples of how LIS education socializes LIS students to become “professionals,” rather than developing critical consciousness as library workers under racial capitalism. Then, I will explore how this education impacts how we approach “diversity, equity, and inclusion” in the field. Participants will have the opportunity to reflect on their professional and/or worker identity and contribute to a collective brainstorm of what and how critical consciousness in relation to labor and racial capitalism can happen in LIS education both in and outside the formal classroom.
A critical approach to assessment: using focus groups and interviews to identify and measure diversity, equity, and inclusion education needs of library employees
Taylor Xiao, Lamar University; Sharon Ladenson, Michigan State University; Arianna Alcaraz, University of Alberta
This interactive presentation will explore strategies used to assess the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) education needs of Michigan State University Libraries’ employees. We will cover specific skills, including question drafting, and lessons learned while planning and implementing focus groups and individual interviews. We will also discuss different data analysis strategies used and explore how this process was valuable for cultivating a practice of assessing internal DEI education in an academic library setting. Other libraries seeking to assess the DEI education needs of their employees can use the strategies and skills covered in this session to identify and examine the critical needs unique to their library. Participants will have opportunities to engage in a variety of activities, including sharing their experiences and comfort levels with focus group research and data analysis; answering sample focus group questions specific to DEI education; and raising questions at the end of the session.
Session block 2
10 am PT/1 pm ET
Sustaining the work: racial affinity spaces for library staff
Annie Pho and Amy Gilgan, University of San Francisco
Are you trying to start an antiracist discussion series with your colleagues, but unsure how to do so without perpetuating racial microaggressions? Racial affinity spaces, intentionally created antiracist spaces based on racial identity, can provide a pathway for centralizing the experiences of BIPOC colleagues while also inviting white colleagues to take on the labor of their own learning. Drawing on their experience co-facilitating a racial equity series for library staff at their institution, the workshop presenters will share tips on when and how to use racial affinity spaces with colleagues.
Unpacking white language supremacy in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy
Anders Tobiason, Boise State University
Who is the model information literate individual? Taking its cue from Critical Discourse Analysis, Antiracist Black Language Pedagogy, and Habits of White Language (HOWL) Supremacy, this presentation questions the foundational image of the information literate individual lying at the heart of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. The audience will gain an understanding of how the ACRL Framework operates within the norms of white supremacy culture, reinforces whiteness as a neutral background, and codes the idealized information literate individual as white. Participants will have opportunities to ask questions and engage in interrogating the implied standards in the Framework throughout the session. After this session, participants will be able to begin to identify ways in which White Supremacy Culture infuses how the Framework conceives of information literacy and problematize foundational practices which assert that one must “become” information literate in a particular way.
Autonomous space: incorporating concepts of questioning into a wellness room
Varina Kosovich and Kelleen Maluski, University of New Mexico
In discussions about critical pedagogy, much focus is given to the classroom and consultations. However, at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Library and Informatics Center (HSLIC), we incorporated critical pedagogy into the creation of a wellness room for our users. While we are aware that there are many systems of oppression within academia and the health sciences, and wellness cannot be shifted onto the individual, we wanted to provide resources to offset the typically high cost of wellness supplies. Through this pilot we engaged with concepts of anti-oppressive practice, feminist ethics of care, and considered the intersecting identities of our users. Consideration was given to the expressed needs of those with dis/abilities and neurodiversity and the concept of autonomous space. In this presentation we will discuss the process of creating this space. There will be a substantial amount of time for Q&A after the presentation.
Session block 3
11 am PT/2 pm ET
Accessible access, universal design, and the limits of inclusion in open educational resource development: an interactive workshop
Matthew Weirick Johnson and Salma Abumeeiz, University of California Los Angeles
The impacts of open educational resources (OERs) are both well-documented and far-reaching. However, open educational practices should not be evangelized or held beyond critique. Drawing on writing from disability scholars and disability justice advocates, we explore the relationship between access and accessibility as it applies to open educational resources. Employing this framework, we present a series of revised design activities from UCLA Library’s Writing Instruction + Research Education (WI+RE) initiative: (1) an empathy map (2) a learning journey map and (3) a 4 Paths Prototype. We discuss ways forward to improve these activities with disability justice, accessibility, and universal design in mind. In the last half hour, we will walk through each of the three activities together, giving attendees an opportunity to apply the concepts individually and in breakout rooms and preparing attendees to leave the session with a prototype idea.
State of inclusivity in tutorials: a critical content analysis of tutorials provided by R1 academic libraries
Carrieann Cahall, Rosan Mitola, Chelsea Heinbach, and Amber Sewell, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Online tutorials are a frequently utilized method for academic libraries to meet student and instructor needs and adapt to the growing digital learning environment. There is little guidance for creating holistically inclusive tutorials and fewer standards for avoiding deficit thinking, which decenters students’ prior knowledge and experiences and perpetuates harmful assumptions. In this session, presenters will share early findings from a mixed-methods content analysis of tutorial offerings from R1 academic libraries. Attendees will discuss what makes a tutorial inclusive, identify criteria for creating inclusive tutorials, and reflect on how they have or have not enacted these values for tutorial design. Attendees will also gain ideas for creating inclusive tutorials as well as a deeper understanding of ways critical pedagogy can be utilized in various pedagogical environments.
Who are we measuring? Assessment and the inequity of librarian labor
Sarah Kantor, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; Linnea Minich, University of the South; Ashley Roach-Freiman, University of Memphis
Even with the best intentions, assessment practices are frequently grounded in neoliberalism, uphold the values of white supremacy, and support power dynamics that demand more labor of early and mid-career librarians. In order to get away from these inequitable practices, we must identify reasons for assessment and determine assessors that disrupt traditional power dynamics. Our presentation will describe our own experiences with assessment and scrutinize the motivations and practices of assessment in academic libraries, highlighting how the assessment practices of library instruction are divorced from a curriculum and artificially hold librarians to standards designed for teaching faculty. We will review alternatives, solutions, and mitigations. Reflective questions will help the audience members examine their own values with regards to assessment. Participants will locate their understanding and value of library instruction assessment programs within a critical framework, leaving with ideas of how they can alter conventional systems to reflect their current values.
Session block 4
12 pm PT/3 pm ET
Roadblocks in partnership: Teaching faculty, librarians, and the implementation of critical information literacy pedagogy
Amandajean F. Nolte, University of Northern Iowa; Angela Pratesi, Bowling Green State University, Angie Cox; University of Northern Iowa
There is a disconnect between how teaching faculty understand information literacy and the ways librarians frame these intersecting concepts and skills. As librarians have moved away from a standards-based approach, faculty have embraced this assessable but overly-simplified model. Faculty agree information literacy is important for everyone, but it is another topic of which instructors must stay continuously informed. The challenge for librarians becomes one of instructing faculty and their students simultaneously. Librarians cannot achieve the goals of critical pedagogy without teaching faculty partnerships. This presentation will share initial findings from a mixed-methods study on faculty perceptions of information literacy. By applying these findings in our everyday praxis as critical instruction librarians, we aim to recognize and critique power structures within a system that inherently suppresses our agency and expertise. The session will include reflection moments for participants to consider their local circumstances and adapt to their critical practice.
MLIS education and trauma-informed archival labor: preparing the next generation of liberatory memory workers
Katherine Schlesinger, University of Arizona
This presentation introduces the concept of trauma-informed archival labor and practices, positing that such knowledge is essential to undertake liberatory memory work including projects engaged in decolonization, reparations, repatriation, and redescription. Trauma-informed archival labor refers to instances when archivists experience symptoms of stressor-related disorders including trauma while working with records documenting traumatic events, or with survivors of traumatic events described in the records. Trauma-informed archival practices seek to support all those working with such collections. Despite the risks of encountering traumatic archival materials, most students in US-based MLIS programs are currently not trained to recognize and manage archival trauma. This presentation presents preliminary findings of a 2022 research study examining trauma-informed archival education in US-based MLIS programs, discusses the implications of those results, and offers possible next steps for MLIS educators. A Q & A session will engage the audience.
Citations as justice: A critical approach to plagiarism education
Rebecca Yowler, Knox College
A critical approach to citation and information literacy instruction will help librarians develop pedagogies that value student learning and honor the contributions of a variety of scholars. Librarians are uniquely situated to lead a critical approach to citation practice. A more productive framework would be one grounded in pedagogy that values student learning and helps develop an information scaffold that undergirds every subject and every earned degree. Critical theory, decolonization, critical library theory, critical race theory, feminist pedagogy, and critical library instruction all provide a common lens through which to re-vision this conversation. This session will explore various critical approaches and lenses with which to view citation and information literacy instruction. There will be small group conversations and brainstorming to engage participants in critical thinking about their own current or future programs.
1 pm PT/4 pm ET
Opening keynote
Nicola Andrews, University of San Francisco; Naomi Bishop, University of Arizona College of Medicine–Phoenix; Keahiahi Long, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa
Librarianship often excludes Native voices. Join us as we explore what we need to build, sustain, and nurture our connections -- with our land, informationscapes, and communities. We imagine a practice of librarianship that highlights relationality, multiple perspectives, well-being, and accountability. In this conversation, we share stories and lessons from our experiences as Native women in the library and higher education professions.
Thursday, November 3
Session block 1
9 am PT/12 pm ET
Workshop as a verb: designing a holistic digital scholarship workshop program for an academic library
Caitlin Pollock and Joe Bauer, University of Michigan
Instruction in libraries can take different forms and many libraries provide open workshops that cover a wide-range of topics. These open workshops can feel like traditional one-shot instruction, with no scaffolding or structure. In this presentation, we will describe our work over the past two years at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor, to develop several workshops to provide holistic and cohesive digital scholarship training to the U-M community. Influenced by John Russell and Merinda Hensley’s 2017 _CRL_ article, “Beyond Buttonology,” we created a workshop series that provided critical reflection and discussion around five themes: sustainability, preservation, accessibility, privacy, consent. We launched our first workshops series, Digital Scholarship 101, just as the COVID-19 pandemic started, forcing us to reconceptualize our highly interactive and tactile in-person workshops to Zoom workshops that required different accessibility and engagement considerations.
"I don't have time for that:" adapting IL instruction to the information behaviors of RN-to-BSN students
Emily Spracklin and Christine Espina, Western Washington University
This 50-minute presentation will interrogate unstated assumptions of the Information Literacy Competency Standards in Nursing (ILCSN), describe the context and information behavior of RN-to-BSN students, and share information literacy interventions to prepare nurses for clinical practice environments, facilitate collaboration, and develop agency to advocate for workplace changes. By the end of the presentation, attendees will be able to: (1) critically reflect on the purpose and goals of information literacy instruction for RN-to-BSN students and (2) identify how critical digital literacy and social learning techniques can be used to support agency and collaboration amongst students.
Creating accessible instructional videos: design, captions, and more
Melissa A. Wong, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Many academic libraries offer instructional videos for using their websites. Unfortunately, research shows that many of these videos are inaccessible to patrons with disabilities. For example, Clossen and Proces (2017) found that only 52% of videos they examined were properly captioned and many had additional accessibility problems. In this workshop, participants will learn to create fully accessible instructional videos. The workshop begins with a brief overview of disability that puts accessibility practices into context, then introduces design practices that support accessibility, including advice on planning, scripting, narration, typography, and graphic design. Finally, the workshop introduces standards and practices for captions, transcripts, and descriptive audio. This workshop includes an opportunity for participants to evaluate an existing instructional video for accessibility and time for Q and A. Takeaways include an evaluation rubric, a checklist of accessibility practices and standards, a suggested design process, and a list of resources for further information.
Session block 2
10 am PT/1 pm ET
The experiences of Asian Americans LIS research and education
Eric Hung, Music of Asian America/University of Maryland
The experiences of Asian Americans are largely absent in LIS literature and syllabi. As a part of the racial middle, Asian American issues are often underdiscussed in the U.S. Additionally, the “model minority” stereotype often discourages members of the community from truthfully discussing their needs, and leads many information professionals to think that our communities do not face any systemic discrimination. My presentation introduces an ongoing project at the University of Maryland aimed at increasing LIS research and education with Asian Americans. It includes completing a comprehensive literature review, creating an online annotated bibliography to help LIS faculty find appropriate articles for their courses, and producing a podcast series designed to generate interest about the history of Asian American experiences in libraries and archives. My goals for this workshop include raising awareness about the absence of Asian Americans in LIS research and education, and finding research collaborators for future projects.
We do things differently here… a critical reflection on onboarding
abby koehler, Whatcom Community College; Caitlan Maxwell, Shoreline Community College Library; Emily Spracklin, Western Washington University
How do we stop reproducing organizational traumas when we onboard new-hires? To discuss, join 3 white, cisgender women hired as a cohort at different stages of their careers—a new-career librarian with institutional experience, a mid-career librarian shifting from centralized to decentralized instructional environments, and an older librarian from outside higher ed. Panelists will critically explore the often inherited toxic nature of onboarding in academic library cultures, identify language for describing a new hire's perspective in terms of white supremacy culture and situate our previous experiences alongside strategies for mitigating undocumented norms or expectations. Participants will be able to reflect on their own experiences through discussion topics like:
- What unspoken assumptions or values do we attach to hiring early-career professionals vs. folks with many years of experience?
- What is the difference between mentorship and onboarding?
- How do we better align what we say we do with how it’s experienced?
Authority, bias, and the self in research: fostering interdisciplinary conversations in library spaces
Chris Lopez, Borough of Manhattan Community College; Sylvia Page, University of California Los Angeles; Renee Romero, University of California Los Angeles
We have offered evolving versions of an interdisciplinary workshop for UCLA and broader research communities for participants to reflect on their social identities in relation to the research process, explore how the construction of authority in scholarship is influenced by our social identities and share discussion on strategies to remain aware of bias (and celebrate unique perspectives) in the research process. In this workshop, we will share our experiences creating and facilitating these workshops, focusing on the role the library can play in providing interdisciplinary spaces to foster learning on these topics for a wide variety of learners (students, faculty, staff). Next, we will open up breakout rooms for participants to imagine how they can create similar spaces for discussions and reflections at their institutions. Participants can discuss barriers, challenges, and opportunities in creating such spaces, including navigating power dynamics, the culture of the institution, partnerships, confidentiality, funding, and more.
Session block 3
11 am PT/2 pm ET
The Critical Pedagogy Librarian: a critical turn in academic librarianship
Symphony Bruce, New York University; Christina Bush, American University; Jamillah R. Gabriel, Harvard University; Tova Johnson, Oregon Health & Science University
The Critical Pedagogy Librarian is an emerging position cropping up in various academic libraries and is expected to continue gaining traction in coming years. This critical turn towards pedagogy may be an early indication of changes to come within librarianship, and the session will unpack some of the aspects of this growing trend. Jamillah, Symphony, Tova, and Christina, all recently hired as critical pedagogy librarians at their respective institutions, will discuss the possible proliferation of this position, examine its major characteristics, and share implications for the future of critical pedagogy librarians within the profession. This session will include interactive elements and conclude with a Q&A. The audience will:
- Gain a general understanding of critical pedagogy in relation to LIS
- Identify the significant characteristics of the position
- Learn of the potential impact of this position on librarianship and the departments it serves
- Leave with considerations for suggesting or creating similar positions at their institutions
Constructing and revising a user-centered curricular toolkit
Faith Rusk and Lizzy Borges, San Francisco State University
This presentation will discuss creating a faculty-facing curricular toolkit at San Francisco State University and revising it through a Universal Design for Learning lens. The goal of this work is to provide accessible and inclusive resources for faculty to incorporate critical information literacy work into their classes beyond the traditional one-shot engagement with the library. We will also include suggestions for engaging in a similar process for your campus. We will open with a group discussion, followed by an overview of constructing the toolkit and our initial rollout to faculty. Participants will have time to explore the toolkit on their own, and then we’ll give a brief introduction to UDL and explain our process of revising the toolkit based on the UDL guidelines. Finally, participants will practice revising a lesson in small groups. We’ll end by sharing our future goals for the toolkit and allowing time for Q&A.
Realizing praxis in the classroom
Lua Gregory, University of Redlands; Shana Higgins, California State University, San Bernardino
In this Padlet discussion, participants will self-reflect and engage in conversation on strategies to realize praxis in relation to critical information literacy (CIL). Participant knowledge and dialogue form the content of this session, supported with facilitation around three central questions: What connections do you see between practicing CIL and student agency? What pedagogical tools/resources/teaching methods do we use to challenge assumptions and encourage self-reflection? How might we create classroom communities that build solidarity and empathy needed for social change? To get started with this activity, please use the following links to view an introductory video and access the Padlets for each of the three questions:
Session block 4
12 pm PT/3 pm ET
Unpacking whiteness and white supremacy in assignment design and source evaluation
Samantha Godbey, Norma A. Marrun, and Christine Clark, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
This presentation focuses on how assignments can be designed from critically conscious points of entry and the implications of doing so relative to student engagement with expectations around assignment source quality. The presenters (one librarian and two faculty in critical multicultural education) will introduce content related to, and facilitate discussion on, how whiteness and white supremacy operate in complex manners in education, particularly in how students interact with sources and with assignments. We will also explore points of alignment and tension between librarian and faculty approaches to assignment design. We will share examples of student responses to being offered flexibility around sources (i.e., not requiring peer-reviewed articles) and how such flexibility introduces complex questions regarding the “quality” of sources, specifically what counts as “evidence” and why. We will also share resources we have found useful in engaging students around source integrity and radical resistance within the academic sphere.
Hip hop-based community engaged learning & the academic library: 6 Years of VTDITC
Jasmine Weiss and Craig Arthur, Virginia Tech University Libraries
Automated epistemology: computational propaganda, algorithmic curation, and epistemic practice
Ian O'Hara, University of Scranton
As our collective epistemic practice becomes increasingly automated, propagandists have begun to exploit vulnerabilities within the algorithmically driven curation mechanisms embedded in platforms that users are widely turning to as primary information sources. Noticeably, this phenomena plays out within our social media ecosystems as propagandists have begun to manipulate the algorithmic criteria for boosting specific pieces of content, particularly disinformation, sometimes using automated means in order to manipulate public conversation, manufacture consensus, and sow civic discord in order to serve a specific sociocultural or political goal, often at the expense, and exploitation of, traditionally marginalized groups. The aim of this presentation is to generate a broader awareness of computational propaganda, its techniques, and the utilization of critical pedagogical techniques in order to counteract and dilute the effectiveness these propagandists may have on the epistemic success or failure of students in the higher education context.
Session block 5
1 pm PT/4 pm ET
Teaching toward wholeness: empowering relationality in the information literacy curriculum
Sheila Garcia Mazari, University of California Santa Cruz; Maya Hobscheid, Grand Valley State University
Recognizing that research can be traumatic for individuals from historically excluded groups, this session will guide participants through a set of student learning outcomes related to the emotional stages of research. Formatted as a rubric to assess student learning, these learning outcomes focus on framing student research through a human-centered lens, valuing past lived experiences that may intersect with research topics and the research process. Participants will be asked to begin the session by reflecting on their personal experiences encountering academic literature that either reaffirmed or came in conflict with their lived experiences. Facilitators will provide their own examples and highlight how they have used the rubric to inform how they establish relationality in the information literacy curriculum. This includes practices such as: undertaking a “making space” mentality during research consultations, negotiating teaching methods with instructors through a trauma-informed approach, and co-creating social contracts for engaging in a space.
Modeling interdependence for student researchers
Veronica Arellano Douglas and Natalia Kapacinskas, University of Houston
The culture of research and innovation in academia celebrates individual achievement and accomplishment. We often teach research in a way that prizes independence, pushing students to become independent scholars, able to complete their assignments and research projects on their own. But in practice research is inherently interdependent. We are concerned about the ways that our teaching may over-value independence, exclude and harm marginalized students, give false impressions about how scholarship is already produced, and limit the possibilities for more inclusive and just futures in research. In this presentation, participants will engage with models of interdependence from critical disability studies, relational-cultural theory, indigenous research methods, and the Cite Black Women movement to contemplate fostering much-needed interconnection and inclusion in the research classroom. Participants will examine common teaching scenarios in the library classroom and work with each other to develop opportunities to model interdependence as a scholarly value.
Complicity in assimilating students to Eurocentric scholarship
Breanne Crumpton, Appalachian State University
As librarians, we can be complicit in asking students to use sources centering Eurocentric voices and research approaches through our databases, citational practices, and how we emphasize credibility. The goal of this session is to create awareness of how, in trying to appease faculty requests, we become complicit in helping them promote Eurocentric scholarship and in turn assimilating students to hold up white academic standards of research. This session will also aim to show how the library systems we teach are often flawed in which voices get promoted. Attendees will be asked to think through what they are usually asked to show students and how it can promote one “right” (white) style of research. It is the goal that attendees will walk away with discussion points they can use to engage faculty in looking at their research assignments in a new light.
Friday, November 4
Lightning talks
9 am PT/12 pm ET
The hidden curriculum of heteronormativity in library instruction
Thomas C. Weeks, Augusta University
This session will explore how queer pedagogy can help us unsettle what we find normal about library instruction and the ways this normality reinforces the hidden curriculum of heteronormativity.
Exploring fat liberation in instruction
Liz Chenevey, James Madison University
The intersection of fatness and health is often a popular research topic for students. As the fat studies discipline and conversations around body positivity and fat liberation continue to evolve, it is important for librarians to bring this perspective into our critical instruction practice. This lightning talk will be a beginning exploration into how fatness and fat liberation can show up in how we teach information literacy. The fat liberation and fat studies movements will be introduced, and we will explore opportunities to better incorporate this perspective into information literacy instruction. The audience will take away ideas for incorporating fat liberation into their teaching. While the presenter’s perspective is mainly from working as a liaison to health and behavioral studies students, the talk will be broad enough to apply to a variety of disciplines.
Critical information literacy is for everyone: developing a community-based information literacy course
Susie Wilson and Annelise Dowd, University of North British Columbia
What happens when you take critical information literacy out into the community? The College of New Caledonia in Prince George, BC, has a unique grant-funded program to help expose adults without post-secondary experience to post-secondary education in a fee-free, supportive environment. As volunteer instructors we developed a one-month standalone Critical Information Literacy class for this program. We will discuss our classroom wins, some bumps along the way, and future plans for related content.
Knowing our worth: dismantling hierarchies in medical libraries
Rachel King, Cooper Medical School of Rowan University
Nearly all libraries are asked to prove their value to stakeholders. Surveys are regularly sent out and assessment undertaken, all with the goal of gathering purportedly objective data demonstrating the library’s value. Even when these efforts result in positive feedback, circumstances within the library rarely seem to improve. Austerity persists and librarian voices continue to be dismissed or ignored. Nowhere is this more true than in medical libraries. Medical librarians are often made to feel that the library is a drain on resources rather than an asset providing value. This lightning talk will help medical librarians a) better understand and appreciate their contribution to the field of healthcare, and b) recognize that the problems they continue to experience are not caused by a customer service failure on their part, but are due to the stratified nature of medical education as well as the unjust American healthcare industry.
Reflective assessment
Tath Haver, Williams College
Portraiture methodology is a form of qualitative inquiry developed by Jessica Hoffman Davis and Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot that blends the social sciences with aesthetic practice. Constructed around five frames, spanning one's relationship to the subject, to emerging themes discovered in the research process and the aesthetic whole of the finished work. Portraiture seeks to create an iterative and reflective research experience that is enriched by loose and contradictory threads discovered in the research process. In Spring 2022 I used Portraiture as an instructional design tool for a five-part workshop series. To approach the "emergent themes" frame, I created a routine of reflective assessments using diagrams, translation exercises, and emoji portraits that prompted students to interrogate power structures in information, critique search practices, and describe their relationship to research. Participants can expect to take away an understanding of Portraiture Methodology and several examples of reflective assessment centered on the politics of information.
Celebrating student voice through the annual first year experience exhibition
Yuqiao Cao and Lauren Wallis, University of Delaware
Instructors from the library and museums will discuss the First Year Experience (FYE) Exhibition, a project that invites first-year students to see themselves as full participants in the academic community at the University of Delaware. Each year, we curate an exhibition of student-created work as a way to demonstrate that their ideas about social issues are valued in an academic context. The exhibition draws the campus community’s attention to digital reflections students create as part of a library and museums program for the FYE curriculum. In this program, students interact with art exhibitions and Special Collections materials related to themes from the required First Year Common Reader. We make sure that students’ ideas and experiences guide our curatorial process. We welcome creations from all levels of artistic skill and validate popular modes of information creation. We hope to expand possibilities for other institutions to value student voice on campus.
Polishing the mirror: critical reflection for the online learning librarian
Aimee Gee, Shenandoah University
Reflective practice in education offers a means for teachers to examine and draw upon feedback and experience to continually adjust their teaching. For online learning librarians, a critically reflective practice interrogates the efficacy and ethics of both the content we teach and the digital tools we use to create and share it. This presentation will share strategies for applying critically reflective practices to the design and deployment of online library and information literacy instruction in addition to outlining the benefits for instruction librarians and learners alike.
Wellness and self-care collections in university libraries: an opportunity for community engagement and critical pedagogy
Renee Walsh, University of Connecticut
The University of Connecticut Library launched a Wellness Library initiative in 2020. The founder of the project, Renee Walsh, will share takeaways from the project, how it has evolved over the past few years, and how librarians can establish a similar initiative at their libraries. Community connections and in-person events hosted by the Wellness Library Project will also be discussed and shared.
Crafting a (mis)information literacy teaching toolkit
Ashley Peterson and Alexandra Solodkaya, University of California Los Angeles
In this lightning talk the presenters will describe Understanding Misinformation: A Lesson Plan Toolkit, a resource designed for educators who wish to engage learners in a systematic understanding of online misinformation. The Toolkit provides instructors with sample learning outcomes; learning activities; assessment tools; and further resources that support lesson plan design. It presents misinformation as a systemic issue and encourages learners to understand and ultimately challenge an online environment that often amplifies systemic racism and structural inequities. The Toolkit is meant to be generative, encouraging users to adapt and remix the resources provided as well as craft their own learning outcomes according to the needs of their distinct learning communities. The presenters will describe the creation of the Toolkit and provide a brief demonstration. Participants should feel empowered to use the Toolkit to build their own lessons about the causes of, and potential solutions to, online misinformation.
11 am PT/2 pm ET
Closing keynote
Baharak Yousefi, Simon Fraser University