Yearly Archive: 2021

Libraries and Learning Analytics: Facts, False Choices, and Future Forays

Free Online Presentation Monday, November 15, 2021 1:00 PM to 2:00 PM CT Presented via Zoom Registration Link Learning analytics offers a new tool in the library assessment toolbox, one that closes gaps left by other assessment methods but also raises myriad questions for librarians. As higher education institutions expand...

Call for Proposals for Online Professional Development Presentations

The ACRL ULS Professional Development Committee (PDC) welcomes proposals for online programs that further ACRL members’ professional development, knowledge, and practice. Submission deadline is September 24, 2021.

Considering Data Literacy Using Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process: Implications for Librarians and Data Providers [video replay]

On August 16, 2021, the ACRL ULS Professional Development Committee sponsored an online program on data literacy using Kuhlthau’s information search process. The panel discussed uses of Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process (ISP) to illustrate ways that librarians can assist students and collaborate with data providers to improve the data search process.

Incorporating Feminist Practice into Library Research [video replay]

On July 26, 2021 the ULS Professional Development Committee sponsored a discussion on incorporating feminist practice into library research. The presentation identified ways to incorporate feminism into the research process and discussed real world examples of feminist research practices. Presenters included: Kelsey Cheshire, Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Librarian at...

Considering Data Literacy Using Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process: Implications for Librarians and Data Providers

This panel discusses uses of Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process (ISP) to illustrate ways that librarians can assist students and collaborate with data providers to improve the data search process. Librarians and data providers share similar data literacy goals, and this panel pools the expertise of both groups to focus on strategies and interventions that support novice researchers. We explore our combined experiences and jointly step through students’ research phases to examine how each group can contribute to improving that experience. Moreover, we explore ways to review students’ data literacy needs throughout the research process through the lens of Kuhlthau’s six-stage, iterative ISP. Kuhlthau’s framework, rooted in empathy, maps to existing knowledge about what students do, think, and feel at various stages of the search process. We encourage participants to identify “zones of intervention” that are both consistent with Kuhlthau’s research and are novel to data-rich research projects.

Confronting the Myth of Neutrality: Academic Libraries, Advocacy, and Free Speech [video replay]

This is a recording of the on-demand program during the 2021 ALA Annual Conference. During this panel presentation, the speakers answered a series of questions focused around the roles of libraries as neutral spaces, how libraries can support marginalized students, and how libraries can balance tensions between professional ethics and university administrative goals and policies. The panelists are Emily Knox, Ph.D. (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign), Renate Chancellor, Ph.D. (Catholic University of America), Stacy Collins, MLIS (Simmons University), and Adriene Lim, Ph.D. (University of Maryland). The session was moderated by Alyssa Denneler (Indiana University-Bloomington).

Incorporating Feminist Practice into Library Research

Librarianship has made strides in incorporating feminism into library services, but you have considered how librarians can embrace their personal beliefs as feminists within our scholarly pursuits? Librarians may be less aware of library research that incorporates feminism, or how we might already be putting feminist theory into practice without realizing it. In this session, we will start by sharing ways we incorporate feminist theory in our own work (including reference and instruction, collections, and scholarly communication) and invite you to share your own examples. We will then introduce a number of concepts from feminist ethics and theory that inform feminist research practice and showcase how these can be applied in any combination to produce research that is feminist. Finally, we will explore ways that feminism can be incorporated into research at many decision points, including approaches to research methods, citation, and the production and presentation of scholarship.

ULS Mid-Level Managers Virtual Discussion

Participants in this conversation will have the opportunity to share ideas and hear from their peers on a variety of topics related to management in academic libraries. The focus of the discussion will be experiences, opportunities, and lessons learned related to managing libraries in a pandemic and incorporating equity, diversity, and inclusion and antiracist practices into our work and our workplaces.

Confronting the Myth of Neutrality: Academic Libraries, Advocacy, and Free Speech (ALA Annual 2021, On Demand)

This panel features presenters with experience in balancing issues of library advocacy and free speech in academic libraries. Invited panelists will be both librarians and campus administrators or faculty who are knowledgeable about issues and topics currently contributing to the larger conversations happening on campuses regarding library neutrality, libraries as spaces of advocacy and the complications surrounding these challenges. By exploring these issues, it is our intention that this panel will offer best practices about how libraries can provide a space for engaging in candid discussion, which supports meaningful change.

A Predatory Primer: What Every Librarian Should Know About Problem Publishers [video replay]

This is a video recording of a panel discussion originally presented on April 28, 2001 on the subject of predatory journals and publishers. The presentation provided a history of predatory practices, examined the complex issues surrounding academic publishing and the quality of journals, and offered takeaways for how librarians can discuss predatory publishing with academic faculty. Presenters included Nicole Webber, Assistant Professor at the University Libraries of the University of Northern Colorado and Stephanie Wiegand, the Online Learning Librarian and an Associate Professor with the University of Northern Colorado Libraries. The session was moderated by Laura Gariepy and was sponsored by the ULS Professional Development Committee.