My teaching and service responsibilities as a librarian at Lansing Community College Library include providing reference and instruction, as well as coordinating the library website. I also serve as a liaison to the eLearning, Center for Transitional Learning, and English departments, and select library materials in these areas.
Reference Services
I provide reference services to students, faculty, and staff, as well as the public in-person, by email, phone, and through chat reference. At the Reference Desk, I help students at all stages of the research process, from finding a topic, to finding sources, to refining their topic, to citing sources. I view the reference desk as an extension of instruction in the classroom and work to teach patrons to help themselves rather than doing the research for them.
Some of the challenges in working with students at the reference desk include:
- students who arrive at the desk with their paper already written who say they just need sources because their instructor requires them
- students with low level literacy skills who find navigating electronic resources challenging
- students trying to narrow down their topic or wrap their head around how to transform the information they find into a paper
Some of the highlights of working at the reference desk include:
- watching students become self-sufficient researchers and develop critical thinking skills
- observing students excited about the wealth of resources available for them through the library
- learning about new topics I have never even heard about before
I serve on the Reference Services Team where we work to share strategies for providing face to face and virtual reference and to share knowledge about new (and old) resources.
Instruction Services
I provide information literacy instruction for students in a wide range of classes. The majority of classes I teach are writing courses, such as Writing 121 and Writing 122, but I also work with students in developmental reading courses, literature, political science, speech, science, law, business, sociology, and ESL. Most sessions are one to two hours long. Instructors are required to be present in library instruction sessions and some instructors even team teach during the sessions. I teach an average of 25 classes per semester and each class has somewhere between 20-25 students. Some students come to instruction sessions thinking they already know all there is to know about doing research, so that can be a challenge.
I serve on the Instruction Services Team. We meet monthly to develop curriculum and share ideas about teaching, working with challenging students, and assessing our sessions.
Web Services
My experience providing reference and instruction informs my work managing the library website. Every day, I see students and faculty using the website which gives me insight into improvements that are needed. Part of my duties include leading the Website Improvement Team (WIT) which meets monthly. On WIT, we work to develop and evaluate the library’s online presence by:
- conducting usability testing
- researching trends in other library/websites
- promoting the library website
- developing new content
- developing and maintaining standards for the library’s web presence
- analyzing website usage data from Google Analtyics and Crazy Egg
I manage not only the library website, but all of the library’s presence on the web, such as LibGuides, a content management system for research guides, the Library wiki, YouTube, and the Library presence in the ANGEL course management system. I also collect and use data from Google Analytics, Crazy Egg, and the library’s Google Custom Search Engine to improve the website.
As part of my web librarian duties, I provide training for staff members on new technologies. In the past I trained staff in the use of the Library wiki, and currently train new staff and help current staff keep up to date with their skills in the use of LibGuides, a system to manage library research guides.
I like to experiment with new technologies. This academic year, I was asked to teach a session in Second Life for a criminal justice class and I enjoyed figuring out how to reach students in this new online environment (see Appendix: Library Instruction in Second Life). This semester I was able to train a colleague to provide instruction in Second Life.
Liaison Duties
As a liaison, I serve as the first point of contact for faculty in my liaison areas: eLearning, Center for Transitional Learning, and the English department. I also select materials to support the curriculum in my liaison areas and work to improve the READ collection, a special collection for developmental reading and ESL students. Every semester I communicate to faculty about new resources and services in the library through email, my library liaison pages (eLearning, English, and Center for Transitional Learning), and visiting faculty meetings. I have also given presentations for faculty about integrating library resources in ANGEL.
-- Download Teaching and Service Responsibilities as PDF --