Beyond the Job Ad: Employers and Library Instruction

Abstract

Many content analyses of job ads have revealed the skills and experience needed in academic library jobs and show that library instruction is an important job duty. This study moves beyond the content of the job ads and surveys the employers themselves (in the person of the supervisor). The survey revealed that supervisors highly value library instruction. Other findings relate to the types of instruction duties the new employee will engage in and the ways that these employees learn how to do library instruction, as well as how much time the employee spends on instruction-related duties.

Connecting Inspiration with Information: Studio Art Students and Information Literacy Instruction

“…The library's role in the teaching of information literacy on university and college campuses has become critical to student success, with instruction increasingly becoming an important part of professional duties (Hall, 2013). Librarians often discuss information literacy in terms of students conducting research needed for academic papers, but information literacy skills are necessary for a wide-reaching range of information-seeking opportunities both in and out of the classroom.…”

To teach or not to teach? The question of the academic librarian's pedagogical competencies in the digital age

“…This article found the aspect of their work relating to the concepts of 'disruptive innovations' and blending of LIS, IT and pedagogical skills to respond to technology disruptions in a highly digitized higher education environment very useful. The wider literature (Walter 2008;Hall 2013;Hensley 2015) also raises the issue of the academic librarian's 'teacher identity' -both from the point of view of academic librarians themselves as well as from the perspective of students, academic staff and other university constituencies.…”

“…This cluster, as may be observed from Table 2 and Figure 1, includes knowledge and skills that embrace the pedagogical foundations of teaching and learning. The literature is very clear that while studies have shown an increasing need for teaching skills in the digital age academic library environment, many (Miller 2007;Walter 2008;Hall 2013;Hensley 2015) have questioned whether academic librarians have the necessary grounding in the 'rudiments of pedagogy' (Hall 2013, 14) to take on these roles seriously. Are they simply being 'unceremoniously thrust into the classroom' (Walter 2008, 60) to do the best they can with what they have learnt on the job.…”

“…Westbrock and Fabian (2010, 573) explain that in response to this gap in formal LIS education 'librarians themselves have not ignored the important shift that has taken place in terms of their roles as educators on campuses' with some academic libraries 'developing in-house professional development programs that address the need to teach librarians those pedagogical skills they missed in graduate school'. However, Hensley's (2015, 315) conjecture is that while these professional development opportunities emerge in various academic libraries, 'this effort simply isn't broad or deep enough to adequately train librarians for the reality of classroom needs', a point also made by Hall (2013). Hensley (2015, 321) uses a case study of an instruction librarian working with LIS academics to co-create an information literacy instruction course for LIS students, in order to respond to Walter's (2008, 53) professional identity of academic librarians?'.…”

SoTL in the LIS Classroom: Helping Future Academic Librarians Become More Engaged Teachers

“…Auten and Twigg (2013) wrote that SoTL can benefit graduate courses by helping prepare students for the teaching in higher education. Academic librarian employers deem teaching skills an important skillset when they are looking to make a hire (Hall, 2013), and studies…”