Weeks 14, 15, and 16: Whirlwind End of the Semester!

It is hard for me to believe we are already at the end of the semester! I've continued to assume additional responsibilities as the semester has gone on, putting in extra hours to attend committee meetings, observe and assist with unique info lit sessions, and prepare for our upcoming LOEX presentation. Here's a quick rundown of some of the highlights:

University of Dubuque, Charles C. Myers Library 

• After having life-sized cut-outs of people in the library for April's abuse/assault awareness, we spent one morning dismantling the display so it could travel to its next destination (quite a moving display showing the names, ages, and the story of how they died as a result of domestic abuse).
  
• LOEX prep, LOEX prep, LOEX prep. (Did I mention LOEX prep?) Anne Marie and I have worked hard to complete both the paper and presentation, sharing our experiences from our internship/mentorship semester, as well as recommendations from the literature. See you in Fort Worth in just a few days! (Here's a sneak-peak at our Prezi: http://bit.ly/LOEXMentoring2011)
• Crafts (not just for elementary teachers, dear friends)! Between helping prep multicolored note card packets (complete with stickers) for the Great American Poetry Race (more on that in a bit) and transcribing colorful handwritten concept maps into electronic form, I was all about being crafty and creative!
• We had a master's student studying communication host a workshop for the library staff. We talked about effective communication, our habits as a staff, effective leadership, diversity of views & how that helps groups come up with new ideas.
• Web meeting: What do we like about what we have? What would we like to change? What new technologies would we like to incorporate into our library services and how would that be reflected in our website?
• Ref desk coverage for a colleague and my regular shifts--always something new there!
• The Great American Poetry Race: Students work in small groups, racing through a set of cards to find critical sources on their chosen poems. After a brief refresher on library resources, particularly those they'd likely use for this task, the students are on their own to find quality resources (with one "help card" they can cash in for librarian assistance). Progress is charted on the wall and the first group to complete all of their cards receives an awesome prize! The students were really involved with this activity and, while it was competitive, the competition didn't overshadow the learning objectives.
• Evaluation time! Anne Marie and I scheduled some time to go over the evaluation forms from IU as well as just discuss the internship experience. I won't go into too much detail here, but I am so thankful to have found a place for my internship that matches my student-first philosophy, one that has given me an abundance of opportunities and realistic experience that I can take with me anywhere, not to mention the new friends I have made!
• Jenny Parker and I prepared and lead a book discussion over Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach. The meeting at the end of last week went really well, and reminded me that despite my colleagues having more experience than me, they continue to face the same challenges in and out of the classroom. By opening a dialog and sharing successes and frustrations, I think we were able to better understand each other as librarians and educators. At the end of the discussion, Mary Anne expressed an interest in regularly scheduling other discussion times to continue the professional sharing that happened during our meeting. 
• OCLC visit day! We hosted a meeting with the Iowa OCLC rep and invited the Loras library folks to join us as we learned about what is available through OCLC's Web-Scale Management Services, what will be available in the near future, and offered suggestions regarding features we like with the current system that aren't readily available through OCLC's product.
• I almost forgot to mention this!  The latest Iowa Library Association/ACRL newsletter is out.  Here's the link to my Scholarship Recipient Report.  

Anne Marie Gruber & Cara Stone

It has been a fantastic semester, and I would recommend this experience to anyone interested in librarianship! Many thanks to those who helped coordinate details between Bloomington and Dubuque, and to the UD faculty and staff for helping to develop me as a librarian!

Article 8: Developmental Relationships in the Dynamic Library Environment

Murphy, S. (2008). Developmental relationships in the dynamic library environment: Re-conceptualizing mentoring for the future. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 34(5), 434-437.

Libraries are shifting from focusing on physical pieces to focusing on learning outcomes for library users. Library-oriented career paths are no longer well-defined and work relationships beyond hierarchical mentoring need to be considered to support new workers through this change. Currently, the literature emphasizes formal mentoring, despite research indicating informal mentorship is more effective. Information is often subtly transferred from person to person; informal mentoring recognizes this and capitalizes on learning through stories and observations. Mentoring in this new environment is a tool to ensure succession planning, to help with future staffing needs by developing mentees into leaders in emerging areas of librarianship. Peer mentoring, informal mentoring, multiple or shorter-term mentoring experiences (i.e. dialogue groups, networks, mentoring circles, reverse mentoring) are all discussed. Mentee benefits include understanding of organizational culture, networking, personal guidance, career development, learning from role models, receiving advice, and development of friendships. Mentors also benefit from learning the mentee’s perspective and actively reflecting on current practices. This reconceptualization of mentoring, as it adapts to changing technologies, is key to the future success of librarianship and libraries.

Article 1: The Reference Librarian as Non-Expert: A Postmodern Approach to Expertise

Stover, M. (2004). The reference librarian as non-expert: A postmodern approach to expertise. The Reference Librarian, 42(87), 273-300. doi:10.1300/J120v42n87_10

In the postmodern approach to librarianship, emphasis is placed on communication and relationships between librarians and patrons. Subject knowledge, traditional information seeking skills, and the modern view of expertise fall secondary to the librarian’s communication, social psychological, reference interview, and non-verbal skills when assisting patrons with their research needs. Import is placed upon a mutual respect between librarian and patron, and the ability to adjust reference research practices based on his/her needs (as opposed to the quest for “ultimate truth” on a topic). Jargon and an air of superiority (wherein expertise equals power) obstruct patron understanding of and comfort with librarian assistance and can lead to ineffective research and also a negative patron experience, hindering future interaction. Postmodern librarianship lends itself to a partnership between librarian and patron, seeking information in a shared manner. Including information literacy as a part of the services librarians provide will empower patrons to research independently in the future.