The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook is a comprehensive resource for academic library professionals and LIS students looking to pursue a teaching role in their work and to develop this aspect of their professional lives in a holistic way throughout their careers. The book is built around the core ideas of reflective self-development and informed awareness of one’s personal professional landscape. Through engaging with a series of exercises and reflective pauses in each chapter, readers are encouraged to reflect on their professional identity, self-image, self-efficacy and progress as they consider each of the different aspects of the teaching role.
This handbook will:
- provide a comprehensive resource on teaching, professional development and reflective practice for academic teaching librarians at all stages of their careers
- explore the current landscape of teaching librarianship in higher education, and highlight the important developments, issues and trends that are shaping current and future practice
- examine the roles and responsibilities of the academic teaching librarian in the digital era
- introduce the essential areas of development, skill and knowledge that will empower current and future professionals in the role
- inspire prospective and current academic teaching librarians to adopt a broad conception of the role that goes beyond the basic idea of classroom-based teaching, and provide practical tools to engage in personal development and career planning in this area.
The Academic Teaching Librarian’s Handbook is an indispensable reference, suitable for early career professionals at the start of their teaching journey, as well as mid- or late-career librarians who may have moved into leadership and managerial roles and who wish to advance their teaching role to the next level.
Introduction
Part 1: Constructing the academic teaching librarian
1 Shaping the academic teaching librarian
1.1 Introduction: Critical issues for academic teaching librarians
1.2 Conceptions of literacy: Terminology and the academic teaching librarian
1.2.1 The Name of the Game: Does information literacy (still) matter?
1.2.2 Terminology in transition
1.2.3 Digital literacy
1.3 New frameworks: Information literacy in context
1.3.1 New frameworks reflect new literacy conceptions
1.4 Critical information literacy
1.4.1 Critical information literacy: a role for academic teaching librarians?
1.5 Social media and filter bubbles: the rise of 'fake news'
1.5.1 What is ‘fake news’?
1.5.2 The spread of ‘fake news’
1.5.3 ‘Fake news’ and the academic teaching librarian
1.6 Learning analytics
1.6.1 Understanding learning analytics
1.6.2 Learning analytics and the academic teaching librarian'
1.7 e-Research and datafied scholarship
1.7.1 Bibliometrics and research data management
1.7.2 Implications for academic teaching librarians
2 Defining the academic teaching librarian
2.1 Introduction: Who is the academic teaching librarian?
2.2 Professional identity and ‘teacher identity’
2.2.1 The construction of professional identity
2.3 Roles and responsibilities of academic teaching Librarians
2.3.1 Roles and Strengths of Teaching Librarians
2.4 The information- literate self
2.5 Reflective practice for academic teaching librarians
2.5.1 Benefits of reflective practice
2.6 Developing a personal teaching philosophy
2.6.1 Writing a teaching philosophy statement
2.6.2 Teaching philosophy frameworks
3 Becoming an academic teaching librarian
3.1 Introduction: Choosing choosing the academic teaching librarian pathway
3.2 Looking inwards: Self-analysis and the teaching tole
3.3 Does a ‘teaching personality’ exist?
3.4 Mapping your teaching profile
3.4.1 Exploring your aptitude
3.4.2 Exploring your values
3.4.3 Exploring your motivators
3.5 Planning and developing your teaching role
3.5.1 Teaching librarian development plan
3.5 2 Teaching development micro-planner
3.6 Keeping current with teaching trends
3.7 Documenting and showcasing your work; teaching portfolios for librarians
3.7.1 What to include in a teaching portfolio
3.7.2 Teaching portfolio template
3.7.3 e-Portfolios
Part 2: Excelling as an academic teaching librarian
4 Technology and the academic teaching librarian
4.1 Introduction: the digital environment for academic teaching librarians
4.2 Teaching, learning and technology – key concepts
4.3 The digital imperative in higher education
4.4 Digital education in higher education (HE): state -of- the- art
4.5 Digital learning and the academic teaching librarian
4.6 Digital learning knowledge domains: a framework for academic teaching librarians
4.7 Levels of skill and expertise for digital learning
4.8 Additional digital learning competency frameworks
4.8.1 Technological, pedagogical and content framework (TPACK)
4.8.2 Digital competence framework (DigCompEdu)
4.8.3 Mapping the digital learning frameworks
4.9 A reflective approach to planning and designing digital learning
4.9.1 Mayes and Fowler’s conceptualisation cycle
4.9.2 Oliver and Herrington’s model of instructional design for web-based learning
4.10 A final word on digital learning
5 Leading and co-ordinating for the academic teaching librarian
5.1 Introduction: leadership, management and culture
5.2 Leadership and the academic teaching librarian
5.2.1 Who is a leader?
5.2.2 Leadership is for everyone
5.3 Coordinating your library’s information literacy programme
5.3.1 Focus on relationship-building
5.4 Creating an information literacy culture in your institution
5.4.1 Institutional Culture and Information Literacy
5.4.2 Unpacking Institutional Culture
5.4.3 Focus on Library Culture
5.4.4 Practical Approaches to Creating an Information Literacy Culture
5.5 Engaging with the wider community of teaching librarians
5.5.1 Joining Professional Groups, Committees or Association
5.5.2 Communities of Practice
5.5.3 Personal Learning Networks
5.5.4 Participating in the worldwide virtual community of Teaching Librarians
6 Advocacy and the academic teaching librarian
6.1 Introduction: Reflecting on advocacy
6.2 Advocacy and libraries
6.2.1 Advocacy for libraries
6.2.2 Advocacy by libraries
6.3 Advocacy and academic teaching librarians
6.4 Information literacy: Communicating value
6.5 Ways of engaging in advocacy
6.6 Writing for academic publications: A reflective view
6.6.1 Academic Writing and Advocacy
6.6.2 Generating Ideas for Academic Publications
6.6.3 Motivating Yourself to Write
Biography
Claire McGuinness is Assistant Professor and current Deputy Head of School at the School of Information and Communication Studies, University College Dublin, Ireland. She has a long-term interest in researching and teaching information and digital literacy and has published extensively in these areas and others including academic librarianship, reflective practice and teaching skills for librarians. She has designed and taught multiple information and digital literacy modules over the past two decades, and currently leads several courses on the MLIS and BSc Social Sciences programmes at UCD. Since 2004, her advanced teaching librarian course on the MLIS and Diploma programmes at UCD has prepared trainee librarians for the instructional work that is increasingly part of their professional remit in different sectors.
