ACRL 2013 - April 10-13, 2013 - Indianapolis, IN

     The Imagine, Innovate, Inspire focus of this national conference hits the nail on the head! I came away invigorated with new ideas and affirmation for some initiatives I'm working on.  All of the sessions I attended were in either the Assessment or Teaching & Learning track. Thursday began with “The one-Shot Mixtape: Lessons for Planning, Delivering, and Integrating Instruction.”  This presentation was based on the article “Notes from the Field: 10 Short Lessons on One-Shot Instruction” in Communications in Information Literacy 6(1). This session confirmed that information literacy is a campus issue, not a library issue; something we are in the heart of at SMSU. This article is a must-read.

     “Making IL Relevant: Creating Engaging IL Experiences for Students” was a well-done presentation that focused on the collaboration between librarians and a Public Health faculty member. The faculty member kicked off the presentation, and together the panel (which included 2 librarians, the faculty member, and a student) walked through the library sessions, their purpose, and the assessment measures used. This started as a grant that incentivized the faculty to collaborate with the library on an information literacy initiative. Something we could try using Endowed Funds?

     Three contributed papers made up the next session: “Melding the Nitty Gritty of Critical Thinking and Information Literacy into English Developmental and Composition Classes,” “Information Literacy as a Formative Force,” and “The Almost Experts: Capstone Students and the Research Process.”  I took away a nugget from each 20-minute presentation!

     “Inspiring Our Newest Students: The Role of the Library in the First Year Experience” rounded out day 1 of the conference. Many ideas were shared by the presenters, as well as via the audience. Some ideas we already have in place (such as the ever-popular fortune cookies), but many more we could explore. Lack of staffing is our biggest hurdle to implementing some of the great ideas shared at this session. Reference to the University of Minnesota study about the impact of library use on GPA and retention was made throughout the presentation.

     While assessment was discussed in some of the sessions I attended on Thursday, Friday morning brought me to my first assessment-focused session: “Creating a Culture of Assessment: Determinants of Success.”  Not that we need another committee, but the idea of having an “Information Literacy Council” with representatives from around the campus appealed to me. As noted earlier, IL isn’t a Library-focused topic, but rather a college one, and more stakeholders should be intimately involved in the discussion about how to incorporate, assess, etc., IL competencies throughout the curriculum.

     The three tools highlighted in “Methods Behind the Instructional Madness: Assessing and Enhancing Learning Through Portfolios, Mapping, and Rubrics” provided options for librarians conducting assessment. This presentation fostered many great ideas for better utilization of our IL rubric!  I will definitely spend some time reviewing this presentation.

     Due to the tremendous number and variety of sessions, I only attended one roundtable at the conference and it was about “Teaching Summon: The Impact of Discovery Services on Library Instruction.” The moderator provided a selected bibliography to refer back to, and the discussion was a lively one with some at the table already using a discovery tool while others saw it on the horizon.  One of the positives shared by the moderator was that not having to teach the individual mechanics of each database allowed for the librarian to talk about the content of results relatively quickly (i.e., source evaluation, scholarly vs. popular, etc.).  There seemed to be consensus at the table that upper division students continued to need targeted instruction on subject-specific databases, and that a discovery tool wouldn’t always suffice for discipline research.

     The second set of contributed papers I attended was  “How is This Different From Critical Thinking?: The Risks and Rewards of Deepening Faculty Involvement in an Information Literacy Rubric,” Becoming an Assessment Leader: Collaborating for Campus Wide Information Literacy Assessment,” and “Just-in-Time Instruction, Regular Reflection, and Integrated Assessment: A Sustainable Model for Student Growth.” Each group spoke for 20 minutes, and provided lots of “food for thought” as we continue to tackle a campus-wide IL initiative.

     Poster sessions were interspersed throughout Thursday and Friday. The depth and breadth of the poster sessions was truly amazing. There is so much research being done in libraries throughout the country; it is inspiring.  I have many handouts and links I need to go back and explore!

     “The Flipped Classroom in the Library: Integrating Formal and Informal Learning Spaces” kicked off my Saturday morning. Much talk about the need for the Library to be a partner and collaborate with other entities on campus was interspersed throughout the presentation. The focus was on space utilization more so than library instruction, but the endeavor brought an active learning space into the libraries at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

     Apparently I saved the best for last, as the final session I attended was my favorite: “Building an Instruction Arsenal: Using Standardized Elements to Streamline Class Planning and Ease Student Learning Assessment Across the Curriculum.” This one hit home as it aligns with what we are working to implement with our library instruction sessions. Their work in scaffolding and establishing student learning outcomes parallels our intentions here. Whew!  Nice to hear about their success and see we’re on a good track!

     The conference ended with Keynote Speaker Maria Hinojosa who was inspiring through her passion, her stories, and her work. She has a great message about humanity and reminded us to “see each other.”

Next ACRL Conference is scheduled for March 25-28, 2015, in Portland, Oregon...hope to be there!