I find it extremely entertaining that I want to be an instruction librarian since I maintained throughout high school and college that I could never be a teacher. Over the years I have taught in a variety of capacities but mainly with children. I was a swimming instructor, a craft teacher, and a peer tutor. They were exhausting jobs; none more so than teaching arts and crafts to children ages 4-13. I spent all my free time lesson planning and was at my wits end a fair few times while attempting to motivate and interest campers in art projects. I maintained that I could never be a teacher full time because I simply lack the patience for it. I genuinely believed that I would be happy in the silence of a library surrounded by books all day long. An undergraduate internship at the American Antiquarian Society cured me of these notions along with a job working as a peer advisor. I discovered that I love helping people find the information they need to be successful. Teaching, it seems, is something I like after all.
            At least, in small doses. Prior experiences, a summer job tutoring for LIB120 at URI, and the Information Literacy Instruction course made for a good foundation to build upon during my internship. Planning for an actual instruction session was far more than I had ever done previously. It was a terrific learning opportunity where I got the chance create a course specific LibGuide, design the lesson and handouts based on the professor’s requests, and then teach a 50 minutes session after observing and co-teaching a longer session. It challenged me to step out of my comfort zone which has been in one-on-one informal and impromptu sessions with students. This tested me in the GSLIS Educational Outcomes for Foundations of the Profession, Technological Knowledge and Skills, Reference and User Services, and Continuing Education and Lifelong Learning. Instruction requires a wide variety of skills and capabilities, apart from learning to be comfortable and confident while presenting. Five minute presentations now feel like a breeze comparatively. I learned that it is important to plan but to also be flexible and responsive to the demands of the class. In past jobs, I felt like it was a failure on my part when I changed my lesson plan in order to accommodate my students better but this project for field experience has taught me the importance of responding to student needs. In the future, I hope to become even better at this as I get more practice and experience with instruction. Here you will find my full lesson plan, a link to the LibGuide I created, activity handouts I designed to teach resource evaluation, the assessment questionnaire students filled out, and selected student responses.

Bonus: 20 Minute Training

            Becoming a better instructor takes practice so in addition to the projects I completed for my Professional Field Experience, I also instructed a short continuing education session for the d’Alzon Librarians. Once a month a librarian hosts a 20 Minute Training to educate coworkers on a new technology or procedure. Nancy and I thought this would be a good chance for me to participate in the d’Alzon culture. After spending so much time creating instructional videos, I decided to show them how to create videos out of PowerPoint presentations. It is a quick and easy way for them to make instructional media to enhance their LibGuides. Passing along this knowledge is beneficial because it enables them to continue to create videos now that I am no longer their intern. I work in Access but I would be more than willing to continue my work on videos for the betterment of the whole library. This opportunity fulfilled the seventh GSLIS Educational Outcome for URI, in addition to the first, because I used my understanding of the needs of my colleagues for their professional development and delivered effective instruction. I created a lesson plan purely for teaching them about the video creation function of PowerPoint but quickly realized that I could show them more tools and features by adding YouTube to the agenda on the spot. This demonstrated my flexibility and willingness to change the plan to suit the needs of my coworkers/students. My coworkers responded positively to the instruction session and provided some constructive criticism and feedback through a survey Nancy sent out. My hope and plan is to become a better instructor by using the feedback and my own reflections upon my performance.

            Part of instruction in today’s libraries is the design and creation of learning aids that can be accessed and used remotely. The website for the d’Alzon Library changed over the winter break making all the instructional videos for the Library useless. My project entailed creating new videos to replace the outdated ones. This meant that I had to learn how to use Camtasia, screencast software, to capture a process I demonstrated and record my step by step narration. Having used Windows Movie Maker to create video slideshows of family get-togethers and outings with friends, I was able to strengthen my video creation skills and learn new ones. I spent some time watching tutorial videos on how to use Camtasia and then drafted my storyboard and script. Recording the videos was the biggest struggle. I struggled to follow along with my script while demonstrating the use of the online catalog during my first video. When I finally got something I was reasonably happy with, editing the video with Camtasia was the easiest part. This project tested my abilities in professional foundations, technology, reference, and continuing education. It required me to be able to express concepts and best practices in a new medium appropriate to the content but also in a way that students would find easy to understand and follow. I know that the skills I learned from this project have prepared me for future video tutorial creation which I believe is valuable and desirable in new librarians hoping to work in Reference and Instruction. I made a total of three videos with slightly different techniques: one entirely with Camtasia, a second using PowerPoint, and a third using a combination of Camtasia and PowerPoint. I loved working with Camtasia and, once I get more practice with audio narration, I believe my tutorial videos will far exceed my first three.

            Every week I worked a shift at the reference desk, a big, bright sign over my head with the legend “RESEARCH HELP” emblazoned upon it. From 1:00pm to 3:00pm, I would sit and wait ever so patiently for a student to ask me a real reference question. It wasn’t that much to hope for, right? My first day at the desk was quiet right up to the moment I was supposed to attend a meeting with the Reference Department. A student asked for help finding a specific article from the Wall Street Journal that had been published within the past week about the Heinz Corporation. Being a little unfamiliar with the databases available, I first directed her to the back issues while I searched through the digital sources. She ended up finding it before me but it prompted me to learn the general databases and the LibGuides devoted to general information better to help students find digital copies of newspaper articles. While I did not get a question during my shifts at the desk again, it was not wasted since my greater knowledge and familiarity with the databases proved useful during my weekend work hours. In fact, I had more reference questions while working than I did while interning. Some might consider the weekly shift at the reference desk a waste of time but since it provided an impetus for learning the resources better, I do not think it was futile.
            I had the opportunity to assist a student during a scheduled one-on-one research appointment. This experience was invaluable to me because I got the opportunity to test out my reference interview skills for more subject specific research assistance. Since I am curious and interested in a wide variety of subject areas, this gave me a chance to use my curiosity to benefit someone else’s research. It is enormously rewarding to be a part of a student’s success in this way.
            Questions at the reference desk might have been low during my shifts, but the background work I did to prepare myself for potential questions supported the Reference and User Services educational outcome in addition to the Foundations of the Profession. Just when it seemed I had waited 130 hours in vain, I finally had a busy day at the reference desk for my last shift. I answered a question via chat reference and helped a student in person with locating specific journals online. It was like a final exam on what I had learned throughout the semester on how to work at the reference desk by being responsive to student needs and by changing how I answer a question through different forms of communication. Not surprisingly, my hardest test occurred on a Saturday while I was working when a student needed help finding contemporary book reviews of Emma by Jane Austen. I exhausted all my knowledge of reference to find the information for her but just when all seemed lost, (because she could not come in the next day to see a reference librarian), I remembered to check the reference statistics log where I found the answer to my problem. As a new librarian, learning the collection is important, but it is just as important to remember to look to your more experienced coworkers for help because it is from them that you will learn the most. It is, therefore, okay to admit that you cannot do it all on your own.

          Building collections is the part of librarianship that is deeply embedded within tradition but in academic libraries the opposite of collection building plays a large role. Weeding is a necessary business for managing a collection for the purpose of content and resolving space issues. At the d’Alzon Library, the Reference Department needed help with a large de-selection project within the Reference collection. I did not partake in pulling books from the shelves but I did sit in on a couple of Reference meetings where decisions were made about which books were to be kept and which were to be removed. I assisted with the Cataloguing or Deaccession part of the process. Perhaps, the most disheartening part since I am a young future librarian with a deep attachment to the books for what they represent. I worked with the bibliographic records in Voyager and suppressed them from the OPAC. I maintained a list of the OCLC numbers so Liz and I could perform batch load discards that would be synced with WorldCat. All the weeded books had to be stamped with an ugly black DISCARDED mark and then dumped in the recycling bins. It was a sad activity for my first day on the job! A few items made their way home to my personal collection for their content or strangeness: an encyclopedia set on archaeology and an index of Greek vases written in German. Some of the instructors and professors from the Art Department at Assumption also stepped in a saved some books from being binned. I am happier knowing the books will have a second life. This provided me with some experience working with a MARC record to a limited extent. Even though I do not plan to be a cataloger, the experience gave me a chance to learn more about the background work in Technical Services and supported, in a backwards way, the educational outcome for Information Resources, specifically collection management, in addition to preparing me for future service and reinforcing professional values. Attending the Reference meetings was important to further developing my understanding of the decision making process on deselection, and selection as well. Now that I have been a part of the deselection process and have listened to the librarians discuss and analyze items, I have a better idea of areas that are considered during the selection of materials too.

Assumption College recently changed their website platform which meant big changes to the look of the Library webpage. From previous work, I already knew that institution websites influence (and impair) the look and functionality of an academic library’s webpage. When I was asked to do some informal research on website usability testing and user experience to assist the Web Development Committee with designing a test or survey, I felt prepared to take on the task. I skimmed many articles, read and took notes on the best ones, and searched for informal models of usability testing since we lacked the time and the funds for anything extensive. I put together a very informal report of my findings and shared them with the Web Development Committee. Together we discussed our options and some of my suggestions. As a team, we put together a survey for users and a small usability task test to be carried out with about 5-8 participants. While we are still limited in what changes can be made to the website, we can change organization and terminology to make it more user friendly. Assessment of the website by myself came into play while drafting questions for the survey and tasks for the usability test interviews. This upholds the technology outcome because it requires a thorough understanding of the limitations of technology and critical thinking skills for identifying problems and solutions.

            I did not conduct formal or original research but I did a literature review to see what information was out there to help guide our survey of the new website’s usability which supports the research educational outcome for GSLIS. I had to critically evaluate the information I found and understand the difference between qualitative and quantitative findings then evaluate the usefulness of the information for this project. This is something that I think librarians do far more regularly than formal original research therefore I feel that this tested my ability to work on specialized projects. I feel prepared to do this again as a professional librarian after completion of my degree. Participating in this project required me to demonstrate my ability to be a professional and to work with others towards a common goal for no other reason than to improve the website so we can serve our patrons to the best of our ability. Technically I am getting a grade for the whole semester but that never crossed my mind while working on this project. It was refreshing to work on something with a group of people without worrying about a grade.