Time was, integrating the library into your course meant sending your class to the physical library building for research, perhaps giving the librarians a heads-up so they could be prepared to introduce the card catalog and microfiche collection. Librarians acted solely as curators of the archives, collecting and cataloging resources and controlling access by users.
With the advent of e-learning and blended courses, the role of the librarian in education has certainly changed. Today, the library and the librarian can and should be integral parts of a course, with a role in curriculum design. This is the position espoused by Jim Julius, associate director of instructional technology services at San Diego State University. He explains what the library can bring to online learning.
Today, the librarian can be a partner, a collaborator in curriculum design. In addition to roles as curator and mediator, he or she can be embedded into classes, helping faculty and instructional designers construct curriculum and helping provide information literacy and other 21st century skills training.
Collaboration between the library and faculty and instructional designers can strengthen student learning and build effective teaching practices. Collaboration allows the institution to make use of the resources and expertise found in the library for curriculum design and selection of instructional materials. Collaboration allows the institution to move toward common goals for faculty development and student learning, and it helps the institution deal with challenges like shrinking budgets, expanding class sizes, and hybridization of courses. Finally, collaboration is a working example of a desirable approach for faculty to take with their peers and students.
Three levels of collaboration
At San Diego State University, “the librarians have been a big part of our Course Design Institute,” says Julius. The CDI is a fellowship program that helps faculty redesign their courses to include blended and online instruction, and librarians work with faculty to develop partnerships, construct curriculum, embed library services into classes, and provide information literacy training in courses.
Librarians become involved with course development in three different ways, each providing a different level of involvement. At the “most intense” level, Julius says, is the professional learning communities, a version of a faculty learning community that involves subject matter faculty, library faculty, and professional staff that gather to explore course design. Usually, one or two librarians participate in each group, and they are “hearing what faculty are thinking,” says Julius. This enables them to better pursue the goals of integrating library resources and expertise into classes. Julius calls this “the full service version” of library involvement.
At “the other end of the spectrum,” Julius says, is the Center for Teaching and Learning Lunch Series. In this series, librarians and other representatives plan 12 to 15 lunches each semester that fit into six different tracks: Provost’s Lunches on Learning, Learning 2.0, Student Diversity and Success, Architecture of the Curriculum, Learning Stores: Adventures in Course Design, and New Faculty Lunches. These lunches help develop partnerships and provide outreach services, allowing ultimately for greater librarian involvement.
The third, middle route of involvement is the librarian as research and subject guide. Librarians can collaborate to help determine methods for including library resources on Blackboard, including investigating third-party software packages that may come into play. Julius also notes that the librarians can create a subject guide for any course, with an RSS feed pasted into Blackboard delivering the latest information. These activities are part of “helping faculty become more aware of their subject area librarians,” he says.
From there, integrating a librarian into courses can take many paths. In classes with a research component, Julius explains that faculty can involve an information literacy librarian to help engage the students. The librarian “becomes a partner or co-teacher,” says Julius.
Excerpted from Are You Maximizing Support From the Library?, Distance Education Report, volume 13, number 15.
