Practicum Log #6: Fall Planning
Research Instruction Librarians Katherine Hooker and Emily Thorpe, my supervisor, in an information literacy instruction planning meeting.
Monday, June 10, 2024 from 1:00-5:00 PM
Today, I was able to work on campus for the first time. Emily and I spent time talking through the summer planning sessions for the fall. The instruction librarians are preparing new information literacy instruction tools, marketing events for community outreach, and book displays to use for the year. I met with Emily and Katherine Hooker, another research instruction librarian, to brainstorm and start planning an introductory activity for students to complete before coming to the library for their information literacy instruction class and tour. We talked through the objectives of the activity, decided on what information would be most important for the students to take away from the exercise, and then how to create the activity. Katherine had made a previous instructional design tool with a circus themed escape game where students would navigate a Google slide presentation with hyperlinks that would take them to specific websites for an Introduction to Design class that the professor based all on the circus. Katherine wanted to adapt the escape game concept and use a similar model for information literacy concepts and introductory information about the library services. Emily and I helped her navigate ideas for a pirate themed escape game with pirate characters linking to library services. Students would then use the services to find clues to complete information literacy instruction tasks. We talked through the best platform to use, the different puns we could use for the pictures and naming things, and we narrowed down the web links that would be the most useful.
Additionally, Emily and I talked through the events that the team had already brainstormed for hosting students and getting them into the library. They plan on doing low cost events that could still have high impact. They plan on hosting the Williamson County Animal Shelter who will bring kittens and cats, and the library bought some picture books that talk about the care and keeping of cats and cat trivia to go with the event. This will be a community and student body outreach. They are going to celebrate Bob Ross’s birthday with tiny canvas art stations and cookie decorating stations. This is a passive and low cost activity for students. I will be working on making flyers for those events so that they are ready in the fall.
Overall, Emily gave me a lot of her time and attention today where we could talk about the ins and outs of daily librarianship and what that entails. She is a lovely mentor who answers all of my questions and asks for my opinions on decisions they are making as well. I had a great afternoon.
Full Schedule: l will be working 10:00-2:00 from May 28th to June 7th, M-F online. (The campus is undergoing some construction right now and all of the librarians are working from home.)
Then, from June 10 - July 19th, I will be working 1:00-5:00 on campus at Southwestern University. I will more than likely finish by July 12th, but I'm adding a week for wiggle room. This should lead to 128 hours.
