This post serves two purposes – promotion of a new curriculum that launched this fall aimed at supporting LIS professionals in developing their research skills and a chance for me to reflect on some takeaways I had from launching a big (IMLS funded) project. 

In 2017, I helped start The Librarian Parlor, LibParlor for short. It started as a blog on WordPress where folks could share stories, tips, strategies, and lessons on doing research in LIS. As the blog grew, we heard from the community that they wanted more. As we thought about what that more could look like, the idea of an openly available curriculum arose. Long story short, we spent a lot of time in Google Docs putting together a proposal for an IMLS grant. We were fortunate to be awarded a Laura Bush 21st Century Grant in 2021. Over the last three years, we’ve collaborated with so many wonderful folks in the field to put together LibParlor Online Learning (LPOL). We launched the curriculum this fall and are working to get the word out!

What is LPOL? 

LPOL is a free, openly-available “living” curriculum for library workers who want to develop their research skills. The curriculum in its entirety is six courses, each with lessons, readings, and activities. LPOL starts with reflecting on who we are as researchers, moves into the LIS research process, our methodologies, planning for a project, the writing and editing, the publication and review process, and wraps it up with having you compile a final research plan. We envision that learners might complete the whole curriculum from start to finish, or pick up pieces of the curriculum, depending on what they need. 

Our curriculum is guided by the following learning outcomes:

• Develop and articulate a personal understanding of their research identity and values in order to create short- and long-term research goals
• Identify and navigate the institutional and professional systems that intersect with LIS research in their given context
• Describe the LIS research process and articulate disciplinary norms in order to make informed decisions about their own research projects
• Assess various LIS research methodologies in order to choose an appropriate approach for their own projects 
• Apply project planning skills and strategies in order to develop a research proposal and timeline 
• Critically evaluate the field of LIS research in order to advocate for change and promote an inclusive, supportive, and rigorous research community

One of the many things I love about this curriculum is how it was co-created. During the grant, we hosted an in-person and virtual forum to get ideas and shape the curriculum. We then recruited a group of incredible colleagues who took these big ideas and wrote the lessons, identified readings, and designed activities. Before we formally launched LPOL, we also had a group of pilot participants test the curriculum out and provided actionable feedback we could implement. What you see today is a culmination of teamwork and collaboration that we hope makes the curriculum meaningfully and useful to library workers. 

Okay, LPOL sounds cool/useful. How do I get started? 

It’s really easy to get started. We’ve distilled it down into three steps:

1. Register for an account. While you don’t need an account to access the curriculum, we recommend creating one, as this allows you to track your progress and also helps us assess the curriculum’s impact and efficacy. 
2. Download our LPOL Workbook. This workbook contains all of the activities throughout the curriculum. Once you download the workbook, you can use it however it’s most useful to you.
3. Dive into the curriculum. Our curriculum home page has additional information on our courses and lessons and or you can explore our full curriculum to decide what you’ll do first!

Lessons Learned

As this IMLS grant wraps up at the end of the year, I’ve also been thinking a lot about what I’ve learned from this experience. Being a part of this grant has been my largest, long-term project I’ve worked on in my professional life. Here are some of my takeaways: 

• Things don’t always go as planned so build in flex time and be okay with making revisions: When you’re building a timeline for the future, you truly don’t know what will happen. For us, we had to navigate a pandemic, support one another through job and life changes, and work with our collaborators to move things forward like hiring folks and paying people (ahh bureaucracy). Even though we thought we built a flexible timeline, we still made additional revisions. We got better as the grant went on with building in even more flex time and recognizing when we needed to extend something. In order to do our best work, we needed more time and that’s okay!
• Co-creating takes time and is so worth it: LibParlor has always been about co-creation, but it was wonderful to see this co-creation play out in creating the curriculum. One of my favorite parts of the grant was helping to facilitate conversations about what should be put in the curriculum. We had all of these wonderful ideas and perspectives and that shaped what you see today in LPOL. I really feel like the curriculum pulls together so many themes and ideas from our community. And while we couldn’t use all the ideas (because then the curriculum would never end), we have some really good ideas for the future! Which leads nicely to my last takeaway…
• Even when the grant ends, the work continues: Even though we wrote about the sustainability of the project in our IMLS application, it’s one thing to write about it and another thing to actually do it! As the grant winds down, we are talking a lot about what’s next. What edits to the curriculum will we make? How will we continue to promote it? How do we keep building a community from those who participate in LPOL? These are all important questions that we don’t have all the answers to. As we get ready to transition into life post grant, we know there’s still a lot of exciting work ahead.

In many ways, these takeaways have also benefited my day-to-day work life. Leading a teaching and learning department is a long-term project and so participating in LPOL has shaped how I approach this kind of work with my team.

Final thoughts

I’m grateful for the chance to be a part of this grant. I’m proud of the work we did and excited to see how others might use LPOL. I’d love to hear from you, our readers. What excites you about the curriculum? Do you see ways you might use LPOL? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!