First Year Academic Librarian Experience

A First Year Academic Librarian’s Teaching Journey

For this blog post, I decided to document my teaching journey so far as a first-year academic librarian. Before I secured my current position as a Reference & Instruction Librarian at Cal State University, Northridge (CSUN) in July 2023, I had already been an educator for over ten years. My teaching background was instrumental as I transitioned into my current position. I already had experience teaching (and learning from) scholars of diverse backgrounds, such as, students of color, first generation students, parenting students, neurodiverse students, and students of various age groups. For instance, I had gained valuable experience as a Library Intern at East Los Angeles College where I taught information literacy and research sessions for various disciplines. While my past experiences provided a strong foundation for my current line of work, I still underwent a learning curve.

Before I started teaching my own sessions, I was quite intentional about shadowing experienced academic librarians. Throughout summer and fall of 2023, I observed several sessions conducted by 3 different academic librarians. As the new librarian, who had not yet developed any professional relationships at CSUN, I found this process to be a bit awkward. While I recommend that early career librarians take this step, it is important to tread carefully. Due to heavy workloads, not all librarians feel comfortable with taking on the responsibility of mentoring early career librarians. If you sense hesitation, move on and ask someone else. In my case, my colleagues were quite gracious and offered a helping hand. They shared resources like PowerPoint presentations and library handouts that eventually became part of my own toolkit. Observing a few librarians allowed me to learn about different teaching styles, pedagogical practices as well as active learning strategies.

Early in the fall semester, I began to receive instruction requests from faculty members teaching English, Central American & Transborder Studies and University 100 courses. For each session, I prepared extensively and tailored the session to the instructor’s specific assignment (i.e., annotated bibliography, persuasive essay, research paper, or group project). With each session, I became more confident in my ability to teach students how to use the library’s resources. During the last week of October, my chair observed one of my sessions. Admittedly, I was very nervous and this feeling became amplified when the course instructor spontaneously asked me to showcase a database that I was not familiar with at all. Despite a few hiccups, I thought the session went well.

When I received my observation letter, I was relieved since my chair highlighted many of my strengths. She also offered fair feedback. I was encouraged to pause more often and call for questions. Because each session runs for an hour and 15 minutes, I struggle with incorporating more time for student engagement. Time goes by so quickly and there’s so much to cover. After I received my chair’s observation letter, I began to ask myself: How can I be more intentional about engaging students? As suggested, I started to weave in more “check-in” questions throughout my sessions. Once I integrated more time for questions, I still felt unsatisfied and I knew there was room for improvement.

Surprisingly, the answer came to me last week during a Zoom breakout session. I am currently enrolled in a course called Equity Minded Pedagogy, which is offered by the CSU Chancellor’s office. During a conversation with a course facilitator, we discussed the impact of co-creation. Together, we thought about ways to collaborate with students in order to create more equitable and inclusive learning environments. I disclosed that as a first-year academic librarian, I rely heavily on my script and I need to incorporate more ways to engage students. Prior to each session, I develop keywords, select the most suitable databases, and test links. This serves as the preliminary work for my live OneSearch demonstration. However, I realized that my seemingly flawless demonstration could mislead students. It’s critical for students to witness the messy process of trial and error that is inherent to the search experience.

As I came to this realization, the course facilitator referred me to Dr. Brene Brown’s TED Talk. This video expanded my perception about the importance of embracing vulnerability. By facing uncertainty and imperfection, I may create a space to authentically connect with students because as Dr. Brown mentions, “for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen.” Moving forward, I intend to centralize student engagement by asking for volunteers, brainstorming keywords with the entire class, and relinquishing control. Along the way, students will notice broken links or unsuccessful searches. My hope is that students will value our shared experience, create a sense of belonging, and muster the courage to be imperfect in a vulnerable world.

Reflecting on Open Access Week as a First-Year Academic Librarian

As an Affordability & Digital Initiatives Librarian, planning, hosting, and executing events and workshops on campus for Open Access Week is an essential part of my position. For those unfamiliar with Open Access Week, Open Access Week is a designated week, typically towards the end of October, to celebrate and spread awareness of the open access movement. This year’s theme was “Community over Commercialization.” I did not incorporate the theme into the programming primarily because I want to center our events around the university’s Affordability Initiative.

Monday

We started the week off with a celebration of affordability and open access on our campus. The purpose of the event was to highlight accomplishments made throughout the past year, such as increased use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and submissions to our Institutional Repository (IR). Next, I hosted a workshop on OER adoption, adaptation, and creation with my new faculty cohort. During the workshop, we discussed the impact OER has on equity as well as resources for finding and creating OER. New faculty were intrigued by OER and expressed interest in exploring what is available in their field. I hosted the same workshop for all faculty in the afternoon. Interestingly, this workshop sparked more of a discussion regarding Creative Commons and self-publishing.

Tuesday

On Tuesday, my colleague and I hosted two launch parties for our new sponsored affordability development opportunities, one in-person and one virtual. We were promoting the launch of the textbook affordability self-paced course we created on D2L Brightspace (our LMS). The course was designed for faculty to strengthen their knowledge about the open movement, pathways to open authoring, and research related to textbook affordability and OER. Additionally, we were promoting our new program in which faculty could apply and receive sponsorship to adopt, adapt, or create OER.

Wednesday

Wednesday was dedicated to the Institutional Repository. My colleague hosted an event regarding the role of the IR on campus. He also encouraged faculty to bring their CVs to see how they could contribute to the IR.

Thursday

On Thursday, I hosted a small panel event about the power of self-publishing your expertise. The panelists were faculty with experience creating OER and had all authored at least one textbook. The panelist offered great insight into the process of self-publishing in varying disciplines.

Friday

To conclude the week, I hosted affordability and faculty collaboration hours. These hours give faculty a chance to meet with me directly and discuss where to search for OER, how to navigate Creative Commons, how to make textbook selections for the bookstore, etc.

Reflection

Unfortunately, attendance for almost every event was lower than I had hoped. Most of the events were held in-person in the library. Next year, I would try doing more virtual events that could be recorded and sent to those interested. I also wondered if the time of day was a factor in the low attendance. We varied the times in hopes of reaching as many people as possible, but the inconsistency in time might have been a deterrent.

An idea for next year would be to incorporate events or activities for students. Our library’s student advisory board did hand out snacks to students on Wednesday and told them about our Textbooks on Reserve program and textbook donation drive; however, I think we could do more. An opportunity to connect with students and amplify their voice on the topic of textbook affordability and open access would be beneficial to our Affordability Initiative.

Lastly, not having experience coordinating a week full of campus events, I was thankful to have the support of the University Library’s Dean’s Office. They scheduled rooms, ordered refreshments, organized swag (pens, stickers, water bottles, keychains, etc.), and coordinated social media posts throughout the week advertising events, highlighting campus affordability champions, and listing resources to adopt, adapt, and create OER. I could not have survived the week without their help.

Building Community through Inclusive Research Guides

Editor’s Note: Please join us in welcoming Nery Alcivar-Estrella, Reference and Instruction Librarian at California State University, Northridge, as a new First Year Academic Librarian Experience blogger for the 2023-2024 year here at ACRLog.

As a first year Academic Librarian, I have become immersed in a project at Cal State University, Northridge (CSUN) with Lisa Cheby, the Education Librarian, Yi Ding, the Online Instruction Coordinator & Director of Affordable Learning Solutions, and Christina Mayberry, the Science & Engineering Librarian. We have embarked on a CSU-wide effort inspired by the LibGuides Open Review Discussion Sessions also known as the LORDS Project, which was originally created by Cal Poly. My team and I use rubrics and frameworks from the CSU Wide Toolkit provided by the LORDS team at Cal Poly. Our own version, entitled Engaging Marginalized Identities through Research & Resources, will help students research the perspectives of marginalized communities. It will provide students with jumping-off points like search strategies, databases, theoretical and methodological frameworks, community resources as well as reading recommendations to help them diversify their research. Students researching one or more forms of oppression, whether that’s sexism, racism, ableism, ageism, classism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, religious persecution, or linguistic discrimination would benefit greatly from using our LibGuide. The tabs located on the right side of the LibGuide have been organized by communities or identities that have been systemically excluded by academic institutions.

As a community of librarians and scholars, we must challenge traditional research practices and encourage critical reflection, particularly as it relates to referencing methods. Typically, academic librarians work with professors and instructors, who require students to cite scholarly or peer reviewed journal articles. Subsequently, many academic librarians have established a conventional way of approaching information literacy and research instruction. However, we must not oversee the importance of recognizing and uplifting different forms of authority. Because of institutionalized discrimination and systemic oppression within predominantly White, research-intensive institutions, publishing processes must be critically examined. As noted in the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, “Experts understand the need to determine the validity of the information created by different authorities and to acknowledge biases that privilege some sources of authority over others, especially in terms of others’ worldviews, gender, sexual orientation, and cultural orientations.” In this way, academic librarians may help students identify not only traditional authorities like peer-reviewed journal articles, but also alternative sources of information like blogs or podcasts. Our LibGuide, Engaging Marginalized Identities through Research & Resources, will raise awareness about inclusive academic processes and citational justice.

In our LibGuide, Lisa Cheby will cover the section about citational justice and she will discuss its current role in research and scholarship. She asks, “How are we decentering, decolonizing, diversifying research practices?” With these questions in mind, we developed our LibGuide with the intention of fostering and supporting campus-wide discussions about inclusive research practices. We hope that our suggested readings and tools about citational justice will encourage educators and students from various disciplines to implement this practice into their own scholarship. Citational justice involves a critical awareness about who we are citing and why. Rather than just locating bibliographic information, citational justice involves a commitment to diverse perspectives and schools of thought. This includes questioning our own biases, learning about the identities of cited scholars, and embracing marginalized voices into our scholarly conversations.

As I begin my career as a Reference & Instruction Librarian, I have come to recognize the importance of digital learning objects. Since more students are becoming distant or hybrid learners, it is critical to provide various points of access, which includes online resources centered on inclusive research practices. Although our CSUN LibGuide will not be officially published until spring 2024, I will share our work-in-progress. Please feel free to explore our work and consider implementing a similar research guide at your own college or university.

Scared, but In a Good Way: Navigating My First Few Weeks as an Academic Librarian

Editor’s Note: Please join us in welcoming Katie Kuipers, Assistant Professor and Affordability & Digital Initiatives Librarian at St. Cloud State University, as a new First Year Academic Librarian Experience blogger for the 2023-2024 year here at ACRLog.

I spent the weeks following graduation in May as I imagine many graduates do: desperately applying for jobs. With a Master of Library and Information Science degree in hand, I was eager to dive head-first into the world of professional librarianship. As each rejection letter came, however, my excitement dwindled. I decided to pivot my job search and focus on jobs that intrigued me rather than applying to any and every librarian job I found. Although I had no experience working in an academic library, I took a course in grad school about the issues in the academic libraries and conducted research on first generation students and the information literacy skills of first-year students. This led me to applying, interviewing, and accepting the job as the Affordability & Digital Initiatives Librarian at St. Cloud State University.

I packed my bags and excitedly moved from my home in North Dakota to St. Cloud, Minnesota. A few weeks before the semester began, I received an email from the Dean asking if I would be interested in co-teaching a course for the fall and teaching it on my own for the spring. Wanting to challenge myself, I replied that I could. At St. Cloud State University, academic librarians are also faculty members. Not only was I the Affordability & Digital Initiatives Librarian, but I was an Assistant Professor for the University Library as well. I had no idea what this would mean until I showed up for the new faculty orientation on campus.

New faculty orientation overwhelmed me. Suddenly, I was inundated with acronyms I was unfamiliar with like “P&T” (promotion and tenure) and “PDP” (professional development plan). While other new faculty were finalizing their syllabi and drafting their assignments for the semester, I was feeling massively underprepared and began developing imposter syndrome. I returned to campus the next day unsure of what lay ahead of me. After receiving my workload from the Dean, I had a clearer picture of what was expected of me; however, I was scared that I was in over my head. Along with teaching, I was tasked with creating affordability workshops, designing an online affordability course, and supporting faculty adopting, adapting, and creating OER, all of which was new to me.

Once I met my colleagues, I realized I had a wonderful support network right in front of me. Over the past couple weeks, they have caught me up to speed on the status of the Affordability Initiative at the university, explained numerous acronyms, shared their professional development plans from previous years, and checked in with me to see if I have any questions as I navigate my role. My co-professor generously offered to take the reins for the beginning half of the semester to allow me to observe her teaching style. We have been collaborating on discussion questions and class activities to ease me into the course. Along the way, I have been making notes to prepare myself for my own course next semester. The department chair has been instrumental in my adjustment to the position. She shares her teaching experiences and is patient with me as I learn how to tackle library instruction and research appointments, another aspect of my workload. Overall, the department has reassured me that everything will be okay. I will encounter bumps throughout the year, but that is to be expected of a librarian fresh out of grad school.

Even though I am only a few weeks into my position, I can see a lifelong career in academic librarianship. I enjoy getting to know my students and want to help them succeed. I am adapting to the workload and drafting ideas to implement throughout the year. Thanks to my colleagues, the imposter syndrome is starting to subdue, and I am feeling more confident in my position. Am I still scared? Absolutely… but in a good way.

Seeking 2023-24 First Year Academic Librarian Bloggers

As we enter a new academic year, we’re looking to bring on a few new bloggers here at ACRLog. We’d like to thank our 2022-2023 FYAL bloggers Rosemary Medrano and Emily Zerrenner for their terrific posts this past year in our First Year Academic Librarian Experience series. We’d also like to encourage new academic librarians — those who are just beginning in their first position at an academic library — to blog with us during their first year.

FYAL bloggers typically publish posts monthly during the academic year. If you’re interested in applying to be a FYAL blogger here at ACRLog, applications are due by Sunday, September 10, 2023. Please submit an application through this Google Form.

Proposals are evaluated by the ACRLog blog team. When selecting FYAL bloggers we consider:

Diversity of race/ethnicity/sexual orientation/ability
Voices from a range of academic institutions (for example, community colleges, research universities, etc.) and job responsibilities within academic libraries (for example, instruction, cataloging, scholarly communications, etc.)
Clear and compelling writing style
Connection between day-to-day work and bigger conversations around theory, practice, criticism, LIS education, and other issues

Please send any questions to ACRLog’s Technical Coordinator, Hailley Fargo at fargoh1@nku.edu. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!