What They Didn’t Tell Me (or what I didn’t hear) in Library School

Abstract

The transition from library school to the professional library instruction environment is fraught with challenges and ripe with opportunities. Each new teaching librarian has to find his or her own style and establish a toolkit of teaching techniques. However, much can be learned from the experiences of others who have gone through the same process. The narratives that follow were written by former students in the School of Library & Information Science at the University of Kentucky. Each new librarian focuses on a different aspect of instruction planning and implementation. Their goal in sharing their stories is to assist other new librarians in their own professional transitions and to help existing library professionals develop a greater awareness of ways in which they can mentor the next generation.--Editor WHAT THEY DIDN'T TELL ME IN LIBRARY SCHOOL IS THAT STUDENTS DON'T CARE ABOUT LEARNING TO USE THE LIBRARY By Julie VanHoose While working as a graduate assistant in the reference department at the University of Kentucky's (UK) William T. Young Library, one of my responsibilities was library instruction. I was fortunate to be able to work with the instruction team there to learn through observation, participation, and training. During my time at UK, I also took a class dedicated to library instruction and a couple of cognate courses in the curriculum and instruction department. All of these educational opportunities gave me a solid grounding in the theory of education, but I have learned that there is nothing quite like getting out there and actually teaching. When I first began teaching, I quickly learned that just because I was enamored with libraries, it certainly did not mean that the average freshman was. Sure, many students view the library as an integral part of the campus experience, but for most of them it is more about the space itself than the abundant informational resources that it contains. And I knew going in that I had a limited amount of time to teach those students how to use our resources and, ultimately, how to be information literate. Those are lofty goals, and the personal pressure to reach them was occasionally a bit overwhelming. I knew the theory, but I didn't really know how to use it in application. And that is the first lesson that really sank in for me--that I could have a rich, deep knowledge of educational theory, but without actual time spent in the classroom, I could never really understand it. Understanding scaffolding, the zone of proximal development, constructivism, and the countless other theories and methods of instruction is certainly helpful. But it is not enough. You have to have direct experience before you can skillfully design classes that utilize those foundational principles. But don't worry--I am by no means saying the education is not necessary, because it definitely is. I am simply saying that new library instructors should be encouraged to just get out there and get to know the classroom. Assuring new instructors that they are not expected to be perfect right out of the gate is integral to giving them the confidence to experiment and find their own teaching style. And once they are comfortable in the classroom, they will get better and better at developing solid instruction. In our college instructional classes there is a lot of talk about engaging students in active learning, teaching to different learning styles, and crafting meaningful assessments. We spend significant time learning these, and rightly so. But there is a significant difference between practicing those skills on our classmates and actually practicing them in a library instruction session. Our fellow library students are just as enamored with libraries as we are, so of course they are engaged. But those non-library lovers are a different ballgame. We have to work to figure out what interests them, and in order to do that we just have to get to know them. …