Goals for Professional Growth and Improvement

I am constantly striving to keep up with trends in the profession and improve my skills. My two primary areas of focus are technology and instruction, as well as the intersection between these two areas. Below are my goals for each of my areas of responsibility in the Library.

Web Services

Now that I have set up processes for usability testing and content review, I would like to be more intentional about planning out our web projects for the year. We have been waiting for the college website refresh for the last four years and now that it is happening, we will be better positioned to plan ahead. I would also like to encourage the use of online discussion boards to provide feedback on website content rather than devoting meeting time for this type of discussion. Another advantage of giving this feedback virtually is that it gives all staff members the opportunity to provide input, not only staff who serve on WIT. Finally, I would like to start tracking website statistics as part of the Library statistics, not just during WIT meetings.

Reference Services

Over the past few years, I have been involved in training librarians both at LCC and as part of Research Help Now, our virtual reference collaborative (see Appendix L). I would like to continue experimenting with different ways to train librarians in virtual reference skills. I hope to write an article about virtual reference training ideas to get it published in a library journal.

Liaison

I would like to plan communications with my liaison areas each semester. For example, I need to create a timeline for when in the semester I need to contact new faculty in Writing 121 to encourage them to sign up for instruction, when will I send out a reminder email to those who have not signed up for instruction, etc. I also hope to attend at least one program meeting a semester for each of my liaison areas. If I attend program meetings more regularly, I will ask for just a few minutes at each meeting to present one new idea, for example one research database, rather than overwhelming faculty with too many resources. Finally, I would like to meet with the full-time faculty in each of my liaison areas and go over our collection development profile to make any needed changes.

Instruction Services

I would like to learn more about assessment in library instruction to be able to effectively evaluate what students learn in my classes. For next academic year, I am proposing a new way of assessing students in English composition classes which involves students completing an assignment online within a week of the library instruction session. It is modelled after a project I learned about at ACRL which is described online at wsulibraries102.wordpress.com

Beyond the classroom level, I hope to learn about assessment at the program and institution level. I have been approved for sabbatical spring of 2016 my focus is on assessing information literacy on campus. This will involve surveying faculty about research assignments students complete for their classes and doing authentic assessment of student research papers across the curriculum.

In order to complete my sabbatical, more training in assessment would be beneficial. To that end, I am applying to participate in ACRL’s Immersion program’s Assessment track. In this program, I would learn more about how to evaluate the effectiveness of information literacy instruction and prove the importance of information literacy instruction at LCC. Also, after I complete my sabbatical I am interested in presenting my results and attending the biannual Library Assessment Conference, October 31 – November 2, 2016 in Crystal City, Virginia. This conference focuses solely on assessment in libraries and would be a perfect venue to present my sabbatical findings and learn more about assessment.
I would like to continue regularly presenting at conferences. As funds have been limited to travel to conferences, I will explore options for presenting virtually, such as at Library 2.0 www.library20.com/2014, an online conference, or presenting webinars for different professional library organizations. This will help me continue to explore new ideas and share what I have learned with others. I will continue my involvement with the Instructional Technologies ACRL committee as I am serving as chair in 2015-2016. After my term is over, I would like to become involved with the newly formed Mi-ALA, the Michigan Academic Library Association.