Academic Librarianship by Design

Those of you monitoring library discussion lists have probably already read a dozen posts on Steven J. Bell and John D. Shank's Academic Librarianship by Design. (ALD) Far more eloquent pundits than I have reviewed this book, so I'll just offer a few meaty nuts for later digestion.

Steven and John speak a lot about the need to become a "blended librarian." We need to supplement our traditional library skills with expertise in instructional technologies and instructional design. Then, rather than sitting on the sidelines (in our libraries), we need to enter the fray with faculty and integrate what we do into the learning process. Two places to learn about becoming a blended librarian: http://www.blendedlibrarian.org/ and http://home.learningtimes.net/library.

The title of their book comes from their belief that design thinking should be applied to every service we offer. Here's the standard model for instructional design:

ADDIE-
Analysis (what does the student need to learn?)
Design (how is the student going to learn it?)
Development (now you need to create the material)
Implement (have the students use it)
Evaluate (did the students learn what you wanted them to learn?)

ALD adapts ADDIE with a new acronym, BLAAM (Blended Librarians Adapted ADDIE Model). To BLAAM, you need to :

Assess (make sure you have a problem!)
(create) Objectives (what do you want them to learn?)
Develop
Deliver
Measure

ALD has a number of case studies where design thinking has been applied to library services.

[OK, a comment from the peanut gallery... Is anyone else picturing Emeril walking up to a student, saying "You need to find a primary source? BLAAM!!!"]

Back to our regularly scheduled programming....

ALD goes on to discuss how to entice faculty to participate in collaborative design think, and further, how to integrate the library into courseware. ALD describes a model for integration called A_FLIP (Administrative, Faculty, and Librarians Instructional Partnership). A_FLIP demonstrates how librarians can create links to library services from within course management systems. There are two ways to do it. The first is to create a system level presence for the library within the CMS and encourage all faculty to link to it. The second way is to approach faculty of individual courses and build library links that are course specific.

Two more acronyms and I promise I'll let you go!

First, LTA - Low Threshold Applications. (http://www.tltgroup.org/ltas.htm) LTAs are an absolutely brilliant idea. Most faculty are stressed out by the thought of learning something new. LTAs make it painless. An LTA is a helpful tool or technique that can be taught in under a half hour and summarized on a single sheet of paper. This doesn't mean five paragraphs in an almost invisible font size; it means something simple with a screen shot or two.

Second, DLM - Digital Learning Materials. These are best described as self-contained learning objects. They can be tricky to locate, though. Here are some places that ALD suggests: MERLOT http://www.merlot.org/
Wisconsin Online http://www.wisc-online.com/
LOLA Exchange http://lolaexchange.org/
PRIMO http://www.ala.org/acrlbucket/is/iscommittees/webpages/emergingtech/primo/index.htm

For more information, read the book and visit the Blended Librarians Online Community.