Library Department overview
There are twelve full time library faculty including our chair; about half of library faculty are instruction-focused in their functional positions. Librarians, including those who do not specialize in instruction, may teach workshops for courses in their assigned subject specialties. Instruction librarians at City Tech teach our two credit courses, LIB1201 Research & Documentation for the Information Age and LIB2205 Learning Places (each course typically has 2 and 1-2 sections per semester respectively and are offered contingent on staffing availability). We are constricted in our ability to create and teach credit courses due to staffing shortfalls.
Library Department definition of teaching, SETs, and assessment
The Library Department at City Tech defines ‘teaching’ for college evaluative purposes broadly to include non-teaching functions in one’s job description as well as teaching faculty and students in shorter workshops and guest lecture formats (which have no SETs or instructor-specific assessment). Instruction librarians informally observe each other.
My courses taught
LIB 2205/ARCH 2205ID Learning Places: Understanding the City :: Spring 2017 and Fall 2017 co-taught with A. Aptekar, Architectural Technology. A highlight of teaching LIB2205 was co-mentoring Ann Jean whose Honors research project won an award at the poster session (thank you) and we continue to stay in contact. We teach students how to incorporate non-traditional sources into their research. Reflecting on how the place aspect of the course excited students, during my Living Lab fellowship, I began to redesign this special topics course. My fellowship cohort focused on intercultural learning and, accordingly, I created “The Peopling of New York” which explored ethnicity and immigration in their neighborhood. I hope to teach Learning Places again. Teaching and curricular materials in L4 :: L4 letters
My possible future courses LIB 1201 Research and Documentation in the Information Age
Information literacy workshops
In addition to our credit courses, instruction librarians teach approximately 25 to 30 95-minute information literacy workshops per semester. These are chiefly for English Composition I (ENG1101) for which a library workshop is required for all sections and the course required for all City Tech students as well as English Composition II (ENG1121) and Public Speaking (COM1330). The library’s assessment for these workshops is limited to a one-minute reflection paper for ENG1101 which does not address librarian efficacy.
Librarians also provide information literacy workshops for their subject specialties. I have taught numerous workshops for Hospitality Management, Communication Design and Art History as well as African American Studies. Additionally, I teach two workshops a semester for undergraduate researchers.
Other formats for instruction
Librarians teach through providing research consultations and we are guest lecturers for interdisciplinary and other courses, for example, I talked about my research to SBS2000. Some librarians provide workshops for faculty; I teach numerous workshops on scholarly communications topics.
