Heidi Julien

Dr. Heidi Julien is Associate Professor in the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta. Previously, she held academic appointments at Dalhousie University, Halifax, and at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. Heidi holds a B.Ed. and M.L.I.S. from the University of Alberta, and a Ph.D. from the University of Western Ontario. She was President of the Canadian Association for Information Science in 2001-2002, and Program Chair of the Association's 2004 conference. Heidi was elected to the Board of the international Association for Library and Information Science Education for 2005-2008. She is Editor of the Research News column of the Canadian Journal of Information and Library Science, and sits on the Editorial Board for that journal.

Cameron Hoffman

Cameron Hoffman is currently completing his MLIS degree at the University of Alberta. With a background in journalism and education, Cameron's interests in the library field revolve around information literacy training in both public and academic institutions and the role of librarians as teachers and community leaders. He is the Chairperson of the CLA student chapter at the University of Alberta.

Information Literacy Instructors' Experiences of the Teaching Role

Dr. Heidi Julien and Cameron Hoffman, University of Alberta

session 3d / Thursday, May 11 / 3:30 - 5:00

Interviews with library staff over a decade of research have suggested that some may be uncomfortable with the instructional expectations they encounter in their work, or may even feel antagonistic towards instructional goals. Thus, a new interview study of library staff is being undertaken to explore their experiences and perspectives about their teaching roles in the context of information literacy instruction. The specific research question addressed by the study is: how do library staff with instructional roles experience and relate to those roles and what might be the implications of those self-understandings for instructional outcomes? This question will be explored through interviews in January-April 2006 with library staff who have experience doing information literacy instruction in academic and public library settings. Thus, the presentation will be reporting on very recent data, and will provide opportunity for the professional community to offer feedback about the study results. This interview study will act as a pilot project for a more in-depth, longer-term analysis of the research question, expected to begin shortly following the WILU 2006 conference. Sociological role theory is being used as an interpretive lens for this work. Theoretically, this research will advance understanding of professional identity; from a practical perspective it will contribute towards improving instructional efforts. Current instruction may not be entirely successful, in part because of some perceived ambivalence within the library community about its role in these efforts. It is critical to explore the reasons for that ambivalence in order to identify means to overcome it. Participants in the session will learn more about how a range of library staff experience the teaching role, have an opportunity to discuss their own experiences and relate those to the study results, and will be able to identify opportunities for improvement in information literacy instruction.