Teaching the teachers: library instruction through

professional development courses

Cynthia Akers*, Nanette Martin, Terri Summey

Emporia State University, Library Services, Campus Box 4051, 1200 Commercial, Emporia,

KS 66801-5092, USA

Abstract

A team of three public services librarians at Emporia State University, KS, describes the process of

teaching professional development courses to academic faculty, staff, and graduate assistants over the

course of 2 years. Classes offered for university pass/fail credit were planned, advertised, and taught,

with emphasis on various electronic databases. Tables illustrate the increase in total library instruction,

due partially to the favorable reactions of university faculty who participated in these courses. The

positive image of the library across the campus has been enhanced through the continued involvement

of librarians as teachers and facilitators of learning. D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Library instruction; Professional development; Staff development; Public relations

1. Introduction

The electronic revolution of the last decade has made a permanent impact upon the very

nature of information itself. Static print resources have in many instances given way to

evolving, digitized data that can be retrieved and manipulated according to the information

user's needs. In turn, librarians have faced a similar evolution, from mediators of resources to

facilitators of information into knowledge.

Change, however, is often accompanied by increased anxiety and self-awareness of the

knowledge gaps we must face. This anxiety can be present not only for college students, but

also for the very faculty and staff who need to be most cognizant of the appropriate electronic

information resources and skills for their disciplines.

* Tel.: +1-316-341-5480.

E-mail address: akerscyn@emporia.edu (C. Akers).

Research Strategies 17 (2000) 215±221

0734-3310/00/$ ± see front matter D 2001 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.

PII: S0 7 3 4 - 3 3 1 0 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 4 8 - 3

The technological information advances of the academic library provide an avenue for

alleviating this apprehension. Academic librarians can turn anxiety into confidence by

teaching professional development courses and workshops that focus on both basic and

advanced techniques of electronic information retrieval. As Carol Tenopir has observed,

`̀ instruction with electronic resources is not so much a problem, but an opportunity. An

opportunity to reach more students, faculty, and other users than ever before, an opportunity

to try new methods, an opportunity to get yourself out of any instructional ruts you may have

found yourselves in'' (Tenopir, 1995).

A review of the literature shows that workshops geared toward new information

technologies for students, faculty, and staff alike are not new in the field of academic

librarianship. Since the advent of the first online public access catalogs, librarians have

consistently looked for innovative methods to publicize and teach crucial information

management skills. Interestingly, the common features of these workshops often have been

overviews of the Internet. The first Internet applications of electronic mail, Telnet, and File

Transfer Protocol (FTP), for example, were offered as day-long sessions in 1992 and 1993

at Lebanon Valley College in Anniville, PA (Miller & Zeigler, 1995). These sessions

reflected combined efforts of both the librarians and representatives from the computer

sciences department.

In a more recent development at Stetson University in Deland, FL, a hands-on computer

workshop for faculty was planned and offered by librarians and personnel from Academic

Computing Services. The workshop, which covered 3 consecutive days, focused upon not

only the aforementioned Telnet applications, but also the World Wide Web and subject-

specific Internet resources. Faculty reaction to the workshop was positive, with `̀ a couple of

participants [who] said it was the best faculty development workshop they had ever attended''

(Bradford, Kannon, & Ryan, 1996).

Developmental workshops cosponsored by the library can also take the form of higher-

level Internet applications, such as the efforts at Illinois State University to help faculty

develop their own WWW home pages and to perform demonstrations of subject-related

Internet resources in the areas of philosophy and history (Day & Armstrong, 1996).

In these instances, the Internet remains the fundamental basis upon which the workshops

are created. However, the ease of WWW access and use now provides patrons with a dizzying

array of Web-based information resources, including online catalogs and proprietary

databases. In addition, many electronic resources still operate independently of the Internet

but are no less useful and valuable databases. When the chance presents itself to familiarize

faculty and staff with their choices for electronic information retrieval, as it did at Emporia

State University, librarians are wise to live the philosophy of `̀ carpe diem'' Ð seize the day

and the moment for instruction and public relations.

2. History of the professional development program at Emporia State University

Prior to the 1995 fall semester, the Vice President of Academic Affairs at Emporia State

University requested that the newly hired director of the Teaching Enhancement Center

schedule courses for the university's faculty and staff. These professional development

C. Akers et al. / Research Strategies 17 (2000) 215±221216

courses were designed to provide educational and development opportunities for faculty,

staff, and graduate teaching assistants. Topics ranged from an introduction to Windows 3.1 to

designing instructional WWW pages. The objective of these courses, as stated by the director

of the Teaching Enhancement Center, was to improve proficiency in the use of relevant

computer software for teaching, research, and administrative purposes. Courses offered were

selected by the Teaching Enhancement Center in conjunction with the Office of Continuing

Education. Credit hours were offered for the courses and grades assigned at the end on a pass/

fail basis.

3. Library involvement

During the summer of 1995, the director of the William Allen White Library asked the

public services librarians to consider offering a course in the Professional Development

Program. Librarians decided in subsequent discussions that a generic course for all

disciplines would best address rapid change in the area of electronic library resources.

This course, titled `̀ Library Resources: Online and CD-ROM,'' was offered in the Fall

1995 and Spring 1996 semesters.

Team-taught by four librarians, the course was in the format of lectures, handouts,

demonstrations, and take-home assignments. Electronic resources, including NOTIS, the

library's online public access catalog, were presented during 1 1/2 to 2 h time blocks for 9

weeks. General and discipline-specific electronic resources were highlighted in each week's

session. Librarians hoped that participating faculty would become effective communicators to

their students about the most appropriate information sources for research. This point is

reinforced by Mark Schumacher's (1989) observation that `̀ the teaching faculty [who take

these courses] can serve as the BI librarians' allies in the effort to impart knowledge about the

resources and services available in the library.''

In the spring of 1996, a public services librarian was hired to coordinate the library

instruction program with additional responsibilities in reference and electronic services. At

that time, the librarians discussed a possible shift toward subject-specific professional

development courses to be offered by the library. The first idea was to offer a course in

education and psychology geared to faculty and graduate students in the Teachers College,

which encompasses such divisions as Teacher Education, Counselor Education, Early

Childhood/Elementary Teacher Education, Physical Education, and Psychology and Special

Education. An informal survey of faculty in the Teachers College was conducted by the two

librarians who would teach the course. Sufficient interest, resources to be included in the

presentations, and the best time to offer the course to help ensure adequate enrollment were

all considered in the survey.

!`̀ Electronic Resources in Education and Psychology: Maximizing the Potential'' was

offered for the first time at the beginning of the summer 1996 session. Unlike the first

general course, this course was taught in a single week through four half-days of

instruction. Again, the team-teaching approach was used with two librarians sharing

responsibility. The popularity of the course enabled the librarians to justify offering it

for a second time at the end of the summer session. Once again, general resources such

C. Akers et al. / Research Strategies 17 (2000) 215±221 217

NOTIS were presented. However, discipline-oriented electronic resources such as PsycLIT,

ERIC, subject-specific databases in the OCLC FirstSearch Service, and education/psychol-

ogy Internet resources were the major focus of this course to reflect the primary interests of

the participants.

The education and psychology course was the first to be taught in the library's newly

constructed electronic classroom. With 22 student workstations and an instructor's work-

station with a projector, these new facilities allowed the introduction of more active

learning techniques and hands-on instruction into the courses to facilitate understanding of

the databases.

Because the initial subject-specific course was so successful, the librarians felt that other

disciplines could be targeted in future offerings. `̀ Electronic Business Resources: Gateway to

Global Business'' made its debut in the Fall 1996 semester. Presentations were targeted

towards the faculty in the areas of marketing, management, finance, economics, and computer

information systems. Again, a similar format encompassed both general and subject-specific

electronic databases. The business course was offered for 1 1/2 h one afternoon each week for

7 weeks.

By the spring of 1997, interest in all the professional development courses began to wane,

both by the individuals teaching the courses and the potential students in the sessions. The

library did offer one more subject-specific course focusing on electronic resources in the

humanities and social sciences. Enrollment, though, remained low during the week preceding

the first class session. To accommodate those faculty members who had expressed an interest

in enrolling in the class, the librarians held the first class as one-shot workshop and

highlighted basic search strategies in databases such as the MLA Bibliography and relevant

databases in FirstSearch. Handouts, a crucial part of each library professional development

course, were provided to reinforce the information presented. These additional materials were

especially important in such a condensed version of the proposed class.

4. Assessment of the courses

The professional development courses were sponsored by entities outside the context of

the library (the Teaching Enhancement Center and the Division of Continuing Education).

Therefore, a standardized evaluation form was sent out from the Teaching Enhancement

Center each semester to all professional development instructors and returned to the Teaching

Enhancement Center director. The librarians, however, deemed assessment of the specific

courses and of themselves especially important for feedback and for the improvement of

future sessions and instructional methods, as well as for faculty promotion and tenure

evaluations. A separate evaluation form for internal library use was put together for the first

general resources course and was then rewritten by the Coordinator of Library Instruction for

the subsequent discipline-oriented courses.

The rewritten form enabled participants to add brief comments about their perceived level

of skills in searching, future library courses of interest, and observations about the

presentation style of each librarian. Overall, the comments were extremely positive and

encouraging in each course and often stressed the advantage of team-teaching situations.

C. Akers et al. / Research Strategies 17 (2000) 215±221218

Comments on both instructors for the first education and psychology course:

� Worked well together. Enthusiastic. Clear explanations. Knowledgeable.� Outstanding job Ð worked well as a team, knowledgeable and enthusiastic Ð nice job,

you two!� Appreciate all of your effort! Help was great Ð I feel much more comfortable.

Suggestions for improvement in the courses included a common concern about the amount

of time needed to master a particular database or searching strategy. Regardless of the class

format Ð an intensive week-long session or a more typical once-a-week meeting Ð most

participants wanted more time in class for hands-on practice. With the current interest in

library instruction and user-centered learning styles, such comments may well reflect the

teaching librarians' need to consider how faculty, staff, and graduate students best absorb

technological skills in a structured laboratory environment. This view is supported by

Greenfield, Tellman, and Brin (1996) in their comments about teaching Internet skills to

`̀ [a]dult students [who] are interested in learning independently and [who] often have limited

patience for long demonstrations and lectures.''

5. Benefits of courses offered

Initially, the librarians became participants in the university Professional Development

Program because the library director requested participation in this campus-wide project.

Both the librarians and faculty enrolled in these courses, though, soon became aware of the

enormous benefits of this participation. As noted by Johnson (1984), librarians may at first

feel hesitant about teaching those individuals who are perceived as the obvious experts in

their disciplines. Yet, Johnson observes that `̀ [t]here is no need to feel this way, since those

faculty who are taking part will be doing so because they are interested in learning more

about the library . . . and some may care to familiarize themselves with areas outside of

their chosen field.'' Cooper and Buchfield (1995) have written that any faculty/staff

development workshops `̀ provide opportunities for session leaders and participants to

learn from one another. Librarians and personnel staff can learn about staff's actual

information needs and, along with the staff members themselves, address them together

as participants in a learning community.'' The librarians who taught the courses observed

this `̀ learning community'' in action as they interacted with faculty and staff representing a

variety of disciplines. This contact then ensured future collaboration between groups with

common goals and objectives. The course participants not only learned more effective uses

of various resources in their disciplines, but also perceived the library as an active, evolving

instructional setting. In this sense, the library truly became an information gateway offering

possibilities across the curriculum.

Additional benefits emerged for the library, which, though not anticipated, were greatly

welcomed. The courses became an effective public relations and marketing tool. In their roles

as formal teachers, librarians were able to interact with participants as colleagues, highlight

the various services and resources available to the students, faculty, and staff of ESU, and

C. Akers et al. / Research Strategies 17 (2000) 215±221 219

present the Library Electronic Classroom as a model for instructional technology. In turn, the

faculty enrolled in the courses felt comfortable asking about future plans for additional,

subject-specific electronic databases, remote access to information resources, and realistic

applications of these database to their own research, as well as class assignments.

Finally, librarians were able to observe an interesting correlation between faculty

interest in these courses and subsequent requests for library instruction utilizing the very

databases highlighted in the professional development courses. Beginning with the first

subject-specific offering, at least one faculty member asked librarians to teach a course-

related session for their students in the Electronic Classroom. Thanks to the positive word of

mouth generated for the Electronic Classroom and for the librarians as teachers, library

instruction statistics for the 1996±1997 academic year and for July±December 1997

increased significantly from the previous academic year. (Tables 1 and 2) The 1996±1997

library instruction statistics are especially significant when compared to the FTE enrollment

of Emporia State, including both undergraduate and graduate student population. In the Fall

1996 semester, the FTE enrollment was 4805 students and in the Spring 1997 semester, the

FTE enrollment was 4446 students.

This trend continued in the Fall 1997 semester when two of the faculty participants in

another library-sponsored class, `̀ Electronic Resources: Making Information Work for You!,''

contacted the Coordinator of Library Instruction for general sessions in the Library Electronic

Classroom for their students as a direct result of the professional development course. One of

these instructors, moreover, scheduled follow-up sessions for her courses in `̀ Introduction to

Mass Communications'' and `̀ Screenwriting.'' Both faculty members commented that their

initial positive impressions about the library professional development course were a

motivating factor in their decisions to utilize librarians as teachers for their students.

6. Future of library professional development courses

Plans for future Professional Development courses and the library hope to extend its

proactive approach to university-wide instruction through association with these courses. As

Table 1

Comparison of WAWL library instruction statistics (instruction related to ESU classes only)

1995±1996 Academic year 1996±1997 Academic year

Total number of sessions

(tours; demonstrations; etc.)

45 Total number of sessions

(tours; demonstrations, etc.)

155

Total number of participants 706 Total number of participants 2440

Table 2

Comparison of WAWL library instruction statistics (instruction related to ESU classes only)

July±December 1997 semester

Total number of sessions

(tours; demonstrations, etc.)

98 Total number of participants 1358

C. Akers et al. / Research Strategies 17 (2000) 215±221220

information technologies evolve, continuing education becomes an increasingly important

and effective way of staying information literate.

The librarians involved in the Professional Development courses have looked at options

available and have also considered alternative formats to a formal course. These formats may

include seminars, workshops, and brown-bag lectures, to be focused again with upon general

resources or subject-specific databases. With a seminar or workshop, multiple sessions could

be offered in longer time blocks with time to incorporate active learning techniques and

hands-on instruction. Brown-bag lecture presentations during a lunch period would be limited

to overviews of electronic resources.

Whatever the choice, it is clear that academic librarians cannot afford the luxury of waiting

for patrons to arrive with articulated information needs and questions. Based upon the ESU

librarians' experiences, active involvement with either a preexisting or future university

continuing education program can be one of the most exciting tools for library public

relations and faculty/staff/student goodwill across campus. The investment of time in class

preparation and teaching is minuscule compared to the enthusiastic response and return

business of satisfied participants. The questions change from `̀ Where should I look for some

articles on inclusion?'' to `̀ The word inclusion isn't a Thesaurus term in ERIC. How could I

modify my search?''

Ultimately, the role of proactivity must be assumed by academic librarians. Involvement

with campus-wide activities such as Professional Development programs will, as observed by

Robert T. Ivey, help in `̀ marketing [librarians'] skills while promoting the teaching and

research mission of the university. Only when they make the invisible visible will academic

librarians be regarded as peers by their teaching-faculty colleagues'' (Ivey, 1994). In addition,

in making `̀ the invisible visible,'' library professionals contribute to a learning community.

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