Jess Denke

Process as Practice

I have a partner who is extremely prolific in his creative endeavors. Just this morning he told me he was setting one project aside in favor of continuing on with another. This is an extremely routine experience for him – he is always in the process of creating and we spend a lot of time brainstorming, dreaming, and problem-solving for each endeavor. I have a harder time with process. My doubts interfere with the work; my motivation waivers; I get distracted with television and books. However, sometimes I seem to just stumble into a creative process that I find enjoyable and most of the time I give myself the leeway to indulge in these experiences.

Visual design has been a source of inspiration and fun for me for most of my life. However, my goals and tools have changed since the days when Microsoft Paint on my dad’s Macintosh II afforded me the ability to spray paint rainbows. I began learning Adobe Illustrator at my first academic library position and have since been learning about and utilizing the Adobe suite for my design work.

Learning a new software package can be a challenge and sometimes the stress of creating flyers, banners, or logos at work can hinder my ability to learn new tools and experiment. Lucky for me, my summer schedule gives me the time and space to slow down and seek joy in the process. This past spring I have been most inspired by modifying and transforming artifacts in the public domain. I have found that the process of snipping images, altering color levels, and overlapping sprites has been really fun. By appreciating the process of creating, I’ve put less pressure on myself to create a product, and have thought of the work as practice for those projects that are more oriented towards library goals. Through practice, I’ve learned some new tools and skills and am able to respond to my coworkers requests more quickly.

All that to say, take time to enjoy the process of learning and creating. Though your products might vary in success, the process is a practice and your skills are likely transferable. Also, it’s alright to set a project aside, your interest and joy will likely return. And, since you made it this far, I won’t leave you without sharing the product of my Adobe design practice: my first zine. Flip through below to see a short, silly, slightly crass collaboration with my very-creative partner (he wrote some of the copy).

Diversity, voice, and community engagement: We are stronger together

It’s been such a long time since I’ve done any serious reflection on my work and consequent writing. Spring semester ended in a rush of activity and my writing practice went down the drain. Generally, I’ve been reserving Friday afternoons for an hour or two of writing, which I’ve published here (for the most part). So, in keeping with that tradition, today I will be reflecting on my Spring semester accomplishments.

I’ve been involved in three planning committees that held programs this spring: the Allentown Coalition for Economic Dignity (ACED, a committee of POWER), the Delaware Valley Chapter of the Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL), and the Information Literacy Learning Community of the Lehigh Valley Association of Independent Colleges (LVAIC). Planning these programs took months of committee work. When these kinds of programs come to a close I feel such a sense of relief and accomplishment. There are reports, schedules, and resources from each of the programs on their respective websites and I would encourage any curious readers to check them out. The ACED panel allowed Allentown community members to discuss real estate development and consequent community action with local community leaders, the ACRL DelVal program was about library partnerships, and the theme of the LVAIC information literacy symposium was Structures of Power in Information. In my mind, these three programs have a lot in common, but this lesson stands out:

Communities are better when everyone’s interests are represented.

We are stronger together.

Though the marginalized members of communities may be easy to ignore, when they are included their voices bring strength and power. In my work with ACED, we determined from the beginning that, though we represent the community, we don’t represent all of the community and needed to be able to engage the people of Allentown immediately to determine what their needs and desires were for our home. This panel was an effort to engage by providing an opportunity for education and communication. It was followed by round tables where community members could express their ideas and continue conversations with one another.

The panel and round tables were helpful in guiding the direction of our continued organization work. This is the kind of democratic community building discussed in Sarah Stanlick’s “Rethinking the expert voice: Knowledge-making in community engagement,” which was presented at the LVAIC symposium. Democratic community engagement is important for all library partnerships; it’s important that our work is relational, reciprocal, and that we co-create our knowledge of and in our communities. In my mind, this relates to the way that librarian’s design assessment measures and determine what kind of assessment we value, how we develop research projects and what stakeholders we include in research, and our pedagogical practices within the classroom.

I’ve also been reflecting on voice in preparation for my own presentation at the LVAIC symposium with Kate Richmond titled “Engaging students in identifying voice in scholarship.” When presenting academic research to students in the classroom, it is often beneficial to discuss the identities of authors and research participants as part of a discussion of authority as constructed and contextual. Of course, students need to understand the process of information creation that gives academics increased trust in academic journal articles before we break it down. However, it’s important to remember that many scholarly conversations are only occurring in communities of privilege. For example, in reviews of peer-reviewed psychology research by Eagly & Riger (2014), the majority of senior authors were found to be are white, upper-class men who were senior professors at top research universities. And participant populations fall into similar categories. One of my favorite statistics is in Henrich, Heine, and Norenzayan’s (2010) article “The weirdest people in the world?”:

“A randomly selected American undergraduate is more than 4,000 times
more likely to be a research participant [in the behavioral sciences] than is a randomly selected person from outside of the West” (p. 63).

Perhaps this doesn’t affect the way that you read articles, but what if it does? Sharing this information with students helps them to develop a critical eye towards scholarly work and also allows for conversations about the development and value of different kinds of authority. The authority of personal experience, or that developed by organic intellectuals (see Mentzell Ryder’s (2015) “Beyond critique: Global activism and the case of Malala Yousafzai”), is valuable and can be valued in the classroom. One way to do this is by allowing students to design the classroom environment or direct classroom discussion. We can also increase student’s opportunities to share their own experience and value self-reflection that allows them to contextualize learning.

Co-creation of knowledge in and about libraries is best done through inclusion of all voices. Co-creation of knowledge in and about cities is best done through inclusion of all voices. Co-creation of knowledge in and about communities is best done through inclusion of all voices.

And, in closing, I just want to state that I value the public nature of this blog and the readers who occasionally give me feedback. I value reading and hope to continue to share my own experiences through publication, but I know that I need to continue my writing practice if I’m ever going to become a valued author. Today I determined that I needed to write something to exercise my writing muscles. If you want to be good at a craft, remember that growth comes through practice and process.

References

Eagly, A. H., & Riger, S. (2014). Feminism and psychology: Critiques of methods and epistemology. American Psychologist, 69(7), 685–702. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0037372

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X

Ryder, P. M. (2015). Beyond critique: Global activism and the case of Malala Yousafzai. Literacy in Composition Studies, 3(1), 175–187.

Tech tools: Course-specific help guides.

The Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education identifies an important knowledge practice for information literacy learners as matching information needs to appropriate tools. As we all know, the tools of a university library are no longer solely contained in a physical building, but include numerous databases, digital repositories of information that vary in content and form. Thus, one could argue that it has become harder to identify the correct tools. Our library’s discovery service bundles many of these tools in one place in the hopes that students will locate a number of resources without further knowledge of the tools. However, OCLC discovery is so large it is commonly unwieldy to searchers. In information literacy instruction sessions, I often direct students to help guides – this way students are able to directly access the tools and resources that are best suited for their disciplinary research needs.

However, a study of library help guides by Roberts and Hunter published in a 2011 issue of the Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning reports that students do not, in fact, connect to subject guides because they do not think of their studies as situation in a discipline. Students are much more likely to connect to guides that are specific to their course. So, I create them regularly! Course-specific guides are very important for interdisciplinary research, which is so prominent at Muhlenberg. These guides link to resources across disciplines that meet assignment-specific information needs.

Roberts and Hunter (2011) report that students spend a minute on discipline-specific guides and seven to eight minutes on course-specific guides. Thus, through course-specific guides I can increase students persistence in research, demonstrate how tools can meet specific information needs, and provide access to resources strategically. I shared this information with a few faculty today, hoping to encourage them to collaborate on guides with their liaison librarians. Since I think it is a fairly convincing argument, I thought I would share it here too!

Roberts, S. & Hunter, D. (2011). New library, new librarian, new student: Using LibGuides to reach the virtual student. Journal of Library and Information Services in Distance Learning, 5(1-2), 67-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/1533290X.2011.570552

Libraries and Librarians are Not Neutral, Real

The first thing that I heard from ALA midwinter was the Twitter response to the library neutrality debate, which I loved. I shared a lot of Library Twitter’s opinions on the debate, including the question Why are we still debating neutrality? It got me thinking about my own non-neutral experience. I work to incorporate a lot of instructional practices that highlight voices and deconstruct power in my one-shot sessions. My latest endeavor in class is to complicate library/librarian neutrality by sharing my own real-life research. Showing the work I’m doing outside the library shares my values with students and also shows how research is incorporated into life in a non-scholarly environment. It is a vulnerable act of non-neutrality that that I believe has an extended impact on the classroom environment because students are able to connect with me and the cyclical, sometimes messy, process of research.

Since November 2017 I’ve been organizing with Pennsylvanians Organized to Witness, Empower, and Rebuild (POWER), which is a grassroots movement that empowers members to become “bold agents of liberation, actively pursuing racial, social, and economic justice for us all.” Most of my work has been towards economic and racial dignity in Allentown in light of unjust development occurring as a result of state-subsidized building in Center City’s Neighborhood Improvement Zone. The Allentown Coalition for Economic Dignity (ACED) meets weekly – we are working to develop increasing social capital and to identify the needs of the community in order to petition local lawmakers and developers for a community benefits ordinance or agreement.

This work requires a significant amount of research. Thankfully, many individuals on the team have been involved in researching and educating us all on methods of community organizing, components of successful community benefits agreements, and local community structures. In order to visualize the way that research contextualizes and advances the work that ACED is doing, I’ve drawn a concept map that I’ve shared in a few advanced research methods courses.

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Concept mapping can be a very useful step in a creative research process. Especially in advanced courses where student’s final product is up to their discretion, I believe concept mapping is a useful tool. The structure of the concept map lends itself well to organized and thought-out research. In the middle of the paper is the main topic, with the participants of the scholarly conversation on level 2. I do introduce the students to Burke’s “Unending Conversation” metaphor and I also emphasize that databases/information resources are often organized by the “who” and so each branch will likely have different resources to search (with some overlap).

One of the things that students don’t often consider is the research that goes into choosing a specific type of product or outcome. I like to emphasize that ACED has researched the #BlackLivesMatter movement to identify how to use social media to mobilize people around an issue. Similarly, we are researching the language of successful community benefits ordinances so we have legal precedent as a model for Allentown legislation. Research is used to gain knowledge on a topic as a basis for strong arguments and it bolsters decisions we make and helps us be effectual.

Providing students with an opportunity for self-guided research and production can result in them being overwhelmed and uncertain. They may make choices based on their previous experiences with form and miss the joy that comes from work driven by their own interests. Concept mapping helps! It creates a structure to the work and a living artifact of what they have done and where they are going. My own concept map is a little messy and complicated, but it helps me keep track of the work. It isn’t perfect, but it models a process that has helped me make decisions and learn in a non-scholarly environment.

ACED is a politically oriented group working towards change – an inherently non-neutral effort. However, I’d argue that many of the decisions we make regarding to use our time are political. Emily Drabinski says, “each choice we make for something is a choice against some other thing.” I am making additional choices to position myself as a non-neutral professional in a non-neutral environment. Sharing my work with students has resulted in personal connections based on real-life vulnerability and shared values. I think that these kinds of decisions further embed me within the college community, implicitly teach students about the values of librarianship, and position me as an ally in the fight for economic, racial, a social equity.

Introducing Students to Information Privilege: A call for comments!

I’ve just finished a 45-minute lesson in which students learn to distinguish scholarly, trade, and popular resources.

Me: Can you find scholarly literature in the library? Students: Yes.

Me: Can you find trade literature in the library? Students: Yes.

Me: Can you find popular literature in the library? Students: Yes.

Me: Can you find popular literature through Google? Students: Yes.

Me: Can you find trade literature through Google? Students: Yes.

Me: Can you find scholarly literature through Google? Students: Yes.

Me (or another voice from the crowd): So why the library? Why are we here?

I love this line of questioning because it seems to change the way that students see me, a librarian. I think that they come to the library with the idea that I’m pro-library NO MATTER WHAT. I’m going to defend libraries existence instead of convince them that the library is a resource to use. It also opens up a conversation about open access and information privilege.

Access to an academic library has clear benefits to the experienced researcher, but students often need to be convinced to take the extra step and try out a library database, to disrupt their Google habit. Librarians choose the best resources, we filter out the garbage. Library databases are structured in a way that we can retrieve valuable information more efficiently through strategic searching. In all three of my most recent classes, students have suggested this information in response to my question. Then I’ve been able to say that, in addition to carefully curated and organized information, the library has access to more information resources because we have paid for access. Resources from the New York Times to the Journal of the American Medical Association require payment for access to full-text content. The scholarly articles that are available online are able to be read through Open Access… the publishers have circumvented traditional publishing means in order to allow everyone to read the work.

I say, “Open Access is an ethical imperative because otherwise only those who can pay have access to the most recent information and so knowledge development is limited to the rich. You are privileged by your access to information based on your affiliation to this institution.”

This is what I’m interested to hear from you, what is the language you use to introduce information privilege to your students? How do you set it up?

Information Literacy Roundtable: Active Learning and Interdisciplinary Exchange

January 11^th was Trexler Library’s annual Information Literacy Roundtable. Nine faculty members joined librarians Kelly Cannon, Rachel Hamelers, Susan Falciani, and myself to discuss ways to integrate information literacy into disciplinary curriculum. Each librarian proposed activities for active instruction to engage students in evaluation of information and information structures. These activities resulted in engaging conversations around disciplinary values, curriculum design, and student experience.

History professor Lynda Yankaskas joined Kelly Cannon in sharing a source evaluation activity that has helped students make informed decisions around resource selection. In addition to giving her students source requirements for her annotated bibliography assignment, Yankaskas is transparent about the reasons behind these requirements. Cannon begins a conversation around sources by asking students to evaluate seven sources (see bottom of guide) that he specifically chose to challenge student’s evaluation skills. For example, one resource is old and, therefore, not representative of the current scholarly conversation. Other resources are not scholarly or not specifically written by historians, which are both requirements Yankaskas set for her students’ development as historians. Perhaps the most challenging source within this activity is a book that discusses historiography, or the writing of history, but not history itself. Through a class discussion of these resources students begin to recognize that there is a critical element to selecting the best resources for their projects; not all library resources are the same.

Following Cannon and Yankaskas, Susan Falciani brought out some letters from the Muhlenberg archive. In classes with faculty from a variety of disciplines, Falciani utilizes these primary resources to excite students and inspire them to ask questions. The Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education emphasizes that the process of research depends upon an increasingly complex line of inquiry.

In interaction with these manuscripts, students are asked to describe and evaluate the text and then identify missing information. Students identify an information need based on the questions they have about the resource, and are then inspired to dig deeper. Falciani connected with various faculty that had not previously considered use of Muhlenberg’s archive. She mentioned that the archive is “not particularly deep, but wide” and that there are many disciplinary connections that can be made to the primary source material.

I suggested a constructivist approach to teaching students about the strategy required for searching databases. Through student’s knowledge of social media, particularly Twitter, I proposed that students are posed to understand searching strategies required for efficient database navigation. In my activity, I ask students to describe to a partner how to navigate to a Twitter post. I draw direct comparisons to library database searching. For example, searching for a Twitter handle is compared to Author searching and hashtags are compared to searching or controlled language. Students quickly identify multiple search strategies that can be used within Twitter, but commonly use only one within databases. This activity encourages use of multiple strategies and persistent searching, which is in line with the “Searching as Strategic Exploration” frame within the Framework. Faculty questioned student’s knowledge of Twitter, but seemed to appreciate the comparisons, which can be used to connect student’s prior knowledge of databases with educational research.

Rachel Hamelers completed the day by leading a discussion around disciplinary values. She asked participants to consider what barriers to creation, access, and use of information exist within their disciplines. Then, she asked what disciplines values in information and how we can make these values transparent to students within their coursework. Faculty in history shared the challenges that result from language barriers and how international multilingual conferences are breaking down barriers and resulting in greater exchange of information. In psychology, the traditional value of quantitative methodologies and large sample sizes is being tempered by research within smaller, local contexts. Interdisciplinary conversation around these challenges and values showed the variation in information literacy instruction across disciplines.

Faculty and librarians parted with knowledge applicable to classroom instruction and assignment development. Keep an eye out for an additional conversation around information literacy later this spring over wine and cheese.

This post was initially published on 1/12/18 for the Muhlenberg College community on the Trexler Library blog. I’m sharing it here because I think it’s valuable to the larger librarian community!

Oppression and Information, Learning from One Another

I suggested in a previous post that active learning pedagogies allow students to learn from one another and share different perspectives and experiences. I’m very invested in increasing my skills at facilitating active learning and recently participated in an Intergroup Dialogue workshop on campus in hopes that I will be able to lead conversation around difficult topics, in particular information privilege.

Unlike race or gender, class (especially as it relates to information literacy) is hard to distinguish. It’s hard to discuss. However, I propose that information literacy is a privilege and that our society exhibits similar racial and economic disparities in information literacy as we do in other social sectors. Education affects one’s ability to achieve information literacy and funding for higher education is unequally applied in detriment to low-income Americans. Access to the internet at usable speeds is increasingly required for access to information and digital redlining plagues our communities. There are many other ways that systems of power and information literacy are tied.

In a library instruction session, what are the questions that could begin a conversation around information privilege? How do we better understand each other through the lens of oppression? If I’m proposing that active learning would allow students with privilege to come into contact with individuals not afforded the same privileges (I think this is truly what Seale means when she identifies students from the “global North” and those who are “subaltern”) how do I make this happen in a classroom space? Is it even possible in a one shot session?

My answer to that last question is likely not. It takes time to create spaces of trust and community in order for safe dialogue around privilege to occur. However, let’s imagine a best case scenario in which students have come together to share their identities and listen to one another. Here are the questions I’ve come up with:

What information resources are available to you?
What identities/memberships allow you access to these resources?
Has your access changed over time?

It is in this hypothetical ideal scenario that students would be able to link their experiences and social identities with their information privilege, share moments in their life when they have not had the same access, and explore next steps in advocating for others. This ideal scenario is not the scenario in which I teach, and I imagine that it isn’t the scenario that many other librarians experience. I’m going to continue to think about how conversations around information privilege can occur, and I’ll share them here if I have any great ideas. In the past, I’ve emphasized the privilege of the access and education that my students have now that they are at Muhlenberg, however this is just a momentary declaration and doesn’t allow for the creation of information activists. I think that the group dialogue discussed above would inspire students to impassioned work for social change.

Thoughts?

The Books I Read in 2017

books-I-read-in-2017

Keeping track of books I’ve read over the year helps me reflect on what else I have accomplished as well. 2017 has been a year of growth – I have more roots and have become more of who I am; I am also branching out and trying new things. When I take a look at these books I am reminded of my progress in my career, my commitment to rediscovering my love for reading, and the trips my partner and I have taken to visit family and friends.

Spring 2017 was my first semester as an adjunct professor – I taught Web Page Design and began my year hurriedly brushing up on HTML and CSS with the textbook. I also started a library Student Advisory Board, which was a fun but short-lived experience because I accepted a position at Muhlenberg College as their Assessment and Outreach librarian. I absolutely recommend Library Assessment in Higher Education for anyone who wants to brush up on how to create an assessment plan, it provides a straightforward guide and good questions to prompt brainstorming.

I attended my first ACRL Conference this year on a scholarship and read Roxane Gay’s An Untamed State and Bad Feminist in preparation for her keynote. Gay is AMAZING, frank, perceptive, and brave and I read the rest of her books this year as well.

In my new position I’ve connected with some amazing professors. I’ve worked very closely with one individual to prepare for her upcoming course this coming semester. In working with her I’ve read Tom McCarthy’s Remainder and Satin Island as well as Philip K. Dick’s Do Android’s Dream of Electric Sheep? I’m so thankful for this special relationship especially since it’s so challenging to make true connections in an entirely new campus community.

I’ve done a lot of reading for fun this year – I basically doubled the number of books I read last year. In my childhood I chose to read for fun at every opportunity, but I’ve diversified my interests in part because I’ve struggled to find books that I find truly engaging. This year I’ve read so many books that I loved. Honestly, every book on this list has sucked me in… though I’ve felt more satisfied after some (The Woman Warrior, A Tale for the Time Being, Typical American) than others (The Shadow of the Wind; Boy, Snow, Bird; The Circle).

Tina Fey’s Bossypants, Lena Dunham’s Not that Kind of Girl, and Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods were listened to on trips to Baltimore to visit my best friends. They moved from Corvallis, Oregon during summer 2016, so these books remind me of the gratitude I feel that they are only an audio book away. A few of the others I read on vacation to Texas, where I met my partner’s paternal family for the first time, and at the beach, where we enjoyed the sun and surf together with my family for the first time.

Firsts abounded this year and included: slack lining, skiing, hosting a best friends week-long staycation, hanging pictures in our new home, planting an extremely prolific vegetable garden, participating in grassroots organizing, and I started printing and water coloring. I’m looking forward to a new year, reading books new to me, and continuing to grow roots as I develop in new directions.

Power, Generalizations, and Information Literacy

This year my colleagues and I have focused our collective attention on the politics of information. The actions of congress (tax reform, budget changes) and the FCC’s repeal of net neutrality make this topic a classroom imperative (if given the time, control of discussion, etc.). If we do not address the relationship between power and information in the classroom we are not preparing our students to resist the structures and individuals who seek to maintain power by controlling access to information, nevermind producing information that speaks to their ideologies.

Earlier this month our local librarian community had a reading group, which focused on Maura Seale’s (2016) “Enlightenment, Neoliberalism, and Information Literacy.” Seale (2016) critically evaluates the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education by addressing its liberal and neoliberal epistemological tendencies, which went unnoticed by me (which is proof of my own bias – a good reminder that I am not a neutral reader). Both liberalism and neoliberalism emphasize the individual over the group and ignore, or “transcend” depending on how you feel about it, historical, social, and cultural differences to achieve a universal goal (Seale, 2016, p. 85).

The very definition of information literacy, in conjunction with a framework written around threshold concepts, emphasizes this focus on the individual and their progress towards an ultimate enlightened status of information literacy. Thinking about it now, it seems ridiculous that every individual in the world could have the same target for understanding information. The very notion that there is an objective truth about information needs, structures, processes, … well, I’m still growing.

Library and information science has fallen into a common trap of social science research – belief that our goals or conclusions can be generalized, that the work of some is representative of the whole (see Henrich, Heine, & Norenzayan, 2010). My primary takeaway from Seale’s (2016) article is that different students require different knowledge of information; their contexts change their understanding of and access to information.

[The education of metropolitan students in the global North] needs to be supplemented with responsibility to the other and rooted in recognition of difference in order to contest neoliberalism. …Enlightenment notions of liberal subjectivity and rights are also important; they are aspects that are needed in subaltern education, so that subaltern cultures are able to act politically, within the institutions that are invested in those ideas. Seale, 2016, p. 88

This is a reminder to focus on the “local context,” emphasized by Emily Drabinski’s (2014) “Toward a kairos of Library Instruction,” of each class and each reference appointment. In the places where the Framework does not successfully consider the context of power in regards to information, it is important to address these flaws. Seale (2016) specifically mentions the failure of Searching as Strategic Exploration, Information Creation as a Process, and Research as Inquiry, which do not successfully recognize the constructedness of information systems and the complexities of knowledge production and the creation process (p. 83).

Active learning pedagogies allow for students to learn and contextualize new information according to their individualized experience. As teachers, we have the opportunity to present problems in an effort for them to learn through inquiry, application of previous knowledge, and interactions with peers. Through active learning and open discussions, metropolitan and subaltern students might interact with and learn from one another.

I have many more thoughts surrounding this theme and will continue to write. I am challenged by these ideas and feel an ever-increasing need to reflect on my experiences in an effort to solidify them within my own mind and grow.

References

Drabinski, E. (2014). Toward a kairos of library instruction. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 40(5), 480–485.

Henrich, J., Heine, S. J., & Norenzayan, A. (2010). The weirdest people in the world? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 33(2–3), 61–83. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X0999152X

Seale, M. (2016). Enlightenment, neoliberalism, and information literacy. Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship, 1. Retrieved from http://cjal.ca/index.php/capal/article/view/24308

Creatives and Open Access

Open Access is *supposed* to inspire additional creation of work, specifically because there are no barriers to access or use. However, it seems that we are so used to working within the realm of traditional copyright we rarely know what to do with work in the public domain or work licensed under Creative Commons. My upcoming project with the Muhlenberg Open Scholarship Faculty Learning Community will hopefully increase people’s awareness and increase use of open data, textbooks, scholarship, art, etc.

I’m exciting about combining my librarian tendencies towards collection and organization with my penchant for visual design and communication. Right now I’m in the research stages of this project – trying to identify open resources and looking into other ways that they have been promoted (via libraries, Creative Commons?). I’d love to hear how your library promotes open resources and creation! And, hopefully, if this project is successful, I will eventually have a set of posters to share with Librarian Design Share!