While academic librarians constantly work to address the changing needs of higher education, SARS-CoV-2 illustrates how quickly priorities and needs may shift. During the 2020 spring term, the halting of in-person instruction meant many libraries had to use stop-gap measures to provide basic levels of instruction service. No one would claim that this was an ideal way to transition to online instruction, but it became necessary in these unprecedented times. A large number of webinars and online trainings were offered to help librarians make this transition, and many understandably emphasized a “good enough” or “do the best you can” approach. Equally understandable were the questions that cropped up about the accessibility and quality of these stop-gap measures. Imagine, however, that there was no need to resort to stop-gap measures.
Imagine that your library had a team in place with years of experience offering sound, innovative instruction that could be delivered in any learning environment. While no one could have planned for a pandemic—or the subsequent mad dash into online instruction—there are ways for a library to forecast educational trends and make sure they have librarians in place with the right preparation and skills to handle the unexpected and unprecedented. This begins by recognizing that the design of effective learning calls for varied skillsets, and that one librarian can’t always “do it all” on their own. A team approach adds significant value to the instructional design process by allowing expertise to be utilized effectively, providing for flexible workload balance, and promoting creative solutions to evolving learning requirements.
In this presentation, participants will learn how a team of academic librarians combined their expertise and collaborated to easily transfer in-person instruction to remote learning within the short timeframe allowed before COVID-19 shutdowns occurred. This achievement was possible because of the thoughtful planning of team composition and a sustainable approach to developing information literacy instruction. Participants will engage in break-out group discussions and question-and-answer activities to explore ideas introduced in the presentation