The Teaching and Learning Innovation Digest - May 2023

The pandemic and subsequent return to
work has changed how many Librarians
perceive and approach their work.
Librarians, along with Learning
Strategists, Counsellors, and other
crucial support services at the College,
supported student success during this
transitional time, and continue to do so
today. The following is a discussion about
what Librarians’ work looks like in this
current in-person/online/hybrid world.
What worked?
JE: Reaching students virtually.
Pre-pandemic, I only taught courses and met
with students in-person. While that was and
still is valuable and, in many cases preferred,
post-pandemic most of my instruction in
classes and my appointments with students,
are virtual. Given my responsibilities as SCHS
and SoT Librarian take me to four different
campuses, it is the difference between being
able to teach a class, or having to postpone
until I can be at the campus in-person.
SP: Online learning. We are able to
accommodate more students with an online/
hybrid teaching model. As the School of
Advancement Librarian, some of the biggest
classes and programs are within my liaison
area. There is no way I could reach as many
students as I am now without the flexibility of
online classes/work from home. We do not
physically have the space to accommodate!
For comparison, I used to teach about
11 sections of COMM 170/171 per
LIBRARIAN
CONVERSATION
By Eva McDonald, Library Systems and Electronic Resources Librarian, Stephanie Power,
Librarian, School of Advancement, and Jennifer Easter, Librarian, School of Community and
Health Studies and School of Transportation
semester. This semester I am able to host
~90 due to strategic implementation and
virtual options.
JE: Services already in place. So much of what
worked was what was working before. Most of
the resources in our collection (including, but
not limited to, books, journal, and newspaper
articles, videos) are online. Our research help
service, askON, is an online chat research
service, and was already established prepandemic.
During the pandemic, it was
staffed by Library Technicians and was
utilized extensively by students who had
questions ranging from research and citation to
pandemic restrictions.
EM: Self-directed and flexible work schedules
for Librarians are proven to increase
convenience and satisfaction for students and
faculty, increase productivity for Librarians,
and improve services that enhance the
reputation of the Library and emphasize its
indispensability to the college.
JE: Pivoting. Libraries offered a mail delivery
service to students who required print
resources from our collection.
What didn’t?
JE: Drop-in virtual research help received
some use, but not as much as we hoped.
Pre-pandemic, many students dropped
by the Library to receive help with their
research. During the pandemic, we offered a
drop-in virtual research help service, where
students could drop-in and receive one-on-one
help from a Librarian on Teams. While some
students utilized it, unlike in-person, where
students will stop by the Library for help at their
convenience, it appeared that many students
were not interested in dropping in for virtual
research help.
What did we learn? Did we keep it, change
it, reimagine it?
JE: Some Librarians who had not taught
online previously had to learn to teach online!
Fortunately, so many of the tools used in-class
(such as Mentimeter) transferred seamlessly to
the online world. The pandemic has introduced
the opportunity to teach on demand
—whether that be recording a live lecture,
so students can rewatch later, or create an
interactive video presentation on research
that students can watch at a time of
their convenience.
EM: In addition to this increased workload,
a new generation of students have become
accustomed to remote learning and
expect round-the-clock support for their
studies. No longer are research questions
confined to 9am to 5pm working hours, and
services that were formerly offered exclusively
in person, such as one-on-one research
sessions with a Librarian, are now expected
to be available daily, from early morning to
late evening, in order to accommodate early
risers, night owls, working students, students
with young children, and even long-distance
and overseas students working in different
time zones.
SP: I think we learned that both students
and faculty, which includes librarians,
appreciate the flexibility of hybrid work/learning
opportunities. I am always surprised by the
number of students that ask for a recording of
a workshop, but I am very grateful that it’s an
option we are able to provide. We also learned
the value of professional development. As we
shifted to more online instruction and research
help, having the chance to flex our pedagogical
muscles to ensure that students are feeling
connected and engaged was very rewarding.
Where do we go from here, what next!?
EM: Librarians’ focusing on new skills
development. Many of these critical skills
are needed by the Library right now, but few
Librarians possess competence in areas such
as copyright and transactional licensing, data
and analytics, makerspace and emerging
technologies, coding, UX and universal design
for learning, and more.
SP: I would love to develop more robust
information literacy programming.
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