Summer Slowdown

I realize I never posted about the second day of the colloquium, but time got away from me. It was great, and I learned about some interesting approaches faculty are taking in their classes.

On another instruction topic, I'm kind of kicking myself for not going to LOEX of the West. I thought it would be too much to try to travel right after starting the new position, but from all reports from current and former colleagues who attended it, the conference was excellent and well worth the time. Vegas in 2008 is already on my calendar. I heard the O.G. LOEX was good, too. I just looked through the links to the conference presentations and handouts and I can see that I would have had plenty of great sessions to choose from.

There hasn't been much instruction for me to do this summer, so I've been taking advantage of the time to read as much as I can on the subject. Two new books on my desk right now are Information Literacy Assessment: Standards-Based Tools and Assignments (Neely, 2006) and the new edition of A Research Guide for Undergraduate Students: English and American Literature, 6th ed. (Baker & Huling, 2006). I'm familiar with the latter from previous editions, and I'm sure it will come in handy now that I'm an English librarian.

I've had more time to delve into Neely's book, and I'm really impressed. She's the first author I've encountered who shows such detailed links between assignments and the ACRL IL standards. The assessment queries include skills/understanding testing and questions about how students feel about IL concepts, both of which are important measurements about how they're going to internalize what they're learning. It will be interesting to see to what extent I can incorporate these ideas into my classes this fall.