Feeling like a librarian

Like Jane, of a Wandering Eyre (here, here, and here), I've been teaching, preparing to teach, or debriefing my teaching for over a week.

We get library preparation assignments from each student before the 50-minute one-shot session. When everything works well (the prep assignments come in more than 24 hours ahead of time and they actually reflect the topic the student will be working on all semester), this is great. Although it takes an amazing amount of time, I write notes with research ideas on each assignment and hand them back to the students at the beginning of the library visit. This means I've looked at each person and said his or her name. I really startled a student in mid-class last week when I called on him by name. But he was a good sport and answered my question about what disciplines might provide fruitful research on his topic.

Marking up each prep assignment is a mini-research project, or a maxi-reference question. I feel more like a librarian when I'm working on those prep assignments than I do at any other time.

Labels: instruction, library insider

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