2024 Chapters (Layout Features)

Adjusting Roles: Lessons Learned from Applying Non-LIS Teacher Training to Library Instruction

Mercurio, Jeremiah R.

In this chapter from Training Library Instructors (ACRL 2024), edited by Matthew Weirick Johnson, I draw on my transition from English/writing instructor to librarian in order to reveal the ways in which non-LIS teacher training does and does not translate to the context of library instruction. The literature on professional development for library instructors increasingly highlights the urgent and ongoing need to improve teacher training in Library and Information Science graduate programs and academic libraries; however, the focus of that literature tends to center on inexperienced teachers and the anxiety they might feel about becoming instructors. The assumption about experienced teachers in non-LIS settings is that they are already prepared for library instruction, but this view misunderstands important structural and pedagogical differences between library instruction and other forms of teaching. By unpacking my experience, I reveal some of the challenges and affordances of bringing non-LIS teaching experience to bear on library instruction. I also explore how non-LIS teaching experience and training might be deployed in the workplace to enhance teacher training more generally and what support these new and potentially overconfident librarians might need to smooth their own transition from other parts of the academy into the library.