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Free online program: “How libraries can help students from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds”

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ACRL Online Discussion Forums are offered by ACRL membership units on a wide variety of topics:

How Libraries can Help Students from Disadvantaged Socio-economic Backgrounds

Students from many and varied backgrounds are currently pursuing higher education, including students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Students from a disadvantaged socio-economic background face many challenges in completing their degree, including paying for tuition, books, housing, and food. Further, students from lower socio-economic backgrounds often feel like outsiders on campus – regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation – and issues of class , often unacknowledged and unexplored,  produce rifts in the campus culture that can lead to serious confrontation. How can academic libraries work with students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds? What kinds of services can libraries provide for low income students that help them thrive on campus?

This online program will explore various services, programs, and practices academic libraries can offer to students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds-including real-life examples-that help their academic success.

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Upcoming webinar: Beyond the Welcome Sign: Tailoring Immigrant Services for Success

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While this looks like it may be aimed primarily at public libraries, there are obvious applications to UCI:

There is much more to supporting immigrants and refugees than hanging out a “welcome” sign at your library. Successful programs and services are specifically tailored to meet the needs of the range of populations who may come through your doors. Hear from Movers & Shakers who work with communities to empower vulnerable and often underserved populations with a sense of belonging and self-reliance. Learn innovative approaches to identifying and celebrating immigrant leaders; how to foster networking between native-born and newcomer populations and between immigrant groups of varying national origins; how to highlight immigrant-positive narratives; and more. You’ll be sure to find practical ideas among the multi-pronged strategies that these librarians have used to ensure that new immigrants really do feel welcomed by the library and the community.

This webinar is part of a series highlighting the work of recent LJ Movers & Shakers and is hosted in collaboration with Library Journal.

Presented by: Will Chan, Economic Programs Manager, City and County of Denver, (recent Program Administrator, New Americans Project, Denver Public Library), and 2016 Mover & Shaker; and Sophie Maier, Immigrant Services Librarian, Louisville Free Public Library, and 2017 Mover & Shaker.

11 May 2017, noon. Registration is here.

Webinar Recap | Diversity in the Workplace: Creating a Positive Culture of Acceptance and Inclusion

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Diversity in the Workplace: Creating a Positive Culture of Acceptance and Inclusion

Summary
The training webinar was sponsored by the Libraries as part of the Diversity Team’s 2016-2017 programs. Jharina Pascual and Pauline Manaka were the facilitators. 
Designed as a workplace training session, Lisa Ryan led as webinar presenter for STAR12®SkillPath Seminars and National Seminars Training (NST). Her presentation addressed the following objectives:
  • Better understanding cultural diversity and how it makes today’s organizations stronger
  • Considering  various kinds of diversity (not just geographic) and their effect on productivity
  • Tips on how to build a workplace where respect is the foundation of your culture
  • Understanding how your own experiences lead to hidden biases and stereotypes
  • Identifying common areas of diversity-induced conflict and what to do about it
  • Taking stock of the most important communication skills needed to get along and work together
  • What to do if you’ve stuck your foot in your mouth: How do you get back to trusting each other—instead of digging yourself in deeper?
  • The right way to explore differences and common ground—making it easier to build trust
There was a question and answer session with attendees from other institutions after the webinar. They covered discussions of institutional policies (such as affirmative action) and the difference between the concepts of diversity and inclusion.
Some of our colleagues offered their comments and observations about the training following the webinar.  Some of these are:
  • To share the slides with library staff
  • The webinar was found valuable; its contents were well-organized and detailed, and there were some new topics covered
  • Have something like this annually as part of other mandatory training initiatives; including certificates printed for attendees
Questions for Library Attendees from the Diversity Team:
About the Webinar, provide your thoughts on the following in the comments below:
  1. Did you find it helpful for diversity training? If yes, please explain. 
  2. Do you wish to think about it a little more? If yes,please explain. 
  3. You DID NOT find it helpful for diversity training. Please explain.
If you have additional questions related to the webinar, please send them to Jharina Pascual via e-mail and she will send to the webinar organizers.
Additionally, if you have questions and comments that you would prefer not to add in comments, please send those via email as well. We look forward to keeping the conversation open, and encourage all library staff to follow this blog and look over our collected resources on the staff wiki. 

Diversity in the Workplace Webinar – Today @ 11am

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Friendly reminder that today is the day! …insert flashing red lights here… 😉

The Diversity Team is hosting, Diversity in the Workplace: Creating a Positive Culture of Acceptance and Inclusion (one-hour webinar training)
Today at 11:00am, ASL-104

This is for library employees only

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you there!

Sheree Baugh
Diversity Team, Chair

Learn About Diversity in Libraries from ALA

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Tomorrow at 11 am ALA will be hosting a free American Libraries Live event (online).

The topic will be Diversity in Libraries, from services to collections development.

Registration Link : https://goo.gl/BnY98V

Below is the Expert Panel that will be particpating in the discussion.

  • Mario Ascencio, Visual Arts Liaison Librarian, George Mason University Libraries, President, REFORMA
  • Melissa Cardenas-Dow, Reference and Instruction Librarian at the University of California–Riverside in Riverside, CA
  • Jody Gray, Director, ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy and Outreach Services
  • Jessica Jupitus,  Central Branch Director, Sacramento Public Library

 

 

Webinar on designing assignments for library instruction

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My notes are below, or for a recording of the entire webinar watch the video:

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVk1iNiNfmA[/youtube]

The webinar stressed moving library instruction away from focusing on the research finding aspects of research and toward the resource process.  One tip I particularly liked was: when redesigning an assignment, decide why you’re doing the redesign and keep that reason in the forefront of you mind while working.

Suggestions for updating library instruction included:

  • Move away from step-by-step instructions – keep step-by-step instruction for some tutorials or handouts but avoid it in library instruction, instead allow the student to explore different ways of searching while in class. There are several different ways into many resources from the library webpage, see how the students answer your question.
  • Use several different examples and resources – don’t use a particular resource every time you teach, some students will attend multiple library workshops and this reduces the possibility of the student disengaging during the lesson.
  • Try using new tools in the classroom – learn one new database, tool or piece of technology per quarter and try to introduce it into your teaching.

Examples of interactive instruction ideas for a 1-shot session:

Click-bait sources: break the class into groups.  Give each group 1 section of an article (Silly example here). Have them track down the sources for the article or something that would support that section’s claim.  Have the group decide what in their section is meant to be informative or humorous. Have them share what they found with the class

Try a scavenger hunt – send students out to explore a section of the library for 15 minutes then report back on what they found. (Also gives the librarian time to talk to the faculty member.)

Ice breaker idea:

“Snowball fight:” Have students write 1 assumption about the library on a piece of paper.  Then have them ball up the papers and throw them at the front of the room.  The librarian then pulls a few of the questions to answer as an introduction to what libraries/librarians actually do.
Note: the presenter suggested that you encourage the students to throw the papers at the librarian and the ones that are head shots are the ones selected.  I’m not that brave, I think I’d end up in a class full of sharpshooters with great aim.

Open Google Doc of traditional library instruction tasks/questions and crowd sourced answers from participants: goo.gl/NgEw8y

Contact the presenter @EnglemanMelissa and look for others sharing ideas with #BetterIL.

 

Mary-Michelle Moore