Academic Librarianship by Design

by Steven J. Bell, John D. Shank

"The future of academic librarianship depends on our collective ability to integrate services and practices into the teaching and learning process…Our goal is to raise awareness, promote the contributions librarians can make, and create change."
--Steven J. Bell and John D. Shank Change is unfolding at a furious pace for academic librarians, where even predictions of obsolescence abound. This new vision for designing the future of academic libraries enables librarians to become indispensable partners in the college teaching endeavor by integrating themselves into the instructional process. Learn why enhanced capabilities in instructional design and technology, the "blended librarian skill set," is so critical. Then use the authors' modified instructional design "ADDIE model" Scenarios, case studies, and profiles throughout illustrate the successes that real "blended librarians" are having on campuses. This practical, hands-on guide expands the possibilities for academic librarians in public service, reference, instruction, information literacy, and even library and information science students.

Genres: Library Science, Nonfiction

181 pages, Paperback

First published June 30, 2007

Reviews

[Ruth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, really mediocre. I mean, there were some useful concepts and resources, but why do we go out of our way to call this “brand” of academic librarianship “blended librarianship” when academic librarianship at its root is already blended IRL? Many moments of the book also felt like poorly disguised means of self-aggrandizement, with too many examples of overzealous (and already understood) claiming of the term.

[Catie Carlson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book more than I did, and I think if I had read it in the context of 10 years ago I would have. Many of the principles seem very obvious in today's educational and library climate though. With that said, the ideas of campus collaboration, technology, and instructional design cannot be under emphasized today in librarianship. It's good to go back and see where it started and how it has evolved.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I would like this a lot more than I did. I didn't read the whole thing, I wound up occasionally picking it up and trying out one chapter, then coming back another time and trying out another chapter. For some reason, this just didn't resonate with me. Had I stopped to think about the fact that I rarely get through an entire post on the Design Thinking blog, I probably would have realized all of this ahead of time. But to be fair, I don't think I read much about this book before I requested it - I expected something different, based on the "blended librarian" mention in the subtitle. (What I expected is an entirely different, equally unanswerable, question.)

A lot of the book focuses on collaborations with faculty, but the types of things presented (getting stuff embedded into the CMS, getting more involved in campus collaborations) don't really apply here for a variety of reasons. The chapter on Digital Learning Materials would probably be good to read if we were doing more with screencasting and whatnot, but we're not doing much with it at all (which I think is a shame given how many off-campus students we have). So this might be something to come back to in the future, but for now it's not quite where I am.