Learning more about this profession

It was enlightening to learn more about the various professional organizations during the Google Hangout and from the textbook and organization websites.  I didn't know about any of these organizations before and I didn't expect such a variety in terms of size, range of activities and 'vibrancy'.  I plan to look into memberships.  In the past year, I have seen several job announcements for Instructional Design Librarians.  These positions are primarily focused on working with distance learning faculty and students but they are also needed to develop and maintain library websites and web-based services.

I was glad to see that school librarians (Teacher Librarians) are visible participants in several of the K-12 focused organizations.  Many of the activities of K-12 libraries are also relevant for community college libraries, but there are, of course, a lot of differences.  While browsing the organization websites, I was able to find a few articles in the professional journals related to instructional techology and college libraries.  For example, Library 2.0: The Changing Role of the Academic Library. By Katharine Hixson
Journal of Applied Learning Technology Spring 2011.
(abstract available online: http://www.salt.org/JALTtoc.asp?key=161354 )  

As CSULA students we can access some of these journal through the college library website, but some others are only available online without charge to members. 

I mentioned in a previous post that the class broadened my view of the value and wide range of Web 2.0 tools.  Just today,  I found an article in a Library trade journal on Reddit, the Web 2.0 tool I showed in our first online meeting.  
 
"We’ve Reddit, have you?: What librarians can learn from a site full of memes." By Beth Sanderson and Miriam Rigby.  College and Research Libraries News November 2013 74:518-521  Full Text  or Full Text (PDF)

A main teaching focus of academic libraries is to help students develop  "information literacy" skills, including evaluating information sources (e.g. credibility, bias), recognizing types of sources (e.g. primary sources, scholarly sources), and ethical use of information (e.g. attribution, citing sources, understanding plagiarism and copyright).  This article discusses the value of Reddit in encouraging users to develop these skills.  Redditors are encouraged by reddiquette and popularity "karma" points to do more than just re-post.  Popular posts are credible and well documented.   In these author's view it's not just about "crowd sourcing" but using the crowd to encourage sharing and online scholarship.

I appreciate that our courses are in Moodle so that we can see each other's work, share comments get help and reassurance.