Jamie Dwyer, Information Services Librarian and Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago, presented a poster session at last week’s Distance Library Services Conference in Pittsburgh, PA. She was the lone presenter from Illinois at this year’s conference. Her session, titled “A Librarian Logs Into an Online Course: The Impact of a Librarian Facilitator on Distance Student Research Skills”, discussed the challenges and opportunities of working with a liaison department that has developed its own information-literacy course. Dwyer explored such issues as whether a librarian can handle the time commitment of teaching in an online course while also fulfilling regular liaison duties. In addition, she investigated whether student use of library resources that are related to the course increased with a librarian serving as an instructor.
This year’s Distance Library Services Conference was the 17th time the conference, which is held every two years, took place. The event, which lasted from April 20 to 22, featured pre-conference workshops, contributed papers, poster sessions, and discussion groups (“Leaning Forward” and “Leaning Into” sessions). This year’s conference covered topics ranging from blended learning and course evaluation, to instructional design and the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. For more information about the conference, including the full list of sessions, go here.