LibParlor Online Learning Project Updates: Needs Assessment & Curriculum Planning Forum

We’d like to provide our community with an update on our work for our IMLS-funded LibParlor Online Learning project. This month, we are launching a needs assessment of academic librarians to identify their key areas of difficulty in conducting research and putting things in motion for the curriculum planning forum happening this May! 

Needs Assessment 

We are soliciting feedback through a survey and focus groups from the academic LIS researcher-practitioner community in order to learn about the experiences, educational needs, and institutional constraints of academic library workers. The survey takes approximately 15-30 minutes to complete through an online form. Once you complete the survey, you will be asked if you are interested in participating in a remote focus group to discuss your experiences more in depth. You will also have the opportunity to express interest in attending our curriculum planning forum.

Curriculum Planning Forum

After compiling and analyzing our data, we will host a curriculum planning forum. Following participatory design principles, attendees will engage in facilitated discussions and brainstorming & prioritization activities in order to facilitate mutual learning. Forum participants will clarify assessed needs, define success for different user groups, differentiate our work from existing offerings, and begin identifying expert partners with whom we will co-create the curriculum. Using this information, we will then develop a draft curriculum framework and an assessment tool for future curriculum modules. 

We anticipate the in-person forum will include 30 participants made up of MLIS students, LIS instructors, early-career librarians, mid-career librarians, and established librarians from a range of experience levels and types of academic librarianship to ensure that we have adequate representation of future users. We hope to include participants who work at predominantly minority-serving institutions and community colleges to ensure our modules successfully serve librarians from those research backgrounds. 

Our forum will take place May 26-27, 2022 at the University of Nevada Las Vegas Libraries. There will be virtual options for participation for those who are uncomfortable attending in person (details forthcoming.) If you are interested in participating, please fill out our interest form. 

We will keep our community informed at each step along the way with updates and findings. We hope you will consider taking our survey, participating in our focus groups, and attending curriculum planning forum!