Presentation. Critical Librarianship & Pedagogy Symposium, February 25-26, 2016, The University of Arizona. / Many new librarians are eager to bring our existing commitments to social justice to our professional practice. New to the profession, we are anxious to prove ourselves as we learn to navigate complex institutional cultures and pre-established ways of doing things. On the other hand, being new sometimes provides the perfect cover for asking critical questions of entrenched practices. What are the particular challenges of doing critical pedagogy as new librarians? What unique opportunities for advocacy does being new afford? How can we best support each other and seek support from our more established colleagues? This session was a facilitated roundtable discussion.

Presentation. Critical Librarianship & Pedagogy Symposium, February 25-26, 2016, The University of Arizona. / While critical practice involves challenging systems and structures, many librarians function in the “messy middle” - making choices in everyday practice which may both support and challenge privileged academic structures. This workshop will take participants through a series of questions based on privilege as a lens for reflection on our choices, limitations, and opportunities as librarians within academic systems. The aim of the workshop is to help identify points of friction or frustration in our practice, areas for closer examination or opportunities for change, and to provide a more intentional understanding of our values and how they relate to practice.

Doctor of Philosophy / Curriculum and Instruction Programs / F. Todd Goodson / Kay Ann Taylor / Library instruction in a university setting, in the primary manner it has been taught for decades, has a problem: the instruction is not teaching. Many library instruction sessions at universities are taught through a traditional lecture-style instruction session where students are allowed no voice in the classroom and there is no room for any evaluation of the information presented. Teaching without an engaged pedagogical framework without any active participation is problematic for teaching critical information literacy. This research focused on library instruction within higher education institutions and the choices made by instruction librarians to include (or not) critical pedagogy and critical information literacy within their teaching styles and classrooms. This study explored (a) the decisions of librarians to teach either in the traditional or critical library pedagogy manner and (b) barriers or encouragement in librarians’ choice to teach through a critical lens. With critical theory as the overarching framework and engaged pedagogy a central part to all these theories, critical engaged pedagogy combines critical race feminist theory, critical library pedagogy, and critical information literacy (the latter two frequently used interchangeably). The combined theoretical framework gives context for researching the reasons that instruction librarians choose (or do not) to implement these theoretical and pedagogical styles into their instruction of information literacy in classrooms. Using the qualitative methodology of narrative inquiry, specifically narrative analysis, this study analyzed and interpreted data from interviews, observational data, and field notes recorded in a reflexive journal through the lens of this theoretical framework. Findings showed that in their everyday experiences as academic instruction librarians, the participants faced both barriers and encouragement to their decisions regarding teaching methods and curriculum in addition to how they are impacting their students’ lives and learning. Four different themes emerged from the data. The first theme, sometimes a teacher, sometimes not, speaks to the struggle that the participants handled every day: though they were instruction librarians, they were not able to always feel as though they were real teachers or faculty on their campuses. The second theme, if only I had a choice, discusses how discipline faculty affect their teaching decisions and the participants’ goal to at least try to teach critical evaluation to the students. The third theme, teaching is a political act, focuses on participants’ teaching under a critical library instruction pedagogy, emphasizing their engagement with the students, the falsehood of neutrality, and teaching about marginalized groups, injustice, oppression, and similar political-minded concepts in their classes. The fourth theme, real world, lifelong skills, discusses how the participants view their impact on student learning and student lives in general, demonstrated through teaching students critical thinking and evaluation (of the real world) skills in addition to impacting students beyond the classroom.

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