Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian:: Using Acting Skills to Create a Dynamic Presence

Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian:: Using Acting Skills to Create a Dynamic Presence

Jeff Sundquist, Julie Artman, Douglas R. Dechow
$72.80
Publication Date: June 30th, 2022
Publisher:
Assoc of College & Research Libraries
ISBN:
9780838939178
Pages:
130

Description

Library instruction is like acting: There’s a live audience, in person or online; you may be doing a one-shot, limited engagement, or play to the same crowd repeatedly over the course of a term; and you usually expect reviews. Most important, instruction is like acting in that you’re playing a role, and it’s crucial to prepare your performance before you go on in order to shine and connect authentically with students.

Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian: Using Acting Skills to Create a Dynamic Presence —a revised and expanded edition of The Craft of Librarian Instruction—captures how acting techniques can sharpen your instructional skills and establish your teaching identity, enliven your performance, and create an invigorating learning experience for your students. It’s divided into three entertaining sections:

  • Prepare and Rehearse: Centering yourself, physical and vocal preparation, mindfulness, and avoiding stage fright
  • Perform and Connect: Role playing, identity, action/reaction, and information literacy
  • Reflect and Sharpen: Assessment and adaptation  

Chapters feature exercises to explore on your own or with a colleague, question and answer sections to help you identify potential challenges and solutions, and tips on deepening your teaching skills. A glossary of acting terms and a “learn more about it” bibliography provide additional context for the methods and techniques presented. Your Craft as a Teaching Librarian can help you personalize and characterize your teaching presence and help those with little to no teaching experience, instructors dealing with shyness or stage fright, and more experienced librarians in need of a refreshed perspective, adding an undeniable star quality to your instructional performance.

About the Author

Jeff Sundquist is the Dean of the Library, Learning Resources, and Online Education at Monterey Peninsula College. He has an MA and MLIS from UCLA and has been performing in the interconnecting spaces of the theater and libraries for an indeterminable amount of time. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Denmark, where he worked as librarian for theater, dance, and sports at Statsbiblioteket.

Julie Artman, MFA, MLIS, has worked as a theatre director, producer, acting coach, and actor in New York City, Los Angeles, and regionally. Julie is a librarian at Chapman University and teaches mindfulness. Julie is certified by the International Mindfulness Teachers Association and certified as a mindfulness facilitator by UCLA Semel Institute of Neuroscience and Human Behavior.

Douglas R. Dechow is the Digital Humanities and Science librarian at Chapman University. Doug is co-editor of Intertwingled: The Work and Influence of Ted Nelson and co-author of Squeak: A Quick Trip to ObjectLand. For more, visit his website: http://douglasdechow.com/.