1. Can Library Staff Use
the Professional
Development
Framework?
L2L Team
AILTA 2018

2. What is L2L?
Library Staff Learning to Support
Learners Learning
National Forum Funded Project
Collaboration of 3 THEA Libraries
: DkIT, DIT and IT Carlow

3. Why Are We Doing It?
Shared beliefs about the complex,
evolving and ‘moral’ nature of our
work as Library Staff who want to
support the learning and growth of
all our learners
Absence of professional
development suited to our
context.

4. A Little More on Context
The Big Issues we deal with are
complicated:
Retention
Learner Experience
Changes in
Pedagogy
Diversity
Expectations
Student Centred
teaching
Impact of New Public
Management
Information Environment
Issues:
Commercialisation
McDonaldization of
Knowledge
IReL & Open Access
Concentration of
Ownership
LMS, Retrieval
Systems for
Learning

5. And in Our Libraries?
Our work in the library has its own unique
context:
Values
Where we are placed in the library
Our roles in Learning, curating Experience,
prompting Inquiry
Our role as Teachers, Academics,
Researchers
Being a Third Space Professional

6. Complex
Complicated
Anticipated and
Unanticipated
Emerging
Unpredictable
Our ever evolving
professional role

7. Aren’t the PD
Frameworks from the
Library World Good
Enough?

8. What the PDF covers
Self
Seeing our work through
the lens of ‘teaching’
Seeing our work as
Scholars & Researchers
Lifelong/Evolving/Formal/
In-Formal Learning
Reflection & Reflection on
Action
Impact on Learners
Including
‘imperfections’
Acknowledging the
Complicated Nature
of Humans & of Our
Work

9. Competencies?
‘the ability to do something
successfully or efficiently.’
Will competency based approaches
prompt responses to our context?
Qualities & Craft
‘Craftsmanship names an enduring,
basic human impulse, the desire to
do a job well for its own sake’
Sennett

10. Tools for studying self
Who I am? What I do? Why I do it?
Values
Life Journey and Autobiography
How I learn?
Philosophy
Library Philosophy
Teaching Philosophy
Light/Shadow

11. Identity Crisis
Teachers?
Imposter Syndrome?
Inquiry into identity
Impact on Students
‘Swampy Lowlands’ practice
Evidence
Diversity

12. Research
Action Research
– I am a researcher
– What I do is worthy of inquiry
– I can Inquire into my practice
Mc Niff states that “Action research is a
term which refers to a practical way of
looking at your own work to check that it
is as you would like it to be. Because
action research is done by you, the
practitioner, it is often referred to as
practitioner based research; and because
it involves you thinking about and
reflecting on your work, it can also be
called a form of self-reflective practice.”

13. Reflection
Reflection as in revisiting our
experience, actively inquiring,
persistent exploration and
wondering
Schon ‘professional artistry’
A Way of being

14. Benefits of Library Staff
using the PDF?
• Leadership
• Values Based Action
• Self Efficacy
• Student Learning

15. What’s Emerging ?
My professional identity has also changed.
Previous to the project I was reluctant to identify
as a teacher. I referred to myself as a librarian who
engaged in teaching but who wasn’t a teacher. I
feel this was due to my own personal idea of
what a teacher was and feeling like an imposter.
I now value my existing accredited PD (Professional
development), my self-directed learning and
experience. I now identify as a teacher within
the wider role as a librarian
L2L Participant, personal communication, 14th
June

16. What’s Emerging ?
In collaboration and conversation engendered by L2L I
have found that my experience is a shared one. That
Libraries are constructed in the cultures of our
organizations in limiting ways and that those limits are
in fact power relations. These may be unconscious,
they may be historic but they are definitely present in
the naming of ‘non’ academics, functional areas etc.
Through L2L and the PDF and inquiries into identity,
reflection and action research process I now know that
I am not alone. I also have a sense of what could change if I
change and I will actively pursue this over the remainder of
my time
(L2L Participant, personal communication, 14th June)

17. What’s Emerging ?
It changed through formal reflection. In the past,
I may have reflected but it was informal and
undocumented. By actually noting my reflections
in my learning log I began to see a pattern in the
type of informal PD I was undertaking. Looking at my
learning styles through the Honey and Mumford Learning
Styles Questionnaire also allowed me to formally
address the areas I needed to focus more on e.g.
theory and pedagogy and reflection.
(L2L Participant, personal communication, 14th June)

18. What’s Emerging ?
I have gained confidence in my teaching
and when collaborating and liaising with
academic staff.
(L2L Participant, personal communication,
14th June)

19. Who and Where Are We?
Exist in Living Systems
Actors in those systems
PDF can make us aware of our contexts in
new ways
PDF can help us to inquiry, inquire by
acting and learning
Living Systems evolve

20. YES! We can.

21. Thank You