Short Session Description: Libraries have the stereotype of being bastions of helping and understanding, yet many of us experience incivility in our daily work lives by both colleagues and patrons. Develop your Empath abilities with this quick-build session to disable foes and challenge fate. Gain Wisdom on the causes of incivility in academic and public libraries and build your Charisma to learn how to combat the effects of an uncivil environment, even if your background is a Hermit. Lastly, obtain the equipment you need to build empathy and forge a quest to protect yourself and mentor others.

Session Format & Style: This hands-on workshop will include a series of empathy-building exercises to be done in small groups.

Takeaways: During this session, participants will learn about the reasons for uncivil behaviors, types of incivility, the effects of incivility, and solutions to incivility, all focused on the specifics of library work. Participants will take part in multiple empathy-building exercises.

Organization: Formed

Contact Information:

Amy Pajewski, Student Success Librarian & Assistant Professor | West Chester University of Pennsylvania | apajewski@wcupa.edu

Sara Parme, Scholarly Communications Librarian & Assistant Professor | Indiana University of Pennsylvania | sara.parme@iup.edu

Title:

“Serfing” our way to innovation: gamifying a culture shift from the ground up.

Short Session Description:

Leadership can only do so much to foster innovation if individual relationships are not strong, so what daily actions can we take to develop a community of trust and build a culture shift from the ground up? In our structured board game, players will practice micro-affirmations, break down silos with the power of collaboration, plumb the depths of the dreary day-to-day for opportunities to level up, and show how every piece on the board has the power to change a library’s destiny.

Session Format & Style: Highly interactive; participants will play a custom-designed board game.

Takeaways: Practical strategies to improve one’s work culture no matter the hierarchy; e.g., finding meaning in the “boring stuff” and helping others to do the same; seeking out opportunities for collaboration and creativity; and seeing people for who they are instead of just their job title.

Organization: Fully formed; completed initial game design brainstorm.

Contact Information:

Allison Jennings-Roche (ajenningsroche@umbc.edu), Reference Specialist at UMBC

Nett Smith (n21@umbc.edu), Digital Media Specialist at UMBC

1- Short Session Description.

Many people are now familiar with the idea of User Experience, but this session focuses on another side of the same die: Employee Experience. Techniques used in User Experience can be used to uncover the needs and desires of employees to improve their work experience.

During this hands-on workshop, players will embark on an adventure in which they must work together to come up with a new design for a library EMPLOYEE space (not a public space). Using experience and skills gained during the workshop (aka UX and Participatory Design activities), players must avoid pitfalls of discord and slay dragons of misunderstanding to capture the Crown of Consensus. Based on an actual (and successful!) adventure undertaken at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, in which a team of 8 players were able to work together to design a teaching classroom that meet everyone’s needs!

(Main title taken from the Adventure Title Generator: https://rasmusrasmussen.com/random-rpg-tools/adventure-title-generator/)

2- Session Style/Format

Workshop

3- Takeaways:

Participants will work through a scenario in small groups of 3-5 in which they must use UX and Participatory Design techniques (provided) to come to consensus on how to improve a space used primarily by library employees (think teaching classrooms, circulation area, staff lounge, etc.). In D&D style, the facilitator will craft the adventure to include successes, failures, and roadblocks to overcome.

In addition, participants will be provided with example outlines they could use to craft and run their own Employee Experience space improvement workshop.

4- Organization.

Fully formed, but if others have similar experience or just want to help facilitate the workshop as assistant Dungeon Masters I’m open!

5- Contact Information

Amanda VerMeulen, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, aavermeulen@smcm.edu

1- Short Session Description: Sometimes we have a job with a detailed job description, established responsibilities, and clear expectations. But sometimes we are the first person to hold a position and must ourselves imagine and define it — in other words, our first responsibility is figuring out what the job actually is. And sometimes we are in an established position but need or want to redefine it, either for our own benefit or for the benefit of our library or patrons. In this session, panelists who have created or recreated their library jobs will discuss their experiences and lead activities in which attendees will consider how to embody a new role or renew their existing one.

2- Session Format & Style: Interactive panel

3- Takeaways: Attendees will gain knowledge of real-world examples of job invention and reinvention, and will leave with ideas and strategies for refreshing existing jobs and/or (re)defining future ones.

4- Organization: I would post a CFP to find co-presenters with a range of self-defined roles from a variety of library types.

5- Contact Information: Jill Cirasella, jcirasella@gc.cuny.edu

1- Short Session Description

After watching other adventurers for years, you feel a small spark ignite within you. You are curious, cautious, and excited to start your own adventure. You stop at the threshold. Where do you start?

This workshop will start you on that journey as we explore how to create a tabletop role-playing campaign for your library. Together we’ll delve into the mechanics of worldbuilding, explore aspects of storytelling, investigate resources to guide your path, and craft components to spice up your setting. By the end of the session we’ll get you started with your own unique campaign!

2- Session Style/Format

Discussion/Brainstorming, Make/Hack/Play

3- Takeaways

Participants will take away the skills to start building their own tabletop RPG campaigns, ideas and examples for programming that will suit their own libraries, and resources to help select and evaluate tabletop RPGs.

There will be hands on activities for this session such as worldbuilding, map making, puzzle crafting, and randomized character creation.

We’ll also be bringing along a selection from our own tabletop RPG collection so that participants can explore different rulesets.

4- Organization

The session will be co-facilitated by Danielle Costello, Robert Taylor, and Jessie Whitten of Valdosta State University.

5- Contact Information

Danielle Costello drcostel@valdosta.edu

Short Session Description: A group of early-career librarians approach a dark cavern. It is off the well-traveled path and exudes a mysterious aura. With only hope as their strategy, they roll for Perception. But wait...do any of them have high Wisdom scores? Do they even know how to play this game? Were they ever taught??

Approaching new projects can be a daunting task for early-career librarians, especially when those projects are not typically reflective of your assigned Class (aka job role such as cataloger, instructor, data services librarian) or preferred area of interest. In this series of lightning talks, these new players will discuss how they tackled responsibilities and initiatives that were outside of their usual realms of expertise. Whether it was leading a software carpentry workshop without a firm grasp of teaching pedagogies or starting a collection evaluation despite having never taken a collection development class, early-career librarians will address how they overcame their initial shortcomings and advanced through their campaign regardless.

Session Format & Style: Series of Lightning Talks

Takeaways: Different attendees can expect different takeaways. For example:

• Early-career librarians...will learn strategies for building skills in short time-frames and will become familiar with resources that helped other new librarians develop expertise in an unfamiliar area.
• Supervisors and mentors...will learn best practices for how to support early-career librarians as they navigate uncharted territory in the beginning stages of their career. 
• Professors and instructors...will see what common gaps in library science education seem to proliferate most among early-career librarians and how those gaps are addressed in the workplace.

In addition, slides from the lightning talks will be shared with attendees either digitally or via a physical handout if the attendee prefers. 

Organization: I would like to collaborate with new librarians that I haven't met before. If selected, I plan to post a Call for Participation so that other early-career librarians from different institutions can join our party. 

Contact Information: Russel Peterson (rtpeterson1@ua.edu) 

1. Short Session Description. (~ 100 words)

Zines are powerful tools for self-expression, interrogating authority, and subverting homogenous media representation in the classroom. Working with faculty, students, and community partners, librarians Jennifer Eltringham and Carlos Duarte have developed programs at their institution as well as with local school districts and public libraries that use zines to foster individual agency, present alternative modes for publishing, and promote novel approaches for academic engagement. This workshop will empower attendees not only to develop zine programs in their own communities, but also to turn their unique personal interests into impactful pedagogical practice more generally. 

2. Session Format & Style. 

In this hands-on workshop, participants will use pen and paper to co-create a guidebook for embarking on their own quest to employ alternative pedagogical tools such as zines.

3. Takeaways

This workshop will encourage participants to create a zine that will help them develop a campaign to find potential collaborators, reach out to community partners, avoid pitfalls, and implement this form of culturally sustaining pedagogy in a variety of ways.

4. Organization

The two main organizers, Jennifer Eltringham and Carlos Duarte, will reach out to faculty and community partners who have collaborated with us in these projects to present multiple perspectives in the session

5. Contact Information

Jennifer Eltringham, Instruction Librarian, University of Colorado Colorado Springs – jeltring@uccs.edu, 719-255-3929

Carlos Duarte, Outreach and Intergeneration Librarian, University of Colorado Colorado Springs – cduarte@uccs.edu, 719-255-3017

1. Short Session Description:   A Bard, a Wizard, and a Paladin walk into a room. What will make them work together? Have you considered locking them in? Taking a unique approach, Snell Library improved employee orientation by using an escape room to foster a sense of community among students. Escape rooms provide the perfect environment for collaboration as students must accomplish a common goal. We designed puzzles teaching students their responsibilities and their role within our organization, encouraging critical thinking skills and independence. At the end of the workshop, participants will create puzzles based on desired learning outcomes and then test out their creations.

2. Session Format: Interactive workshop

3. Takeaways: Participants will have hands-on experience combining learning goals to tangible puzzles and testing them. They will become intimate with the process of combining learning goals with engaging challenges. Participants will leave with handouts and other resources to be able to create their own escape room.

4. Organization: Sole organizer, but if anyone is interested please feel free to reach out!

5. Contact Information: Sarah Towne s.towne@northeastern.edu Snell Library, Northeastern University 617.373.2320

Short Session Description: Libraries, Special Collections, and Archives are in a strong position to be campus leaders in difficult discussions about institutional history. Centre, Furman, Rollins, and W&L are working together to create a shared digital archive related to desegregation at their institutions, creating research opportunities for students, and embedding their work into classrooms. TheY have uncovered untold historical narratives and helped fill in gaps in the Archives. This panel will help others learn how to get administrative support to uncover diversity in archives, save untold stories, provide opportunities to student researchers, and become a campus partner in discussions of institutional history.

Session Format & Style: Interactive Panel

Takeaways:  This panel will help others learn how to get administrative support to uncover diversity in archives, save untold stories, provide opportunities to student researchers, and become a campus partner in discussions of institutional history. Attendees will learn about opportunities that developed out of challenges related to this project and the panel will provide a handout that covers information about multi-institutional collaboration and policy development at each institution.

Organization:  

ACS Pathways to Diversity: Uncovering our Collections grantees

Carrie Frey, Centre College

Beth Morgan, Centre College

Christy Allen, Furman University

Sydney Bufkin, Washington & Lee University

Paula S. Kiser, Washington & Lee University

Contact Information: 

Christy Allen

Assistant Director for Discovery Services

Furman University Libraries

Greenville, SC 29613

864-294-2258

christy.allen@furman.edu

Short Description:

We’ve developed a workshop series that uses the tabletop RPG Weave to help participants develop vital soft skills such as communication, collaboration, and creativity. Workshop participants also explore their own approaches to developing and practicing these skills. In this session, we will call upon our audience to participate in a brief session of gaming and have the rest of our audience play the role of researcher and “code” the session. We will then compare their data with the outcomes we’ve seen from our first few sessions and discuss how others can create similar experiences for their patrons.

Session Style/Format:

Demonstration (with participation) & discussion

Takeaways:

Participants will learn about how tabletop RPGs can be used as a vehicle to discuss and develop 21st century skills. They will also receive our guidelines and materials for running similar workshops.

Organization:

We will be the main presenters, but we will post a CFP to get participants for the demonstration.

Contact Information:

Max Ofsa (maxo@vt.edu)

Sara Sweeney Bear (sweensk@vt.edu)