Schedule & Registration
Spring 2026
Our spring schedule is still in development, but we are excited to announce that we are kicking off the year with a session led by Sean Burns!
January 30 – Choosing Which Shortcuts When Learning - POSTPONED to March 6
Even though educators are concerned about the impact that AI has on learning, I'll suggest that learning depends on processes that we have long outsourced to a variety of automating technologies. This suggests that our sense of which practices are "essential" to learning is a cultural choice rather than a fixed truth. Together, we'll discuss how these choices shape student behavior, especially around shortcuts and automation, and what this may mean for designing more intentional learning environments.
Moderator: Sean Burns (University of Kentucky)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
February 13 - Small Teaching: Cataloging Edition
Drawing on James Lang’s Small Teaching and Small Teaching Online (with Flower Darby), this session explores how small, intentional changes to course design and teaching practices can have a meaningful impact on student learning. In Small Teaching: Cataloging Edition, Karen Snow, Professor in the School of Information Studies at Dominican University, introduces selected small teaching strategies through the lens of cataloging and metadata instruction. Participants will explore practical, low-stakes approaches that support student engagement, reflection, and skill development—without requiring a complete course redesign. By the end of the session, attendees will leave with a set of adaptable ideas to add to their teaching toolbox, applicable to in-person, fully online, and hybrid learning environments.
Moderator: Karen Snow (Dominican University)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
February 27 - Event, Experience, and Myth: Integrating Fictional Narrative and Historical Rigor into LIS Education
“I now see the reconstructive work of the historian as in constant tension with two other ways of ‘knowing’ the past – experience and myth – that, in terms of their bearing on ordinary human lives, are far more pervasive and influential.”
- P.A. Cohen, 1997, xi
Introducing three analytical lenses to understand complex historical phenomena – as event (i.e., historical reconstruction), experience (i.e., lived realities), and myth (i.e., symbolic representations) – historian Paul Cohen’s nuanced methodology emphasizes factors that contribute to shaping collective memory, user engagement, and interpretive frameworks, all of which are relevant to Library and Information Studies (LIS). Similarly, but in different ways, narrative fiction deviates from reality to various degrees, making the stories we tell informative analytical tools to examine the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which they are told and written. In teaching LIS history, incorporating common components of fictional narratives, combined with the historical rigor of Cohen’s methodology, offer valuable insights into critically exploring historical and archival records; pervasive social and cultural issues; and how the past informs the present and future.
Cohen, P.A. (1997). History in three keys: The boxers as event, experience, and myth. Columbia University Press.
Moderator: Eric Ely-Ledesma (University of Central Missouri)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
March 6 – Choosing Which Shortcuts When Learning
Even though educators are concerned about the impact that AI has on learning, I'll suggest that learning depends on processes that we have long outsourced to a variety of automating technologies. This suggests that our sense of which practices are "essential" to learning is a cultural choice rather than a fixed truth. Together, we'll discuss how these choices shape student behavior, especially around shortcuts and automation, and what this may mean for designing more intentional learning environments.
Moderator: Sean Burns (University of Kentucky)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
March 13 - Mapping the University: Institutional Context as Information Literacy
Precarity has long been a characteristic of library work, with recent shifts in our sociopolitical landscape intensifying existing pressures on libraries and higher education. The call to demonstrate value has often informed our approach to teaching, assessment, and technology adoption in the face of this insecurity but fails to provide a meaningful framework for confronting the forces shaping our professional and information environments. In this discussion, we'll explore how bringing a more critical lens to understanding institutional context in higher education can enrich connection with students, inform information literacy instruction, and build a sense of agency among practitioners and students alike.
Moderator: Kaiya Schroeder Dayh
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
March 27 - Experiential Learning in Archival Education
This session explores project-based learning models for preparing students to work with archives. In particular, it opens up the discussion on how internships and asynchronous archiving experiences can enhance student learning outcomes and provide meaningful field experience.
Moderator: Vanessa Reyes (East Carolina University)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
April 10 - Feminist Citation Practices
This session explores a critical approach to citation practices grounded in intersectional feminist theory and pedagogy. Discussions will include how citations act as a form of power, how academic knowledge construction is inherently patriarchal, and how feminist citation practices can uplift marginalized voices.
Moderator: Laura Sheets and Rebecca Stanwick, PhD. (Bowling Green State University)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
April 24 - Play as Practice: Playful Pedagogy in Library Education
Playfulness is conventionally associated with childhood, but what does it mean when it becomes a deliberate pedagogy in graduate education? In this discussion, we will consider ways that playfulness might be deliberately incorporated into a LIS degree program as a means of engendering deeper learning, creativity, and authentic community among students. Through reflective practice, low-stakes experimentation, and playful pedagogical strategies, we will consider the ways that play supports risk-taking, critical thinking, and professional identity development in future library workers. This discussion will focus on how embracing play can create psychologically safe learning environments, break down conventional academic norms, and better prepare our students for responsive, human-centered work in libraries and beyond.
Moderator: Zach Stier (Ericson Public Library / University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific
May 8 - Supporting Data Literacy Across Disciplines
This session explores strategies for teaching data literacy across disciplines, from humanities to STEM. We discuss consultations, workshops, and embedded instruction that bridge disciplinary divides in academic library settings.
Moderators: Charlotte Kiger Price and Emma Slayton (Carnegie Mellon University)
2:00 p.m. Eastern / 1:00 p.m. Central / 12:00 p.m. Mountain / 11:00 a.m. Pacific