Roads to learning: the pedagogic idea and its applications at library and IT at Malmö university

Abstract

The Malmö university library and IT organization is a matrix organization which consists of seven departments (functions). Every function is responsible for a number of teams made up of staff from different functions. One of the teams is responsible for pedagogical development. When we speak of pedagogical tasks at Malmö university library we include teaching information literacy to students and faculty, as well as individual guidance in information seeking and work at the library reference desk. Every librarian at Malmö University has duty at the reference desk and the majority of librarians teach information literacy. The pedagogical team is made up of ten librarians. Within the Library and IT organization we also have a special work group which deals with competence development.

We think of the pedagogical team and the competence development work group as the hub of a roundabout with four different exits: students, faculty, other institutions/libraries and our colleagues within the library and IT organization. The poster would concentrate on the different ways in which the team and competence development group support our colleagues, that is all librarians at Malmö university to improve their teaching and to become better information literacy guides. This includes for example: lectures on information literacy and teaching, “pedagogical cafés” (meetings where it is possible to raise pedagogical questions in an informal environment), writing courses, meetings to discuss guidance in information seeking, journal clubs where we discuss a topical article, and developing an idea paper on information literacy.