may09b.indd


Sean Cordes and Brian Clark 

Business process management 
and the “new” library instruction 
Navigating technology and collaboration 

The
changing
river

Library instruction is an evolving service 
ripe with requirements and processes for 
teaching, management, and technology. Like 
many businesses, management of library in­
struction has innovations that have changed 
the way services are planned, developed, 
and implemented.1 With wide­ranging user 
needs, technologies, and time and budget 
constraints, the library instruction program 
can be hard to steer. Like the steamboat 
captain on the 
Mississippi, in­
struction coor­
dinators and li­
brary instructors 
in this new age 
push learning 
forward on a 
tenuous river. 
Even with the 
best instruction 
system, infor­
mation for li­
brary sessions, 
high school visits, reference questions, and 
library events can twist and flow across in­
structors, coordinators, and support persons. 

As the need for literacy and hands­on 
experience grows, the more complicated in­
struction systems become. Over time, online 
content can begin to form a sea of dead Web 
space with outdated pages. Best practices 
for teaching are shored up, only to have the 
banks collapse with the next new learning 
innovation. Where is the lighthouse that can 
guide the instruction program downriver? 

Open source group well can help keep participants connected. 

The answer lies partly in the coordination 
between humans and technology. In spite 
of technology, learning systems are human 
driven, powered by interaction workers 
each with personal roles, responsibilities, 
and resources.2 

Here,
there,
and
everywhere

One thing that can help coordinate growing 
instruction demand is a scheduling system 
that coordinates instruction requests in a 

shared online 
e n v i r o n m e n t .  
Free groupware 
(like Zimbra or 
Google Apps) 
provides shared 
access to calen­
dar information 
at different lev­
els, and shared 
e ­ m a i l  m e s ­
saging is used 
to coordinate 
t i m e s ,  d a t e s ,  

and responsibilities of instruction team 
members and external users. 

A well­planned group collaboration sys­
tem, engaged instructors, and staff can keep 
things on track. But there are still input er­
rors, last minute cancellations, as well as the 
occasional wayward instructor and ghosts 

Sean Cordes is instruction services coordinator, e-mail: 
CS-Cordes@wiu.edu, and Brian Clark is reference/ 
instruction librarian, e-mail: BF-Clark@wiu.edu, at 
Western Illinois University 
© 2009 Sean Cordes and Brian Clark 

272C&RL News May 2009

mailto:BF-Clark@wiu.edu
mailto:CS-Cordes@wiu.edu


in the technical machine. Optimally, these 
challenges will be met with a high degree of 
flexibility and cooperation between the in­
struction team and other parties; and a smile 
never hurts when par­
ticipants come together 
over a challenging issue. 

Good Human Com­
puter Interaction systems 
“enhance and extend the 
way people work, com­
municate, and interact.3 

But in practice technol­
ogy can be a blessing 
and a curse, especially 
in the classroom. What 
instructor hasn’t expe­
rienced the anxiety and 
distraction of having 
the Internet connection 
or a database go down 
moments before class, 
forcing them to throw 
out his or her well­prepared lesson plan and 
just “wing it.” Likewise, how often have you 
been explaining an important point only to 
look across the classroom to see a majority 
of the eyes glued to Facebook, MySpace, or 
instant messaging? Ironically, technology can 
also focus student attention. Many instructors 
use technology to engage students with short, 
amusing videos, animated data displays, and 
even interactive games. 

Perhaps the biggest advantage of technol­
ogy in the classroom is that it supports inter­
action, even in large and distributed groups. 
An ancient Chinese proverb reads, “I hear 
and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and 
I understand.” What better way for students 
to learn than to try the database or other in­
formation tool for themselves and experience 
through trial and error, from anyplace, with 
guidance instantly available. 

To meet user expectation, library instruc­
tion must now happen everywhere. Robust 
tutorial software like LibGuides is one tool 
that helps librarians provide this opportunity. 
The software lets those with little Web design 
experience create tutorials with features that 

The chat widget can help support users by 
drawing on distributed library brain power. 

students expect. LibGuides is easy to learn 
and has Web 2.0 features like chat, video, 
social tagging, and RSS. While the tool was 
designed for library tutorials, the types of 

instruction it can be used 
for are almost limitless, 
including lesson plans, 
distance learning, career 
and job search assistance, 
staff training, and fi nan­
cial aid.4 It also reduces 
burden on library Web 
services; librarians can 
create content and navi­
gation and post pages 
without assistance, and 
guides are kept consis­
tent in general appear­
ance and branding. All 
this peace of mind does 
come with a yearly cost, 
but there are alternatives. 

Other tools such as 
blogs (like WordPress), wikis (like PMWiki), 
and content management systems (such as 
Moodle) offer a range of features and a fairly 
easy method for creating and publishing 
content. But these tools can require more 
technical and design knowledge and may 
require internal Web support. Regardless of 
choice, all these tools can be used to create 
and distribute effective instructional content 
across many Web environments, including 
Blackboard (learning management), Face­
Book (social network), Flickr (photo sharing), 
and Delicious (social tagging). 

Finally, because the library instruction 
program reaches from the classroom to the 
Internet, and even to (not surprisingly) the 
reference desk, perhaps the easiest way to 
stay connected with learners is by providing 
a chat widget, such as the MeeboMe widget, 
on the library reference or liaison page. It’s 
free, embeddable on any HTML page, and 
lets online librarians provide quick support 
to distant users. 

Snapshots
of
the
system

Getting content to users is one thing; deter­

May 2009  273 C&RL News 



mining instruction impact is another matter. 
But this can be troubling when sessions are 
often short, one­shot affairs. One way to get 
feedback about library instruction is to develop 
online assessment forms. This gives library 
instructors feedback to improve teaching. 
It can also provide administrative data for 
the evaluation process so instructors can be 
guided and retained. 

Key aspects of survey assessment are the 
questions designed to capture the informa­
tion, and the tools to gather and review it. 
Evaluating library instruction using ques­
tions from the assessment tool used for stu­
dent evaluations at 
your school can be 
an effective way 
to collect data to 
i m p r o v e  t e a c h ­
ing. It also helps 
legitimize library 
instruction by using 
the same method 
department facul­
ty use for student 
evaluation. 

Effective surveys 
use the right ques­
tions and format to get the information you 
seek. Some resources for creating questions 
include the Student Instructional Report 
Overview (SIR­ll), IDEA, Educational Testing 
Service (ETS), and the Purdue Cafeteria Sys­
tem. There is also a large body of literature 
on survey development. For example, Barbara 
Gross Davis’ Tools for Teaching has a useful 
chapter for developing your own student rat­
ings. Check with your Institutional Planning 
or Faculty Development Office to see what 
survey resources might be available, and any 
policies for doing evaluations. 

There are also many free or low­cost tools 
for gathering data; SurveyMonkey and Zoo­
merang are two popular ones. As with many 
online technologies, things don’t always goes 
as planned. But, you can err with caution. If 
all else fails, paper forms will do the job, al­
though this can require extra effort to compile 
and present the data. 

The online student evaluation can help meet the needs 
of fast-paced library instruction. 

Once data is gathered, it requires organiza­
tion to be useful. Low­cost technology can be 
used to manage data to improve effectiveness 
and efficiency across the program. This can 
be as easy as developing an Excel workbook 
with a sheet for each assessment area. Typi­
cal instruction data includes the number of 
sessions, number of upper­ and lower­level 
courses, session length ratios, and subject 
areas taught. The insight gained can be ap­
plied to help instruction coordinators, instruc­
tors, and administrators manage resources 
more efficiently, identify underrepresented 
audiences, and optimize instruction for criti­

cal areas, such as 
fi rst­year students. 
As data begins to 
grow, more robust 
systems using Ac­
cess or other data­
base tools can help 
ease management 
and provide more 
powerful analysis. 

The
power
of


people


The effective use of 

technology plays an important role in the 
development of modern library instruction 
programs, but this tells only half the story. To 
be truly effective, instruction teams require 
resources, technical knowledge, training and 
coaching, and recognition of their efforts by 
the administration.5 There are a number of 
management strategies that can help guide 
and empower the instruction team including: 

• engagement and ownership 
• compromise and negotiation 
• integration and manipulation 
Regular meetings, shared input in 

decision making, and open channels of 
communication can help instructors feel 
engagement with the program and en­
able a sense of ownership that can lead to 
increased responsibility towards program 
success. Giving instructors the freedom to 
select which classes to teach helps promote 
buy­in. Instructors feel more responsibility 

274C&RL News May 2009



and even perhaps more excitement for a 
class they have chosen to teach versus a 
class they were assigned by the instruction 
coordinator. 

Shared scholarship opportunities can 
also promote group cohesion. There is ob­
vious benefit in showcasing your program 
by sharing the unique tools and systems 
you are using; better yet that presentations 
and authorship reflect unique perspectives 
of the instructors as a group. Invite team 
instructors to coauthor an article (as we 
have done here) or be a copresenter at a 
state or national conference. Collaboration 
gives instructors opportunity to share in 
the success. Shared input can also build 
feelings of efficacy; a team that believes it 
can succeed is more likely to do just that. 

At times, compromises must be made 
between library instructors, coordinators, 
and other stakeholders. This might mean 
satisfying librarian demand for software 
by providing a similar open source tool 
rather than an off­the­shelf product. Like­
wise it might require sacrifices by the IT 
department to implement and support a 
classroom control system in an already 
complex electronic classroom so instructors 
can improve teaching. 

Negotiation between instructors is com­
mon as well. Often, one professor will sign 
up for three or four instruction sessions, 
one for each section they are teaching for 
a single class. Ideally, one librarian should 
teach all four sessions so all the students 
are getting the same lesson, but this rarely 
happens. Scheduling confl icts sometimes 
mean that each session will be taught by 
a different librarian. Instruction librarians 
manage this challenge by coordinating 
course requests to find the subject and time 
fit for each class, and plan lessons together 
so students get similar instruction. 

Codevelopment of activities is an easy 
way to create uniform learning experienc­
es. Have one librarian touch base with the 
course instructor to see what they want out 
of the lesson. Get a copy of the assignment 
and then share the information with the li­

brarians involved in the class. Occasionally, 
one instructor teaching later in the day may 
observe an earlier class to make sure they 
are both teaching similar lessons. If it is a 
particularly difficult or specialized lesson, 
share that information with your colleagues 
verbally, through e­mail, or even leave a 
cheat sheet at the reference desk. That way 
another librarian who wasn’t involved with 
the class won’t be blindsided when one of 
the students comes to the reference desk 
seeking more help. 

Nonetheless, change can be hard to pro­
mote, and at times the library coordinator 
must use other means. This can include 
appeals to the administration for mediation 
regarding technology or personnel issues, 
alerting library instructors to responsibili­
ties outlined in evaluation requirements, or 
the organization’s strategic plan. 

Despite change, the pieces are in place 
to move library instruction forward as a 
model for managing the complex busi­
ness of getting information education to a 
wide variety of learners while meeting the 
demand for high outcomes on a shoestring 
budget. The key to success will be the abil­
ity to leverage the technology, skills, and 
experience that connect us together, and 
the ability to coordinate our all too human 
efforts to meet this goal. 

Notes

1. Rickey W. Griffi n, Management (New 

York, Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton­
Miffl in, 1995). 

2. Keith Harrison­Broninski, Human 
Interactions, The Heart and Soul of Busi­
ness Process Management (Tampa, Florida: 
Kiffer­Meghan, 2005). 

3. Jenny Preece, Yvonne Rogers, and 
Helen Sharp, Interaction design: Beyond 
human­computer interaction (New York, 
NY: J. Wiley & Sons, 2002). 

4. Springshare LLC, 2008, LibGuides Com­
munity, libguides.com/community.php?m=g. 

5. Andrew J. DuBrin, Fundamentals of 
organizational behavior (Mason, Ohio: 
Thomson/South­Western, 2005). 

May 2009  275 C&RL News