Are you a teaching librarian? How Two ‘imposters’ Grew A Library Help Centre - Keith Brittle & Cory Newbigging

Are you a teaching
librarian?
HOW TWO ‘IMPOSTERS’ GREW A
LIBRARY HELP CENTRE
Keith Brittle & Cory Newbigging
National College of Ireland
LILAC 2022
13th April 2022
@2022 NCI Library Help Centre

An Imposter’s Background
OR

An Imposter’s Background

National College of Ireland
• An independent not-for-profit institution with
charitable status
• Currently 5233 students, 371 staff
(of which 233 are academic)
• School of Business, School of
Computing
• Areas: Business, Human Resource
Management, Accounting, Finance,
Computing, Data Analytics & associated fields

Teaching Responsibilities
• “librarian as teacher” (Walter, 2008)
• “identities and roles being re-made” (Austin and Bhandol, 2013)
• “teaching and learning mission” (Ariew, 2014)
• “librarians are under greater scrutiny for their
teaching skills” (Wheeler and McKinney, 2015)

Imposter Syndrome
• Feeling like a fraud
• Lacking legitimacy in your role
• Undervaluing your achievements and accomplishments
(Lundstrom, Fagerheim and Van Geem, 2021; Barr-Walker et al., 2019; Martinez and Forrey, 2019; Hutchins and Rainbolt, 2017;
Lacey and Parlette-Stewart, 2017).
“an individual’s feeling that they will be exposed as a
fraud, regardless of how qualified or knowledgeable
they actually are”
(Martinez and Forrey, 2019, p.1)

Do you feel a degree of imposter
syndrome in your current role?
www.menti.com
8401 3933

Imposter Syndrome
• Expertise not in relation to the content knowledge of
particular class or module (Lundstrom et al., 2021)
• Not feeling knowledgeable or experienced enough with
the subject at hand (Clark, Vardeman and Barba, 2014)
• Imposter phenomenon/syndrome can be detrimental for
both you as an individual and the organization you work
for (Clark et al., 2014)

Roots of Teaching Anxiety
(Lundstrom et al., 2021)
• Lack of experience
• Lack of confidence
• Fear of failure
• Fear of the unknown
• No background in teaching
• Budgetary and time constraints
• Never intended to teach

Teacher Identity Doubts
• Reliance on just on-the-job training (Raju, 2017)
• Conflicted feelings (Azadbakht, 2021)
• Librarians can be “less willing to acknowledge that they
are teachers, or that they teach, even if it is obvious that
that is what they are doing” (Wheeler and McKinney, 2015, p. 123)
• “Many academic librarians do not see themselves as
teachers” – influenced by a “definitional box…around the
word teacher” & “pre-conceived ideas of a teacher”
(Hays and Studebaker, 2019, p.1)

What Makes a Teacher?
www.menti.com
8401 3933

What Makes a Teacher?
To what degree do you think of yourself as a
teacher when you consider your place on campus
or in your institution?
Lacking a “consistent teacher identity” can hinder how
you meet and expand your instructional responsibilities
as both lecturer and student needs change and evolve
within your place of work (Walter, 2008)

Strategies to Alleviate Issues with
Teacher Identity & Imposter Syndrome
• Risk-taking
• Marketing
• Faculty Collaboration
• User-Centred Support
• “Brave Before Perfect” Approach
• Recognising Your Successes

Origins: User-Centred & Student-Led
• Increase in postgraduate students in NCI from 2008
• Special Project Officer role developed in 2011
• Role became the Information Project Officer in 2012
• Imposter beginnings
• 1 year contract (4-day week)

Origins:
User-Centred &
Student-Led
• Service in response to
increase in international
students in NCI
• Limited resources
• Committed and dedicated
approach
• If a student or lecturer asked
for help, we did our very best
to say ‘yes’

Origins & Teacher Anxiety
• Dedicated marketing campaign of bespoke mail outs
to faculty and associate faculty detailing the
resources, classes and supports available
• First class anxieties
• “lack of experience…lack of confidence…fear of
failure…little to no educational background in
teaching” (Lundstrom et al., 2021)
• Getting established as a point contact
• On-the-job learning

Teaching Anxiety in the Cloud
• Research in Computing – MSc Cloud Computing
• “an undertaking too far”?
• Novice presenter
• Novice grader
• Mixing with my ‘peers’
• Surprise! Failures and re-sits…

Origins & Teacher Identity
• Four more semesters in the Cloud (ended in 2014)
• Learning to be a ‘teacher’
• Establishing visibility in NCI
• Transitioned to guest lecture status, but teacher identity enhanced
• In a study by Hays and Studebaker (2019), a librarian said she
was not a teacher as she was “not with the students for a full
semester” – those who taught credit-bearing courses “were more
likely to see themselves as a teacher”
• Baptism of fire = bolstered teacher identity

Origins & Teacher Identity
• Lack of experience of more conventional teaching activities
that are involved in teaching a module
• Only at the beginning of a teaching role
• “…newer librarians reported higher IP scores than their
more experienced colleagues … experienced librarians
are usually more familiar with their positions and are likely
to feel more secure in their workplace” (Clark et al., 2014, p. 265).
• Increased experience > teaching anxiety/imposter feelings
< establish role & gain confidence = “teacher identity”

“Brave before
Perfect” • “We can’t always play it safe…as future-
ready teacher librarians, it really is our
mission to be brave for students, teachers,
and programs…risk-taking and collaboration
take on many different forms, all of which can
make teacher librarians powerful partners in
student learning” (Chun, 2018)
• “Try new things”(Chun, 2018; Kirkland, 2018)
• “Identify opportunities to engage in new,
different, or challenging hands-on practices”
(Nichols Hess, 2020)

“Brave before
Perfect”
• Library Help Centre Assistant role established
in 2019
• Kirkland (2018, p. 19) states “an inherent
drive to learn and willing next to try new
things” including things outside of your
comfort zone can help overcome obstacles to
help achieve
• Heightened imposter feelings in the interview
process

“Try to say yes”
• “Try to say yes (to everything). Learning new tools and
skills, experiencing new ideas and theories, developing
new collaborations all come from saying yes. You never
know where it could lead you” (Hare, 2016, p. 272)
• Flexibility & commitment
• Learn by doing – “No one really knows whether you’re
faking [confidence] or not, except you” (Hare, 2016, p. 271)

• “I asked as many questions as I could, observed everything
that was going on around me, followed what other libraries
were doing…made mistakes then attempted to understand
where I went wrong, took risks…I did anything I could do to
try and compensate for what I perceived as a lack of
preparedness.” (Hare, 2016, p. 271-272)

• “In doing so, it became clear that Imposter Syndrome is just
another way of defining a motivated employee who is
struggling with confidence, one who is also trying to learn
and improve everything they can as fast as they can.
Imposter Syndrome sufferers are self-aware”
(Hare, 2016, p. 271-272)
• Imposter Syndrome = Starting Point?

Faculty Collaboration
• Marketing to School of Business & School of Computing
• Faculty contact and collaboration can help forge a teacher
identity and reduce feelings of ‘imposter syndrome’
• “[Y]ou have to put in the time with faculty for them to see you as
a teacher too” (Azadbakht, 2021, p. 66)
• “Being visible to the community of faculty, staff, and students
[you] serve is critical” (Johnson, 2018, p. 99)
• “You can’t do this alone! Building relationships extends your
influence and builds trust” (Kirkland, 2018, p. 20)

• The role of collaboration can “prepare instruction librarians
to teach students by helping librarians become more aware
of the students’ research needs” (Mounce, 2010, p. 300)
• Failure to engage with faculty can heighten our feelings of
imposter syndrome
• “Being an outsider or…feeling on the outside, negatively
impacts librarians’ teacher identity” (Hays and Studebaker, 2019, p. 4)

• Embedded online resources sessions School of Business –
September 2014
• Personalised email marketing campaign each semester
• The “greater marketing of library services and resources to
academic departments, and their faculty and students”
forges “a stronger partnership with faculty” leading to a
“greater involvement in teaching students and supporting
faculty research” (Trott and Silver, 2014, p. 9)
• Faculty collaboration can lead to more “meaningful
instructional identity development” for teacher librarians
(Nichols Hess, 2020, p. 66)

Staying User-Centred to Best Meet
Students’ Needs
• Be as relevant as possible to students’ needs and
understandable
• “The library should always be about what students need, not
what is best for the adults working in the space” (Chun, 2018, p. 36)
• “Engagement…requires a user-centered, outward
focus…building strong relationships with faculty and
students…understanding their needs and practices and
establishing collaborative partnerships that serve to
empower student learners” (Trott and Silver, 2014, p. 9)

Students’ Needs
• Our classes always revolve around or connect to an assignment
– know the module, know the course, know the assignment
• “Librarians need access to programme documents and
knowledge on students’ level of learning and on course
work…know the curriculum… in order to deliver best
professional practice. Co-teaching helps… librarians in
developing their pedagogical skills and makes the focus and
relevance of IL clearer for the students” (Bønløkke, Kobow and Kristensen, 2015, p. 12)
• Creation of bespoke class material
• Full VLE access required

Students’ Needs
I_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
L _ _ _ _ _ _ _?
Dewey Decimal descriptor
=
Module title
Technical Writing
=
Finding Information, Academic
Writing and Referencing
Not using terms or wording that serve as barriers
• The language used to teach research can have a real impact on
student engagement and learning (Holliday and Rogers, 2013)
• Butler and Byrd (2016, p. 85) ask “what kind of meaningful
learning outcomes can occur if the students do not understand
the language the librarian uses to teach?”

• “The literature on library jargon and student learning is
consistent. Authors either recommend minimizing the use of
library jargon and some advocate avoiding it completely”
(Polger, 2011, p. 3)
• “It is imperative to be aware of the language we use with our
users” (Polger, 2011, p. 14)
• “A number of researchers have identified issues with
language use and misunderstanding when examining
college students’ information-seeking behavior”
(Schaub et al., 2017, p. 284)
Students’ Needs

Evolution of Service
Rebranded as the
Library Help
Centre in 2016
Relocation into the
middle of the
library in 2017
Email address,
logo & signage
and 2nd full-time
staff member
began in 2019
3rd member of
staff (part-time)
began in 2021

Student Appointments
• Fundamental part of the service
• Location also ideal for drop-ins
• Online feedback & advice via email
• Can contribute with our “knowledge of research sources and
strategies tailored with a personal touch” and the value of
offering “personalized, in depth research consultations”
(Butler and Byrd, 2016, p. 83)
• Easy to undervalue and underestimate these contributions
• These are “teaching moments” (Butler and Byrd, 2016)

Student Classes & Orientation
• Marketing of service
• Invited back the next year
• Average of 60-80 hours of classes per year
• Flexibility & commitment – evenings, weekends, short notice
• Continual updating of presentation material and guides, e.g.
assignment planning guidelines document
• Library orientation/re-orientation – 60-70 sessions a year
• Sows the seeds of seeing and perceiving librarians as teachers

User-Centred Resources
• Updates of academic support guides
• Familiarity with course content
• Regular contact with faculty
• Subject guides
• NCI Referencing Guide
• Dedicated Library Help Centre page

Recognising Our
Successes
• Ongoing growth of the Library
Help Centre seen in student
appointment numbers
• Began keeping an accurate
record in 2014 (89 appts)
• Year on year the demand has
continued to grow (over 600
appts in 2021)

Recognising Our
Successes
• Keeping a record of student feedback
from appointments and classes
• “It is important to recognize our
successes and return to them when
we lose confidence. Using a success
log, tracking compliments, and
recognizing achievements are
important in tackling feelings of IS”
(Parlette-Stewart, 2017, p. 7)
Thanks so much, it was a fantastic session and really
helpful for the students. - Lecturer (CIPD HRM)
We’ve had lots of positive feedback from Tuesday’s
session…thank you again for your help.
- Lecturer (HDip in Financial Services Analytics)
Thanks a million for sending these resources on and
thanks also for the session last night - it was extremely
informative and helpful! Much appreciated! - Lecturer (MBA)
I do appreciate for your kindly collaboration by giving a
talk in RiC this morning. It was a great job.
- Lecturer (MSc Cloud Computing)
Thank you so much for the talk and the customized
material you prepared for the class.
- Lecturer (MSc Cybersecurity)
Thank you very much for your extremely informative
lecture/presentation this evening.
- Student (PGDip in HRM)
Keith helped prepare every class member for research
with their chosen topic. Because it was personal to my
topic it has really helped me to understand how to
conduct my research for my dissertation.
- Student (MSc Marketing)

• Constant effort to meet student demands on limited
resources
• Library Help Centre firmly established as a stand-alone unit
with its own brand and identity
• Fundamental and embedded academic support in both
schools
• NCI President’s Award for Contribution to Student
Experience in 2019
• Best Library Team at the Irish Education Awards in 2020
Celebrating Our Successes

Alleviating Issues with Teacher
Identity & Imposter Syndrome
• Risk-taking
• Marketing
• Faculty Collaboration
• User-Centred Support
• “Brave Before Perfect” Approach
• Recognising Your Successes

What is Our Teacher Identity?
• “Teaching personas do have an impact on student learning”
- how teacher librarians see themselves “impacts the
choices they make during instruction as well as their
students’ perceptions of them” (Azadbakht, 2021, p. 60)
• “Teaching librarians have distinct teaching experiences that
place them in unique situations. One-shot sessions, in
particular, require an adeptness and confidence from library
instructors. Often, librarians are asked to cover multitudes
of research-related learning outcomes with students they
see once (or just a few times)” (Lundstrom et al., 2021, p. 389)

• “Friendly experts” who develop our “values-based teaching
personas slowly over the course of our careers” with a “desire to
build rapport with students while appearing competent”. “Good
teachers bring a strong sense of personal identity to their work,
which entails some vulnerability”(Azadbakht, 2021, p. 57-59)
• Hays and Studebaker (2019, p. 5) talk about “fostering a vision
wherein academic librarians recognize each other as members
of the teaching and learning community…for the broader
teaching and learning community to also view librarians as
participants in the community, academic librarians need to fully
embrace the role themselves…. In other words, the academic
librarian community must first define themselves as teachers”;
we need to be “open-minded to assuming a teacher identity”

• Polger and Okamoto (2010, p. 1; p. 8) state that you don’t need “need a
teaching degree to be a teacher” – “anyone can be a teacher”. “Is
teaching only restricted to subjects?” There are “many research
methods courses where the teacher is not teaching a particular subject,
but teaching “method”
• “Libraries and librarians serve multiple groups of users who have
varying goals and needs. Students may need individual guidance as
they work to identify relevant information resources; discipline-specific
faculty may arrange with a librarian to teach a library instruction session
early in the semester so the students can become more self-reliant
information consumers who can construct new understandings of
course-related issues or problems. Librarians may develop online
tutorials to show students how to navigate the intricacies of the library
website. In providing such services, librarians are teaching”
(Otto, 2014, pp. 77-78)

Thank you!
Keith Brittle
Library Help Centre Manager
Cory Newbigging
Library Help Centre Assistant
Keith.Brittle@ncirl.ie
Cory.Newbigging@ncirl.ie
https://libguides.ncirl.ie/libraryhelpcentre

References
Ariew, S. A. (2014) ‘How we got here: A historical look at the academic teaching library and the role of the teaching librarian’, Communications in Information Literacy, 8(2), pp. 208-224.
doi: 10.15760/comminfolit.2014.8.2.167.
Austin, T. and Bhandol, J. (2013) ‘The academic librarian: Buying into, playing out, and resisting the teacher role in higher education’, New Review of Academic Librarianship, 19(1), pp.
15-35. doi: 10.1080/13614533.2012.740438.
Azadbakht, E. S. (2021) ‘The many faces of instruction: An exploration of academic librarians’ teaching personas’, Communications in Information Literacy, 15(1), pp. 57-74. doi:
10.15760/comminfolit.2021.15.1.3.
Barr-Walker, J., Bass, M. B., Werner, D. A. and Kellermeyer, L. (2019) ‘Measuring imposter phenomenon among health sciences librarians’, Journal of the Medical Library Association,
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10.15845/noril.v7i1.224.
Butler, K. and Byrd, J. (2016) ‘Research consultation assessment: Perceptions of students and librarians’, The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 42(1), pp. 83-86. doi:
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Hutchins, H. M. and Rainbolt, H. (2017) ‘What triggers imposter phenomenon among academic faculty? A critical incident study exploring antecedents, coping, and development
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Are you a teaching librarian? How Two ‘imposters’ Grew A Library Help Centre - Keith Brittle & Cory Newbigging