10/30/18
Between the
Stacks
By Taylor Howell
Can you briefly describe your role in the
library and what a typical day is like for
you?
My job is the learning and information literacy
librarian. In that role, I coordinate the library
instruction program, market the program to faculty,
schedule classes, and delegate the classes to
other librarians when needed. I plan for the
classes, teach them, and then I assess the
program. I do some other things in the library; I
participate in reference, I make research guides,
etc. There’s really not one typical day: some days
I’m in classes and meetings all day long, other
days I spend the whole day just alone in my office
working on my own projects. So, it varies a lot by
time of year: The first half of fall and spring
semesters I’m doing a ton of teaching, by the mid-
way point I don’t have to do as much teaching and I
can focus on other things.
This week, I interviewed Grace
Kaletski-Maisel. Grace is the Learning
& Information Literacy Librarian at
Stetson University’s DuPont Ball
Library since 2015. Her passion for
helping students and promoting
information literacy was one of the big
inspirations for my decision to study
Library and Information Science.
How do you demonstrate leadership in
your position? What are some qualities
that librarians need to be a leader and
team player?
I’m not in a formal leadership role right now. And by
that, I mean that I don’t have anyone that reports to
me. But I am, I guess, a leader in instruction and
advocating information literacy both in the library
and across campus. I make sure that information
literacy is happening and that there is support for
that. For the second part of your question, I would
say that library leaders need to be user-focused. I
think that the most important thing is to be focused
on the needs of the people who are using the
library. In an academic library, those users would
be our students, faculty, and staff. There needs are
going to be changing all the time, so it’s important
to be willing to adapt to those needs and be
flexible. For people in a supervisory position, it’s
important to cultivate your employees’ creativity,
and encourage them to be innovative instead of
micromanaging them.
How does technology play a role in your
position?
I’m constantly using technology. There have been
a few times when the power went out, and I
couldn’t even use my computer, and I was like,
what do I even do?! I would say most of the time, I
use technology for stuff like keeping up with
databases, keeping up with ways people can
search, staying up to date with tech, being able to
make LibGuides, being able to design research
guides that are appealing and useful, being able to
trouble shoot tech problems. I have to be able to
figure out a solution if technology fails during a
class. It’s huge. Technology is absolutely critical.

Between the
Stacks
What are the toughest challenges in
your work?
I think one big challenge is the perception that
people have of libraries can be frustrating. It can
sometimes be so frustrating to the point where it
hinders my ability to be able to do a good job. So,
for example, I instruct in a lot of different classes,
and because we have such a small campus, I
frequently will have the same student, in several
different classes. And, so, students will come see
me and think, “oh she came to my history class, I
don’t care what she has to say in my biology class”.
And they just kind of tune me out and they don’t
seem open to learning anything new. So, I’m
constantly trying to find new ways to present
information, so that students don’t just write me off
and think that it’ll be the exact same thing that
happened in their other class.
I think another big challenge is working with faculty.
They don’t always give me information that I need
in order to do a good job in instructing their class. I
usually need to know about their class, their
assignments, and what their goals are for the
class. Sometimes I ask for that information and I
don’t get it, but I still have to give the presentation!
So, that’s another big frustration.
Do you have any duties in electronic
resource management? If so, what are
they?
10/30/18
No, I do not have to do any of that, which I am very
thankful for. The most I’ll do is if I find a problem,
like a link isn’t working, or a database isn’t working,
I’ll report it to the folks at work in electronic
resources.
I would think that you need to
have a really good foundation of
knowledge for all the different
databases and keeping up-to-date
with all the changes in that regard,
right?
Yeah, I need to know how to use them, how to
search them efficiently. They’re often going to
change their interface, so I need to keep on top of
that. But I don’t actually deal with the vendors or
anything.
What are your long-term goals?
I would like to see more faculty on the same page
with me as to what information literacy is and why it
is important. I think faculty think that I have just one
presentation that I give to every class and they
don’t realize that I’m doing unique prep for each
class. If I could market the program better so that
they understand the diversity of information
literacy, that would be great. For me personally, I
will hopefully get tenure in a few years, and
severally years down the road I hope to get a
leadership position.
What skills are the most important for
graduates to cultivate just entering a
position like yours?
I would say be comfortable with technology. Take
classes on instruction and information literacy,
maybe take classes on education if you can. Get
any training whether its formal or informal that you
can get that would prepare you to plan and teach
an information literacy session. Learning about
assessment is really important too—being able to
test whether what you are doing is working well or
not.