After a summer & early fall hiatus, Service-Learning Librarian is back with a guest post from Dr. Julianne Gassman: Director, Office of Community Engagement and Professor, Recreation, Tourism & Nonprofit Leadership at University of Northern Iowa. We hope you appreciate Julianne's take on how to ensure our institutions center the community part of community engagement, with support from service-learning librarians.

This post is co-authored by Beth Hohenfeld, Service Learning Literacy educator, and Lorri Kingan, Library Media Specialist, from Hudson Middle School in Hudson, Ohio. 

Today's guest post is co-authored by Kristen Hoffman and Liz Gruchala-Gilbert. Kristen is the Psychology and Scholarly Communications Librarian, and Liz is the College of Arts and Sciences Librarian.

Thanks to those of you who may be visiting this blog because you attended the session "From research to action: Pairing Information Literacy and Service-learning" at the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) conference last week.   My co-presenters (Dr. Maggie Stevens, Executive Director, Indiana Campus Compact; Jennifer Nutefall, University Librarian at Santa Clara University and Dr.

Last week, hundreds of instruction librarians gathered in Columbus, Ohio for the biggest LOEX conference ever.  I was thrilled that the planning committee included a presentation about service-learning in the program.  Chris Sweet, Information Literacy Librarian at Illinois Wesleyan University, presented a case study of a course with which he was involved at his institution.  He was embedded in an environmental studies senior seminar that employed service-le

It's hard to believe it's our last night in Hannah House, our home for the week.  I'm pretty sure that I can speak for everyone that we learned a TON this week - about social, environmental and economic sustainability and ourselves.

It's week 4 of the quarter, and I'm almost literally swimming in service-learning projects.  In addition to the information literacy course I co-teach, I'm also librarian-partner for two service-learning courses this quarter.  The Honors interdisciplinary course about social and environmental sustainability (UH 202-203) and an English composition course (ENG 102).  I am also preparing a syllabus for a service-learning course I will co-teach next quarter, UVC 103:  Campus-Community Connections in the First Year.

Just this week, I learned that I will have a new opportunity this quarter.  I am embedded librarian in a service-learning interdisciplinary course, UH 202-203:  Environmental and Social Sustainability in Appalachia.  This will include a 6-day service trip to Southeast Ohio, an area hard-hit by coal mining and economic struggles, to work with several community partners over our spring break.  And, yes, I'm going on the trip!  In fact, we may partner with one of the Athens County Public Libraries to complete a service project for them as well.

The  planning for EDT 110: Civic-centered research has begun!  My co-teacher and I are updating the syllabus, and going over our notes from the debrief after last winter's course to make the appropriate changes.

Minnesota Campus Compact is offering a webinar that looks very interesting, Service-Learning in Online Courses: Practical Considerations and Strategies.  I've often wondered about how service-learning would work in an online course. You can find the details here.