2025 Program
2025 Program
Embedded Files
Virtual Presentations
Virtual Presentations
Recordings and slides for each session are linked below.
Kenote: A Librarian's Role in Artificial Intelligence
Brooke Gross, Western Kentucky University
This session will discuss challenges and opportunities related to the impact of artificial intelligence on librarianship as a profession. With ACRL's AI Competencies for Library Workers document undergoing revisions, it is important for librarians to understand how artificial intelligence is changing the information landscape as well as what their responsibilities are in response to its evolution. As with any emerging technology, there is considerable contention among professionals regarding how best to approach AI initiatives. Brooke Gross, a member of several artificial intelligence groups both locally and nationally, will identify the greatest risks that artificial intelligence poses to long-term information literacy and provide suggestions for how librarians can address these at their institutions. Attendees will learn what AI adoption looks like across major industries, how public perception of these tools has shifted over time, and why libraries must be prepared to set aside their personal feelings on the matter in order to effectively meet the information needs of their communities.
Just the FAQs, Ma'am: Using a Non-AI Chatbot to Support Students
Carrie Byrd, University of the Cumberlands
What happens when you implement a chat bot? This presentation will discuss the implementation of the LibChat chat bot from Springshare, and how it has affected chat usage at University of the Cumberlands.
Access and Opportunity: The Role of Community College Librarians in the Prison Education Program
Laritza Gomez Flores, Bluegrass Community and Technical College
This presentation will provide a brief explanation of what the semester of Prison Education Program was like, how the summer session was different, and considerations for restrictions on access.
Mentorship as Instruction: Guiding Student Workers to Library Careers
Amanda Peach, Berea College
This presentation will share insights from interviews with former student workers who have gone on to careers in librarianship. Many reflected that, while their library jobs were formative, they weren’t exposed to the full scope of librarianship or guided on how to enter the profession. What if part of our instruction efforts included mentoring student workers, intentionally demystifying library departments, career pathways, and the graduate school process? This presentation argues that such mentorship is a powerful and often overlooked form of library instruction. Attendees will hear student perspectives and leave with ideas for low-barrier ways to introduce career awareness into student worker training and engagement.
Using O*NET to Communicate How Information Literacy Instruction Improves Employability
Esther French, Southcentral Kentucky Community & Technical College
Recording | Slides
As instruction librarians, we may have difficulty communicating information literacy’s connection to skills that transfer from college to the workplace when the language we use does not match that of our students, faculty members, or administrators. In this lightning talk, participants will practice matching the descriptions of skills from O*NET OnLine to corresponding the ACRL Framework. These pitch paragraphs can then be used for marketing, instruction, and Kentucky Graduate Profile conversations to make the IL connection more transparent. Participants will also create prompts to use with AI tools that can speed up the process.
15-minute presentations:
“Is This Instruction?” Redefining Research Support Through STEM Outreach
Kristina Bloch, University of Louisville
What counts as instruction? In this lightning talk, I’ll share lessons learned from my experience collaborating with ENGRain, a STEM outreach initiative at the University of Louisville’s engineering school. Designed as an informal, community-building program (that also fulfills part of their scholarship requirement), ENGRain offered opportunities for students to engage in research-centered challenges, creative problem-solving, and interdisciplinary conversations outside of traditional classrooms.
Like most outreach experiences, there were both highs and lows, and ultimately, the non-traditional outreach provided an opportunity to connect with students and explore future collaborative opportunities. Through the lens of “thriving, surviving, and everything in between,” this talk will reflect on how relationship-building, experimentation, and informal settings can expand our understanding of instructional work. Attendees will leave with ideas for low-stakes, high-impact outreach models and a renewed sense of flexibility in how instruction can happen across campus.
Lessons Learned from Teaching Diverse Audiences
Amie Baltes, University of Louisville
Drawing on more than a decade of experience delivering one-shot instruction sessions in academic and healthcare environments, this session will present practical strategies for engaging adult learners during library instruction. The presenter will share adaptable approaches that have been successful across diverse settings. In addition to exploring methods for effective audience interaction, the session will address how to pivot when sessions don’t go quite as planned. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies to build confidence and enhance their presence during library instruction, as well as a list of helpful resources to support continued learning and application.
TikTok, ChatGPT, and The Wellbeing of Our Community: An Exploratory Study
Martina Junod, University of Louisville
This presentation will discuss plans for an exploratory study. The study aims to gauge the current climate regarding online users' discussion of using ChatGPT as a spiritual advisor, spiritual guide, or other similar concept. The investigator will use two social media platforms TikTok and Reddit to collect publicly available posts and then thematically analyze the posts using qualitative analysis software like Delve. The investigator will use a platform (potentially Elixbrand) for keyword tracking insights. After data analysis, the investigator will create a visualization to show the numbers of frequently used words and phrases, popular hashtags, and number of posts from which the data was collected. This exploratory study aims to bring awareness to the potential harm that this trending technology may cause if students or other community members are using it with little to no socialization or support systems in their real-world environments such as in college, at home, or at the library.
Put the Student Before the Assignment
Rachel Riffe-Albright, Eastern Kentucky University
Students see research papers as hurdles between them and graduation. Faculty see publications as hurdles between them and tenure. At its core, research is how we explore our world and writing is one way we share our experiences with others. This lesson plan seeks to facilitate reaching inwardly for a research topic students can grow from.
In-person Workshops
In-person Workshops
Slides and materials for each session are linked below.
Kenote: Adaptive Librarianship: Navigating Change with Purpose
Adaptive Librarianship: Navigating Change with Purpose
Adaptability has become an essential competency for librarianship. Instruction librarians operate in a rapidly changing environment, tailoring instruction sessions to address technological advancements, individual curricula and learning needs, shifting expectations, and evolving institutional priorities. This presentation explores the application of adaptive leadership principles to the practices of librarianship and instruction, offering a framework for navigating complex change and uncertainty. The session highlights strategies for adapting to challenges, mobilizing library partners, and fostering a culture of learning and resilience within library organizations. By embracing adaptive leadership, librarians can move beyond reactive problem-solving to lead meaningful innovation and transformation. The presentation will include real-world examples and practical strategies to support adaptive thinking in everyday library practice, aiming to provide library professionals with tools to succeed in dynamic environments.
(Re)Building a Thriving Community of Teaching Practice
Hailey Fargo & Andrea Brooks, Northern Kentucky University
Handouts:
With the current realities and pressures in higher education, it can be hard to find the time to come together as a department to learn. The day-to-day work can sometimes crowd out the equally important team building time that creates a thriving and cohesive unit. This workshop will share how a teaching and learning department is thriving through shared learning practices. Over the last four years, this department has had colleagues leave the organization and retire. Then, in spring 2024, the department had the chance to hire two new librarians, who joined in the summer. These new colleagues provided the department a chance to more formally establish and solidify our learning practices as we prepared to onboard. The department now has a series of activities to support learning, through our Journal Clubs, accountability time, lunch and learns, watching shared webinars, appreciative teaching, and a recent Community of Practice around teaching and learning. We feel this intentional learning plan, paired with a strong vision for on-boarding, can help create a department that is doing more than just surviving. Participants will learn more about our journey towards these shared learning practices and lessons learned. Participants will also get a chance to discuss these ideas with one another, share practices they have in their own units, and begin to map out ideas for the future.
AI Workshops
Karoline Manny
Kayla Davidson, Trenia Napier & Clay Howard, Eastern Kentucky University
Part 1 Handouts:
Part 2 Slides | Workshop Lesson Plans
Let's be real: Generative AI is reshaping how we find and use information, presenting a critical challenge for instruction librarians. How do we seamlessly weave these powerful tools into our teaching without losing sight of foundational, transferable information literacy skills? Students will use GenAI, in coursework and careers, regardless of our personal comfort. Knowing this, our goal must go beyond merely introducing these tools; we must empower students to become savvy information consumers and creators in an AI-driven world.
As librarians at uniquely different institutions, we acknowledge our varying comfort levels and experiences with GenAI—librarian-to-librarian, tool-to-tool, and day-to-day! To address this and avoid repositioning ourselves as GenAI experts at our respective institutions, we are focusing on designing lesson plans and activities that thoughtfully integrate GenAI while prioritizing fundamental information literacy and research skills. Through such approaches, we aim to help students understand GenAI shouldn't replace critical engagement with information. Instead, when used smartly and ethically, it can sharpen their abilities in areas like information evaluation, ethics, and research strategies.
In this two-part workshop, participants will collaborate to identify what they already know about how GenAI impacts libraries, explore a variety of generative AI tools, and design a library instruction lesson or activity that incorporates GenAI. At the end of Part II, we hope to have a crowd-sourced repository of practical lesson plans, ready for thoughtful and effective integration on your home campuses. Each session is highly interactive, and participants are encouraged to bring a laptop for hands-on activities:
Part I: From Surviving to Thriving: Practical AI Strategies for Academic Libraries (1:45-2:45pm): Part I will introduce GenAI tools including ChatGPT, Perplexity, SciSpace, and AI features in KYVL databases and guide participants through the basics of prompting and using these tools. Participants will then have a chance to explore the tools through a guided play session with provided prompts that take you from basic usage through research skills.
Part II: Leveraging Librarian Intelligence to Develop GenAI-Enhanced Information Literacy Lesson Plans (3:00-4:00pm): In Part II, participants will develop lesson plans and activities that leverage GenAI to deepen core information literacy and research habits, rather than just teaching the tool itself. To mimic a library instruction request, participants will be challenged to respond to a random combination of students, skills, constraints, and GenAI tools to co-design creative, impactful approaches.
Note: Presenters have designed the first and second sessions of this two-part series to be complementary rather than dependent on each other. Each session will work as a free-standing workshop and attendees are NOT required to attend both sessions; however, the first session will provide a strong foundation in GenAI for less experienced attendees.
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