Shortly after I graduated, I began looking for opportunities to present and publish. While searching for generic calls for proposals, I discovered A Library Writer's Blog, a blog by University of Michigan librarian Corey Seeman that aggregates calls for papers, chapters, and presentations by library institutions. After a few months, I found one for Academic Libraries and Collaborative Research Support Services, where Dr. Carrie Forbes was putting together essays on interdisciplinary research and community partnerships in higher education. Although most of the book focuses on data services, publishing, and liaison roles, I felt a chapter on developing interpersonal skills could be relevant. I submitted a proposal, and the chapter was accepted.

I aggregated eleven different methods used among library practitioners at the University of Oklahoma to continually develop their interpersonal skills. Of course one of them is improv.

One of my unstated goals was to further develop how improv enhances the five areas of library services I mentioned in "Lessons From Improv Theater" (collaboration and teamwork; patron and user services; reference; instruction; and information literacy) by publishing an in-depth examination on each one. Looking around, I found plenty of literature on the first four, but a gap existed on information literacy. 

When I found a call for papers for the UK journal the Journal of Play in Adulthood, which was doing a special issue on the Playful Library, I knew I wanted to focus on information literacy. Tying it directly to improv, however, wasn't working in my brain; I couldn't immediately come up with any improv activities or games that tied directly to the nitty-gritty application of discovering, evaluating, using or creating information. Even Allison Hosier's games are just too time-consuming for a one-shot, and don't translate directly into catalog/database searching. 

Instead, I realized that the connection between improv and information literacy was playfulness, which describes my own improvisational attitude toward information. After thinking about the ACRL framework, I realized I could easily map concepts of playfulness onto its knowledge practices and dispositions.

While I was struggling to integrate improv into instruction, Sarah Brooks Cohn and Gina Levitan wrote about improv and instruction in the very same issue. They cracked the problem with a game they call "Research Roulette."  As consolation, they cited my TLA article!