Workshops & Training

I have been involved in improvisational theater for nearly twenty years. I currently advise OU’s student group O.U. Improv!, help produce Improv Festival Oklahoma (now in its 10th year), and hold the position of Improv Director at the Norman Medieval Fair. My experience with improvisation brings a unique angle toward training, teaching and instruction.

In 2019, I began developing workshops utilizing improv-based activities to help develop skills necessary for working in a library, such as active listening, flexibility, collaboration and support. Workshops for student employee orientations focus on introductory concepts based on customer interaction and cooperation with bosses and peers. Workshops for librarians delve deeper into collaboration, user services, reference, instruction, and information literacy. In 2020, I presented on improvisational topics as the Oklahoma Library Association and Texas Library Association conferences.

In August of 2019, I collaborated with Cassondra Darling to lead break-out sessions with student employees at the annual New Student Employee Orientation, combining active activities that explored communicating with coworkers, professionalism and teamwork. I held several workshops for librarians at OU in the fall of 2019, SWOKC Public Library in December of 2019 and Tulsa in February 2020. My plans to visit other libraries and hold workshops in their areas was put on hold during the pandemic. In the near future, these workshops may provide opportunities to re-visit interpersonal skills that may have gone unused while social distancing. I am now reaching out to librarians in other institutions to consider when in-person workshops will be appropriate.

These workshops were featured on OU Libraries' Progress Report (p. 24).