The Canadian Journal of Academic Librarianship (CJAL) invites submissions to our special issue on the place of teaching in academic librarians’ work. CJAL is an open access, peer-reviewed journal published by the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL).
"Librarians teach. It might not be what we planned to do when we entered the profession, or it may have been our secret hope all along. Either way, we teach." (Oakleaf et al. 2012, 6)
Teaching has become a core activity in academic libraries over the last decades, but librarians may find their teaching role to be a complicated one. Formal instruction largely began in the 1960s and 1970s as a grassroots movement led by librarians rather than library administrators or library schools (Mellon 1987), and some librarians still feel their library administrations do not understand or value their teaching. New librarians may still feel their education has left them unprepared for teaching. At the same time, some administrations are now creating dedicated teaching units and high-level administrative positions focused on teaching and learning, as well as providing greater support for learning to teach. Many librarians identify as teachers or educators as well as librarians, but may not consider themselves as teachers in the same way as faculty, and may not consistently define their work as teaching (Davis, Lundstrom, and Martin 2011). Some may feel anxious or ambiguous about the role (Lundstrom, Fagerheim, and Van Geen 2021; Mattson, Kirker, Oberlies, and Byrd 2017).
We invite authors to contribute to these ongoing conversations by submitting proposals for inclusion in this special issue of CJAL. Both big picture and narrow focus on specific contexts/topics are welcome, including conceptual pieces, empirical studies, and case studies of practice.
Authors interested in participating are asked to submit a proposal (maximum 800 words plus bibliography) as an email attachment (Word document or PDF) to can.j.acad.lib@gmail.com by December 20, 2022.
For more information, please see the full CFP on the CJAL website: https://cjal.ca/index.php/capa
From the Special Issue editors: Sandy Hervieux, Eveline Houtman, Lindsay McNiff, Silvia Vong
