There have been many changes to higher education in Utah recently, and many directly impact our libraries. At Weber State, it has been particularly consequential for our information literacy (IL) education program: our long-standing IL General Education requirement is ending, and a new program to sustainably deliver high-quality IL education is needed. To that end, a team of librarians spent Summer 2025 working with the English department to build a pilot program, strategically mapping the curriculum and using backward design to embed IL skills and concepts into the English 2010 curriculum. During Fall 2025, the pilot team embedded in six classes, providing course content (including mini-lecture videos, learning activities, discussions, and practice assignments) and making three structured classroom visits. In Spring 2026, the pilot expanded to ten librarians embedded in 31 in-person and online classes. Assessment for both semesters will be conducted at the end of the spring semester, including data from embedded classes as well as ENGL 2010 classes with no embedded librarian or library content to allow for comparison. We will also collect feedback from students, librarians, and faculty involved in the pilot. This session will describe the curriculum mapping/design process, share lessons, course materials, and assessment mechanisms, review assessment results, and share success and lessons learned. Part of our time will be dedicated to a workshop where participants will have an opportunity to plan their own embedded programs, including curriculum mapping, IL learning activities, and assessment. Participants are invited to bring a syllabus or course outline from a class where an embedded librarian might benefit the students to use for the workshop. We will wrap up with an open discussion where participants can ask questions and share experiences with embedded programs, collaborations, partnerships, outreach, faculty and administration, roadblocks, and successes.
The Slow Movement began in the 1980s as an objection to fast food restaurants in Rome, but it has since been applied to fashion, art, education, and other areas of life. Where modern society pressures us to speed up and become more efficient, the Slow Movement encourages mindfulness, environmental sustainability, intentional practices, deep attention, joy—even a different relationship with time. In this workshop, we will explore what “Slow” can mean for librarians in a range of professional roles. We will also practice some slow activities, including keeping a commonplace book for inspiration, cultivating sensory attention, and framing librarianship in cyclical time rather than linear time. The atmosphere of the workshop will be one of care, creativity, and gentleness as we develop meaningful rituals for our work.
We’ve all had a job application rejected. But what if “no” wasn’t the end? This session will describe how one university library department, after a completed search for a faculty librarian, reached out to some of the so-called “failed” applicants to offer adjunct positions, training workshops, cohort support, and mentorship. Weber State’s Stewart Library gained four much-needed new adjuncts, and they gained skills and experience to put on their resume -- and something equally valuable, if not more so: connection and support among colleagues at a time when many of us feel vulnerable and alone. The icing on the cake is that one of those adjuncts now has a position in the same library where it all started! During this session, we will facilitate a discussion on the culture of job searching and hiring, and explore avenues for supporting applicants after the “no.” We will brainstorm potential workplace needs and projects that such applicants could work on as adjuncts or interns, explore ways to facilitate a resume-building program in your library, how to reach out to a potential cohort and approach management with proposals, and how to make it work when they don’t have lots of time and you don’t have lots of funds. Participants will help the session facilitators create an open repository of shared resources to help a new generation of librarians gain experience, develop skills, and move from the applicant pool to onboarding. By the end of the session, we’ll construct a shared understanding of how “failure” can be transformed into opportunity. Together, we can normalize creating resume-building opportunities for good candidates who are simply in the early-career phase, a little underqualified, or need a little bit more experience. Let’s turn “no” into “not yet.”
This workshop session is sponsored by the Archives, Manuscripts, and Special Collections (AMSC) Roundtable. We will feature several archive workers from across the state, each giving a short presentation on their archival career, followed by a brief Q&A. This session is designed to provide newcomers with a broad overview of the archival profession. We hope to provide a platform for a diverse array of archive professionals to share their experiences, connect with colleagues, and highlight the important work being done in both large and small institutions. Topics we will cover include: How did you enter the archival profession? What does a typical day in your job look like? What are the key differences between small and large archives? How does your role interact with others in your institution? What kinds of projects are you involved in? What does your project management process look like? What are your local archival practices? And more.
Katie Yeo is the 19th and 20th Century Americana Catalog Librarian at the Brigham Young University Library in Utah. She is also a former solo librarian at the Utah State Hospital Library. She is passionate about topics such as metadata accessibility and inclusive cataloging.
