Book Reviews

McGuinness, Claire. The academic teaching librarian‘s handbook London: Facet Publishing, 2021. xx, 279 p. ISBN 978-1178330-462-2. £55.00.

Claire McGuinness from the University College Dublin has updated and revised her earlier guide for academic librarians as confident teachers (McGuinness, 2011) and this revision is a welcome addition to the growing literature on media and information literacy for several reasons.

First, it is addressed specifically to academic librarians and their specific role in providing information literacy education and training to students in higher education and also the staff of universities in more and more complicated landscape of academic information and publishing and bureaucratic organisational environments. New issues are invading the information literacy curriculum or are incorporated into it due to their importance for academic performance and life: fakes and predatory publishing, data management and datafied scholarship, filter bubbles and visibility in social media. These are just a few faced by the higher education institutions and worrying communication services, information technology departments and other university units. Academic librarians have been adding these and other issues to the usual information literacy training in search of information, critical selection of content and orientation within expanding digital universe of research.

Second, the text is written by a highly experienced educator and includes a variety of techniques to engage the reader with the handbook‘s text. It is not only a handbook on how to do things, but a tool for reflexive professional learning, for educating oneself, not only the instruction on how to train others.

The book is divided in two parts. The first one on Constructing the academic teaching librarian presents the introductory explanation of the expanding subject content that an academic librarian should be acquainted with, but also invites to consider the professional roles and responsibilities of academic libraries and librarians together with the issues of identity, practice and even personal teaching philosophy. The third chapter in this part is devoted to sustaining and enhancing professional librarian‘s competence in teaching. So this part is more related to the educational concepts.

The second part on Excelling as an academic teaching librarian is more related to library organisation and its educational potential that can be unleashed by new technology, organisational means and advocacy measures both for libraries and teaching librarians.

I have admired the easy to read but very professional language of the author and also explored the methods and techniques that she has used throughout the text as educational devices: personal reflection points, cleverly constructed exercises, usage of layout means, structuring of the text and figures. It is tailored well for the audience which is encouraged to move along the text and gain confidence in its confirmed and growing competence. This book is definitely for librarians, not necesserily academic ones, but also for students of information science and their teachers. Others engaged in university management and interested in the potential of academic libraries could also benefit from this book.

Reference

McGuinness, Claire. (2011). Becoming confident teachers: a guide for academic librarians. Oxford: Chandos Publishing.

Ona Norvaišaitė

Vilnius University
February, 2022

How to cite this review

Information Research is published four times a year by the University of Borås, Allégatan 1, 501 90 Borås, Sweden.