Publish and Prosper: Self-Reflection and Survey Results from a Research Program for Librarians #LILAC26

First blog of the 3rd day from me (Sheila) of LILAC information literacy conference is Publish and Prosper: Self-Reflection and Survey Results from a Research Program for Librarians presented by Helen Power, Rhiannon Jones and Ethel Gamache (Canada). The abstract is here They explained that they tried a prototype in 2023 using Belcher's Writing your journal article. Then they wanted to find out what the impact of the programme, so they decided to do some research, getting ethics approval. Therefore they ran the programme again, making use of a research accelerator programme that was designed to support librarians doing research (6 weeks online of 1.5 hour session), also supported by CAPAL so it could give a certificate (if you attended 5 out of 6 sessions). It was based on works by Belcher & on Cresswell, adapted for Canadian librarians - this included language, where to publish etc. This was run in summer 2025. There were 35 librarians taking part. There was a Discord, aiming to help create a community of practice.
The first sesssion was introduction, the 2nd on designing research (talking about picking a topic you know, different kinds of research approach, ethics etc.), the 3rd about working on writing, the 4th on developing evidence and interpretation (it was mentioned Belcher here was useful here, also they discussed knowledge justice), the 5th on strengthening our structure, and 6th on preparing for publishing (including dealing with responding to reviewers). They mentioned that on Zoom they used breakouts, whiteboard activities (e.g. where would you publish this title?) etc. Looking at the participants' profiles, on average research wasn't an expected part of their job, had taken a research methods course and published (but it varied).
The presenters then introduced the ACRL Framework for IL in Higher Education and their definition of Information Literacy (I've covered this framework a lot in this blog so I won't describe it here!). Then they they pulled out the elements of the Framework which they found particularly useful for this programme (e.g. that research is iterative, that questions lead to more questions but you also need to know when to stop) and gave examples of how they were used in the programme. As examples (they showed all 6 weeks but I can't type that fast!) they used Information Creation as Process and Scholarship as a conversation (including giving and receiving feedback) in week one. In week 3 the learning outcomes were: discussing approaches to writing literature reviews and articulating claims for significance ("so what?"), and the ACRL Frames were authority is constructed and contextual and searching as strategic exploration. In week 4 the learning outcomes were differentiating between different kinds of article structure and also optimising different strategies for editing documents for comprehensiveness and clarity - the ACRL Frames used here were on Information creation as a process and Searching as strategic exploration. I'll also mention that in week 6 they covered wellness and emotions, when looking at the reasons why papers get rejected, and there was a discussion about predatory journals and how to spot them.
There research of the programme consisted a pre programme survey, mid point survey, immediate post session survey and 6 month follow up. Also they qualitatively analysed the chat and activities (if people did not want to be included in this analysis they were excluded).
In terms of which session was most helpful, this was spread across sessions 2-5, and what emerged was it was the session most useful at the point of individual need. In terms of least helpful, it was again mostly related to the stage they were at in their research/ writing. In terms of the participants' reported skill levels, this showed improvement through the programme and in fact it was strongest in the 6 month follow up. Also they had quotes about confidence going up and benefiting from interacting with peers. Of respondents to the questionnaire 8 had completed a draft of their writing, 7 not, and the 6 month follow up showed that some had submitted and all at least intended to.
In terms of the observations, participants engaged more fully as the weeks progressed (having been less active in information interaction initially). They observed some breakout rooms: dynamics varied between breakout rooms. They had the suggestion of having the same people in your breakout room every time -  positives were that people might be more likely to talk & it saved time as you didn't have to introduce yourself each time, although there were downsides such as getting to know fewer people. Also there was a suggestion on having one on one breakouts, which also had positives and negatives.
Looking to the future they will use their findings to develop the programme and plan to run it every 2 years with (probably) rotation of facilitators. They also plan to write an article!
They also will include material from their programme in a google folder with the slides from this presentation  (I'll add the link when I get it).
Photo by Sheila Webber: Camellias in the Sheffield Botanic Gardens, March 2026