Learning Communities in Libraries

Kris MacPherson, a Research and Instruction Librarian with St. Olaf College, presented an intriguing session at ARLD Day, titled “Family History Learning Community.” She began the session by defining a learning community. A learning community includes membership, or a sense of belonging or personal relatedness. A learning community includes influence; it matters that you’re there and part of it. A learning community includes integration and fulfillment and a shared emotional connection. What Kris started as an hour-long Summer Fun session held over the lunch hour for library staff, students, faculty, and the college community on family history and Ancestry.com grew into something more permanent. Eventually, she and colleagues organized and advertised the class and decided that this particular learning community would meet once a month. She set a meeting of 4:00 to 5:00 p.m. when most people could attend. She sent out an announcement and got an amazing response. The class was on library resources for family history, but primarily focused on Ancestry.com, to which St. Olaf subscribes. The classes included a time for sharing when participants could talk as a group in order to build that sense of community. They also included the introduction of new material like types of new genealogical and historical records and how to locate them. The bulk of the hour was used for individual work time with time near the end to regroup and discuss what happened in that class. Kris uses LibGuides to organize her class content on family history. These can be found at http://libraryguides.stolaf.edu/familyhistory.