Enabling Knowledge Creation: An
Organizational Development Approach for
Advancing Academic Library Centrality
Supplemental Materials
Living The Future 6
Tucson, Arizona
April 6, 2006
Presented by:
Mary M. Somerville, Ph.D.
Assistant Dean, Information and Instructional Services,
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, CA
msomervi@calpoly.edu
805-756-1398
Learning Commons Vision, Outcomes, and Context
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, California
Vision
The Cal Poly Learning Commons supports new ways of educating and
supporting students through creative approaches to teaching and learning with
technology and information resources. This experimental environment for
professors, librarians, instructional designers, pedagogy experts, and
technologists enables collaboration on active learning projects within student
learning communities.


Goals
Provide technological infrastructure, pedagogy and technology expertise, and
information resources and consultation to enable faculty innovation and
curriculum revitalization.
Encourage application of constructivist principles to advance students’
information, communication, and technology proficiencies for life long
learning.
Context
Universities are shifting from teaching approaches that emphasize faculty
transmission of knowledge to approaches that emphasize student construction of
understanding. The Cal Poly Digital Teaching and Learning Initiative (DTLI)
advances student success through faculty development that:
 Promotes instructional experimentation, curriculum renewal and
transformation.
 Encourages faculty and staff to develop and demonstrate innovative
approaches to teaching and learning that use technology and electronic
information resources.
 Enables faculty, staff, and students to develop information, communication,
and technology capabilities for successful learning in the Digital Age.
 Fosters and disseminates research and scholarship that encourages the
rigorous assessment and evaluation of technology and information based
teaching and learning.
The Digital Teaching and Learning Initiative (DTLI) represents a
partnership between the Learning Commons Partners (Information
Technology Services/ITS, Robert E. Kennedy Library Digital Teaching
Library/DTL, and Center for Teaching and Learning/CTL) and Cal Poly
faculty and students. For further information, contact: Mary M. Somerville,
Convener, Learning Commons Partners, 756-1398,
msomervi@calpoly.edu or go to: http://learningcommons.calpoly.edu/
COMMONS
ING
N
R
LEA
Students
Virtual services
Coll. Dev
Bib &
Access
Serv.
Info &
Instruct
Serv.
Digital
Serv.
DIGITAL
RESOURCES
Tools
Collections
Academic
faculty
Library
professionals
Center for
Teaching and
Learning staff
Information and
Technology Services
staff
A Shared Conceptual Model of the California Polytechnic State
University, San Luis Obispo, Learning Commons
For more information, go to: http://learningcommons.calpoly.edu/
DRAFT Plan for Advancing Campus Information Competence
Robert E. Kennedy Library
California Polytechnic State University
San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
805-756-1398
Concept: College Librarians will advance students’ success through
collaborative partnerships with academic faculty that integrate information
literacy and information resources into learning experiences.
Toward that end, College Librarians will:
Maintain or develop their individual skills to be able to:

Create curriculum-aligned digital research portals, course research
guides, and other digital learning objects to ensure ready access to
research advisement, anytime and anyplace

Offer one on one research consultation during regular office hours

Educate faculty about specialized databases, so faculty can teach their
students

Deliver on demand instruction and consultation to ‘first contact’ RISE staff
at the reference desk

Deliver research navigation instruction to (student) Learning Commons
Consultants to enable knowledgeable peer-to-peer coaching

Develop general education and discipline orientation course materials on
information literacy for faculty (and teaching assistant) implementation
Work one on one with individual faculty to:

Encourage curriculum integration by providing information literacy
assignment templates, which can be aligned with course learning
outcomes, for embedded implementation by academic faculty

Populate Learning Management System (LMS) course document and
course assignment spaces with information resources and information
literacy
DRAFT Plan for Advancing Campus Information Competence (con’t)

Enable student-centered Learning Commons’ projects, which are
information resourced, technology enabled, and pedagogically sound, in
cooperation with Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) and Information
Technology Services (ITS) colleagues

Explore information literacy delivery strategies as principal investigator or
co-investigator in externally funded research projects

Deliver face-to-face course outcomes-aligned, active learning sessions,
reinforced by course research guides
Note: No credit generating, stand-alone course is offered and there will be
a concerted effort to eliminate ‘50 minute stand’/’one shot’.
Work with departmental chairs to:

Participate in department level curriculum planning activities to
meaningfully integrate information literacy and information resources into
student learning experiences

Participate in assessment activities that result in development of
instructional products and educational approaches that advance students’
information, communication, and technology proficiencies
Work with associate deans to:

Assess library’s contribution to achievement of college-level student
learning outcomes and evaluate various instructional approaches within
that context

Contribute information literacy and collection resource content for
department and college accreditation and program review reports
For further information, contact: Mary M. Somerville, Assistant Dean,
Information and Instructional Services, 756-1398, msomervi@calpoly.edu
Enabling Knowledge Creation: An Organizational
Development Approach for Advancing Academic Library
Centrality
Selected readings about the California Polytechnic State University Library
experience, as presented by Mary M. Somerville at Living the Future 6,
Tucson, Arizona, April 6, 2006
Davis, H. L., & Somerville, M. M. (2006). Learning our way to change: Improved
institutional alignment. New Library World, 107 (3/4, April). (In press).
Elrod, S. (2006). Learning Genetics with Case Studies: A Guide for Students.
(Unpublished).
Gillette, D., & Somerville, M. M. (2005). Faculty and student usability and focus
group findings inform Digital Teaching Library interface requirements. In
Proceedings of the 12th Annual Syllabus Higher Education Technology
Conference, Los Angeles, California. (Online). Available at:
http://download.101com.com/syllabus/conf/summer2005/PDFs/Th05_b.pdf
http://download.101com.com/syllabus/conf/summer2005/PDFs/Th05.pdf
Gillette, D. D., & Somerville, M. M. (2006, June). Toward lifelong ‘knowledge
making’: Faculty development in the Cal Poly Learning Commons. In Lifelong
Learning - Partners, Pathways, and Pedagogies: Proceedings of the 4th
International Lifelong Learning Conference, Yeppoon, Australia. Rockhampton,
Queensland, Australia: Central Queensland University. (In press).
Maybee, C. (2006). Undergraduate perceptions of information use: The basis for
creating user-centered student information literacy instruction. Journal of
Academic Librarianship, 32(1), 79-85.
Mirijamdotter, A., & Somerville, M. M. (2004). Systems thinking in the workplace:
Implications for organizational leadership. In Proceedings of the 3rd International
Conference on Systems Thinking and Management (ICSTM), Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania. (CD-ROM).
Mirijamdotter, A., Somerville, M. M., & Holst, M. (2005). An interactive evaluation
approach for the creation of collaborative learning commons. In Proceedings of
Enabling Knowledge Creation (page 2 of 3)
the 12th European Conference on Information Technology Evaluation (ECITE12), Turku, Finland. (CD-ROM).
Mirijamdotter, A. & Somerville, M. M. (2005), Dynamic action inquiry: A systems approach
for knowledge based organizational learning, in Proceedings of the 11th International
Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, Las Vegas, Nevada. (CD-ROM).
Rogers, E. (2005), Student usability project recommendations define information
architecture for library technology, in Proceedings of the 12th Annual Syllabus Higher
Education Technology Conference, Los Angeles, California. Available
http://download.101com.com/syllabus/conf/summer2005/PDFs/Th05_b.pdf
http://download.101com.com/syllabus/conf/summer2005/PDFs/Th05_c.pdf
Rogers, E., Somerville, M. M., & Randles, A. (2005), A user-centered content architecture
for an academic digital research portal, in Proceedings of the ED-MEDIA - World
Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia & Telecommunications, Montreal,
Canada. (CD-ROM).
Somerville, M. M., Huston, M. E., & Mirijamdotter, A. (2005), Building on what we know:
Staff development in the digital age, The Electronic Library 23 (4), 480-491.
Somerville, M. M. & Mirijamdotter, A. (2005), Working smarter: An applied model for
‘better thinking’ in dynamic information organizations, in Currents and Convergence Navigating the Rivers of Change: Proceedings of the 12th National Conference of the
Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL), Association of College &
Research Libraries, Chicago, Illinois, pp. 103-111.
Somerville, M. M., & Mirijamdotter, A. (2005). Soft systems methodology results
transform professional roles in the digital teaching library. In Proceedings of
Syllabus 2005, Los Angeles, California. (Online). Available at:
http://download.101com.com/syllabus/conf/summer2005/PDFs/Th05_b.pdf
http://download.101com.com/syllabus/conf/summer2005/PDFs/Th05_d.pdf
Somerville, M. M., Mirijamdotter, A., & Collins, L. (2006), Systems thinking and information
literacy: Elements of a knowledge enabling workplace environment, in Proceedings of the
39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 39), Kauai, Hawaii. Los
Alamitos, California: IEEE Computer Society. (Online). Available at:
http://csdl2.computer.org/comp/proceedings/hicss/2006/2507/07/250770150.pdf
Enabling Knowledge Creation (page 3 of 3)
Somerville, M. M., & Schader, B. (2005). Life after the reference desk:
Co-creating a digital age library. The Charleston Advisor, 7 (1), 56-57.
Somerville, M. M., Schader, B., & Huston, M. E. (2005), Rethinking what we do and how we
do it: Systems thinking strategies for library leadership, Australian Academic and Research
Libraries, 36 (4), 214-227.
Somerville, M. M., & Vuotto, F. (2005). If you build it with them, they will come: Digital
research portal design and development strategies. Internet Reference Services Quarterly,
10 (1), 77-94.
Somerville, M. M., & Vazquez, F. (2004). Constructivist workplace learning: An
idealized design project. In P. A. Danaher, C. Macpherson, F. Nouwens, & D. Orr
(Eds.), Proceedings of the 3rd International Lifelong Learning Conference (pp.
300-305 plus errata page). Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia: Central
Queensland University.