Concurrent 2: Mentoring Across the Miles: The Development of a Virtual Mentorship Program for Distance Services Librarians
Session Format
Virtual Panel
Proposal Synopsis
One of the great aspects of librarianship is mentorship. Mentoring in today’s world is vital now that librarians are experiencing many changes in their daily work and find themselves delivering online services more than ever. During 2020 and 2021, most colleges and universities suddenly required traditional in-person library services be converted to virtual. Given the sudden move to the online-only environment, many librarians who had never conducted online reference, meetings, or instruction needed to provide distance and online library services. In 2019, The ACRL Distance and Online Library Services (DOLS) Committee created an online mentoring program from the ground up, launching a pilot program first, and making changes based on participant feedback. Due to the pandemic, this program became even more important in keeping online librarians connected and supported. Librarians from diverse institutions and locations connected to share support and trade advice. In this panel of four, mentors and mentees from the first two cohorts will discuss their experiences and the program developers will provide best practices and core assessments. Attendees are encouraged to bring questions for the panel and will receive a framework to support the development of their own virtual mentoring program. Because of changes in the world, librarians have ascended into providing online library services more than ever, thus mentoring at a distance is our new future. The DOLS mentoring program offers a model on which to build.
Location
WALC 3122, a hybrid format for both virtual and on-site
Start Date
28-7-2022 1:30 PM
End Date
28-7-2022 2:20 PM
Concurrent 2: Mentoring Across the Miles: The Development of a Virtual Mentorship Program for Distance Services Librarians
WALC 3122, a hybrid format for both virtual and on-site