We are fortunate to have two strong organizations in Illinois that provide professional development for academic and research librarians.

A fun fact – their acronyms share the same letters – CARLI and IACRL. CARLI is the Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois and IACRL is the Illinois Association of College and Research Libraries.

Last week they teamed up to offer an IACRL Pre-Conference Sponsored by CARLI on Curriculum Mapping. My long-time ACRL Immersion faculty colleague and fellow Illinois librarian, Anne Zald, gave an outstanding workshop in the morning on Curriculum Mapping to Integrate & Communicate Information Literacy.

I followed up with an afternoon workshop on Information Literacy Leadership and Program Evaluation: Using a Curriculum Map for Program Development. As part of this session, I gave an overview of logic models and how they assist with planning, assessment, and promoting information literacy programs.

Throughout the day, the conversations and questions were insightful and probing. There was so much energy around thinking deeply and strategically about our information literacy programs and how they align with campus curricula. (There were also some awesome cookies!)

The Illinois academic library community of practice is strong and the ideas that the day generated for making it stronger are very promising. I look forward to what’s next!