Inside/outside/in between: Librarians and SoTL research

Librarians rarely benefit from formal pedagogic training, yet on entering practice they often discover that teaching forms a major part of their professional identity. And indeed the nature of what they find themselves teaching may be equally unforeseen as, over time, librarians realize that the arena in which their vocation plays out is not in fact that of materials provision and resource access, the areas with which the profession is most closely identified. Teaching librarians do not work primarily with books, or with the knowledge made tangible and contained in books, but with the as-yet-unfixed, intangible, elusive knowledge under construction in people’s heads. They find themselves delving not into database navigation but issues such as knowledge construction, active and reflective learning, and the part that information criticality can play in an individual’s transformation and empowerment. Lacking a frame of reference in which to evaluate, question and affirm this work, however, librarians are often beset with an anxiety that relates deeply to their identity within the academy. Does this practice qualify as teaching? Even if it does, to what extent do librarians feel entitled to call themselves teachers? And are they ready to go a step further and call themselves not only teachers but scholars of teaching?