Professional Growth and Collaborative Learning through Learning Communities: An Academic Library Experiment Jiselle Maria Alleyne Campus Librarian, College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad & Tobago (COSTAATT)
The creation of functional learning communities engenders greater effectiveness in service delivery in the academic library. Staff is better able to apply best practices as a result of engaging with and applying new practices learnt. Shirley Hord of Learning Forward describes it this way, “professional learning through learning communities promotes continuous learning, collective responsibility and supports alignment of the library’s strategic imperatives with that of the parent institution.”(Hord, 2015 introduction) The establishment of a learning community during the month of July in the summer semester of 2014 was seen as a necessary strategic intervention to create a culture of learning and continuous development amongst para-professional library staff at COSTAATT Library Services. In addition, the purpose of the learning community was to be a system of re-tooling, where identified skill competencies would be enhanced. The learning community it was felt was the best environment for this to materialise. This presentation will describe the creation of a learning community at COSTAATT Library Services dubbed “Think Tank Thursday”. Two perspectives fuelled this creation, the first is by Charles Darwin when he states, “It is not the biggest, brightest or the best that will survive, but those who adapt the quickest.” and the second by Alvin Toffler where he states, “The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”- Therefore, to ensure that COSTAATT Library Services did not fall behind the rest of the library world, we needed to create opportunities for the discussion and analysis of issues that were impacting the Library and Information profession. To that end the Think Tank Thursday Learning Community was born. Keywords: professional growth, transformative learning, learning environment, learning communities, academic libraries.
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