C.A.L.L.: Conference About Libraries & Literacy

On February 9th, Sara Gold and Jeff Brunner were fortunate to attend the first C.A.L.L. – Conference About Libraries and Literacy held at UW-LaCrosse Murphy Library. The conference was a collaborative effort, organized by Liz Humrickhouse & Teri Holford-Talpe of UW-La Crosse, Linda Jerome of La Crosse Public Library and Cindy Halter of La Crosse Central High School. They brought together speakers from all over Wisconsin to talk about a variety of topics related to libraries and literacy. Information Literacy has long been a popular topic in the library world and is gaining buzz in mainstream media as people work to discern and define “fake news”. Read an article about the conference from The LaCrosse Tribune.

A snapshot of the sessions follows here:

Keynote: Bridging the Gap Between HS and College – Heather Heimerl Brunold, Ed.D.
Dr. Brunold described her fascinating research on the relationship between school-type (public, private religious, private non-religious) and its role in college preparation. Her findings demonstrate that public schools are more successful that popular sentiment might lead us to believe.

Building Bridges – Tracy Helixon, Sheila Allard, Rochelle Hartman
We learned about a collaboration between Western Technical College and the La Crosse Public Library which included two library work days to help students find sources for their research essays.

Breaking the Ice – Marge Loch-Wouters
Menasha WI merged multiple individual school winter literacy programs into a community-wide winter reading program with the public library.

Scaffolding the Threshold Concepts from K to 16 – Elizabeth Gibes and Heather James
Marquette University librarians told us about their innovative, flipped approach for library instruction in a First-Year Writing program as well as their expanded role in developing a new curriculum for the program.

Gaining Ground – Teri Holford-Talpe, Liz Humrickhouse, and Darci Thoune
UW-La Crosse librarians and faculty talked to us about their program, Gaining Ground: Building College Level Information Literacy Skills. This program brought students from eight local high schools to the campus to learn about and demystify the college writing experience.

A Collaboration of Zombies in the Library – Nathan Dowd and Jen Champoux 

Library staff from Edgewood College described a program designed to
be a fun and engaging way to build college readiness and academic skills. Targeting students that may need extra support in their transition to college, the zombie –themed program exposes them to a wide variety of library services.

Thanks to everyone who presented, sponsored, and hosted the C.A.L.L. Conference.  We look forward to future gatherings and continued conversations.