Brockport Librarian Heads Statewide Institute
Drake Librarian Logan Rath, PhD, led a professional development institute for librarians across SUNY along with librarians from the University at Rochester.
Communities of Practice for the Advancement of Library Instruction (COPALI) aims to provide librarians with a sustained professional learning experience to further their professional knowledge in one of three areas: evidence-based librarianship (led by Logan Rath), open educational resources (OER)/open pedagogy (led by Kim Hoffman, University of Rochester) and diverse voices in library instruction (led by Justina Elmore, University of Rochester). The institute will run from March to November.
COPALI began with a kickoff meeting at Brockport Downtown on March 10, 2023 with two presentations from Brockport faculty. Jie Zhang, PhD, from the department of Education & Human Development, presented on Culturally Relevant Practice and Logan presented on Universal Design for Learning. From here, participants will work in their individual communities of practice for approximately 12 weeks. Over the summer participants will reunite in person and develop plans for implementing what they learned in the fall. The culminating event will be a virtual conference in November to share what was learned.
The idea for COPALI stemmed from Logan’s dissertation findings that midcareer librarians did not have access to sustained professional development. The COPALI institute is made possible with funding provided by the Rochester Regional Library Council and the University of Rochester, and with the support of SUNY Brockport.
