Becoming a Good Neighbor: Befriending Instructional Designers and Campus Distance Learning Folks

On our campus, a bridge connects the main library and the university group which operates the campus learning management system (LMS), trains faculty to use educational technologies, and collaborates directly with faculty who are exploring teaching online. Two librarians were tasked with developing a positive working relationship with the units in this group. This poster explores a handful of stories exhibiting the merits, lessons learned, and types of contributions librarians willing to collaborate directly with non-library educational technology departments might encounter. Including: building trust as an iterative process, learning from and together, connecting colleagues "across the bridge," new topics for instruction, influencing policy, addressing copyright and LMS, making the library visible via LMS, developing open educational resources, policy and politics, and so on.