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Lightning Talks - Saturday afternoon

These seven minute sessions are on Saturday, May 9, after lunch
But What Do They Really Think? Analyzing Student Tutorial Feedback
Yvonne Mery @ University of Arizona Numeric ratings tell us students are satisfied—but not why, or where we're losing them. This presentation shows how adding open-ended comment fields to tutorial evaluations and applying sentiment analysis uncovered patterns in student frustration, confidence, and engagement that scores alone missed entirely. Drawing on over 4,000 student responses, I'll walk through practical approaches to collecting and analyzing qualitative feedback using natural language processing techniques. Specific examples illustrate how clusters of negative sentiment revealed gaps in research instruction, while positive patterns pointed to what was actually working. Attendees will leave with applicable strategies for implementing comment collection, conducting sentiment analysis on library feedback, and translating findings into concrete tutorial improvements. Relevant for instruction librarians, assessment coordinators, and anyone working to strengthen information literacy programs through student voice.
Coming Together: Interactive Collaboration Leads to Life-Long Connection
Lynette Seelmeyer @ University of Northern Colorado Partnering with our university’s program for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and with the local public library district, University of Northern Colorado teaching librarians have created course-embedded instruction that expands the library curriculum to include transition skills for using public libraries now and after graduation. Public libraries offer a strong sense of connection to students’ home communities and by interactively collaborating with public libraries and planning for long-term access, our hope is that these students will be active and engaged library users and community members after graduation.
Mutiny or Modernization: When Disruptive Technology Takes the Helm
Teresa Augustine @ Valparaiso University Generative AI has rapidly emerged, and, with many good reasons, so has opposition. Moving quickly through a timeline of technological disrupters within the last few decades, this talk will address the similar reactions and responsibility shifts for librarians over time. This will not be an endorsement of AI but rather an encouragement to embrace change and for librarians to be leaders as new technologies trend today. The themes of this talk emerged from the literature review for a forthcoming paper on the use, experiences, and perceptions of generative AI in library instruction.
Ripples Beyond the Classroom: Cultivating Teachable Moments Across the Library
Catherine Fonseca @ West Virginia University This talk demonstrates how instruction librarians can help colleagues in non-teaching roles recognize and strengthen the instructional dimensions of their everyday work. While many library personnel don’t find themselves in front of a traditional classroom, nearly all library roles carry an instructional component. Whether answering an email, delegating tasks, staffing a public service point, documenting a workflow, or demonstrating a process, these non-classroom interactions all benefit from learner-centered communication and effective knowledge transfer. This session emphasizes building teaching confidence within the library itself, creating a ripple effect for extending instructional culture. Drawing on a professional development workshop developed at WVU Libraries, the talk illustrates how pedagogical theory and best practices can be shared with and applied by library personnel outside the teaching and learning department
Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Making Waves Through a Library Open House
Laura Semrau @ Baylor University Many academic libraries struggle to engage faculty with special collections and digital scholarship tools. At our institution, history faculty rarely visited a special collection located nearby, and use of a digital humanities platform had declined. Librarians and archivists addressed this gap by hosting a one-hour open house during the department’s fall kickoff. The event featured an interactive icebreaker, hands-on primary source stations, and a demonstration of a digital humanities tool. As a result, the special collections experienced increased class visits, research consultations, and digital tool use. This lightning talk shares a replicable model for strengthening faculty collaboration and library engagement.