Finding Expertise in Your Own Backyard: Creating Communities of Practice to Support Learning about the Framework

This chapter will focus on successful strategies for creating ongoing professional development opportunities and building communities of practice around the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. Drawing on the authors’ experiences developing free and low-cost opportunities for Framework-related professional development as former co-chairs of the Minnesota Library Association Instruction Roundtable (IRT), our case study will demonstrate that many barriers to Framework-related professional development can be overcome by leveraging expertise from communities of practice and taking a user-centered approach to design. Using the 23 Framework Things program and interviews with program participants, we will highlight how the design and content of Framework-related professional development can draw on the learning theories that inform the Framework itself, be accessible to a wide range of audiences and local contexts by employing a flexible structure and provide a forum for librarians engaging in collaborative learning.