Emergent Strategy in Library Instruction

Emergent Strategy in Library Instruction: Stories, Reflections, and Imaginings brings together a rich collection of voices that illustrate how library instruction can be enhanced through the use of emergent strategy, pioneered by adrienne maree brown in her books Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds and Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation. Emergent strategy is a feminist, afrofuturist exploration of human relationships to each other and nature, responses to change, and our capacity to dream for and enact more just and beautiful futures; its use in libraries has the capacity to help librarians, students, and collaborators teach and learn in authentic, meaningful, and impactful learning communities, even when they’re together for only brief amounts of time.

Editors Leah Morin and Hazel McClure introduce and explore what brown has identified as the core principles of emergent strategy, including: small is good, small is all; change is constant (be like water); there is always enough time for the right work; there is a conversation in the room that only these people at this moment can have – find it; never a failure, always a lesson; trust the people; move at the speed of trust; less prep, more presence; and what you pay attention to grows. Being aware of these concepts as intentional approaches can equip librarians to teach and facilitate classes with greater connection, awareness, and responsiveness to the needs of students.

This collection of experiences from a diverse group of librarians sheds light on the benefits, challenges, and joys of embracing an emergent teaching practice in library instruction. By reading about the lived experiences of library colleagues, readers will find practical ways to incorporate the nine emergent principles in their own teaching, and quite possibly discover the ways in which emergent strategy concepts are already at work in their classrooms and teaching practices.

An Information Literacy Librarian at Michigan State University, Leah Morin (she/her) primarily provides instruction to first-year writing students. She aims to affirm the knowledge students bring with them to college and demystify the academic research experience. Her research interests revolve around incorporating the feminist ethic of care and emergent strategy concepts in teaching, topics on which she has published and presented.

Hazel McClure (she/her), Head of Liberal Arts Programs at Grand Valley State University, has extensive experience as a library liaison. Co-author and editor of Engaging Students through Campus Libraries: High-Impact Learning Models (2020, Libraries Unlimited) and co-editor of Teaching Information Literacy Threshold Concepts: Lesson Plans for Librarians (2015, ACRL Press), her scholarship has explored high-impact practices and information literacy, planning information literacy instruction with the ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy Instruction in Higher Education in mind, collaboration with faculty, disrupting perfectionism, mindfulness in libraries, and teaching information literacy in professional writing contexts. She lives and works on the land of the People of the Three Fires: the Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi.