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Feb
19
Posted by nnlmneo on February 19th, 2016
Posted in: Blog
“One day not very long ago, librarians came to the Emerald City from their libraries in all of the countries of Oz. They came to visit the Great Library of the Emerald City, and to petition the Wizard allow them to borrow books and other items at the Great Library. Their hope was to transport items from one library to another using the Winged Monkeys, who offered their skills for this task after they were set free and got bored.”
Thus begins the latest OERC project – an online class in Appreciative Inquiry (AI), offered through the MidContinental Region’s Librarians in the Wonderful Land of Oz Moodle ‘game’ (i.e. series of online classes worth game points and CE credits from the Medical Library Association). The game is made up of several ‘challenges’ (online classes) for librarians offered by NN/LM instructors.
In OERC’s challenge, Building on the Best at the Great Library of the Emerald City: Using Appreciative Inquiry to Enhance Services and Programs, the Wizard of Oz makes a deal with the librarians. He will allow interlibrary loan of the Great Library’s resources if the librarians will assess customer satisfaction of the Great Library’s services and find things to improve. And students in the class will learn to use a qualitative data collection technique called Appreciative Inquiry to do this assessment.
Sometimes people avoid customer service assessment because they find the methods to be complicated and time-consuming. Negative feedback can be uncomfortable on the part of the listener and the speaker. Appreciative Inquiry, with a focus on identifying and building on organizational strengths, removes that discomfort. A number of OERC workshops touch on Appreciative Inquiry but this Librarians of Oz challenge allows you to practice the technique, something that the OERC has not been able to provide in the traditional webinar or workshop context. Completing the class is worth 14 MLA CE credits.
The class is free, but in order to take it you will need to register for the game Librarians in the Wonderful Land of Oz . If you don’t want to take the class, but would still like to learn more about Appreciative Inquiry, I recommend these earlier blog posts:
From Cindy and Karen’s perspective, one of the best parts of this experience is that we finally get the official title of Wizard. Special thanks to John Game Wizard Bramble of the NN/LM MCR who made all this happen.
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