Reducing Barriers to Off-Campus Access

Next time you want to use an online resource (database, e-book, or e-journal) from off-campus you have the option to use your UNL credentials to authenticate your identity for access. The Libraries, in collaboration with ITS, has launched the option for UNL students, staff, and faculty to authenticate into our subscription e-resources using their UNL credentials. This option moves the Libraries and University closer to a single sign-on for campus resources, allowing users to reduce the number of separate passwords they needed to remember. 

“The major advantage to UNL students and faculty is that they can log into the UNL system and navigate between campus tools, such as Canvas and the Libraries e-resources more seamlessly and without having to remember a separate login,” explained Elizabeth Lorang, Interim Associate Dean, University Libraries. “We also hope that people now have a better sense of how to proceed when they come across a library resource that requires authentication, because the login process will look like other login options across campus,” Lorang continued.

The new login option was launched for testing in mid-July. An initial assessment indicated that the authentication process is working as planned. If users encounter problems in accessing the Libraries’ online resources, however, they should contact an AskUs service point.

Lorang explained that the Libraries’ own login system, called “MyLibrary,” still remains and gives affiliates like visiting researchers and vendors a way into the Libraries resources. UNL students, staff, and faculty may also continue to use their MyLibrary accounts to track and renew checked out books and other materials.

Five Libraries Faculty members contribute chapter to “The Grounded Instruction Librarian”

University Libraries faculty Erica DeFrain, assistant professor, Leslie Delserone, associate professor, Elizabeth Lorang, associate professor and interim associate dean, Catherine Riehle, associate professor, and Toni Anaya, associate professor, have contributed a chapter in the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) publication of “The Grounded Instruction Librarian: Participating in The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning,” edited by Melissa Mallon, Lauren Hays, Cara Bradley, Rhonda Huisman, and Jackie Belanger.

The Grounded Instruction Librarian engages the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) through different lenses and provides a sense of the varied ways it’s currently being conducted in academic libraries in North America and Europe. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning refers to original research and scholarship on teaching and learning practice in higher education conducted by scholars across disciplines interested in understanding student learning, teaching innovations, and transforming higher education. SoTL work is situated in a specific time and place, publicly disseminated, and diverse in discipline, theory, and method.

The chapter, “Recentering Teaching and Learning: Toward Communities of Practice at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Libraries,” contributed by Defrain, Delserone, Lorang, Riehle and Anaya present the emerging efforts to develop a more intentional community of practice around teaching and learning. They outline three recent, multidisciplinary scholarship of teaching and learning projects in which librarians played critical roles and reflect on how the emergent community of practice is inspiring librarians to be more systematic in approaches to teaching, in analyzing these efforts, and in sharing these outcomes and findings broadly.  

Each section of "The Grounded Instruction Librarian" begins with a foundational chapter from SoTL leaders that discusses central questions, highlights important theories and literature, and introduces the SoTL-in-practice chapters that follow. The practical chapters highlight work at the more local level and take a range of forms, from case studies from specific institutions, reflections on individual participation in SoTL work, to explorations of a particular topic or theme. This thorough book can provide innovative ideas and methods to help you use SoTL as a professional development tool, a research agenda, a way to create theory, or for a deeper understanding of your teaching and your students’ learning.