[Member Profile] Meet Lynette Gallant from North Island College

Contributed by Terri Bateman, NIC
Tell us a bit about where you work and what you do.
For the last ten years, I have worked at North Island College (NIC) as the Public Services Librarian.  Since NIC is a rural college with four campuses and only two librarians, my role covers a lot of ground. I have collection development responsibilities for print, ebooks, streamed videos, as well as collaborating with my colleague to purchase our electronic databases.  Currently I am embedded in many Blackboard courses and although I work with all subject areas, I am the primary liaison for the Health Sciences. I provide research assistance both online via the provincial chat service AskAway, ITV, Skype, as well as in person and telephone. I create information literacy tutorials, create course and subject guides, and teach information literacy courses for faculty.
How long have you been involved in teaching and learning and/or ed technology?
I began teaching students how to use online catalogues back in 1993 as a library page during my undergraduate. My education involved many online and in person courses and I survived the first fledgling course management systems. As a librarian, I am often learning a new technology or cursing over an old imperfect one. Libraries, and ours in particular, have changed greatly in the past ten years. Electronic resources reign supreme; we are constantly maintaining access, creating information literacy tutorials, engaging students, and educating them on how to use various technology in a college environment.  We use Springshare products (LibGuides) to build our Library &Learning Commons website, subject guides, and create tutorials for instruction as well as assessment. We recently purchased the LibWizard add-on to create quizzes and interactive assessment at point of need. I am spending a fair amount of time learning this technology and discovering how it can best serve our needs.
What’s one thing you really love about the work you do?
It sounds simple but I really love matching excellent resources to learners who need them, when they need them. When this happens, it is a beautiful thing. Technology can be daunting for students particularly those at a distance. Many departments work to create amazing online resources and yet students are not finding their way to these resources. At the library we have the opportunity to not only help students use the tools that are specific to the library but we also get the chance to show students how to access all the college resources that have been designed for them. I have found that students need multiple entry points to gain confidence to interact with technology. Sometimes a phone call, a chat session or ten minutes at the reference desk can successfully demystify the technology for the student.
How long have you been a member of ETUG?
Brent McIntosh at NIC introduced me to ETUG when he was the Distributed Learning Facilitator about 7 years ago. He faithfully sent emails and kept us updated on what this community was doing and highlighted great professional development opportunities.
What do you like best about this community and its activities?
This community understands how both exhilarating and exhausting keeping up with technology truly is. I appreciate the professional development opportunities and the community to turn to for discussion, best practices etc.
Do you have a favorite ETUG memory?
I only made it to one conference, which was last year to hear Mike Caulfield speak about digital literacy. It was such a timely topic and one, which as a librarian I deal with every day.
What would you like ETUG to provide more of in terms of benefits/value to members? Any input or help you want to ask members to provide?
Keep providing and promoting PD opportunities. I appreciate when you record sessions for those members who cannot make the events. Keep up the great work.
Do you have any special interests/hobbies?
I suppose this is where I would like to say that I have wonderful exciting hobbies like paragliding off the Hornby Island cliffs or rock climbing and building fine furniture. In truth, my hobbies are ordinary. We live in a beautiful area so I get out hiking, swimming, boating, camping and snowshoeing often. Music takes up a big part of my spare time. I have a house full of different instruments that I play terribly. I host a biweekly singer-songwriter session and I travel around to take different music workshops, camps etc. As a librarian, I should read more…but that was before Netflicks, and Peaky Blinders, Santa Clarita Diet, and on and on.