Working together to move the profession forwards (Librarians and Learning Development)

What happens when you cannot get the buy-in from your colleagues and the workload is driving you mad? In this presentation we showed what we do to disrupt and rewrite the game. Using a fictional scenario, the wise three guided you through the trials and tribulations of embedded support for key academic skills. You were invited to share your experiences in advance of the conference so our agony aunts can come up with ideas and suggestions to help you succeed in your role.

Academic skills are most successful when embedded within the curriculum (Coulson et al., 2021; Wyatt, 2011). However, in our experience getting buy-in from academic staff and professional colleagues can be difficult. Engaging students with an active teaching approach can be even harder (Armellini et al., 2021; Hicks and Sinkinson, 2021). Using the model of Integrated Learner Support (ILS) developed at the University of Northampton for undergraduate support (Library and Learning Services, 2022), the workshop highlighted different approaches that can be used to navigate through difficulties, and offered potential solutions to collaborative working between Learning Developers and Academic Librarians.