5 Minutes of a Day in the Life of the Pirate Librarian

This interactive lightning round presentation allowed participants to experience my Pirate-themed library instruction classes during which I dressed in a full Pirate costume as part of my Informational-Treasure Scavenger Hunt concept. This presentation demonstrated my most
successful active learning exercises. My “creativity” stems from my belief that a didactic approach to teaching library skills has proven to be dreadfully dull and thus ineffective. My solution to combat boredom is to incorporate educational games with predetermined learning
objectives. I included activities that received the best feedback from student and professor evaluations when I taught a Chemistry Research Skills class for academic credit for sophomore chemistry majors. My exercises were published in a peer-reviewed journal that has been
downloaded more than 3,022 times, titled “Games for Teaching Information Literacy Skills.” My classes were in high demand because I not only incorporate the latest brain-based theories in my class design, but I also taught class dressed in a full pirate costume. My “PirateTeacher” article has been cited by other peer-reviewed journals since it was published in the Journal of Academic Librarianship. I showed images of my pirate costume and students’ favorite activities during my presentation. I also showed my “Citation Cop” RefWorks YouTube video that has been viewed more than 8,900 times by people in different countries and RefWorks actually used my video in their training. My proven effective and creative examples offer something for everyone. More are available in my recently published book, Cybrarian Extraordinaire: Compelling Information
Literacy Instruction.