By Kasey Mallen Whalley, MI(LIS)
Collaborative Professionalism: Participatory Learning within the Ontario Library Association (OLA) By-Law 2 Consultation Committee
Abstract
This paper relates the process of using an integrative thinking framework with a stakeholder consultation committee, the Ontario Library Association (OLA) By-Law 2 Consultation Committee. The committee was representative of the diversity of staffing models in Ontario school libraries, and the process reflected and modeled collaborative participatory learning practices central to the library learning commons approach for students as modeled in a professional endeavour.
Kasey (Mallen) Whalley has been working in and with libraries for over ten years. Her path to libraries has not been conventional, and after completing her undergraduate degree in English from McMaster University, she immediately enrolled in and completed Seneca College’s Accelerated Library and Information Technician program. She completed her Masters of Information (Library and Information Sciences) from University of Toronto while working full-time as a Library Technician with the Dufferin-Peel Catholic DSB. She’s endeavored to stay hip and with it by working with technology and book selection committees, teen library programs, writing articles, instructing workshops, speaking about anything library related, and leading her own after school club for writers. She also collects book-themed socks and has an insatiable love for astronomy and pizza.