Managing Library Instruction Notes and Resources

Each semester, I teach a lot of library instruction sessions.  Sometimes I teach one-shot sessions, sometimes I do multiple sessions (2-5) in the same class.

In both cases, I create a lot of notes and “paperwork”.  For a typical one-shot session I normally end up with:

• Notes from my initial meeting with the professor about the goals for the library session (normally in MS Word)
• An outline for the lecture part of the class (normally in MS Word)
• A pre-class assignment for the students (sometimes on paper, often via our LMS)
• In-class worksheets for the session (normally on paper)
• An in-class slide presentation (only about 10% of the time, usually in GoogleDocs for easy sharing)
• A list of suggested resources for students to follow up on later (almost always via our LMS)
• Online survey results from any assessment we do of the session (Google Docs, SurveyGizmo,

I have normally used Microsoft Word to produce the paper documents, and the HTML editor in or LMS for the electronic material.  I use the outlining tools in Microsoft Word since that is how I typically think about my notes and lectures.

But I’m not entirely happy with this arrangement.  For each class, the documents are separate.  I can file the Word documents together in a folder, and I try to keep to a standard naming convention, but this doesn’t include my online elements, and I would love to have the individual files linked together somehow.

So when I can’t focus on other work (like right now) I go in search of alternative tools that may help me out.

I’ve read some good things about Microsoft OneNote, but I’m on a Mac, and Parallels is running really slowly for me right now.  I’m looking at OmniOutliner, and I may download the 14 day trial.  I’ve tried using Google Docs (which I love for lots of other things), but the nested outlining is pretty poor, so it won’t meet one of my primary needs: the lecture outline.  I wonder about personal project management software, but I’m not sure that’s really what I need.

I have a feeling I will never have the perfect solution, but when I need to procrastinate, I will keep looking!

How do other librarians organize their teaching information?  How do instructors organize a semesters worth of teaching material?