Michael Courtney, the Outreach and Engagement Librarian, connects the Libraries’ resources and services to the academic priorities of various campus communities and student audiences, including first-year students, distance learners, international students, transfer students, graduate students, and others; he also serves as the collection manager for the Undergraduate Core Collection. As an active participant in the instructional initiatives of the Teaching & Learning department, Mike provides leadership and direction for librarians and graduate instruction assistants in the effective design and teaching of information literacy education. In addition, Michael is responsible for coordinating the libraries’ distance education services and their collaboration with distance education programs across the university system.
Mike is an active scholar, frequently publishing and presenting on topics including future trends in academic library reference service, library history, instructional design in online learning, critical information literacy, and the connections between service learning and libraries. Recent publications include “Repositioning reference librarians as agents of change: Approaches to socially responsible critical information literacy in the LIS curriculum” in Teaching reference today: New directions, novel approaches (2016, ed. L.A. Ellis); “Understanding our students and ourselves: Transformative library instruction through an ethnographic lens,” in User Experience in Libraries: Applying ethnography and user-centred design, co-authored with Carrie Donovan (2016, ed. A. Priestly & M. Borg); and a co-authored article in the Journal of Library Administration, “From distance education to online learning: Practical approaches to information literacy and collaborative learning in online environments.”
He is active professionally within the Association of College & Research Libraries, chairing the Academic/Research Librarian Award Committee and the Instruction Section Membership Committee, as well as serving on ACRL Conference planning committees and the Distance Learning Section. His professional development has included participation in the ACRL Information Literacy Immersion Program (Program Track). Locally, Mike is active within the Indiana Library Federation, the Indiana University Librarians Association (InULA), and participates in faculty governance through both Bloomington Faculty Council and Bloomington Library Faculty Council committees. He has twice received the IU Libraries’ Herbert S. and Virginia White Professional Development Award.
Previous to joining the IU Libraries, he held library positions at Fairfield University, Auburn University, the University of Texas at Austin and the Willoughby Wallace Memorial Library (Stony Creek, CT). Michael holds a BA and Graduate Certificate in Sociology from the University of Georgia, and a Master of Library Science from Indiana University Bloomington. He credits his formative years at Barningham CEVC Primary School (Suffolk, England) as the foundation for a lifetime of inquiry.