The major take-away from this book chapter is that the feedback about the IRDL Mentor Program (in place from 2016 to present day), from both mentors and Scholars, has been overwhelmingly positive. In the chapter we describe the process used by the program to recruit and select mentors, the pairing of mentors with their Scholars, and the general administration of the IRDL mentor program. We offer strategies for making the mentor-Scholar relationship work and tips for the design of a formal mentoring program.
A consistent refrain from both the mentors and the Scholars is that the experience, “is much better overall than other mentor/mentee experiences, especially in terms of the clear expectations and structure” (p. 250). In the chapter we aim to make the components of the program as transparent as possible, so that others may reproduce aspects of it in their own mentor programs. We provide some specific guidance for how to administer and maintain a year-long program in the two appendices, the IRDL Mentoring Program Contract and the monthly reflection prompts, designed to keep communication between the mentors and their Scholar consistent over the course of the program.
Read this chapter and get the Contract and monthly reflection prompts at no cost to you, at https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/librarian_pubs/140/.
Jason, D.P., III, Kennedy, M.R., Brancolini, K.R. (2021). Mentoring Academic Librarians for Research Success. In L. J. Rod-Welch and B.E. Weeg (Ed.). Academic Library Mentoring: Fostering Growth and Renewal (pp. 241- 262). Chicago, Illinois: Association of College and Research Libraries.
