Interview with the Authors of Creating Online Tutorials: A Practical Guide for Librarians

Hannah Gascho Rempel and Maribeth Slebodnick are the authors of Creating Online Tutorials: A Practical Guide for Librarians. My interview with them is below.

Please introduce yourselves to our readers. 

Hannah: I am the Research and Learning department head and College of Agricultural Sciences liaison librarian at Oregon State University, having worked at OSU Libraries since 2007. I have co-authored two books, Creating Online Tutorials: A Practical Guide and Understanding Student Development: A Practical Guide and co-edited a two-volume set of books titled Teaching Critical Reading Skills: Strategies for Academic Librarians published by ACRL Publications.  

My research focuses on areas such as graduate student needs in the library, fostering curiosity, learning through play, and technology uses in the library.  

When I am not at work, I am currently in homework/sports/general extracurricular support mode for my two teenagers. I am also part of two book clubs—one for science librarians and one focused on reading banned books. 

Maribeth: I am a Research and Learning Librarian at the University of Arizona Health Sciences Library and a former ICU nurse. My primary assignment is as the liaison to the College of Nursing. Most of my students, particularly the graduate students, are remote learners, so I use tutorials extensively to support them.  

My research focuses on systematic reviews and other types of evidence synthesis in nursing. In addition to co-authoring both editions of Creating Online Tutorials with Hannah, I am currently preparing the final version of an OER textbook titled Conducting Scholarly Literature Reviews in Nursing which will be published later in 2025.  

In my free time, I am active in local politics and volunteer at an organic farm. I also garden at home, where my husband and I tend two cats, a feral cat colony, and a hyperactive dog. 

Briefly summarize Creating Online Tutorials: A Practical Guide for Librarians. 

Maribeth: Creating Online Tutorials: A Practical Guide for Librarians walks librarians—even those without technical expertise—through the basics of designing and producing an online tutorial. We use practical examples to lead librarians through the process of creating an online tutorial from start to finish, and we provide tips and strategies that will be useful to librarians with more experience in designing online tutorials. Our strategies center on learning about and meeting learner needs. We encourage our readers to focus less on perfectly produced tutorials and more on supporting learner needs. 

Why did you decide to write this book? 

Maribeth: I was approached by Rowman & Littlefield to write the first edition of Creating Online Tutorials (2014) after publishing an article about software for online tutorials. I started writing the book as a solo effort but quickly realized I really needed a partner and Hannah said “yes”. She is an amazing co-author—I could never have done this without her! I would probably still be trying to complete the first edition. I deeply appreciate all that I have learned about teaching, learning, writing, and collaborating as a result of this ongoing project. 

Hannah: I decided to write this book because Maribeth asked me! Writing also provides me with an opportunity for exploration and reflection on my own practices. I have learned so much more about instructional design and how to ground instruction in learners’ needs as a result of working on both editions of this book. I am also a writing nerd—I like the challenge of writing new types of things, and I had never written a book before! 

Who will benefit from reading the book? 

Hannah: We are both academic librarians, so that was the audience I had in mind when I started writing the book and developing examples. However, as we researched the book, and especially after we taught an ALA course on creating online tutorials (after the first edition of our book came out), we realized librarians of all types create tutorials.  

Public librarians, special librarians, school librarians, and yes, academic librarians, all have reasons to teach their learner groups using online teaching tools. Many of these librarians have not thought of themselves as instruction librarians, and so I believe this book is especially beneficial for those who have not explicitly thought of themselves as teachers before, as well as for those who have not tried out the technical tools involved in creating online tutorials. 

Maribeth: We have really worked to keep the approach to creating tutorials simple and as low cost as possible, so librarians in many settings can make tutorials without a lavish budget if that is their reality. As Hannah said, we have also provided a lot of context about instruction since many librarians have not had the opportunity to take courses on instruction during their graduate work. We also think that folks outside libraries who need to provide focused instruction about anything could find this book very helpful! 

How do you see online tutorials fitting into the work of special librarians? 

Hannah: Special librarians often have a close relationship with their learner population, whether that is a group of government employees or staff at a large corporation. Special librarians we have interacted with create online tutorials to teach their users how to use resources about which they receive frequent questions. They also create tutorials to train library staff in how to use back-end tools and workflows. Special librarians also need to balance their knowledge of their learner communities to determine how many of their users want to self-educate vs. rely on a known human (the librarian) for assistance and advice. 

Maribeth: My first job as a librarian was in a corporate library, so I have a warm spot for special librarians! As with most librarians, there is more work to do than there is time to do it, so special librarians can take advantage of online tutorials to streamline some of their workflow, like onboarding new staff or employees. That may free up more time for helping individuals who need specialized, in-depth assistance. 

Do you have recommendations for librarians working in special libraries on how they can tailor their tutorials for their unique audience? 

Hannah: This is a good question, and I won’t pretend to know more about special librarian learner audiences than I actually do. I would advise special librarians to really get to know their learner audience and their user needs before creating a tutorial. In our book, the first two chapters delve into thinking about whether a tutorial is the right solution for your learners and assessing your learners’ needs and motivations. 

In academic libraries, we have learned (unsurprisingly) that students are much more likely to use a librarian-created tutorial if it is a class assignment. In other words, they are not seeking out library tutorials for entertainment—and only occasionally for self-education purposes. Special librarians would benefit from having a similar understanding of their learner populations’ preferred learning modalities, expectations, and motivations. Once those aspects of the learning process are understood, special librarians will be better positioned to provide relevant tutorials for their learners. 

Maribeth: What Hannah said! Special librarians often need to be specialists in andragogy, or adult learning. The learning preferences of adult learners are often very different from those of student learners, so it is worth investigating how your learners want to learn. 

One way to discover a likely topic for a tutorial is to look for problems that many users seem to encounter and try to provide proactive support for those issues. If you have an online chat or helpline (or something similar) for your patrons, look through the chat to identify themes both broad and specific that you can address with a tutorial. Survey your potential learners to find out more about what they want to know. 

Is there anything else you would like to share? 

Hannah: Tutorials come in many forms! Embrace the range of technical solutions without feeling like there is only one perfect way to create a tutorial. 

Maribeth: Tutorials do not have to be difficult! Sometimes the best learning solution is a simple low-tech solution that does not take a huge amount of time to construct.