Mary K. Oberlies

Person

Oberlies, Mary

Collections

Biography

Mary K. Oberlies is the Head of Publishing & Open Access at William & Mary University Libraries where she oversees the William & Mary Press, the university's institutional repository, ScholarWorks, and works with faculty, staff and students on issues relating to research data management, open access, copyright, author rights, and open educational resources. She joined William & Mary in 2018 as an Instruction & Research Librarian.

Institutional profile

https://libraries.wm.edu/about/our-people/mary-oberlies

Publication Search Results

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6

Open Access
Teaching Squares: Improving Instruction Through Observation and Self-Reflection
(Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), 2021) Kirker, Maoria J.; Oberlies, Mary; Hernandez, Carolina; DeWaay, Sara
Teaching information literacy is a mainstay of many academic librarians’ roles. How are librarians—particularly those teaching in one-shots or embedded formats—developing their teaching skills? Teaching Squares offers an opportunity for librarians to improve instructional skills, through collaboration with their peers. Developed at St. Louis Community College and popularized at Stonehill College, Teaching Squares offers instructors “an opportunity to gain new insight into their teaching through a nonevaluative process of reciprocal classroom observation and self-reflection.”
Open Access
Behind the Headlines: Current Events Topic Discovery and Exploration Using Historical Event Headlines
(Association of College & Research Libraries, 2018-01-01) Oberlies, Mary; William & Mary
Open Access
The Politics, Policy, and International Relations Section Companion Document to the Framework: Process and Outcomes
(Association of College and Research Libraries, 2025-09-24) Oberlies, Mary; Cloyd, Brett; Ackerman, Erin; Crowe, Stephanie; Lemery, Christopher; MacVaugh, Kimberly; Nesvig, Chelsea; Wasson, Winn
The Politics, Policy, and International Relations (PPIRS) section of ACRL is a forum for librarians to exchange information and ideas relevant to disciplines such as political science, law, international relations, security studies, public policy, and related fields. From 2018-2021, an ad hoc committee of section members worked to develop an addition to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education focused on the Framework’s applications to PPIRS disciplines, now known as the Companion Document to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education: Politics, Policy, and International Relations (the PPIRS Companion Document). In this chapter, we provide an overview of the process by which we developed this document, as well as some early outcomes and future opportunities this document provides.
Open Access
Identifying Restricted Data Repositories Supporting Mediated Access via Data Usage Agreements
(Lamar Soutter Library, UMass Chan Medical School, 2026-01) Oberlies, Mary; Potterbusch, Megan
In the modern era, the near impossibility of true anonymization means we must provide tangible recommendations for researchers who need to share de-identified, person-level data that could potentially be re-identified due to the presence of quasi-identifiers. This calls for data stewards to support researchers in depositing sensitive data in public repositories while still following institutional, ethical, and legal requirements. While various repository aggregators like re3data and DataCite Repository Finder provide lists of data repositories, navigating these can be cumbersome when trying to locate options for depositing restricted data. These listings rarely include certain necessary details, making the process of recommending third-party repositories to researchers time-consuming — or even limited, and we often end up relying on a short list of well-known repositories. An additional challenge is the difficulty of identifying repositories that mediate access via data usage agreements, where the repository handles access requests to ensure potential users meet established security and privacy requirements and have taken the necessary steps to protect confidentiality and commit to appropriate data use. The need to provide tangible recommendations to help researchers deposit data in public repositories while still protecting individual privacy served as the inception to this project to identify and create a spreadsheet of restricted data repositories with mediated access processes for researchers. This practical solution empowers data sharing while upholding essential ethical and institutional privacy requirements and, while currently limited to US based social sciences repositories, in sharing this resource, we hope others will continue to contribute and expand this work.
Open Access
Epistemology of Teaching Librarians: Examining the Translation of Beliefs to Practice
(Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), 2021) Oberlies, Mary; Kirker, Maoria J.; Mattson, Janna; Byrd, Jason
How do the personal epistemological beliefs of instruction librarians inform their teaching practices? By learning about their personal beliefs about knowledge acquisition, are librarians better equipped to create an environment more conducive to student learning? These questions informed a mixed-methods research study. Using the Approaches to Teaching Inventory, 283 teaching librarians answered 22 questions about their teaching practices and how they believe students learn. We interviewed 12 of these librarians to learn more about their teaching practices and epistemological beliefs. Seven themes emerged as influences on the instructional practices of librarians that ranged from learning biases to classroom tensions.
Open Access
Adapting Evidence-Based Practices to Improve Library Instruction: Using customized tools to support peer mentoring and observation
(Taylor & Francis (Routledge), 2020) Oberlies, Mary; Buxton, Kristin; Zeidman-Karpinski, Ann
To improve the quality of our instruction, and to contribute to student success, we designed an instructional development program using peer mentoring and observation grounded in evidence-based practices. We identified three methods of peer observation and mentoring to create an innovative progressively in-depth program that helps librarians understand what is happening in the classroom, and works within a community of practice to identify ways to improve the quality of our instruction. These tools, used in higher education, were then customized to work for information literacy instruction: Teaching Squares, the Teaching Practices Inventory - Information Literacy Instruction, and the Classroom Observation Protocol for Information Literacy. These tools help librarians identify evidence-based practices, understand what occurred in their classrooms, and lead to student-focused teaching. This article discusses the development of these tools and initial findings.