Dani Brecher Cook is our new Director of Teaching and Learning at the UCR Library.

Dani's key responsibility is to lead the development, implementation, and ongoing program for library teaching and learning services and initiatives to support the curricular and research activities of UCR faculty, researchers and students.

The opportunity to establish a new teaching and learning department with a focus on curricular collaboration and learner-centered approaches in a uniquely diverse environment is what excites Dani most about coming to UCR Library. She hopes to build sustainable, ongoing relationships with partners across campus.

“By situating librarians as expert co-educators and sharing our expertise in information resources and pedagogy, UCR Library can materially contribute to the University’s mission to graduate critical thinkers and information-literate citizens,” Dani said. “These skills are especially important in navigating the 21st-century world, where the abundance of information can make it challenging to determine authority, accuracy, and value.”

This newly re-imagined department will also assist faculty and instructors in developing research assignments for students that focus on discovery, exploration, and process.

Previously, Dani served as the Information Literacy and Research Services Coordinator at the Claremont Colleges Library.

Dani has presented nationally at the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), LITA Forum (Library Information Technology Association), LOEX (Library Orientation Exchange), and other instruction- and library technology-focused conferences. Her team at Claremont received the 2015 Library Instruction Round Table (LIRT) Innovation in Instruction Award for their work in curriculum mapping. Dani and Kevin Michael Klipfel’s article, How Do Our Students Learn? An Outline of a Cognitive Psychological Model for Information Literacy Instruction, was recently selected as one of LIRT’s top 20 articles for 2015.

Dani received her MSLS from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and holds an A.B. in English Literature from the University of Chicago, and a Diversity Advocacy Certificate also from UNC Chapel Hill.