Friday, Sept. 23 - 12:45pm

Library instruction lite: when is 10-15 minutes enough? [12:45]

The test case covered in this presentation involved a history course with a research project. The librarian from a small college (Barnard) in Greensboro, NC, contacted a professor who had never used the library, largely because the assignment from this class that students asked about in the library was unclear, and not surprisingly, turns out the professor was frustrated with the final papers he'd received (e.g. last minute research, no citations, rampant plagiarism, poor use of source, the typical culprits...).

The original assignment, described by the presenter as a "cut and paste encyclopedia assignment," asked students to discuss the major events of a Civil Rights hero's life. Based on the librarian's suggestions, the assignment was revised as a multiple-state portfolio project, with students turning in pieces along the way (very similar to one of our success stories in the Networking program!). The professor and librarian systematically mapped the assignment out among 8 weeks, so that the week following when the assignment was given out, the librarian delivered a 10-15 minute instruction session.

During the instruction session, the librarian would remind students of the assignment requirements, creating a "perception of crisis" - not sure if I like it described this way, but I guess I see the line of reasoning here... Then, he presented a timeline and the librarian's role as research helper. He showed them how to search Credo, find an article, point out hyperlinks, citation, and additional keywords, and finally, encourage students to visit the library for personalized help. Again, the brevity of the instruction session was intentional, to cover the basics but leave some questions so that the students would ask the librarian for help outside of class.

The instructor was pleased with positive results, namely improved resource quality, resource use, and formatting/bibliography (the bibliographies were marked and graded several times by the librarian before the final papers were turned in), and less plagiarism. Even though the bibliographies were better, in-text citations remained dicey, revealing a flaw in the assignment design: so much focus was placed on turning in multiple bibliography pages that turning in a draft of the paper (where missing in-text citations could be fixed) was not one of the stages of the assignment.

This case study seemed particularly relevant to us because Barnard's library staff is very small, too, and limiting the instruction to one 10-15 minute session greatly relieved the librarians to handle other responsibilities. They were able to improve students' information literacy skills in a way that maximized their effectiveness in the least amount of time and even engaged a faculty member who was difficult to reach. In effect, the librarian was "embedded" in the course but with much less of a time commitment than typical embedded librarian cases.

Stressing the importance of considering the relationship between the specific assignment and instruction to maximize effectiveness, the presenter described good candidates for this type of librarian-aided course as lower-division courses with a research component taught by new, skeptical or time-pressed faculty.

*I have a handout with the assignment.