“I Didn’t Know I Could Use the Library!” Meeting the Needs of Students Online

I’m at WILU 2013 – Workshop for Instruction in Library Use – a Canadian information literacy conference in Fredericton, New Brunswick: a great opportunity to network with librarians north of the border – or “south of the border” to them! I presented a session about implementing library services to online students:

“I Didn’t Know I Could Use the Library!” Meeting the Needs of Students Online

Session Description:
What do you do with students you rarely see in the library? University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has a growing online student population. Reaching these students can be challenging. Many still view the library as just a brick-and-mortar building, and not an online 24/7 resource. Librarians conducted an assessment of online students to investigate their needs. This session will focus on the assessment results and the information literacy outreach plan put into place. It will highlight several initiatives, including the embedded librarian program, faculty-librarian collaboration, marketing efforts, and learning tools geared towards online students. Based on feedback from students and faculty, an increase in reference questions, as well as high usage statistics from librarian-created tutorials and discussion boards, the outreach plan is working. Come and learn about these best practices for online learners and share your ideas, as well.

Here are some of the assessment tools, resources, guides, and tips mentioned in my presentation:

• Adult Degree Student Survey – Spring 2011
• Adult Degree Faculty Survey – Spring 2011
• Embedded Librarian Tips for Learning Management Systems
• Examples of Topics for “Ready to Go” Embedded Librarian Posts for the Learning Management System
• Embedded Librarian Checklist - questions for faculty to think about
• Adult Degree Student Library Guide
• Adult Degree Faculty & Staff Library Guide
• Plagiarism Guide & Tutorial
• Cite Your Sources/NoodleTools Guide & Tutorial
• Scholarly Sources Guide & Tutorial

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Get ‘Embed’ with Your Librarian: Meeting the Needs of Students Online

The online market is a growing field for higher education. How does the academic library fit into all of this? My colleague–Anne Kasuboski–and I gave a presentation at the 2013 Wisconsin Association of Academic Librarians conference, held at Elkhart Lake.

We discuss how our library at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay surveyed our online students and faculty and developed an outreach plan to meet their needs.

It covers our Embedded Librarian program, which started out as a pilot program and expanded successfully across online courses, in addition to some face-to-face courses. It also includes information on the learning tools that we gear towards online learners, such as LibGuides, tutorials, and resources like NoodleTools.

If you have questions about being an “embedded librarian”–let me know! I would like to hear what other librarians are doing with programs such as these.

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Bringing the Annotated Bibliography into the 21st Century: Using a LibGuide as an Assignment

I’m a LibGuides aficionado. Students love them. Professors love them. It’s a great way to package only the most relevant library and research-related content and tie it directly to an assignment or course. Professors can then link to it from their course management system (e.g., Blackboard, Moodle, D2L) in an environment where students spend most of their online “academic” time anyway.

This semester I taught a course for my institution’s Information and Computing Sciences department: Information Science 410: Advanced Information Problems. This course takes a problem/solution oriented approach to a complicated issue – in our case, gun control – and examines the maze of information related to it.

As a librarian, I thought the best thing to do was to put together a LibGuide to direct students to good information. But then I thought, “Hey, these are information science students…let’s put them to work!” Because the course spends time on evaluating information, a course LibGuide project was a perfect opportunity for students to demonstrate their skills.

Using our gun control issue, students worked in teams to evaluate the best library databases for the topic, and gathered relevant books, websites, government information, and video. I taught them how to use the LibGuides system and gave an overview of “model” LibGuides. Each group was provided with a LibGuide shell. Students had “collaborator” access to the LibGuide allowing them to add content and edit the design.

After each group submitted their LibGuide, I had a panel of library staff evaluate them. We selected the “winning” LibGuide to be published on our site. The end result?: a non-biased and informational guide on a popular and controversial issue that can be used by all students on our campus to gather academic information.

The project gives students practice at evaluating and curating information. The LibGuide, combined with a written assignment where students explain their information selection brings the time honored annotated bibliography into the 21st century. It’s something that academic librarians should market to professors as an assignment that demonstrates critical thinking and evaluative skills.

LibGuide link: http://libguides.uwgb.edu/guns

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How Ranking Library Schools is Like Ranking the Socks in Your Drawer

U.S. News & World Report just released new rankings of graduate schools in library science. Isn’t ranking library schools sort of like ranking the socks in your drawer? It does not matter.

I hope that prospective MLS students don’t read the rankings and think, “Gee, I need to go to THAT library school!”

These rankings have repeatedly been called into question. The prime reason is the methodology:

The rankings are based solely on the results of a fall 2012 survey sent to the dean of each program, the program director, and a senior faculty member in each program.

And this:

The library and information studies specialty ratings are based solely on the nominations of program deans, program directors, and a senior faculty member at each program. They were asked to choose up to 10 programs noted for excellence in each specialty area. Those with the most votes are listed.

Not a good research methodology, is it?–something that I suspect any MLS student could tell you. The issue of college rankings (both undergraduate and graduate programs) and the data that is gathered has been scrutinized by higher ed periodicals and websites. Just take a look at:

• Can You Verify That? – InsideHigherEd.com, Feb. 6, 2013 
• Yet Another Rankings Fabrication – InsideHigherEd.com, Jan. 2, 1013
• Alternative to Law School Rankings – InsideHigherEd.com, Nov. 1, 2012
• The U.S. News Seal of Approval Isn’t Free – Chronicle.com, Aug. 7, 2010

So what should a prospective MLS student do? I’ve written about this before, but when it comes to library school, just pick the cheapest (in state vs. out of state) or most convenient (online vs. on-campus) option that’s available to you. The coursework provides the base and the theory, but it’s experience that will get you a job. If you’re just taking the classes, you’re doing it wrong.

I remember students in my program complaining that the MLS coursework wasn’t “academic” enough, but I think it’s important to remember that you are in a professional program. You are training for a career, not writing a dissertation. It’s up to you to turn the coursework into something worthwhile. Work as a paraprofessional or library assistant during library school. Do an internship, practicum, or volunteer. These experiences will help you land a job better than any course you take.

I’ve never looked at anyone’s résumé and thought, “Wow, they graduated from a top ranked library school! Let’s hire him/her.” So ignore the rankings. Focus on gaining some relevant experience instead.

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10 Library Terms for High School Students

I created a library guide for our College Credit in High School students–these are students in high school who take university classes at their local Wisconsin high school. The program provides a head start for college-bound students. Classes run the gamut from English composition, to psychology, communication, chemistry, and Spanish.

Several of the classes involve a research component, where students begin that very first “real” college-level research assignment. These classes often make a field trip to the library where we work with the students and teachers in introducing them to some of our library’s resources. We often get questions about terminology: “What’s that?” “What does this mean?” So, I began to brainstorm some different library terms I thought our students should know–especially as they prepare for their first academic library visit. These are terms they might encounter in our library, or see on the website, catalog, and databases. The terms are also ones that I frequently use in information literacy sessions.

Here are the 10 library terms for high school students:

1. Abstract - a brief summary of a book or article. Quickly reading an abstract will help you decide if you would like to get the full article or book.
2. Bibliography - a list of books, articles, and other materials that are cited by the source you are looking at. Also known as a works cited list, or a references list.
3. Call Number - Each book in our library has a call number–a series of numbers and letters that help you locate the book. When searching for a book in the library’s catalog, remember to write down or print out the call number. Call numbers are organized by subject, so books on the same topic will be shelved next to one another.
4. Catalog - the online system that lists all of the books, media, and other materials in our library’s collection. To search the catalog, click on the the Books & Media tab on the Cofrin Library homepage.
5. Citation - brief information about a source, such as a book or article. It usually lists the author, title of the book (or name of the magazine, journal or newspaper), title of the article (if applicable), publication date or year, pages numbers (if applicable), and publisher (if applicable).
6. Database - a collection of articles from newspapers, magazines, and journals. To search for articles in Cofrin Library’s databases, use the Articles tab on the Cofrin Library homepage or click on the Databases by Subject link.
7. Find-It button – When searching in the library’s databases for articles, you will often see the “Find It” button. If the article is not available in full-text in the database, you can click on the “Find It” button to see if the article is available online in a different database, or order a copy of it for free through our interlibrary loan service.
8. Full-Text - When searching in the library’s database for articles, you will often see a link that says “full text” (sometimes marked as PDF Full Text or HTML Full Text). This means that the article is available online in the database. Clicking on the “full text” link will take you to the article where you can read it on your computer, print it out, download it, or email it to yourself. If the article is not available in “full text,” you can click on the Find-It button.
9. Peer Reviewed - A scholarly material based on original research. It is often a scholarly journal article. Not a magazine or newspaper article. It is a material that is written by an expert in a field (e.g., doctor, scientist, professor). Generally, peer reviewed materials are fairly lengthy and text-heavy. Peer Reviewed materials always cite their sources, so you will usually see a bibliography with it. Sometimes, peer reviewed materials are referred to as: scholarly, academic, or refereed.
10. Stacks - This is the area where the books are shelved. In Cofrin Library, the book stacks are on the 5th and 6th floors of the library. Books with call numbers A-P are shelved on the 6th floor. Books with call numbers Q-Z are shelved on the 5th floor.

The terms I picked were specifically designed to be ones that students would encounter using my library’s resources–so they may not necessarily be the 10 terms you would pick. I looked at the assignments and then looked at our library’s physical layout, along with our online resources to pick these terms.

I avoided some terms that others might argue for inclusion: subject headings, ISBN, Boolean operators, reference, reserves come to mind. These just don’t fit the scope of the students’ assignments.

So what do you think: Am I missing any big ones here? What would you have included? Feel free to share.

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ALA Poster Session – Assessment into Action: Meeting the Needs of Adult Learners

Here is the online version of my poster session for the ALA Annual Conference in Anaheim. My topic is academic libraries and adult learners:

Assessment into Action: Meeting the Needs of Adult Learners
What do you do with students you rarely see in the library? University of Wisconsin-Green Bay has a growing adult learner population, most of which take classes solely online. Reaching these students can be challenging. Librarians conducted an assessment of adult students to investigate their needs. This poster session will focus on the assessment results and the outreach plan put into place. It will highlight several initiatives, including librarian-faculty collaboration with introductory courses, the embedded librarian program, and the targeting of library services to adult students. It will also address using data to argue for increased budgetary support and collaboration with offices outside the library. Based on preliminary feedback from students and faculty, an increase in reference questions, as well as high usage statistics from librarian-created tutorials and discussion boards, the outreach plan is working. The poster session will include charts of the assessment data, handouts of the assessment tool, teaching and marketing materials (LibGuide, tutorials, newsletters), and photographs of embedded librarian best practices.

Materials:
Embedded Librarian Tips (PDF)
Library Survey for Adult Degree Students (PDF)
Library Survey for Adult Degree Faculty (PDF)
Adult Degree Library Guide for Students (Libguide)
Adult Degree Library Guide for Faculty & Staff (Libguide)
Adult Degree Library Welcome Video (YouTube)

Poster:

Introduction

Assessment, Outreach Plan

Embedded Librarian Program

Promoting Services, Advocating for Support

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Library Marketing Never Stops

Cambridge University Press announced yesterday that they will begin a new service that will allow users to “rent” their journal articles for 24 hours for $5.99. The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Wired Campus blog provides a good overview.

I’m loathe to make library users pay for ANYTHING. I always tell students in information literacy sessions: “If you’re doing a Google search and find an article you like, NEVER pay for it. The Library can get it for you for FREE!”

The Cambridge plan looks like something that would primarily be marketed to faculty and researchers. And I understand its “I need it now!” appeal. However, I hope that these professionals would remember that their academic library is there to help them. They may not be coming through the library gates, but they use the online resources that we subscribe to (e.g., JSTOR, EBSCO, etc…) and we’re the real, live people in that brick and mortar library that make it happen!

Libraries need to step up their marketing and outreach efforts to both faculty and students.

A few points to emphasize:

1. Libraries must continue to promote FREE access. That’s what we’re are all about. Most academic libraries can get these articles to their users for free. Many academic libraries will have direct full-text access via their databases.

2. For those libraries that do not have full-text access, there’s always Interlibrary Loan. At many academic libraries, it’s free to their users. Turnaround times have been decreasing over the past decade. At my institution, when I request an article, I generally receive a PDF copy of the article within 1-2 working days. And it’s mine to keep–FOREVER–unlike Cambridge’s 24-hour access plan.

3. Online Connections: Library websites need to be improved for functionality. It should only be one click to instant message chat, call, or email a librarian for assistance. This info should be available on every library webpage and every database search interface.

4. We need to step up outreach to faculty. Start making connections. See if you can attend a department meeting. Send out email blasts and online newsletters informing faculty of new resources and tools.

5. Besides reaching faculty, we need to market the library as a place that helps students succeed academically. That could be accomplished through librarian embedding in course management systems or designing class-specific library guides, tutorials, etc…

6. Open access: this is admittedly a loftier goal–but I think we need to start educating faculty about open access v. traditional publishing. Budgets are shrinking. Scholarly journal costs continue to rise. Journals are being canceled. What are the alternatives to traditional publishing? This is where librarians can definitely play a part.

Library marketing never stops. There’s always something new to promote, or a service to remind people of. It’s not a battle. It’s an opportunity. What other ideas and goals do you have for library marketing? I’d like to hear them!

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If It Looks Boring, It’s Probably Scholarly

For first-year college students–and many beyond the first year as well–the concept of using a scholarly journal is new. At the reference desk, I often get questions as to whether something is “scholarly” or not. It doesn’t help that professors use interchangeable terms for the same thing: scholarly, peer-reviewed, refereed, academic. No wonder students are confused!

In the “olden” days of library research, it was pretty simple. Students would come into the library and grab a journal, magazine, or newspaper off of the shelf. They could hold the periodical in hand, flip through it, and get a good idea of its contents. Now with online databases, this is not always possible–and if it is, it’s not intuitive. You are often staring at one article on your computer screen. As libraries continue to cancel print subscriptions, online access will not only be the primary way students access content (as has been the case for the last decade), but the only way.

Teaching Strategy
When I teach information literacy sessions, I often go through the different types of periodicals (scholarly, trade, magazines, newspapers). This is especially true if the professor has limits on what students can or cannot use. In some classes, no magazine or newspaper articles are allowed.

This week I did an information literacy session where scholarly journals, specialized magazines and trade publications were OK to use, but the professor did not want students using general interest magazines (Newsweek, Time, etc…). The students’ assignment was to take the issue of teen pregnancy, examine the causes, and develop a list of solutions.

To help students understand the different types of articles, I passed out this handout:

Is it a Magazine or a Journal?

Then, since the students were all studying the same topic (teenage pregnancy), I gathered five different articles from the databases and passed them out to students. I put the students into groups and asked them to do two things:

1. Figure out which category each article belonged to: scholarly, trade, magazines, newspapers
2. Rate the articles (on scale of 1 to 5) in terms of how useful it would be for the assignment

The five articles I choose, included:

1. Scholarly journal article on sexual and reproductive rights of pregnant Ecuadorian teenage girls (Demonstrates narrowed focus of scholarly articles. Not useful for students’ assignment since it focuses on Ecuador).
2. Scholarly journal article that evaluates an “abstinence-plus” sex education curriculum (Useful because it discusses one possible solution for teen pregnancy).
3. Trade publication for social workers that provided statistics on teen pregnancy in the U.S. and tips for working with pregnant teens (Useful because it provides good statistics and background information).
4. Magazine article published in The American Conservative about MTV’s 16 and Pregnant program (Specialized magazines were OK to use, but this one had political bias that should be avoided).
5. Newspaper article from The Washington Post about a government sex ed program (Good basic info on a government program, but students not allowed to use newspaper articles).

Also, a little humor can go a long way in getting your points across to students (e.g.):

1. “If it looks boring, it’s probably a scholarly journal.” Students laugh, and then you can emphasize that although they “look” boring, they often have the best information.
2. “Attractive people–and politicians–appear on the cover of magazines. Ugly people appear on the covers of trade publications.” (As I hold up a copy of Library Journal–ouch!). But it emphasizes that trade publications are geared towards people in a specific job or industry.

I give students a few minutes to examine the articles and then we have a discussion on the different types of articles and I ask them which ones they think would be most useful for their assignment. I’ve done this activity in many sessions and it usually goes over well. I think it’s important that students know how to identify the types of sources they need before they actually start searching. From there, we delve into the library databases and I get fewer questions like, “What kind of article is this?” A win-win for students and the librarian.

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Weather Report: Blustery Air Coming Down from the Taiga

The Taiga Forum, a group of associate deans/directors/AULs from large academic libraries that “challenges the traditional boundaries of libraries,” has released their 2011 list of “Provocative Statements.” These statements are meant to, in their words, “provoke conversation rather than attempt to predict the future.” However, Barbara Fister notes in an excellent commentary in Library Journal that:

“there’s a subtle difference between being ‘provocative’ and merely ‘provoking.’ These statements do provoke, but not always constructively.”

The Taiga group, a title sounding more in common with the NRDC or other environmental groups, is named for the coniferous forest region between the tundra and deciduous forests–I looked this up in my “ample” free time as I’m not supposed to have a job anymore–at least according to one of their 2006 predictions: Reference…librarians will no longer exist. The track record for the 2006 predictions, which should have come into being now 5 years later, is not exactly “spot on.” Jenica Rogers provides an good overview of this.

So, looking at the 20011 list of statements, what do we have coming our way in academic libraryland?

1. Organizational Structures Flatten
Why not start by eliminating the Associate Dean/Director/AUL positions? I kid! I kid!

2. Radical Cooperation
Highly possible, especially in larger cities with multiple universities. I could also see outsourcing of processing (cataloging, acquisitions)–not that I’m in favor of it. I wonder what sort of restrictions vendors will place on libraries wanting to collaborate for purchases. And will any $$$ be saved in the long run?

3. Collaborative Space Partners
This is not new. Libraries have already been doing this! Smart libraries have already incorporated writing centers, tutoring centers, instructional technology help, multimedia labs, etc. into their spaces. “One stop shopping” is beneficial for all constituents: students, faculty, and the library.

4. Books as Decor
Really? This is what was discussed? Time to turn off the HGTV.

5. No More Collection Building
Our collections represent our constituents. Collection building will continue–maybe not at the pace it has, but it will continue. Our faculty would not approve of not building the collection.

6. New Model of Liaison Librarianship
I can see the usefulness of a position like this–and many libraries now devote time to institutional repositories. I’m a little concerned about being in “research data management” – is this something we’d be doing for our faculty? Sounds like something a Grad Asst. or TA should be doing.

7. Staff Reallocation, Elimination, and Re-training
I agree with one of the comments–does sound awfully Orwellian. Good libraries have always been re-assessing what they do and adapting their services to meet the needs of their users. Please do not make it sound like you’re sending me off Guantanamo.

8. Library in the Cloud
With the exception of printed books in the library, most services are already “in the cloud” – databases, online requests, research help, etc… What’s the big deal?

9. Boutique Services
What exactly counts as a “boutique service”? Doesn’t the idea of #6 count a “boutique service”?

10. Oversupply of MLSs
Too many MLSs and not enough jobs. I’ve been hearing this since library school in the early 2000s. Tell me something new.

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Library Instruction: No More Lecturing, No More ‘Death by PowerPoint’

How do you ‘connect’ in the classroom? I can remember some of my first library instruction sessions I taught back when I was a newbie librarian. Those sessions were, in a word, boring. It involved “Death by PowerPoint” screen shots of canned searches from the library catalog and databases. The students didn’t even have computers to follow along. They didn’t want to be there, and neither did I.

However, I gradually improved and then became quite comfortable with library instruction. Gone were the PowerPoints of canned searches (hey, it’s actually fun when the librarian fails during live database searches!). I liked asking students for their research topics and using those as search examples. It’s stump-the-librarian time! A new computer lab allowed for more interaction and hands-on training. I also began to diverge from lecturing for a majority of the class time. Turn the students loose, walk around, and conduct mini “research” sessions as you go. I began to see information literacy as my favorite part of the job.

Now when I meet with first-year or introductory courses for library instruction, I start with an activity to help connect with the students, set the stage for what we’re going to cover, and to actually show them that they do possess some of the skills we’re going to use. If I’m remembering correctly, the activity I use was originally posted on the ILI-L discussion list. If you’re the librarian who originally posted it, let me know, so I can give you credit. A co-worker (the awesome Debbie Campbell at Millikin University) and I tweaked it for use in our classes.

Here’s the activity:

On a whiteboard, I write out: Where does information come from? (in general, not just for assignments/class projects)

Students inevitably answer things such as: books, Internet, journals, magazines, newspapers, Google, Facebook, cell phone, TV, people, etc…
We discuss that information comes from a variety of sources.

Then I ask: What do you want your information to be like?

Popular answers are usually: truthful, accurate, authoritative, easy to understand, quick to find, brief (short).
Then I emphasize using authoritative and accurate information. And although it’s nice if the information is “short,” that might not always be the case with the research process. But I point out that we’re here to help them navigate through it!

The last question I ask is: What do you want that information to do for you?

Popular answers include: give me examples, give me ideas, help support my opinion, make my writing better, get me a good grade.
I point out that these are all good examples. Then I make the case that they use the skills of finding and evaluating information everyday (You just showed me up on the board!) and that they just need to take those skills and apply it to the library’s resources.

In total, the activity takes around 5 minutes, but helps get students thinking about the information they use, or are about to use. Then I segue into a demo of the library’s resources applicable to their assignment. I also show them how to get to the LibGuide that I have designed for their class. Don’t throw the kitchen sink at them!  The demo/search examples lasts around 15-20 minutes, and the remainder of the class time is given to the students to do their own research. I supplement the individual research time with a search strategy handout (example I used at SNHU). I rove around the room while the students do their research and complete the handout.

I’d be interested in hearing from other library people on what they like to do in library instruction sessions!

Brainstorming with students

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