Information Literacy and Library Instruction  Tags: information_literacy library_instruction faculty  

The Amelia Gallucci-Cirio Library at Fitchburg State College offers a library instruction program to help prepare students to be information consumers in the 21st century.  We aim to work with you to develop their skills in information literacy.  The librarians can help you by building class shortcut guides, providing instruction on the research process, helping students identify the best library resources, and other skills to help your students with your assignments and objectives.

We know an hour is a lot of time to give up. We do not have to do one session for one hour. Here are some other options to consider to help your students:

1. Embed your librarian: We will work with you to develop an assignment for your students.  We will come in to your class 3-4 times a semester for 20 minute blocks to work with your students on the different phases of an assignment.  These types of sessions help students build a stronger connection to the librarian.  They frequently come back to us for help and use our resoruces.
   
2. Shortcut Guides: Very often the problem is a lack of easy access to the library tools and resources.  A shortcuts guide provides you with a webpage tailored to meet your class and assignments needs.  We pick resources based on the topics of students papers and requirements of the assignment.  You will be provided with the webpage address of the guide to link to via Blackboard or your class webpage.  See some examples of these guides from other classes:
   

Thank you to everyone who scheduled classes this past year.  We enjoyed working with you and your students.  Plan ahead for the Fall 2009 semester by scheduling your sessions now!  Here are some ideas as you develop the class syllabi:

• Make specific database or research tool suggestions.  Research indicates that students will use what you suggest. 
  
• Consider getting a course guide, built by the librarians, for your class.  These are especially helpful for classes that are multi-discinplinary. 
  
• Link directly to the library, your department's subject guide or a course guide right in Blackboard.  Easy access to the library's tools increases students use.
• Do you feel your students just need a refresher on research tools available?  We will stop by for 15 minutes and remind them about what is available to them.
• Talk to the librarians to make sure the resources you need are available. 

• Writing One sessions are designed to show students how the library can help them enhance the searching and basic research skills they already possess. Our students come in with a familiarity of the web environment and favorite resources. The aim of this session is to help them better understand what types of informaiton exists; to help them understand why it is important to be critical of information found in Wikipedia; and to help them understand where they can find the best resources and how the library can help them.
• Writing Two sessions are the next step in the process of helping our students become better researchers. This session is designed to help them begin to understand the difference between searching and researching as well as the issue of the validity and credibility of the resoruces we choose. We do this by turning a critical eye on the results found in search engines and databases as well as helping them to develop a basic search strategy.
• Course or Subject Specific Research sessions are targeted at courses within the major that teach the students research skills for that field. This advanced level session ensures that students know which databases are appropriate for their subject as well as working with them on advanced research/search strategy skills.
• Tours are done for our archive and special collections.

Sign up for a session today!

Your feedback is what we use to develop our instruction program.  Please take a few minutes to let us know what you thought of your session.