Liaison Librarian Task Force 2012 - 2013, The University of Maryland Libraries, Final Report, 31 May 2013 (original) (raw)
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Amplifying the Educational Role of Librarians
Research Library Issues
ur libraries and universities are continuously adapting, seeking effective ways to respond to the fundamental and interconnected missions of research, teaching, and public service. To name just a few recent shifts: institutions and departments have drafted and adopted student learning outcomes for all graduates of their programs; curricula have evolved to include problem-solving and research-based learning; research projects incorporate various media and take more technological and creative forms; online programs have increased exponentially; and national studies and educational research have informed our understanding of factors that enhance student engagement 1 and result in deeper learning. 2 As institutions respond to these changes, librarians can, and should, offer valuable perspectives and expertise to initiatives such as accreditation planning and strategic goal setting, development of student learning outcomes, design of course management systems, assessment of student learning, and promotion of teaching-effectiveness programs. My focus within the process at Berkeley, and for this article, will be the often under-emphasized educational role of librarians. Responding strategically to economic pressures, many libraries are taking a fresh look at the changing needs of faculty and students and realigning the library's priorities and models to best meet current and future needs. As with many ARL libraries, the University of California, Berkeley has a decentralized library system and a campus with research interests that are both wide and deep; identification of lower priorities or lesser-used functions is neither easy nor obvious. However, the librarian's role as an educational partner is recognized as one area of strategic importance for the long-term vitality of research libraries and the effectiveness of campus teaching and learning initiatives. RLI 265 9
Continuing Professional Development - Preparing for New Roles in Libraries: A Voyage of Discovery, 2005
The growing importance given to integrated information literacy programmes in universities is correspondingly enhancing and changing the teaching role of the traditional academic reference librarian. How are librarians facing the challenge? This paper examines one of the schools surveyed by Kari Gulbraar in her paper "Developing for the New Academic Library Function: Knowledge and Skills Requirements among Library Personnel and Teaching Faculty". Using a case study approach we consider the implications of integrating information literacy into a newly created academic programme. Through SWOT analysis, we identify the steps involved in the evolution from a traditional reference librarian role, in which the delivery of orientation and library tours is the norm, to that of a team player who partners with faculty in course and curriculum design. The librarian who undertakes this new role must be aware of the different and perhaps conflicting expectations of four distinct groups of stakeholders: students, faculty members, other librarians and library and faculty administrations. What new skills and competencies are needed to achieve this evolution? In what way must they be adapted to work with each of the stakeholder groups? Literature review The debate over the role of the academic librarian is not new. In 1880, Harvard University's librarian recommended that "the college librarian should become a teacher, not that mock substitute who is recited to; a teacher, not with a textbook, but with a world of books". 2 In 2000, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) issued its Information Literacy Standards for Higher Education, building upon a key report issued in 1989 by the American Library Association's Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. 3 The ACRL standards described information literacy (IL) as both a philosophy and a process, with clearly defined benchmarks and outcomes. The standards articulated what had always been done in bibliographic instruction (BI), but also pushed BI beyond the traditional 'one-shot' class by linking IL to overall academic success and lifelong learning. The evolution of bibliographic instruction to information literacy coincided with, and was influenced by, a shift in thinking about university teaching. In 1998 the U.S. Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University issued a study which recommended that universities should focus more on the teaching component of their missions and to follow the inquiry-based learning model. In particular they were urged to target undergraduates in new programme development. 4 A follow-up report in 2001 tracked the implementation of these recommendations throughout U.S. universities. 5 The first Boyer report grouped libraries with academic support services such as labs, while the second didn't mention libraries at all. With their emphasis on improving the undergraduate experience through inquiry-based teaching, both reports intersected with and supported similar developments in information literacy. How did these changes impact librarians? Several books published from 1999 to 2001 reflected an increasing interest in the idea of librarians taking on more prominent teaching roles. Rosemary Young and Stephana Harmony's book, Working with Faculty to Design Undergraduate Information Literacy Programs: A How-to-do-it Manual for Librarians offered many practical 'how to' tips, but also introduced some concepts that went beyond the merely practical: developing learning outcomes, writing policy statements, and participating in curriculum design. The authors stated that: we elected to use [the term] "information literacy" to emphasize the outcome of the instructional process-students who cannot only locate and retrieve information, but also evaluate and apply the use of this information appropriately. To accomplish this goal, it is necessary to create partnerships with the faculty in our academic institutions to design and implement successful programmes. 6 Young and Harmony painted a picture of a collaborative, collegial relationship, with librarians and faculty working together at the curriculum design level. They also acknowledged that if a true partnership was not immediately feasible, it was still possible to "go beyond the five-minute phone call about the date, time and list of resources to cover". 6 Another book published in 1999 by the Association of College and Research Libraries was even more explicit about the teaching role of academic librarians. Librarians as Learners, Librarians a Teachers: the Diffusion of Internet Expertise in the Academic Library focused specifically on how librarians could use the Internet in instruction, and predicted that: I forsee an opportunity for academic librarians to assume a stronger and probably more formal teaching role within the academy. What they teach now will be far beyond today's hands-on, skill-building workshops…academic librarians will have an unprecedented opportunity to build themselves into the center of the educational processes in colleges and universities and function as true peers among faculty. 7
College & Research Libraries, 2021
Michael Stopel and a team of editors have crafted a unique celebration of faculty-librarian collaborations that highlights the relevance of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education to all disciplines. This publication is a product of an AMICAL workshop developed to encourage faculty-librarian collaborations in the development of courses that integrated the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy. AMICAL is a consortium of 29 higher education institutions located in 22 countries across Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Central and Southern Asia. They are accredited by American Agencies and are members of the Association of American International Colleges and Universities (AAICU). Workshop participants committed to codesigning their instruction and teaching the course the following year. The book offers a thoughtful selection of these codesigned instruction sessions that demonstrate the value and impact of librarian-faculty collaborations in information lite...
USER EDUCATION AND INFORMATION LITERACY IN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES %28METHODS AND RELATIONSHIP%
According to Shahi "User Education is a process of activities involved in making the users of the library conscious about tremendous value of information in day to day life to develop interest among the users to seek information as and when they requires" . User education, also called bibliographic instruction (BI), library instruction and library orientation can be defined as instructional programs designed to teach library users how to locate the information they need quickly and effectively. It usually covers the library's system of organizing materials, the structure of the literature of the field, research methodologies appropriate to the academic discipline, and specific resources and finding tools (library catalog, indexes and abstracting services, bibliographic databases, etc.). It prepares individuals to make immediate and lifelong use of information effectively by teaching the concepts and logic of information access and evaluation, and by fostering information independence and critical thinking.
2015
The need to teach information literacy skills to undergraduate students is often framed as a 21 st century concern, but debate over the value and practice of teaching this set of skills can be found as far back as the early 1900’s. This article reviews the history of information literacy instruction in academic libraries from its origins to the present, examines the current state of information literacy instruction in academic libraries, and explores possible future directions that this instruction may take. Looking to the past, present and future shows that while library instruction has evolved, many central concerns remain unanswered.
2018
This article looks at how librarians, who are the experts in information dissemination can collaborate with faculty to effectively teach students basic information literacy skills, integrating information literacy skills into the curriculum and how this process can make students learning experience meaningful and successful. It has become imperative for everyone, in the age of knowledge economy to be skilled in information literacy in the current dispensation of information technology. The authors believe that an effective way to achieve this goal is for faculty and librarians to collaborate and fine ways to teach these skills to students, because it is important that students acquire the required skills to evaluate, storage, organization, access, and effectively utilize information. Librarians and faculty members have equal stakes in ensuring that students acquired information literacy skills that will help them succeed not only during their years of university education, but als...