open links in new windows Mission Statement Strategic Plan Operating Plan Annual Report

Director's Welcome

Executive Summary

Institutional Capacity

Collaboration

· Introduction

· Library Instruction

· Information Literacy

· The Case for Collaboration

· Challenges

· Meeting the Challenges

· Conclusion

· Printable Version (PDF)

Collections

Digital Library

Library Spaces

Exhibits & Web Links

Selective Comparisons

  Last updated: September 10, 2003

COLLABORATION WITH FACULTY TO ENHANCE STUDENT LEARNING:
CHALLENGES

The Libraries' existing library instruction program has the potential to grow into an effective information literacy program for The Claremont Colleges. Although we provide library instruction for first-year seminars, more advanced core and general education courses, senior seminars, and some graduate programs, there is no collaborative planning between faculty and librarians at the course, department, or curriculum level to integrate information competencies. We can identify several challenges to collaboration:

• The Libraries are not "owned" by any one college, so departmental and college-wide curriculum planning groups regularly overlook the value of involving librarians in the planning process.
• Collaboration takes time. Faculty time is limited by commitments to teaching, research, publication, and department and college committee work. Because librarians' subject responsibilities often require working with departments at several different schools, collaborating effectively with appropriate subject faculty on every campus would take great amounts of their time.
• Librarians, whether because they are not members of a college or because they do not have faculty status, are not included in or invited to faculty and department meetings. In fact, in some cases they have been told not to attend these meetings; if they have something that needs to be contributed, a faculty member will deliver the information for them.
• Most librarians with responsibility for teaching have collection development, reference, and/or other major areas of responsibility as well. Not all are equally skilled or comfortable in the role of teacher, nor do all feel confident in their ability to talk about pedagogy and information competencies with faculty.
• Faculty and librarians don't always speak the same language, even when they mean the same thing. For example, many faculty still request a "library tour" for their students. Librarians know that nearly always means a hands-on session focused on research databases, what librarians call a "library instruction session." The phrase "information literacy" may be interpreted so differently by different people that any group focusing on the concept must first reach consensus on a definition.
• Some faculty see the library instruction session as an add-on which is nice but takes away class time that could otherwise be spent on course content. Others may see it as interference in their courses.

We know that many faculty do value library instruction for their students, but they generally don't realize the importance of their role in making their students value it. One professor has suggested that the Libraries' instructional services should be more sequenced and better advertised; however, to be effective, these changes must happen within a course or a curriculum. We have heard over and over from students in focus groups that they are likely to attend a library instruction session only if one of their professors requires it. Without an integrated, collaborative approach, "required" may mean that not completing the library assignment counts as one unexcused absence from class or it may mean that students who think they already know how to use the library are allowed to skip the library session.

One of the areas of most concern to us, especially for first-year students, is library anxiety. Studies indicate that both undergraduate and graduate students experience library anxiety when faced with the prospect of having to use the library to complete an assignment or project. Research and our own experience show that students are often not aware of the value of libraries for their academic success. To introduce new students to the Libraries and library resources and services in a non-threatening way, we designed an orientation experience for first-year undergraduates, which we call "Passport to the Libraries" (Exhibit A41). Most students who complete the series of activities tell us they think Passport has provided a very valuable introduction to the Libraries that will serve them well. But since Fall 2000 when we began offering this program, Passport has had only moderate success: most students don't complete it since only a few freshman seminar professors require it. Each year we work on making the content and activities more effective and on increasing student participation by encouraging more freshman seminar faculty to require it. But, as with other library instruction efforts, this one is viewed by many as added on to the "real" course content or as the students' independent responsibility. For Fall 2003, faculty at three colleges have agreed to require Passport and, rather than create the same Passport for all colleges, we have worked with faculty on these campuses to adapt the activities to suit each college's first-year program.

A key element of effective library instruction is knowledge of our students. Having more information about how our students learn, about the quality of research resulting from their experiences with libraries and information resources, and about their expectations for learning would help us create better learning experiences. Assessment of student learning from library instruction is particularly difficult without faculty-librarian collaboration. Currently, librarians solicit brief, in-class evaluations, asking students to list three things they learned and three questions they still have about library research. Brief pre- and post-tests could be developed. But these quick assessments only look at very short term results. While librarians instruct students in the use of library and information resources for course assignments and projects, they do not usually see the end result of student work, making it very difficult to determine if the instruction contributed to student learning and achievement.

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