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Reflections on Surveys of Faculty Attitudes Toward Collaboration with Librarians

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Abstract

The authors implemented a survey of faculty attitudes toward library research instruction that is closely related to two previously published surveys. After reviewing their results, the authors raise questions about the significance of some of the results of all three surveys.

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... One obstacle is the "faculty problem": the perception of librarians that faculty are either apathetic or outright obstructive towards efforts to collaborate on IL instruction (McCarthy 1985 (Saunders 2012). They may also be unwilling to cede valuable in-class time to librarians (Hardesty 1995;Breivik & Jones 1993;Owusu-Ansah 2004;Hrycaj and Russo 2007). The language of standards and outcomes used by librarians may not connect with faculty, who may view IL as an administrative or bureaucratic imposition (Bell 2011). ...
... Faculty may feel that librarians are not qualified to be teachers (Saunders 2012). They may also be unwilling to cede valuable in-class time to librarians (Hardesty 1995;Breivik & Jones 1993;Owusu-Ansah 2004;Hrycaj & Russo 2007). A tool that can be integrated into existing in-class assignments without requiring librarian instruction sessions might increase faculty receptivity to adding IL instruction to their course. ...
Article
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This research explored how to effectively teach today???s students Information Literacy (IL) and credibility evaluation skills in the online information environment. In light of students??? reliance on the Internet, their general lack of IL skills, limited critical evaluation practices, and the lack of consistent institutional IL training, new pedagogical methods are needed to teach effective online IL skills. Specifically, there is a need for IL training that is customized to the online information environment and relevant to the research habits of today???s students. To address this problem, an online learning tool incorporating scaffolding and metacognitive support was prototyped and built. The tool decomposes credibility evaluation into a structured set of stages, giving students repeated practice in each stage while providing scaffolded support for learning and metacognitive reflection, and integrating the instruction into the online information environment. An experimental study was conducted to test the tool's effectiveness, with a total of 84 students randomly assigned to three experimental conditions to allow for statistically valid analysis of the results. The findings show that use of the online credibility evaluation tool significantly increased subjects' understanding of credibility criteria. The results did not show a significant difference between groups in the application of evidence-based source characteristics as the basis for their credibility evaluations, or in metacognitive awareness of the evaluation process, although descriptive trends suggest some improvement in the treatment group. Along with these three research questions, the study also examined the types of sources that students used in their research, showing that they relied on blogs and other hybrid online genres that do not conform to the traditional genres often covered by IL instruction. The study also solicited self-reports of student learning, with students reporting that they learned that online credibility evaluation is more complex than they thought, involving asking systematic questions and using critical thinking. Overall, this research demonstrates that IL instruction needs to address the specific challenges of online credibility evaluation, and that scaffolding and metacognitive support in the form of an online learning tool can effectively integrate IL instruction into the online information environment where students actually do their research.
... • the academics' disagreement and the misconceptions of information professionals acting as partners in the learning process; • the need for the academics and librarians' roles to be clarified to build working relationships; • the need for effective collaboration among the two groups (Hrycaj and Russo, 2007;Lindstrom and Shonrock, 2006;Nimon, 2002Peacock, 2001Skov and Skaerbak, 2003); • the confidence that collaboration should extend from personal to institutional level (Hrycaj and Russo, 2007;Skov and Skaerbak, 2003); • the need for time commitment for teaching preparation and work; • the librarians' knowledge to assume teaching responsibilities; • the level of required pedagogical knowledge; • the way the librarians develop this knowledge and how it contributes to their teaching activities; and • the need for LIS professionals to expand their professional expertise and obtain knowledge in pedagogy within the framework of LIS education (Bewick and Corrall, 2010;Burke, 2012 ;Clyde, 2002;Davis, 2007;Loesch, 2009;Meulemans and Brown, 2001;Nimon, 2002;Partello, 2005;Skov and Skaerbak, 2003;Sun et al., 2011;Walter, 2008). ...
... • the academics' disagreement and the misconceptions of information professionals acting as partners in the learning process; • the need for the academics and librarians' roles to be clarified to build working relationships; • the need for effective collaboration among the two groups (Hrycaj and Russo, 2007;Lindstrom and Shonrock, 2006;Nimon, 2002Peacock, 2001Skov and Skaerbak, 2003); • the confidence that collaboration should extend from personal to institutional level (Hrycaj and Russo, 2007;Skov and Skaerbak, 2003); • the need for time commitment for teaching preparation and work; • the librarians' knowledge to assume teaching responsibilities; • the level of required pedagogical knowledge; • the way the librarians develop this knowledge and how it contributes to their teaching activities; and • the need for LIS professionals to expand their professional expertise and obtain knowledge in pedagogy within the framework of LIS education (Bewick and Corrall, 2010;Burke, 2012 ;Clyde, 2002;Davis, 2007;Loesch, 2009;Meulemans and Brown, 2001;Nimon, 2002;Partello, 2005;Skov and Skaerbak, 2003;Sun et al., 2011;Walter, 2008). ...
Article
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Purpose: This paper aims to provide a systematic review of the specific roles information professionals have adopted in the last fourteen years. It aims to identify the roles reported in the literature concerning developments in the Library and Information Science (LIS) profession. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted the method of systematic review. Searches were conducted in February and March 2014 on different LIS databases. From a total of 600 papers, 114 were selected based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. A thorough full-text analysis of the papers revealed six roles that librarians have adopted: as teachers, technology specialists, embedded librarians, information consultants, knowledge managers and subject librarians. Findings: New and evolving roles were identified, mainly in the context of academic libraries. Librarians’ educational responsibilities and their active involvement in the learning and research process were highlighted in all role categories identified. Collaboration among faculty and librarians was reported as a way of ensuring successful instruction. Librarians' personal views of their new and emerging roles were more frequently reported; further research is needed to shed light on academics, students and other users’ perceptions of librarians’ engagement in the learning process. Research limitations/implications: The study considered only peer reviewed papers published between 2000 and 2014 in English. , it focused on information professionals’ roles and not on librarians' skills and their changing professional responsibilities. Originality/valueThis review paper considers the development of the LIS profession in a changing environment and offers an understanding of the future direction of the LIS profession.
... Finally, a few studies discuss faculty perception of library research instruction (or, information literacy instruction), and the need for it. Overall, faculty may be receptive to the idea of information literacy, but are slow to incorporate it into their courses or programs (Da Costa, 2010;Hyrcaj & Russo, 2007). Faculty, especially graduate faculty, indicated that their students possess the skills necessary to do the research required by the program, thus making library instruction a nonissue (Singh, 2005) Finally, Gonzalez (2001) found that faculty were not confident in the students' research skills, except when it came to searching for information on the Internet. ...
... Collaboration between faculty, specifically engineering faculty, and their subject liaison librarian is also an area that has been touched upon in the literature [19][20][21][22][23]. Phillips and McPherson [7] as well as Solomon, Liao, and Chapin [8] specifically emphasized the importance of librarianfaculty collaboration in making standards education and information literacy successful in the classroom. Hrycaj and Russo conducted a survey of faculty in 2006 to better understand faculty perception of library research instruction [24]. While 90% of participating faculty indicated it was either "extremely" or "very" important for students to be able to conduct library research, 42% of respondents were "not interested" or had "no opinion" on jointly designing an assignment with a librarian. ...
... Exceptions other than the Canadian surveys noted above include recent studies undertaken in Tanzania (Lwehabura and Stillwell 2008), South Africa (Jiyane and Onyancha 2010), the Republic of Ireland (McGuinness 2009), and India (Pattar and Kanamadi 2010). Other published research focuses more narrowly on specific issues arising in the context of IL instruction, such as faculty-librarian relationships (DaCosta 2010; Hrycaj and Russo 2007;McGuinness 2006), or describe instructional work in particular, local contexts. Thus, there is an identifiable gap in understanding IL instructional practices generally. ...
Article
This paper reports results of a longitudinal survey of information literacy instruction practices in Canadian academic libraries. Comparisons are made with Canadian data collected over the past 15 years, as well as with international data. The research has practical value to establish benchmarks and to identify opportunities for service improvement.Cette communication présente les résultats d’un sondage longitudinal sur les pratiques d’enseignement de la maîtrise informationnelle dans les bibliothèques académiques au Canada. On y compare les données recueillies au Canada au cours des quinze dernières années ainsi que des données internationales. La recherche comporte une valeur pratique pour établir un repère et déterminer les occasions d’amélioration des services.
... (Alcock and Rose, 2016), faculty members generally show a positive attitude toward the library, but this attitude is not often manifested in actions or in collaborations with the library staff. The conclusions that these studies draw is that initiatives from individual librarians are required to informally communicate with the faculty members and to attract them to the library (Cooke et al., 2011;Hrycaj and Russo, 2007;Mi, 2015). To improve collaborations, such an activity should be defined in terms of the benefit it gives the faculty members, e.g. ...
... Faculty members in theory are interested in improving their students' research skills, but study after study demonstrates that they are not inclined to sacrifice classroom time to do so (Cannon, 1994;Leckie and Fullertona, 1999;Hrycaj and Russo, 2007). As Webber and Johnson (2006) argued in a study of 80 academics: "Most are unwilling to give more than an hour of their class time to information literacy, and many will not even give that much. . . . ...
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Despite the many information literacy programs on higher education campuses, the literature of information literacy and the concept of information literacy as a viable academic subject remain hidden to most professors and academic administrators. Information literacy is invisible to academia because it is misunderstood, academic administrators have not put it on their institutions' agendas, the literature of information literacy remains in the library silo, there is a false belief that information literacy is acquired only by experience, there is a false assumption that technological ability is the same as information literacy, faculty culture makes information literacy less significant than other educational pursuits, faculty have a limited perception of the ability of librarians. and accrediting bodies have not yet advanced information literacy to a viable position in higher education. The new information age demands that these barriers be overcome and information literacy take a prominent place within the academic experience.
... (Alcock and Rose, 2016), faculty members generally show a positive attitude toward the library, but this attitude is not often manifested in actions or in collaborations with the library staff. The conclusions that these studies draw is that initiatives from individual librarians are required to informally communicate with the faculty members and to attract them to the library (Cooke et al., 2011;Hrycaj and Russo, 2007;Mi, 2015). To improve collaborations, such an activity should be defined in terms of the benefit it gives the faculty members, e.g. ...
Article
Full-text available
The perceptions of faculty members from the faculties of social sciences and humanities regarding the role of the library in assisting with their research and teaching needs are compared with those of academic librarians. This research was designed as a comprehensive, mixed-methods study. First, interviews were conducted with faculty members and librarians; then, based on the findings, a questionnaire was constructed and distributed to faculty members and librarians in these departments. The main finding is that the contribution of library services to the various aspects of teaching and research is perceived as higher by the librarians than by the faculty members. Faculty members appear to expect more from the library in various aspects of research support; however, most faculty members believe that the library fulfils their teaching needs. Regarding research, faculty members believe most libraries support the technical aspects, but they do not support other aspects, such as locating the information or providing more comprehensive information relevant for the faculty members’ research. Therefore it is important to compare and resolve the differences between faculty and librarians’ perceptions. The findings of this study indicate that the perception in libraries needs to change, and some of these changes should be made already in the preparatory stages of the profession.
... This phenomenon refers to stated opinions that attempt to mask negative attitudes that respondents may be reluctant to reveal. 29 Despite anonymity, faculty may manipulate answers because they feel they are representatives of their workplace. Although social desirability bias may influence survey results, research methods used were based on tried and tested techniques. ...
Article
This study examines results from a survey of architecture faculty across the United States investigating information-seeking behavior and perceptions of library services. Faculty were asked to rank information sources they used for research, teaching, and creativity within their discipline. Sources were ranked similarly across these activities, suggesting broad and eclectic interests. While Internet resources and books were important across the board, e-books were ranked low. As an information source, librarians were also perceived to have less value than peers or even students. Librarians should consider ways to make libraries experiential and inspiring to add value and demonstrate continued relevance in an ever-expanding information field.
... Previous researchers have established that librarians face numerous professional challenges, but they are optimistic about handling them (Johnson and Yadamsuren, 2010). Optimism allows librarians to have stable professional interactions with patrons and teaching faculty (Hrycaj and Russo, 2007). On the association of optimism with organizational behaviors, research findings are conflicting. ...
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The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between emotional intelligence and general job satisfaction of librarians. For this purpose, a quantitative study was conducted on librarians serving in university libraries of Pakistan. A randomly selected sample of Pakistani university librarians completed a questionnaire survey measuring their responses on emotional intelligence and job satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis indicated that all indicators of emotional intelligence were significant predictors of job satisfaction. The results showed that self-assessment was the strongest predictor while optimism was the weakest predictor of job satisfaction. The findings are useful for libraries and other organizations interested in developing emotional intelligence and improving workers’ job satisfaction, which ultimately may lead to effective performance.
... Faculty members in theory are interested in improving their students' research skills, but study after study demonstrates that they are not inclined to sacrifice classroom time to do so (Cannon, 1994;Leckie and Fullertona, 1999;Hrycaj and Russo, 2007). As Webber and Johnson (2006) argued in a study of 80 academics: "Most are unwilling to give more than an hour of their class time to information literacy, and many will not even give that much. . . . ...
Article
Full-text available
Despite the many information literacy programs on higher education campuses, the literature of information literacy and the concept of information literacy as a viable academic subject remain hidden to most professors and academic administrators. Information literacy is invisible to academia because it is misunderstood, academic administrators have not put it on their institutions' agendas, the literature of information literacy remains in the library silo, there is a false belief that information literacy is acquired only by experience, there is a false assumption that technological ability is the same as information literacy, faculty culture makes information literacy less significant than other educational pursuits, faculty have a limited perception of the ability of librarians. and accrediting bodies have not yet advanced information literacy to a viable position in higher education. The new information age demands that these barriers be overcome and information literacy take a prominent place within the academic experience.
... Academic IL programs have ambitious goals; however, only a minority of institutions feature first-year experience programs where information literacy content is mandatory (Boff and Johnson, 2002). Although faculty delegate teaching students information literacy skills to librarians, faculty are primarily concerned with disciplinary coverage, and are therefore reluctant to cede valuable in-class time to librarians (Hardesty, 1995;Breivik, 1998;Hrycaj and Russo 2007). Students are intent on reaping the rewards faculty and library staff give them for mastering the core concepts of the academic disciplines and focus on their coursework rather than on information literacy skills and concepts. ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper describes how college students played the web-based BiblioBouts Information Literacy (IL) game, which ushers players through the library research process while they complete a research-and-writing assignment. The game teaches students basic IL skills including creating citations, judging citation completeness, assessing author expertise, assessing source relevance and credibility, judging quality, and assessing accuracy. BiblioBouts’ collaborative and social mechanisms help students leverage their own research efforts in finding sources, evaluating their usefulness, and choosing the best sources, with their classmates’ efforts so that everyone benefits. Players benefit from receiving hands-on practice and experience with the wide range of information literacy (IL) skills that confront them during the process from conducting library research to completing writing assignments. Both quantitative and qualitative game-play data were gathered from game-play logs, game diaries, focus group interviews with student game players, and personal interviews with instructors. These data were analyzed to determine typical game-play styles, how long students played the game, and the impact of scoring on the way the students played the game and engaged in IL activities. The results were used to improve game mechanics and player engagement. The R&D team’s experience building an online, interactive IL game demonstrates that game design must first focus on evaluations of player behavior followed by game-system improvements that are expected to affect the desired game-play behavior. The BiblioBouts game presents an innovative method for learning IL competencies and is unique in its social, collaborative, and interactive approach to educational gaming. It is hoped that this article will encourage IL librarians to explore games and other alternative forms of IL instruction.
... 4). A faculty survey at the Louisiana State University (Hrycaj & Russo, 2007) shows that there is much room for improvement in the information finding and information retrieval skills of undergraduate students. An online faculty survey (Information Literacy Advisory Committee, 2009) shows that "Less than 50% ...
... The data from the current survey are compared with these international studies. Other published research focuses more narrowly on specific issues arising in the context of IL instruction, such as faculty-librarian relationships (DaCosta 2010; Hrycaj and Russo 2007;Julien and Pecoskie 2009;McGuinness 2009) and the emotional labour of instructional work (Julien and Genuis 2009). A great deal of literature in the area published by practising librarians describes instructional work in particular, local contexts. ...
Article
This study reports a survey of information literacy instruction practices in Canadian academic libraries. Results indicate that formal instruction is offered by 89% of respondents, a minority of which articulate formal instructional objectives or work in libraries with full-time instructional librarians. Evaluation is mostly informal. Teaching students to find information is the highest priority of instruction, and database instruction is given the strongest focus. Changes in information technology continue to influence instructional content and delivery. Instructional work receives less support than previously, and complex relationships with teaching faculty continue to challenge librarian instructors. Trends are consistent with national surveys conducted globally. Résumé: Cet article fait état d’une enquête sur les pratiques d’enseignement visant l’acquisition de compétences informationnelles dans les bibliothèques universitaires canadiennes. Les résultats indiquent qu’un enseignement formel est offert par 89% des répondants, et qu’une minorité conjugue des objectifs pédagogiques formels ou du travail en bibliothèque avec la présence de bibliothécaires se consacrant à temps plein à cet enseignement. L’évaluation est essentiellement informelle. Enseigner aux étudiants à trouver de l’information est la première des priorités de l’enseignement, et c’est principalement sur l’enseignement de l’utilisation des bases de données que se concentre l’enseignement. L’évolution des TI continue d’influencer le contenu pédagogique et le mode d’enseignement. Le travail pédagogique reçoit moins de soutien qu’auparavant, et la complexité des relations avec le corps enseignant continue de poser des défis aux bibliothécaires instructeurs. Les tendances sont en accord avec les enquêtes nationales réalisées mondialement.
... Academic IL programs have ambitious goals; however, only a minority of institutions feature first-year experience programs where information literacy content is mandatory (Boff and Johnson, 2002). Although faculty delegate teaching students information literacy skills to librarians, faculty are primarily concerned with disciplinary coverage, and are therefore reluctant to cede valuable in-class time to librarians (Hardesty, 1995;Breivik, 1998;Hrycaj and Russo 2007). Students are intent on reaping the rewards faculty and library staff give them for mastering the core concepts of the academic disciplines and focus on their coursework rather than on information literacy skills and concepts. ...
Article
Full-text available
This paper describes how college students played the web-based BiblioBouts Information Literacy (IL) game, which ushers players through the library research process while they complete a research-and-writing assignment. The game teaches students basic IL skills including creating citations, judging citation completeness, assessing author expertise, assessing source relevance and credibility, judging quality, and assessing accuracy. BiblioBouts' collaborative and social mechanisms help students leverage their own research efforts in finding sources, evaluating their usefulness, and choosing the best sources, with their classmates' efforts so that everyone benefits. Players benefit from receiving hands-on practice and experience with the wide range of information literacy (IL) skills that confront them during the process from conducting library research to completing writing assignments. Both quantitative and qualitative game-play data were gathered from game-play logs, game diaries, focus group interviews with student game players, and personal interviews with instructors. These data were analysed to determine typical game-play styles, how long students played the game, and the impact of scoring on the way the students played the game and engaged in IL activities. The results were used to improve game mechanics and player engagement. The R&D team's experience building an online, interactive IL game demonstrates that game design must first focus on evaluations of player behaviour followed by game-system improvements that are expected to affect the desired game-play behavior. The BiblioBouts game presents an innovative method for learning IL competencies and is unique in its social, collaborative, and interactive approach to educational gaming. It is hoped that this article will encourage IL librarians to explore games and other alternative forms of IL instruction.
... (Christiansen et al., 2004, p. 18.) Furthermore, the existing research assessing librarian/faculty relationships reveal the variety of issues that librarians face when establishing partnerships with faculty. Faculty describe being unaware of how librarians can support their students; may not consider librarians as full partners but instead, as professionals; and viewing their relationships with librarians with less importance than librarians do (Phelps and Campbell, 2012;McGuinness, 2006;Hrycaj and Russo, 2007;Ivey, 1994). When considered all together, librarians have many reasons to take an approach with faculty that aims to build awareness that collaborative work is available. ...
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Through a United States Department of Agriculture Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service (USDA CSREES) Higher Education Challenge Grant, a team of teaching faculty and librarians at Rutgers University developed an interdisciplinary course, “Food and Nutrition Business Information and Communication.” The course employed an active learning approach that involved a unique collaboration between various academic disciplines; the Rutgers University Libraries; the School of Communication, Information, and Library Studies (SCILS); and the Rutgers Food Manufacturing Technology Facility (FMT). In the course, teams of students from the departments involved worked collaboratively to help solve an actual research problem from industry partners working at FMT. Three examples of student problem solving are presented and assessed using the rubric developed for the course. The course actively involves librarians and demonstrates the importance of information literacy skills in today's information economy.
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Purpose This paper seeks to focus on the design and testing of a web‐based online board game for teaching undergraduate students information literacy skills and concepts. Design/methodology/approach Project team members with expertise in game play, creative writing, programming, library research, graphic design and information seeking developed a web‐based board game in which students used digital library resources to answer substantive questions on a scholarly topic. The project team hosted game play in a class of 75 undergraduate students. The instructor offered an extra‐credit incentive to boost participation resulting in 49 students on 13 teams playing the game. Post‐game focus group interviews revealed problematic features and redesign priorities. Findings A total of six teams were successful meeting the criteria for the instructor's grade incentive achieving a 53.1 percent accuracy rate on their answers to substantive questions about the black death; 35.7 percent was the accuracy rate for the seven unsuccessful teams. Discussed in detail are needed improvements to problematic game features such as offline tasks, feedback, challenge functionality, and the game's black death theme. Originality/value Information literacy games test what players already know. Because this project's successful teams answered substantive questions about the black death at accuracy rates 20 points higher than the estimated probability of guessing, students did the research during game play which demonstrates that games have merit for teaching students information literacy skills and concepts.
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Using information literacy as the unifying framework, the library and academic advising departments collaborated to develop student outreach activities which promote student success. Specifically, this partnership led to sharing a Facebook page, participating in a First Year Seminar program, and evaluating the qualitative and quantitative correlation between information literacy test scores and academic standing. Although each department could have embarked on these projects on their own, their alliance produced more in-depth initiatives and made a greater difference in students’ lives.
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This exploratory study examines whether undergraduate students will play games to learn how to conduct library research. Results indicate that students will play games that are an integral component of the course curriculum and enable them to accomplish overall course goals at the same time they learn about library research.
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Purpose – The purpose of this column is to discuss the importance of faculty/librarian collaboration in establishing a base of reference support to serve as an underpinning for each course across the college curriculum. Design/methodology/approach – Literature review and commentary on this topic that has been addressed by colleagues. Findings – It is imperative that librarians collaborate with and support the faculty on a college campus to reinforce overall academic success. Originality/value – The value in addressing this issue is to discuss the importance of the librarian/faculty collaboration in a college and suggest the value to the students in such collaboration.
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Blended and embedded librarianship describe efforts by librarians to integrate information literacy more closely into courses, especially online. In this case study, online tutorials replace a librarian-taught research skills session for a course that has moved from face to face to online. Issues discussed include ways to integrate research skills in an online course, collaboration with faculty, and assessment of that instruction. Though successful, more research is needed to understand how students respond to online tutorials, and instructional design is affirmed as necessary to make online tutorials effective and engaging.
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Enrollment in online courses is increasing in colleges and universities across the country. The Association of College and Research Libraries calls librarians to provide equivalent services to online and face-to-face students. The provision of library services to online students requires more collaboration with instructors than in the face-to-face classroom. Collaborative efforts must usually be initiated by the librarian. This paper will discuss relationships with faculty, methods of developing relationships, ways to collaborate in the online environment, techniques to expand collaborative opportunities, and how librarians must prepare to be effective collaborators.
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the nature of students' library‐research difficulties, especially difficulties rooted in technology, to describe how the BiblioBouts information literacy game helps students overcome these difficulties, and to discuss how BiblioBouts has evolved in order to reduce students' difficulties with the technology of the library‐research process. Design/methodology/approach Data collection was multi‐modal involving quantitative instruments such as questionnaires and logs of students' game‐play activity and qualitative involving game diaries that students voluntarily completed after time they played the game, focus group interviews with students who played and did not play the game, and personal interviews with instructors before and after their students played the game. Findings The technology underlying the library research process is difficult to use. BiblioBouts helps students overcome their difficulties. BiblioBouts continues to evolve to enable students to reduce their difficulties with this technology. Research limitations/implications Playing BiblioBouts gives students exposure to searching library databases but game play per se does not focus on searching. Practical implications Students benefit from playing BiblioBouts. They gain first‐hand experience and practice with library‐research technologies such as the library portal for database selection, library databases for quality information, and Zotero for citation management. They are exposed to more sources than they would have found on their own and a logical, methodical process for evaluating the sources they find. Social implications Online social gaming has been enlisted to transform library research from a solitary activity into a collaborative activity where students document their research activities and share in the research trail that individual game players leave behind. Originality/value The research underlines gaming's effectiveness for teaching incoming undergraduate students information literacy skills and concepts.
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Full-text available
. While there is much discussion today about information literacy, proper implementation of it within university campuses is still a struggle, often due to the fact that librarians and teaching faculty have different "cultures" that create different priorities. Librarians focus more on process and faculty more on content, though the two are not mutually exclusive. Past attempts by librarians to collaborate with faculty to pro-duce information literate students have had limited success. A bolder plan–to imbed information literacy credit courses within existing depart-ments–shows promise to avoid cultural conflict while creating a proper climate for collaboration.. [Haworth co-indexing entry note]: "Can't Get No Respect: Helping Faculty to Understand the Edu-cational Power of Information Literacy." Badke, William B. Co-published simultaneously in The Ref-erence Librarian (The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) No. 89/90, 2005, pp. 63-80; and: Relationships Between Teaching Faculty and Teaching Librarians (ed: Susan B. Kraat) The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 2005, pp. 63-80. Single or multiple copies of this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-HAWORTH, 9:00 a.m. -5:00 p.m. (EST).
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What are science and engineering faculty doing with respect to the development of information literacy in their undergraduate students? To explore this question, science and engineering faculty at two large Canadian universities were surveyed and interviewed regarding their perceptions of their students' information literacy skills and their own pedagogical practices related to such skills. Faculty awareness of, and support for, a variety of bibliographic instruction methods and the perceived role of science and engineering librarians in information literacy instruction also were investigated. Based on the survey results, suggestions for the design of library instruction for science and engineering undergraduates are made.
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Reports on a survey of 232 social science and humanities faculty served by a Canadian university library. Findings confirm that faculty across all disciplines surveyed recognize the importance of bibliographic instruction (BI). Significant differences among departments in the types of BI preferred were revealed. A copy of the survey is appended. (Contains 10 references.) (KRN)
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FACULTY ARE OFTEN IDENTIFIED BY librarians as the key to a successful bibliographic instruction program. Nevertheless, considerable evidence suggests that most faculty have not widely adopted bibliographic instruction in their teaching. This article examines the nature of faculty culture and how certain aspects of it impede bibliographic instruction efforts. Despite attributes of faculty culture that support the development of large libraries, the wide-scale acceptance by faculty of bibliographic instruction has not occurred. Continued initiatives by librarians to understand and to reach out to faculty are essential if academic libraries are to achieve their potential in contributing to the educational process.