No more tours: how library tours of the past become today's celebrations

In 1999, Northwestern University's Galter Health Sciences Library redesigned the library orientation program for first-year medical students. Surveys indicated tours were ineffective and students retained little of the information presented. Furthermore, the tour was not related to the student's curriculum and did not reinforce their learning objectives. As a replacement, the library staff developed a self-directed two-hour library open house. Stations throughout the library showcased the library staff, services, and resources, focusing on the first-year student curriculum. A follow-up survey found this redesign more useful and relevant to the students' course work, indicating libraries should be creating more interactive tours for students allowing them to learn actively.     

Libraries Across the Education Continuum: Relationships Between Library Services at the University of Montana and Regional High Schools

This study explores the library instructional programming and resources of high school library media centers in western Montana with the intent of documenting and understanding both the services provided to and the experiences of first-year college students at the University of Montana. Results from the survey (n = 22) and site visits (n = 10) reveal wide variation in the levels and types of library instructional programming provided at the library media centers, including media specialists’ perceptions of high school students’ information literacy skills. However, consistency was seen in the media specialists’ collection management strategies and in collection content. The results suggest implications for first-year library programming and highlight opportunities for further 9–16 collaboration and study.     

High-touch,low-tech: Investigating the value of an in-person library orientation game

Since 2011, the Kraemer Family Library at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS) has offered Scrabble Scramble, an in-person, student-centered library orientation game, to incoming first-year students. This article describes our journey of developing, assessing, and refining Scrabble Scramble, which focuses on introducing first-year students to the basic services and resources of an academic library. Through analysis of student and library staff feedback survey results, this article reflects on the value of offering a student-centered, impactful, and personal orientation in an environment of rising student enrollment, steady staff numbers, and a trend to move orientation activities online.     

Teaching to the whole student: Building best practices for collaboration between libraries and student services

Universities are experiencing changes in the expectations of first-year students. These students are members of the Millennial generation, whose expectations of college life and support services differ from generations of the past. This article will discuss how to integrate the library into the lives of the first-year students to create a holistic instruction program. It will review the literature for examples of the characteristics of the Millennial generation and how libraries have changed instruction to fit these students' needs. It will highlight the best practices in collaboration between the University of Cincinnati Libraries and campus support services that meet the students' expectations and the goals of the library and the university. The article demonstrates ways that other libraries can collaborate with their campus services to create a holistic approach to the students' first-year experience and provides several assessment tools and methods that can be used to strengthen collaborations and instruction programs.     

The Out Loud Assignment: Articulating Library Contributions to First-year Student Success

As more and more libraries consider GPA and year-to-year retention as relevant and meaningful measures of interest, it is important to consider whether these measures are locally appropriate. Several limitations of broadly applying GPA and first-year retention as measures of student success were recently discovered while completing a large exploratory research project. The project assessed the impact of a library assignment offered to students during their first term on campus at a large public research university. Findings revealed the assignment had a greater impact on regional campus students in contrast to the larger central campus, where changes in admission requirements has created an increasingly high-performing cohort of first-year students. Other indicators which may better locally articulate library contributions to student success are needed.     

Stacks,Serials, Search Engines,and Students' Success: First-Year Undergraduate Students' Library Use,Academic Achievement,and Retention

Like other units within colleges and universities, academic libraries are subject to increasing internal and external pressures to demonstrate their contributions to institutional goals related to students' success. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between first-year undergraduate students' use of the academic library, academic achievement, and retention. Results of ordinary least squares regressions predicting first-year students' cumulative grade point averages (GPA) and logistic regressions predicting students' first-year to second-year retention suggest that students who used academic library services and resources at least once during the academic year had higher GPA and retention on average than their peers who did not use library services. The results of two separate regressions predicting students' GPA by 10 different types of library use suggest that four library use areas were consistently and positively associated with students' GPA: database logins, book loans, electronic journal logins, and library workstation logins. The results of two separate logistic regression analyses suggest that logging into databases and using library workstations were actions consistently and positively associated with students' retention. Additional results predicted by students' use of services at least one time and by one-unit increases in the frequency of library area uses are discussed.     

Library Exposure from the Prior Years: An Examination of Public High School Library Websites

The frequent occurrence of first-year college students showing disinterest and unfamiliarity with basic library resources is a phenomenon experienced by many academic librarians. This article aims to increase understanding of student exposure to the school library, prior to college arrival, by examining the online information and tools from high school libraries. Four hundred ninety-seven (497) public high schools from New York City were surveyed for 1) online presence of their school library programs and 2) the extent of information featured on these school library websites. Findings indicate that many public high schools have not adequately embraced web development for the purpose of educating students about information literacy.     

Crowdsourcing as an Approach to Customer Relationship Building in Academic Libraries

Library initiatives to first-year students not only present an opportunity to offer information literacy instruction for student advancement, but they also serve a key marketing function by communicating the library's ongoing value and building customer relationships. Library orientation tours are an example of how to effectively market to first-year students. Combining peer-to-peer learning and user-generated content via social media known as crowdsourcing, Newman Library sponsored a contest challenging first-year students to create a video sharing a useful library tip. The contributions and benefits of this cocreation approach to fostering relationships are examined, and the implications to strengthening other library-user bonds are explored.     

LibGuides: Customizing Subject Guides for Individual Courses

Reference librarians at East Tennessee State University's Sherrod Library identified LibGuides as an efficient way to introduce undergraduate students, particularly those in their first two years of college, to the university library. Selecting pertinent library resources based on a course syllabus and creating a LibGuide for the course provides the students with a limited number of relevant materials. Librarians and professors view the use of subject guides attached to a course management system site as an effective educational solution. Librarians facing exponentially expanding resources and first-year students who are used to turning to Google for all their information needs can utilize LibGuides to guide students toward more relevant library resources.     

Using Students to Make Instructional Videos: Report of an Initial Experiment

Librarians employed student assistants and tasked them with the mission of creating library instruction video tutorials for their fellow digital natives. This article describes the benefits of peer instruction and learning within a participatory culture, a culture in which students are not only consumers of content but also creators. It also covers how a university library used these tutorials to teach first-year common experience courses and surveyed 200 students from these courses about their knowledge and comfort levels with specific library services after viewing the videos.     

No assignment? Just flip it: The flipped classroom in first-year library instruction

Abstract

Receiving library instruction is essential for first-year students. In many colleges and universities, students enroll in an orientation-type class and receive library instruction. However, at William Paterson University, students taking this class do not have a research-based assignment – a challenge for librarians in making the content meaningful to students. To remedy this situation, the librarians implemented the flipped classroom in which students watched instructional videos prior to their library class and participated in active learning activities in class. This method proved to be an engaging way for students to learn information literacy skills, even in the absence of a graded research assignment.     

From coloring the academic landscape to integral players of the community: Underrepresented minority librarians flexing their service muscles

Despite the many existing efforts to recruit and retain a diverse workforce, the library field has remained disproportionally white. Instead of waiting for the system to change, underrepresented minority librarians can take a number of steps within their institutions to effect positive changes on predominantly white campuses. Using two mid-career librarians' experiences serving on their institution's diversity committee and as academic advisors and mentors to students, including international students and first-generation students, this article illustrates ways through which minority librarians can exert leadership and leverage their multitudinous identities, interests, and passions to make a difference.     

Embracing the Spiral: An Action Research Assessment of a Library-Honors First Year Collaboration

Librarians often use assessment methodologies to evaluate the efficacy and impact of their information literacy instruction sessions and programs. In this article, researchers use an action research methodology to explore the effect of information literacy instruction on first-year honors student assignments. The researchers explain how they implemented multiple cycles of planning, acting, observing, and reflecting in order to better understand student needs, increase the impact of library instruction, and communicate that impact to library and external stakeholders. Robust and cyclical assessment gave librarians and their strategic partners the opportunity to make iterative improvements to instruction, address issues of overconfidence in students, and make the case for additional information literacy instructional opportunities for honors students.     

The Mystery Room: discovering the flexibility of an information literacy-based educational escape room

Abstract

The Mystery Room is an educational escape room based on information literacy and applied to multiple audiences, including first-year students and library student employees. In this article, we explain how we developed the game, its theoretical underpinnings, and why it’s a flexible workshop for a variety of audiences.     

Applications of Business Presentation Techniques to One-Shot Library Instruction

One can think of one-shot library instruction sessions as a way to introduce the academic library's resources to first-year students to help them with their research. These classes can also be thought of as an opportunity to “sell” the entire library and its resources to the student. This article will propose suggestions that can be adopted by library instruction librarians based on the recommendations and practices of business marketing practitioners and entrepreneurs who depend on one-shot “selling” meetings to convince their audience to “buy” their wares.     

“First years' information literacy backpacks: What's already packed or not packed?”

This survey-based research explores whether first-year college students who have had previous interactions with library instruction, services, and resources at the high school level are better prepared to undertake information literacy challenges and are better equipped to adapt to the rigors of academic research. In this collaborative project, academic librarians across six colleges in New Jersey surveyed first-year students regarding their research preparation and their experiences in high school and in their first year of college. Additionally, the team surveyed a group of vetted, certified high school librarians in New Jersey regarding their resources and instructional practices and followed members of their senior class to college Based on student survey responses relating to their high school experiences, the team was able to identify, study, and compare three groups of first-year students: novice researchers, non-novice researchers, and a subset of non-novices from the high schools with vetted librarians. These were labeled alumni non-novices. The team found that students with prior high school research experiences (non-novices), especially those followed from schools identified as having certified librarians (alumni non-novices), felt more prepared for academic research and performed at a higher level relating to their understanding and use of research tools and strategies. The results point to equity concerns and suggest that students require differentiated attention at the college level.     

Problem-Based Learning for Engineering Students: An Evidence-Based Comparative Study

This paper describes two studies, one a pilot and the second, an enhanced study, that compare problem-based learning and lecture-based learning in library instruction for first-year engineering students. Two distinct assessment strategies were used to provide empirical evidence that supports the use of problem-based learning as an effective teaching method. Based on the results of the enhanced study, the authors conclude that problem-based learning leads to better outcomes for the learning styles of engineering students.     

Metaphors for learning: A cognitive exercise for students

The challenge of teaching first-year students basic library skills is to make the process interesting and relevant. In this collaborative project between professor and librarian, metaphors in everyday life were used as a springboard for library research. Through the metaphor project, Honors students learned how to approach a topic, break down its parts, brainstorm searchable words, and make assumptions about ways to research. Most importantly, they learned to evaluate the results of their research to ensure that, in the materials located, they had actually found a real life application of their metaphor.     

The Development of a First-Year Student Library Instruction Program at Duke University

Abstract

In 1995, the Duke University Libraries began an instructional program designed to reach all first-year students. Starting as a general library orientation, this program, through trial and error, has evolved into a two-session program, which incorporates many library instruction techniques, including active learning exercises, and consistently receives high marks. Based on the Duke University Libraries' experience, the authors propose strategies for developing a successful bibliographic instruction program for freshmen.     

Seizing the opportunity: Collaborative creation of academic integrity and information literacy LMS modules for undergraduate Chemistry

With the recent mass shift to an online environment in the university context and increases in course sizes, the need for online learning management system (LMS) content from departments, libraries, and writing services is at an all-time high. In particular, integrated course content is needed that addresses academic integrity and information literacy skills holistically.To ensure that a large number of first-year students would become aware of the resources and services available to them for research, writing, and academic integrity, a partnership between librarians, faculty, and writing support services has produced a series of scaffolded online learning opportunities for first-year undergraduate Chemistry students in their course LMS. The topics collaboratively identified to support students include: academic honesty and integrity, scientific writing, peer review, finding sources, reading academic chemistry articles, and citing using the American Chemical Society citation style.This column will describe and analyze the program development and implementation, make connections to resource development and promotion, and conclude with the limitations and next steps for growth. The developed materials have evolved over the years, and it is hoped that by sharing our experiences, others can see opportunities for online course content development through academic library partnerships.