A Study of Student Consultants’ Comfort Levels With Research-Related Tasks

Student consulting is a form of problem-based learning through which students work on strategic issues for organizations. To explore how students perceive their research-related tasks, 15 student consultants were asked to evaluate their comfort levels with seven tasks—adapted from the Association of College and Research Libraries' Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education—in three contexts: class assignments, consulting projects, and future workplaces. The comfort levels revealed by the students have implications for a variety of instructional settings and offer many directions for future studies.     

Skating on Thin Intermediation: Can Libraries Survive?

ABSTRACT

Predictions about the end of libraries point to a real crisis, but assign the wrong cause. Libraries will not be displaced by technology like Google, but can be undermined by librarians’ own reactions to patron demand for Google-like experiences. Librarians can respond with a “weak model” that prioritizes the satisfaction of patrons, or a “strong model” that recognizes higher values rooted in the status of librarianship as a profession. Although recent trends favor the dominance of the weak model, only by embracing the strong model can librarians survive the challenges that threaten libraries.