General Education,Graduate Education,and Instruction in the Use of Libraries

Libraries have an important role to play in the general education process, even at the graduate level. An infusion of education about library resources can help to lessen the insularity which characterizes so much of graduate education in the U.S., and could help to break the cycle which perpetuates the lack of communication between academic disciplines. Various roles suggested for academic libraries in this regard include an approach through disciplinary instruction, a "handmaiden approach" to assisting individual graduate students, and a specific general education role for libraries which cuts across disciplines, through the use of seminars and other general education activities. Computer database searching may be a useful fulcrum, in any of these approaches, to broaden the perspective and the interdisciplinary awareness of both graduate students and faculty.