Meeting Them Where They Are: Library Instruction for Today's Students in the World Civilizations Course

ABSTRACT

The world civilizations course is an increasingly integral component of undergraduate curricula in the United States. History instruction literature reveals much discussion about desired learning objectives for students in the course. Given today's complex educational environment, meeting those objectives can be a challenge. Instructors' frustrations are implied, and often expressly stated, regarding the poor quality of their students' research skills. This has an impact on instructors' perceptions and design of the course. As a solution, the author of this paper discusses faculty-librarian collaboration to integrate library instruction into the University at Buffalo's world civilizations curriculum. A multifaceted approach is described, which combines traditional, contemporary, and novel instructional techniques. Preliminary data collected to assess the usefulness and effectiveness of this approach are reviewed.