PurposeThis paper aims to examine the creation of a workshop series designed to help graduate students obtain the needed library research skills.Design/methodology/approachUsing feedback from graduate students, a library user education series of workshops was developed and later revised. Significant effort was made to apply effective marketing strategies to enhance the programs' success.FindingsGraduate students are eager for workshops that are focused on developing the needed library research skills.Practical implicationsWhen developing a workshop series, feedback from the intended audience enriches the program. Furthermore, repeated fine‐tuning of content and publicity improves the final product.Originality/valueThis paper describes an innovative approach to develop and implement a graduate‐focused library instruction workshop series. The creative use of marketing strategies to incorporate ongoing user feedback and advertise the availability of sessions can significantly enhance the efficacy of a workshop series.
Advisory Council meetings and asked what students wanted and needed from the Library. The Faculty Library Council was reinvigorated and questioned about how the Library could better promote student learning. Further clarification of the changing needs of higher education students was gained by participation in the meetings of several organizations to which the Lee Library belongs, including the Utah Academic Library Consortium (UALC), the Greater Western Library Alliance (GWLA), the Consortium of Church and Library Archives (CCLA), and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). All of these activities and interactions convinced the University Librarian that student collaboration, assisted by technology, had become increasingly important to student learning. With this in mind, the University Librarian drove the investigation and implementation of BYU's information commons. When the authors were undergraduates regular participation in collaborative projects was unusual. An occasional study group for an upcoming exam constituted the bulk of any group work outside of class. The environment has certainly changed. James Michael Kusack described the change well. "The solitary worker immersed in a very personal life of the mind is no longer the only kind of researcher seen in the library. Teachers in secondary schools, undergraduate programs, and graduate schools regularly ask students to prepare group projects, papers, and exercises. These assignments stem from the recognition that a higher quality of learning can result and the perception that this is the way the real world works and students must develop group skills if they are to be successful after graduation" (Kusack, 2002, p. 79). Kusack also noted that libraries can respond to this change in the areas of facilities, software, and "staffing, policy, and attitude" (p.81). Nearly every implementation of the Information Commons concept familiar to the authors, including the implementation in the Lee Library at Brigham Young University, addresses all three of these areas. Investigation and proposal In the initial stages of planning the Information Commons, the Harold B. Lee Library organized the Information Commons Project Team to investigate successful Information Commons. In addition, this team was to determine the best model for Brigham Young University to use in implementing its own Information Commons. The Information Commons Project Team in the Lee Library began its investigation in mid-February 2003 and was given less than two months to report to the Library's Administrative Council. Throughout the process, efforts were made to include non-library viewpoints. In addition to librarians, the team included representatives from the Faculty Advisory Council (BYU's faculty senate), the Office of Information Technology (OIT), the Center for Instructional Design, and the university's Student Advisory Council (SAC). Feedback was also sought from the entire SAC membership and various other members of the faculty. The team performed an environmental scan of best practi...
This paper reports the results of a survey conducted at the Georgia Institute of Technology. The students and faculty of the schools of civil and mechanical engineering were asked about how they use the library. They were also asked questions concerning their information seeking habits. The responses from undergraduate students, graduate students and faculty are compared, revealing expected and unexpected patterns.
Unlike engineering, librarianship is a humanistic discipline. Therefore it may be somewhat counterintuitive to think that partnerships between librarians and new engineering faculty members would be an efficient way of achieving the goals of both participants. Faculty members are required to publish in their area of research while effectively teaching classes. New faculty members find it especially challenging to meet these demands. It is common for academic librarians to be assigned as a liaison between the library and faculty. Librarians have a vested interest in seeing these faculty members succeed as researchers and teachers. They have the responsibility to see that the information needs of the faculty and students in their assigned subject areas are met. Meeting the information needs of faculty members enables them to successfully perform their research. Meeting the information needs of students can enhance their learning experience, which in turn can help create a more effective teaching environment. This paper focuses on ways to build partnerships in both of these areas, meeting the information needs of faculty and students. Each partnership is different, but effective partnerships work toward helping both the faculty member and librarian achieve their goals. Identifying common ground is the starting point for building a synergistic relationship. Examples of effective partnerships will be presented from literature as well as the author's personal experiences. The purpose of this paper is to encourage new engineering faculty and librarians to creatively seek out partnerships in order for each to become more effective.
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