Growing Our Own: Mentoring Undergraduate Students

Abstract

With limited resources available, the authors' Library successfully piloted a Library Internship Program to manage business program growth and rising demand from business students for research assistance. A business student serving as a library intern collaborated with the business librarian, faculty, and students to develop Web-based tutorials for core business assignments and was trained to provide peer tutoring. The studentlibrarian relationship developed into a mentorship, resulting in shared professional development opportunities and a potential way of recruiting business students to the library profession.

Supervising academic library internships for non‐LIS undergraduates

“…Pellack (2006) advocates providing internships for academic credit, but suggests that they be run out of university or college career centers and does not mention the possibility of them being offered in conjunction with academic departments. Harwood and McCormack (2008) describe a credit-based internship in collaboration with the business program at the University of Washington Bothell, but the internship was initiated and managed by the business librarian in response to her own needs, rather than being offered by the business school as part of its program for students. Asher and Alexander (2006) also describe a program managed wholly by their library.…”

“…They do not contain enough information to assist librarians who are preparing for their important role in supervising and mentoring interns. Some internships are designed for undergraduates in LIS programs (Brown and Murphy, 2005;Alderman and Milne, 2005), while others target students in a variety of disciplines (Harwood and McCormack, 2008;Asher and Alexander, 2006;Moveable Type, 1999;Top Shelf, 2007) or those who are already working in libraries (Echavarria, 1990). The purposes of these internships vary.…”

Librarians Partner Across Campus to Support Undergraduate Research

“…However, faculty librarians, especially those affiliated with large research-intensive universities, also possess highly specialized training and knowledge that position them as highly effective mentors to undergraduates. Yet there is scant research documenting the contributions of faculty librarians who serve as mentors to undergraduate researchers (Harwood and McCormack 2008). This article describes an innovative program model, the Undergraduate Research Experiences Library Program (URELP), which was developed by the directors of the Office for Undergraduate Research in partnership with academic librarians at the University of South Florida.…”

“…While an abundance of literature focuses on the role of librarians as purveyors of information literacy (Ross and Sennyey 2008;Smith and Daily 2013), there are few examples in the literature that document the contributions of faculty librarians who serve as mentors of undergraduate researchers (Harwood and McCormack 2008). In addition, the bulk of literature on the practice of undergraduate research (UR) centers on the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, with limited published research focusing on undergraduate research experiences in the humanities and the arts (Klos, Shanahan, Olin, and Young 2011).…”

“…However, little attention has been focused on how faculty librarians mentor undergraduates. Two recent studies do provide models for librarians as research mentors (Harwood and McCormack 2008;Hayes-Bohanan 2013), although both involve projects that center on information literacy, and one project was specifically designed for students interested in library careers (Harwood and McCormack). While these projects represent excellent opportunities for student engagement with research, this article fills a gap in the literature by focusing on the contributions of librarians as both information-literacy educators and research mentors, thus illustrating librarians' work beyond their "traditional" roles.…”