Abstract:Until recently, community colleges have been an overlooked segment of higher education. A recent Brookings Institution report labeled them an "invisible institution" (Goldrick-Rab, 2009, § 1). To many students, however, community colleges are not invisible, as an increasing number of undergraduates attend and/or graduate from two-year institutions. Much like the institutions themselves, community college libraries are similarly unnoticed, particularly in terms of workforce issues that distinguish community col… Show more
Abstract:Community and technical colleges have long been sites for educating two groups of students: those going on to baccalaureate education and those seeking degrees in vocational-technical fields. If there are specialized programs of information literacy instruction for these divergent groups, they have not been described in the literature. This article examines prior relevant literature and empirical evidence from focus groups and a survey to provide a brief outline of the vocational/technical information literacy programs in community college libraries and makes recommendations for reassessing the priority assigned to these activities.
The purpose of this study is to explore and compare community (2-year) college librarians’ perceptions of their competencies, challenges, and educational preparation with those of librarians at 4-year colleges. Researchers created survey questions based on previous studies and distributed the survey through online mailing lists. The survey results indicated that community college instructional librarians’ responses were generally not statistically significantly different from 4-year university librarians in terms of what skills, traits, and educational needs were most prevalent. From the perspective of career challenges, community college instructional librarians cited marketing and changing perceptions/needs of content area faculty, while the librarians at 4-year universities cited burnout and class overload. These differences reveal the substantial challenge of preparing instructional librarians according to the types of libraries and instructional approaches.
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