STLHE: Going beyond the 50-minute one shot library class

Session Title: Going beyond the 50-minute one shot library class: integrating the communities of classroom instructors and librarians as a means of improving student research knowledge and skills [paper abstract]
Presenters: Daniel Brendle-Moczuk, Kelly Anne Maddox, Ginny Ratsoy. Thompson Rivers University.

I got to this session a few minutes late so I missed the introductory remarks. I got the sense that most of the attendees were librarians (with maybe 5 faculty members present) which was a recurring (and unfortunate) theme at the conference: all sessions about integrating information literacy into the curriculum were mostly attended by librarians. A little bit of preaching to the choir! I’m not sure what the best solution would be to get more faculty members into these sessions but there is a determined collection of STLHE librarians that are organizing as we speak so hopefully we can come up with some creative solutions for future conferences. Anyway, this didn’t take away from the session at all — it was a great session! — and these notes do not do the discussion justice. But here we go anyway.

–

- the 50-minute session doesn’t work. Period!
- you can’t give someone a 50-minute ski lesson and then take them to a double-black diamond ski hill and say “go to it” (Daniel’s words, paraphrased).
- at Thompson Rivers, they do four hours per term and would probably up that to 6 hours for future courses

Their observations:
- if there aren’t assignments attached to a library/info lit session, students won’t be as invested as they could be
- a lot of students, especially early in their university careers, don’t make the connection between the content they are learning and the research process. so, all too often the library sessions are seen as “add-ons”, in terms of “this will help you in this class”.
- librarians need to go beyond that and unpack the research culture and become an important part of that culture.
- the “content conundrum” – yes, content is important. But content changes, skills do not. We have to move beyond tool-teaching and teach research and discovery (because the tools change too often also).

Lessons learned:
- plan well before the semester begins
- integrate librarian into the course
- begin early in the semester (have the librarian there for the first class where all the introductions happen, that way he/she does not feel like an interloper arriving out of the blue later in the term)
- integrate literature research process into regular lectures
- emphasize to students the adaptability of the skills they acquire to disciplines