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The purpose of this paper is to provide guidance to those contemplating or preparing to administer a large scale information literacy assessment such as the ETS ICT assessment instrument. The case studies and literature review provide real life examples of how to consider implementing the ETS ICT instrument with special attention to issues such as collaboration, timing, marketing, budgeting, and developing a strategy that includes a discussion of how testing results will inform campus information literacy curriculum development and programming.

The planning and implementation by two California State University campuses that administrated beta test versions of the ETS ICT assessment instrument are documented. Background about ICT and guidance for future administrations of large scale assessments on university and college campuses are discussed.

The paper provides background information, techniques and guidance for academic librarians contemplating future administrations and usages of large scale assessments of student information and communication technology skills, like the ETS ICT assessment. Examples of necessary planning stages and collaboration are provided as well as a discussion of the value of large scale assessments for students, campuses and information literacy programs.

This paper offers guidance for academic librarians and libraries interested in assessing their information literacy programs and/or working within their university to conduct a large scale assessment of student ICT literacy skills using the ETS ICT assessment instrument.

The strategies and ideas presented in this paper will help inform other academic libraries and librarians faced with administrating and implementing a large scale assessment instrument such as the ETS ICT instrument.

This paper aims to examine how interviews of learning commons partners were used to improve communication and collaboration between the library and its partners.

Interviews were conducted with representatives from each of the eight partners that have service desks in the library. The interviews’ transcripts were studied to search for ways communication and collaboration between the library and its partners could be improved.

The passing of time, addition of new library partners and the hiring of new employees since the opening of the learning commons at Draughon Library have created some gaps in communication between the library and its partners. Interviews with representatives from the library’s partners revealed ways communication needed to be improved and provided insight as to how the library and its partners might collaborate in the future.

Much of the literature on library partnerships focuses on the creation of collaborations, but does not elaborate on ways to keep lines of communication open and encourage continued collaborative work once partnerships are already in place. Information gleaned from the interviews highlights concerns that may occur at other libraries with learning commons, as new partnerships develop and time passes since the initial creation of the commons.

This article conceptualizes essential keys to the future of peer reference in academic libraries as extrapolated through the dual lenses of academic library history in the United States of America and recent experiences of a peer program with prospective and actual out-of-the-building experiences.

A 30,000-foot historical view of the dispositions of space in academic library buildings, collections, spaces, technology and reference provision is integrated with a description of the responses and insights of a peer reference program during the program's prospective and actual out-of-the-building experiences. These components are then analyzed to extrapolate keys to peer reference provision in any learning environment.

Peer reference is a natural extension of the Learning Commons model as developed in many academic libraries. To find optimal success in leveraging the benefits of peer-to-peer learning, program coordinators should keep in mind the social aspects of peer learning and intentionally articulate a framework for service delivery that best matches the modalities of providers, patrons and the information environment. In reviewing training and service practices, coordinators should be particularly on guard for any bias due to traditional reliance on the affordances of a library building and/or physical service point.

This article founds its conclusions in regard to the future of peer reference by contextualizing the evolution and future of such programs in the wider historical context of academic library dispositions of space in support of learning. It proposes a conceptual framework for intentionally matching the modalities of providers, patrons and the information environment.