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The purpose of this paper is to provide a selected bibliography of recent resources on library instruction and information literacy.

Introduces and annotates English-language periodical articles, monographs and other materials on library instruction and information literacy published in 2013.

Provides information about each source, discusses the characteristics of current scholarship and describes sources that contain unique scholarly contributions and quality reproductions.

The information may be used by librarians and interested parties as a quick reference to literature on library instruction and information literacy.

This paper aims to describe the MacEwan University Library’s successful pilot of a fully blended information literacy (IL) instruction program for first-year English courses. Development, implementation and assessment of the pilot prior to full implementation are discussed.

The new sustainable blended model for the English Library Instruction Program reduced duplication of content and effort, incorporated online and in-person instruction and promoted self-directed learning opportunities through a new Learning Commons. This model places essential instruction online while maintaining personal relationships for students with the English Librarian and the Library through multiple points of interaction. Face-to-face instruction efforts were concentrated on developing critical thinking skills through a hands-on source evaluation activity and on providing point-of-need support. Librarians worked closely with English faculty to encourage early voluntary adoption of the new model for the Fall 2013 pilot.

The voluntary early-adopter model worked well for garnering and maintaining support from the English department: the authors had 42 per cent of English sessions piloting the new model for Fall 2013, surpassing the initial target of 25 per cent. Students scored well on an assessment of their ability to identify scholarly sources. Librarian preparation time has been greatly reduced.

Many academic libraries are looking to asynchronous online tutorials as a more sustainable model for delivering IL instruction. This case study demonstrates that it is possible to move some instruction online while maintaining the personal relationships librarians have forged with students and faculty.

Information literacy (IL) is increasingly becoming an explicit learning outcome for college graduates, and some libraries are playing a role in planning and teaching IL instruction to students. Amidst the overall trend of shrinking budgets that libraries are experiencing, what strategies can be employed by libraries that support large universities to plan IL instruction? The paper aims to discuss these issues.

Inspired by curriculum mapping, staff in the library assessment department created teaching maps which match the curriculum from seven colleges with the library’s teaching efforts. To create them, they combined information about: first, courses that librarians have instructed over the last three years with; second, required courses for majors within the colleges; and third, typical enrollment for each course.

Easily accessible information was combined to create the teaching maps, which enable the library to realign efforts to maximize IL instruction and best utilize library staff resources.

Teaching maps serve as a portal to quickly understand majors, courses and course enrollment, and provide baseline information on past library instruction activity to inform future IL instruction strategy. Library directors and teaching staff are utilizing them to realign instruction efforts.

Assessment strategies, such as curriculum mapping, serve not only the institution’s teaching mission, but also help strategize for effective and efficient stewardship of staff resources. These methods will be useful for library directors, assessment and instruction librarians at large research universities.

Purpose – The purpose of this chapter is to consider the historical context of the gradual release model as it emerged following the early twentieth century emphasis on behaviorism as psychologists (and reading researchers) increasingly focused on cognition in the reading process. This “cognitive turn” in educational psychology was followed closely by a “social turn” with its focus on the socially constructed nature of texts, learning, and reading, particularly influenced by Vygotsky and work on scaffolding.

Design/methodology/approach – This chapter uses literature from the field to contextualize the gradual release of responsibility (GRR) model and to discuss research or practice chapters included in this edited volume.

Findings – This chapter described the transition from behaviorism to cognition to social construction as it applies to the reading process generally and to GRR in particular. It noted that this transition has required teachers to be more nimble and flexible than ever before, cautioned that the complexity of classroom life and the pressures on teachers can cause techniques such as GRR to be misused, and suggested ways to manage the group work which is central to social cultural approaches to literacy. And along the way it spotlighted the ever-widening range of applications of the GRR documented in the earlier chapters of the book.

Practical implications – The section in this chapter with most immediate practical implication is clearly the section on misuses of the GRR model. This section discusses some misuses of the model: neglecting explicit teaching; missing the middle (i.e., jump from explicit teaching directly to independent practice); and applying in an overly rigid manner.

Originality/value of paper – This chapter makes an original contribution to the field in providing a historical context for the gradual release model and for addressing the chapters in this edited collection. The authors also point to some areas for next steps forward as reminders to those applying the model.

This article presents an annotated bibliography of literature recently published on the topic of library instruction and information literacy in academic, school, public, special, and all types of libraries. Collaboration was a strong theme, especially among academic and school libraries. Other themes discussed in the articles include the globalism of information literacy, assessment, the use of course management systems, and the use and value of online tutorials.

The School Behaviours Rating Scale (SBRS) measures observable school behaviour in primary aged students. It provides a tool for teachers and psychologists to use to assess behaviour and determine targets for intervention. The Scale measures strengths and needs, is easy to administer and score and is time efficient. It has been developed in Australia using data from classroom teachers on almost 2,000 students aged 5–12 years of age. The SBRS has sound psychometric qualities with subscale internal consistency scores ranging between .88 and .96, and test–retest reliability coefficients ranging from .86 to .97. The Scale comprises 51 behavioural descriptors which measure observable school behaviour across six domains or subscales comprising: General Classroom Behaviour; General Playground Behaviour; Getting Along with Other Students; Attempting Tasks Presented; Development of Social Skills and Aggressive Behaviours. The SBRS can be used to provide explicit information about a student's behavioural strengths, target areas for intervention, support functional assessment and provide a measure for pre- and post-intervention efficacy.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how the author's library was able to enhance the collaborative learning and teaching environment, with secondary goals to improve teaching effectiveness and increase sharing among librarians of ideas and techniques used in first-year student sessions.

This paper describes the various measures of assessment (peer-to-peer, student feedback and self-reflection) that the College of St Benedict (CSB) and St John's University (SJU) Libraries implemented in 2011. The methods were used to improve teaching by listening to peers, getting feedback from students, and by also doing self-reflection. Many librarians were able to make changes that were beneficial to their teaching sessions.

The outcome allowed librarians to incorporate new ideas into their own instruction sessions; re-evaluate teaching methods based on student feedback; and, to realize that self-assessment was beneficial. More importantly, it led to the development of Learning Goals for First Year Students.

This is a significant contribution to the field of librarianship due to the lack of publications on the observations of peers. Articles about peer-to-peer feedback for librarians whose employment duties entail library instruction were difficult to find. Much of the literature focuses on faculty (who are not librarians) who go through peer-to-peer observations for their tenure files. This article focuses not only on peer-to-peer feedback but student assessment of librarians and self-reflections.

The purpose of this paper is to report an academic library's efforts to introduce course-integrated assessment into its library instruction program. Applying a leadership change model to the process allows for a step-by-step examination of both organizational change and the creation of cultures of assessment.

Over a period of three years, course-integrated assessment was introduced into an academic library's instruction program. Rather than implementing rapid, superficial change, the process focused on transforming librarians' thoughts and feelings about their teaching and student learning. Dr John P. Kotter's eight-step process for leading organizational change is applied to explain the methodology.

Kotter's leadership change model provides a suitable framework for organizing and implementing organizational change within an academic library. However, the use of his method to create and sustain cultures of assessment proves questionable. This may not be fault of his method, but a combination of a less than perfect application of his process and unrealistic expectations of how cultures of assessment develop and function.

The paper focuses on one unit within an academic library, rather than an academic library as a whole.

Changing organizational culture, creating cultures of assessment, and/or implementing course-integrated assessment exemplify some of the challenging tasks academic libraries face in their mission to prove value. This case study provides a candid discussion of both successes and obstacles encountered in using a change leadership model to address each of these. It may also inspire other possible uses of such a model within academic libraries.

According to Meredith Farkas, investigations into the application of leadership change models to build and sustain cultures of assessment within academic libraries do not exist in the literature.

This descriptive research attempts to determine whether students are retaining knowledge from a single information literacy (IL) training session and whether there are other competencies that need to be covered in a 60 minute IL session.

A questionnaire was designed to measure IL learning outcomes that included formulating search strategies, evaluation of resources, and resource recognition. The tool was administered to students registered in an English class who were required to complete IL instruction. Students were given the test prior to IL instruction and post‐IL instruction.

The results of the study show a number of areas where the IL training sessions could be improved to better use the allotted 60 minutes. The trainers' findings gave clear directions on where to focus their efforts and where positive results are being achieved. The questionnaire was easy to administer and helped to fulfill the objectives of improving the IL training.

The questionnaire developed provides one more way for the IL team to assess student learning outcomes.

The value of this research has helped to provide structure to assessing the IL program and feeds into the current assessment culture. The questionnaire focuses on three common student learning outcomes which will be of value to academic instruction librarians.

Presents a bibliography of literature published during 2001 on library instruction and information literacy. States that the majority of articles dealt with the implementation of the Association of College and Research Libraries standards for information literacy in higher education. Reveals that another theme is that students are increasingly turning to the Web for their information needs to the exclusion of other sources which has implications for those who teach those resources. Also reveals the theme in the literature of collaboration and partnerships between faculty, information technology staff, other librarians, students and administrators.