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Problem‐based learning (PBL) is a teaching strategy that is currently being introduced in undergraduate curricula in colleges and universities across the country, particularly in applied areas such as engineering and the biological sciences. Faculty are increasingly interested in using PBL as an instructional tool because students more readily transfer the knowledge they acquire using PBL to real‐world situations. Librarians at a June 2002 LOEX‐of‐West pre‐conference workshop on PBL questioned how it could be used in the 50‐minute library instruction period, since PBL relies on cooperative learning techniques for successful implementation. The librarians determined that PBL could be applied in the 50‐minute library instruction period using specific Association of College and Research Libraries Information Literacy Competency Standards, but it could be more effectively implemented in two 75‐minute periods where collaboration among students may more easily be facilitated.

The purpose of this guest editorial is to provide an overview of the LOEX‐of‐the‐West 2008 Conference.

The paper is a review the conference, which was hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and held from June 4‐6 on the UNLV campus.

The conference provided a forum for learning and thinking about gaming as it applies to information literacy instruction and for sharing ideas, techniques and concerns.

The paper gives an overview of the LOEX‐of‐the‐West 2008 Conference, and the issues raised there.

The article aims to describe challenges undergraduate students face in using scholarly articles and a workshop on reading designed to address those challenges. It seeks to present a study of senior public relations students' use, attitudes and confidence levels in using scholarly material.

Fourth‐year students who had participated in a reading workshop in their third year were surveyed before and after a workshop. The survey included qualitative questions on how students used scholarly articles, challenges they faced and strategies for using scholarly articles. A knowledge survey section assessed students' confidence levels in answering questions about a specific article. This section was re‐administered after the workshop.

Students use articles when they are required by assignments and/or to add authority to arguments. Students find jargon, length and mathematical aspects of articles challenging. They use a variety of strategies including summarizing, highlighting, and discussing articles with others. Some of these strategies correlated with higher knowledge survey scores.

This was a relatively small study done on senior students in one course, but may be generalizable to students in other disciplines.

The study provides information on students' use of scholarly articles, and seems to indicate that instruction in techniques for reading has a beneficial effect on student attitudes and confidence levels.

The article provides direction for practice and research in information literacy instruction, expanding it beyond locating scholarly materials to interpreting and using them.

Owing to the growing number of online and commuting students at the University of West Georgia, the Instructional Services department at Ingram Library experimented with offering online synchronous library instruction. This paper aims to describe how it approached this problem and the findings from the initial attempts.

The authors wanted to provide library instruction to online graduate students at the university. They worked with the staff development department to develop a pilot program for an online library instruction course using WIMBA web‐conferencing software.

It was found that due to the limitations of technology, the authors had to reduce the amount of information they deliver in the same amount of time. It was also discovered that it is easy to be distracted by the technology and forget that clear communication with the users (students and faculty) are the key to any successful instruction program regardless of the delivery method.

Most libraries offer face‐to‐face library instruction and rely on tutorials to reach their distance education and non‐traditional students. Few libraries are using distance education tools to teach information literacy skills. As librarians begin to explore this avenue, they need to re‐evaluate how and what they teach students to better leverage the technology while reaching the same information literacy objectives.

This paper aims to focus on the usefulness of a library version of the popular television show Jeopardy as an active learning technique for library instruction.

The review considers the effectiveness of Library Jeopardy as an active learning technique in one‐shot library instruction.

The benefits arising from the use of Library Jeopardy in the classroom are: it motivates students to actively participate in class and assume more responsibility for learning; it reinforces students' learning of information literacy concepts previously taught, and it adds variety to class sessions by providing a fun environment for instructor and students alike.

The focus on a game such as Library Jeopardy demonstrates that instruction librarians can reap the benefits of using this active learning technique as an additional mode of instruction.

This paper aids the discussion that educational games can be used as an active learning technique in library instruction.

In order to increase students' awareness and usage of the college library, an undergraduate marketing class collaborated with an academic librarian to create and develop new marketing ideas for the library. This case study aims to detail the results of the class‐faculty‐librarian collaboration.

Student teams produced marketing plans for the library as their semester project.

Students became strong advocates of the library as they became familiar with its resources, collections, and its overall value to them. A variety of feasible ideas for promoting the services and resources of the library resulted from student‐led research. This study confirms the value shown in previous studies of including students in the development of library marketing plans. It also shows that student learning interest and engagement significantly increases with the opportunity to solve a real‐world problem. This insight corroborates user‐centered and problem‐based learning methods for marketing classes and for identifying and improving students' information literacy skills.

The study was limited to one undergraduate college in a major northeastern city in the USA; therefore, the results may be only generalized to similar contexts.

In total, nine specific recommendations for practitioners are offered.

This case study documents the use of a real‐world problem in marketing a library from conceptualization, class study and original proposals, through to implementation of ideas.

The purpose of this conference report is to provide a perspective of the LOEX‐of‐the‐West (LOTW) biennial conference from a first time attendee.

Reviews the conference from the perspective of a first time attendee and highlights several sessions that especially reflected the conference themes of experimentation and innovation.

The paper finds the LOTW biennial conference to be a valuable resource to all librarians in general; and especially valuable to new librarians.

The paper shows that the conference is of high value for reference and information literacy practitioners.

This instructive study intends to demonstrate the value of investing time and training in the development of student workers who are able to perform higher order tasks like reference work in academic libraries, specifically, the information commons. This practice will provide more time for librarians to devote to more advanced reference queries, instruction, collaboration, outreach, and collection development.

The approach to determining the value of time spent training student assistants included a literature review, surveys of librarians and staff from a variety of academic libraries, and group discussions at three conferences.

The literature review conducted prior to the collection of survey data showed fairly consistent opinions regarding the value of student assistants working at the reference desk. The survey data collected in the study showed that the majority of librarians have a favorable opinion of the ability of student assistants, when well trained, to answer basic reference questions.

The survey used for this study is designed to gauge opinions and attitudes from librarians and library staff. Questions included in the survey are primarily demographic or open‐ended. The survey is distributed using a variety of e‐mail lists and social networking tools. In total, 90 survey responses are received, and a larger sample size may be preferable to more long‐term, in‐depth study of this topic.

The study summarizes and further contributes to the existing body of research about student workers in academic libraries. Readers will find a summation of training methods, core competencies, and best practices to help them to fully utilize student workers in new ways.