Search results

The purpose of this paper is to describe the need for academic libraries to demonstrate and increase their impact of student learning and success. It highlights the data problems present in existing library value correlation research and suggests a pathway to surmounting existing data obstacles. The paper advocates the integration of libraries into institutional learning analytics systems to gain access to more granular student learning and success data. It also suggests using library-infused learning analytics data to discover and act upon new linkages that may reveal library value in an institutional context.

The paper describes a pattern pervasive in existing academic library value correlation research and identifies major data obstacles to future research in this vein. The paper advocates learning analytics as one route to access more usable and revealing data. It also acknowledges several challenges to the suggested approach.

This paper describes learning analytics as it may apply to and support correlation research on academic library value. While this paper advocates exploring the integration of library data and institutional data via learning analytics initiatives, it also describes four challenges to this approach including librarian concerns related to the use of individual level data, the tension between claims of correlation and causation in library value research, the need to develop interoperability standards for library data and organizational readiness and learning analytics maturity issues.

This paper outlines a path forward for academic library value research that may otherwise be stymied by existing data difficulties.

The aim of this paper is to present the Information Literacy Instruction Assessment Cycle (ILIAC), to describe the seven stages of the ILIAC, and to offer an extended example that demonstrates how the ILIAC increases librarian instructional abilities and improves student information literacy skills.

Employing survey design methodology, the researcher and participants use a rubric to code artifacts of student learning into pre‐set rubric categories. These categories are assigned point values and statistically analyzed to evaluate students and examine interrater reliability and validity.

By engaging in the ILIAC, librarians gain important data about the information behavior of students and a greater understanding of student strengths and weaknesses. The ILIAC encourages librarians to articulate learning outcomes clearly, analyze them meaningfully, celebrate learning achievements, and diagnose problem areas. In short, the ILIAC results in improved student learning and increased librarian instructional skills. In this study, the ILIAC improves students' ability to evaluate web sites for authority.

The research focuses on librarians, instructors, and students at one institution. As a result, specific findings are not necessarily generalizable to those at other universities.

Academic librarians throughout higher education struggle to demonstrate the impact of information literacy instruction on student learning and development. The ILIAC provides a much needed conceptual framework to guide information literacy assessment efforts.

The paper applies the assessment cycle and “assessment for learning” theory to information literacy instruction. The ILIAC provides a model for future information literacy assessment projects. It also enables librarians to demonstrate, document, and increase the impact of information literacy instruction on student learning and development.

The purpose of this paper is to suggest move beyond examining the impact of the library from the library's perspective but rather to collaborate with university‐wide assessment efforts to determine the impact of the library from the student's perspective, the instructor's perspective, or the researcher's perspective.

A limited number of studies have been conducted in an attempt to determine the impact of the use of the library's physical or electronic resources, reference services, and the library as place. Considerably more studies have been prepared that have examined library instruction programs and information literacy programs although the results paint a very mixed picture. A majority of the evaluation efforts for information literacy programs have used opinion surveys, skills testing, and observed actual behavior using rubrics and other methods. A consistent criticism of such studies has been the small sample size and the lack of replication of such studies. Clearly an approach that collaborates with the university's assessment efforts and allows the library to determine the correlation levels between use of a library collection or service and a desired university outcome will be welcome by all academic libraries.

The suggested approach is to combine library usage data with university data. In the best of worlds the library data would be combined with both indirect measures of learning (such as student persistence, graduation rates) as well as direct measures of student learning such as the Collegiate Learning Assessment, Collegiate Assessment of Academic Proficiency, and the Measure of Academic Proficiency and Progress. If university libraries were to embark on a coordinated program of data analysis then the results would have greater credibility and impact within the university.

The paper provides a set of recommendations for combining library data (where the identification of each user is preserved) with institutional performance and demographic data for each user (after which the unique identification information can be eliminated so as to preserve the privacy and confidentiality rights of the user). The resulting large data set can be then used to explore possible relationships between use of library services and important outcomes – student success, student retention, graduation rates, and so forth that is necessary in order to demonstrate the value of the academic library.

Once libraries have a better understanding of the impacts of specific library services in the lives of their students, faculty and researchers, libraries can enhance services that produce positive results and drop services that have marginal or no value. The end result will be that academic libraries will better serve the needs of their customers.

This paper offers a new broad perspective that will encourage libraries to undertake a collaborative effort with others on campus in order to better assess the impact of the academic library.

This study aims to combine the patron perception of the interlibrary loan services offered in three libraries: an ARL campus, a small private liberal arts campus, and a large state public library. The goal was to have a vehicle for gathering both satisfaction and value information for each of the services provided by a resource-sharing operation to cross-analyze patron perceptions, satisfaction and value placed on resource sharing at each institution.

A survey was created to gather the information desired, and it was designed to be completed in less than 15 minutes. The survey wording was adjusted depending on the individual participating organization to provide appropriate text for the local patrons. However, the basic content was similar for each library. The survey included an optional field where the patron could enter their name to allow follow-up as desired. It also included an open question to capture anything else the previous questions did not.

This case studies finding include recognition of recurring features found valuable to library patrons utilizing all three institutions: access, speed and people. Each library was able to identify areas of strength and areas to improve upon within their services. Each library also gained insight into their patrons’ perceptions of the resource-sharing services offered. This insight is being used for further assessment studies, as well as to implement changes on each local campus.

This study provides insight and data into resource-sharing assessment as related to patron value. As the literature review shows, no studies of this kind have been done recently or across the institutions included: small private academic, large research academic or large public library.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a flavour of the content of the LILAC Conference held in Glasgow, UK, in April 2012.

The paper provides an overview of the themes, content, keynote speakers and selected parallel sessions of the LILAC conference.

The conference held a series of parallel sessions covering six key themes: information literacy and the digital future; information literacy research; supporting the research community; transitions: from school through to higher education; information literacy and employability; active learning and creative pedagogical approaches.

The conference provided an insight into emerging trends for information literacy.

This study aims to explore the application of reflective pedagogy within a course-embedded library instruction session (as opposed to a semester-long credit bearing course) as a means to foster transfer learning of research practices.

This conceptual essay adapts theories of reflection for transfer learning as found in composition and rhetoric literature to the traditional course-embedded library instruction classroom.

The application of reflection as a structured learning construct may have the potential to transform the library instruction classroom into an environment where transfer learning is more likely to take place.

Most models for transfer learning are based on semester-long courses and do not take into account the abbreviated context of the traditional library instruction event. This presents a challenge to any adaptation of theory, as library instruction is often an event isolated to one or a few sessions.

This study provides a structure for reflective pedagogy for librarians who desire to engage students in practices that offer the potential of fostering transfer learning.

Librarians are practicing reflective pedagogies in semester-long information literacy courses, but few have used reflection in traditional instruction sessions beyond the documentation of student learning for assessment purposes. This essay provides a theory that extends reflective pedagogies into the traditional library instruction classroom with the hope of fostering transfer learning.

We are living in an electronic age, where everything that we want to know or are curious about is increasingly facilitated by the internet and search engines. Now, much of the world’s knowledge is at our fingertips. Students have unlimited access to information in the form of e-books, journals and other open sources. The value of a physical repository of knowledge is diminishing and the printing of material is becoming less compelling. It has been noted that college students spend as much time on the internet as they do while studying (Jones, 2002). The most pertinent question is whether the library is still considered an important source of information to students? Can we imagine a university without a library with just computers and a server room? The information highway is posing new challenges that the librarians have to deal with (Dunn, 2002; Rockman & Smith, 2002). In the past, gatekeepers like the librarian decided what a student should read, depending on their level of study and their comprehension power. The picture has altered and now students decide what exactly they should read with the click of their computers. Leaders in higher education institutions are skeptical as to how much they should actually invest in buying books, how many shelves to create to stack them and whether the collection of books is going to be an indicator of the academic quality of that institution. This book talks about a vital subject as to how much and in what ways a library can engage a student to create information literacy. Various interventions have been discussed as case studies in colleges and universities from Canada to India. Student-centered workshops have been designed along with university partnerships with a writing center as well as the role of a library as a source of socio-economic transformation in Africa. The experiences shared by the authors in this book will be a valuable resource for librarians across the world as they increase their collaborative efforts to promote the value of information literacy for students.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight an assessment tool that can be used for all information literacy classes.

The assessment was designed and data were stored using Google Forms. Questions were basic, general questions about student confidence after attending a library instruction class. The assessment was piloted in the Fall 2015 semester, improved on and reissued in the Spring 2016 semester and is now in its current iteration as a tool to be used by most librarians.

The first two implementations were successful, but issues arose in distribution and in the type of questions. Tweaks to the distribution that would work in any computer lab on any campus were beneficial to librarians and students. The content of the questions were also modified after the first two implementations; questions about recalling resources were condensed and changed to questions on what the students learned and what they were still unsure of. All implementations showed positive results from the students on their confidence level after library instruction.

This tool and the implementation methods are versatile enough to be used at any kind of institution and with any general learning objective. Assessment is essential in library instruction; this tool provides a way for all librarians to quickly assess their class without taking much additional class time. In addition to the individual librarian, this is also useful for reporting statistics to the college administration if data are needed on the assessment of library instruction.

This essay is offered in response to an invitation to share reflections on a topic of current concern. The concern is how to position the library profession to not just gain appreciation and support of academic libraries, but to develop librarians as leaders continuing the values of higher education as essential to maintain and improve a democratic society. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This is a viewpoint piece.

The paper speculates that assessment alone may be an inadequate objective of an organizational culture for academic libraries; assessment is not universally accepted throughout higher education as a primary focus, perhaps with the exception when meeting accreditation requirements.

An informed citizenry, freedom of information, open and equitable access to knowledge, and intellectual diversity are important values to preserve. This concern overlaps with the authors’ shared and independent work to engage in assessment efforts and developing a library culture of assessment.

Preparation of academic librarians may benefit from more strongly advancing the core mission of their institutions rather than their service relationship to its customers as an objective of the library culture.

This is the first work to examine why assessment is not enough for libraries to be valued.

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

Introduces and annotates periodical articles, monographs, and audiovisual material examining library instruction and information literacy.

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.