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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.

This paper summarizes the changes in the organization and services of the Research and Information Department since moving into Lied Library.

Includes a description of reorganization and strategic planning efforts of the department, along with possible future direction for the evolution of services, space utilization and staffing.

The reality of living in the new facility, Lied Library, proved to require changes not envisioned during the planning phase. Lied Library is not a static environment. Allocation of space and the way services are provided to customers continue to evolve.

This paper will be helpful to others planning a new academic library, and highlights the need for ongoing planning and evaluation of services after the building project is completed. It also describes successful and less successful strategic planning efforts for an academic reference department.

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.

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.

One of the primary goals of the project was to create a supportive environment for experimentation to enhance classroom effectiveness.

A group of librarians, the enhancement team, scheduled brainstorming sessions with instructors interested in making changes in their classroom approaches. At the brainstorming plans for session objectives, activities, timing, roles and desired outcomes were made for a specific upcoming class. Most participating instructors chose to enhance their classes by trying either an active learning activity or a group work activity that was new to them. A member of the enhancement team attended each of the peer‐planned sessions to take notes and act as an observer, assistant or team teacher, as requested by the instructor. The instructors who participated also filled out brief assessment forms.

Although neither the non‐library faculty nor the students were formally surveyed, the active learning techniques used in the one‐shots received positive feedback. In particular, several teaching faculty told the library instructors at the end of the classes that the immediate hands‐on activities and the group activities aided the students’ comprehension of materials. In addition, a majority of the library instructors noted in their follow‐up surveys that the students were noticeably more engaged in the learning process during these classes.

The model of peer coaching at the planning stage, combined with team teaching, will be used to introduce new staff to teaching in the UNLV Libraries’ instruction department and continuing staff will be encouraged to open their classrooms to colleagues for ongoing professional development and constructive peer evaluation.

The purpose of the paper is to share the types, uses, and students' recommendations about reusable digital learning objects at Northwest Missouri State University, which can be used or adapted by other libraries in both online and on‐ground information literacy instruction environments.

The rationale for incorporation of learning objects, their application, and uses is discussed. Examples of successful applications of learning objects in online and on‐ground instructional classes are provided. Models for developing one's own learning objects are included. A survey and analysis for soliciting students' opinions about the reuse of learning objects is included.

The paper provides suggestions for developing and evaluating learning objects. This includes successful applications of digital learning objects in traditional and online information literacy classes. It shares easy to incorporate learning objects that can be used in tutorials or on‐ground bibliographic sessions and includes a student survey about reuse of learning objects, analysis of survey results, and suggestions for survey improvement.

The survey population was small. The librarians plan to replicate the survey with a larger audience. The survey may be adapted for use by other academic libraries.

The paper provides links to libraries of digital learning objects that instruction librarians can immediately begin linking to and using in tutorials or information literacy sessions.

The paper illustrates that access to a library of learning objects enables use of learning objects and enhances ideas for locally created prototypes. The survey can be easily adapted to other library environments to gather suggestions for reuse of local learning objects.

This paper seeks to present the findings of a series of experiments in embedding a librarian at a variety of levels into the undergraduate classroom. This study aimed to determine whether different levels of librarian embedment correlated with improvement in undergraduate students' information literacy (IL) skills.

Students from five undergraduate History courses and two undergraduate Women's Studies courses participated in the study. A librarian was embedded in each of the courses, at a variety of levels across courses. All student assignments were graded using a standardized rubric. Students' IL skills were assessed using the research component of the rubric, which measured their ability to locate, retrieve, evaluate, and incorporate sources into their assignments. Students' research and overall scores on their initial problem‐based learning (PBL) assignments and written assignments were compared to their final assignment scores in order to assess improvement over the course of the term.

There was significant improvement in students' scores when a librarian was conspicuously and obviously embedded in the academic classroom. Students' scores showed little improvement when the librarian was embedded but not explicitly identified as a specialist in information literacy, and when the researchers attempted to embed information literacy seamlessly in the classroom.

The research was conducted only in courses in the Humanities.

This study suggests that students' IL skills improve most when IL is identified in the classroom as a specialized subject taught by a highly trained specialist. The methodology used may be useful for others studying the impact of IL instruction.

Although embedding has been studied and reported on in the literature in a variety of contexts, the study of different levels of embedding, quantified using the same rubric is unique.