Information Literacy Across the Curriculum
Presented at the LOEX Annual Meeting, Ypsilanti, MI, May 1996
The Library at University Park is halfway through a three year $23 million construction project. The Reference Department at University Park has a staff of ten librarians and three library assistants. Point of use instruction is provided at a Reference Desk, a LUIS Help and General Information Desk, and from LUIS "Rovers". Staff from other library departments volunteer as teachers or trainers in the Library Instruction Program.
In order to meet our objective of reaching every student, we designed the first key component of our library instruction program: the Library Certification Program. Partnered with the Freshmen Composition Program and required for all sections, first year composition classes are scheduled by their instructor to come to the library for a sequence of two classes. The first class, "Critical Thinking in the Information Age," introduces students to LUIS as a "gateway to the world of information." A LUIS competency test is part of this class. The second class, "Research Strategies", is scheduled when students have topics for their research papers, and includes an active learning "research strategy worksheet" for students to complete as part of the class session. A third class previously included in the sequence has recently been restructured as a multimedia-based tutorial.
Building upon our success with the Library Certification Program, we have expanded the program into the core curriculum, working with specific departments and programs to build in required sequences of classes linked to core classes for upper division students. Each program is designed together with faculty from that program, coordinating course objectives and outcomes to library classes and designing assignments together. We are working our way across the curriculum, and examples of our established programs include Engineering, Biology, History, Public Speaking and Psychology. Programs vary from as little as one required class for psychology majors, to an eight class sequence for engineering majors.
For many departments we provide tailored workshops varying from 3-8 hours in length for graduate students and faculty incorporating a wide range of resources spanning print and electronic formats. These popular "Research Strategies" workshops are generally coordinated with the Department Chairperson or library representative.
A continuing component of our library instruction program is the traditional "course related" instruction. Increasingly, however, students in these classes now have a foundation of skills acquired through the Library Certification Program in their freshmen year. Furthermore, a request for course related instruction is a beginning of a negotiation process with the department develop a more formal sequence of instruction for that discipline. This coordination must take place at the Department Chair/Program Director level in order to involve all faculty and to build in the "required" component. Individual faculty are key in helping to initiate the process, provide input in the design of the library classes, and collaborating with librarians to design assignments.
Other components of our program include: a Term Paper Advisory Service; open sign up for training on specific electronic products and services; a self paced audio tour; Assignment Troubleshooting Service; and a wide variety of course related instruction.
First, a successful library instruction program is designed to meet the needs of the student.
Our model at FIU is based on 2 guiding principles:
A successful library instruction program is linked to the goals and educational philosophy of the institution
This is obvious. But I want to address the shift in organizational culture that occurred within the library to get us to that point. Three ways that this happened are:
A successful library instruction program receives library and university administrative support.
Developing a strategy to gain support and recognition, especially from the University administration, takes time, planning and a strategy. I want to discuss the strategy used to get that support.
I spent my first year at FIU designing a methodology and collecting data from every person who spent time and resources on instruction related activities. The data was used for internal department planning as well as reports to the library administration. It was also heavily used for public relations. The next step in this strategy was to increase efficiency in the program by refocussing individual and collective efforts and making better use of staff time and department resources. After three years and an increase of over 400% in the number of classes taught with the same level of staffing, we reached our maximum level of efficiency with available resources.
I am proud to note that we recently had 2 new full time library faculty lines awarded to the Reference Department. These are not positions reallocated within the Libraries, but new lines awarded to the Libraries in large part because of our successful instruction activities.
A successful library instruction program is supported by the teaching faculty.
Beyond the fact that we have more requests than we can meet, and that faculty are willingly giving up class time and buying into the "required" element, our greatest demonstration of support is the collaboration in the development of course assignments and projects. We are working together with faculty to design assignments that include a library component. The greater challenge, because of the structure of our program, is the constant negotiation with the academic departments and colleges. Before we have a chance to bask in our success at working with the History Department to design a required multiple class sequence of library instruction for upper division students, we have to do it all over again with the Dean in the College of Education. An interesting and unexpected benefit is that we often find that our collaboration is the catalyst for a departmental process of articulating outcomes for core courses and the development of common assignments. This has been particularly evident in core courses primarily taught by adjuncts or teaching assistants.
A successful library instruction program includes an infrastructure of clerical and technical support.
This is another management issue. As a Department Head with 10 librarians and 6 Library Assistant and an $80,000 budget for student assistants, I have the flexibility to reorganize, rewrite job descriptions, encourage other department heads to release staff to "volunteer' and in general apply a wide range of strategies to do my job -- which is to create the environment of support for the reference staff to do their job. Some examples of infrastructure created in the past 4 years include:
And finally, a successful Library Instruction program evolves continually.
I would like to refer you to a poster session that I presented last year at the Annual Meeting of the American Library Association with one of my colleagues entitled "Survival of the Fittest: Evolution of a Library Instruction Program." The concept of constant evolution is so fundamental to our program that we used it as a theme for our poster session.
Early in my career I was at the Yale University Library where I had the privilege of being mentored by the library director who taught me a lot about creating environments where all staff share the vision and the leadership of an organization. She said:
Patricia Iannuzzi, Head, Reference Department, FIU Libraries
iannuzzi@.fiu.edu
http://www.fiu.edu/~library
About Florida International University
Florida International University, the public university serving South Florida, is one of ten universities in Florida's State University System (SUS). Only 24 years old, we are one of the fastest growing public universities in the country, with 28,000 students, 860 faculty, and over 200 degree programs, with 100 at the graduate level. The main campus, University Park, is located in Miami, in southwest Dade County, and the North Miami campus is located approximately 60 miles northeast in North Miami. FIU serves the dynamic, intensely multicultural, urban community of South Florida. Some pertinent demographics about our students are:
Miami Dade Community College, the largest community college in the United States, is our major feeder institution, providing several thousand transfer students each year. All first year students at FIU are required to take at least one, and usually two semesters of Freshmen Composition. All first semester students are also required to take a Freshmen Experience seminar.
About the FIU Libraries
The FIU Libraries are comprised of two physical buildings, one centralized facility at the University Park campus, and one at North Miami, as well as a wide array of electronic library services over to remote users. Holdings include one million volumes and include 9,800 serials. The Florida Center for Library Automation (FCLA) provides programming and other systems support for the statewide Library User Information System, LUIS. LUIS is the Notis-based integrated library system containing the opacs of the SUS libraries, dozens of mounted databases, and gateways to subscription and other services accessed via the INTERNET (RLIN, RLIN - Citadel, Uncover, library catalogs worldwide, etc.). In addition to LUIS, the Libraries have a two campus wide area network for cd rom databases available from within the library as well as from remote locations. We are currently migrating LUIS access from dumb terminals to networked pcs capable of providing access to multiple services including the CD Network and the WWW using Netscape, in addition to LUIS. A web based interface for LUIS is also under development.
The Library Instruction Program
The Library Instruction Program is composed of several components designed to complement each other. One of the major objectives of our Library Instruction Program is to insure the participation of every student at FIU. As an alternative model to a required credited course that would require over 100 sections and stand independent of the curriculum, we developed a model that includes sequences of classes linked to the core curriculum across academic departments. This model provides the opportunity for collaboration with faculty in the design of library based workshops based on the content of the course.
Characteristics of a Successful Library Instruction Program
As a panel we identified a list of characteristics of a successful Library Instruction Program. Although I agree with all the characteristics we identified, I have selected several that reflect the importance of the role of management. As head of a department with thirteen staff who teach almost 600 classes a year, sometimes I feel like my most important contribution to the success of our program is in using all my management and political skills to create an environment where the entire reference staff and our volunteers can work independently and together to deliver a successful program.
Hence our program is composed of several components of sequenced and required classes linked to the core curriculum. We have developed many information literacy programs across the curriculum collaborating with deans, program directors, department chairs and faculty to articulate goals, objective, outcomes and most significantly for us, assignments and sequencing. We know that if we hear at the Reference Desk "I've never used the library before," they must be a transfer student.
All increased resources allocated to library instruction happened with no net increase in resources to the department . One of the most important responsibilities of management is to make efficient use of the resources at hand, and, when necessary, to make tough choices. This might include the suspension of certain activities, so that resources can be freed up to redirect elsewhere.
Having a vision - experimenting - learning from experience -taking steps or even missteps in the right direction. This is another important characteristic of a successful library instruction program.
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