Sustainable Growth: Developing Information Literacy Group Classes
Type of Presentation
Individual paper/presentation
Conference Strand
Outreach and Partnership
Target Audience
Higher Education
Second Target Audience
Higher Education
Location
Session 4 Papers
Relevance
This describes an approach to information literacy in library instruction.
Proposal
Libraries were not exempt from the “great resignation” yet faced expectations to maintain instruction volume and other information literacy offerings. Rather than attempting to provide the same number of sessions with fewer staff, SCAD librarians developed library overview sessions targeting groups of classes that would otherwise request individual sessions. This effort was essential to maintaining the quality and reach of information literacy programming while the library faced staffing constraints and significant changes to the university’s approach to online learning. Critical to success was top-down outreach through department chairs and outreach to individual professors. These virtual sessions continued to provide the bibliographic instruction and resource demonstrations requested by faculty, however shifting from class visits to librarian-driven sessions gave librarians more power to include relevant information literacy skills. These lessons allowed librarians to strategically address specific information literacy objectives in each session, a move that has proved more difficult to implement in individual sessions in the past due to faculty expectations and resistance. The need to take attendance for multiple professors simultaneously provided an opportunity to introduce large-scale standardized assessment that was previously not feasible. Grouping classes together allowed library instruction to reach more students with fewer sessions while appeasing faculty who resist using class time for information literacy instruction. As a result, librarians gained previously scarce time to develop engaging, assignment-specific classes and were able to use group sessions as the foundation for a scalable, more scaffolded approach to information literacy.
Short Description
To preserve library instruction quality and reach during the “great resignation” seen across academia, we began providing overview instruction sessions for multiple classes at once. These group sessions provided resource demonstrations while strategically addressing information literacy objectives. This approach allowed librarians to reach more students with fewer sessions while freeing in-class time for faculty. As a result, librarians reclaimed time to develop other engaging, assignment-specific classes and now have the foundation for a scalable, more scaffolded approach to information literacy.
Keywords
eLearning, Group Sessions, Staff Shortage, information literacy, alternative approaches to instruction
Publication Type and Release Option
Presentation (Open Access)
Recommended Citation
Decker-Bess, Emily and Seymour, Virginia, "Sustainable Growth: Developing Information Literacy Group Classes" (2022). Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy. 29.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gaintlit/2022/2022/29
Sustainable Growth: Developing Information Literacy Group Classes
Session 4 Papers
Libraries were not exempt from the “great resignation” yet faced expectations to maintain instruction volume and other information literacy offerings. Rather than attempting to provide the same number of sessions with fewer staff, SCAD librarians developed library overview sessions targeting groups of classes that would otherwise request individual sessions. This effort was essential to maintaining the quality and reach of information literacy programming while the library faced staffing constraints and significant changes to the university’s approach to online learning. Critical to success was top-down outreach through department chairs and outreach to individual professors. These virtual sessions continued to provide the bibliographic instruction and resource demonstrations requested by faculty, however shifting from class visits to librarian-driven sessions gave librarians more power to include relevant information literacy skills. These lessons allowed librarians to strategically address specific information literacy objectives in each session, a move that has proved more difficult to implement in individual sessions in the past due to faculty expectations and resistance. The need to take attendance for multiple professors simultaneously provided an opportunity to introduce large-scale standardized assessment that was previously not feasible. Grouping classes together allowed library instruction to reach more students with fewer sessions while appeasing faculty who resist using class time for information literacy instruction. As a result, librarians gained previously scarce time to develop engaging, assignment-specific classes and were able to use group sessions as the foundation for a scalable, more scaffolded approach to information literacy.
