The November 1, 2016 Bibliographic Instruction SIG was held at Mount Saint Mary College. It was Facilitated by Derek Sanderson of Mount Saint Mary College, and featured a presentation by Judy Capruso of SUNY Ulster. Details from the meeting are found below:
Judy Capurso presented to the group on the topic of the Information Literacy class at SUNY Ulster. (See the column on the right to download the presentation.)
1 credit course that is required for all SUNY Ulster students. It started 20 years ago.
18-19 students per class (limited by the number of computers in the lab.)
Each of the seven modules is open for a week. Modules 1-3 can be done within an hour. The last four modules get more complex. The modules are open one at a time.
They took an entire summer to design the course from scratch with an instructional designer. The librarians started with a concept map, and then grouped them into modules.
They produce a portfolio with an annotated bibliography for most of the portion of their grade.
The class has a pre and a post test, which has generally showed improvement.
They don’t have a first year seminar, or first year experience class, but one will be starting soon.
Judy is advocating for a technology class, because some students understand the content but not the tech.
Some students are frozen, but some understand the class intuitively. The challenge is to reach the students who are frozen before they fail.
SUNY 64 – the goal is so that credits transfer between all the schools. They wanted all 2-year degrees to be finished with 64 credits, even the departments that require more than 64 credits, like nursing and vet tech.
Second semester is an ideal time to teach this class. She sends a letter to all the advisers at the beginning of the semester to guide them to send the students to the best class for them – steering some away from online courses, because there is no technology assessment, so students who are uncomfortable with the tech might end up floundering in an online class.
She has them compare two websites – one from a professional nonprofit, and one from a 6th grade class that looks pretty good but has no citations on it.
Columbia Greene has a voluntary instruction class
Dutchess does one-shots, they don’t have a lot of online classes at the college. They need an alternative to compensate for the time consuming one-shots, because they can be up to 100 a year.
Orange holds 6-10 classes per semester. The library doesn’t have an online class, but the school does.
Working with Faculty:
One-on-one outreach – offer services to department heads to get librarians to speak in classes, or at department meetings. They can offer to embed a libguide into a course.
The writing center director at MSMC held a seminar to teach faculty to write assignments. Working with the writing center will also help them be aware that the library can offer research help when it comes up.
MSMC Personal Librarian program – Jen has given presentations in the dorm. It’s linked to the Credo tutorials and the FYE class. The focus is more than just outreach, it’s more about information literacy skills.
Faculty rollover makes it hard to have consistency with any literacy program.
Numbers of reference questions change year to year, and we discussed the problem with looking at granular data rather than taking a long view of change over time. Each class seems to have its own personality as far as how they use the library.
MSMC is working on having the student workers meet with librarians to help lower the barrier to having the students ask for help. Even the student workers are hesitant to ask for face to face time with librarians, so the hope is that will spread the word.
Relationships with students is stronger when you get a little personal and show your human side. Examples: opening with two truths and a lie or singing in the gospel choir.
Being approachable isn’t enough, you have to be aware when students want to ask for assistance, but are hesitant to do so.
At the Salvation Army, Stephanie uses this metaphor for using citation tools: You can buy your uniform, but you still need it tailored
Derek Sanderson, Mount Saint Mary College
Judy Capurso, SUNY Ulster
Cathy Carl, SUNY -Dutchess Community College
Ellie Horowitz, Dominican College
Jen Park, Mount Saint Mary College
John Santana, Columbia-Greene Community College
Karen Shea, United States Military Academy Library
Stephanie, Poegel, Salvation Army Library
Tiffany Davis, Mount Saint Mary College
William Worford, SUNY - Orange Community College