Library orientations continue to excite, or plague, instruction librarians everywhere. Reaching first year students early can preempt academic heartache and research woes, yet the question of "what students really need" continues to evolve. This article presents a case study of a large-scale implementation of library orientations. The…

Academic and research libraries have been increasing their efforts for a number of years to demonstrate their contributions to student learning outcomes in support of the institutional educational mission. Whether through one-shot instruction or credited classes, libraries invest a great deal of time and effort in instructional programs. A key…

Extensive engagement with current academic sources is expected of all psychology undergraduates. Thirty-eight undergraduate psychology students took part in a series of focus group discussions of their information-searching experiences and skills. The majority of students had not been required to engage with any form of information searching while…

As part of the University of Rhode Island Libraries' "Comprehensive Plan for Information Literacy," a three-credit class in the skills and concepts of information literacy was first offered in the fall of 1999. More than 1,000 undergraduate students have taken the class since that time. A pre-test was given at the beginning of each semester,…

About a decade ago, a team of librarians and technologists at the University of Texas at Austin began development on a Web-based tutorial for undergraduate students. The tutorial used a range of technologies--HTML, Flash, javascript--to create four modules that emphasized information literacy concepts by using a mix of text, images, interactive…

Using a case study approach that compares original and reprint articles from two newspapers, this article examines the consequences of not integrating media literacy skills into reference service. Librarians should be aware of the issues involved in how the print media selects and presents daily news. Figures 1-6 graph word count differences.…

Introduction: changes in educational policy and practice demand that we examine school library programmes from a new perspective. As a model that takes a developmental view of minds in context, Cultural Historical Activity Theory is particularly well suited to the study of school libraries and the learning that occurs therein. This paper focuses…