Engaging First-Year Students in Meaningful Library Research: A Practical Guide for Teaching Faculty

Woodhead Publishing Ltd, November 2011, Pages: 198

Aimed at teaching professionals working with first-year students at institutions of higher learning, this book provides practical advice and specific strategies for integrating contemporary information literacy competencies into courses intended for novice researchers. The book has two main goals - to discuss the necessity and value of incorporating information literacy into first-year curricula; and to provide a variety of practical, targeted strategies for doing so. The author will introduce and encourage teaching that follows a process-driven, constructivist framework as a way of engaging first-year students in library work that is interesting, meaningful and disciplinarily relevant.

Key features:

- provides helpful advice and guidance for seamlessly integrating library research competencies into first-year courses
- offers practical models and real life examples of successful student-centered, course-based library research assignments
- is written by an academic librarian with nearly 20 years of experience in the field
- synthesizes the existing scholarship on contemporary first-year students and their lack of library research proficiencies
- presents an effective constructivist framework which informs faculty and can help further prepare first-year students as they move beyond their earliest research experiences

Readership: Primarily aimed at teaching faculty who instruct first-year students at institutions of higher education. Members of the academic library profession will also find this text useful as a tool for working with teaching faculty.

Introduction
- Purpose
- Background
- Organization

The Millennials go to the library: or do they?
- Introducing the Millennials
- Characteristics of this new generation
- What is information literacy and do contemporary undergraduates really need it?
- Attitudinal shifts: addressing truculence in the faculty lounge
- Conclusion

Information literacy in the context of the fi rst year
- Introduction
- Attending to novice researchers
- Process-centered library research
- How can course content and information literacy co-exist?
- Conclusion

Pragmatic pedagogical approaches
- Introduction
- From the start: advice from librarian colleagues
- Creating effective library experiences
- The next step: advancing information literacy
- beyond the fi rst year
- One final note
- Conclusion

Appendix: resources about integrating information literacy in the undergraduate classroom

Molly R. Flaspohler is Special Projects Librarian at Concordia College, Moorhead, Minnesota where she has worked for 19 years. She has published and presented on a range of library issues including program assessment, information literacy in first-year composition courses, and librarian sabbatical leave trends.

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