From one-shot sessions to embedded librarian: Lessons learned over seven years of successful faculty-librarian collaboration

Abstract

Successful information literacy programs require collaboration between multiple constituencies, including faculty, staff, administrators, and librarians. The purpose of this article is to share some of the lessons we’ve learned in our faculty-librarian partnership, in the hope that it might inform and guide others seeking to build successful collaborations as they strive to promote information literacy on their campuses. Our collaboration began somewhat modestly in 2008 with a traditional oneshot session, overoptimistically designed to teach a class of first year sociology students everything they might need to know about library research. Over the next six years, we shaped, customized, tweaked, and adjusted our approach until we arrived at a fully embedded librarian model. The First Year Experience (FYE) Introduction to Sociology course now includes five hands-on information literacy sessions that use active learning, several additional appearances by the librarian in the classroom, and mandatory one-on-one meetings between each student and the librarian. The librarian and subject faculty member also worked together to create the syllabus and other course materials, including a handbook for student e-portfolios that are a required component of Alfred University’s FYE program. Although the initial impetus for change came from a restructuring of the FYE program, which requires each course to be either writing or information literacy intensive, we have taken our collaboration well beyond the required parameters. Along the way we have seen significant improvement in student research papers. We hope to provide a more comprehensive analysis of our assessment data in a future publication. Fully embedded team teaching is the gold standard The ideal to strive for is a situation in which librarians and teaching faculty are complete equals working together on the content and coverage of the information literacy components of the course. Although this ideal cannot always be reached due to various local constraints, interdisciplinary teams often make for a richer educational experience. By endeavoring to move beyond the traditional one-shot model towards full embeddedness, we demonstrate that information literacy is fundamental to generating and consuming knowledge across all disciplines.