The Library and First-Year
Seminars
Introduction
Purpose of first-year instruction and proposed methodology.
Goals of First Year Information Literacy
What librarians hope to accomplish this year and how we
propose to do it.
Liaison
List 2008
Find out which librarian is assigned to your first year-seminar.
PowerPoint Presentation Delivered at Orientation
on 5/18/07
Overview of the library program and goals for first-year students.
Faculty Comments
At orientation on 5/19/06, the librarians asked what elements
of information literacy were most important to the faculty.
Here are the responses.
Samples of Teaching Modules
Samples of Final
Projects
The Seven Deadly Sins of Plagiarism
Information about the required first-year plagiarism presentation.
Introduction
The information you fill find here on the
First Year Seminar web pages is a reproduction of the information
that was delivered at orientation for first-year seminar
faculty members on 5/19/06.
In keeping with our commitment to provide more
information literacy instrution to first year students,
your librarians have been developing targeted ways to
help student build their research skills, while also showing
them how to accomplish the immediate research needs of
the seminar. To that end, we have designed short, 15-minute
sessions, or "modules"
focusing on one skill at a time, including in-class practice
and homework assignements to reinforce the skill. A few
or many of the modules may be appropriate to your class.
Additionally, we have developed samples of final
projects that may be adaptable to your seminar, and
that will build on the skills your students learn during
information literacy instruction sessions.
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top
Goals of
Information Literacy for First Year Students
The Library’s Overarching Goals for First Year Students
are:
• Students should recognize the need for authoritative
information
• Students should seek out and use information ethically
• Students should be able to transfer basic information-seeking
skills to any research project
The Library Staff proposed to carry out these goals by:
• Partnering with the faculty to
• Deliver short, focused instruction that is
• Tied to assignments relevant to the work students
are doing in class
Effective library instruction:
• Is embedded in the syllabus and seen as part of
the course
• Is delivered in consultation and partnership with
the faculty member
• Is focused toward one specific tasks at a time
Ineffective library instruction:
• One shot, 50-/75- minute, squashing “everything”
into one session
• Faculty member does not participate
• Assignments that are not directly related to coursework
• Ungraded work
• Sessions that are presented to the students as something
extra they have to go through, rather than an integral link
in the course
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Faculty Comments
At orientation on 5/19/06, the librarians asked what elements
of information literacy were most important to the faculty.
Here is a list of topics faculty members stated were important
regarding information literacy. We believe that our module
approach can cover most of these, although not entirely
at the first year level.
- Understanding how knowledge is produced
- Concepts of authorship, authority, and context of information
found
- How to discriminate and differentiate between different
kinds of sources
- Book vs. journal
- Primary vs. secondary
- Searching beyond Google (and evaluating sources)
- Going beyond using a single tool to retrieve a single
source
- Problem of retrieving too much or too little information
- How to search more effectively in databases (beyond
a one-term keyword)
- How to structure database searches effectively
- Evaluating knowledge
- How much IL responsibility is the faculty's vs. the
librarian's
- When to start research (eg., after formulating an original
idea or thesis)
- The timing of research
- How to narrow the focus
- To understand the relative trustworthiness of sources
(eg. Wikipedia)
- When is it appropriate to use Google and Wikipedia
- Respect for the printed text (books!)
- How to find artifacts (specimens, samples, examples)
rather than articles
- To understand what specific resources exist for different
disciplines (eg. Art history still relies on mostly print)
- How to respond to the quirks of the catalog
- How to respond to a failed search (zero results)
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The
Seven Deadly Sins of Plagiarism
In the fall of 2007, all first year students
are required to attend an interactive presentation on
plagiarism presented by librarians. The Seven Deadly
Sins of Plagiarsim
will be demonstrated to first-year seminar faculty on August
17, 2007. Click on the following links for important documentation
related to the presentation:
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