Academic Exchange Quarterly
Winter 2003: Volume 7, Issue 4
Enticing Faculty to Library
Instruction Workshops
Allison V. Level,
Catherine L. Cranston,
Allison
is the agricultural reference librarian and provides instruction for the
agricultural and natural sciences. She has an MLS from
Catherine
is an instruction librarian. She has an MA in Library Science from the
It
is often difficult to engage academic faculty and staff to attend workshops
about changing library technologies and resources. This article discusses a
successful program, “Find it Fast: Research Tips for People in a Hurry.” This
instruction program targeted academic faculty and staff who were not aware of
new online journals, databases, and computer linking services such as SFX.
“Find it Fast” outlined advanced Web searching skills, ways to maximize your
research time, and new library services. Recruitment, evaluation results, and
the fit with overall outreach efforts is discussed.
The
information and research environments of academic faculty and staff are
continually changing. Library technologies and resources also change, but it
can be difficult to get faculty and staff to explore and expand their
comfortable research environments through the new resources and services
available. People know what it is like to search Google
and get 400,000 hits for things they do not care about. What they want to know is
how to focus and get 40 hits for the things they need. In this article the
authors describe a professional development workshop that became a springboard
for recruiting faculty and staff to attend research workshops in an academic
library.
The
popular and well-attended Professional Development Institute (PDI) has been in
place for twenty-four years at Colorado State University (CSU). The PDI program
is sponsored by the Office of Instructional Services. Faculty and staff are
encouraged to present programs on topical areas including teaching and
learning, technology in the classroom, personal and professional development,
advising, outreach and service, or administrative issues. The programs are
scheduled on-campus for early January, between semesters, each year. Attendees
include administrators, faculty, staff, and graduate assistants. In Fall 2002,
the CSU Libraries launched new services, online journals, and a redesigned
website. Capitalizing on new resources, a campus-wide well established PDI
model, and the desire to “do more with less,” two reference and instruction
librarians decided to offer a PDI workshop that would play to a diverse
audience.
The
CSU Libraries has offered several different workshops geared towards faculty
and staff over the past five years. One of the early programs, “Fast, Free,
Easy” was popular and had good turnout. Since then, with a few exceptions, the
turnout has decreased. Recent programs structured around new databases or resources
such as Web of Science or SFX have been popular. Other libraries have reported
similar experiences. In Mosley’s (1998) article about experiences at Texas
A&M she reported, “Faculty participation at electronic database
instructional sessions held in the library had a history of being erratic, and
there were concerns with regard to attracting busy faculty members to attend
the workshop” (34).
Workshops
can be a balancing act between offering instruction sessions to educate faculty,
while not portraying them as out of touch with the latest resources. As Cunningham
(2002) points out, "…faculty may perceive information literacy training as
remedial for them and their students, so care should be taken to approach
collaboration as an opportunity for mutual benefit and "keeping the saw
sharp" rather than remediation for anyone" (346).
Strategies
for Workshop Content
The
program’s title, “Find it Fast: Research Tips for People in a Hurry” was
created to be eye-catching and entice faculty and staff to spend time learning
how to hone their research skills. Although the workshop audience was diverse,
the session pinpointed good starting points for research, including how to find
reference books on a topic and which databases were best for researching
subject-specific topics. Research from other universities has found that,
“Faculty information needs varied by discipline but did focus on two primary
areas: document access and skill development" (Westbrook,147). The CSU
session included information geared for faculty and staff, but it also covered
resources for students, which the faculty could link-to or mention in their
syllabus. The Libraries have been working on several flash-based tutorials, and
these guides to advanced searching and research techniques were mentioned as a
resource for students.
With
the Fall 2002 launch of two new services, SFX and Citation Linker, there were
new flashy resources to showcase. Both services make it easier to locate
articles and full-text sources. With help from the OpenURL
standard, the technology enables researches to go from database citations to
full-text articles within a couple of clicks. The customized SFX menu also
provides links to the Libraries’ catalog and interlibrary loan, creating an
easier way for researchers to find out if the book or journal is “accessible”
from the library.
Books
and journal articles are still the foundation along the research path but
people also want to do a better job identifying quality information from the
Web. As part of the workshop, advanced Web searching skills and search engine
comparisons were discussed. The session was structured so participants would
have time to sharpen their research skills with hands-on practice using a topic
of their choice. The PDI session had thirty people enrolled with twenty on the
waiting list.
When
describing similar workshops at California State University Sacramento, Hall
(1999) notes that faculty, “are quite familiar with the literature in their
fields and they regularly look at their journals, but many have not kept up
with the changes that technology has imposed on information dissemination in
their disciplines” (30). At CSU, similar patterns were found and the librarians
decided that the workshop would focus on the library's electronic resources,
explaining how to access, use, and integrate them into the curriculum.
With
a captive audience of many teaching faculty, the librarians showed how to get
information about planning good library assignments and also how to contact the
library to set up library instruction sessions for their classes. The librarians
illustrated the importance of critical information-seeking skills and
information literacy. Examples of poor, but all too common, search strategies
were contrasted with creative and effective searches. Several faculty members
commented on how much they learned during the session and that they would
definitely bring their students in for a library research session. One
evaluation stated, “Tons of information – great! Suggest expanding session to
at least 90 minutes.” One of the program objectives was to plant the seed that
library resources change, and it is worth their time to come to a workshop or
talk with their subject librarian to stay current.
Workshop Assessment and Adaptation
Many
of the comments received from the evaluation forms focused on the issue of timing.
When initially planning this program, the librarians considered making the PDI workshop
two hours long. However, this seemed a bit long considering that the title,
"Find it Fast," touted the idea of getting useful information quickly.
Instead, the mistake was made of trying to fit too much information into too
short a time. An overly ambitious range of topics was covered, and the
participants rightly told us, “Way too much to deliver in a measly hour!” and
“Very good info – just too much to present in too little time.” Some
participants were pleased with the fast-paced nature of the session, “Very
concise & well delivered,” but the majority felt that a longer class period
would have been beneficial. They cited the need for more time to practice, and
more time for individual questions to be addressed. The saving grace for this
flaw in our initial design was the fact that multiple handouts and an online Web
site were provided, and comments indicated participants appreciated and planned
to use these materials after the workshop. The Web pages created were
comprehensive enough so that participants could refer back to them for
additional information or as a refresher to what was covered during the
workshop.
With
the overall success of the PDI and a waiting list of interested participants, the
librarians decided to offer additional research sessions during the Spring
semester. Using evaluations from this base of attendees, plus a ready-made
waiting list of those who could not attend, follow-up sessions were created to
run throughout the beginning of the Spring semester.
The
librarians decided on a combination of one hour and two hour workshops. The one
hour sessions were scheduled during the lunch hour with “part one” and “part
two” so people could come for either session and also come during lunch. Longer
two hour sessions were scheduled in both the morning and afternoon, for people
who wanted to come to only one session for all the information. Informal
drop-in open research times were scheduled so people could attend with the
research topics of their choice. Librarians were in the room to answer
questions, make suggestions for databases to use and offer research tips to
keep in mind.
The
research sessions were publicized through the Libraries’ home page and the
campus-wide e-mail listserv. E-mails were sent directly to everyone on the PDI
waiting list. The topics to be covered in each of the sessions were explicitly
stated so participants could make an informed decision about which session would
be most beneficial for them. A few participants from the initial PDI returned
for open research help to get the hands-on practice and additional individualized
help they missed the first time around.
In
order to be responsive to the feedback garnered from the initial PDI, some
modifications were made to the content and outline of the session. More
hands-on time was the first change to be incorporated. Time was scheduled after
each segment of new information to allow participants to put the lesson into practice
immediately, and determine on the spot if they understood the steps involved.
In order to better illustrate the benefits of the Citation Linker tool, a
research flow chart handout was devised to show how finding citations in a
reference book could lead to full-text articles in hand within a matter of
minutes. The flow chart format was easy to follow and enhanced the
demonstration on the computer screen. After seeing how well the other handouts
went over, it was determined that the research flow lesson could benefit from a
tangible take home example as well.
Teaching
these workshops as a team worked well on many levels. The class sizes ranged between
twelve to thirty people, so the ability to help answer as many questions as possible
one-on-one made this a much more personalized experience for participants. The
focus of finding information quickly led to a fast-paced class with lots of
information streaming out in a rapid-fire fashion. Being able to break-up the
session between two librarians helped keep it fresh for both the librarians and
the participants. While many instruction librarians are comfortable with the
fast-paced nature of getting the information out, most would agree that they do
a better job if they can catch a breather between involved topics. Being able
to see how another instruction librarian approaches a topic helps to add
variety to teaching styles and improves overall teaching skills.
One
of the best things accomplished by this workshop was having people from across
campus who might not normally avail themselves of our services, meet not one
but two librarians who presented a helpful face for the library. Follow-up contact
from the participants showed that new connections had been forged. These
conversations emphasized the availability of subject librarians who could go
into specifics with them about more extensive research questions or lead a
class discussion about research skills in their subject area. It was a surprise to know that not everyone
understood that this was a central role for academic librarians. Some faculty
and staff are still under the impression that they are a bother if they ask for
help when using the library. Many feel they should be able to figure out how to
use these resources on their own. This is another lesson in why marketing
services is so important.
Library Outreach Opportunities
There
has been an active outreach effort for years at the CSU Libraries, including teaching
targeted populations of First-Year, Black, Hispanic, and disabled students
(Neely, 1999). The Libraries’ participation in offering PDI programs has been a
method of providing outreach to another targeted group of people including
faculty, staff and graduate teaching assistants on campus. One of the CSU
Libraries’ goals from a recent planning retreat document outlines the intent to
increase collaborative relationships and pursue additional outreach
opportunities (Colorado State University Libraries, 2002). By taking the PDI
session one step further and offering follow-up with the people on the waiting
list, efforts were made to not leave any eager learner behind.
The
benefit of using the PDI as a launching pad for workshops is the ability to
reach not only teaching faculty, but professional staff and graduate teaching
assistants at the same time. The general nature of the “Find it Fast” session
was appealing to each of these groups of busy researchers. By using the lure of
a quick approach to finding information, many of the participants are now
hooked on some of the new tools and resources, as evidenced by follow-up phone
calls and e-mails. Teaching faculty who might not have brought their classes in
for a library instruction session have now rethought the idea. Several
participants said, based on how much had changed since the last time they had
used the library, they wanted to make sure their students were also aware of
the time-saving tools.
Once
again targeting a captive audience, the library instruction team is moving forward
with a plan to use the already established Computer Training & Support
Services (CTSS) mechanism for registering workshop participants. CTSS has an
established online automated method of registration for their set of training
workshops which deal with software programs, campus networking capabilities,
etc. The library has recently strengthened a relationship with CTSS to provide library
research classes as part of their menu of selections to the campus community.
In the past, the library advertised its faculty/staff workshops by sending out
e-mails, posting messages to campus electronic newsletters, printing notices in
the campus paper, and posting announcements on our library website. The
advantage of the CTSS registration scenario is the established reach it has to
all faculty and staff on campus. They will be able to advertise our workshops
to a receptive audience. CTSS registration provides a similar opportunity to
gauge interest and follow-up with people on a waiting list. Since this registration
system is highly visible, it will generate good business for the library
instruction team. It is hoped that people will make new connections between
technology and the library.
Much
outreach is targeted to specific departments through library liaisons, or is course
content based. However, there is still room for broader general approaches of
finding information based on new resources and enhanced technologies such as
SFX. Some participants were waiting for this type of general information
session because they are not interested in participating in subject-based
sessions. Using these types of opportunities to get a foot in the door with a
wider audience will help build information literacy skills and information
competencies across campus.
Conclusion
The
PDI program and follow-up research sessions were a success. Factors that
contributed include tapping into a well-established professional development
program, showcasing new library services, and addressing the desire of faculty
and staff to sharpen their research knowledge. The original one hour PDI instruction
session met the initial goal of getting the word out about new resources and
library tools while generating interest in additional learning opportunities. By
creating a flexible set of session times with a general set of information
literacy skills, the goal of creating a wider outreach to campus professionals was
addressed.
In
the past two years there have been many newly hired subject librarians working
hard to develop new liaison relationships with faculty and increase instruction
sessions. Recruiting faculty and staff into the library can be difficult, but
the eye-catching program title baited the hook and the quality content reeled
them in. Realizing there are other “fish in the sea,” content from the “Find it
Fast” workshop will be included in the upcoming CTSS research classes and in
next year’s PDI program.
References
Cunningham, T.H. &
Lanning, S. (2002). New frontier trail guides: Faculty-librarian collaboration
on information literacy. Reference
Services Review 30(4), 343-348.
Hall, L. (1999). A
home-grown program for raising faculty information competence. Computers in Libraries 19(8), 28-34.
Mosley, P.A. (1998).
Creating a library assignment workshop for university faculty. Journal of Academic Librarianship, 24(1),
33-41.
Neely, T. Y., Lederer, N., Reyes, A., Thistlethwaite,
P., Wess, L. & Winkler, J. (1999). Instruction
and outreach at Colorado State University Libraries. In W. Arant
& P. A. Mosley (Eds.), Library
outreach, partnerships, and distance education: Reference librarians at the
gateway (pp. 273-287).
Westbrook, L. & Tucker,
S. A. (2002). Understanding faculty information needs. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 42(2), 114-148.