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Library Instruction Committee

Library Instruction Programs at UW: highlights of 1998-99

Overall Activity

We gave 255 workshops or tours to 4,145 participants. Of these, 80 were course-related workshops for 2,860 undergraduate students and 20 were workshops for 264 graduate students. Our annual report will analyse the data in more detail with respect to the l ast 3 years.

New Initiatives in 1998-99

  1. New programs - Undergraduate website which gathered relevant library services for this group into one place on UWELib

    - Distance Education website which provided both instruction in using the library to locate books, journals, web resources and public libraries as well as descriptions and links to special library services for this group. It was launched the weekend of th e Distance Ed Open House as part of a workshop for 48 participants.

    - Keeping Current with Your Research – Electronically was a new program for Faculty and Grad students given in the new IST classroom 3 times in the past year. A website for the program was also created and there are plans to offer departmentally focussed sessions to several departments this summer including how to use bibliographic software for reference management.

    - New Faculty Coffee Welcome was held in the Davis conference room and gave several selectors good opportunities to discuss library services especially library instruction with new faculty. This year we plan to offer the same discussions and displays duri ng the FAUW wine and cheese gathering for new faculty in the fall .

  2. Working with other UW Staff - Library tours were the most frequently used student service in September according to a UW survey of residence students. We discussed the survey and needs of first year students for library orientation with UW's 1st Year student life coordinator and wil l be part of this year's Student Services Tour.

    - For the winter term professional development day for COOP and career resources staff, we gave a workshop to field coordinators on searching the web to develop COOP jobs and a session for on clerical staff on searching the web for personal health informa tion. Library staff gave a subsequent session this summer on finding company information on the web.

  3. New Point of Need Assistance for Users - A TUG website for TRELLIS help (web client) was developed based on a model from the University of Pennsylvania. A new first page for TRELLIS (web) will highlight the help and features such as Reserves, Limits, Known Problems and New TRELLIS Features. Bo th projects will support users who need help when they are not in the library or prefer to solve problems independently.

    - Many students seem unaware that Reserves are searched through TRELLIS. We added the words "and Reserves" to the WINU button for Search TRELLIS and attached 'bubbles' to each library workstation outlining what could be searched on PCs. We also created Ve lcro backed "Sorry – Unavailable" signs so that staff can quickly communicate to users that ERL or CSA databases are down.

    - A series of useful search tips - e.g start your research at the discipline pages ; getting books form UG or WLU - highlighting TRELLIS features, web resources and library services were placed on each Library KIOSK. We plan to rotate these and create m ore as desk staff alert us to frequently requested help. (e.g. what a patron record includes etc.) A "Davis Road Map" points users to different parts of the library.

    - Two maps have been designed – one a flyer on how to get to WLU or UG from UW and the other a large coloured floormap for the Davis Library. UG and WLU are interested in copies of the former customized to the needs of their users.

  4. Promoting Library Orientation and Services - Our colourful and simple poster and bookmarks have been used by all 3 TUG libraries. Every faculty asked to include them in Campus Day info packages. Recently, AHS gave 150 to potential students at an athletic conference as a reminder that they had met a UW recruiter. This year's poster and bookmarks are just as eye catching and will be used first at Student Life 101 Day in August. On the reverse is the URL for the new Undergad page as well as TUGweb.

    - We contributed copy describing UW Library for the Undergraduate Newsletter and added the Library contact numbers to the Student Handbook. This coming year, our library tour and many workshop dates will be included in the student daytimer created by the FEDS. We staffed displays at Campus Day and Student Life 101 and contributed to the Q & A session for the latter. We'll do both again this year.

  5. Library Staff Professional Development - We held an Ideas Exchange to give staff practice talking to faculty about library instruction issues. Participants role played several librarian parts based on 3 scenarios and discussed the content and process of communicating. We want to offer more of these workshops and will survey staff for suggested topics and formats.

    - Several librarians attended WILU '98 in Kingston and brought back many instructional ideas. One librarian attended WILU '99 and has been on the conference steering committee for 2 years. WILU 2000 is at UWO so we hope more librarians will be able to att end and perhaps several will present sessions.

    - We created, for Liaison Librarians, a webpage of links to LIS journals, conferences, library associations and websites relevant to Library Instruction.

    - A UW librarian had a paper on faculty attitudes towards information literacy for science and engineering undergraduates published in College and Research Libraries. A related paper on faculty and librarian discourses around pedagogy was published in the proceedings of the 1999 ACRL conference.

    Anne Fullerton Chair, UW Library UserEducation,
    affuller@library x 6917


December 20, 2005