A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to visit KTH Royal Institute of Technology, a university located in Stockholm, Sweden. In this trip, I created a gamified IL workshop based on escape rooms. About 20 academic librarians came from all over Sweden to participate in this activity and discuss ways to expand the concept into their own practices. Here I’ll explain some tips and tricks for you to consider when creating escape rooms in your own instruction.

By Anna Yang and Raymond Pun

Today, health sciences education programs are growing rapidly across the United States. As a result, there are more opportunities to work as a health sciences librarian teaching and supporting information literacy in disciplines like nutrition, physical therapy, nursing, public health, and pharmacy. In this interview, librarian Anna Yang shares her experiences supporting information literacy in this expanding field.

This semester, have you collaborated with a teaching faculty or a student affairs colleague in designing an assignment, curriculum, or program for student learning and engagement that utilizes library resources or services including instruction? In this post, we’ll highlight this High-Impact Practice (HIP) and review 3 open access resources for you to explore when designing collaborative activities for the spring semester!

By Andrew Carlos and Raymond Pun

Memes are an inescapable part of today’s online culture. The Internet is filled with memes: images, videos, texts, or ideas created and virally shared by one person to another to critique or reinforce a specific culture. They can be satirical, ironic, or graphic, and may make references to popular culture like the Batman meme you see here. Memes can also help students make important connections during your library instruction.

By Jillian Eslami and Raymond Pun

California State University Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) is a public university in the 23-school California State University system. In this interview, librarian Jillian Eslami shares her experiences supporting FYE through outreach, engagement, and programming across campus. Jillian also mentions her new work collaborating with student government to form a Student Advisory Group for the library.

By Melissa Cardenas-Dow and Raymond Pun

With a greater emphasis on data and numbers, the social sciences are becoming more interdisciplinary-based, with an increased focus on research methods and data collection plans. But what does that mean for instruction librarians supporting these research areas? The social sciences include fields like history, psychology, sociology, anthropology, ethnic studies, women’s studies, geography, political science, economics, and more. In this interview, social sciences librarian Melissa Cardenas-Dow shares her approach to teaching information literacy, and recommends selected sources to tap into the interdisciplinary nature of the social sciences. 

I recently attended the annual Charleston Conference in Charleston, South Carolina (November 5-9, 2018) for the first time. This conference is known as an important event to attend if your work involves scholarly communication, library publishing, collection development, acquisitions or e-resource management. The sessions and discussions covered many interesting and emerging issues including discovery, technology trends, budgeting, analysis and assessment, and user statistics. I learned quite a bit in this conference and chatted with publishers and vendors who shared some upcoming features in their products and services too.

By Cynthia Mari Orozco and Raymond Pun

FYE Correspondent Raymond Pun recently spoke with East Los Angeles College’s Librarian for Equitable Services, Cynthia Mari Orozco. She details what her position entails, how she helps support students’ of all backgrounds as they transition to college, and different strategies for reducing library anxiety.

By Andy Rutkowski and Raymond Pun

Maps are incredible and powerful primary sources that can be used to inform and engage learners about the complexities of human geography. Today there are tons of free digital map resources such as NYPL’s Map Warper and the Library of Congress’ Digital Map Collections. These digitized maps can be used to teach visual literacy across the disciplines, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what’s possible when incorporating maps and geographic information systems (GIS) in library instruction. In this interview, Andy Rutowski, Visualization Librarian at the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries, shares some ideas that he’s been working on to promote information and data literacies through maps and GIS tools.

By Annie Pho and Raymond Pun

With rich library collections and services, UCLA is considered to be among one of the top academic research libraries in world. In this interview, FYE Correspondent Ray Pun interviews Annie Pho from UCLA Library. Annie shares how the library supports FYE through a number of activities including the common book program, embedded librarianship, and collaborative assessment services.