By Beth Black and Raymond Pun

Research question formation and background research are important parts of the process that set students up for success in seeing their assignments to completion. Credo Online Reference Service is a good tool for giving students practice with these fundamental steps during library instruction sessions. This 2-part series will describe an FYE workshop Beth designed and offered at Ohio State University for honors students. It can be easily adapted to class visits to courses in which students will have a research assignment. The workshop is part of the common read program, and is titled “What’s in a Question? Research Questions and [common read title]”. Make sure students have access to computers or tablets so they can use Credo during the session.

By John Jackson and Raymond Pun

In this FYE Spotlight Series, we’ve spoken to many academic librarians from community colleges to major universities to hear more about their work in supporting the FYE community. In this interview, librarian John Jackson from Loyola Marymount University Library shares his experiences in collaborating and designing outreach programs for first year students. John also discusses the importance of libraries in connecting with first year students as soon as they start.

By Heather F. Ball, Beth Black, and Raymond Pun

2018 was an interesting year that saw big shifts in librarians’ responsibilities with interesting developments in open access, makerspaces, and virtual and augmented reality services. The rise of blockchain and artificial intelligence are also being heavily discussed across the field now—but what will 2019 bring? Three academic librarians offered up the following conversation to explore potential FYE and academic librarianship trends for 2019 and beyond.

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.