Julie also put together a Library Advisory group consisting of a faculty representative from each department. This group meets once each semester for an open discussion forum with no specific agenda. Faculty members bring concerns or questions from their department, and librarians bring questions on which they’d like faculty feedback. Some topics discussed this semester included how to get students whose classes are held in other buildings to come to the library to use book sources, and how to provide better access to e-books and streaming videos related to coursework. This is a great opportunity for faculty and librarians to share common concerns and brainstorm solutions without the pressure of agendas or expectations. Coordinating the schedules of nine faculty members to find a meeting time was challenging, but because they were promised to only be expected at one meeting per semester, the faculty were willing to take the time out of their busy schedules. The majority of faculty who attended were highly engaged and brought insightful questions and comments about library services. As a result of that meeting, we pursued a new streaming video collection and are hoping to see improved research assignments coming out of the Arts and Computer Science departments.

We’ve also taken advantage of the college’s Faculty Development workshop sessions to encourage more faculty to incorporate information literacy into their courses. At RVCC, the Faculty Development Committee offers an hour and a half workshop once a month on various topics. Our librarians have faculty status and attend these workshops regularly. We’ve also established a strong relationship with the chair of the committee, enabling us to propose and have accepted a number of workshop topics. In the Fall semester, Megan Dempsey, Instructional Services Librarian, and Alyssa Valenti, Electronic and Web Resources Librarian, presented a Faculty Development workshop, “buILd their skILls: Assignments and Assessment to Encourage Information Literacy.” This workshop focused on ways faculty could tweak existing assignments to incorporate one or more information literacy skills into their courses without adding assignments or taking time out of class for an information literacy instruction session. Our goal is to expand students’ exposure to information literacy throughout their time in college by having more faculty reinforce IL or incorporate IL skills into assignments. Feedback from that workshop indicated that faculty became more aware of the need to make it clear to students when they are learning information literacy skills and why those skills are important. The faculty also commented that they learned there are ways they could improve their assignments to give students more opportunities to practice IL skills.

In April, Alyssa presented another Faculty Development workshop, “Embedded Librarians.” Alyssa had piloted an embedded librarian program in Spring 2012 with great results. Additional courses had her embedded in the fall, and we are looking to continue to expand this service. The workshop helped faculty understand the role of an embedded librarian, how an embedded librarian can reach students where they are working in as many courses as possible across the curriculum, and how the embedded librarian can customize the experience for students and can facilitate a discussion forum. Because an embedded librarian works best when strongly supported by the professor, Alyssa reached out directly to faculty through Faculty Development to help them understand the value of using an embedded librarian in online courses. Immediately following the workshop, Alyssa had several faculty members contact her about using embedded librarians in their courses or visiting their department meetings to give another presentation. Despite the fact that Alyssa has been advertising and emailing about the embedded librarian service for over a year, it is only since she presented this workshop – in person and with concrete examples of how successful it can be – that faculty have begun to respond and request the service.

In addition to the targeted embedded librarian service, we now also offer general information literacy learning objects (ILLOs) for faculty to use in both online and face-to-face classes to teach or reinforce IL skills. Megan created a number of videos using Camtasia which are available for faculty to use in class, embed in WebStudy (RVCC’s course management system) or their own webpage, or provide the links to students via email. The philosophy behind the learning objects is that a librarian does not necessarily need to have involvement in every single class, but that every single faculty member should include some element of information literacy in his/her instruction. Providing the learning objects makes it easier for them to do so and gives students the opportunity for self-paced learning that can be repeated as often as needed. The learning objects project was presented at a panel session on campus along with other projects faculty members had completed, giving it the necessary publicity for faculty to know they exist and begin thinking about how to incorporate them into their courses.