This article describes a wayfinding study conducted in an urban, academic library to better understand the experiences of multilingual student populations. The study, which incorporated traditional user experience methods and video ethnography, exposed communication obstacles and spatial challenges encountered by students of English for speakers…

Service-learning, a growing pedagogy in higher education, provides opportunities for students to contribute to communities and to reflect upon experiences ranging from direct service to advocacy. Librarians have an important but underutilized role in supporting service-learning as they contribute to institutional missions and the public purposes…

Librarians seek opportunities to improve outreach to faculty and promote shared interests in information literacy. A comprehensive review of syllabi for all undergraduate courses offered during one academic term examined course-level learning outcomes and graded assignments to see how well they aligned with the five Association of College and…

This study assesses and compares the quality of sources found by undergraduate students when doing research using both Google and a library (federated) search tool. Thirty undergraduates were asked to find four sources (one book, two articles, and one additional source of their choosing) related to a selected research topic. Students used both…

Some of the most enduring, and engaging, questions within academic librarianship are those about students and research skills. The vocabulary employed for discussion has evolved, but essential questions--what skills do students need to be taught, who should teach them, and how?--have persisted from the nineteenth century into the twenty-first.…

This paper criticizes the checklist model approach (authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, coverage) to teaching undergraduates how to evaluate Web sites. The checklist model rests on faulty assumptions about the nature of information available through the Web, mistaken beliefs about student evaluation skills, and an exaggerated sense of…

Discusses the design of academic libraries and suggests that design considerations determine how well a library will be able to fulfill its mission to encourage students to develop the electronic research skills demanded by an information society. Topics include future possibilities; efficient buildings and technology; and good design and…