Top Chef is one of America's top food television shows. In one episode, lead judge Tom Colicchio, chef and restaurant owner, chides a contestant for hurriedly slicing a piece of meat as soon as it had emerged from the oven. The meat was fully cooked, but the competitor had not "let it rest," or let it steep in its own juices outside the oven for…

Primary literature is our main mode of communication in the sciences. As such, it is important for our undergraduates in the discipline to learn how to read primary literature. Incorporating primary literature into undergraduate science courses is often difficult because students are unprepared to comprehend primary articles. Learning to read and…

Contemporary standards suggest that information literate activity is a solitary process. As a corrective, research and pedagogical theories related to ''learning communities'' and ''communities of practice'' have become valuable sites of inquiry for librarians. The author provides strategies for making community a topic of instruction. (Contains 3…

Sixteen scholarly papers and twenty abstracts comprise the content of the eighteenth annual Brick & Click Libraries Conference, held annually at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville, Missouri. The proceedings, authored by academic librarians and presented at the conference, portray the contemporary and future face of librarianship.…

The ability to navigate and understand the chemical literature is integral to the scientific research process. Learning these skills is therefore an important, though often overwhelming, part of an undergraduate chemical education. We describe an inquiry-based program designed to help chemistry students begin to learn to search and read the…

Increasingly at West Kentucky Community and Technical College (WKCTC), English 101, English 102, and Enrichment 091 are taught online, allowing students more work availability and time with family, while decreasing commute time and expense. In order to meet the library orientation needs of these online students and provide other options for…

Library customers have more remote information choices than ever before, so we must ensure that when they do come to the library, they experience a welcoming environment, a high standard of service, and receive equitable levels of service across campus. Developing a customer service program was a logical next step to reinforce the ongoing…

While interactive hands-on instruction is usually considered the best approach for engineering students for both their academic courses and for library instruction, the size of the engineering student population compared to the number of instructors and the available classroom space means that engineering librarians, like engineering faculty, may…

This study provides a database evaluation method for the practicing bibliographer that is more than a brief review yet less than a controlled experiment. The author establishes evaluation criteria in the context of the bibliographic instruction provided to meet the research requirements of undergraduate sociology majors at Queens College, City…

Participatory culture has many mechanisms to support peer-to-peer learning as young people enter interest-driven and friendship-driven networks. In this article, the authors argue that school librarians can help bridge the gap between the excitement of having students experiment with new forms of social learning and new digital-media practices,…

A survey was done of instructors at two satellite campuses located at a distance from the main campus of the University of Lethbridge in order to ascertain both utilization and awareness of library resources and services. Results were enlightening, indicating that lack of awareness and communication is one of the biggest obstacles for these…

Undergraduate students are generally unfamiliar with scientific literature. Further, students experience frustration when they read research articles the way they read textbooks, from beginning to end. Using a team-based active learning exercise, an instruction librarian and colleagues at University of Texas at Austin introduce nutritional…

The authors describe the use of case studies in a program of extracurricular library instruction and explain the benefits of case teaching in developing information literacy. The paper presents details of example cases and analyzes surveys to evaluate the impact of case teaching on student satisfaction. (Contains 3 tables.)

Academic libraries devote considerable human resources in delivering library instruction programs. This study attempts to determine if these instructional efforts have any measurable effect on student performance in terms of overall grades. Library workshop attendance and graduation GPA of over 8,000 students was analyzed at Hong Kong Baptist…

Over the past few years a growing body of research has highlighted the potential for educational video games to foster highly engaged, effective learning in the classroom. These research reports from organizations such as the Federation of American Scientists, the National Science Foundation, and the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop…