Lafayette College Library

Mission Statement

The library instruction program supports the academic mission and curriculum of Lafayette College by means of course-integrated library instruction sessions. The aim of the program is to provide students with library research skills necessary to attain their academic goals and prepare them for lifelong learning in a society where information is organized in increasingly complex ways. Lafayette librarians seek a partnership with teaching faculty in creating a productive learning environment in which all students develop library research skills.

The structured instruction program has two core levels, one which reaches all first-year students through the First-Year Seminar and a second level designed for specialized or advanced coursework in majors and minors. As a complement to the structured program, librarians provide instruction during personalized research assistance appointments ("PRA") with students.

First level Library Instruction Goals for First-Year Seminars

All first-year students will be introduced to Lafayette Libraries and their basic resources, develop an understanding of how scholarly information is organized and retrieved, learn how to evaluate Web sites as tools for academic library research, and learn strategies for managing the library research process. These goals will be accomplished in a minimum of two class periods.

Introduction to Libraries

Students will learn the following:

1. How to navigate the library Web site.
2. How to use the library catalog and a basic periodical index (Academic OneFile) to find references to books and articles on a topic.
3. How to physically locate books and periodicals (Skillman, Kirby, Interlibrary Loan).
4. That librarians are available for assistance at all points in the research process.

Using the Web

Students will learn the following:

1. The nature of the World Wide Web (does not contain all information; unorganized; lacks editorial process).
2. How to evaluate Web sites for authority, accuracy, currency, and usability.
3. How to cite Web documents.

Additional goals for 100 level courses:

Basic concepts in information organization and retrieval

Students will learn the following:

1. How the purpose and characteristics of scholarly literature differ from general interest literature.
2. How libraries are institutions containing formats for storing knowledge that have evolved over time.
3. That most databases follow a common structure that can be exploited by various means to retrieve information, e.g., controlled vocabulary, keyword searching, Boolean operators.

Managing the library research process

Students will learn the following:

1. How to articulate a question, then limit or expand its scope.
2. How the scope of a project affects the types of sources used.
3. That the library research process is recursive and an understanding of the process can make for more productive searching.
4. That librarians are available for personalized research appointments.

Second Level Library Instruction Goals

Students working in their major or minor will be introduced to specialized resources in a field of study, gain advanced understanding of the scholarly communication process, and learn additional strategies for using the World Wide Web as a research tool.

Introduction to specialized resources

Students will learn the following:

1. How to identify and use major indexing tools in a field.
2. How to apply advanced search techniques for using indexes, e.g., proximity operators, and truncation.
3. How to use government documents, electronic journals, rare or archival material, or major scholarly Web sites.
4. How to use bibliographic information to evaluate the potential usefulness of a source.
5. How to acquire materials not at Lafayette .

Scholarly communication

Students will learn the following:

1. How new information is produced, reviewed, and disseminated in a field.
2. How certain factors affect the value of information in a field, e.g., author's credentials, publisher's reputation, number of times cited in literature.
3. How "primary sources" are defined in a field and why scholars use them.
4. What constitutes ethical use of scholarly resources.

Using the Web for research

Students will learn the following:

1. How Web sites are structured, e.g., internal vs. external links, URLs, and file names.
2. How search engines and directories work and their shortcomings.
3. How to find Web sites of organizations most likely to provide reliable information in a field.
4. That economic, ethical, and legal issues affect the presentation of information on Web sites.