Laying the groundwork for information literacy at a research university

Abstract

Purpose – Information literacy (IL) is increasingly becoming an explicit learning outcome for college graduates, and some libraries are playing a role in planning and teaching IL instruction to students. Amidst the overall trend of shrinking budgets that libraries are experiencing, what strategies can be employed by libraries that support large universities to plan IL instruction? The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach – Inspired by curriculum mapping, staff in the library assessment department created teaching maps which match the curriculum from seven colleges with the library’s teaching efforts. To create them, they combined information about: first, courses that librarians have instructed over the last three years with; second, required courses for majors within the colleges; and third, typical enrollment for each course. Findings – Easily accessible information was combined to create the teaching maps, which enable the library to realign efforts to maximize IL instruction and best utilize library staff resources. Practical implications – Teaching maps serve as a portal to quickly understand majors, courses and course enrollment, and provide baseline information on past library instruction activity to inform future IL instruction strategy. Library directors and teaching staff are utilizing them to realign instruction efforts. Originality/value – Assessment strategies, such as curriculum mapping, serve not only the institution’s teaching mission, but also help strategize for effective and efficient stewardship of staff resources. These methods will be useful for library directors, assessment and instruction librarians at large research universities.