Minutes

LACUNY Instruction Committee Meeting

Baruch College, Newman Library, Room 415

May 7, 2004, 2 pm- 4 pm

 

 Members in Attendance:

 

Alexandra de Luise, Queens

Jacqueline Gill, City College

Sandra Marcus, Queensborough

Keith Muchowski, City Tech

Edward Owusu-Ansah, Staten Island

 

Meeting commenced at 2pm.

 

Alexandra de Luise of Queens presented on the library instruction at Queens College. Following the presentation, question and answers, and discussion, members in attendance agreed on the following meeting dates for the Fall 2004 semester.

 

September 10, 2pm - 4pm

October 8, 2pm - 4pm

November 5, 2pm - 4pm

 

No date was set for December, because of scheduling difficulties and the challenges of the academic calendar. Members decided to return to that during the semester.

 

Hereunder is reproduced almost verbatim Alexander’s presentation.

 

Queens College:

 

Librarians at Queens College taught 261 classes in the 2003-2004 academic year. 86 were English 110 classes, 63 for the School of Education, 15 GSLIS classes, with the rest covering other subjects.

 

QC Librarians are active with faculty. Most are bibliographers for specific departments.

They attend department meetings and inform faculty on library resources. Some collaborate with faculty for instruction and collection development. Regarding departmental interest in the library’s instructional activities, se departments are very enthusiastic about what the library has top offer, while others are less so.

 

The Queens College library and its faculty are involved in many types of programmatic activities. They have been active participants in the Freshmen Year Initiative since its inception 8 years ago. Other programs the library is actively involved in are: Transfer Student workshops, College Now High School programs, Writing Across the Curriculum Committee, and SEEK.

 

Librarians were deeply involved in Gen Ed Task Force subcommittees in the Spring 2004 semester with efforts to assist the college with embedding information literacy in the

 

Regarding actual participation in course related instruction and as indicated in the statistics above, activity is vigorous with English 110 classes. A special program for 27 English 110 classes provides two sessions of information literacy instruction to each of the 27 classes. The eventual goal is to see if this type of instruction for all English 110 classes increases students' knowledge of information gathering and if so, to explore whether the resources can be solicited to provide instruction for every section of English 110 (approximately 100 yearly). Two librarians teach some 63 classes a year for the School of Education. This represents a quarter of all library instruction. Many Education faculty members are repeat users of the program, and new education faculty have been willing to take advantage of the library’s instructional opportunities. The Graduate School of Library and Information science collaboration with a library bibliographer in the Queens College library, who provides workshops for entering Library Science students.

 

The Queens College Library has a I-credit Library 100 course. The library would like to see it become a requirement for entering freshmen, but does not have the faculty resources to support such a request independently.

 

Several subject departments are active in instruction. Most faculty members at the college recognize that one Library instruction session is not sufficient. The response of the librarian responsible for such subject courses has been to train the faculty on subject specific databases that they in turn can teach in their classes. Most classes in such instances are usually seen twice by the librarian, who offers a lecture style session followed by a guided hands-on library research session. Some subject departments send students for one-on-one instruction with their subject librarian (art history). Workshops are offered for faculty on e-reserve. The library participates in welcoming new faculty during their New Faculty Orientation Day (usually done every fall semester).

 

The library instruction coordinator sends out an informational page directed at new English Composition adjuncts and faculty regarding Library instruction.

 

 

 

 

Meeting adjourned at 4 pm.

 

Submitted by:

Edward Owusu-Ansah

Chair