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College and Research Libraries
January 2000, Vol. 61, No. 1
Book Review
“LOEX” of the West: Collaboration and Instructional Design in a Virtual Environment. Ed. Kari Anderson, et al. Stamford, Conn.: JAI Pr. (Foundations in Library and Information Science, v. 43), 1999. 282p. $78.50 (ISBN 0-7623-0549-5). LC 99-12397.
Good ideas and inspiring calls to action abound in this substantial collection of nineteen papers from the second LOEX of the West Conference, held in 1996 at the University of Washington. Readers will find it easy to adapt the presenters’ ideas and strategies because the format of each paper includes one or more of the following: lists of tips; an account of the project from planning through development, implementation, and assessment; and figures or appendices showing surveys, student assignments, program budgets, or activities participants did during the conference presentation.
The variety of collaborations described in the papers is impressive. Although academic libraries predominate, there are papers discussing outreach projects involving public and school libraries. Space limitations preclude the mention of many valuable articles, but the following should give an idea of what the reader can expect.
Karen Smith, director of the University of Arizona’s Faculty Development Partnership, explains how that program is working to transform the campus into a learner-centered environment by using technology, media, information, and teacher training. Five independent campus units, including the university library, are training faculty to design and create learner-centered courseware. Karen Williams, coauthor, explains that as a teaching library and an integral part of the Faculty Development Partnership, the University of Arizona’s library is team teaching Internet workshops with the Computing Center; introducing faculty to instructional uses of the Web and helping them create Web pages; providing support, equipment, and workspace for faculty and students; serving as consultants for faculty regarding copyright issues related to instructional use of new technologies; and introducing faculty to electronic information resources.
An intriguing paper by Laura Bender and Jennalyn Tellman describes the training program launched at the University of Arizona to prepare librarians for their new roles in the Faculty Development Partnership. The library determined, through a thirty-three- item questionnaire, that librarians needed training in understanding the partnership concept; initiating contact with faculty; critical thinking, active learning, and other aspects of teaching and learning; and areas of information technology such as HTML and the Web. The admirably thorough training and follow-up included a success-sharing panel by Arizona librarians already involved in partnerships, sessions on cognitive principles and active learning by Arizona’s faculty development center, an all-day workshop by Dr. Diane Nahl (who has conducted research on how learners approach bibliographic databases), and various follow-up activities. Like other papers in the collection, this one includes helpful lists of ideas provided by workshop presenters and the set of guidelines that shaped the development of each workshop. This paper provides a valuable model for any library instruction program planning further integration of its services into the curriculum.
Librarians at the University of Botswana developed an Information Literacy Skills Course, which they have taught in two different ways. Buhle Mbambo and Ann Roselle discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each. The First Year Approach offers fifteen hours of instruction, one hour per week, in an English course. The Staggered Approach, a total of thirty hours, divides the instruction into three units, distributed among various courses in the second, third, and fourth year of an undergraduate nursing program.
Larry Berk and Patricia Carroll-Mathes describe, with infectious enthusiasm, their campaign to develop an information-literate faculty and student body at Ulster County Community College in New York. They initiated a seven-week information literacy course taught by both librarians and teaching faculty. They convincingly argue that after having taught such a course, teaching faculty will incorporate the concepts into their other courses and probably will be more effective than librarians at persuading their colleagues to embrace information literacy.
A “Gateway to Business” course offered in the School of Management at University of Arizona West gave the library and the Center for Writing Across the Curriculum (CWAC) an exciting opportunity to play what they hoped would be a substantial role from the outset in a course that might prove to be a campuswide model. However, as Carolyn R. Johnson and her colleagues write, when the course began, librarians found that the class time they had negotiated had been pared down and that students began overwhelming library staff with questions about basic business concepts and critical thinking aspects of the course assignments. Because CWAC staff were facing similar problems with the course, the two units collaborated to make a case with management school faculty for giving both units a stronger role in the course and for making major revisions in the assignments. Because they planned their exposition of the problems carefully and collaboratively, the two units gained the respect of the management faculty and achieved the changes they wanted.
Sharon Mader’s stimulating paper presents content as well as individual and group activities from her active learning workshop, “Collaborative Leadership for Learning.” She began with discussions of librarian/teaching faculty role expectations and how librarians can contribute to successful collaborations. At the core of her message, however, is the distinction between managing and leading. She follows this distinction with a discussion of team-centered leadership and praise for the skills and qualities instruction librarians have developed that make them natural candidates for leadership roles.
The volume concludes with brief identifications of the authors and with a sketchy, unhelpful index.
It is regrettable that there was such a time lag between the delivery of the papers (June 1996) and their publication in this volume. Some of the projects described were planned or first initiated as early as 1993, and many libraries have moved past some of the technological issues discussed. Still, the volume is well worth reading for instruction librarians looking to expand their impact on the curriculum. There is substantial value in the program ideas, instructional design concepts, practical tips and techniques, and the authors’ pervasive enthusiasm for instruction.—Glenn Ellen Starr Stilling, Appalachian State University.
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