Library Instruction for Diverse Populations Bibliography
Introduction
The students enrolling in American institutions of higher education are increasingly diverse:
From 1980 to 1996, college enrollment of students of color increased dramatically: African-American students increased by about a third, the number of Hispanic students more than doubled, Asian students increased by 178 percent, and Native Americans increased by almost 60 percent. International student enrollment grew by 60 percent. In 1983, there were 583,000 college students age 35 and over, while preliminary 1995 data showed 986,000 students in this category ["Introduction," Teaching the New Library to Today's Users, edited by Trudi E. Jacobson and Helene C. Williams (New York: Neal-Schuman, 2000), xxiii].
This diversity necessitates that all educators-librarian-instructors, included-have a solid understanding of the backgrounds, learning styles, and learning preferences of their students.
The Instruction for Diverse Populations Committee of the Association of College and Research Libraries' Instruction Section has compiled this bibliography to meet the need of librarian-instructors for information about teaching diverse populations within college and university settings. The Committee hopes that librarians needing to teach a class to students of a particular group can turn to the relevant section of the bibliography, find an overview of issues and strategies relating to that population, and locate informational resources that will give them immediate help in preparing teaching methods and materials.
The bibliography includes print and electronic resources key to development of effective methods and materials for providing library instruction and teaching information literacy competencies to diverse student groups. The committee focused primarily on resources authored within the last ten years that specifically describe teaching diverse groups within an academic library context. Significant resources on teaching diverse populations within any educational setting and on the information-seeking behaviors of diverse populations are also listed, as are resources more than ten years old but seminal to their topics. Ten to twenty resources are listed for each diverse population group, and all resources have an accompanying annotation, letting readers know what particular resources can contribute to their understanding of the topic. Web pages and electronic listservs are listed where appropriate; listservs, in particular, are not used by educators to the same degree, or in the same manner, as librarians working with different population groups.
After a section of General Resources (pdf) on teaching diverse populations within academic libraries, the Bibliography addresses the following groups in alphabetical order:
- African American students (pdf)
- Asian American students (pdf)
- First-generation college students (pdf)
- Gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender students (pdf)
- Hispanic and Latino students (pdf)
- International students (pdf)
- Native American students (pdf)
- Nontraditional students (pdf)
- Students with disabilities (pdf)
- Transfer students (pdf)
Beyond helping librarian-instructors prepare for teaching classes, the Bibliography also serves as an overview of the state of the literature on teaching various populations. The amount of research and writing that librarians have created on teaching international and nontraditional students is encouragingly high. Other areas are less developed-notably instruction to Native American students and instruction of diverse populations in an online or distance education environment.
The Bibliography thus works with the Research Agenda for Library Instruction and Information Literacy in encouraging areas of further research.View/Download Entire Bibliography (pdf)
Created by: Instruction for Diverse Populations Committee, Instruction Section, Association of College and Research Libraries
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