Information Resources

The EMCC Gen. Ed. abilities assessment cycle is a three years cycle. Prior to assessment there is never a guarantee that students have had formal instruction aligned to the abilities being assessed. Seeing an opportunity to test out an intervention tool in the form of an online tutorial, a pilot was conducted with two classes, ENG102 and ECN211. The tutorial was designed to align with the Information Literacy EMCC Gen. Ed. Abilities. The driving research question was: Can an intervention be created to support the teaching of EMCC Gen. Ed. IL Abilities for Information Literacy?

Classrooms are filled with students that show up but never participate, and that is distressing.  Educators know the real world does not operate in a singularity.  Contextually, singularity means success in achieved through collaborative efforts working in teams.  Your team may be geographically diverse, or sitting next to you.  Proximity is not important, sharing ideas and the ability to express thereof is important.

Occasionally interpreter assistance is needed at the Library Desk but help isn’t always available. Identifying this opportunity, I designed a solution using Google Translate. I created a set of instructions with step-by-step directions for colleagues. Equipment purchased to support this solution were wireless mice & keyboards. This was necessary in order to facilitate sharing in the typing and browsing process. The outcome of the adoption of this approach to service has been successful.

Every semester the Estrella librarians seek to engage and reach out to students who may not be familiar with the Estrella Library. Participating in student club activities is one method to reach students and promote the Library’s resources and services. Working with the Asian Pacific Islander Club (APIC), I coordinated a social educational event that utilized my educational background in Asian Pacific American Studies and research methods. I created an interactive presentation to engage students to think critically about the food they eat using a popular culture context (K-Wave).

Using National Library Week as a vehicle for outreach to students has been a continual goal for the Information Resources Department. The purpose of the promotion of this week is to engage students to connect and celebrate their library, in this case, Estrella’s library. Previous endeavors included free food and promotional giveaways, however, these activities did not really engage in a connection between the Library, research assistance, and services.

Faculty librarians from all of the Maricopa Community Colleges cooperatively staff a real-time instant messaging service called Ask-a-Librarian (Ask). Through the Ask service, these librarians assist students from all colleges with research during the day and contract with a cooperative of librarians for additional support 24/7/365. A district-wide committee of librarians oversees the service.

Using SAAC’s EMCC General Education Abilities Matrix the residential librarians assessed 4 key Information Literacy competencies; Framing the Research Question, Accessing Sources, Evaluation of Information Resources and Create Original Work.

The librarians created a rubric  which defined each of the 4 Information Literacy competencies and rated each on a clearly defined 3 level scale. Data was collected from 13 courses for a total of  24 sections.  346 students took part in the study. 

Librarians have been visiting CPD150 classes since Fall 2009. A librarian does a 30 minute session covering basic library information and resources. At the conclusion of each session, a short assignment is handed out and students are required to return the completed assignment in at the library. These assignments are graded by a librarian and returned to the course instructor who gives the student credit for his/her work.