Information Literacy Instruction
The Librarians in the Reference Department teach information literacy, enhance familiarity with Booth's collections and facilitate access to the rich information resources that are available to the campus community.
Many services and resources are available to faculty in support of their courses and librarians will tailor their presentations to skill levels from the most basic to graduate-level advanced research methods.
Instruction in the Library
Booth Library has a classroom (room 4450) equipped with 24 computers enabling hands-on instruction in the use of the Library Catalog and appropriate, subject-specific article databases. We also have a large-screen mobile presenter allowing us to provide instruction in the Reference lab, Ballenger teachers Center or University Archives and Special Collections for example.
Instruction sessions are at minimum one class session and will be designed to accommodate your class needs. Additional sessions or research periods can be arranged. Printing research materials in the e-classroom and in the Reference lab is free and unlimited.
Instruction in Your Classroom
The Reference Librarians can also visit your classroom to provide instruction, follow-up on student research progress or troubleshoot problems in research.
Online Instruction
Librarians can be "embedded" (enrolled) as the librarian in your D2L Brightspace site to provide assistance, instruction, or enhance course content with embedded library resources like search widgets customized for your discipline.
In addition to instruction in the use of library databases, librarians will present about a specific tools, such as finding court cases in Westlaw or using citation management tools like Zotero or Mendeley.
Webpages designed for your course
Research guides can be developed by librarians for your course, or for particular topics.
Booth Reference Librarians can teach about good information stewardship, emphasizing appropriate attribution, proper citation styles and the ethics and consequences of plagiarism.
Complete the instruction request form, call us at (217) 581-6072, or contact your Subject Librarian for information on arranging library instruction for your class(es) or for information on enrolling librarians in your online course.
Assignment Design and Assessment
Librarians will work with you to create assignments that best utilize reference resources, library catalogs and article databases.
Library collections and tools constantly change and evolve, and trends in technology and scholarship alter how and what we research. It can be difficult to stay current with all the changes that occur from year-to-year. Librarians work with these collections and tools all the time and have the skills and experience to help you and your students navigate information resources effectively.
If the Reference Librarian working with you is not the bibliographer in your discipline, we will work with the Subject Librarian for your area to insure that library resources are available at Booth that meet the requirements of your class or assignment.
