Teaching Information Skills

Clearly, there are fewer libraries in Mexico than in the U.S., and the information skills of students across Mexico varies greatly between rural and urban areas. Together with the fact that the U.S.-Mexico border is an area that draws workers from across Mexico to employment opportunities at “maquiladoras”, or factories, where technology is beginning to outstrip the skills and knowledge of the population, this is a prime opportunity for university libraries to make themselves invaluable to their institutions. After all, who provides better information use training than librarians? This is exactly the situation that the libraries at the University of Juarez took advantage of beginning in 1995, when librarians embarked on a journey towards a true faculty-librarian partnership that resulted in information skills training becoming part of the required university curriculum, and made the libraries a center for faculty support and development.

Lau (2001) describes the levels of training developed for librarians and staff, students, and faculty members. He also discusses the expansion of the libraries’ efforts to a national scale with hosting of national conferences on strategies in user education, and to an international scale with the provision of training in information literacy instruction to instructors from Mexico and South America.

Among the benefits librarians gained from their efforts is the fact that they gained faculty status, largely as a result of their teaching activities in the information skills program. The library department has evolved into the Academic Affairs Directorate of the university, leading to the further integration of information skills into teaching. The librarians are also well integrated into university committees, giving the libraries a voice across campus.

I know that academic libraries in the U.S. are working to partner librarians with faculty more seamlessly, and that there are also standalone information literacy and research skills courses offered by librarians. One idea that caught my attention in Lau’s article was that students coming to the University of Juarez are nudged to visit the library as one of their first activities on campus. Each student gets an induction card that they must have stamped at locations across campus. Their visit to the main library includes a video and one hour tour, which the students must do to receive a stamp and be eligible to register for classes. At KU, library tours are offered but certainly not mandatory, and there have been graduate students whose first visit to the library came once they began their graduate studies! Lots of information is accessible online, of course, but imagine how much more likely a student would be to return to the library once they’d received an initial welcome and orientation to the resources and services available to them.

Reference

Lau, J. (2001). Faculty-librarian collaboration: A Mexican experience. Reference Services Review, 29(2), 95-105.