ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries C&RL N ews ■ July/A ugust 2001 / 717 An innovative first-year instruction program at Hampshire College Bringing students and librarians together by Stephanie W illen Brown and Bonnie Vigeland To appreciate the library at Hampshire Col­lege, it is important to understand som e o f the c o lle g e ’s unique history and philoso­ phy. T h e colleg e op en ed in 1970 as a cre­ a tio n o f its n e ig h b o r s — A m h erst, M oun t H olyoke, and Smith C olleges and the Uni­ versity o f M assachusetts, Amherst. T he four colleges intended Hampshire to b e an e x ­ perim enting four-year liberal arts institution. Hampshire’s mission is to encourage students to take responsibility for their ow n edu ca­ tion and to exam in e and analyze issues o f im portance to society. T he library shares the institution’s com ­ mitment to ongoing experim ental, individu­ alized instruction and interdisciplinary learn­ ing, and librarians have long b e e n part o f the academ ic life o f the college. We w ork w ith undergraduate students w h o will do graduate-level w ork in the cou rse o f their education at Hampshire. From the beginning, students are required to do original, independent research, and this em phasis on a n on-course-based curriculum requires that Hampshire students have so ­ phisticated library skills early in their first sem ester. Rather than submitting papers on preassigned topics, students w ork closely with their professors to build a bibliography, find current research, and evaluate the w ork o f scholars in the field before writing papers on a subject o f their choice. Like our faculty coun­ terparts, w e librarians focus our resources and energies o n teaching, w orking extensively with individual students. A few exam ples o f student research may provide a con text for the challenge w e face in providing referen ce services. A first-year student requested assistance with a paper she was writing on the foraging habits o f koala bears. Another student was searching for veg­ etables, grains, and animals that w ere native to Massachusetts. A third student was inter­ ested in how Ja p a n e s e contem porary dance has b e e n influ enced by A frican A m erican d ance traditions. History o f instruction O ver the past 30 years, w e have tried many different ways to introduce entering students to the library’s resources and services. W e have offered small group tours and large group inform ation sessions, and w e have taught basic library orientation as a part o f bibliographic research skills classes. Most o f these efforts w ere ineffectual; too few stu­ dents attended the general sessions, and those w ho w ere present retained little o f what w e A b o u t th e a u t h o r s Stephanie Willen Brown is database services librarian and Bonnie Vigeland is cognitive science and cultural studies librarian at Hampshire College, e-mail: swbrown@hampshire.edu and bvigeland@hampshire.edu C o l l e g e & R e s e a r c h L i b r a r i e s s new mailto:swbrown@hampshire.edu mailto:bvigeland@hampshire.edu 718 / C&RL N ew s ■ Ju ly /A u g u st 2001 Students now understand more clearly th at librarians are an im portant part of th eir success at Hampshire and also that research skills are not the sam e as Internet skills. taught. Our in-class instruction, focused on a very specific topic, was more successful, and we continue to provide it for individual courses. Although these classes are effective, they do not reach all entering students and are presented after some students have at­ tempted complex research assignments on their own. We were concerned that we did not provide instruction consistent with Hampshire’s mission of individualized atten­ tion: we introduced students to Hampshire’s bibliographic resources and services, but not to its human resources who provide essen­ tial training and research assistance. In the past five years, the field of librarianship has changed dramatically. At Hampshire, we experienced information and technology overload as we acquired new resources and systems. Although we had in­ cluded many of these new resources in our orientation presentations, we had not really changed the way we presented them, thus we found that students retreated into their rooms, where they did much of their research on the Web without us. Many students were lost amid a sea of electronic resources and came to us claiming, “I’ve looked everywhere and can’t find anything.” User-centered instruction We decided to try a more individualized ap­ proach to teaching students to use our tech­ nology resources in all disciplines. We envi­ sioned a program where we would meet with students either individually or in groups of two or three during their first week at Hamp­ shire. The goal of this meeting would be twofold: to introduce students to a librarian and to show them basic research tools avail­ able in the library. The meeting would per­ sonalize the library experience and encour­ age students to come to a librarian when they were required to do substantive research. The program provides students with a crucial bridge between library technology and the librarians who will help them throughout their college careers. We worked with the college’s orientation committee to integrate library training into the general orientation schedule. We paired each of the 360 entering students with one of six librarians and developed a flexible agenda through which we would introduce students to the library. We notified the fac­ ulty that we were implementing the program and asked them to encourage students to meet with us. During the first week that new students were on campus, we met with them either individually or in small groups for a half-hour virtual tour of the libraiy. We conducted the sessions in our own offices, which further personalized the interaction. We began with the library’s Web page, showing students how to look for a book in the online catalog, how to use the other libraries in our consortium, and how to search a few of our journal in­ dexes. We introduced students to databases and subject pages within their areas of aca­ demic interest. The tailoring of library orien­ tation to a student’s area of study was par­ ticularly successful because students could immediately see the relevance and value of the research process. We did not create a specific Web page for this program; instead, we designed the library’s Web page to be easily navigable and used it to conduct our training (http://library.hampshire.edu). In this way, we effectively integrated existing Web tech­ nology into our training program and made the experience more personal for the stu­ dents. Only 25 percent of our advisees were on campus during the first week; many students were involved in precollege trips. We had hoped to make appointments with the re­ maining students early in the second week, but scheduling conflicts prevented such early contact. Instead, we made various attempts to reach them individually and met with them one-on-one. We sent e-mail and snail mail letters inviting them to come to the library for a research session. Some students came shortly after receiving our invitation. Others came later in the semester when they had a specific research assignment, and still others http://library.hampshire.edu C&RL N e w s ■ Ju ly / A u g u s t 2001 / 719 came at the urging of their professors. Many came because their classmates had a research advisor and they wanted the same attention and service; a second-year student lamented that she had not been assigned such an advi­ sor. At the end of the semester, we had met with approxim ately 50 percent of our advisees. Stu d en t and fa cu lty resp o n se The comments of two students illustrate the importance of this early orientation to library service. One student was shown the online catalog and then the electronic journal in­ dexes. She asked the librarian to explain the difference between the two. Her innocent question reflected a serious flaw in her un­ derstanding of how libraries work. The fact that she was sitting in the librarian’s office enabled her to feel safe enough to ask that basic question; she may never have grasped the fundamentals if she had been in a large group session or had no introduction to the library at all. Another student met with his library advi­ sor later in the semester, after he had at­ tempted to do some research on his own. When the librarian asked if he had used the library’s catalog, he nodded and pointed to the shelf-list catalog, commenting, “It’s kind of out of date.” He was thrilled to see the Five College catalog with its nine million records and flexible searching options. The college’s dean of advising provides a further example of the success of our pro­ gram. Students in his first-year linguistics semi­ nar reported that working with their library advisor made the process of researching and writing papers easier and less intimidating than they had anticipated. Our anecdotal evidence suggests that stu­ dents have indeed learned much from our training. Now students are more likely to ask us, “Are you one of the reference librarians? Can you show me again how to use the jour­ nal indexes? Where are those subject research pages?” Several students have come back to their library advisor for help with new re­ search projects. Many return to the library to do research and appreciate our friendly faces along with the research assistance we pro­ vide. There is also an indication that the library advisor program is improving the college’s A fte r a lib raria n had sp e n t se ve ral ho u rs w ith a stu d en t, th e stu d en t to ld him th a t sh e had been p lan n in g to w ith d ra w from H am pshire, b u t a fte r w o rk in g w ith him , sh e w a s p ersu ad ed to give th e co lle g e an o th e r try. retention efforts. After a librarian had spent several hours with a student, the student told him that she had been planning to withdraw from Hampshire, but after working with him, she was persuaded to give the college an­ other try. Students now understand more clearly that librarians are an important part of their success at Hampshire and also that research skills are not the same as Internet skills. They return to ask us all kinds of questions, about both library issues and finding their way in the academic program. Students come to us for other reasons, too, as they do their fac­ ulty advisors. They have asked us questions such as, “Where’s a good place to go moun­ tain biking?” and “Can you join the university dancers if you’re not a student at the univer­ sity?” Most students come to Hampshire Col­ lege because they want personal attention and want to shape their own education, and we are pleased to meet this need. The fu tu re o f o u r o rie n ta tio n program The pilot of this library advisor program was a great success. It is clear that the students were receptive to our training and that many of them learned useful research skills. Addi­ tionally, we greatly enjoyed our contact with the entering students, which was a boost to our own job satisfaction. However, some el­ ements need to be modified. We must be sure to include nontraditional first-year and transfer students in this program; February entrants and transfer students are especially receptive to the individual attention and in­ dependent research that are Hampshire hall­ marks. We also want to have more follow- up with students after the initial meeting. Finally, we need to meet with a larger (continued on page 727) C&RL N e w s ■ Ju ly / A u g u s t 2001 / 727 3. U.S. Code, vol. 17, sec. 110(2). 4. Note that ALA has not endorsed any multimedia fair use guidelines at this time. Note also the distinction between fair use doctrine, a part of copyright law, and fair use guidelines. While the guidelines are in­ spired by, they are not part of, copyright law. This distinction is important: while courts may consider such guidelines, their ultimate judgments are based on law, not agreements. 5. Basic Books, Inc. v. K inko’s Graphics Corp., 758 F.Supp. 1522 (S.D.N.Y. 1991). 6. U.S. Statutes at Large 112 (1998):2886. ■ ( “An innovative … ” cont. from page 719) percentage of the entering class so that all new students can benefit from the program. We expect that the college’s revision of its first-year program will easily accommodate our modified orientation goals. Moreover we must continue to solicit fac­ ulty support. Faculty who mentioned the li­ brary advisor program early in the semester reinforced our contact with students and en­ couraged students to meet with us in the li­ brary, and this support should continue. Most important, we need to develop longer-term evaluation methods. We will meet with fac­ ulty to see if second- and third-year students’ work reflects better-developed research skills. We also hope to design and implement evalu­ ative tools to provide quantitative data on the program’s effectiveness. Conclusion The library advisor program reflects our em­ phasis on service to students, our focus on individualized instruction, and our sense that technology must be balanced by direct and personal contact. In an undergraduate envi­ ronment that emphasizes research, indepen­ dent study, and the use of primary sources from the beginning of a student’s career, the need for a close relationship with a librar­ ian is often as important to the student’s suc­ cess as his or her relationship to a faculty advisor. Our new library program encourages a solid relationship between librarians and entering students and makes the librarian an essential connection between technology and academic success. ■