The Adventure Begins

Alfred University (AU) is located in Western New York State with approximately 1,800 enrolled students across the undergraduate and graduate schools. AU’s College of Business (CoB) is accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), with about 230 enrolled undergraduates and approximately 45 graduate students. The majority of those enrolled in the College of Business are from New York State, and we began our co-liaison work with the College during many students’ first fully in-person academic year post-COVID closure.

As the liaisons to Alfred University’s College of Business (CoB), we lead library orientation sessions for 50 to 60 incoming business majors each fall semester as part of their first-year experience course Business Perspectives, BUSI 105. The course breaks students into groups of 10–15, with each section assigned their own CoB upperclassman to serve as a teaching assistant (TA). Over the first eight weeks of the fall semester, these groups rotate through a series of orientations with various university departments, one of which is the libraries. We end up offering this orientation approximately six times between September and October, meaning that we get some participants on their very first day of college classes while other students participate closer to midterms.

The original library orientation consisted of an overview of the library website and online resources, such as the New York Times Academic Pass, and a building tour in the form of a scavenger hunt style lesson plan (see Appendix A). Soon after teaching one of these early orientations, a few things were immediately clear: student engagement was incredibly low, their library and research experience was slim, and they seemed bored. The lack of participation was jarring; prior to COVID restrictions, we had experienced more engagement and discussion in such orientations. Now, post-COVID restrictions, not only were students reluctant to talk and verbally engage in class, but they appeared hesitant to even raise their hands to ask a question. Each of us has honed our classroom engagement skills during stints teaching high school, but all the usual tricks to draw students out fell flat. We attributed this new lack of engagement to students still being in a COVID shell they developed during the previous two years of remote or hybrid learning, in which socialization and engagement opportunities were limited. As part of Alfred University’s information literacy approach, all liaison librarians log teaching sessions in Springshare’s LibInsight, which includes assessment for learning outcomes and rating class participation. We assessed participation by completion of an in-class worksheet, but in the accompanying notes we recorded our classroom observation that the social behavior, including talking to peers, in-person engagement, such as verbally responding when a librarian asked questions, and an unwillingness to ask questions about a worksheet or assignment was lower than in years prior.

Remote and hybrid learning may have also had an impact on students’ experience with both school and public libraries. After several orientation sessions, we noticed that most incoming students were less familiar with library research basics compared with what we were accustomed to seeing during our previous years (pre-covid) teaching orientation sessions at Alfred University. The session opened with questions about students’ previous library experience. Very few students indicated that they had spent time in any kind of library or visited a library website during their high school years. Within this reduced experience and foundational knowledge, we also observed a huge range of proficiency as students completed their in-class assignments. When assessing their worksheet answers and in-class performance, it was clear that some students had no prior experience with even the most minimal database searching. Through our liaison teaching, we learned from faculty that students were struggling more with basic querying and database research beyond our orientation session as well.

Finally, there was clearly some degree of boredom. We noticed that exercises, like signing up for a New York Times Academic Pass, did not yield the excitement and discussion it had in years prior. One explanation may be that these first-year students were in other classes, such as required writing courses, which also incorporated a library orientation. The later in the semester their library session in BUSI 105 fell, the more likely they were to feel that they had done this already. Students mentioned having done multiple scavenger hunts during their first few weeks of the fall semester in various courses, in the library, and in their residence halls. Scavenger hunt fatigue was real. It was time for a new approach to the library orientation.

Time for a New Adventure

A library orientation is written into the BUSI 105 curriculum, but it is not tied to any particular research assignment, paper, or project. In our experience, library instruction is successful when it is tied to an explicit course directive, like a project or paper. This requires students to use and develop skills which they can immediately apply to an active assignment and continue to use as they complete their assignment independently. Creating exercises that are not explicitly tied to a current academic need can be interpreted as busy work. We saw this orientation overhaul as an opportunity both to connect CoB students with resources we knew they could use as they moved through the program and to get their buy-in as first years right away.

Our revamped library orientation needed to accomplish several things. First, we needed to figure out our students’ starting point with library research, bearing in mind this might be variable in a group. Also, we needed to bridge the engagement gap by developing strategies to connect directly with students. Next, we needed to showcase the library resources students would need in their studies. Finally, we needed to teach students how to locate, use and navigate these library resources themselves.

We revamped our approach to a 50-minute orientation session that focused on empowering new students to reflect on what they needed to succeed in the College of Business, which would be different across individuals.

• The new orientation lesson plan consists of three parts:

• Introduction: an opening conversation to gauge library and research experience and determine which specific majors are represented in the day’s session (Analytics, Marketing, Accounting etc.).

• Part 1: A guided notes worksheet that each student completes while following along with the librarian. This portion shows students how to access and navigate the following business-specific resources:

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    Alfred University Libraries’ website

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    Library Catalog (Primo)

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    Databases A-Z

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    Business LibGuide

• Part 2: A Choose Your Own Adventure activity, a riff on the popular, interactive children’s book series, that students complete individually at their own pace. Students pick three tasks, or Adventures, from a menu of options. Students investigate the resources of their choice. Each choice requires some form of output to demonstrate to the librarian or TA that they successfully completed the task.

Introductory Polling: Establish the Starting Point and Build a Connection

We needed to establish what library knowledge students already had in order to teach effectively. This was challenging due to their extreme reticence and shyness. We recalibrated our expectations about what engagement should look like with deference to the engagement barriers students were feeling post-COVID. The new BUSI 105 library orientation begins with an opening conversation to gauge where students are starting in their journey as researchers. Instructors facilitate this conversation by positing yes or no questions about students’ previous library experience. Some example questions are:

• Raise your hand if you had a librarian visit at least one of your classes in high school to help with a research project.

• Raise your hand if one of your teachers took your class to the library to do research or for library instruction, like we’re doing today.

• Raise your hand if you went to your high school library on your own, like during study hall or lunch.

• Raise your hand if you used your public library, or another library, on your own.

The introductory activity does not require verbal engagement and eases students into classroom interactions, warming them up for deeper engagement later in the orientation. This real time inventory also allows us as instructors to adjust and offer more scaffolding as needed. For example, if students are not familiar with searching and using an online catalog, we can spend more time demonstrating the AU Libraries Primo ILS and going over a Boolean search and demonstrating that. We can also suggest that students select an adventure with which they are less familiar, and then we can devote one-on-one time to them during the individual active learning period as needed.

It is important to avoid excluding inexperienced students by teaching to a higher level, but it is also important to ensure more experienced students do not get bored and tune out. The public show of hands for opening questions helps the more experienced students see that not everyone has the same foundation they do have and gives these students an opportunity to feel knowledgeable and act as resources for their peers. We have observed that in this context students turn to each other for help and are often more willing and ready to ask peers for guidance, rather than seeking assistance from an instructor.

After the initial library experience questions, we turn our attention to what subject areas students are interested in now. We poll the students, also by a show of hands, on what business concentration they are enrolled in or if they are an explorer (concentration undecided). We link specific majors such as business analytics to future, field-specific assignments and skills as well as to applicable library resources, like Business Source Complete or Statista. For majors like marketing, we may introduce APA PsycArticles for a business psychology perspective, as well as U.S Census Bureau’s tools for demographic data. These two conversational polls signal to the students that we want to personalize and tailor the lesson to make it meaningful for them and their needs.

Adventures Are Better with Two: Bridging the Engagement Gap

Part 1 of the orientation involves introducing and demonstrating the AU Libraries’ website, the library catalog, and the Business LibGuide. Students are expected to follow along on their own computer, filling out a guided notes worksheet (see Appendix B) while investigating the library website and Business LibGuide. Being College of Business co-liaisons who can team teach has been a boon for improving student engagement. Having two librarians allows us to divide up the instruction roles and alternate between one of us teaching and the other floating around the computer lab. The librarian who is floating can make sure students follow along, gently redirect when needed, or quietly answer a question without interrupting the instruction. Embedding a librarian alongside the students boosts the energy in the learning lab and we can encourage students as they navigate towards finding an e-book or an article and applaud their efforts. Two co-teachers can inject levity into the orientation too as we are able to play off each other's personalities and even occasionally succeed in making the students laugh.

Additionally, each group of students comes to the library orientation with their own Teaching Assistant (TA). TAs function as peer leaders for the first-year students and are a huge asset in the classroom. We have developed an effective routine of incorporating the TA into the lesson to encourage student engagement. We let the TAs know ahead of time that we will be looking to them for examples of how they have used a library resource, such as the Business LibGuide, specialized databases, our personal librarian program, or the library’s spaces. Because these TAs are both upperclassmen and business majors, the first years know they have direct academic experience with the business program and take their endorsements seriously.

Choose Your Own Adventure: Making Meaning, Avoiding Boredom

To address the been there, done that feeling, we had to do some inventory with our colleagues. There are lots of opportunities for unintentional duplication and repetition in covering introductory material because many professors teaching first year students invite librarians into their classes for orientation sessions and instruction. All librarians participate in monthly Information Literacy Team meetings, and we were able to learn more about the instructional requests that other librarians were getting for first year students, the content covered, and their timing. For example, we learned that the Writing I courses incorporate regular use of The New York Times in their assignments. Accordingly, the librarian brought in for their orientation would teach students to set up their New York Times Academic Pass made available through a library subscription. There is significant overlap between students enrolled in Writing I and BUSI 105, so many students were getting a repeat of information. However, as some students were not enrolled in Writing I and also needed access to that information, we could not simply excise it from the material.

We needed to address the feeling of repetition from students who may have had other library orientation sessions via classes in different subjects. The entire BUSI 105 orientation lesson is framed in the context of being applicable to them as business students and tailored to the needs of their major. The unique demands of the College of Business called for a discipline-specific orientation built around the resources the library curates specifically for business majors. The content of the orientation is chosen based on what resources and tools business faculty ask us as liaisons to teach, feedback from students in prior orientations, and insights from the TAs we have worked with over the years. The intention is to signal our investment in them and their unique needs as business students and to introduce ourselves as their partners in success.

The first half of the class digs deep into the Business LibGuide and curated digital business resources that AU Libraries offer. We chose to embrace the fact that we cannot possibly cover all the library and research related content that they may need to know in a single session, so the Business LibGuide worksheet (see Appendix B) allows for structured choice within the subject guide and library website. The second half of class widens the focus from business-specific resources to library-wide resources. This is the area that has the most potential for overlap with other sessions. Therefore, we provide a menu of options for students to self–select what they feel is most applicable to them in that moment.

In Part 2 of the class, students are given a Choose Your Own Adventure worksheet (see Appendix C), with a list of AU Libraries offerings (such as selecting and finding a physical book from the collection or getting access to the 24-Hour Study Room). We introduce the menu of options, explaining each task a student may choose to complete. Each student needs to complete three tasks and show us their successful attempts. Using the New York Times Academic Pass as an example, we say, this is time for you to choose what suits you and benefits you – if you’ve set up your NYT access already, then select something else. Many students choose to get up from their seats and check out the library to find their ideal study space or explore the stacks to find a new book or magazine they are interested in. Students need to demonstrate that they’ve finished something, such as by showing us a book, taking a picture of a study space, or obtaining the 24-hour study room access code from the service desk; the librarian or class TA initials each task as complete. The initialing formalizes going to a librarian to check in and reinforces that we can help them find what is important to them.

Your turn: Tweaks and Suggestions

The overhauled, Choose Your Own Adventure orientation has been a success. When we look at collected worksheets, our assessment indicates that learning outcomes were met. Our instruction sessions for upperclassmen have likewise changed. Further down the line, CoB faculty invite us to sophomore, junior, and senior courses. During these courses we do a quick poll on what research experiences the students have had with library resources. The students indicate that they have engaged with and remember the learning outcomes from their first-year orientation, and assessment bears out that these students have retained basic library knowledge and do not need a repeat of the orientation. Consequently, upper class courses need less foundational instruction, and we do not need to repeat the LibGuide introduction.

How can you capture some of this engagement magic? Recalibrate your expectations about what engagement should look like. Using different ways to ask questions that allow students to engage without speaking to a roomful of people can be helpful. You could use a shared Google or Word doc where the class can write out their questions or responses to prompts or conduct online polls and share results with the class in real time, among other options.

Co-teaching with other subject librarians or instructors is possible even if you are a solo business librarian. As new librarians we were eager to team teach with more experienced librarians to get more experience and build-up our comfort level in the classroom. Even seasoned librarians like to shake up their routines sometime, and you can also sweeten the deal and offer to reciprocate and co-teach in one of their sessions. We have also had success in the past asking library staff members who are enrolled in MLIS programs to play a support role in the classroom. This can be a valuable way for MLIS students to build their resume with instruction experience. This request is made to staff with the understanding that they are not being asked to volunteer their labor. We consider time both preparing and teaching in the classroom to be a part of their paid work time.

It is hard to overstate how impactful upperclassmen are to a first-year orientation. Invite a student to join you if you don’t have a TA or a peer leader assigned to a class. Consider asking a library student worker to join the class, preferably an upperclassman, and if they are a business major, all the better. Most experienced library student workers will be familiar enough with the basics of the library resources and services to be able to play a similar role as the TA. Library student employees can act as the floater around the room to help answer questions from fellow students and guide them through the activity. They can also share examples of how they use library services and resources, even if they are not business specific. An experienced undergraduate’s endorsement of library services carries substantial weight, since this peer has gone through a similar spate of required courses and is often considered a trusted advisor.

How About a Tour? All’s Well That Ends Well

Orientations to library services tend to give a birds-eye view of resources and get more tailored with each assignment and higher-level course. This library orientation, however, begins with specificity and invites students to make meaning through their participation and engagement. Going forward, we want to improve and refine that specificity approach. During our sessions we observed there is more student engagement surrounding future research assignments from required CoB courses. We want to build out the Choose Your Own Adventure worksheet to include requiring a selection from one of several options for each business major. Accordingly, we have realized that we need to do a better job curating our business LibGuide to reflect resources for each area of business, including new majors such as Equine Business Management and minors such as Art Management. Additionally, showing research assignments from different required CoB courses, such as LAW 241: The Legal Environment of Business or MKTG 221: Marketing Principles and Management, would provide concrete examples of how library resources might be applied.

Several years ago, we noticed boredom and disengagement, particularly during the tour portion of our library orientation. We overhauled the generalized format and swapped in targeted content with more personalized interaction. By naming and pivoting to what resources suit the students as individuals in the College of Business, we have found that our orientation has come full circle. Some students have become so intrigued by the libraries’ business resources that they want to see all the library’s offerings. In one of our final sessions this past fall, a student handed in their completed work, thanked us, and with a smile said, “You should add a tour.”