This assignment was created to help undergraduate students use research articles to help inform their argument about a "text."  This exercise has been used in library instruction sessions for art history, composition, english literature, women's studies, and history classes. After reflecting on what they know about a text (or image or multimedia), brainstorming search terms, and tracking relevant patterns in search results, students can synthesize information from a variety of sources in an organized, methodological fashion. 

This lesson is intended as a one hour, single-session overview of one aspect of information literacy: evaluating the trustworthiness of resources, particularly online. The lesson is designed for a group of 10-25 adults in a public or academic library, or is also suitable for high school students. Instructor will teach students how to investigate a source and apply three small but powerful information literacy tools to evaluation: SIFT, PIE, and SMELL.

The assignment has students search the same topic in Google and the Web of Science or BIOSIS database. They are asked to pick one result from each search, identify its components (title, author, year) and identify the container of the information (journal, book, news, etc.). They are then asked to compare and reflect on the different results. 

This assignment introduces students to United States patents and to prior art searching using two free, online databases: Espacenet and Lens.org. Instructional videos are available at: http://guides.lib.campbell.edu/patents . 

An open access MOOC in French to bonify the information literacy skills of university students (with Moodle).

In post-session feedback, first-year students frequently express anxiety over how to physically navigate the library to find a book on the shelf. This is a simple, pre-session activity to help students try this out before class, so that they can discuss with their librarian any challenges they faced in attempting to complete the task. With the help of the course instructor, students are asked to find a book on their research topic (or course topic) and bring it to class.

Many academic and public libraries display their unique archives and special collections materials in exhibition spaces. With an array of primary sources and visuals, special collections exhibitions offer a wonderful venue for experiential learning of constructed narratives and perspectives. This Exhibition Explorer Card Deck is designed to guide students to experience close viewing of special collections materials through explicit steps for thinking rhetorically and critically in an exhibit space.

This is a simple activity intended to warm up students, break the ice, and introduce the concept of keyword searching. Ask students to come up with a single word search that gives zero results. It’s harder than it sounds. It may be too elementary for graduate students or upperclassmen; use your judgement about students’ abilities and familiarity with searching. This activity can be a great segue in to a lesson on keyword development, Boolean operators, popular terminology vs. technical jargon, and the differences between different kinds of databases.

This low-stakes, in-class assignment is designed to help first-year seminar students learn about important library resources and present their findings to their fellow students. In teams, students complete a series of authentic research tasks (called challenges) such as selecting and citing images from our digital collection and using our discovery tool to find books on the library shelves. Each team is also assigned a unique challenge to learn more about the library.

The goal of this activity is to explore spaces, services, and information literacy (IL) concepts through problem-based scenarios, guided discovery, and peer teaching. Ideal for orientations for K-12, undergraduate, transfer, or graduate students, but can also be used for instruction requests with no clear research assignment or at the start of a research project. Students work in groups to find solutions to a scenario using guided directions and tools, and then teach the rest of the class based on their findings.