INSTRUCTION IN LIBRARY USE (ILU) COMMITTEE
MEETING HELD NOVEMBER 20, 2002 AT ROBARTS LIBRARY
Present: Cris Sewerin (co-chair), Jeff Newman (co-chair), Sara McDowell, Frances Sardone, Nalini Singh, June Seel, Adam Taves, Mary Roddy, Judy Mills, Gail Nichol, Shawn Bethke, Suzanne Meyers Sawa, Margaret Fulford (secretary).
1. MINUTES OF LAST MEETING
Approved.
2. BUSINESS ARISING
The "Find It" brochure will be printed next week, so it should be available in early December.
Mary Roddy reported the success of the call for non-Robarts ILU staff to volunteer to teach library catalogue classes for students from the Academic Bridging program this winter; volunteers include Cris Sewerin, Ken Lavin, and Margaret Fulford.
3. JANUARY PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT EVENT
Jeff Newman recapped plans for the collaborative event among ILU, Writing Centres, and Counselling and Learning Skills Services (CALSS), to be held the morning of Jan. 10, 2003. Cris gave the committee an idea of what CALSS does and showed their web site .
(As a reminder, the ILU part of the event will include the following; for more details, please see the minutes of the Oct. 16 meeting:
A. Introduction
B. Reference Services
C. ILU Classes
D. ILU Web Resources
E. Handouts
F. Conclusion)
The following volunteered to present sections:
Cris Sewerin: section D
Judy Mills: section C
Nalini Singh: section E
(As decided at the previous meeting, Jeff Newman will present A, B, and F.)
There was discussion of the content for each section.
Nalini Singh asked that people send her samples of their handouts (or URLs for online handouts):
E-mail:
Campus mail: Nalini Singh, Inforum, Faculty of Information Studies
Jeff asked that people e-mail him suggestions of things that students do not know (such as that you can't look up a journal article in the OPAC), for possible mention in the Introduction.
The event will be promoted via the ILU list-serv and the refinfo list-serv. Solange Silverberg has offered funding for refreshments.
It had been suggested that the Office of Teaching Advancement might become involved in this event, but it appears they will not. June Seel said the Office gave an excellent presentation to ILU staff at U of T at Mississauga (UTM) on how to engage students when teaching. She suggested the ILU committee might want to invite the Office to present at a future ILU event.
4. FEBRUARY STUDENT EVENT: "RESEARCH FROM START TO FINISH"
(As a reminder, this event for students will take place Feb. 3-7, 2003, 11:10 a.m. - noon, in Room 4049, Robarts. It will be a pilot project run collaboratively by the Libraries, the Writing Centres, and CALSS. The Libraries will be presenting part of the Monday session, all of the Tuesday session, and part of the Friday session.)
Cris distributed a summary of the event, including a list of targeted courses (mainly 1st- and 2nd-year humanities and social sciences); information about publicity and equipment; a draft schedule; and Jeff Newman's outline of the Tues. Feb. 7 session.
The tentative titles for the five sessions are now:
Monday --"Reading the Assignment / Using Background Material"
Tuesday -- "Locating and Evaluating Resources"
Wednesday -- "Taking Notes: Reading and Organizing Research"
Thursday -- "The Writing Process: Managing Ongoing Research, Planning &
Drafting"
Friday -- "Acknowledging and Integrating Sources: Beyond Plagiarism, Getting Credit for Your Reading".
Among the points mentioned by Cris were that Tuesday's session will not be interactive; that the publicity for the whole event will be largely taken care of by the Writing Centres, via the instructors in the targeted courses, as well as on the Writing Centres and CALSS web sites; and that Margaret Procter had suggested calling the event "Research Papers from Start to Finish" (instead of "Research from Start to Finish").
The ILU committee members agreed with this new choice of title.
There was discussion of possible further publicity by the libraries, but consensus was against this given the venue and since it is best to keep the pilot project focused on a manageable subset of students.
There was discussion of the possibility of getting students to pre-register for the course, but consensus was against this. (Past experiences were described in which pre-registration did not improve the ability to predict attendance numbers.)
Jeff Newman summarized plans for the Tuesday session. Committee members gave
suggestions of content which might be added to the session:
-- how to decide what sources are appropriate for a given assignment
-- examples of an e-journal and a print journal
-- the difference between regular web sites and e-journals (professors may forbid use of "the Web" or "the Internet", and students may think this includes e-journals)
-- what a scholarly resource is
-- an example of browsing by subject
-- using a topic in examples which will speak to all students (such as "procrastination" or "stress")
-- starting the session with a reiteration of the Monday content (the importance of figuring out what you're looking for before you start your research)
Jeff Newman and Gail Nichol volunteered to be co-instructors for the Tuesday session.
Jeff will ask Susan Johnston if she is interested in doing the library part of the Monday session. Suzanne Meyers Sawa said that if Susan needed a backup, she would be glad to fill that role but does not want to be the main presenter.
Cris Sewerin volunteered to present in the Friday session, and Suzanne Meyers Sawa volunteered to be her backup.
There was discussion of the possibility of moving the material on managing ongoing research to the Thursday session instead of the Friday session. This material would include documentation styles, a mention of citation management software, and a brief intro to Web of Science. The consensus was that this material would fit better within the Friday session as previously planned.
It was suggested that the committee investigate whether it would be possible to get funding to offer coffee and doughnuts to students who attend.
5. TASK FORCE ON STUDENT ORIENTATION / TRANSITION
Cris Sewerin showed the committee the web site of the Student Orientation & Transition Task Force and reported that library staff, under the direction of Judy Snow, met last week to brainstorm, to begin preparing a submission to the Task Force. Ideas raised at that meeting included: making a video and showing it to "captive audiences" such as students in T-card lineups (this might be a City TV-style documentary interviewing library staff about services, or might feature a local celebrity); linking up with others involved in orientation such as residence dons; putting up posters similar to those used in conference poster sessions; making tours more interesting by personalizing them or including stories; publicizing web URLs; and displaying messages on pixel boards.
Cris asked the ILU committee members for input:
Sara McDowell suggested that the Task Force submission could be used as an opportunity to promote the idea of a compulsory course for undergrads. June Seel said that a half-credit course called "Introduction to Scholarly Research" is under consideration at UTM and is likely to be approved for Sept. 2003; there is funding for a new position, for which they hope to get someone with both an M.L.S. and a Ph.D. At last initially, the course will not be compulsory.
Suzanne Meyers Sawa suggested a video version of an ILU class that could be viewed over the Web. Sara mentioned that something along those lines was shown at a LOEX conference, and Heather Cunningham and Sylvia Newman may have a copy of it.
The passport program was discussed. U of T groups and departments can post an event via the program's web site and obtain a stamp; students who get enough stamps in their "passport" by the end of the school year are eligible for prizes. This is the program's first year, so not many passports have been brought to ILU events. But it may grow and attract more participation in the future.
The idea of making a video and showing it during T-card lineups was popular. This might require funding and/or collaboration with Information Commons.
Other suggestions included:
-- handing out bookmarks or other items to those in line
-- humourous t-shirts or buttons for librarians to wear during Orientation
-- seminars for residence dons, who might then pass information on to students in their residence
-- focus groups to research what students want (offering food such as pizza to participants)
6. ILU WEB PAGE
Jeff Newman has been redoing the ILU site created by Sara McDowell ( He has kept much of the original structure and text, but has rewritten the site and given it a look more like the rest of the UTL web site. He hopes to have the revised site up and running by Nov. 29.
7. CATALOGUE AVAILABILITY NOTIFICATION / UPDATES
Frances Sardone suggested that the committee express its concern to the appropriate parties over the lack of information provided to library staff when the Library Catalogue is down, and propose procedures for keeping library staff informed when this happens in the future.
Recently, when the Catalogue was down for extended periods, no information was posted to library list-servs until the day after the problem was resolved. For those teaching ILU classes when the catalogue goes down, it is not only inconvenient but also embarrassing to have no idea what is happening or when service might be expected to resume (and therefore whether to cancel the class). This also sends the wrong message to faculty and
students.
It was agreed that the ILU committee will make a formal request to ITS that procedures be put in place for the distribution of information whenever the catalogue is down. The committee will propose:
-- That e-mail messages be sent to the all-lib-accounts list-serv when the catalogue goes down, providing library staff with any available information as to the nature or expected duration of the problem; and that additional information be sent as it becomes available.
That a notice be posted on the UTL home page ( or in the Library Catalogue error message (resulting from
informing users that there is a technical problem that staff are working to resolve, informing them of the expected duration of the problem, and apologizing for the inconvenience.
-- That the outgoing message on the ITS phone line (416-978-5555) be revised so that library staff who phone that number for information will be kept apprised.
Cris Sewerin said that she and Jeff Newman will discuss the matter and write something up to be sent to the appropriate person(s). Nalini Singh will also mention the issue to Stephanie Walker, chair of the Reference Services committee, as that committee may want to contact ITS about the same issue, but from a reference services point of view.
8. OTHER BUSINESS
Mary Roddy reported that the Central Libraries holiday hours brochure was sent out to libraries on Nov. 19.
Cris Sewerin reported that the Publications Committee is making changes to the four-fold Library Catalogue brochure to reflect changes to the Library Catalogue interface and will post the revised brochure on the Web, at: (Click on "Public OPAC guide".) In its current incarnation, the file is in MS Word format.
Cris distributed a list of upcoming ILU meetings and locations:
December 4
January 7 (note: this is a Tuesday morning)
January 29
February 19
March 19
April 16
May 21
June 18
All but the Jan. 7 meeting will be held at Robarts Library, 2nd floor conference room; the location for the Jan. 7 meeting is TBA. All the meetings are from 9:30-11:30.
9. NEXT MEETING
Wednesday, December 4, 9:30 a.m. - 11:30 a.m., Robarts Library, 2nd floor conference room.