Library Research Instruction - Lawrence University

The Seeley G. Mudd Library, a partner in the teaching and learning mission of the college and conservatory of Lawrence University, seeks to prepare students for a lifetime of learning and independent inquiry. The library develops, organizes, and maintains collections to support and enhance the curriculum, provides access to information worldwide, helps members of the Lawrence community find the resources they need, and teaches the skills necessary to identify, locate, evaluate, and use those resources.

The statement above from the library's mission statement connects the work of the library to the work of the college. We start to make that connection from the students' first days at Lawrence; new students receive a brief introduction to the library during New Student Week. However, this introduction does not involve any detailed instruction, and is certainly not sufficient to teach students all they need to know to do research in a given field.

If you would like to introduce your students to college-level research, or would like to provide more information on advanced research to upper-level students, there are several ways you might consider incorporating library instruction in your classes:

make library instruction integral to any research methods courses you teach, preferably at the sophomore level;
include advanced library instruction in senior seminars;
incorporate library instruction in your special topics courses;
suggest a library session as a possible activity for the academic student organization for your major.

Each session is designed specifically to meet the needs of a particular class. Please contact a reference librarian at least a week in advance so that you will have an opportunity to plan your session together. The reference librarians often create electronic guides to accompany library instruction sessions. If you're interested in seeing some of these guides, please take a look at the Research Guides page. This will give you a quick idea of some of the material that might be covered, although the presentation of the material varies with the size of the group involved and the number of sessions scheduled for a given class.

If you have any questions about the different ways an instruction session might fit into your plan for your classes, please contact Gretchen Revie at x6730.