This exploratory study seeks to gather preliminary information about the roles that academic librarians in the United States (US) and Canada play in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) work on their campuses. It also provides insight into how librarians at US Carnegie Research 1 (R1) classified universities and U15 Group of Canadian…

I am a cis-gendered, white passing, able bodied, biracial settler woman of Sri Lankan and English ancestry. I currently live and work as an uninvited but grateful guest on the traditional territory of the Syilx Okanagan Peoples in what is now known as Kelowna, British Columbia. I am also grateful to have been a guest on the traditional territories…

This research study investigates the effects of library instruction tutorial format (written versus video) on student preference and performance in chemistry education. The authors assessed the format of tutorials used to provide library instruction in an introductory chemistry course by observing 27 student participants as they took in…

This project report describes an internal scan of library staff involved in instruction in a large academic library system. 64 semi-structured interviews were conducted and qualitatively analysed in order to produce a summary of instruction across the library system, and both the challenges faced and supports desired by these instructors. The most…

This qualitative study examines how academic librarians understand, conceptualize, and describe their teacher identity. The role of the academic librarian has greatly changed due to the advent of information technology. Traditionally, they were generalists, who were responsible for selecting and maintaining library collections. Academic librarian…

In an attempt to expand Information Literacy (IL) instruction beyond the one-shot, the Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Library established the English Library Instruction Pilot (ELIP) in 2023- 2024. Students involved in the project participated in a series of three tutorials. The outcomes of the tutorials were aligned to both their Introduction…

Systematic reviews, and other forms of knowledge synthesis, are an increasingly popular research methodology being used in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences. Librarians are being called upon to support this work through consultation, instruction, and/or performing the systematic search on behalf of the research team. Professional…

The purpose of the study was to examine the impact of short professional development interventions, covering core concepts in teaching and learning, on the self-efficacy of academic librarians in the teaching role. The participants in this study were six academic librarians at a large, research-intensive university in Canada for whom instructional…

This compilation of articles brings together ideas on the changing roles and opportunities for academic library liaisons with faculty. Five institutions share their reorganizations and redefinitions of what it means to be a liaison in today's research library in this issue of "Research Library Issues" ("RLI"). There are many…

As the costs of scholarly and educational publications skyrocket, open educational resources (OER) are becoming an important way to provide content and enhance the teaching and learning experience. Librarians have a key role to play in developing, advocating, and managing OER. For many librarians, however, championing OERs means adding an…

This exploratory study assesses the differences and similarities between how instruction librarians in Western Canada use Google and how they instruct students to use it. Survey results indicate that these librarians do use Google but can be influenced by faculty to present Google negatively to students. (Contains 4 figures and 1 table.)

A brief historical overview of the library instruction scene in the United States and Canada, an analysis of library instruction conference themes, and the identification of perceptions of librarians attending the LOEX, WILU, and LOEX of the West conferences in 2000 and 2001 reveal that the border may be responsible for significant differences…

For many years academic librarians have been involved in the delivery of library instruction programs. Most of these librarians however have the impression that when students arrive at the university their knowledge of the information seeking process is quite limited. This paper presents a summary of a research which took place in the province of…

The provision of a full-time teacher librarian at Westbrook elementary school under an educational opportunities fund project has made the library a functional, integral part of the total education program of the school. The full-time appointment enables the librarian to provide inservice activities for teachers, and to teach study and research…

Examines the collaboration process between a teacher, teacher-librarian, and language specialist working to develop an integrated language and content novel study unit for a fifth-grade class with a high percentage of mainstreamed ESL (English-as-a-Second-Language) students. Definitions and principles of collaboration are described, and the…