If You Build It, They will Use It: Creating Effective Course-level Library Guides

If You Build It, They will Use It: Creating Effective Course-level Library Guides

Bridging resources and users is one of the core responsibilities for a subject librarian in an academic library. A library research guide, which typically presents related resources and finding aids, is a straight way to link resources and users. This is because not only a guide can offer a starting point of research, but also it can provide a map of library resources. Creating a research guide by subject (also called subject-level library research guide) became a natural adoption and a common practice in many academic libraries since 1970s. However, in recent years, with the introduction of increasing academic interdisciplinary courses/programs and the rapidly grown library resources, a subject-level guide, from time to time, could be overwhelmed with burdened information and/or without focus. Creating course – level research guide became necessary to amply support the specific course under this circumstance.
This presentation shares the processes and methods on how to create and promote an effective course-level library research guide in an academic institution. Why to create, what to include, what to avoid, when to post, whom to communicate, and what to expect are all discussed. According to the presenter, the course-level guides were well received by the faculty and the students at the home institution, though similar/same processes could be adopted by other practitioners for future performance. A sample guide is provided.

Wang, Hanrong

Chinese American Librarians Association

2018-06-24

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0

application/pdf

eng

Presentation files; Text

Wang, H. R. (2018). If you build it, they will use it: creating effective course-level library guides. The Chinese American Librarian Association (CALA) 2018 Annual Conference Poster Session. New Orleans, LA, June 24, 2018.