Vanderbilt Visions: An Exercise in Collaboration

Five months before the Fall 2007 semester the Committee on Undergraduate Information Literacy (CUIL) and Vanderbilt Libraries were notified their proposal to present one of the weekly sessions for Vanderbilt Visions, the university’s first-year orientation program, was accepted. Through a collaborative effort, over 30 staff from 5 libraries, the Center for Teaching, the Writing Studio and the Learning Resource Center worked together to design and present a session that focused on intellectual engagement at Vanderbilt and explored the differences between college and high school research. This was the first opportunity for the Libraries to work with our campus partners on such a large-scale project. Several challenges the planning and development group faced included: * Developing a multi-media program that would meet cross-disciplinary needs for students enrolled in 4 undergraduate schools * Ensuring that the diversity of the Vanderbilt community was reflected in the presentation * Determining the best way to present this session to 1700 students utilizing available staff resources * Introducing staff with differing levels of technical expertise to new technologies * Asking staff to take on a new, large-scale project scheduled for the 3rd week of fall semester - a time that is traditionally very busy This presentation will focus on how we met these challenges, what we learned from working with our campus partners, what we would do differently next time, and the unexpected benefits to our experience

How to Embed a Librarian

Librarians were embedded in two Vanderbilt University courses in 2006. The largest undergraduate program is Human and Organization Development at the Peabody College of Education and Human Development. As part of an integrated approach, the librarians proposed an “embedded librarian” for a freshmen course of 107 students. A librarian audited a course. As a member of the class, she was informed about the assignments. She scheduled optional workshops that were tailored to the students needs. At the Owen Graduate School of Management, an embedded librarian worked with 65 undergraduate students from a variety of non-business majors at Vanderbilt. They participated in the intensive 4-week “Accelerator” summer program. The purpose of embedding a librarian was to instill business information fluency and to stress the value of information in academic and real-world situations. Highlighting their experiences, the embedded librarians and a course professor will present their observations and discuss expected outcomes. They will give advice for those who want to institute this program in their own institutions