Agricultural librarians becoming informationists: A paradigm shift

Librarian liaisons to the agricultural sciences offer many traditional services, such as teaching classes, purchasing materials, managing collections, and providing guidance on scholarly communication issues. Data management and data literacy instruction are two emerging service opportunities for agricultural librarians to develop new roles and work with researchers to set standards and meet data management needs within the disciplinary context. Taking advantage of these opportunities will require new skills, shifts in attitudes, and increased interaction with the students and faculty to understand their needs and provide timely and appropriate services. This paper proposes creating new strategies, expectations, and opportunities for agricultural librarianship by constructing a new model based on the informationist. The informationist, developed in medical librarianship, offers a model for creating highly engaged liaison services. Within a medical context the informationist is an extension of the traditional model of librarian engagement in which an information professional is embedded within clinical and research settings. Librarians can have an impact outside of the traditional library contexts by developing new skills and strategies for librarians working in the agricultural sciences. The informationist model also provides the opportunity to act as a direct collaborator in the creation of new methodologies in the field, such as systematic reviews

Investigating the Needs of Agriculture Scholars: The Purdue Report for Ithaka S+R

This is Purdue\u27s final report for the Ithaka S+R sponsored mutli-institutional study, Investigating the Needs of Agricultural Scholars

Planting the Seeds for Data Literacy: Lessons Learned from a Student-Centered Education Program

There is an increasing need for graduate students to acquire competencies in managing and curating their data sets as a part of their education. Librarians and other information professionals are beginning to respond to this need by developing programming, but as of yet there are few models to follow and the impact on the practices of students is under-explored. This case study presents a student-centered pilot program on data literacy offered at Purdue University. The program was offered through the College of Agriculture and was structured to be flexible enough to incorporate each student’s particular field of study. Exercises and assignments were designed to incorporate the student’s own research data to create meaningful, authentic learning experiences. Formative and summative assessment was a critical component of the program, which included interviews with students six months after completion of the program to determine the extent to which the data competencies covered had taken root in students’ research practices. The structure of the pilot program, its strengths and weakness, its impact on students, and lessons learned by the instructors are discussed

A Multi-Institutional Project to Develop Discipline-Specific Data Literacy Instruction for Graduate Students

What data stewardship skills are needed by future scientists to fulfill their professional responsibilities and take advantage of opportunities in e-science? How can academic librarians contribute their expertise in information organization, dissemination and preservation to better serve modern science? With support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), four research libraries have formed a partnership to address these questions. The aims of the partnership are to identify the data stewardship skills, including data management and curation, needed by graduate students at the research discipline level, to identify trends that extend across the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines, and to collaborate with faculty to develop and implement “data information literacy” (DIL) curricula to address those needs. If you use content from this presentation, please cite: Wright, Sarah, Michael Fosmire, Jon Jeffryes, Marianne Stowell Bracke, Brian Westra. (2012) “A Multi-institutional Project to Develop Discipline-Specific Data Literacy Instruction for Graduate Students” Abstract IN22A-08 [oral presentation] 2012 AGU Fall Meeting, Dec. 3-7, San Francisco, CA

Creating Meaningful Information Literacy Assignments for an Introductory Agriculture Course

USAIN 2012 Conference, Session: Contributed Papers II - Curriculum & Instruction for 21st Century LearningIntegrating information literacy into the curriculum is an ongoing challenge. Purdue has explored an approach of integrating information literacy into Agriculture 101. Agriculture 101 is a halfsemester, college-wide introductory class and is team taught by the Associate Dean of Agriculture and the librarian. This opportunity reassessed the approach to addressing ACRL Information Literacy standards. Librarians had attempted to address as many of these standards as possible in a session. In this case, being an instructor of record and part of the instruction team afforded a different approach to information literacy. The core approach was a guided writing assignment in which students were asked to contrast popular and scientific articles on a topic. A portion of the assignment evaluation was anonymous student peer review. Five information literacy objectives were addressed through this assignment, all of which were focused on evaluating information sources. Initially, it was found that freshmen found the search process a barrier to completing the assignment. As a result, students were given articles to work with, allowing them to focus on understanding content. The primary outcome was the ability to distinguish between popular and scholarly articles. Other outcomes, such as peer review in the scientific process and improved writing, were secondary. Three semesters of assessment data provide statistically significant evidence of this approach's success in improving students' abilities. Additionally, this has afforded an opportunity to demonstrate the value and dedication of librarians to improving student learning, and the value of incorporating information literacy into the curriculum

Creating opportunities in data management: Directors of the North Central Agricultural Experiment Stations

USAIN 2016 Conference Session: Monday (April 25) - 12:30pm-1:30pm, Agricultural Research Data and Information: Access, Management, Preservation (Legislative & Government Relations Committee)Data research management is a growing opportunity for librarians, but there is often a disconnect between what faculty and researchers need and what they are aware of the library can provide. However, research across scientific disciplines shows that once faculty are exposed to what librarians can do to help with data management, they are eager to work with librarians. This means that librarians must be entrepreneurial and persistent in finding ways to make faculty aware. This presentation will discuss how to create opportunities, focusing on an example of collaboration between librarians and the North Central Region of Experiment Station Directors

Using GIS to Breathe New Life into Historic Soil Surveys

Contributing institution: Purdue Universit

Transcending Traditional Research Assistance: Embedded Librarians in an Ag Econ Class

Contributing institution: Purdue Universit