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This article was downloaded by: [Universidad de Sevilla] On: 06 November 2014, At: 00:37 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK College & Undergraduate Libraries Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wcul20 Creating Learning Libraries in Support of Seamless Learning Cultures Steven J. Bell EdD, MLS a a Philadelphia University , Philadelphia, PA, 19144, USA Published online: 11 Oct 2008. To cite this article: Steven J. Bell EdD, MLS (2000) Creating Learning Libraries in Support of Seamless Learning Cultures, College & Undergraduate Libraries, 6:2, 45-58, DOI: 10.1300/J106v06n02_05 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J106v06n02_05 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

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Page 1: Creating Learning Libraries in Support of Seamless Learning Cultures

This article was downloaded by: [Universidad de Sevilla]On: 06 November 2014, At: 00:37Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK

College & UndergraduateLibrariesPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/wcul20

Creating Learning Libraries inSupport of Seamless LearningCulturesSteven J. Bell EdD, MLS aa Philadelphia University , Philadelphia, PA, 19144,USAPublished online: 11 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Steven J. Bell EdD, MLS (2000) Creating Learning Libraries inSupport of Seamless Learning Cultures, College & Undergraduate Libraries, 6:2, 45-58,DOI: 10.1300/J106v06n02_05

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J106v06n02_05

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all theinformation (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform.However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and viewsexpressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, andare not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of theContent should not be relied upon and should be independently verified withprimary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for anylosses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages,and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly orindirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of theContent.

Page 2: Creating Learning Libraries in Support of Seamless Learning Cultures

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes.Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan,sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone isexpressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found athttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

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Page 3: Creating Learning Libraries in Support of Seamless Learning Cultures

Creating Learning Librariesin Support of Seamless Learning Cultures

Steven J. Bell

SUMMARY. Higher education has been rethinking the traditional teach-ing paradigm of the lecture in which most faculty-student interaction oc-curs in the classroom. The new emphasis on student learning focuses in-stitutional mission on enabling learning by whatever means work best.Creating a seamless learning culture is one way to stress student learning.A significant feature of seamless learning is supporting out-of-the class-room learning. This paper examines how academic libraries can contrib-ute to a seamless learning culture and what this means for restructuringapproaches to library instruction and the ways librarians interact withstudents. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Deliv-ery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address: [email protected]<Website: http://www.haworthpressinc.com>]

KEYWORDS. Learning libraries, learning communities, seamlesslearning, bibliographic instruction

THE SCENARIO

It is 9:00 a.m. on a Thursday morning at a typical college library.This undergraduate campus is in the midst of the spring semester.Students are inundated with exams and papers. An influential humani-

Steven J. Bell (EdD, University of Pennsylvania; MLS, Drexel University) isLibrary Director at Philadelphia University, Philadelphia, PA 19144 (address e-mailto: [email protected]).

[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: ‘‘Creating Learning Libraries in Support of Seamless LearningCultures.’’ Bell, Steven J. Co-published simultaneously in College & Undergraduate Libraries (The Ha-worth Press, Inc.) Vol. 6, No. 2, 2000, pp. 45-58; and: Future Teaching Roles for Academic Librarians (ed:Alice Harrison Bahr) The Haworth Press, Inc., 2000, pp. 45-58. Single or multiple copies of this article areavailable for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.(EST). E-mail address: [email protected]].

E 2000 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 45

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ties professor and her teaching assistant walk in through the frontentrance. They proceed to the reference area, shouting loudly: ‘‘It is9:00 o’clock in the morning and there are no students here. What arethe librarians doing?’’ Librarians within distance come forward,puzzled.

The professor explains that her assistant is a residential advisor. Hehas observed students in the dorms at late evening hours, when theyreally start studying and writing, at a complete loss for using libraryresources. The professor says, ‘‘When our students really need helpfrom you folks, you’re not here. No one needs you at 9:00 a.m. whenyou’re staffed as though you expect an onslaught of students. We needyou when the students are ready to learn, and where the learning takesplace. What are you going to do about it?’’

The professor makes a good point. Most college library referenceareas are void of patrons in the morning hours, yet library administra-tors continue to maintain a reference desk presence to handle requestsfor assistance that are few and far between. Where are the patrons?Asleep or in class. More likely, the decline in visits to the referencedesk, not just in the morning but throughout the day, signals a moreominous phenomenon: significantly diminished building traffic. Theculprits are generally perceived to be the Internet and the library’sability to migrate what were in-house resources to the Web. Withvirtually every database now deployed on the campus network anddistributed to desktops on and off campus, fewer patrons need to visitthe library to perform research. Has the profession laid the ground-work for its own obsolescence? No.

An argument could be made that academic libraries are in the van-guard of a new and dynamic rethinking of higher education in whichthe focus is shifting from teaching to learning. A variant of this move-ment is known as seamless learning. Put simply, seamless learningcreates a campus culture that recognizes that students also learn out ofthe classroom. It provides a structure for an organization to fullycapitalize on how and where students learn best. Having created aca-demic libraries ‘‘without walls,’’ the profession is far from obsolete. Itis instead well positioned to blend into the new educational culture.The challenges are how to best accomplish the transition from teach-ing library to learning library and how to respond to faculty, like theprofessor in the scenario above, who demand that librarians give moreattention to students whenever and wherever they need help.

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TEACHING AND LEARNING:IS IT MORE THAN JUST SEMANTICS?

A landmark article in the November/December, 1995, issue ofChange began a movement to rethink fundamental premises. Barr andTagg, authors of ‘‘From Teaching to Learning--A New Paradigm forUndergraduate Education,’’ suggested that the new paradigm foreducation should focus on learning, not teaching (Barr and Tagg, 13).In the learning paradigm the institutional mission enables learning bywhatever means works best. This shift in thinking was a reaction to thetraditional teaching environment for undergraduate students: the pas-sive lecture-discussion where professors talk and students listen. Thenew learning paradigm recognized that there is a place for the lecture-discussion, but that it alone fails as an optimal setting for studentlearning.

Calls to change the traditional undergraduate education model weremore than reactions to the weaknesses of teaching-centered education.They were also motivated by economics. Employers wanted knowl-edge workers, employees able to use information to obtain new skillsand apply what is learned in productive ways. The traditional teachingparadigm focused on short-term memorization of facts and didn’tprepare students to continually discover, synthesize, and apply class-room material to solving emerging problems. Traditional teaching wasfailing to produce the type of worker that industry wanted. Creatingthose individuals, educational institutions were realizing, was not thesole responsibility of the teacher and would occur only when educa-tion extended to all campus venues.

A changing sense of mission among college and university admin-istrators also contributed to the shift in emphasis from teaching tolearning. Many administrators and faculty now define learning morebroadly and believe that colleges and universities must do more thanteach students a set of courses in preparation for a career or advance-ment to professional school. The college experience should help quali-fy students to assume citizenship responsibilities.

Noticing that many students were politically indifferent, unfamiliarand apathetic about other cultures, and generally lacking the readinessand the intellectual curiosity to succeed in a 21st century multiculturaland global environment, institutions began extending learning beyondthe confines of the classroom. To develop better prepared students,

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they developed new programs that required faculty and student lifeprofessionals to link what students do in the classroom with theirout-of-class activities. Good examples include the many ‘‘First-Year’’programs adopted at academic institutions. Beginning in the freshmanyear with readings and events that define a theme for the collegeexperience, freshmen are exposed to a broad range of programmingthat contributes to a holistic learning environment.

THE NEW LANGUAGE OF LEARNING

The new educational paradigm has added new educational terms:seamless learning, learning colleges, learning communities, learningorganizations, distance learning, and self-directed learning. What dis-tinguishes these concepts and programs from one another? How dothey differ from seamless learning, which stresses the importance ofout-of-class learning and may afford library professionals the bestopportunity for active involvement in the educational process?

Similarities

The new learning-oriented programs share some common charac-teristics. First, they recognize the need to rethink traditional teachingmethods. Second, they suggest that this rethinking and experiments inrestructuring the campus educational system should center around theneeds of the learner. Third, they recognize the importance of situation-al or experiential learning as a supplement to lecture-style teachingand the value of collaborative opportunities for students to learn fromeach other. Comparing three of these well known learning-revolutionprograms in an article titled, ‘‘Learning Communities, Learning Orga-nizations and Learning Colleges,’’ Terry O’Banion (CEO and Presi-dent of the League for Innovation in the Community College) identi-fied another commonality: reform efforts were sparked by the 1983report, A Nation at Risk, which sounded alarms over the mediocrity ofAmerican students. This report and subsequent ones called for puttingstudent learning first (O’Banion, 1).

Learning Communities

Experimented with for the last seventy years, learning communitiesare designed to enhance collaboration among students and to create

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more coherent curriculum choices. Today, the use of learning commu-nities is increasingly popular and widespread. By restructuring thecurriculum, the institution creates more intellectual interaction be-tween students and faculty (O’Banion, 2). Communities can even takeon different formats, such as the curricular learning community, theclassroom learning community and residential learning communities(Wiemer, 7). Within distance learning programs, on-line learning com-munities are being used to engage remote learners in collaborationwith one another.

Learning Organizations

Other colleges and universities are attempting to become learning-centered by re-inventing themselves as learning organizations. The goalis to create a community of commitment among its members so that theorganization can achieve its goals. The members of the learning orga-nization continually expand their capacity to learn and to provide op-portunities to learn together. Typically, learning organizations developflattened hierarchies to create worker teams. A learning organization isdesigned for the staff of the institution, while a learning-centered insti-tution is designed for the students. While the learning organizationapproach may not be a direct path to enhanced student learning, theprocesses of these organizations are somewhat compatible with those ofa learning-centered institution (O’Banion, 3).

Learning College

A newer approach, the learning college, is closer in philosophy to aseamless learning culture (SLC), though it is typically specific to acommunity college. The learning college, like the SLC, differs fromthe learning community and learning organization in that it is a moreholistic design. However, learning colleges can both incorporate learn-ing communities and be based on a learning organization. O’Baniondescribes the learning college as one in which the commitment toplacing learning first is of a much more comprehensive nature. Educa-tional experiences for learners can occur any way, any place andanytime. Creating a learning community is a much greater challengebecause the institution must move away from the traditional structuraland bureaucratic confines that have defined educational institutionsfor the last one hundred years.

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Seamless Learning Cultures

To better understand the SLC, think of all higher education institu-tions as existing on a spectrum of operative behaviors. At one end arethe ‘‘functional silos.’’ That is the phrase Ted Marchese, President ofthe American Association of Higher Education, used to describeinstitutions in which faculty and staff are isolated one from anotherby specialization and expertise-driven behavior. Both faculty andstaff interact with students, but there is no coordination between thetwo. At the other end exists a collaborative environment in whichfaculty and staff work together for holistic student development. Themain responsibility for faculty and staff in this environment is tocreate the conditions that foster learning, while students take anactive role in assuming a significant share of the responsibility fortheir own learning.

Think about the undergraduate’s or the graduate student’s collegeexperience. What is most memorable about it? When asked, mostpersons will describe a professor or student life staff member whotook a personal interest in their intellectual or personal growth. Mostpeople do not find the institution, their major, or specific classesparticularly memorable. For almost all, the most rewarding experiencerevolved around personal attention, usually received outside of theclassroom. That near-universal experience accurately reflects the twomost important influences on student learning and personal develop-ment: (a) interacting in educationally purposeful ways with an institu-tion’s ‘‘agents of socialization’’ (e.g., faculty, staff and peers), and(b) directing a high degree of effort to academic tasks (Kuh, 135).

Every institution wants to improve student learning. The answer forKuh, a leading proponent of SLCs, is not reducing class size, hiringmore highly credentialed professors, sending faculty to workshopswhere they learn to teach better, or spending more money on facilities.The key is to create conditions that motivate and inspire students todevote more time and energy to purposeful activities, both inside andoutside the classroom.

Those conditions exist in an SLC. More specifically they exist in anenvironment in which students are encouraged to take advantage oflearning resources both inside and outside the classroom. In an SLC,faculty and staff use effective instructional practices. Students areasked to use their life experiences to make meaning of material

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introduced in class and labs and to apply what they learn in class totheir lives outside the classroom (Kuh, 136).

Kuh offers six principles for creating an SLC.

S Generate enthusiasm for institutional renewal: all members ofthe institution must work together to link programs and activitiesacross the academic and out-of-class dimensions of students’lives. One or more champions must emerge to take on this chal-lenge and create the momentum needed for change.

S Create a Common Vision of Learning: the campus must createa unified vision of how seamless learning will work. ‘‘Common’’means the vision comes before personal interests. It can beginwith a campus-wide discussion of those conditions under whichstudents learn best.

S Develop a Common Language: principles of learning organiza-tions can be valuable, but such jargon tends to be off-putting. Acommon language must be developed to create and communicatewhat is to be accomplished by the shared vision. SLCs are culti-vated when an institution adopts the language and philosophy oftalent development to endorse a holistic view of student learning.

S Foster Collaboration and Cross-Functional Dialogue: ashared vision of seamless learning is contingent on maintainingopen dialogue at the institution. Student affairs professionalsmust form partnerships with faculty and academic administratorsto create the conditions that motivate and inspire students to takeadvantage of institutional resources for learning.

S Examine the Influence of Student Cultures on Student Learn-ing: student and faculty goals clash; students want good grades,friends and a job, while faculty want students to work harder. Toget students to change their goals it is critical to understand the so-cial contexts under which they learn. If this culture is not properlyaddressed, any seamless learning effort will fail. Faculty, throughassignments and interaction with students, can begin to develop aculture where their peers endorse hard working students.

S Focus on Systemic Change: faculty and student affairs profes-sionals must focus on what students need to learn and create theconditions that will make it occur. ‘‘We-they’’ thinking must beeliminated. A shift is needed from hierarchical administrative be-havior to institutional cultures that value partnerships and cross-

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functional collaboration. Reward systems should be changed tofavor collaboration over independent performance.

Together, these six principles can help institutions achieve an importantoutcome: deeper learning. The traditional American educational systemis oriented to surface learning--memorizing facts for short recall, ad-dressing new topics before previous ones are internalized, and provid-ing limited opportunities for sustained interaction and collaboration.

SLCs: WORTH THE EFFORT

The primary advantage of deeper learning is that it makes knowl-edge transformational. With it, students develop an understanding ofsubject matter that allows them to be able to learn about it indepen-dently. Deeper learning heightens the intrinsic motivations and naturalcuriosities that challenge individuals to learn new information or ap-ply knowledge in new ways. The SLC environment facilitates deeperlearning by extending the education process beyond the classroom.Faculty and staff work together to create situations that allow studentsto use knowledge transmitted in the classroom and to do so when theyare ready to use it to accomplish something concrete.

SLCs take advantage of the benefits of ‘‘situational learning’’ inwhich knowledge is situated in practice. For thousands of years peoplelearned new skills as apprentices. Apprentices learned by doing, theyalways understood why they were learning something, and their learn-ing was ‘‘scaffolded’’ so that each new skill was built on skills masteredalready. Education, during the last 100 years, gravitated away fromsituational learning to the transmission of facts and abstract theory inclassrooms. The SLC is a return, in part, to the idea of learning in thosesituations where students internalize classroom knowledge.

Creating an SLC requires considerable effort. It involves represen-tatives from every part of the institution. Ithaca College (NY) is onecampus working to create an SLC. It is a culture where staff members,no matter what job they perform, are involved in each student’s educa-tion. Campus security workshops on crime prevention offer studentsthe skills they need to prevent them from becoming crime victims onand off campus. Dining services staff have considerable contact withstudents and use it to help students learn about proper nutrition andeating habits. Most importantly, student life staff work together with

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faculty to get these staff members involved in the learning process.According to Kuh, the key is to engage students in a variety of learn-ing activities through an institutional ethos that promotes education-ally purposeful activities in settings beyond the classroom (Kuh, 11).

LEARNING LIBRARIES AND WHAT THEY DO

Largely because of their delivery of bibliographic instruction pro-grams, many librarians consider themselves teachers. Typically, in-structional programs range from one-hour library overviews to semes-ter-long library research courses. They create awareness about libraryresources. But do they enable students to achieve deeper learningabout information competencies? Looking at the numbers of graduateswho lack true information literacy, the profession could indeed con-clude that while students may learn to use a few specific databases,they are hardly well prepared for lifelong or self-directed informationresource learning. As higher education institutions re-think teach-ing altogether, perhaps it is now time for academic librarians torestructure their organizations as learning libraries.

A learning library can be a critical contributor to an SLC, butfor this to happen librarians need to look at their facilities as labsfor situational learning. Every interaction with a student, whether ata reference desk, an instruction session, or a casual meeting among thestacks can enable a student’s learning process. Library skills are inter-nalized through deep learning. That can and should happen in and outof the library. Situated learning occurs when knowledge is gainedthrough practice. In a learning library, bibliographic instructors createpractical situations to encourage students to understand why they arelearning the research process and how to learn more on their own. Thechanging nature of resources and how they are used means movinginstruction beyond the walls of the library. If the students are notcoming to the library, librarians need to go out to them.

The challenge is to move away from traditional teacher-orientedapproaches to library instruction that promotes surface learning onlyand toward methods adapted for the new learning environment.Recognizing that students are more likely to internalize research skillswhen properly situated is one way to do this. That situation is rarely aregularly scheduled library bibliographic instruction session, but morelikely a dorm room at 1:00 a.m. That is the time when a research paper

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is due in the next day or two and many students are remotely con-nected to the library’s databases. How might a library administratorreorganize a reference department or develop a new service initiativeto respond to the professor who pointed out the library’s failure toreach students when and where they need librarian assistance?

Library instruction programs alone are unlikely to achieve deeperlearning about library resources and information retrieval skills. No seriesof instructional programs will accomplish that. The across-the-curriculummodel that integrates information literacy skills and outcomes, as de-scribed in the next paper by Kimberley Donnelly, is a far better approach.When connected with a seamless learning environment, where what hap-pens in the classroom is intertwined with what is happening outside theclassroom, librarians may begin to see students who internalize informa-tion retrieval skills. Librarians will have evidence that students areachieving deeper learning of library and information retrieval skills whenthey can go to another college or university library--and with minimal orno assistance--identify the types of resources available, decide which fromamong them are appropriate to the subject being researched, conduct aneffective and accurate search, and retrieve the necessary full-text articles.When students can do that instead of being satisfied with the first two orthree pieces of information they retrieve from a Yahoo search, then li-braries will be learning libraries.

FROM TEACHING LIBRARIES TO LEARNING LIBRARIES:EXAMPLES FROM THE FIELD

Libraries that contribute to a campus SLC have at least one thing incommon. They offer programs and services designed to reach studentswhen and where they are situated for learning. That means the stu-dents are involved in some type of intellectual or experiential activitywhere the opportunity to learn a skill is optimal. From the perspectiveof the librarian, one such opportunity arises when students conductresearch for a project. Whether that research occurs in or out of thelibrary, whether it involves print or electronic resources, and whetherit is for a highly focused topic or a comprehensive but broad researchpaper, interaction with a library staff member at the time assistance isneeded can powerfully effect deeper learning. What are libraries doingto both create and make the most of these opportunities as they movefrom a teaching to a learning model?

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To date, most efforts have focused on reaching the remote user.Typically, this is the student using the library from a residence hall, butit might be a student living off campus either at home or a localapartment. At one large, research university, the University of Penn-sylvania, an innovative program called the 21st Century Wheel Projecthas created a learning library opportunity. The Project is composed ofspecial residence halls where faculty reside and that attract studentsinterested in the similar subjects or issues. Database logs at the Uni-versity showed heavy use of library databases from 11 p.m. on into thewee hours of the morning, the exact times when no librarians areavailable to provide assistance. Realizing that a variety of supportneeds were going unmet, several departments, Information Technolo-gy, Mathematics, Writing, Languages and the library worked togetherwith faculty and student life representatives, to form a ‘‘wheel ofassistance.’’

The goal was to provide front line assistance on nights and week-ends in the learning houses, as they are called. This was accomplishedby hiring students, usually upper-class students, to serve as peer assis-tants. For the library, one professional librarian coordinates the pro-gram, hires the students and trains them, and reviews all peer-studentinteractions. The program does not simply train students and then letthem loose to provide assistance. The assistants are closely monitored,receive on-going training, and also work at the library reference desk afew hours a week. Should an information request exceed the assis-tant’s ability to provide an answer, each assistant is trained to put therequester in contact with a professional librarian. Student assistantsare also responsible for publicizing their services. They put up postersin their residence halls, organize database training sessions in thedorms, and encourage students to attend library programs. The pro-gram is still fairly new, and there are as yet no evaluations to indicatehow it has improved students’ information competency skills. But theprogram is considered a success so far because assistance and supportis going to students who would otherwise not be reached.

Although the Penn program does not cost tremendous amounts ofmoney, other institutions may not have even the minimal resourcesnecessary to allow the library staff to offer a service that fits into anSLC. Two other programs, where fewer resources are needed or whereresources can be shared, are exploring alternate methods to reachremote users when and where assistance is needed.

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The reference department at Temple University, in Philadelphia, isexperimenting with technology that will allow reference desk staff toprovide real-time interactive assistance to library patrons. The targetpopulation for this service is students working in their dorm rooms orin computer labs who need assistance during database search activityand who are currently on-line and unable to use a phone line. Areference desk librarian is alerted to questions--from which database touse to advise how to find information in specific databases--by abeeper at one of the desk workstations. This allows the librarian andrequester to chat on the workstation monitor. The library began thisservice using a low-cost software package called TalkBack, but hassince developed its own improved version called TalkNow.1 In a shortperiod, the use of TalkBack has already outpaced the number of E-mailreference questions received at the library.

Recognizing the vacuum in good reference service to their manyremote library users, the fourteen libraries in the Pennsylvania StateSystem of Higher Education joined together to create the Virtual Infor-mation Desk (VID). Maintained by Mansfield University in Mans-field, Pennsylvania, the VID is an experimental centralized, digitalreference service that can be reached by e-mail and that exists toanswer questions from students at any of the fourteen libraries in thesystem. The desk is staffed primarily at night when students are mostlikely to be doing library research from their residences. Similar to theprogram at the University of Pennsylvania, this one uses trained stu-dent assistants to answer the questions, and they are supervised by aprofessional librarian. While the program’s design provides service inthe evening, usually until midnight, a significant number of questionsare received throughout the day, and there is talk of expanding thehours of operation for the VID.

Though none of these institutions has a clearly defined mandate tocreate an SLC on its campus, the library staff at each has recognizedthe need for students to receive assistance out of the classroom. Eachhas begun to expand library learning beyond the traditional confinesof the in-the-library bibliographic instruction session. While some ofthe programs, such as the one at the University of Pennsylvania, arecloser in design to seamless learning activities--primarily because theyresult from collaboration with faculty and student life staff--all theservices discussed here move the library in the direction of the learn-ing library. Other libraries need to re-think what happens within their

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facilities to create a learning environment for students that goes be-yond the surface learning that occurs in traditional instruction pro-grams and to position themselves to respond to the fictional profes-sor’s, ‘‘What are you going to do?’’ question about serving the needsof students when librarians are either unavailable or students are un-able to come to the library for assistance.

CONCLUSION

Is this all just semantics? If students become proficient at usinglibrary resources does it really matter whether the Library Directordescribes his or her organization as a teaching or learning library?Those are merely labels. Ultimately, what counts is creating a vision ofand adherence to a philosophy that guides actions. In a true SLClibrarians can find a place for both surface and deep learning. Whichend of the spectrum is selected depends on the answer to the question,‘‘What do we want students to learn about library research?’’ Some-times all that students need to know is what button to click. At othertimes, the effort to create a situational learning experience for under-standing the conceptual foundations of research skills is needed tohelp students become capable of self-directed and lifelong knowledgeacquisition and processing ability.

Perhaps the answer to the question of how librarians should describetheir instructional programming is to shift the focus from a singledescriptive label to a learning environment adept at providing a range ofskills along a spectrum bounded by surface and deep learning. For lackof a better term call it a learning library, which is really not a physicalentity at all but a process for educating students about research skills.This process enables students to learn how to think about and use infor-mation resources proficiently. They may learn this from a professionallibrarian, a student assistant, or in team efforts with faculty, and theymay learn it in the library training room or the lounge of a dormitory.

As a part of an institutional SLC the library creates an environmentthat encourages and supports all forms of opportunities for learning.This is how librarians can best help institutions build learning culturesthat graduate students who are prepared for the challenges of the newmillennium.

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FUTURE TEACHING ROLES FOR ACADEMIC LIBRARIANS58

NOTE

1. More details about TalkBack and TalkNow appear in an article authored by SamStormont and Marc Meola (Temple University) in the Reference Librarian (Fall,1999).

REFERENCES

Barr, Robert B. and John Tagg. ‘‘From Teaching to Learning: A New Paradigm forUndergraduate Education.’’ Change (November/December 1995): 13-25.

Kuh, George. ‘‘Guiding Principles for Creating Seamless Learning Environments forUndergraduates.’’Journal of College Student Development. (March/April 1996):135-148.

Kuh, George. ‘‘Some Things We Should Forget.’’ About Campus. (September-Octo-ber 1996): 10-13.

O’Banion, Terry. ‘‘Learning Communities, Learning Organizations, And LearningColleges.’’ Innovation: The Crossroads of Innovation and Creativity. (April1999). [Online] Retrieved June 3, 1999. URL: http://www.innovating.com/page_19.html

Weimer, Maryellen. ‘‘The Powerful Potential of Learning Communities.’’ (bookreview) The Teaching Professor (June/July 1999): 7.

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