A required orientation activity during First Days, the purpose of this program is to orient students to the physical locations and get some experience using library resources such as FRANCIS. Because First Days is full of required tests and meetings, our event is designed to be more social and fun, and to encourage students to return when they have a research assignment. First Days is not the most appropriate time for students to learn research skills because they do not have a research assignment for which they need to apply the skills. In 2005, 90% of the first year class attended the activity.
These class sessions are arranged by the course professor to prepare students to do a specific research assignment for the course. Librarians often review the Course Bulletin and contact any professor whose course description indicates that students will be doing a research assignment. In 2005-2006, we taught 75 classes, reaching 1,050 students.View additional statistics (pdf)
Research appointments are one-on-one or small group consultation that are usually arranged by students needing in-depth research assistance. We promote research appointments on our website and during instruction sessions. We also work with thesis students through research appointments. In 2005-2006, we had 231 research appointments with 236 students.
Librarians have created web-based guides for doing research in subject areas and for particular courses. A general guide has been created for almost every department. Course guides are usually created in conjunction with a course-integrated instruction session, but can be a stand-alone instruction tool if a class time cannot be scheduled. We have also created "how to find" guides for finding particular types of information such as book reviews, editorials, images and more.
We offer research sessions for the Mellon/Mays and Williams Undergraduate Research Fellows Summer Research Colloquium (a select group of approximately 10 rising juniors) and the Summer in the Humanities and Social Sciences (approximately 16 incoming first year students).