Faculty Toolkit: Library Support for CORE 3990

A librarian will teach an information literacy session to your class. Each section of 3990 is matched with a Lavery librarian.

Seated (not-online) Sections: About the Library Pre-Session Mini Course and Librarian-Taught Session

• The librarian will facilitate a 35–45-minute active-learning lesson.
• The rest of the class meeting time can be open research time. Students can continue their research while the librarian stays to answer questions and work with individual students.
• The librarians have designed a standardized active-learning session for 3990 students who already know the basics about how to find scholarly articles using the library's website.
• Students come to the session with an article. The article should have been published in a scholarly journal, and should be related to their research topic.

The Librarian Works With You

The lesson is designed to work when the faculty instructor is in the classroom with the librarian and the students.

The librarian and the students will need your input. We librarians can teach general searching strategies, and you can translate what we teach to the students' specific assignments and course objectives.

What students will learn

For both online and seated sections, the learning objectives are the same.

By the end of the lesson, students will be able to:

• Use an article's references list to find more sources.
• Find the full text of an article by searching for its title in the library's Big Red Box.
• Use Google Scholar's Cited By feature to find more sources.
• Describe how these search strategies can be important to the research process.
• Determine whether an article may be a good fit for your paper using a given set of criteria.

Scheduling with your librarian

You will hear from a librarian shortly before the start of the semester, and they'll help you schedule the session.

The librarian will come to your classroom since there is no dedicated library classroom during the Lavery Library renovation.

Timing the session 

The librarian's session should occur after students have already begun to search for scholarly sources on their topic.

If you've taught an LC or a 1299/199 course you know that the librarians typically work with the class when they are just beginning their research. But, the 3990 session is different. It should be later in the semester. Students may have completed an annotated bibliography, for example, or submitted an assignment where they identify one scholarly source appropriate for their topic.

Getting ready for the session with the librarian...

A few weeks before your library session, your librarian will stop by your classroom for a few minutes. They will share the task students will need to complete before the library session:

Complete Library 3990 Essentials in Brightspace.

If you are interested in a follow-up session, please let your librarian know or email the librarian who coordinates Lavery Library support for 3990, Mia Breitkopf mbreitkopf@sjf.edu.

Some ideas for follow-up sessions include:

• Open workshop for students to find sources and conference with the librarian as needed.
• Are these articles I found in Google scholarly/peer-reviewed?
• Find a scholarly book/ebook chapter for your research topic.
• Search for underrepresented voices and perspectives in the literature.
• How to use generative AI (Microsoft Copilot) in your research process.
• Advanced database searching techniques (e.g. ProQuest GenderWatch or SCOPUS).