Faculty Services

Mission Statement

The mission of Milne Library’s instruction program is to educate and assist library users with their research needs. The academic faculty librarians accomplish this by collaborating with teaching professors to support course objectives and specific assignments in student-centered instruction.

Goals of the Library Instruction Program

We teach frameworks and skills related to locating, evaluating, and integrating information into academic work.

The goals for which we assess the instruction program are:

Locate information using library resources.

• Identify types of information needed for completing assignments.
• Search effectively and efficiently for relevant information, evidence, and data.
• Develop search terms for use in general and subject-specific databases.

Evaluate information for credibility and authority.

• Evaluate the quality of information obtained.
• Determine the scholarly merits of information.
• Recognize the variety of factors in the production, access, and use of information.

Integrate information into projects.

• Use information responsibly and ethically.
• Recognize discipline-specific citation requirements.
• Share information in a variety of platforms and media.

Library Instruction Request Form

Learn more about our award-winning Library Instruction Program

• LIRT Award
• ACRL Excellence Award

• Consult a librarian about the assignment. Librarians will work with you to design an appropriate assignment and select the best resources for student research.
• Schedule and request instruction sessions early. To ensure the library can arrange lab space and necessary materials, please make your instruction requests at least two weeks in advance.
• Assign meaningful library exercises. Asking students to locate specific items lacks a clear purpose, teaches students little about researching, and can frustrate students and librarians alike.
• Direct students to a variety of resources. When an entire class has the same assignment, certain resources may be difficult to access. If the whole class will be using a particular source or set of sources, please put the source(s) on course reserve.

• Scholarly and popular sources
• Navigating an academic article
• Credible and authoritative sources
• Structuring a meaningful database search
• Citing, citation styles, and citation managers Introducing students to library resources
• Annotated bibliography or literature review
• Plagiarism and paraphrasing
• WRTG 105