A Tale of Two Graduate Orientations

Presented at the American Library Association annual conference, June 2007, Washington, DC.This poster highlights approaches to graduate-level library orientations at the University of Kansas Libraries. Attendees will gain a perspective on the unique and successful library and research orientations offered to graduate students who hold assistantships. This is a key group to focus upon as they are future professors and researchers. Through these orientations, we are paving the way for future opportunities. Graduate Research Assistants (GRA’s) are required to have graduate-level skills in order to complete projects related to their research assignments. GRA’s responsibilities often include editing scholarly journals, preparing conferences and assisting in faculty research. To address these needs, an orientation covers searching techniques, library resource selection and key library services such as interlibrary loan and citation management software. Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTA’s) are responsible for teaching up to two courses a semester. The orientation for GTA’s is a discussion of research assignment development in collaboration with librarians. As part of this discussion, GTA’s receive an introduction to information literacy concepts and how incorporating these concepts into student learning can improve performance. Through graphs and sample materials we will demonstrate the content of each orientation as well as important differences. Evaluative information will be presented through statistical and anecdotal evidence