Collaborating beyond the Campus: University Librarians in the K-12 Classroom

The challenge of developing information literate college students begins long before freshmen enter the university classroom. However as tight budgets force many K-12 districts to cut important information resources, many high school graduates may be missing foundational research skills when they arrive on campus. This presentation will detail an ongoing collaboration between academic librarians, an education professor, public librarians, and a middle school teacher to help fill this gap by providing basic information literacy workshops for sixth-grade students. In weekly workshops the sixth-graders work alongside university education majors to develop research questions, locate information, evaluate sources, and integrate findings into presentations; these are then showcased each semester in an exhibition event on the university campus. The presenters, two academic librarians and an education professor, will discuss the process of collaborating on this initiative, changes and improvements to the workshop curriculum, and a multi-faceted approach to assessment. Attendees will be able to identify methods of engaging both middle school and university students with research skills, and discover new ideas about how to move collaborative information literacy initiatives beyond the campus and into the community