The "Net" Advantage: Library Instruction Using The World Wide Web

How do you ensure students acquire information literacy skills in a 30-50 minute time period? How can you possibly be available to guide the research efforts of 30-130 students once they have your name and face to connect with the library? The answer may not be as complicated as you think if you have a little help from the Internet. Thanks to the advent of the home page, librarians can be available to their patrons 24 hours a day, seven days a week. At Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, this unique approach to instructional activities has been experimented with in several disciplines. The approaches may vary, but the result is the same, expanding the reach of the library--and librarians--beyond the one-shot lecture.

At the Virginia Tech University Libraries, the use of the World Wide Web as an instructional tool is evident in several places, including the discipline-specific home pages designed by subject liaisons. In some cases liaisons have gone beyond creating general subject pages, and have taken advantage of the opportunity to reinforce classroom presentations with the help of course-specific pages. The Clothing and Textiles 2604--Introduction to the Fashion Industry Library Assignment page is an example of one such effort. As liaison to the Clothing and Textiles Department, I worked with the professor to create a "virtual handout" through which the students would have the assistance they needed available to them at the time they needed it the most. The goals of the home page I designed were threefold: 1) introduce students to the research process; 2) familiarize students with the University Libraries and; 3) reinforce information presented in a classroom orientation to library research.

In this course, the professor required students to complete two research projects involving company and biographical information resources. In order to assist these students, a library orientation was scheduled in which students were introduced to reference materials they would need to consult in preparing their reports. A description of these materials and examples of their use were translated into "Steps for Success" on the CT-2604 Library Assignment page. These "Steps" ranged from samples of InfoTrac searches, to a listing of FirstSearch Business Databases, to a general overview of the University Library and library services. Links to business sites such as Yahoo's Company Page and Hoover's Home Page were also provided, as was a link to VTLS, the Library OPAC. Students always had access to a librarian via an e-mail link on the page and appreciated having a person to contact if they needed assistance.

The CT 2604 page was designed to complement a library orientation session. This page proved to be a relatively easy means of introducing students to core library resources needed during their studies in the Clothing and Textiles program. In addition, the template from this class can be easily adapted and used for a variety of other courses, at both the undergraduate and graduate level.

In taking advantage of the Internet for library instruction, all that is needed is a knowledge of some basic HTML commands, a text editing program, and a group of students with access to the World Wide Web.

To view the Spring 1996 CT2604 home page, as well as a listing of other schools taking advantage of the Internet to provide library instruction, visit: http://library.nvgc.vt.edu/LIRT/lirtnews.html.

Maggie Zarnosky is a librarian at the Northern Virginia Graduate Center of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.