Education Commons^™

Building Collaborative Reference And Instructional Services For Distance Education Students, Angela P. Whitehurst, Carolyn N. Willis

The Southeastern Librarian

To meet the needs of rigorous educational programs, academic libraries must make a commitment to serve growing distance education (DE) populations. Students who participate in distance education are typically older, nontraditional students with unique characteristics who need special services provided by their university library in order to obtain an education equal to their on-campus counterparts. Creating a successful reference and instructional service for distance education students not only takes planning, collaboration, and assessment, but also requires knowing your audience, constantly experimenting with new technologies, expecting the unexpected, and being ready to problem-solve at a moment’s notice. In this article, the …

Eku Libraries And The Nova Program: Collaborating To Bring Information Literacy To First Year Students, Brad Marcum

The Southeastern Librarian

During the fall semester of 2003, Eastern Kentucky University libraries and the NOVA program for first year students initiated a collaborative effort aimed at achieving two goals: 1) better prepare the one hundred students selected to participate in the NOVA program for their career at EKU, and 2) provide those students with information literacy skills needed to function as discriminating consumers of information throughout their lives.

This article will discuss the creation and outcomes of our first year of collaboration. It will touch on our positive experiences and on some of the challenges EKU librarians encountered as we worked with …

Distance Learners: Not Necessarily Distant, Rachel Viggiano

The Southeastern Librarian

The following paper was presented at the 2002 SELA/South Carolina Library Association Joint Conference in Charleston, South Carolina, as part of the “New Voices” program, sponsored by the University and College Libraries Section (UCLS) of SELA. The Southeastern Librarian is pleased to reprint the paper in its entirety.

The purpose of this paper is to examine many of the issues involved in providing library services to distance learners, and to discuss the growing overlap of services for traditional on-campus students and distance learners. Is the distinction between the two groups enough to merit a separation of services, or should libraries …