Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Drawing On Walls And Other Alliances, Barbara Merolli

Staff publications

How can the divide between science and the humanities be bridged? This article describes a series of collaborative art projects initiated by the science librarian at the College of the Holy Cross, who worked with faculty from Visual Arts and Creative Writing. Participating faculty were eager to help design opportunities that would highlight student work as well as form alliances with the libraries. These collaborations were innovative in that they brought together two academic worlds which don’t always have opportunities to mix with each other, generated other projects that drew non-traditional users into the science library, and, most significantly, enabled …

Personal Research Sets The Stage For Change, Jennifer L.A. Whelan, Alicia S. Hansen

Staff publications

Starting in 2011, implementation of Personal Research Sessions, or PRS, not only showed librarians at College of the Holy Cross the success of one-on-one research appointments, but also led the reference program on a path of service-centered changes. This path includes fewer hours on the physical desk, a system of on-call reference shifts, an increase in reference student worker training, a semester-to-semester increase in PRS, and new goals for assessment. We discuss the state of student research at Holy Cross and our approach to reference service

Habits Of Mind In The Classroom: Threshold Concepts, Instructional Philosophy, And Sotl, Alicia S. Hansen, Brad Petitfils Ph.D.

Staff publications

Students performing research in higher education, especially at the undergraduate level, is a progressively dazzling task in the universe of digital and print resources. Using sound pedagogy to create student confidence in approaching research, hand in hand with creating scholarship, is a challenge tackled well by librarians and teaching faculty together.

We will discuss three theories and their place in research methods, using ACRL’sFramework for Information Literacy as context. First, Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory. Second, Perry’s Epistemology of Learning: moving a student’s absolute belief in all things defined by authority toward a belief in his own values and …

Making Reference Personal: Student And Faculty Outreach Through Personal Research Sessions, Jennifer L.A. Whelan

Staff publications

While academic reference desks are seeing fewer visitors, the information environment is becoming increasingly complex. We know that students (and faculty) continue to have higher-level research needs that they are not bringing to traditional service points. At the same time, academic librarians often find themselves struggling to provide sustainable and meaningful research support. How can we reach a critical mass of students, while also respecting not only our own workloads but also those of faculty increasingly pressed for instructional time? The libraries at College of the Holy Cross are working to meet this challenge with a consultation-based Personal Research Session …