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During summer 2019, the four reference librarians at the University of the District of Columbia (UDC), an HBCU in the nation’s capital, met weekly to review and discuss each part of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. With our student population in mind, we had two goals: establishing a team-wide shared analysis of each frame and developing a collection of student-centered active learning activities, rooted in the Framework’s concepts, that could be mixed and matched during one-shot and embedded library instruction. Prior to this project, the librarians were using a limited group of library instruction activities that were not necessarily related to the Framework. During the project, the librarians found the Framework to be highly theoretical, making it challenging to identify concrete learning activities. However, by deeply engaging with the Framework, it was possible to create student-centered instructional activities that were rooted in the theory, and we were able to expand our repertoire of activities used in library instruction. We were also able to provide faculty with firm examples of how library instruction engages their students in information literacy and lifelong learning.

PurposeThis article shares an academic library's transition from traditional reference services to a peer support model during a campus reopening post-COVID-19 closure. It examines the conception, implementation and implications of the Peer Mentor program amidst shifts in campus priorities, Library research and reference paradigms and the Library workforce, from the perspectives of library faculty and staff, alongside feedback from student workers.Design/methodology/approachThe article uses a case study approach to detail the Library's Peer Mentor Program by authors involved in various stages of the program's lifespan and discusses the beginnings, implementations and challenges of the program and introduces the unique curriculum used to train student Peer Mentors.FindingsThe authors chronicle their own experience after two semesters of the Peer Mentor program alongside qualitative feedback from the first cohort of Peer Mentors. The Peer Mentor feedback points to positive impacts in other academic pursuits and in gaining a greater understanding of the information landscape and the library field.Originality/valueThe case study presented is a valuable example for academic librarians considering beginning peer-to-peer learning models within their own research and reference services units, especially those who may be creating these peer learning networks in the wake of library service disruption or restructure (such as due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

This chapter describes the various ways that Learning Resources Division at the University of the District of Columbia (LRD) provides various services to the community it operates (i.e., Washington, DC). UDC is the only public university in the District of Columbia. Serving the greater community, therefore, has been a major part of the university mission and a central part of LRD's service mission. Specifically, the chapter considers the service LRD provides to community users through reference, RAIL, information literacy, collection development, the jazz archives, the foundation center, and the university archives.

SF State) set out to create a curricular toolkit of research skills and information literacy learning activities that could easily be used by instructional faculty in their classrooms, in-person or online. The goal of undertaking this work was to provide accessible and inclusive resources for faculty to incorporate critical information literacy work into their classes beyond the traditional one-shot engagement with the library.William Badke discusses the common misconception that students learn research "by osmosis"-that when presented with research opportunities, they will do research (without instruction) and through doing research, they'll get better at doing research. 1 While that certainly can happen, it makes the process much harder than it needs to be and can set students up to fail. Then, when some students are not able to intuit college-level research skills, faculty are confused, or worse, disparaging. But because this is how many faculty learned to research, the practice is often perpetuated. Badke discusses a number of studies that suggest that faculty believe students develop information literacy throughout their undergraduate careers, without any conceptualization of how that happens, and in some instances without being able to articulate what information literacy is. 2 Additionally, in a large university, there isn't hope that the library can facilitate a one-shot library instruction session for every class to mitigate these systemic challenges. In addition to the limitations of scope, there is also a limit on how much content can be covered in a single session.Thus, one goal in creating a curricular toolkit was to avoid this common trap of information literacy learning and equip our faculty with accessible and adaptable tools for teaching it. In creating a toolkit of activities across the spectrum of research skills, we hoped that faculty would better be able to provide research instruction at the appropriate point of need and more effectively scaffold research learning throughout the class, rather than containing it to a single one-shot session. Instead of wondering at the quality of student work without any support, they would have some resources to address challenges and provide intentional instruction toward further developing students' information literacy.Our toolkit was inspired by the Hunter College Libraries' student-facing toolkit, created by Stephanie Margolin and Wendy Hayden. 3 Their goal was "to help faculty and students see research as a process of inquiry and discovery, not a collection of information proving a narrow thesis," which is a goal we shared, in addition to searching for sustainable and scalable ways