The aim of this article is to discuss some of the challenges and possibilities that librarians may face when engaging in faculty-library collaboration. The main objective is to present findings from two case studies of embedded librarianship at Gjøvik University College (GUC) and to compare these findings with results from a literature review. The literature review is concentrated around collaboration challenges, a possible role-expansion for librarians, team-teaching and assessment of information skills courses. Another objective is to present two pedagogical approaches that are in use at GUC; the tutor approach and the team-teaching approach. Findings from the case studies suggest that faculty staff were impressed with the librarian’s knowledge and they quickly became comfortable with team-teaching and/or leaving the librarian in charge of the students. However there were concerns from both the teacher and librarian about the time-consuming nature of collaborative work. This paper contributes to the literature through a literature review, two case studies and teaching approaches that highlight factors leading to success when collaborating with faculty.

This study investigated what strategies first-year students in health sciences on three university colleges in Norway used when faced with a new written assignment. Questionnaires were distributed among health students on three campuses, and interviews with librarians at the campuses were held after initial data collection. The study showed that many students lack basic information skills, but are not aware of it themselves, that many first-year students are choosing familiar information sources like Google and textbooks from their reading lists, and it showed that librarians at their institutions had experienced that many first-year students could get by with these sources. This is contrary to the intentions in evidence-based practice, and the Norwegian Qualifications Framework. The study also suggests that the lack of a Norwegian framework or standard for information literacy training is making the teaching efforts seem random and based on the librarian's personal relationship with teachers.

This study consists of two separate, but overlapping cases. As a consequence of a merger of four different higher education institutions in Norway, the [University name] got several nursing study programmes in different campuses. To get a more formal collaboration started, three university libraries decided to start a joint project. Case one was to build a product or service specifically designed for nursing students. Case two was to form a community of practice between librarians at the three libraries supporting these study programmes. Findings show that collaboration between different campus libraries is not always easy, even with online collaboration tools, but that a community of practice can be rewarding and an efficient way to collaborate. E-learning has been a way to serve both off-campus and campus students alike, and findings also show that building a product specifically designed for one user group can be exiting and worth the effort. The many mergers in higher education means that many librarians in Norway has become a part of much bigger units, and finding common ground, good collaboration methods and joint services to user groups are important issues.

SammendragArtikkelen tar for seg utfordringer og tiltak for mer effektiv undervisning i informasjonsferdigheter, og bygger på erfaringer fra arbeid ved Høgskolen i Gjøvik.Resultater fra dette arbeidet kan tyde på at informasjonsferdigheter bør laeres i den faglige konteksten, og at studentene er mer engasjerte og motiverte for å laere seg disse ferdighetene dersom undervisningen kommer til rett tid. Samarbeidet mellom laerere og bibliotekarer er avgjørende i dette arbeidet. Det var en begrenset gruppe med svaert få studenter, og et lignende eksperiment med en større gruppe studenter vil vaere nødvendig for å kunne må le den kvantitative laeringseffekten av integrerte kurs. AbstractThis article examines the challenges and measures for more effective teaching of information skills, and is based on experience from working at Gjøvik University College.Results from this work indicate that information skills should be taught in the academic context, and that students are more engaged and motivated to learn these skills if the instruction comes at the right time. The collaboration between teachers and librarians are essential in this setting. The experiment was done on a limited group of very few students, and a similar experiment with larger group of students would be required to measure the quantitative learning effect of integrated courses.