Searching for information and using that information appropriately is an essential part of every engineering design project. It has been reported that design engineers spend about 30% of their time searching for information. Experience shows that even senior level students have not received proper training, either directly or indirectly, in information literacy (IL). They usually search for information intuitively. For mechanical and aerospace engineering students at West Virginia University Institute of Technology (WVU Tech), the Mechanical Engineering System Design I and II courses (MAE 480 and 481) are probably the last chance to teach students about IL. In this project, the information literacy outcomes were added to the course syllabus and activities and assignments were designed to instruct and evaluate IL-related skills. Three librarians from West Virginia University and WVU Tech were integrated into this course, each of which provided a workshop to present different IL skills to the students. The students' feedback and course evaluation tools have confirmed an improvement in the IL related skills in the students. IntroductionThe instructor conducted a survey in his classes querying: "How many times a semester do you go to the library?" About 70% answered less than once a semester. When students were asked "When was the last time you went to the library?" the average answer was approximately 3 months ago. In the majority of the courses the instructor teaches, students are required to conduct some sort of literature review related to the course topic. When queried for the first step for information gathering, the students almost always answer "Google it!" or in the best case "Find the related article in Wikipedia!" The other side of the problem is that students do not know how to properly acknowledge others' work.It is ironic that in the so called "information age", we have an "information literacy crisis". The objective of this project was to add components to the Mechanical Engineering program that would address these fundamental problems in the engineering curriculum.Currently, there is an immense expansion and broadening of knowledge in science and engineering. Every branch of engineering is divided into so many subdivisions that it is impossible for an individual to be expert in all of them. This phenomenon has created many interdisciplinary projects that involve many diverse fields. That means occasionally, one needs to be informed and even an expert on various subjects outside his or her direct expertise.On the other side, the digital age has a profound impact on the available resources for everyone, including engineers. Between 2009 and 2011, the amount of online information created or replicated grew by a factor of nine [1]. This abundance of information has changed the way we search, evaluate, and use information.Page 26.998.2 What is information literacy (IL)?The National Forum on Information Literacy's mission is "to mainstream information literacy philosophy and practices throughout e...

Her research interests include STEM education at all levels, first-year experience and issues related to the transition from high school to college, and the retention and recruitment of women and minorities to STEM fields.

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Libraries. She is also the bibliographer for mechanical and aerospace engineering, as well as for civil and environmental engineering. Previously, she worked as the Head of the Physical Sciences Library and as an Associate in the Government Documents Department. She is currently the President of the Patent & Trademark Depository Library Association and Chair of the WVU Library Faculty Assembly. She holds a M.L.I.S. from the University of South Carolina, a M.A. from the University of Michigan, and a B.A. from Calvin College.

Engineering librarians at West Virginia University taught the majority of the freshman engineering students in both semesters of the 2011/12 academic year. Three in-class sessions were developed and delivered to over 800 students. Students were requested to complete online assessments to measure their information literacy knowledge pre-and post-instruction. The instructors were generally positive about the experience and were happy with the papers produced. One consistent complaint from instructors was they had to give up three class sessions. The librarians were concerned that more students did not take assessments connected with class sessions. During the course assessment and revision process for fall 2012, librarians worked with instructors to devise ways to deliver the same amount of information without using three class sessions. The librarians taught one session during week three, offered an out of class experience (OCE) in the library instruction room during weeks five, six, eight and nine (multiple sessions were offered to accommodate student schedules) and provided one online module on Intellectual Property to be completed in weeks ten to eleven. Paper or online pre-and postassessments were provided for each session to see what was known at the beginning and the end of each session. Students also completed a graded plagiarism tutorial and quiz. The assessment results have been much better. This paper will focus on the changes in the information sessions and delivery methods, provide assessment data for each area, and chronicle the steps taken to set up this successful collaborative effort with the engineering instructors.