Lights, Camera, Information Literacy: Collaborating to Create Multimedia Materials for Library Instruction

Academic librarians devote their lives to research. Whether it’s providing scholars access to authoritative works or guiding new students through the uncharted territory of online databases and primary sources, librarians are an integral part of the research process. However, lack of time and resources can often restrict librarians’ abilities to apply in-depth research methodologies to evaluate their own institutions.

The irony of this circumstance was not lost on the librarians at the American University of Paris, where innovation and collaboration are strong tenets of the institution’s culture. AUP librarians chose to build on their partnerships both internally and externally with faculty and vendors to transform their challenges into a growing study about undergraduate student research behaviors. By administering online surveys to students and following-up with in-person interviews, librarians were able to collect qualitative data about students, their research behaviors, and their opinions about the library’s resources.

The paper will provide an overview of results about students and their use of Literati, as well as highlighting what worked well during the collaborative research process between AUP librarians and Credo Reference. AUP librarians and Credo Reference as partners demonstrate the experience of becoming strategic partners, tools for successful collaboration, and lessons learned.