Information literacy in the Chemistry major: stretching our money

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Information literacy in the Chemistry major
s-t-r-e-t-c-hing our money

• Connie Ghinazzi
• Reference Librarian
• Liaison to Natural Sciences Division
• Augustana College Rock Island, IL

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Challenges

• High cost of journals to maintain ACS
  accreditation.
• Expensive reference books are infrequently used.
• Do students really need lit research instruction
  in Chemistry courses?
• Writing assignments are difficult to incorporate
  into already heavy content courses with large
  numbers of students.

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Answering the challenges

• Rethink journal format and selection choices.
• Purchase only reference books that have strong
  ties to actual assignments.
• Transferability of information literacy skills
  from general education to Chemistry.
• Assignments designed to reflect these questions-
• What is it you want the students to be able to
  do?
• What do they need to know to do it?

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• Group photograph of five students from Augustana
  College in Rock Island, Illinois. Two women and
  three men are sitting or standing at a table, and
  they are using scientific equipment.

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Challenge Chemistry Journals

• Articles about the high cost of journals have
  been widely published. Van Orsdel and Born
  reported in 2004 the average cost of Chemistry
  journals to be the highest _at_ 2695 per title.
• By 2003, we subscribed to slightly more than
  enough ACS journals in print to satisfy minimum
  for accreditation.

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Solution Cancel and join consortia

• ACS Searches and articles downloaded
• Current ACS Online cost - 20,843

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Add open access journals

• PubMedCentral or PMC
• Highwire Press
• DOAC Directory of Open Access Journals
• BioMedCentral

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Add Science Direct College Edition

• Physical Sciences Collection 600 journals
• Health Life Sciences Collection - 890 journals
• Searches and articles downloaded

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Challenge Reference Collection

• Significant money spent on reference encyclopedia
  series.
• Longtime standing orders ate up significant
  amount of book budget.
• Low usage of many of these texts.

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Solution Weed and Feed

• Using circulation stats, we removed out of date
  reference materials.
• When in doubt, we checked with professor most
  closely affiliated with subject area.
• Asked for recommendations for new materials that
  could help answer these questions
• How will students use this for assignments?
• Are there other ways to answer these questions?

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Chemistry Book Budget

• Decreased since 2000.
• Now about 2000 per year, with about 60 used for
  reference materials.
• Tend to purchase specialized reference books.

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Challenge - Info Lit 2002 -2006

• As part of their department assessment report,
  Chemistry has included develop basic skills
  necessary to effectively utilize primary chemical
  literature.
• Prior to 2003, I worked only with CH 451 Lit
  Research class on using STN to access Chemical
  Abstracts.

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Solution Research and write in Organic
Chemistry

• Fall Prepare an annotated bibliography
  describing your research on a well known
  pharmaceutical.
• Winter 4 assignments that involved
  deconstructing and reworking a research article.
• Spring Literature research on a named reaction

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Solution Incorporate more writing and
research

• In the Chemistry Senior Inquiry proposal, the
  report outlines literature research and writing
  assignments over all four years students take
  Chemistry classes.
• Literature research and writing are now included
  in General Chemistry, Bio Chemistry, and
  Instrumental Chemistry in addition to Organic and
  Chem Lit.
• An exhaustive literature research project is also
  a Senior Inquiry option.

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Library instruction call it?

• Point-of-need instruction - Malenfant and Demers
• strong indications that offering advanced
  library instruction to upper-division students at
  their point of need, as they are facing more
  challenging research assignments in their regular
  coursework, also increases student interest and
  participation.
• Insertion sessions
• Just in time emphasis on reference desk service
  to answer their needs. Number of interactions are
  up.

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Conclusions

• Be Creative No means not yet.
• Curriculum designed to reflect these questions-
• What is it you want the students to be able to
  do?
• What do they need to know to do it?
• Resources purchased only if they support goals.
• Assess results and modify as needed.

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Acknowledgements

• The Chemistry department faculty, particularly
  Dr. Dell Jensen and Dr. Kurt Christoffel.
• Mary Tatro, Tredway Library Technical Services
  Librarian.
• Images from Upper Mississippi Valley Digital
  Image Archive, Augustana College and ArtStor.
• The students who enjoy the hunt for answers
  through experimentation and literature research.