Ramping Up the One-Shot

A few years ago our library director retired, and one of my fellow reference librarians took his place. This created a threat to our one-shot orientation sessions for English 103, because Ted, our new boss, no longer had the time to do them.

So I contacted the head of first year English and

suggested that we rethink our library orientations. Truth to tell, even though Ted had reached his students, I think you would need Robin Williams or Bozo the Clown to get enough interest to turn orientation into any kind of real learning experience. Most first-year students have no idea what they need to know, so having a librarian force them into an introduction to everything they hate is a virtual nonstarter.

Information literacy librarians do more o ne -shot instruction (either generic or subject- specific) than any other kind. Yet all too often the task seems like a charade where the skilled teach the reluctant, resulting in something (as opposed to nothing) but signifying little. A session works better if some sort of assignment or test follows, but an hour of instruction does not make an information-literate student.