Rebecca K. Miller, MSLS
141 Middleton Library
Louisiana State University,
Baton Rouge, LA 70803
millerrk@lsu.edu
T: 225-578-7232
F: 225-578-9432
1257 words
The Librarian: A New Ingredient in the Recipe for Success in Dietetic Education
Rebecca K. Miller, MSLS, Information Literacy Librarian & Human Ecology Liaison, Louisiana
State University
In 2000, the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) approved the
Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education, a document that provides
academic librarians with a set of core proficiencies for assisting students in identifying, locating,
accessing, evaluating, and using information within the research setting (1). Many universities
are beginning to incorporate information literacy within their central curriculums, and are
benefitting from the unique training and professional skills that academic librarians have to offer
students as students realize their need to find, evaluate, and utilize authoritative information. A
partnership, then, between an academic librarian and the Human Nutrition and Food (HNF)
Division faculty at Louisiana State University (LSU) seemed particularly appropriate during the
2008-2009 school year, as the dietetics educators at LSU looked for creative and vital ways to
incorporate the 2008 CADE Foundation Knowledge Requirements and Competencies into the
Dietetics curriculum. From the perspective of the campus library liaison to the Human Nutrition
and Food Division, the partnership presented two distinct opportunities: to use her specialized
training and knowledge of information resources to assist dietetics students and educators, and to
expand her professional role beyond the library building by working directly in the classroom
and directly with dietetics students and educators (2). This partnership guaranteed that, at the
very least, the dietetics students would have an extra tool to use—a librarian—as they worked
their way through the maze of evidence-based research, new information resources, and the latest
technologies. Collaborations between librarians and faculty members are currently flourishing
within higher education and each new relationship of this type begins with a particular set of
challenges and attitudes (3). In this particular situation, the sense that the dietetics and nutrition
curriculum at LSU was strengthened by both the new requirements and the librarian’s
involvement infused the partnership from the start. The HNF faculty’s plan for introducing the
new Knowledge Requirements included the support of the librarian as well as the incorporation
of various new technologies as vehicles for instruction.
At LSU, Reference and Instruction Librarians often visit classes within various
disciplines to present basic information about library functions and services. These class visits,
called “one-shots” within the local librarian lingo, offer students a broad overview of the type of
support that libraries and librarians can offer; these sessions also allow students to experience a
personal connection with an otherwise faceless, often intimidating, library system. During the
2008-2009 school year, the HNF Division library liaison visited seven HNF classes. The content
discussed during these instruction sessions focused on locating and using nutrition-specific
resources, resource evaluation, understanding the peer-review editorial process, and citing
resources using the JADA citation style. Search strategies and specific databases (MEDLINE,
ISI Web of Science, and CINAHL) were demonstrated and practiced within these sessions. To
reinforce the students’ understanding of peer-reviewed material, the librarian facilitated activities
where students, in small groups, compared the content and form of a peer-reviewed article with
an article that was not peer-reviewed. Similarly, the librarian guided students through exercises
that explained citing resources in various information formats using the JADA style. Although
these more traditional library instruction sessions seemed to have a positive impact on the
students’ understanding of the topics discussed, the HNF faculty members and library liaison
wanted to take this traditional library/faculty partnership a bit further and continue to engage the
students with matters of research and information literacy. To supplement the library instruction,
several new instructional techniques were implemented, which included “e-struction” lessons,
the incorporation of Moodle (LSU’s Course Management System), and class-specific wikis.
The first supplemental instruction technique evolved an idea that was born over 10 years
ago within LSU Libraries. In the 1990s, two LSU librarians collaborated with an environmental
management instructor to create an “e-struction” program that used email to push subjectspecific information literacy lessons to students (4). During the 2008-2009 school year, HNF
faculty members and their library liaison reworked this idea, providing access to nutritionspecific information literacy lessons and review activities via Moodle. The HNF library liaison
created text-based (Word document) lessons, of no more than three, double-spaced pages, that
guided students through using the LSU Libraries website and catalog, ISI Web of Science,
PubMed/MEDLINE, and CINAH; one of the HNF faculty members wrote a lesson for the ADA
Evidence Analysis Library. These lessons were first emailed to the students, and then housed
permanently within the class’s Moodle page. Once students read the lesson, which included
details about accessing the database, creating specific searches, limiting results, and locating fulltext articles, they were prompted to take a review quiz within Moodle. With the Moodle quiz
function, students were able to practice searching within a particular database, and receive
immediate feedback on their efforts. Students completed one lesson and review quiz a week,
allowing time for each lesson to absorb. These lessons and quizzes ensured that the students
were able to personally experience exploring databases within the context of looking for
authoritative, nutrition-related research.
The other new instructional technology that was employed within this HNF/librarian
partnership was the wiki. Although best-known example of a wiki—Wikipedia—isn’t known
for its authority, wikis represent ideal tools for scholarly collaboration and communication, since
they allow for quick and easy web page editing. There are many wiki platforms that are
available for free on the world wide web, such as MediaWiki, WikiSpaces, and TWiki; however,
PBWorks (formerly PBWiki), a software program that claims to be as easy to use as it is to make
a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, was the software chosen for this particular collaboration,
since the librarian had used PBWorks with several other collaborative projects. Essentially, the
wiki continued the discussion that was begun during the librarian’s visit to each class. The
information on the wiki included the librarian’s personal contact information, as well as a
summary of each of the topics covered during the librarian’s visit. When appropriate, the
librarian created a wiki page devoted to each of the following topics: database searching,
locating full-text articles within the library, understanding the peer-review process, resource
evaluation, and citing resources using the JADA style. An example of the wikis used during
Spring 2009 can be viewed at: http://huec2110.pbworks.com. The librarian created a wiki,
similar to the example, for each specific class that she visited during Spring 2009, and suggested
that the wiki be linked into each class’s Moodle page. Students were then able to refer back to
the wiki as the semester progressed, easily reminding themselves about the difference between
peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed journals, or how JADA expects websites to be cited. Of
the three wikis created during Spring 2009, one of the wikis had been viewed nearly 250 times,
and the other two had been viewed approximately 100 times each.
Using these various instructional techniques during the 2008-2009 school year, the
librarian felt that she established a true rapport with many of the LSU dietetics students. More
than 20 individual students and groups of students visited the librarian in her office at the library
during the year, and numerous other students carried on email and phone communications her.
In the future, the librarian hopes to enhance the supplemental instructional tools in various
ways—creating dynamic screen casts for the database demonstrations, for example, and
encouraging more student collaboration within the class-specific wikis. She also intends to
continue strengthening her relationship with the LSU Human Nutrition and Food students and
faculty members, gaining new insights into the unique information needs of dietetics students
and helping more students reap the benefits of a working relationship with their campus library
and librarian.
References
1. Association of College and Research Libraries. Information Literacy Competency
Standards for Higher Education. Association of College & Research Libraries Web site.
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm.
Accessed April 16, 2009.
2. Ducas AM, Michaud-Oystryk N. Toward a new venture: Building partnerships with
faculty. College & Research Libraries. 2004; 65(4):334-348.
3. Schulte SJ, Sherwill-Navarro PJ. Nursing educators’ perceptions of collaboration with
librarians. Journal of the Medical Library Association Journal. 2009; 97(1):56-59.
4. Russo MF, Kelsey S, Walsh M. Online integration of information literacy in an
environmental management systems course. In: Zheng R, Ferris SP, eds.
Understanding Online Instructional Modeling: Theories and Practices. Hershey, PA:
IGI Global, 2008:242-253.