Teaching Support
Partner with a Librarian or Archivist
Librarians and archivists at Oberlin College & Conservatory collaborate with faculty to help students become confident, critical, and ethical researchers. Library instruction is most effective when it is integrated into course assignments and learning goals, giving students opportunities to practice finding, evaluating, using, and creating information within the context of your discipline.
From introducing first-year students to academic research or supporting advanced projects, we can work with you to design instruction that complements your course.
Connect
We can help you integrate information literacy into your courses, develop research assignments, identify relevant resources, and design instruction that supports your learning goals.
Request an instruction session
Why Include Library Instruction?
Library instruction helps students develop the research habits and critical thinking skills they need to succeed not only while they are in college, but also as they progress through life beyond Oberlin. By working with librarians, students learn to navigate physical and digital disciplinary resources, evaluate evidence, understand how information is created, and use information responsibly and ethically.
Faculty benefits
- Strengthen research-based assignments
- Connect students with discipline-specific resources and/or our distinctive collections of primary sources
- Reinforce research skills and/or information literacy as an integral part of course learning
- Collaborate on assignment and course design
Student benefits
- Develop effective research strategies
- Think critically and holistically about information
- Build lifelong research skills
- Gain confidence by contributing to the scholarly conversation
Schedule Library Instruction
Librarians work with faculty and staff to design instruction that aligns with course objectives, assignments, and student experience levels. We encourage instructors to contact their librarian as early as possible—ideally at least 2 weeks before the desired session—to allow time for planning and customization.
Request an instruction session
Instruction Options
Every course is different, and instruction can be tailored to meet your students' needs. A few common options include:
One-Time Class Session
A focused session introducing students to research strategies, databases, source evaluation, or other information literacy concepts connected to a specific assignment.
Multiple Class Sessions
Multiple, scaffolded sessions throughout a semester that build students' research skills over time, supporting increasingly complex assignments and deeper engagement with disciplinary scholarship. For examples of this approach, see our information literacy grant.
Course Research Guides
Customized online research guides that bring together recommended databases, books, journals, websites, citation resources, and research tips for your course or assignment.
Individual Research Consultations
Students can meet one-on-one with librarians for personalized research assistance at any stage of the research process. Faculty are encouraged to refer students for consultations as they develop research questions, locate sources, or refine search strategies.
Online Library Tutorials
Focused on specific search strategies, concepts, and resources that support flipped instruction or supplement in-person class sessions
Additional Resources
- Incorporating Information Literacy into Oberlin First Year Seminars - Strategies for information literacy in the FYS
- AI – Overview of AI, prompt engineering, and teaching information literacy alongside generative AI
- Evaluating Scholarly and Peer-Reviewed Sources – defining scholarly sources, reading scholarly sources, and evaluating reliability
- Evaluating Popular Non-fiction and News – defining “popular” sources, evaluation, and close reading tips
- Source Evaluation Techniques – ACTUP, BEAM, lateral reading, and SIFT