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Librarian and InstructorCollaborationDon Macnaughtan aa Lane Community CollegePublished online: 12 Oct 2008.

To cite this article: Don Macnaughtan (2000) Librarian and Instructor Collaboration,Community & Junior College Libraries, 9:3, 33-38, DOI: 10.1300/J107v09n03_04

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Librarian and Instructor Collaboration:Development of a Customized Website

at Lane Community CollegeDon MacNaughtan

ABSTRACT. This article discusses a pilot project to develop a websiteof online resources for a community college class in world religions.The project is a joint collaboration between the class instructor and thereference librarian. The site may be seen as an extension of traditionalcollection development into new electronic resources, but also a newpartnering of instructors and librarians to address the rapidly evolvinginformation needs of students. [Article copies available for a fee from TheHaworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-342-9678. E-mail address:<getinfo@haworthpressinc.com> Website: <http://www.haworthpressinc.com>]

KEYWORDS. Reference, electronic reference, library webpage

All librarians have experienced the information revolution broughtabout by the World Wide Web in the 1990s. This revolution has beenfelt especially in college libraries where students have seized the po-tential of the web with astonishing, gratifying and sometimes disap-pointing results. Our challenge has been to harness the informationpower of the web to best serve the students and their teachers. Manystudents and instructors have adapted quickly and can achieve excel-lent results; others flounder, lost in the welter of irrelevant, useless ormisleading information, or are baffled by arbitrary search techniques.As librarians, one of our premier skills is to bring order to the quest forinformation; providing tailored online information is one approach tothis challenge.

Don MacNaughtan is Reference Librarian at Lane Community College.

Community & Junior College Libraries, Vol. 9(3) 2000E 2000 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 33

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COMMUNITY & JUNIOR COLLEGE LIBRARIES34

In this project, I partnered with an instructor to offer students acustomized site of electronic resources for a class on world religions.Our intent was:

S to make the student’s research task easier and more productiveS to add an extra resource to the instructor’s array of teaching

methodsS to investigate how the library can work closely with faculty to

provide subject-specific Internet consulting, ranging fromconstruction of the site to identification and selection of the re-sources

BACKGROUND

The origins of this project lay in casual remark. I work at LaneCommunity College Library in Eugene, Oregon, as a reference librari-an and as selector/liaison in social sciences. In the summer of 1997, Iwas discussing selection of religion books with the teacher in thatarea, Dr. Cliff Trolin. His course covers three classes at the 200 levelin Religions of India, Religions of China and Japan, and Religions ofthe Near East. The class is popular, with 180 students enrolled eachyear. We were well served by print resources, but Dr. Trolin remarkedthat his students were having problems accessing information from theInternet. They were either overwhelmed with data, or frustrated by thedifficulties of searching and retrieval. My initial reaction was: if I canacquire and organize print information for Dr. Trolin’s students, whynot do the same for information on the web? Initially, I saw this as alogical extension of selection and liaison; to Dr. Trolin, it was a wayfor his students to have one-stop shopping for electronic resourcesdirectly related to their class work. We agreed then to collaborate tocreate such a site.

THE PLANNING

We began work that summer and spent several weeks exchangingideas on how to present the information. Dr. Trolin was new to theweb, and I had a superficial knowledge of world religions, so we spenttime educating each other. We agreed that Dr. Trolin would set out the

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Don MacNaughtan 35

conceptual framework of the site, and I would carry out the technicalcreation and locate the online resources.

S we would devote one page of links to each religion, with a com-pletely standard interface for each

S we would make it easy to navigate and attractive to viewS we would integrate the pages as much as possible with the sylla-

bus and instructor’s pages (although we would base the site onthe library’s server)

S we would be especially careful, balanced, and respectful of eachreligion, given the sensitivities involved (this involved somecareful research--for example, on the Islam page I had to find ascholar who could advise me whether the graphic image of Ara-bic text I was using was appropriate in context)

S we also agreed to include a disclaimer on every page, pointingout that we did not endorse the views of any particular religiousgroup by including a link (we were in fact challenged on one oc-casion by a student who was offended by a link to a particularBuddhist sect)

THE PROCESS

After Dr. Trolin and I had worked out the general guidelines, Ibegan to organize the site, work on the graphics, and find the re-sources. The initial setup took about 80 hours over 6 months. I had tolearn a lot more about html and graphics than I currently knew, so thisslowed the process considerably. Once I had mastered those detailsand put the structure in place, the work went much more smoothly. Weopened the site in January 1998 with 8 pages. The site now has 17pages with hundreds of links, including resources on some of the moreobscure religious communities such as the Jains, the Sikhs and theDruze, and even an Atheist page (for balance). I wrote standardizedintroductions to each faith and added scripted links through to thelibrary’s online web-accessible catalog for books and article citationson each religion. LCC students also have access to the huge resourcesof the nearby University of Oregon library, so I added in scripted linksthrough to their holdings on each subject. My next step will be to addaccess to full-text electronic reserves which can be added to the Li-

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COMMUNITY & JUNIOR COLLEGE LIBRARIES36

brary’s Innovative Interfaces online system. E-reserves will need to berestricted by password to students in the class for copyright and con-tract reasons, as is access to the full-text databases such as Infotrac andSIRS.

THE RESULTS

The site averages 60 hits a month, more during the school year. It isimpossible to tell what percentages come from students in the class,since they could be accessing from a variety of locations--home ac-counts or college locations. We do know that we have the followingpattern of visits:

S 30% from educational sites (.edu)S 25% commercial sites (.com)S 20% from networks (.net)S 15% unknownS 10% international (most from Australia, then Canada)

Additionally 20% of the visitors logged in on 9 or more occasions,10% from 2-8 times, and 70% were single visits (a single visit maystill involve a long period of using the site).

Anecdotally, Dr. Trolin reports that students are finding the custom-ized pages a much easier route to Internet information. He publicizedthe site to students through URLs on syllabi and class handouts, classannouncements, and internal links.

Problems have been relatively few. The single biggest obstacle isthat this is quite a time-consuming exercise. However, once the setupand initial work are complete, maintenance is fairly straightforward. Irun link-checker software through the links regularly, and I get consid-erable email on additions and (occasionally) deletions.

CUSTOMIZED SITES AND ALTERNATIVELEARNING STRUCTURES

After setting up the world religions site, I have begun a number ofother course-specific projects, especially for the alternative structuresfor teaching and learning called ‘‘learning communities.’’ Learningcommunities are cross-disciplinary classes which revolve around a

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Don MacNaughtan 37

common theme. They are designed to foster ‘‘more explicit intellectu-al connections between students, between students and their faculty,and between disciplines.’’ They may be linked or paired classes, team-taught course pairs, or completely integrated courses drawing onteachers and materials from many classes. However, they can be chal-lenging to manage for teachers, especially in organizing resourcesacross disciplines. Librarians have a key role which we can play inthese new teaching structures, and we are in a unique position tocontribute:

S we are one of the few academic communities on campus whichtranscend the boundaries of disciplines and subjects

S we have a tradition of providing learning services to teachers andstudents

S we are in a strategic position to mediate the information needs ofthese highly diverse classes, and to help navigate students andteachers through the mass of information

Current projects include a learning community on the effects of classin American life (‘‘Fat Cats and Underdogs’’), and another on thenature and structure of identity (‘‘Inner spaces, outer places’’) basedon ‘‘An Anthropologist on Mars’’ by Oliver Sacks. It will be a chal-lenge to find the web resources to back these wonderful but diversecommunities, but who better to take this role than a librarian?

Benefits of Course-Specific Websites

S directs student research efforts in profitable directionsS overcomes some of the problems of too much web informationS helps students new to the web by guiding them through a subject

searchS greatly increases collaboration and interchange between the li-

brary and the teaching facultyS increases the role and visibility of the library on campusS increases awareness of the areas in which we select

Points to Consider

S for maximum efficiency, librarian should be proficient in htmland graphics

S can consume a lot of time, especially during the early learning curve

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S works best where the librarian and instructor can collaborateclosely

S librarian needs to either know the subject area well, or be willingto learn

S useful to have a web-accessible library catalog so that the web-site/catalog interface can be seamless, i.e., users can be directedto appropriate bibliographic records as well as web resources

S measuring outcomes can be difficultS given the specialized audience, are the results worth the effort?

Ways to Add Value to a Customized Website

S add annotations to the list of resourcesS link directly to the online catalog for books and articles on the

subjectS link to electronic reserves and full-text databases (this is usually

restricted by licensing agreements to the class students only)S add study guides, search hints, and research adviceS provide clear navigational links to the instructor’s page, syllabi,

and other class materials

Lane Community College World Religions Sitehttp://lanecc.edu/library/faith.htm

‘‘Fat Cats and Underdogs’’ learning communityhttp://lanecc.edu/library/fatcat.htm

Other library learning community projectshttp://lanecc.edu/library/learning.htm

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