leckie.p65 Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 9 9 espite the argument that techno- logical advances have made ac- cess to information easier, there is an ongoing concern that uni- versity students still are not becoming information literate, that they cannot re- trieve and evaluate the information that will be required for problem-solving and decision-making in the workplace and in society generally. Evidence is rapidly mounting that students cannot select ap- propriate sources of information, do not understand the structure or purpose of different sources of information, and can- not critically evaluate the information they retrieve.1 These concerns are even more pressing now than in the past be- cause the amount of information that stu- dents can access rapidly and easily is growing exponentially, yet at the same time, studies have shown that students have great difficulty using even a small proportion of the citations they retrieve. Solid information literacy skills are desirable across all disciplines, including science and engineering, a fact that is not entirely lost on the professional associa- tions. A reader response poll in the jour- nal Chemical Engineering Progress revealed that chemical engineers today spend a considerable amount of time retrieving and using information on a wide variety of topics, including management, regu- latory requirements, economic forecasts, and research methodologies.2 However, despite the need for such diverse kinds of information, the survey also found that the respondents depended on personal Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education: Faculty Attitudes and Pedagogical Practices Gloria J. Leckie and Anne Fullerton Gloria J. Leckie is Associate Professor of Faculty of Information and Media Studies at the University of Western Ontario; e-mail: leckie@julian.uwo.ca. Anne Fullerton is a Librarian for Biology and Chemical Engineering in Davis Centre Library at the University of Waterloo; e-mail: affuller@library.uwaterloo.ca. What are science and engineering faculty doing with respect to the de- velopment of information literacy in their undergraduate students? To explore this question, science and engineering faculty at two large Ca- nadian universities were surveyed and interviewed regarding their per- ceptions of their students’ information literacy skills and their own peda- gogical practices related to such skills. Faculty awareness of, and sup- port for, a variety of bibliographic instruction methods and the perceived role of science and engineering librarians in information literacy instruc- tion also were investigated. Based on the survey results, suggestions for the design of library instruction for science and engineering under- graduates are made. 10 College & Research Libraries January 1999 collections and other engineers for their information, and were not making good use of the growing number of electronic options. More than half the survey re- spondents attributed this to their inabil- ity to find and use appropriate informa- tion. Studies of the information-seeking behavior of scientists across a variety of disciplines suggest there are similarities. Geoscientists, for instance, find the bur- geoning literature of their fields to be problematic and so rely on personal con- tacts as the primary means of identifying relevant information, thus overlooking other important sources.3 Where will future working scientists and engineers develop the fundamental information literacy skills they will need on the job? Should a university education include the development of strong infor- mation literacy skills in students? If so, who is responsible for ensuring the de- velopment of such skills? What factors are involved in whether or not this happens? For many academic librarians, the ques- tion is not whether there should be infor- mation literacy/bibliographic instruction (BI) but, rather, how best to provide it.4 Current thinking on this reflects adult learning theory, acknowledging that BI will be more effective if it is course related and delivered at the time of need (e.g., when an assignment or essay is due). Along with this, there has been a long- standing recognition that the support of the teaching faculty for a BI program is critical. However, the issue of faculty support immediately raises a number of troubling questions. Do faculty truly support the BI efforts made by academic librarians? Do they have an appreciation of the concepts that must be instilled? Are they satisfied with the library research capabilities of their students? Are they aware of how academic librarians could work with them to develop information literacy and critical thinking skills in their students? What factors affect their support for BI— discipline, level of teaching, their own information-seeking habits? As J. Edmund Maynard has pointed out, faculty attitudes toward BI are highly variable and inconsistent.5 According to a major study by Larry Hardesty, this in- consistency arises partly because faculty themselves often have a poor grasp of the role and complexity of the contemporary university library.6 He found that science faculty in his study generally held the li- brary in lower esteem than did faculty in the other two areas.7 This is compounded by the fact that use of the library by sci- ence faculty in their own research also may be less frequent than in the social sciences and humanities. Thus, it may be that the incorporation of information lit- eracy into science and engineering edu- cation is linked to the attitudes and prac- tices of the faculty, many of whom have been found to be more indifferent to the role of the library in undergraduate edu- cation than their colleagues in the social sciences and humanities. Hardesty and many others suggest that academic librarians can make a cru- cial difference in ensuring that informa- tion literacy skills are integrated into the student’s program in some manner and must make significant efforts to work with faculty. However, this is not an easy task, and numerous studies have shown that librarians and faculty do not under- stand each other ’s role or expectations very well.8 This lack of communication has implications for the work of both li- brarians and faculty in meeting the mis- sion of their institution. Although both groups want to ensure that students are receiving a high-quality education and have the necessary skills for lifelong learning, on many campuses there is con- siderable confusion about who is respon- sible for teaching information literacy skills. This frequently results in dupli- cated or misdirected efforts in teaching information literacy skills to particular . . . it is quite possible for science and engineering undergraduates to avoid the library, if not completely, at least until relatively late in their educational experience. Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 11 types of students, ultimately costing the institution in terms of the allocation of human and fiscal resources. With these reasons in mind, Anita Can- non conducted a study of faculty percep- tions at York University in Toronto, Ontario, in 1994.9 The study was con- ceived to explore faculty attitudes toward BI activities, gain a greater understand- ing of the library research instruction needs of students, and determine what approaches to meeting those needs would be most supported by faculty. A twenty- item questionnaire was sent to all full- time faculty members in the social sci- ences and humanities (565 individuals), with 229 responding. Cannon found that the majority of fac- ulty rated information literacy skills as being valuable or extremely valuable for their students. Generally, they thought that lower-level undergraduates had poor information literacy skills but that this improved in the upper years. Although many faculty had had a librarian come into their classes to discuss library re- search, most had not, and a large number were unaware that librarians would do this. Support was greatest for BI in using computerized information resources for both students and the faculty themselves. However, there were noticeable differ- ences by discipline in terms of faculty awareness and pedagogical practices. Cannon also found, somewhat surpris- ingly, that the majority of faculty who re- sponded favored a shared approach to teaching information-related skills. Although Cannon’s study is invalu- able as a window into faculty perceptions of BI, the patterns of teaching and research in the humanities and social sciences do not necessarily hold true for the sciences and engineering. The ways in which the knowledge base of the latter disciplines is imparted may have an impact on the development of information literacy in students. For instance, Janice Kelland has noted that in physics, the reliance on de- riving equations and conducting experi- ments may account for the conspicuous absence of any references to the need for students in that field to have library-based research skills.10 As well, in engineering and the other sciences, students may pri- marily use standard texts for as long as the first two or three years of study, and thus do not begin to develop information retrieval skills until their senior year, or even graduate school. In other words, it is quite possible for science and engineer- ing undergraduates to avoid the library, if not completely, at least until relatively late in their educational experience. De- spite fears that science and engineering students do not have the requisite infor- mation literacy skills upon graduation, there is still a very limited understand- ing of when and how such skills should be incorporated into the curricula of the different disciplines across the sciences and engineering. Furthermore, very little research has investigated the attitudes/ perceptions of science and engineering faculty with respect to this issue. Objectives In light of the above, the present study was designed to enhance our understand- ing of cross-disciplinary needs for biblio- graphic instruction by investigating fac- ulty perceptions of, attitudes toward, and pedagogical practices in teaching infor- mation literacy in the sciences, health sci- ences, and engineering.11 This goal is in line with Cannon’s recommendations that further research is needed to explore the differences in faculty support for BI activities across a variety of disciplines.12 The research was conducted in two parts. Part one involved a replication (with some modification) of Cannon’s survey, but with science and engineering faculty. The replication is important be- cause it establishes a relatively large and consistent data set from three major uni- versities. Because these universities are very similar with respect to their overall culture, makeup of the faculty and stu- dent body, and library resources, the re- sults are highly comparable, enabling the authors of this study to draw together findings from the arts/humanities, social sciences, sciences, and engineering. 12 College & Research Libraries January 1999 Part one had the following specific objectives: 1. to determine how science and engi- neering faculty assess the information lit- eracy skills of their students; 2. to explore the various practices em- ployed by faculty to develop information literacy in their students; 3. to solicit faculty perceptions of the role of science and engineering librarians in providing bibliographic instruction; 4. to determine levels of faculty sup- port for various bibliographic instruction options; 5. to discover patterns in faculty aware- ness of, and support for, bibliographic instruction by discipline and by depart- ment. Although Cannon’s survey instrument facilitates the collection of certain basic data, it does have a number of shortcom- ings. For instance, although her data re- vealed that library-based assignments were the most popular pedagogical prac- tice by faculty, the survey was not de- signed to elicit detailed information about the types of assignments that faculty give their students, nor their expectations about what the students should demon- strate in such assignments. Therefore, the objective of part two of the research was to provide the investigators with a more complete picture of the expectations and practices of science and engineering fac- ulty with respect to BI through in-depth interviews with a smaller sample of fac- ulty. Thus, part two of the study extends Cannon’s original research and permits exploration of potential explanations of results obtained through the survey por- tion of the study. Methodology The study was conducted at two sites: the University of Waterloo (Waterloo, Ontario) and the University of Western Ontario (London, Ontario). These univer- sities were chosen because both have rather large and diverse engineering and science faculties, thus giving access to an adequate sample of teaching faculty. Fur- thermore, the current practice of these li- brary systems in providing bibliographic instruction to science and engineering students was already known to the inves- tigators. For part one, a revised version of Cannon’s survey instrument was used as the means of data collection. After pre- testing, a 28-item survey was sent in the fall of 1996 to all science and engineering faculty (including sessional, part-time, and full-time) at the two universities (400 at Waterloo and 434 at Western, totaling 834). Follow-up letters were sent two weeks after the initial mailing. In addi- tion to the survey, which was returned anonymously, a statement-of-interest card was included in the package, to be re- turned separately by those faculty mem- bers who would agree to a personal in- terview. The response rate for the survey was 28 percent (233), slightly lower than expected, but a reasonable response for 100 100 93 91 83 80 78 76 71 69 55 54 33 28 28 23 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Ki n. Nu rs in g Ch em . E ng . M ed . S ci. Sy st. E ng . Ea rth S ci. El ec . E ng . Bi o. /Z oo ./P S OT /P T/ CD Ci vil E ng . M ec h. E ng . Ch em . Co m p. S ci. M at h Ph ys ./A st r. St at s. /A ct u. Departmental Groupings P e rc e n ta g e o f F a c u lt y FIGURE 1 Precentage of Faculty by Department Indicating BI is Necessary in 1st–2nd Year Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 13 data analysis purposes and comparable to Cannon’s response of 232 surveys. Thirty-eight faculty members (20 at West- ern and 18 at Waterloo) returned state- ment-of-interest cards. Data from the returned questionnaires were entered into an SPSS for Windows data matrix, and analyzed during the winter and spring of 1997. During the summer and fall of 1997, 35 in-depth, tape-recorded interviews were conducted with volunteer faculty members at the two sites. Currently, transcription and analysis of the interviews are ongoing, using a qualitative data analysis software called The Ethnograph. This article, therefore, reports prima- rily on the survey data, in comparison with Cannon’s survey findings at York. However, preliminary observations from the in-depth interviews are included where appropriate. A more complete dis- cussion of the interview portion of the research is forthcoming. Findings Demographic Characteristics The majority of respondents were full- time faculty (89%), with six percent be- ing sessional and five percent regular part-time. The distribution of teaching experience was fairly even: 23 percent had taught for seven years or less, 25 percent had taught between eight and fifteen years, 21 percent had taught between six- teen and twenty-five years, and 31 per- cent had taught for more than twenty-six years at the university level. Responses by faculty included 46 percent of respon- dents from the sciences, 30 percent from health sciences, and 23 percent from en- gineering.13 Perceptions of Students� Library Research Skills As noted in the introduction, reliance on texts for the first one to two years of study in the sciences and engineering would suggest that perhaps students have less need to make use of the library and thus less need for BI early in their academic careers. When faculty members were asked whether they thought BI was nec- essary for their undergraduates, as antici- pated, 78 percent thought it was neces- sary at the third- and fourth-year level, but a surprising 69 percent stated that it was also necessary at the first- and sec- ond-year level, a finding that directly con- tradicts much of the current thinking. It is evident that faculty in certain depart- ments are more likely to see BI as being necessary in the first to second year (fig- ure 1). For instance, 80 percent or more of the faculty in kinesiology, nursing, chemi- cal engineering, medical sciences, sys- 100 100 92 91 89 87 87 86 75 67 67 67 63 62 57 36 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 M ed . S ci. Sy st . E ng . Ch em . E ng . Bi o. /Z oo ./P S Ki n. Ci vil E ng . Ch em . Nu rs ing Co m p. S ci. M ec h. E ng . Ea rth S ci. Ph ys ./A st r. OT /P T/ CD El ec . E ng . M at h St at s. /A ct u. De partm e ntal Groupings P er ce n ta g e o f F ac u lt y FIGURE 2 Precentage of Faculty by Department Indicating BI is Necessary in 3rd–4th Year 14 College & Research Libraries January 1999 tems engineering, and earth sciences in- dicated that BI is necessary, whereas fac- ulty in computer science, mathematics, physics, and statistics indicated that it is not. In the third and fourth year (figure 2), this changes slightly, with medical sci- ences, systems engineering, chemical en- gineering, and biology faculty indicating the importance of BI in the upper years, whereas occupational/physical therapy, electrical engineering, mathematics, and statistics faculty indicate that it is not as important. It is worth emphasizing here that al- though some departments indicated that library research instruction was not very important for their students regardless of level (such as mathematics, statistics, and physics), more than 60 percent of the fac- ulty in a very large number of depart- ments believed that library research in- struction was important in the first to sec- ond year, third to fourth year, or both. In fact, when comparing figures 1 and 2 with the comparable figures in the York study, there is no noticeable differ- ence. In both studies, only a few departments indicated that informa- tion literacy skills are not very important for their students. In other words, faculty in the sci- ences and engineering were not more likely to think that library re- search skills are less im- portant for their stu- dents. Given that a majority of faculty thought that instruction in library re- search was necessary even in the lower years, how did they rate their students’ abilities to do library re- search? A 5-point scale of “not appli- cable,” “poor,” “satisfactory,” “good,” or “excellent” was used to assess this. For first- to second-year students, 48 percent of the faculty responded that library re- search was “not applicable,” a figure that seems to contradict the perceived need for BI noted previously. In retrospect, it may be that many faculty did not know what their students’ abilities were and so re- sponded in the “not applicable” category. Nevertheless, 29 percent of the faculty rated their first- to second-year students’ abilities as poor and 19 percent rated them as satisfactory. The picture changes somewhat by the third and fourth years, with faculty rat- ing their students’ abilities to be satisfac- tory (35%) to good (26%), with only 17 percent rating them as poor. Faculty per- ceive, therefore, that students’ abilities have improved considerably by their se- nior years, a result that is consistent with Cannon’s findings for the arts/humani- ties and social sciences. As to how this improvement happens, interviews with faculty revealed that a very large num- ber of faculty admit they have a poor un- derstanding of how students learn to do library-based research. The most common . . . another common faculty percep- tion was that students who had not learned to do library-based research by their upper years were unmoti- vated, uninterested, or just poor students. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 N/A Poor Satisfactory Good/Excellent Ability Ratings P er ce n ta g e o f F ac u lt y 1st/2nd Year - Find & Retrieve 3rd/4th Year - Find & Retrieve 1st/2nd Year - Evaluate & Use 3rd/4th Year - Evaluate & Use FIGURE 3 Faculty Perceptions of Students’ Abilities to Find, Retrieve, Evaluate, and Use Information Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 15 thinking was that students somehow learned to do this on their own, by visit- ing libraries and using the resources avail- able, or that they were approaching librar- ians, who then showed them the intrica- cies. These types of observations corre- spond to Hardesty’s “resource” view of teaching—that if enough resources are amassed, students will learn through ex- posure.14 Related to this, another common faculty perception was that students who had not learned to do library-based re- search by their upper years were unmo- tivated, uninterested, or just poor stu- dents. Unfortunately, these views tend to perpetuate the type of individualistic trial-and-error learning environment that many faculty themselves experienced in graduate school but that does not develop the information literacy skills the major- ity of undergraduates today will need to be productive members of society. How- ever, it also should be noted that a small number of faculty do have a good idea of what is required to improve students’ li- brary research skills, even if they them- selves are not always acting on this knowledge. Using the same 5-point scale, faculty members were then asked to rate their students’ abilities to (1) find and retrieve information, and (2) evaluate and effec- tively use the information they obtain. Figure 3 shows a familiar trend: almost half the faculty perceive that finding, re- trieving, evaluating, and using informa- tion is not applicable for first- and sec- ond-year students. Nevertheless, these students are perceived as much less able to find, retrieve, evaluate, and use infor- mation than students in their senior years. Interestingly, faculty members do not rate students’ skills in finding/retrieving and evaluating/using information differently, also a finding noted by Cannon. Expectations regarding Student Assign- ments A large proportion of the respondents indicated that BI was necessary in the lower years, the upper years, or both. Two interpretations of this result could be that a large number of faculty either see the importance of library research skills in principle or already incorporate certain aspects of information literacy into their courses. If the latter, what are the specific requirements for undergraduates to do library research in their science and engi- neering courses? What are faculty expec- tations with respect to the quality of stu- dent assignments? To explore these issues, the survey included a number of questions about courses and expectations for student assignments. Faculty were asked how many of their courses required students to do library re- search (table 1). For first- and second-year students, the majority of faculty (59%) in- dicated that none of their courses required library research. Subsequent interviews with faculty members revealed that this result reflected a number of factors, in- cluding: the heavy emphasis on textbooks in the lower years in many disciplines, a belief that there was so much essential material to cover that students could not be expected to do much beyond the text- book, a lack of TA support to facilitate li- brary research assignments, the overall difficulty of planning library research for very large classes, and difficulty in moti- vating students in lower years to do any- thing beyond the textbook. On the other hand, 41 percent of respondents indicated that some or all of their courses in the first and second years required library re- TABLE 1 Proportion of Faculty Whose Courses Require Library Research, By Year No Some All Courses Courses Courses 1st�2nd year 59% 30% 12% 3rd�4th year 17 44 39 On the other hand, 41 percent of respondents indicated that some or all of their courses in the first and second years required library research. 16 College & Research Libraries January 1999 search. Departmental groupings in which at least half the faculty indicated that this was true included biology, physics/as- tronomy, nursing, medical sciences, kine- siology, occupational/physical therapy, and chemical engineering. Noticeably absent from this list are most of the engi- neering departments, mathematics, statis- tics, and computer science. As anticipated, for third- and fourth- year courses, the proportion of faculty indicating that no library research was required in their courses fell noticeably to 17 percent. The vast majority of faculty (83%) responded that some or all of their upper-level courses did require library research. Faculty members were then asked what types of assignments requiring li- brary research they routinely included in their courses. As table 2 shows, about half the faculty required either short papers or research/design projects in their courses, and slightly more than a third required longer papers or lab/ tutorial reports. Although comparable data are not available from Cannon’s research, it seems reasonable that there would be a greater emphasis on research/design projects and lab reports in science, health sciences, and engineering, reflecting the applied or practical aspects of many dis- ciplines within those faculties. It is en- couraging to think, then, that the faculty are expecting students to do library re- search even in relation to those parts of their programs. Faculty members were also asked what types of literature they expected students to use in doing assignments. Table 3 shows some interesting results. The over- whelming majority of faculty wanted stu- dents to use scholarly journals and mono- graphs. Although this is perhaps to be expected, it still raises the issue of whether students know how to find the materials that faculty expect to see in their bibliographies. Somewhat more surpris- ing is the expectation that undergradu- ates should be using review articles (67%), which are rather specific types of articles that are not easily found unless one is al- ready familiar with the purpose and oc- currence of review articles. In relation to this, several of the faculty interviewed observed that students did not seem to understand what review articles were or how they should be using them, which is problematic if more than two-thirds of the faculty expect students to use them. About half the faculty expected that students should be using the secondary literature in the form of electronic indexes and abstracts, which is surprisingly low given the emphasis on the scholarly jour- nal literature. When combined with print indexes, the figure rises to 83 percent, but this may be misleading because the same faculty could have checked both catego- ries. Nevertheless, this figure does sug- gest that there is still a large proportion of faculty who do not expect students to TABLE 3 Types of Literature Faculty Expect Students to Use Faculty Types of Literature Expecting Scholarly journals 90% Monographs 83 Review articles 67 Electronic indexes/abstracts 53 Handbooks, manuals 40 Government documents 32 Print indexes/abstracts 30 Encyclopedias, dictionaries 25 Statistical data 21 Popular literature 19 TABLE 2 Types of Assignments Requiring Library Use Faculty Types of Assignments Assigning Short papers 52% Research or design projects 51 Long papers/essays 39 Lab or tutorial reports 37 Other 18 Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 17 use indexes and abstracts. This may be partially explained by the comments of numerous faculty interviewed (particu- larly in the sciences) who gave students key citations to assist them in starting to research their topics. Many faculty re- marked that following a citation trail based on key authors was often prefer- able to doing a database search because students viewing a long list of citations often had no idea which authors were influential or important. However, this preference may be somewhat instructor specific because other faculty remarked that learning how to use bibliographic databases and sort through citation lists were important skills for students in their disciplines. Faculty members have definite expec- tations about the kinds of literature stu- dents should be using. To determine how they assess whether students are meet- ing this expectation, faculty were asked about the aspects of stu- dents’ bibliographies that they examine when grading assign- ments. From table 4, it is evident that faculty are looking primarily for specific types of sources and sources that provide suffi- ciently broad coverage of the topic. Currency of sources, correct cita- tion formats, and inclu- sion of expert authors are less important but still are considered by about half the faculty. Pedagogical Practices To explore what faculty actually do in the classroom with respect to improving the information literacy of their students, the survey asked faculty to indicate the peda- gogical practices used to prepare their stu- dents to do library-based research. Table 5 presents the results of this question. Half (or more) of the faculty responded that they never use assignments to introduce library research and never talk about re- trieval tools, search strategies, or the In- ternet in class, whereas about a quarter of the faculty never discuss the research process in general, or appropriate in- dexes/abstracts. Although these results suggest that a large proportion of faculty are doing very little or nothing about in- formation literacy in their classes, it is nonetheless encouraging that 30 to 50 per- cent of faculty are teaching various as- pects of information literacy in their courses at least some, or all, of the time. This suggests that there is a reasonable base of faculty support upon which to build, by either assisting those faculty who already incorporate some aspects of information literacy in their courses to do a bit more or encouraging faculty to move out of the “never” category and into the “some” or “all” categories through the in- corporation of aspects of information lit- TABLE 4 Elements of Students’ Bibliogra- phies Examined by Faculty Faculty Types of Literature Examining Type of source 80% Breadth of coverage 63 Currency 57 Correct citation format 55 Expert authors 44 Other 8 TABLE 5 Faculty Pedagogical Practices for Introducing Library Research Percentage of Faculty Using Never Sometimes Always Assignment: library resources 50% 37% 13% Assignment: critical thinking 19 36 45 Explanation: research process 26 52 22 Explanation: retrieval tools 53 42 5 and search strategies Explanation: Internet 65 30 5 Explanation: indexes, 29 54 17 reference tools 18 College & Research Libraries January 1999 eracy into their courses. Also en- couraging is the fact that 81 percent of faculty are attempting to craft as- signments to foster students’ criti- cal thinking skills. Pedagogical practices with re- spect to information literacy vary considerably from department to department, as table 6 demon- strates. Due to the low number of responses in some categories, dif- ferences may not be statistically sig- nificant but nevertheless may be in- dicators of some interesting trends. Scanning down the columns, it can be seen that: l Proportionately more faculty in statistics/actuarial sciences and chemistry, and fewest in mathemat- ics, give an assignment requiring students to use library resources. l All the faculty who re- sponded from computer science give explanations of the research process. l Proportionately more faculty in systems engineering and medi- cal sciences discuss the Internet. l Proportionately more faculty in systems engineering and chem- istry discuss specific indexes and reference tools, whereas no faculty in statistics or electrical engineering do this. l The highest proportion of fac- ulty using all six teaching practices is found in systems engineering and the lowest in mechanical engineer- ing; l Overall, the highest propor- tion of faculty usage of all six teach- ing practices is in the health sci- ences. These results are comparable to Cannon’s findings that different de- partments in arts/social sciences have preferred or habitual peda- gogical approaches for information literacy. In her study, although as- signments to require students to use the library were a common practice, some departments (such as philoso- TA B L E 6 F ac ul ty P ed ag og ic al P ra ct ic es fo r In tr od uc in g L ib ra ry R es ea rc h Per cen tag e U sin g � Alw ays � o r �S om etim es, � b y D epa rtm ent Bio / Zo o/ Ph ys/ Ea rth Sta ts/ Me d OT / Cp tr Ch em Me ch Civ il Ele c Sys t Ch em Pla nt As tro n Sci Ma th Ac tu Nu rs Sci Kin PT /CD Sci En g En g En g En g En g Ass ign me nt Lib rar y re sou rce s 64 75 37 60 33 75 50 43 55 43 67 50 25 50 50 40 Cri tica l th ink ing 90 79 71 70 67 100 100 96 91 91 100 71 37 62 83 100 Ex pla nat ion Re sea rch pr oce ss 73 75 57 67 25 75 40 85 90 87 100 86 37 75 17 60 Re trie val too ls a nd 30 54 50 67 20 0 80 75 44 43 0 28 25 53 0 80 sea rch str ate gie s Int ern et u se 22 38 37 22 20 0 40 55 40 35 33 28 25 38 33 80 Ind exe s, r efe ren ce 90 73 62 78 33 50 75 70 73 69 67 85 50 58 50 100 too ls Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 19 phy) did far less of this than others (such as English). Cannon’s study also revealed some surprising challenges to conventional thinking. For instance, proportionately fewer faculty in political science and phi- losophy were incorporating information literacy components into their teaching than were faculty in the French depart- ment. One might have anticipated that, given the nature of those disciplines, the reverse finding would have been true. Similar challenges are seen in the authors’ study. For example, statistics/actuarial sciences and computer science are com- monly thought of as being less likely to require their students to use the library, even in the upper years, a perception con- firmed through the interviews with fac- ulty. Despite this, this study’s results show that there are faculty in those disci- plines designing assignments to encour- age use of library resources and explain- ing the research process in class. It is also evident from the data that even divisions in the same discipline (such as engineer- ing) can differ dramatically in the amount of information literacy incorporated into the curriculum. Chemical, civil, and sys- tems engineering are doing more in this regard than mechanical and electrical en- gineering. Similar differences are notice- able across the range of disciplines in the sciences, with mathematics doing the least overall, a finding also tr ue in Cannon’s study. Another perspective on pedagogical practice emerges when the rows across are scanned. It is apparent that: l The majority of faculty in all depart- mental groupings except one are design- ing assignments to facilitate critical think- ing skills. l Explaining indexes and reference tools in class is the most common prac- tice (the majority of faculty in 15 of the 16 groupings indicate that they do this). l Explaining information retrieval options and search strategies is the most variable practice (the majority of faculty in only 7 of the 16 groupings indicate that they do this). l Explanation of the Internet is the least likely practice (done by the major- ity of faculty in only two groupings). These findings are especially interest- ing when compared to Cannon’s data for the arts/social sciences. As in the authors’ study, Cannon found that the most fre- quent practice was to design assignments to foster students’ critical thinking skills. The second most common practice was to design assignments to introduce stu- dents to library resources or information- gathering in some way (78% of faculty). However, this practice does not appear to be as widespread in the sciences and engineering, where only 50 percent of fac- ulty do this some or all of the time. On the other hand, a much higher propor- tion of the science and engineering fac- ulty (74%) provide an explanation of the research process in class than in the arts/ social sciences (30%). As well, a much higher proportion of the science and en- gineering faculty (71%) explain specific indexes and reference tools than their arts/ social science counterparts (28%). Further- more, the authors’ data also show that al- most half (47%) of the science/engineer- ing faculty attempt to explain retrieval tools and search strategies in class some or all of the time, a question not asked by Cannon. These findings are quite surprising and perhaps controversial, suggesting that it is a myth that arts and social sciences fac- ulty will be more likely to incorporate in- formation literacy components into their courses because of the intrinsic nature of those disciplines and how they are taught. True, the use of specific assignments to force students to use the library does seem to be a more common approach in the arts/social sciences. However, this study’s results suggest that science and engineering faculty are more likely to in- corporate explanations of specific sources, tools, and retrieval mechanisms into their classes. Two good examples of this would be chemistry (which must incorporate Chemical Abstracts and/or Beilstein into the curriculum) and civil engineering (which must incorporate particular hand- books of structural standards). 20 College & Research Libraries January 1999 an infrastructure prob- lem: neither library has a computer lab for teaching, with appro- priate site licences for demonstrating various resources.15 Although librarians could ar- range to use general- purpose campus labs, this complicates deliv- ery considerably for both the faculty mem- ber and the librarian, thus making this a less attractive option. With respect to the role of TAs in li- brary research instruction, the data report that a very small proportion of faculty in sciences and engineering use TAs to ei- ther take students on library tours or teach library-based research skills in tu- torials. Thus, the idea that librarians should concentrate on teaching TAs, who will then teach undergraduates, should be examined very critically. Overall, con- centrating instructional efforts on TAs as a way to reach undergraduates does not seem to be a good strategy, except possi- bly with certain departments that are known to use this approach. Table 8 indicates responses to the in- structional services question by depart- mental grouping. Scanning down the col- umns, it is evident that: l Certain departments, such as nurs- ing and kinesiology, do use TAs to assist with information literacy in their courses. l Faculty in nursing, earth sciences, and chemistry made the most use of li- brary tours. l Proportionately more faculty in nursing, biology, and earth sciences had a librarian give a class on library research in general. l Proportionately more faculty in systems engineering, nursing, and biol- ogy had a librarian give a topic-specific class. l Proportionately more faculty in nursing and earth sciences had a librar- ian give a demonstration of library re- sources. TABLE 7 Faculty Use of Library Instructional Services Percentage of Faculty Using Never Sometimes Always Library tour by TA 93% 6% 2% General research class by TA 91 7 2 Library tour by library staff 55 33 12 General research class by librarian 75 19 6 Topic-specific class by librarian 81 13 6 Demo of resources by librarian 63 28 9 Hands-on workshop by librarian 80 13 7 Use of Library Instructional Services and Librarians The university library systems at the two universities offer a range of active instruc- tional services to the sciences and engi- neering faculties, including in-class lec- tures and demonstrations, workshops on specific resources (such as OVID, Biologi- cal Abstracts), tours, and general assis- tance in designing appropriate library- based assignments. A number of survey questions were included to determine how much use faculty members make of available services and to explore reasons for not making use of them. Table 7 demonstrates that a high pro- portion of faculty have never made use of library instructional services, despite the fact that both library systems make efforts to publicize these services. The most heavily used services were general library tours (by almost half of faculty) and demonstrations by librarians (by over one third of faculty). Each of the other services had been used by less than a quarter of the faculty, with topic-specific classes and hands-on workshops given by librarians used the least. Why? The low use of topic-specific classes may result from a lack of awareness of both the ser- vice and what librarians are willing to do. Many of the faculty interviewed com- mented that they had not thought of hav- ing librarians participate in their courses in this way and had not realized that li- brarians would be willing to develop topic-specific classes for them. The low use of hands-on workshops may reflect Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 21 l Hands-on workshops by librarians were not used very much except in nursing. l Nursing made the heaviest use of all six instructional ser- vices, and mathematics made the least. In addition to what can be as- certained from the columns, scanning across the rows reveals that: l All departmental group- ings make use of library tours given by library staff to some extent. l Far less than half of the fac- ulty have had a librarian give a general research class, and a much lower proportion has had a librarian give a subject- specific class. l Demonstration of library resources by a librarian is the most variable category, with some departments using this service a lot and others using it relatively little. l Hands-on workshops are not well used by any department except nursing. The findings in table 8 are quite analogous to those in Cannon’s study, where particu- lar departments made use of in- structional services to varying degrees. For instance, Cannon found that sociology faculty made the greatest use of library tours, whereas English faculty were more likely to have a librar- ian give a subject-specific class. Another comparable finding was that pedagogical practices centered on the librarian were used by lower proportions of faculty than those the faculty can do themselves. In other words, if faculty are doing anything about information literacy, they are doing it with little input from librarians. Although this is no- ticeably true in both studies, it TA B L E 8 F ac ul ty U se o f L ib ra ry I ns tr uc ti on al S er vi ce s Per cen tag e o f �F req uen t� o r �O cca sio nal � U sag e, b y D epa rtm ent Bio / Zo o/ Ph ys/ Ea rth Sta ts/ Me d OT / Cp tr Ch em Me ch Civ il Ele c Sys t Ch em Pla nt As tro n Sci Ma th Ac tu Nu rs Sci Kin PT /CD Sci En g En g En g En g En g Lib rar y to ur by TA 11 13 0 17 0 0 20 5 25 4 0 0 14 0 0 0 Lib rar y re sou rce s 12 16 0 17 0 0 25 5 25 9 0 14 14 0 0 0 tut ori al b y T A Lib rar y to ur by sta ff 73 52 12 80 20 25 100 54 28 32 33 35 37 50 17 60 Ge ner al r ese arc h 33 43 0 43 0 25 67 27 12 18 33 21 0 23 17 40 cla ss b y li bra ria n Top ic- spe cifi c c las s 28 45 0 33 0 25 57 12 0 14 0 21 0 0 0 60 by lib rar ian De mo of lib rar y 50 62 25 75 0 25 83 35 27 18 0 21 25 33 17 60 res our ces by lib rar ian Ha nds -on wo rks hop 11 38 17 28 0 0 85 28 0 18 0 8 25 9 0 0 by lib rar ian 22 College & Research Libraries January 1999 should be pointed out that a comparison of this study’s data (tables 5 and 7) with the comparable data in Cannon’s study reveals that faculty in the sciences and en- gineering actually made greater use of li- brary instructional services than did the arts/social sciences faculty in the York sample. When faculty who did not make use of library instructional services were asked for their reasons, most said that it was simply because such services were not necessary in their courses, echoing the observation from figures 1 and 2 that some faculty in science and engineering simply do not require extensive library research in their courses and thus do not see its importance. This finding is quite unlike the response from arts/social sci- ence faculty, where only nine percent gave this as the reason for not using instruc- tional services. In other words, a much higher proportion of arts/social science faculty perceive that library research in- struction is important for their courses, even though they still may not be mak- ing use of it (for different reasons). A quarter of the faculty in both per- ceive difficulty scheduling library instruc- tional services into their courses (24% in this study, 26% in Cannon’s). From the interviews for this study, science and en- gineering faculty perceive that the disci- plinary knowledge they are required to cover in their courses is already too large, leaving very little room for “frills” such as writing, communication, and informa- tion literacy skills. There was also a no- ticeable resentment on the part of some faculty at having students who had not been adequately educated in these areas in high school. Although librarians can- not directly address the issue of the ever- expanding knowledge base of the disci- plines, they can stress to faculty that in- formation literacy is not a frill but, rather, an essential component of scholarly work in any discipline. On the other hand, librarians can do something about the lack of awareness of library instructional services (31% in this study, 40% in Cannon’s), a persistent bar- rier no matter what the discipline. Inter- views with faculty members further re- vealed that although many of were some- what aware that librarians would come into their classes, they were not aware of what librarians could actually do for them in this regard or had never thought about making use of librarians in this way until the possibility was suggested to them through the interview process. These ob- servations suggest that more direct, inter- personal outreach by librarians is needed if faculty are to be made aware of the in- structional services that librarians can provide; obviously, campuswide adver- tising alone does not make this very ap- parent. On the bright side, it is heartening to note that faculty in science and engineer- ing do not question the academic abili- ties of librarians: only six percent indi- cated that they thought librarians were not knowledgeable enough about the dis- cipline in question to provide instruc- tional services for their course(s). Further- more, faculty are not particularly con- cerned about sharing the classroom with librarians because only four percent in- dicated that they preferred to “do it my- self.” When asked who should provide li- brary research instruction, 46 percent of faculty responded that, as in Cannon’s study, they were open to a collaborative approach to teaching information literacy. In this study, chemistry, nursing, kinesi- ology, electrical engineering, and systems engineering favored a collaborative ap- proach. Nevertheless, a fairly large pro- portion of faculty (39%) would prefer that librarians assume primary responsibility for information literacy. Departments in which a majority of faculty indicated this preference were medical sciences, occu- pational and physical therapy, chemical engineering, and mechanical engineer- . . . a fairly large proportion of faculty (39%) would prefer that librarians assume primary responsi- bility for information literacy. Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 23 ing. Therefore, the data suggest that across all the disciplines of the arts, so- cial sciences, sciences, and engineering, librarians must be open to a variety of approaches in teaching information lit- eracy, in some cases operating collaboratively and in other cases taking sole responsibility. A single pedagogical approach will not meet the needs of a sub- stantial portion of the disciplines in- volved. Usefulness of Library Instruction To gauge the usefulness of library instruc- tion, faculty who had had a librarian give some form of library instruction in the past were asked to answer questions about the experience. Seventy-eight fac- ulty (33% of the sample) responded, which is noticeably lower than Cannon’s response rate of 44 percent for the same questions. In other words, proportion- ately fewer faculty members in this study have had a librarian give in-class instruc- tion than in the arts/social sciences study. Faculty were asked if they had ever discussed the content or collaborated on developing exercises with the librarian prior to the instructional session. Their responses were fairly evenly distributed, with 53 percent stating they had collabo- rated and 47 percent indicating they had not. This distribution seems to parallel the finding noted previously that some fac- ulty prefer a more collaborative approach and others prefer that the librarian as- sume responsibility for the instruction. Faculty were then asked if they had at- tended the instructional session(s) in question. Slightly more than half (56%) said they had. Faculty were also asked about the use- fulness of the instruction for their stu- dents and evidence from students’ assign- ments of greater library use. The response to the usefulness question was positive (77%), with 21 percent unsure as to how useful it was. Although this is a more cau- tious endorsement than in Cannon’s study (96% positive), these data may be a more realistic reflection of faculty percep- tion because Cannon’s survey did not have a category for “unsure.” With re- spect to evidence from students’ assign- ments, 57 percent of faculty responding thought that assignments did show greater use of library resources, but 39 percent were unsure. Only four percent did not see any evidence of improvement after the instructional session. Finally, fac- ulty were asked if they had given the li- brarian any feedback after the instruc- tional session(s), with 56 percent reply- ing yes and 44 percent replying no. Overall, it seems that faculty who have had a librarian give an instructional ses- sion were pleased with the result for their courses and did see evidence of improve- ment in students’ library research skills in their assignments. However, it is also clear that some faculty are not sure what should be in library instructional sessions and also are unsure how to judge whether students’ library research skills have ac- tually improved as a result. This may be partially explained by the fact that 44 per- cent of faculty did not attend the instruc- tional sessions and thus were unsure what had been covered and how to judge possible student improvement. Further- more, because just more than half the fac- ulty discussed the session afterward with the librarian, it does seem that there is room for improvement in this regard as well. Faculty and librarians obviously need to discuss the learning objectives and desired outcomes for instructional sessions so that both parties have a clearer idea of what is to be achieved and how these achievements can be evaluated by professors. Faculty Interest in BI Options The final series of questions on the sur- vey explored faculty interest in a number of options for the delivery of biblio- graphic instruction. Faculty were asked to indicate support for options relating to the development of their own informa- tion literacy, instructional services for their courses, and other assistance using a 5-point scale from 4 (strong interest, would support) to 1 (no opinion, or not applicable). Tables 9 and 10 show the re- 24 College & Research Libraries January 1999 sponses of faculty indicating a 4 (strongly interested) or a 3 (interested) for the sug- gested options. As table 9 indicates, options that re- lated to faculty members’ own informa- tion literacy were by far the most popu- lar. In particular, there was considerable faculty interest in more hands-on work- shops of specific tools, with a high of 79 percent of faculty in the health sciences supporting this option. Faculty support of instructional ser- vices involving librarians was less posi- tive, with only about half supporting in- class lectures or demonstrations by librar- ians. Faculty in the sciences were gener- ally less interested in this than faculty in engineering and health sciences. To de- termine which departmental groupings supported these two options, a cross- tabulation was carried out. Departments in which a majority of faculty supported the idea of in-class course- specific lec- tures included chemistry, biology, nurs- ing, medicine, occupational and physical therapy, and chemical engineering. Sur- prisingly, only two groupings clearly in- dicated no interest in in-class lectures: physics/astronomy and earth sciences. For in-class demonstrations by librarians, support was indicated by a majority in chemistry, biology, nursing, kinesiology, occupational and physical therapy, chemical engineering, civil engineering, and systems engineering. For this option, only earth sciences faculty were clearly not interested. Despite the 46 percent interest in a col- laborative approach to teaching informa- tion literacy shown on an earlier question, only about a third of faculty were inter- ested in collaboratively designing assign- ments and an even smaller proportion were interested in team teaching or grad- ing. Departments in which a third or more of the faculty supported the collaborative design of assignments and/or team teach- ing/grading included a now familiar group: chemistry, biology, nursing, medi- cal sciences, kinesiology, occupational and physical therapy, and chemical engi- neering. Because it seems that for many faculty, notions of collaboration do not extend to assignments, teaching, or grad- ing, the question then arises as to what the faculty conception of collaboration really is. Perhaps faculty and librarians have quite different interpretations of what it means to deliver information lit- eracy in a collaborative fashion, which is an issue that could be explored in further research. It is clear from table 10 that there was interest in more “how-to” guides, a find- ing that goes along with the faculty in- terest in more hands-on workshops. Sup- port for traditional subject bibliographies is lower, except in health sciences. This TABLE 9 Faculty Interest in Library Instruction Options for Faculty and Courses Percentage of Faculty �Interested� or �Strongly Interested� Overall Science English Health For Faculty Review of research tools/techniques 67% 63% 65% 73% Hands-on workshops on specific tools 69 61 73 79 For Courses In-class course-specific lecture by librarian 50 40 58 61 In-class demo of resources by librarian 50 42 54 58 Library research assignment designed by 33 29 33 40 faculty with librarian Team teaching/grading with librarian 23 18 29 25 Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 25 result would suggest that librarians’ at- tempts to facilitate individualized learn- ing through informal BI methodologies such as help sheets and electronic help sources are in the right direction, and that faculty perceive that aids facilitating self- sufficient learning are good, for both themselves and their students. Finally, table 10 also provides informa- tion on the interest in having required li- brary research components at various lev- els and credit courses in library research. The least popular alternative was the li- brary research methods credit course. Less than one quarter of the faculty were interested in such a course, whether op- tional or required (with the exception of health sciences, which slightly favored an optional credit course in the first year). Generally, the figures showing faculty interest in credit courses are far lower than in Cannon’s study, perhaps suggest- ing that arts/social sciences faculty are more open to this approach than are fac- ulty in the sciences and engineering. The idea of a library research module or component for existing courses was far more popular than the idea of an entire course. This is an inter- esting finding given that many institutions recently have been moving in a formal way toward this model, with an institutional commit- ment to incorporating information literacy into all programs.16 Al- though there was some support from health sci- ences for a required li- brary research compo- nent for first-year courses, engineering and science faculty were not as keen on this idea. Support was great- est for having a re- quired library research module for upper-level courses. Furthermore, the proportion of fac- ulty interested in the library research module approach was very close to the one favoring this approach in Cannon’s study. It would seem, then, that faculty across a wide variety of disciplines are quite interested in seeing whether a li- brary research component could be inte- grated into the courses in their speciali- ties. Faculty in arts and social sciences are more interested in seeing this done at the first-year level, whereas faculty in the sci- ences and engineering are more supportive of this approach for upper-level courses. Discussion When compared to Cannon’s study of arts/humanities and social science fac- ulty, many of the findings in this study were quite similar. In this study’s re- search, faculty generally thought their undergraduate students’ skills in finding, retrieving, using, and evaluating informa- tion were poor in the lower years, but improved somewhat by the upper years. Along these lines, a large majority of fac- ulty indicated that library research in- struction for their students was impor- tant. However, the optimal timing of such TABLE 10 Faculty Interest in Other Library Instruction Options Percentage of Faculty �Interested� or �Strongly Interested� Overall Science English Health More subject guides, 35% 27% 36% 46% bibliographies More how-to guides 48 42 48 58 Required library research 38 16 42 54 component, 1st year Required library research 42 36 38 55 component, upper years Optional credit course in 1st year 25 20 23 33 2nd year 25 24 24 28 3rd year 23 29 19 18 4th year 25 32 23 15 Required credit course in 1st year 9 9 3 15 2nd year 9 10 12 6 3rd year 13 13 12 13 4th year 13 13 17 9 26 College & Research Libraries January 1999 instruction varied considerably by disci- pline. Faculty in some disciplines (such as nursing) wanted to have library in- struction at the first- and second-year lev- els, whereas others (such as systems en- gineering) preferred library instruction for third- and fourth-year courses (al- though a few disciplines felt it was not important at any level). As well, more than half the faculty expected students to use the library for their assignments, even if these assignments took the form of lab reports or design projects. All of these findings have close parallels in Cannon’s results. As in Cannon’s study, a noticeable pro- portion of faculty were attempting to in- corporate information literacy into their courses at least some of the time. In the arts/social sciences, these faculty mem- bers preferred to design assignments that required library usage, whereas in the sciences and engineering, they were more likely to talk about appropriate references tools and indexes in class. Unfortunately, in both studies, a large group of faculty did very little with respect to library re- search instruction in their own courses and were generally unaware that librar- ians would come into class to assist them in this regard. Joy Thomas also found this to be true in a study that looked at fac- ulty attitudes toward library instruction at California State University in Long Beach in 1982 and again in 1990. She con- cluded that “most CSULB faculty still seem to feel little responsibility for assur- ing that their students develop library skills, traditional or electronic.”17 It is somewhat surprising, then, that both this study and Cannon’s found that about half of the faculty favored a more collabora- tive approach to library research instruc- tion, involving both the librarian and the faculty member. The flip side of this find- ing, however, is that about half of the fac- ulty did not favor a collaborative ap- proach and would like librarians to take sole responsibility for information literacy instruction. What can be made of such findings, particularly as some of them appear to be so contradictory? As Maynard suggests, is it simply that faculty attitudes and prac- tices with respect to BI are highly vari- able and inconsistent, defying any at- tempts to make sense of them?18 The au- thors think not. There is now consider- able evidence from this and other research that faculty attitudes toward information literacy are fairly consistent: faculty gen- erally believe that students ought to know how to do library-based research and that the development of such skills is an im- portant part of their education (except in a very small number of disciplines). The authors contend that the apparent incon- sistency is not so much with faculty atti- tudes as with faculty pedagogical prac- tices. Although some faculty have already made use of library instructional services, incorporating information literacy into their courses and making it a priority in their teaching, others have not. The ques- tion is, why not? Interviews with faculty have been ex- tremely helpful in revealing the factors involved in the “why not” of the infor- mation literacy equation. Whether or not an individual faculty member will be- come more proactive in integrating infor- mation literacy into his or her courses depends on the interplay among a num- ber of complex variables that drive the educational process. Examples of the vari- ables that may have an impact on indi- vidual faculty members include: l discipline and disciplinary curricu- lum; l program type (expectations, size, etc.); l program pedagogical philosophy; l class size; l level of classroom support (TAs, etc.); l failure of secondary education to adequately prepare students; l personal philosophy of teaching and higher education; The idea of a library research module or component for existing courses was far more popular than the idea of an entire course. Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 27 l personal skill with information re- trieval; l years of teaching; l personal experiences learning to do library research; l views of librarians’ roles and ser- vices. More of these factors may come into play for some faculty members than for others. Taking program pedagogical phi- losophy as an example, some programs incorporate aspects of information lit- eracy directly into the curriculum, such as with a problem-based learning ap- proach. Faculty who teach within such a curriculum structure are more likely to integrate information literacy into their courses because it is an integral part of the overall program philosophy and is not left up to individual faculty members. On the other hand, a factor such as disciplin- ary curriculum may negatively influence the incorporation of information literacy into courses. As noted by Thomas, a far higher proportion of faculty in her 1990 survey complained that the disciplinary curriculum was too full to incorporate information literacy than had been the case in 1982.19 The interviews for this study revealed that many faculty mem- bers hold the same belief. Conclusions Despite the complexity of the information literacy equation, certain general recom- mendations can be drawn from this re- search. First, although this has been stated many times before by other authors, the timing and tailoring of library instruction is critical. The study results show very clearly that a library research instructional program will not succeed if it is kept ge- neric. Librarians involved in instructional activities must come to know individual disciplines, departments, and programs because all have slightly different expec- tations and needs. Instruction must be strongly course related. Second, librarians must be prepared to take a flexible pedagogical approach. Some faculty are keen to have a collabo- rative experience, others are not. Librar- ians should not think that all instructional activities must take place in the same way or the needs of their faculty clients will not be met. Third, the authors strongly concur with Cannon that more direct liaison with departments and individual faculty mem- bers must take place. Obviously, general advertising attempts to inform faculty about the expertise of librarians and the instructional services of the library have not worked terribly well. A more proac- tive and interpersonal marketing strategy is needed, with both departments and individual faculty members. Fourth, hands-on review sessions and workshops for faculty should be a prior- ity in the library instructional program. There appears to be considerable faculty interest in upgrading their own informa- tion literacy and some evidence to sug- gest that faculty who are more comfort- able with information retrieval will be more likely to consider it for their own courses. However, setting such a priority will mean that two other barriers will have to be dealt with: (1) securing appro- priate computer-equipped teaching labs for library use, whether within the library itself or elsewhere on campus; and (2) arranging for appropriate site licenses so that meaningful hands-on experiences can take place. Having these resources in place will make it considerably easier to deliver hands-on instruction to students as well. Fifth, Cannon’s suggestion to concen- trate on making the user self-sufficient was reinforced in this study. The study results and interviews suggest that many faculty want to find information for them- selves and also expect this of their stu- dents. To this end, faculty perceive that more self-directed learning is useful, for both themselves and their students, sug- gesting that more how-to guides, elec- tronic help screens for various resources, and print and online pathfinders are de- sirable. However, faculty perceptions of what is best for their students and what students actually make use may be two different things, so librarians also must 28 College & Research Libraries January 1999 assess student use of such resources be- fore committing large amounts of time to this endeavor. There is less interest in the development of comprehensive bibliog- raphies, so librarians should not expend a lot of effort on such resources unless de- partments have indicated they will use them. Finally, the Internet may provide aca- demic librarians with a very useful way into campus classrooms. The survey re- sults show that, compared to other re- sources, the Internet is the least likely to be discussed in class by faculty, yet the study interviews revealed that faculty are very concerned about how students are using the Internet and whether it should be sanctioned. Some departments have banned the use of Internet resources for any of their courses. Clearly, faculty could use some assistance in deciding how to handle the growing demand from under- graduates to allow them to use the Inter- net. This is an area where academic librar- ians could become very actively involved and could put their expertise to effective use, while also creating opportunities for future valuable contributions to the life of the academy. This research was supported by the Carroll Preston Baber Research Grant of the American Library Association. The authors express special thanks to their excellent research assistant, Lisa Given, and to Jennifer Noon of the Taylor Sci- ence & Engineering Library, University of Western Ontario. Notes 1. Lilith R. Kunkel, Susan M. Weaver, and Kim N. Cook, “What Do They Know? An Assess- ment of Undergraduate Library Skills,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 22 (Nov. 1996): 430–34; Sonia Bodi, “Scholarship or Propaganda: How Can Librarians Help Undergraduates Tell the Difference?” Journal of Academic Librarianship 21 (Jan. 1995): 21–26; Patricia Wallace, “How Do Patrons Search the Online Catalog When No-one’s Looking?” RQ 33 (winter 1993): 239–52; Lawrence Reed, “Locally Loaded Databases and Undergraduate Bibliographic Instruction,” RQ 33 (winter 1993): 266–73; Stan Nash and M.C. Wilson, “Value-added Bibliographic Instruction: Teaching Students to Find the Right Citations,” Reference Services Review 19 (spring 1991): 87–92; Gillian Allen, “Database Selection by Patrons Using CD-ROM,” College & Research Libraries 51 (Jan. 1990): 69–75. 2. Mark Rosenzweig and Graeme Gardner, “ChEs See Significant Gains and Changes,” Chemi- cal Engineering Progress (Nov. 1994): 54–61. 3. Julia Bichteler and D. Ward, “Information-seeking Behaviour of Geoscientists,” Special Libraries 80, no. 3 (summer 1989): 169–78. 4. The terminology used to describe librarians’ teaching activities with respect to informa- tion literacy varies greatly. Although some recent authors use the term information literacy quite freely, the more established term is bibliographic instruction, or BI. In this article, the terms BI, information literacy, and library research instruction are used interchangeably to describe librar- ians’ efforts to teach students how to find, retrieve, critically evaluate and use appropriate infor- mation in all its forms. 5. J. Edmund Maynard, “A Case Study of Faculty Attitudes toward Library Instruction: the Citadel Experience,” Reference Services Review 18 (summer 1990): 67–76. 6. Larry Hardesty, Faculty and the Library: The Undergraduate Experience (Norwood, N.J.: Ablex, 1991); see also Larry Hardesty, “Faculty Culture and Bibliographic Instruction: An Exploratory Analysis,” Library Trends 44 (fall 1995): 339–67. 7. Ibid. 8. Robert Ivey, “Teaching Faculty Perceptions of Academic Librarians at Memphis State Uni- versity,” College & Research Libraries 55 (Jan. 1994): 69–82; Jean Major, “Mature Librarians and the University Faculty: Factors Contributing to Librarians’ Acceptance as Colleagues,” College & Research Libraries 54 (Nov. 1993): 463–9; Anne Lipow, “Outreach to Faculty: Why and How,” in Working with Faculty in the New Electronic Library (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Pierian Pr., 1992), 7–24; G. Divay, A.M. Ducas, and N. Michaud-Oystryk, “Faculty Perceptions of Librarians at the Univer- sity of Manitoba,” College & Research Libraries 48 (Jan. 1987): 49–62. 9. Anita Cannon, “Faculty Survey on Library Research Instruction,” RQ 33 (summer 1994): 524–41. Information Literacy in Science and Engineering Undergraduate Education 29 10. Janice Kelland, Bibliographic Instruction Programs in the Sciences. London, Ont.: Univ. of Western Ontario, Graduate School of Library and Information Science, 1995, Unpublished inde- pendent study. 11. For the sake of brevity throughout the discussion, the term sciences also will include the health sciences. 12. Cannon, “Faculty Survey on Library Research Instruction,” 538. 13. Because departmental names and disciplinary orientations varied slightly between the two sites, departments were grouped if necessary. The departments or groupings for each area are as follows: Science includes chemistry, biology/zoology/plant sciences, physics/astronomy, earth sciences, computer science, mathematics/applied mathematics, and statistics/actuarial science. Engineering includes chemical, mechanical, civil/materials, electrical, and systems en- gineering. Health science includes nursing, kinesiology, occupational/physical therapy and com- municative disorders, and medical sciences (i.e., medical science courses such as anatomy, im- munology, neurology, biophysics, biochemistry, physiology, and pharmacology available to sci- ence undergraduates. The Faculty of Medicine per se is not included in the study.). 14. Hardesty, Faculty and the Library, 103. 15. Since the time of the study, the University of Western Ontario Library System has con- structed a computerized instructional laboratory in the Weldon Library. 16. Two examples include Gabriela Sonntag and Donna Ohr, “The Development of a Lower- Division, General Education, Course-Integrated Information Literacy Program,” College & Re- search Libraries 57 (July 1996): 331–38; Steve Gowler, “The Habit of Seeking: Liberal Education and the Library at Berea College,” Library Trends 44 (fall 1995): 387–99. 17. Joy Thomas, “Faculty Attitudes and Habits concerning Library Instruction: How Much Has Changed Since 1982?” Research Strategies 12 (fall 1994): 209–23. 18. Maynard, “A Case Study of Faculty Attitudes toward Library Instruction.” 19. Thomas,”Faculty Attitudes and Habits concerning Library Instruction,” 217