Proceedings of the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color - 314

lead us to surmise that the instructional faculty are best situated to do intensive information literacy training that foster concrete skill development and critical thinking. The Kirkpatrick assessment model provides further justification for faculty teaching of information literacy skills. Given this analysis the role of the instructional librarian must shift. Faculty/librarian relations must not only be more collaborative but the librarian must become both a faculty coach and an assignment consultant. Furthermore, the librarian must spend more time working with faculty to incorporate information literacy into course outlines not just individual course assignments. These efforts by multiple departments would lead to the incorporation of information literacy outcomes into graduation requirements or a portfolio component requirement. Academic librarians must be more involved in the curriculum development process. These partnerships should evolve into pro-active relationships that further inform the ethnic studies disciplines regarding the need for fluency development. This activism within local departments should logically lead to the development of national discipline standards embraced and approved by the appropriate national organizations, such as, the National Council of Black Studies and the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies. This can only become a reality if strong models of success are created throughout the country. The Black Studies project required an immense effort of a totally committed librarian team. While in the end some release time was allotted, without the full participation of the team this project would not have seen fruition. Working in a team was a godsend both to deal with workload issues and to have intelligent resourceful partners to bounce ideas off of. In both the Black Studies and Chicano & Latino Studies projects, the library faculty had to be extremely astute to the ongoing philosophy and goals of the particular Departments. In both instances the expertise of Susan Luévano, the Ethnic Studies Librarian, was invaluable. She was aware of not only the intellectual leanings of the faculty but also department factions and potential barriers to success. Anyone who attempts a similar project should have a solid grounding in the discipline or find someone who does to work with. Without the respect for and understanding of these ethnic studies disciplines, librarians will have a difficult time receiving full buy in from individual faculty and the department as a whole. In both projects there was a concerted effort to lobby one or two key faculty before presenting the project to the entire department. Librarians need to figure out who these gate keepers are and work with them to support your efforts. Insights and Future Applications Now that we have had some time to reflect on these two projects, we would like to share some insights and future applications that would be helpful in conducting a faculty centered class. Librarians should do usability testing of the tutorial being used; hire a web designer if participating librarians do not have these skills; build in opportunities for revision and feedback on class assignments; have faculty develop rubrics for assignments; learn more educational theory and vocabulary; focus on a particular departmental course; attempt to target core curriculum; and take into account the teaching styles and technological literacy of faculty. In conclusion, we would like to emphasize the importance of using focus groups when training instructional faculty and the need to publish findings of ethnic studies information literacy Politics The success or failure of pilot projects can be determined by system, campus, library, college, or department politics. The two projects outlined in this presentation were no exception. We would like to share some areas that were challenges to the success of the CSULB classes. Within the CSULB, University Library staffing was low due to retirements and librarian departures. Receiving approval for release time to develop the initial tutorial, plan and conduct the sessions was problematic despite grant funding. Concrete library support is absolutely necessary to the creation and carrying out of a faculty centered project. Be sure you have it! 314

Proceedings of the First National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color

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