Information Literacy at the Point of Need – Literature Review Workshops

Information literacy instruction for graduate students has historically been limited to orientations for new students Some of the reasons for this limited instruction have been faculty members' assumptions that graduate students already possess Information Literacy skills or should be able to figure out the process of finding, accessing and evaluating information on their own (Hardesty, 1995), and graduate students' own self-assessment that they possess some level of Information Literacy skills already (Perrett, 2004). With an abundance of undergraduate students to guide through the process of using the library each year, it has been easy for librarians to allow these assumptions to continue undisturbed. However, researchers examining the information seeking behaviors of graduate students have begun to create an awareness of graduate students' need to receive more intentional guidance through the research process (George et al. I will be discussing a program that we have developed at Oregon State University to address graduate students' Information Literacy needs at a particular point of need. Oregon State University (OSU) has a graduate student population of approximately 3500 students, and approximately 400 new graduate students arrive every year. OSU has particular strengths in the life sciences disciplines, including agriculture and forestry, and in engineering. OSU Libraries services for graduate students have been comprised of one-on-one consultations when requested by students, some one-shot instructional sessions, and fall orientation sessions for new graduate students. The OSU Libraries began holding these fall orientation sessions for new graduate students several years ago. While these orientation sessions provided students with a basic idea of the services available through the