User Instruction Librarians Niyati Pandya (Rockville) and Jenny Hatleberg (TP/SS) will be presenting at the 2012 LOEX National Conference on May 4, 2012. The LOEX Conference is focused on information literacy instruction and academic libraries. The MC Librarians' presentation is titled "A Gateway to Outcomes Assessment: Collaborating on a Multi-Session Library Instruction Program," and will describe how the Libraries' collaboration with the Gateway to College program has created an opportunity for the Libraries to assess students' information literacy skills.

This collaboration began during the summer of 2010, when the Gateway to College program approached the Library to request a 5-part series of two-hour library instruction sessions, which are integrated into the Gateway to College Reading/Writing curriculum. The sessions now take place at all three campuses, during the Gateway Research and Service Learning seminar.

Teaching a series of intensive library sessions to the same group of students over the course of a semester presented the Librarians with the opportunity to conduct a programmatic evaluation of student learning, using a variety of assessment tools (including student feedback, targeted assignments, and rubrics). Each library session addresses at least two ACRL Information Literacy Standards. We have been able to take advantage of what we learned from our assessment tools and try new approaches to teaching the content.

We plan to use this experience to expand outcomes assessment across the Libraries' information literacy program.