As You Like It - Part 1 - Building, Executing, and Assessing an Adaptable Library Instruction Program for First-Year Experience Courses

Oct 15, 2026

Providing targeted experiences for first-year students inside and outside the classroom supports connections and lays the groundwork for academic success. The article describes how instruction librarians collaborate with faculty to design, pilot, and implement an information literacy program tailored to first-year experience courses. It addresses scalability and sustainability challenges created by course volume and shrinking library staff, and highlights reusable library resources, shared delivery ideas, and more intentional class assignments.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages23

Reading Time58 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Background and Rationale

First-year experience movement and high-impact practices

Program Design and Collaboration

Building adaptable information literacy instruction

Implementation and Assessment

Piloting and fully implementing the course approach

Scalability and Sustainability

Resources, delivery collaboration, and assignment strategies

Communications in Information Literacy | Volume 16 Issue 2 | Article 6 | | --- | --- | | 12-15-2022
As You Like It: Building, Executing, and Assessing an Adaptable Library Instruction Program for First-Year Experience Courses
Joy I. Hansen
Central Connecticut State University, [jhansen@ccsu.edu](jhansen@ccsu.edu)
Follow this and additional works at: [https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit](https://pdxscholar.library.pdx.edu/comminfolit)
Part of the Higher Education Commons, and the Information Literacy Commons
Let us know how access to this document benefits you. | | Recommended Citation Hansen, J. I. (2022) . As You Like It: Building, Executing, and Assessing an Adaptable Library Instruction Program for First-Year Experience Courses. Communications in Information Literacy, 16 (2), 182–203. [https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2022.16.2.6](https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2022.16.2.6) This open access Innovative Practice is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionNonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4 .0) . All documents in PDXScholar should meet accessibility standards. If we can make this document more accessible to you, contact our team. As You Like It: Building, Executing, and Assessing an Adaptable Library Instruction Program for First-Year Experience Courses Joy I. Hansen, Central Connecticut State University Abstract Providing targeted experiences for first-year students both inside and outside the classroom is essential for building connections and creating a foundation for skill development necessary for academic success. Many first-year programs include a standalone course for incoming students or specific content weaved into existing course offerings. Information literacy skill-building holds an important place in these efforts; therefore, instruction librarians are provided additional opportunities to collaborate with faculty and reach students. Depending upon the size of the institution, however, the sheer number of firstyear courses combined with shrinking library staff pose challenges. This Innovative Practices article is one library’s experience with building, executing, and assessing an information literacy program specific to the needs of first-year students in response to these challenges. Offering an array of library resources, collaborating on ideas for instruction delivery, and crafting a more intentional approach to assigning classes are solutions that may be adapted to address scalability and sustainability concerns. Keywords: first-year students, first-year experience, information literacy instruction Innovative Practices edited by Andrea Baer, Carolyn Gamtso, and Merinda McLure Hansen, J. I. (2022). As you like it: Building, executing, and assessing an adaptable library instruction program for first-year experience courses. Communications in Information Literacy, 16(2), 182–203. As You Like It: Building, Executing, and Assessing an Adaptable Library Instruction Program for First-Year Experience Courses Some fifty years ago, in response to student civil unrest, the University of South Carolina introduced University 101, a seminar designed specifically to help students adjust to college life (Roach, 1998). Dr. John N. Gardner served as the program’s faculty director, launching the first-year experience movement. Since that time, with the establishment of the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition and its popular annual conference, there have been numerous publications written and courses developed to address the needs of first-year students transitioning to college. By definition, a first-year experience program is designed to “assist students in their academic and social development and in their transition to college,” ultimately to improve student retention (Hunter & Linder, 2005, p. 275) . The Association of American Colleges & Universities poi

FAQs

Why do first-year experience programs emphasize information literacy instruction?

Information literacy skill-building supports academic success by helping students evaluate sources, use information ethically and legally, and connect with library resources to meet course goals.

What challenges does the article identify for libraries supporting first-year experience courses?

Libraries may be under-resourced to respond to expanding first-year programs, and course embedding across disciplines adds complications from differing teaching styles and learning objectives.

How did instruction librarians at Central Connecticut State University respond to these challenges?

They collaborated with academic faculty to design, pilot, and fully implement a first-year experience course information literacy program, adapting delivery to staffing and disciplinary needs.

Oct 15, 2026

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