Julia Flood & Beth Thompson (Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London)

Introduction: Providing information literacy education for large art and design courses presents a number of difficulties. At Central St Martins (CSM), a successful model of tailored, interactive, group workshops has been developed that has prompted positive feedback from students and a better relationship with the course team. 

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Background: A yearly cohort of approximately 550 Foundation students enrol on the Foundation Art & Design course at CSM for an intensive seven months of study, which often leads to acceptance onto a full-time undergraduate course at University of the Arts London (UAL) or another arts institution. The two part‐time librarians supporting the course are responsible for providing timely and useful information literacy education for the students.

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The problems: The librarians have encountered barriers to ensuring the students are all equipped with the information literacy and retrieval skills necessary for them to confidently locate, use and cite high-quality primary and secondary resources in their first foray into further education study in a higher education environment. Issues have ranged from difficulty embedding information literacy programmes into the large and complex network of tutor‐led groups comprising the 14 diagnostic and specialist pathways. A pilot series of workshops at the beginning of the course offering a general introduction to online resources for all pathways was sporadically attended, and received mixed feedback. Foundation’s blend of academic and practice‐based learning strategies can be an obstacle to the students, who come from a wide variety of learning backgrounds. It can be a challenge to find the right pace for information literacy workshops and it is often difficult to integrate critical evaluation skills and basic knowledge of online resources into a single workshop, as well as meeting the tutors' requests that we introduce the students to more theoretical text‐based resources.

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What we have found that works: our presentation will demonstrate how piloting different class types –  drop‐ins, small tutorials, large lectures, one‐on‐one tutorials, and group information skills classes –  has enabled us to successfully create a model for group workshops that promotes the effective seeking and use of both theoretical and practice‐based resources to students. Workshops are tailored to specific subjects, pathways or projects as appropriate to ensure relevancy, and their project‐oriented nature allows students to discuss their individual topics with both fellow students and librarians, thus allowing people of all abilities to leave with information relevant to their current project and empowered with the skills to apply to their future research. This model has received better and more meaningful feedback from students, as well as an improved collaborative approach between librarians and pathway leaders.

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The future: It is hoped that in the future the successful model will be embedded across all subject pathways, and that workshops can be timed as early in the academic year as possible to ensure the students have the opportunity to make the most of the resources for their research.

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Beth Thompson and Julia Flood are Assistant Academic Support Librarians at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. They have both represented the course in Foundation Art & Design since May 2014. Beth previously worked at the University of Westminster, and Julia has worked at the British Museum and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.