Closing the Gap When Casey Long, business liaison librarian at Georgia State University, was working with a group of seniors there, she realized that few of them were familiar with the research tools she was teaching them. “It seemed that students [in business, one of the largest academic divisions] should already be equipped with these skills by the time they reach this class,” she says. This sparked her “zealous pursuit of establishing an undergraduate information literacy program,” recalls Long. “My idea is to make sure the library is a component of at least three core business classes that are taken by all business school students.”
Long's dream-in-progress entails some predictable challenges. “Not all professors are amenable to giving up class time, so this accomplishment is particularly impressive,” says nominator Sarah Steiner, learning commons librarian at Georgia State, who adds that Long now reaches almost 100 percent of students either virtually or physically.
A fervor for relationship-building among faculty explains the effort's success, but Long's knack for designing an engaging curriculum is a result of her own wayward academic past, she says. “I was an unmotivated student who was easily distracted.” Long failed sixth-grade math because she spent too much class time gazing out a picture window by her desk. “I design training with tactics to keep someone like me engaged.”
Long recently received a teaching award that was based on a study showing a “quantitative evidence of improvement in student information literacy skills,” she says. “Having proof of success is a powerful factor in gathering support.”
