Bryant University. The Character of Success

Information Literacy at Douglas & Judith Krupp Library

Program Mission

The mission of the Douglas & Judith Krupp Library’s information literacy program is to ensure Bryant students receive training in information literacy skills and graduate with a proven ability to use these skills.  The program also exists to familiarize Bryant faculty, staff, and students with resources available through the library and to update this community on new resources as they are added to the library collection.

Program Development

The library’s uses the Information Literacy and Competency Standards for Higher Education developed by the Association of College & Research Libraries as its benchmark for the information literacy standards taught by the department.  This benchmark, along with its accompanying Objectives for Information Literacy Instruction: A Model Statement for Academic Librarians, contains a listing of standards, performance indicators and outcomes for a model college and university information literacy program.

The library is currently working collaboratively with administration, faculty and academic support offices to determine the most effective and appropriate information literacy program across the curriculum at Bryant University.

Past Programs

Using results of an Information Literacy Survey given to a sample of approximately 250 students in the freshmen Literary and Cultural Studies class, course content was developed for a class lecture presenting information literacy skills to students in a required freshman class titled Information, Resources and Technology (IRT).  The IRT class lecture introduces to students information literacy skills and promotes library resources.  Librarians reinforce the skills learned in the IRT class as well as introduce the nuanced information literacy concepts of subject specific research, with individual student appointments, upper level subject specific class instruction, and in cooperative work with faculty in specific classes.

View the Spring 2009 IRT Power Point Presentation Version I & Version II

In 2009, the Information, Resources and Technology (IRT) course was absorbed into other first year required courses.   

Information Literacy Report

The classes listed below are a combination of introductory information literacy instruction sessions and subject/assignment-based instruction. The subject/assignment-based instruction is developed through librarian partnerships with faculty members.  

Semester  # of Classes Taught # of Students Taught
Fall 2011 132 3011
Spring 2011 67 1517
Fall 2010 97 2078
Spring 2010 64 1429
Fall 2009 85 2006
Spring 2009 69 1437
Fall 2008 73 1757
Spring 2008 58 1738
Fall 2007 91 2098
Spring 2007 56 1181
Fall 2006 78 1368
Spring 2006 42 1065
Fall 2005 63 1241
Spring 2005 19 541
Fall 2004 45 1005
Spring 2004 25 570
Fall 2003 52 811
Spring 2003 23 not recorded
Fall 2002 69 not recorded
Spring 2002 31 not recorded
Fall 2001 50 not recorded
Participating Academic Departments:
  • Accounting
  • Advertising
  • Anthropology
  • Business
  • Communication
  • Finance
  • History
  • Legal Studies
  • Literature
  • Literary & Cultural Studies
  • Management
  • Marketing
  • Political Science
  • Psychology
  • Science
  • Sociology
  • Tax
  • Women's Studies

Program Assessment

The Douglas & Judith Krupp Library administered a Research Practices Survey to all Freshmen students in the Fall of 2008.  The same group of students was then administered a follow-up survey to evaluate the effectiveness of the information literacy program in the Spring of 2009.  Beyond effectiveness of the program at Bryant, the survey also benchmarks the Bryant students against those students of similar institutions.

Fall 2008 Survey Results

Spring 2009 Survey Results with Comparison