For Faculty: Instruction and Reference

Students, faculty, or staff can email librarian@tlu.edu to arrange a one-on-one reference consultation. The librarians love to help people find, use, and create scholarly information, whether for a freshman's Composition paper, a senior's Capstone project, or a faculty member's research agenda. We can also talk to faculty about designing assignments that use library resources. 

Contact Mark Dibble or librarian@tlu.edu to arrange for course-integrated instruction sessions.

Or, fill out this form to request a session.

Instruction librarians work closely with classroom faculty to teach students to find relevant information, evaluate it critically, and use it to address research problems. Instruction sessions are developed in response to the needs of specific disciplines, course levels, and learning objectives. We can meet in your regularly scheduled classroom, online, or in the library instruction lab (20 student desks with 12 desktop computers). 

Instruction sessions are usually one full class period. We can also visit multiple times. We want you as the instructor to be present, especially if we haven't worked with your class before. 

Instruction program mission statement

The Blumberg Memorial Library instruction program is dedicated to teaching students how to understand and conduct research for their classes, everyday lives, and future careers.  Instruction librarians work closely with classroom faculty to teach students to find relevant information, evaluate it critically, and use it to address research problems. Instruction sessions are developed in response to the needs of specific disciplines, course levels, and learning objectives. The instruction program supports the mission of the library and the mission of Texas Lutheran University.

Instruction Student Learning Outcomes

1. Students will understand that the research process involves answering a research question or solving a research problem.

• 1.1 Students will be able to develop a research question.
• 1.2 Students will be able to develop keywords related to their research question.
•  1.3 Students will be able to develop search phrases using Boolean operators and the appropriate keywords related to their research question.
• 1.4 Students will understand that a research question often changes as you start to find basic information.
• 1.5 Students will understand that new keywords and search phrases might need to be developed as one’s research develops.

2. Students will understand how to use the library’s resources

• 2.1 Students will know how to locate and use the library OPAC and how to locate books in the library’s collection.
• 2.2 Students will know how to access the library’s databases.
•  2.3 Students will know and understand the different ways to search the library’s resources
  •  2.3.1 Students will understand the difference between a keyword and a subject search
  • 2.3.2 Students will understand the specialized resources use specialized search features and language
  • 2.3.3 Students will understand how to use truncation and wildcards
• 2.4 Students will know and understand the various ways to access sources they locate in the library’s resources.
• 2.5 Students will know where to find assistance in the library.

3. Students will understand that all information needs to be evaluated.  

• 3.1 Students will know that different resources provide different types of sources.
• 3.2 Students will be able to recognize different types of sources
• 3.3 Student will understand when their research problem requires that they use different appropriate sources
• 3.4 Students will be able to evaluate sources for relevancy, accuracy, and validity.

4. Students will understand how to use sources properly.

• 4.1 Students will be able to recognize the appropriate parts of a citation.
• 4.2 Students will know how to use the appropriate citation style.
• 4.3 Students will understand what plagiarism is and how to avoid it.

To see if a journal or magazine is available, either online or in print, look in the Publications by Title list.

Need an item that our library doesn't own? No worries, you can email the title, author and date of what you need to ill@tlu.edu or fill out a form. We can get most (but not all) articles within 2 days and many books within 4-8 days. 

For more information, visit our interlibrary loan page.