Embedded Literacy Programs within a First-Year Service Learning Course: Opportunities for Library Outreach and Instruction

Abstract

Library faculty participating in first-year experience courses have an opportunity to engage with students and collaborate with departmental faculty across many disciplines in ways that can strengthen library programs already in place.  At Mississippi State University, a successful service learning course for freshmen is in its fifth year, aimed at improving retention rates, developing personal connections with new students, and helping them hone leadership skills and citizenship through service to their local community. In collaborations with administrators in student affairs and public libraries, information literacy components were embedded within the service learning projects to create new relationships and new partners in outreach and instruction efforts.