Exploring Opportunities in Health Science Information Instructional Outreach: A Case Study Highlighting One Academic Library's Experience

Setting The Stage

Developing students’ health information literacy skills in the vast wilderness of health information today has become more challenging than ever for practitioners in the field, especially those Academic Health Science Librarians who serve students in remote areas through online distance learning and health science and nursing students on the ground at cohorts in remote area hospitals. New opportunities exist that offer creative pedagogical approaches for academic health science librarians to cultivate active learning of health information literacy skills in their students that are not physically on campus. Forward looking academic librarians and health science library liaisons who desire to harness the full potential of outreach programming for their students off campus are considering outreach initiatives that leverage their libraries online resources, increase student usage, and improve health information literacy through active learning strategies. Health information outreach instructional programs such as the one that will be presented in this chapter grant academic health science librarians the unprecedented opportunity to meet students on common ground, where they are and to offer quality information literacy instruction integrating the technology that students are already using in places they already are.