The Library Instruction Cookbook

by Ryan L. Sittler (editor), Douglas Cook (editor)

The Library Instruction Cookbook is a practical collection of learning recipes, each of which includes a plan for conducting a specific type of learning session and which indicates how the recipe reflects specific ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.



The Library Instruction Cookbook is stuffed with recipes from academic librarians from around the world. Chef editors Ryan Sittler and Doug Cook have gathered 97 of the best lesson plans to spice up the student experience. Recipes meet the learning goals of the following occasions:



Library Orientation

Teaching Basic Library Skills

Teaching Citations and Plagiarism

Evaluating Various Types of Resources

Teaching Specialized Research Skills

Teaching Discipline Related Research

Teaching with Technology



Each recipe is accompanied by the following teaching and planning aids:


Main Cooking Technique

ACRL Information Dietary Standards Addressed (ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards)

Main Ingredients

Preparation Steps

Allergy Warnings


This book is appropriate for college, university, and community college libraries with instruction programs. It is also appropriate for schools of library and information science.

Genres: Librarianship, Nonfiction, Professional Development, Library Science

196 pages, Paperback

First published July 15, 2009

About the author

Ryan L. Sittler is an associate professor and the instructional technology/information literacy librarian at California University of Pennsylvania. He received his MSLS from Clarion University of Pennsylvania, MSIT from Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, and Ph.D. in Communications Media and Instructional Technology from Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Sittler has coedited multiple books on both information literacy and Springshare’s LibGuides platform. Among these are The Library Instruction Cookbook (2009), Using LibGuides to Enhance Library Services (2013), and Innovative LibGuides Applications (2016). Dr. Sittler is also part of a team that developed the educational information literacy game "A Planet in Peril: Plagiarism," which won the Caspian Learning 2010 Serious Games Challenge. His current research interests are instructional design in educational games and media effects as they relate to information processing. He also happens to be a huge Doctor Who fan. He can be contacted via email at sittler@calu.edu or on Twitter.

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a really hard time getting into this book because the format makes it so difficult to take it seriously. They took the cookbook analogy way too far in my opinion. Every lesson plan as a part of a meal? Each lesson is formatted as a recipe complete with:

-nutritional information (learning goals)
-cooking time (length of session)
-ACRL information dietary standards addressed (was it really necessary to change literacy to dietary?)
-Main cooking technique (type of session, i.e. group activity, independent work, etc.)
-Main ingredients (what you need to complete the class, i.e. classroom with projector, PPT, handouts, etc.)
-Preparation
-Allergy warnings (challenges)
-Chef's note (anecdotal info from the librarian)

While the format of each lesson plan was silly, it did lay out each format in a very organized, easy to understand way. In general, I found that many of the activities were inappropriate for college students, and that again, librarians are trying too hard to be cool. But there were some good ideas in there.

[Lawral · Rating 3 out of 5]

there are a lot of interesting ideas in this book, but many of them simply say things like, "have students fill out a worksheet about [topic]." not only is this not groundbreaking (especially since there are multiple instances of this throughout the book), but the worksheets are not included. some of the "recipes" provide urls for the mentioned worksheets, but in every case i checked, the urls were no longer valid. still some quality ideas, but they are just that: ideas.

[Janet]

I would love to see a revised version of this book, since it was written in 2009. I’m sure there would be a lot of updates, especially in the technology section. However, it has some useful tidbits for developing active learning exercises.

[Douglas Cook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am co-editor of this book.

The Library Instruction Cookbook is a practical collection of “learning recipes,” each of which includes a plan for conducting a specific type of learning session and which indicates how the recipe reflects specific ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.

The Library Instruction Cookbook is stuffed with recipes from academic librarians from around the world. Chef editors Ryan Sittler and Doug Cook have gathered 97 of the best lesson plans to spice up the student experience. Recipes meet the learning goals of the following occasions:


Library Orientation

Teaching Basic Library Skills

Teaching Citations and Plagiarism

Evaluating Various Types of Resources

Teaching Specialized Research Skills

Teaching Discipline Related Research

Teaching with Technology

Each recipe is accompanied by the following teaching and planning aids:


Main Cooking Technique

ACRL Information Dietary Standards Addressed (ACRL Information Literacy Competency Standards)

Main Ingredients

Preparation Steps

Allergy Warnings

This book is appropriate for college, university, and community college libraries with instruction programs. It is also appropriate for schools of library and information science.

[Alison · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book collects ideas for interactive information literacy lessons. This fall I paged through it occasionally to try to get some ideas for my classes, but the problem I ran into was that the ideas often called for all, or more than all, of the time I had available. These exercises may be better suited in library instruction atmospheres where you're teaching a for-credit class (or at least see the same class multiple times). I may try to look at this with an eye towards paring down some of the ideas a bit, but when the students have to work together in groups or explore on their own, you can only cut out so much time, and there is a LOT we are supposed to cover in our sessions (too much, if you ask me, but I'm not in charge).

[Danielle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read this as part of my effort to change up my instruction sessions. There are some really interesting ideas and I'm going to be making a file of activities to pull from. However, I did find the way the cookbook metaphor was carried through the book to be distracting. Many of the headings are in cookbook parlance and it was especially painful when authors used cooking terms when explaining how to carry out the activity ("Using a pinch of keywords"; "Shake (print) until the correct amount is yielded"); fortunately few of the authors used this approach.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I chose this book because of the cookbook title but found the structure a bit distracting after all. However, I did find some specific teaching ideas and techniques that I plan to adapt for my library instruction sessions.

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cooking analogies were a bit annoying, but this was really great collection for brainstorming. I will definitely be using some of these ideas.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

not quite what I expected

[Mckinley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Formatting forced into 'recipes' of lessons. Would be best to have on hand to browse through for sessions.

[Lisa]

Looking for some new ideas for my instruction sessions and this is a fun book!

[S Sattizahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very useful and full of ways to engage students while accomplishing the standards

[Liz De Coster · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit overboard on the concept, but useful.