“Excuse Me, but What Is a Research Paper?”: Embedded Librarian Program and Information Literacy Skills of Community College Students

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the embedded librarian program and its impact on the information literacy skills of community college students at Queensborough Community College (QCC). It is a collaboration between an embedded librarian and an English instructor at QCC. The study participants are QCC students enrolled in seven sections of English 101 and English 102 in the fall 2014 and spring 2015 semesters. An annotated bibliography is used to measure information literacy skills and is graded using a rubric. The results are positive in terms of students' abilities to utilize library databases and find reliable sources. However, the results indicate that students need improvement in the citation process: citing sources in a style format, incorporating sources properly in writing (in-text citation), and creating a works cited page. This article also discusses the findings from voluntary surveys in which the same students participated.

KEYWORDS:

• information literacy; embedded librarianship; first-year community college students; rubric-based assessment; annotated bibliography