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This fall a First-Year Seminar (FYS) sparked a cross-team collaborative effort between RITS and Special Collections. When Jenny Puckett requested an instructional session for her FYS (Modern Wake Forest: A Living History), Vicki Johnson, Giz Womack, and Bobbie Collins combined their expertise to create a LIBGuide for the course. Due to the nature of this FYS, Puckett arranged to have Womack and Collins meet with her class to cover reference materials and electronic databases. In October, this FYS will visit Special Collections to examine primary source materials.The session on September 14 with Womack and Collins focused on how to search for library materials using JumpStart, how to navigate the electronic databases, and how to capture text and images from the Old Gold and Black and the Howler. To set the mood for the class and to show off the American Song database, a playlist was created highlighting 1950s recording artists. Elvis appeared briefly at the beginning of class singing his hit “Blue Suede Shoes.”

During the session, students were introduced to Readers’ Guide Retrospective. This FYS will use this database to identify popular journals such as Newsweek and Life. It is interesting to note that Wake Forest has been featured in several Life magazine articles. For example, one Life magazine article (December 2, 1957) shows pictures of a rebellion on campus. To protest the campus ban on dancing, students “tooted bugles, shot firecrackers, burned the convention president in effigy and danced a bunny hop across campus” (p.32). Students were shown how to find both the print and electronic version of Life. The students enjoyed looking at some of the articles from the 1950s.

Following Collins’ presentation, Womack instructed the class on the use of the Snipping Tool”, a tool for capturing screen shots as image files in Windows 7. Students used the Snipping Tool to insert articles and images from both the Howler and OG&B into MS Word documents. The students will use this technique to insert supporting materials into the papers they write for the class.

Within the RITS team (and also outside of the team), there is a lot of information literacy collaboration going on this fall. Instructional sessions are enhanced, and we have better learning outcomes when we can collaborate with other colleagues.