This document summarizes a unique collaborative course between librarians, food science and nutrition departments, and food businesses. The course aimed to teach students information literacy and problem-based learning skills. Key aspects included: - Student teams worked with industry partners to research solutions to real problems. Librarians played a leadership role on each team. - The course was successful in developing students' research, teamwork, communication and presentation abilities. - Feedback led to improvements like reducing tools, better virtual conferencing, and increased industry partner involvement. The course became established and plans were made to expand opportunities for students and librarians.

1. INFORMATION LITERACY &INFORMATION LITERACY &
PROBLEM BASED LEARNING:PROBLEM BASED LEARNING:
A UNIQUE COLLABORATION OF LIBRARIANS,A UNIQUE COLLABORATION OF LIBRARIANS,
DEPARTMENTS, & FOOD BUSINESSESDEPARTMENTS, & FOOD BUSINESSES
Martin Kesselman & Adria Sherman
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA
martyk@rci.rutgers.edu
LILAC, Cardiff, UK 2009

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3. Overview
 Who Moved the Library?
 Becoming Embedded
 A Unique Collaborative Course
 Future Options and Opportunities
 Breaking Down Barriers

4. Who Moved The Cheese (Library)?

5. “In the future faculty expect to be less dependent on the library
and increasingly dependent on electronic materials. By contrast
librarians generally think their role will remain unchanged and
their responsibilities will only grow in the future. Indeed, over
four fifths of the librarians believe that the role of the library as
the starting point or gateway for locating scholarly information
will be very or extremely important in five years, a decided
mismatch with faculty views.”
-- Ithaka 2006
http://www.ithaka.org/research/Ithaka.Surveys.2006.Overview.pdf

6. Scientists’ Use of Librarians

7. A Comment from a Scientist
“The online digital library at my institution is excellent. The
librarians are not needed much because they have done
such a good job of implementing the digital interface.
Occasionally something goes wrong and we need to
consult with them. … Our librarians are like a fine engine
in an expensive car - you seldom notice they are there
because the performance is so good and you are enjoying
the ride. To beat the metaphor into the ground, maybe
they need to add the digital equivalent of a big horn to
remind us from time to time.”

9. Some Definitions: Embedded
According to Random House:
“to fix into a surrounding mass: to embed
stones in cement”
“to contain or implant as an essential or
characteristic part”

10. Embedded Librarian Variables
Shumaker & Tyler
 Where’s your office?
 Who pays your salary?
 Who writes your performance review?
 Go to meetings of your customers?

11. Other variables
Kesselman & Watstein
 Integrated into their settings?
 Collaborate with disciplinary faculty?

12. Embedded Examples
 Courseware integration via Sakai
 Offices in academic departments
 Librarians on research teams
 Developing databases and metadata
 Library as publisher
 Institutional repositories, data curation

13. Food and Nutrition Business
Information and Communication
Experimental Course, Spring and Fall 2007

14. Moment of Opportunity
 USDA Higher Education Challenge Grant
 Collaborative brainstorming
 Builds on need for food industry leaders with
information & communications skills for
collaboration in business and science
 Builds on: cooperative education, Rutgers
programs with small food businesses

15. A collaboration of Many
 Food Science Dept. & Center for Advanced
Food Technology (Henryk Daun, Linda
Gavin)
 Nutritional Sciences Dept. (Adria Sherman)
 Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics
& Food Policy Institute (Ramu Govindasamy )
 Rutgers University Libraries (Martin
Kesselman, Andrew Ruggiero, Ryan
Womack)
 School of Communication, Information, and
Library Studies (Dan O’Connor)

16. Timeline
 2004 -- USDA Grant announced
 Librarian emails seeking collaborators.
 Brainstorming, collaboration expands to many
 Grant awarded for 2005-2007 (100K)
 2005 -- personnel changes, 1 year extension.
 2006 -- Test class with grad students
 2007 -- course offered twice
 2008 -- analysis, future plans
 2009 -- established course

17. Major Course Topics
 Working with industry partners
 Teamwork skills
 Developing Action Plans e.g. Marketing
 Communication and Presentation Skills
 Information Research in Business, Food
Science and Nutrition
 Course Conference

18. Food and Nutrition Business
Information & Communication
 Interdisciplinary student teams work
collaboratively with an industry partner
 Library students on each team
 Learn to deal with each discipline’s
vocabulary and perspectives
 Learn to interpret and interlink information
from business and science
 Leadership of librarians in the process

19. Course Learning Outcomes
 Gain real-life problem solving experiences in
working with an industry partner.
 Learn how to research and evaluate
information and data
 Develop interdisciplinary teamwork skills
needed by today’s professionals
 Develop skills to report, communication, and
present their findings to others
Focus: ACRL Information Literacy Standards
and Competencies from IFT and ADA

20. Information Literacy Focus
 Effective search strategies
 Differentiation between scholarly, trade,
popular journal articles and websites
 Evaluation of results for relevancy to industry
partner’s problem
 Changing nature of scholarly communication
 Developing effective bibliographies and
literature reviews

21. The Virtual Collaboratory
• Sakai courseware
• Virtual meetings – class/team forums & chat
• Information resources – databases, AgNIC,
• Class conference presentations
• Additional tools such as Google Docs,
Skype, Basecamp, Refworks.

22. CLASS VIDEO
Student and faculty perceptions about the course
& snapshots of student conference presentations.
Teaching Faculty:
Henryk Daun & Linda Gavin (Food Science)
Dan O’Connor (SCILS) Adria Sherman
(Nutrition)

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24. Assessment of Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcome Evaluation rubric (each item was scored on a
scale of 1-5 (1=poor, 2= fair, 3= good, 4= excellent,
5=outstanding)
Gain real-life problem-solving
experience working with an industry
partner
The team understood the problem and identified an
approach in a timely and effective manner.
Learn to research & evaluate
information and data needed to solve
the problem
The literature review was comprehensive and
utilized appropriate resources. The team provided
useful solutions to the problem.
Develop interdisciplinary teamwork
skills
The team worked synergistically, communicated
well with each other and utilized communication
tools effectively.
Develop skills to communicate, report,
and present findings to others
Oral presentation of findings to industry partners
was effective. The paper was well written and
sources adequately documented.

25. Phosphate Substitutes in Meat
Team
 Since 1982 phosphates have been
used to protect flavors and bind waters
 Problem: As consumers seek more
natural ingredients, identify substitutes
for phosphates in meat.
 Team: Food Science and Nutrition
students, business student resigned
due to health.

26. Phosphates in Meat Approach
 Compare alginates with phosphates.
Food science student investigated
alginate and kelp. Tomato fiber was
also considered.
 Nutrition student focused on health
aspects of phosphate salts and
alginates and calcium phosphate or
sodium phosphate.

27. Phosphates in Meat Output
 Oral presentation with PowerPoint
 Review paper written with 19 sources (7
books, 4 articles, 7 websites, 1 trade)
 Sakai used for sharing information and
phone calls between the two students
 Evaluation: 24/30 or 80%

28. Pentose/Xylose Sugars Team
 Pentose and xylose sugars are
currently extracted from Asian
pumpkins and watermelon rinds
 Problem: Literature search of extraction
methods, alternative sources of sugars,
clinical benefits for diabetic patients.
 Team: Nutrition and Business students

29. Sugars Team Approach
 Investigate plants with extractable amounts
of sugars, clinical efficacy for diabetes,
marketing of sugars as ingredients in foods.
 Nutrition student found several plant
species and byproducts, extraction
methods and metabolism of these sugars
 Business student analyzed market potential
for diabetics and of current products that
are marketed to diabetics.

30. Sugar Team Output
 Extensive use of databases: SciFinder,
CAB, FSTA, Mintel, Marketline
 PowerPoint and literature review (15
articles, 3 market reports)
 Used face to face meetings, business
student worked more independently
 Evaluation: 25/30 or 83%

31. Preventing Bread Staling Team
 Baked goods have a self-life of 8hrs,
extend it to 24hrs for economic gains
 Problem: Identify techniques/ingredients
to prevent staling and increase shelf life
 Team: 1 library student, 1 food science
student (both graduate students)

32. Staling Team Approach
 With industry partner, agreed to focus on 4
ingredients to prevent moisture loss: water,
starch, hydroxymethylpropylcellulose, protein
 Focus was on developing an extensive
literature review

33. Staling Team Output
 PowerPoint and papers.
 Used SciFinder, CAB, FSTA, Agricola
 Literature review included 70 articles, 3
books, 1 patent.
 Communication via Sakai, email and
phone. Also posted useful resources
for class on developing effective
reviews.
 Evaluation: 27/30 or 90%.

34. Course Feedback
 Issues related to team size, team mix, and
working collaboratively as a team.
 More time needed for class and teams
 Increased participation of business partners.
Charge?
 Use fewer tools (more focus on Sakai)
 Better tools for virtual conferencing -- from
group chat to Skype
 Better coordination for internships

35. Plans for Fall 2009
 Established Junior/Senior Colloquium.
 MLIS students: independent study or work
study students assisting the class.
 2 meetings per week
 Additional hands-on training with tools
 Team building exercises
 Incorporate meetings with industry partners at
their site
 Peer evaluation of team participation

36. Future Directions
 FNBIC as a capstone course for new BS/MS
in Food Business
 Distance learning: virtual teams, multiple
universities, global industry partners.
 Web 2.0: Interact with experts beyond the
university and NJ, Tagging, Blogging
 MUVES e.g. Second Life, simulations
 More collaboration opportunities: librarians as
partners in teaching and research.

37. BREAKING DOWN
BARRIERS

38. Partnerships not Service
 Librarians as partners: grants, teaching,
research
 Bridging multiple departments & fields
 Bridging vocabularies and perspectives
 ROI of librarians with faculty and students

39. Collaboration Opportunities
 Creating Tools that Promote Collaborations
 Collective Intelligence
 Micro Social networks
 Social Operating Systems on the horizon
 Global collaborations of researchers require
global collaborations of librarians.

40. Getting Inspired
 Stay current with developments
 What’s on the Horizon?
 Seek out grants
 Seek opportunities to network: e.g. attend
departmental meetings and seminars.
 Leave your comfort zone, be a risk taker
 Keep a log of your ideas
 Check out micro social networks
 Creativity & Idea Generation tools

41. Resources
 Kept Up Academic Librarian http://keptup.typepad.com
 Library Success Wiki http://www.libsuccess.org
 SLA. Innovation Lab http://www.sla.org/innovate
 Horizon Report http://www.nmc.org
 Innovation Tools http://www.innovationtools.com
 Designing Better Libraries http://dbl.lishost.org
 Embedded http://embeddedlibrarian.wordpress.com