Drop-In Clinics for Environmental Studies Students

The delivery of library instruction to students in those areas of the sciences and the social sciences dealing with biology and the environment has a long history (Bowden & Di Benedetto 2001; Kutner 2000; Kutner & Danks 2007; Sapp 2006; Sinn 1998). Often these instruction sessions take the form of a one hour lecture or workshop at the start of a semester before the students have begun their projects or papers. This "one-shot" approach, though popular, has its limitations. It may not be offered at a time when the students will actually start making use of library resources, it may not be tied very specifically to a particular assignment, or it may be too general in nature to be of much use to students later on when they need to look at particular topics in much more depth than can be addressed in one such session. The following article describes another approach: the strategic use of drop-in clinics as a method of instruction in which the students themselves determine how the instruction proceeds.