Making Research Make Sense: Guiding College Students into Information Literacy through the Information Search Process

Bennett College for Women is a private, four year college serving approximately 725 African-American women in Greensboro, North Carolina. Because of its unique demographic as one of only two all-female, historically black colleges in the United States, Bennett College attracts women from across the country and the world with a profound diversity of talents and preparation for undergraduate study. The Thomas F. Holgate Library supports the research needs of the college through an active instructional services program at the undergraduate level. While the library has provided library orientation and traditional bibliographic instruction for decades, during the 2007/8 academic year, and with the support of a Mellon Foundation grant, the library staff undertook a significant overhaul of its instructional services to better align with information literacy best practices and to respond to the diversity of preparation among its student body.