Undergraduate and Instructional Services

The Undergraduate and Instructional Services department provides in-person, online, and asynchronous instructional services and library outreach to all students with an emphasis on undergraduates. Our engagement and outreach services focus on undergraduates and campus groups that support undergraduate students.

Our services and resources include:

• Library instruction classes for first-year and second-year undergraduates
• course curriculum and assignment development
• collaborative learning events and activities
• instructional support for students and faculty at global sites
• workshops

Instructional Support and Frameworks

Syllabus and Assignment Consultations

We offer faculty consultations to develop class syllabi, determine library resources relevant to your course content, and to collaborate on designing purposeful library research assignments. This includes consultations regarding ways to incorporate critical pedagogy and critical information literacy into library instruction sessions and resources.

Critical Pedagogy

The NYU Division of Libraries is working to adopt a philosophy of teaching inspired by the theory of critical pedagogy and informed by other critical theories such as critical race theory, queer theory, transnationalism and others. Our goal is that those who teach in the library are empowered to move beyond traditional bibliographic instruction and database demonstration to also explore topics of power, privilege, and oppression and its intersections with information access in the classroom.

Critical pedagogy rejects what Paulo Freire referred to as the banking method of education, where students are empty vessels to be filled with the uncontested knowledge poured into them by their teachers. This banking method leaves no room for dialogue, collaborative knowledge building, or lived experience.

We are available for instruction consultations regarding critical pedagogy, critical librarianship, and critical information literacy.

Online and Asynchronous Instruction

We are available to consult with you on how to best and most appropriately collaborate and deliver library resources and information literacy materials through online platforms and asynchronous formats that suit the needs of your course content. We are also available to consult with pedagogical applications and considerations pertaining to the use of various digital tools.

Student Success

We provide programming and instruction with the goal of decreasing library anxiety by helping students lay the foundations for their research and cultivating a sense of belonging in the library. This work applies to all students, but is specifically focused on supporting marginalized populations, such as first-generation students, English language learners, and students of color.

Global Sites

We provide research and instruction support for faculty and students at NYU’s global sites. For additional information on services and support, email lib-global@nyu.edu.

Assessment

We provide post-instruction assessment to get a better understanding of student learning needs, with the goal of reflecting upon and improving our teaching practices.

Ready to request a library instruction class?

Instruction may be conducted in person in the library or the requestor’s classroom, via Zoom, or using asynchronous materials. Please refer to our Instruction Information page for more information.

• For first and second year undergraduate writing courses
  • To schedule, complete the Instruction Request Form
• For discipline-specific library instruction session for discipline-specific undergraduate, masters, and doctoral level courses.
  • To schedule, please contact your subject librarian
• For Workshops, Online Instruction Modules, and Consultations Services for assignments and course objectives.
  • Refer to schedule for upcoming workshops