What do You Give the Undergraduate Researcher who has Everything? An Academic Librarian

We examine 12 library skills curricula developed for two formalized undergraduate research training programs that occurred between the time periods, 1999–2008 and 2013–2015, at the University of Tennessee to answer the question: how has library skills instruction for these programs adapted to changing technologies, tools, and expectations of student performance? Our analysis is based upon data mined from course documents. We contextualize these data with reflections on the course design experience from the principal course designer and knowledge holder. Findings from our constructivist analysis of course curricula demonstrate the value of formal partnerships between academic libraries/librarians and undergraduate research training programs/administrators on college and university campuses. Although such relationships seem unnecessary, given the increase in students' unmediated access to research tools, we find that innovations in research tools and other technologies create opportunities to deepen students' engagement with academic librarians. While the more recent curricula (2013–2015) have required students to demonstrate traditional library (research) skills, such as the ability to search and retrieve information and to properly cite sources, they have also challenged students to think and behave as scholars: to critically evaluate sources and information, to seamlessly integrate information into original scholarship, and to disseminate original scholarship among their respective scholarly communities.