34 Association of Research Libraries Research Library Issues 290 2017 presentation,” we decided to create a pilot project that emphasized customization, the flipped classroom, and specific assignments. When we discussed the findings about the library’s instruction program with the director of teaching excellence of Cornell’s College of Engineering, she proposed a collaboration with two of the engineering courses that she was helping to redesign at the time. Tying in with the flipped classroom concept employed in the course redesign, the library produced a number of short instructional videos, each to develop a specific skill. All of the videos were of the “how- to” type: how to find high-impact articles how to find authoritative, scholarly articles how to find phase diagrams how to find high-quality videos of experiments etc. These videos were then embedded in the Blackboard syllabus to accompany specific assignments needing such skills for a truly on-demand, just-in-time instruction experience, where students who already have the appropriate skills can easily skip the items they don’t need. This partnership made even more sense because, among all the Cornell colleges, the engineering faculty’s evaluation of the usefulness of library instruction was one of the least positive. The pilot project targeted two fall 2015 engineering courses and produced a total of eight videos by two subject librarians. The length of the videos was between two and eight minutes. Two different methods were used for presentation. One used a split- screen method that showed the librarian, subtitles, as well as screen capture of the information resources being discussed. The other used only the screen capture with narration and subtitles. All videos were entitled “Ask a Librarian,” followed by the content of the video posed as a question. The reasoning behind this approach was to also use this opportunity to brand the library and show students the kind of research help they can expect to get from a librarian. Project Evaluation and Conclusion We evaluated the video project in various ways. An indication of usage was the number of times the videos had been accessed along with
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