Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Southeastern STEM Education Research Conference 2026
Abstract
The American Chemical Society (ACS) guidelines for chemical literacy, in undergraduate programs, are in three critical areas: information retrieval, information evaluation, and information management. As part of an ACS certified degree (1) students receive instruction in effective methods for performing and assessing the quality of searches using keywords, authors, abstracts, citations, patents, and structures/substructures; (2) students can use chemical identifiers to locate physical and chemical properties in handbooks and databases; and (3) students are assessed in their ability to conduct effective searches by reading, analyzing, interpreting, and citing the chemical literature as applied to answering chemical questions. There is an assumption that first year graduate students have learned these chemical literacy skills as part of their undergraduate degree. However, despite this ACS certification requirement, many students have had minimal engagement in the three critical areas from faculty and staff.
STEM students, faculty, and staff are often unaware of information literacy resources and pedagogical support available to them. Perhaps more importantly, even when they are aware of academic support, many STEM students feel like they are (silently) discouraged from seeking help from these resources. The perceived bias is, I should be able to figure things out myself, otherwise how can I expect to be considered a real scientist? This phenomenon is exacerbated by imposter syndrome and only worsens as chemists climb through the academic ranks. For example, new faculty are often given instructional responsibilities without prior training or significant support for their new academic responsibilities. In this presentation, we aim to highlight ways in which we can normalize the librarian as a partner in academic and research endeavors for undergraduate, graduate students (particularly TAs), staff, and faculty.
There is precedence for welcoming subject specialist librarians into chemistry classrooms and teaching laboratories. The literature contains information about an honors general chemistry exercise very similar to the one employed in honors general chemistry lab (CH 126) at UAB – a subject specialist librarian is brought in to introduce the use of proper syntax for searching the scholarly literature, which empowers students to create their own lab experiments within the course. Tomaszewski also makes a bold argument for embedding a librarian in laboratory courses. The librarians provide training on software and database usage to both the course’s students and the faculty. Furthermore, there is also precedent for including chemical information literacy instruction throughout the chemistry curriculum, such as the Stepping Stone Approach of Yeagley et al. by integrating critical information literacy skills, over multiple years.
Teaching faculty and staff from the Department of Chemistry at the University of Alabama at Birmingham are embracing their relationship with the subject specialist librarian to support teaching, learning, and research endeavors for both undergraduate and graduate students.
Publication Date
1-10-2026
Department
Chemistry
College or School
UAB Libraries
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
McGuire, Ashley S.; Humphries, Ellen A`; and Curtiss, Ash B C, "Chemistry + Libraries -> Better Learning" (2026). Libraries Professional Work. 36.
https://digitalcommons.library.uab.edu/libraries-pw/36
