Library Instruction - and the beat goes on

This is a resent post from a listserv I subscribe to, a lot of it should look familiar, and I'm curious for others opinions of these issues.

"From: Kim Ranger [mailto:rangerk@gvsu.edu]

Is alleviating library anxiety a valid reason for staying with a librarian-taught single-session instruction model for first-year
(composition) students, instead of moving to a "teach the teachers" model?

The latter would involve the librarians teaching the instructors how to best use the tools we've created for the students: an online tutorial; a guided research worksheet (for finding, citing, and evaluating different types of sources); subject resource pages which bring together the librarian contact info, online catalog, databases, websites, and other tools; plus our various methods of "ask a librarian" reference.

I'd like us to move toward the following, which would necessitate "freeing up" the librarians' time: map IL in the curriculum; concentrate on improving subject liaison knowledge; do more upper-level and graduate library instruction; design instruction, assignments, and grading criteria in concert with classroom faculty, based on student learning objectives; choose, modify, or create assessment tools for measuring IL; reach out to new audiences: recruitment at high schools, working with industries/employers.

Yet I don't want to take away resources from first-year students. What are your thoughts and opinions?"

I know that there has been much discussion about moving toward teaching the teachers rather than teaching the students, in an effort to incorporate more fully the ideals behind info literacy (or fluency, as I heard it recently addressed) into the curriculum. I know that we would all like the professors/teachers to keep us in the loop when it comes to assignments that we are, in turn, expected to help students complete. I know that we understand that students learn how to work with information better when given a context. I know that we would like for our faculty to take an interest in what tools the library has to offer. I wonder though, if sometimes, in an effort to make others value what we do and who we are as librarians, we don't undervalue these things ourselves. I wonder if we, as librarians, can/should continue to take on these old, systemic problems if the cost is who we are and what we do. Especially if no one else seems interested in the change.