Want personalized help with your final papers? USC librarians are teaming up with the Writing Program and Writing Center at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences for the return of Paperpalooza on Tuesday, April 28, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in Doheny Library’s Friends of the USC Libraries Lecture Hall (Room 240).
The most recent Paperpalooza in early December drew a full house of students seeking help from Writing Program faculty, Writing Center consultants, and USC librarians. These experts worked with students to help them think through final paper topics; locate, evaluate, and cite authoritative sources; and hone their arguments.
Paperpalooza is one example of the many ways the USC Libraries support student success through instruction and research assistance throughout the academic year. This past fall semester alone, our librarians taught 147 online and in-person information literacy sessions reaching 3,709 students.
In collaboration with faculty across the university, USC librarians tailor instruction sessions and workshops to specific classes, topics, and teaching goals. The longstanding partnership with the USC Writing Program is particularly robust. For many years, USC librarians have led class sessions on using library resources for Writing 150 and Writing 340 classes.
USC faculty who want to consult with a librarian about adding an instruction session to a scheduled course should complete an instruction request form.
Other USC Libraries instruction highlights from the fall semester include workshops and tutorials on using AI effectively and ethically for research and other resources to help USC students build AI literacy and critical awareness of issues like copyright.
USC librarians also collaborated with the USC First Generation Plus Success Center and the SCC Trojan Success Initiatives program on a visit by students to the USC Libraries Special Collections to view rare materials like an illuminated book of hours, stereograph photos, patient log books from historic L.A. hospitals, and zines from USC Libraries collections.
The Ahmanson Lab at the USC Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study also offered hands-on, immersive learning experiences to students on AI, game design, and marine ecology through two yearlong collaboratories taught with USC faculty members that launched during the fall semester: Reclaim 2026 and the Food Webs Microbiology Game.