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Abstract Teaching information literacy skills is a major initiative for today's instruction librarians. The advent of web portals on the college campus provides a unique teaching opportunity. This paper describes how the University at Buffalo Libraries and the University's Office of Creative Services collaborate to offer My Library, which is a channel built into MyUB, the University's web portal. My Library provides a new opportunity for instruction that addresses the needs, expectations, and changing learning styles of today's technology savvy students. Introduction Academic libraries continue to evolve from their former, somewhat passive presence on campus to be more active participants in the educational process. This change is primarily driven by two decades of rapid advances in information technologies, and the recognition that libraries must adapt to a new paradigm of student needs and expectations and a new model of providing relevant and meaningful services. As a result, teaching information literacy skills, and outreach activities to promote the educational role of the library have become major initiatives for librarians. Advances in information technologies have resulted in something of an information glut. Although the width and breadth of information has expanded exponentially, the depth of it is decidedly lacking (Cochrane, 2003). This poses a significant challenge for libraries. Despite having an abundance of information at their fingertips, students lack the basic information literacy skills to find, critically evaluate, synthesize, and apply good information in a meaningful way (Fitzgerald, 2004). The challenge for libraries is to continue to push information literacy as a major initiative, and to find new ways of teaching information literacy skills. Advances in information technologies also provide unique teaching opportunities for librarians. The University at Buffalo's Office of Creative Services, in conjunction with the Office of Administrative Computing Services, oversees the campus web portal MyUB (2004, University at Buffalo). Initiated in 1999 as a simple web site for undergraduate students, MyUB now provides customized and personalized online to all campus constituents. As users logon, the portal displays fine-grained content that corresponds to their academic status, area of study, and departmental affiliation. Topical areas, or channels, within the portal are developed and maintained in conjunction with appropriate stakeholders from applicable units on campus. For example, the My Library page is the result of a partnership that includes key members of the University Libraries. The Libraries leverage this partnership to promote the resources and necessary to achieve their instructional objectives. Literature Review Expanding the scope of library instruction by using Internet technologies is well represented in the literature. Davis and Applin (2002) and Kelsey and Lenares (2002) discuss the use of e-mail for instructional purposes. In a survey of instruction librarians, 78% of the respondents indicated that they view web tutorials as effective instructional tools, and 55% of the respondents noted that their libraries currently use them as teaching tools (Hollister & Coe, 2003). Costello, Lenholt, and Stryker discuss the use of course management software to address the evolving learning styles of today's students (2004). Following this, Peele and Phipps write of their instructional collaboration using the chat feature of Blackboard. The authors suggest that Targeted library instruction is perhaps even more vital for today's students who are often overwhelmed by the sheer amount and type of resources available to them, and they conclude: Clearly, library instruction can be adapted for the online classroom using chat services (2004). Hackenberry and Taddeo discuss the benefits and limitations of using an instant messaging service to teach information literacy skills. …
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