Mis/Understanding Information Literacy: Writing Program Administrators, Librarians, and the General Education Curriculum

Last week, Dr. Erica Frisicaro-Pawlowski, Dr. Margaret Artman, and I presented: Mis/Understanding Information Literacy: Writing Program Administrators, Librarians, and the General Education Curriculum at the Writing Program Administrators Conference 2009 conference in Minneapolis.

Dr. Frisicaro-Pawlowski looked at the historical context and current situation facing academic institutions. She highlighted three distinct problems:

· Information Literacy is over simplified and only thought of as “how to use the library”

· Information literacy is often defined as skill sets that are “decontextualized and seemingly disconnected, rather than a set of processes shaped by academic conventions, communities, and knowledge-making practices”

· Issues related to multimedia technology/information are often left out of information literacy standards at the institutional level

Writing program administrators, faculty, librarians, and the university administration need to work together to create information literacy standards for the curriculum.

Information Literacy should not just be one more thing writing faculty need to address in Composition classes. It should be a curriculum wide effort. However, writing faculty and librarians can work together to create an entry point for developing information literacy skills.

Dr. Margaret Artman highlighted reasons why writing faculty (who might be resistant to working with librarians) should have the librarians teach at least on library/information literacy session:

· Students need to be introduced to the librarians as information professionals. Composition instructors only have one term with the students while the librarians will be with the student for their entire academic career

· Librarians have more knowledge about the various information needs/solutions facing students. They also keep up to date on the changing information environment

· Librarians are student-centered in their instruction efforts and can create meaningful hands-on instruction sessions to address higher information literacy needs
Students will only benefit when librarians and faculty can collaborate to develop information literacy instruction.

I highlighted three ways in which librarians can work with faculty to enhance information literacy beyond the one-shot library instruction:

· Class research guides (research guides designed for a specific class or assignment)

· Web based library assignments (assignments designed to be given pre/during/post library instruction session

· Web based information literacy tutorials


My part of the presentation Working with Faculty to Go Beyond the 50 Minute One Shot Library Instruction is posted on SlideShare.

Next week’s posting (July 31st, 2009): Combining library instruction and writing instruction into one course.