Library and Information Science Commons^™

The Half-Life & After-Life Of New Media, Nancy Austin

Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies

It is fitting to think of the half-life of new media using the time-based metaphor of radioactive decay. As a metaphor, an object’s half-life can be a useful way to talk about the potent technological modernity of new media and, like Walter Benjamin’s well-known notion of the aura, call attention to an object’s performativity. However, Benjamin’s aura remains a constant reminder of irrevocable originality whereas remarking on half-life references a quality that changes over time. But what happens after the rhetorical impact of being new has run its course? What is the life expectancy of once-new media and what of …

Rebooting A Technical Writing Course: Control Instructional Design, Alt Information Literacy, And Delete Non-Collaboration, Kelly Diamond, Gregg Thumm

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

Members of this panel, an instructional design librarian and a teaching faculty member, began collaborating in summer 2014 to revise and redesign English 305: Scientific and Technical Writing; the faculty instructor wanted to improve this course by redesigning it based on instructional design principles, but also to include more information literacy instruction into this online course.

This panel will discuss faculty’s perceived problems with the initial version of the class, including lack of student participation and poor choices of research materials for assignments. We will discuss how we tried to eliminate those deficiencies through instructional design and redesigning authentic assignments …

Tracing Boundaries, Effacing Boundaries: Information Literacy As An Academic Discipline, Grace L. Veach

Grace Veach

Both librarianship and composition have been shaken by recent developments in higher education. In libraries ebooks and online databases threaten the traditional "library as warehouse model," while in composition, studies like The Citation Project show that students are not learning how to incorporate sources into their own writing effectively. This dissertation examines the disciplinary origins and current status of information literacy and makes a case for increased collaboration between Writing Studies and librarians and the eventual emergence of information literacy as a discipline in its own right. Chapter One introduces the near-total failure of information literacy pedagogy and the lack …

Interface Fantasies And Futures: Designing Human-Computer Relations In The Shadow Of Memex, Rachael Bradshaw Sullivan

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is about how designers, experimental writers, and innovative thinkers have imagined both computer interfaces and the human/machine relations that might emerge through engagement with different kinds of interfaces. Although futuristic thinking about digital media and their interfaces has changed over time, we can isolate some constants that have persisted through almost all mainstream practices of interface design, particularly in American culture. Drawing from a historical trajectory that I associate with Vannevar Bush and his speculative invention, which he called “memex” in a 1945 essay, I name these constants sterilization and compartmentalization. They are two tendencies or values that …

Developing The Writing-Information Literacy Nexus: Results Of A Three-Year Illinois Wesleyan Mellon Grant, Chris Sweet, Joel Haefner

Scholarly Publications

This presentation summarizes some of the successes and challenges of a 3-year Mellon Grant that targeted both Writing and Information Literacy in the disciplines. Grant activities included collaborative assignment design, pedagogical workshops, enhanced writing tutor training, and additional professional development opportunities.

Developing The Writing-Information Literacy Nexus: Results Of A Three-Year Illinois Wesleyan Mellon Grant, Chris Sweet, Joel Haefner

Christopher A. Sweet

This presentation summarizes some of the successes and challenges of a 3-year Mellon Grant that targeted both Writing and Information Literacy in the disciplines. Grant activities included collaborative assignment design, pedagogical workshops, enhanced writing tutor training, and additional professional development opportunities.