Information Literacy Commons^™

More Than A Search Engine: Undergraduate Perspectives On Library Instruction, Kristine Vick

Theses and Graduate Projects

Historically, libraries have been repositories of knowledge for scholars. Overtime, libraries have evolved into media centers that include digital access points, instructional spaces, and comfortable gathering places. As school libraries transition to accommodate the 2lst century learner, are educators meeting the needs of the college and career bound students they serve? The purpose of this qualitative study was to gain insight into the information literacy instruction that occurs in high school libraries. Specifically, how effective this instruction was in preparing students for college. This research was conducted with five undergraduates attending college in a variefy of public and private institutions. …

Google Vs. The Library: Student Preferences And Perceptions When Doing Research Using Google And A Federated Search Tool, Helen Georgas

Publications and Research

Federated searching was once touted as the library world’s answer to Google, but ten years since federated searching technology’s inception, how does it actually compare? This study focuses on undergraduate student preferences and perceptions when doing research using both Google and a federated search tool. Students were asked about their preferences using each search tool and the perceived relevance of the sources they found using each search tool. Students were also asked to self-assess their online searching skills. The findings show that students believe they possess strong searching skills, are able to find relevant sources using both search tools, but …

Information Sources In Relation To Information Quality, Information-Seeking, And Uncertainty In The Context Of Healthcare Reform, Jennifer L. Bevan

Communication Faculty Books and Book Chapters

This exploratory study examines information-seeking about the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e. healthcare reform) in relation to the potential barriers of uncertainty,uncertainty discrepancy, and low health self-efficacy. Adult United States participants completed an anonymous online survey about their perceptions and understanding of healthcare reform. Results confirmed recent literature, suggesting a complex relationship between information-seeking and uncertainty. Specifically, for this sample, significant positive relationships were observed between information-seeking about healthcare reform and uncertainty, uncertainty discrepancy, health self-efficacy. Further, uncertainty discrepancy was the potential barrier that accounted for the most variance in predicting information-seeking.Implications of these findings for improving …

Finding Library Solutions In Adjacent Industries, Lori Bowen Ayre

Collaborative Librarianship

No abstract provided.

The Research Consultation: What Do You Do When You're Meeting With A Student?, Clinton K. Baugess

All Musselman Library Staff Works

Research consultations are individualized research sessions tailored to meet a student's particular information need. This infographic outlines six best practices for reference librarians or other information professionals providing research consultations to an undergraduate population.

Collaboration As An Essential Tool In Information Literacy Education 9-16: Context, Qualities And Implications, Samantha Godbey

Library Faculty Research

The proliferation of electronic content and the development of new technologies are causing fundamental changes to the processes of reading and research, leaving many librarians curious and concerned about the future of the profession. In the midst of this transitional period, contemporary school librarians continue to face the challenges of limited funding and high expectations. Education and library funding continues to be cut, yet school librarians are tasked with coordinating efforts to educate children in information literacy so that they are educated consumers of information. Information literacy, the ability to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to …

Info Lit 2.0 Or Deja Vu?, Patricia A. Iannuzzi

Library Faculty Research

In 1999, ACRL convened a national task force to draft Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. ACRL has recently launched a revision to those standards. The original standards were influential because they helped advance a national need in higher education at the time: a shift to outcomes based learning. Thirteen years later, information literacy stands alongside oral and written communication, critical thinking and ethical reasoning as learning outcomes broadly acknowledged as needing to be integrated, with disciplinary content, into the curriculum. This author believes that, in contrast to the first process, the current recommendations for revision are focused on …

Developing And Applying An Information Literacy Rubric To Student Annotated Bibliographies, Erin E. Rinto

Library Faculty Research

Objective – This study demonstrates one method of developing and applying rubrics to student writing in order to gather evidence of how students utilize information literacy skills in the context of an authentic assessment activity. The process of creating a rubric, training scorers to use the rubric, collecting annotated bibliographies, applying the rubric to student work, and the results of the rubric assessment are described. Implications for information literacy instruction are also discussed.

Methods – The focus of this study was the English 102 (ENG 102) course, a required research-based writing course that partners the instructors with the university librarians …

Learning To Use Information: Informed Learning In The Undergraduate Classroom, Clarence Maybee, Christine S. Bruce, Mandy Lupton, Kristen Rebmann

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

“Informed learning” is a pedagogy that focuses on learning subject content through engaging with academic or professional information practices. Adopting the position that more powerful learning is achieved where students are taught how to use information and subject content simultaneously, the research reported here investigated an informed learning lesson. Using phenomenographic methods, student’s experiences of the lesson were compared to what the teacher enacted in the classroom. Based on an analysis of student interviews using variation theory, three ways of experiencing the informed learning lesson emerged. Some students understood the lesson to be about learning to use information, i.e., researching …

Collaborative Marketing For Electronic Resources: A Project Report And Discussion, Marie Kennedy

Collaborative Librarianship

This article reports on the design and findings of a project concerning the feasibility of a collaborative model to benchmark the marketing of electronic resources in institutions of higher education. This international project gathered 100 libraries to move in lockstep through the process of a typical marketing cycle that included running a brief marketing campaign and reporting findings to each other. The findings show good reasons and strong support for this kind of model.

Review Of Interdisciplinarity And Academic Libraries, Ann L. O'Neill

Collaborative Librarianship

No abstract provided.

Crossing Borders: Two Academic Librarians And A Young Adult Librarian Collaborate To Teach Teens About Sustainability, George J. Aulisio, Sheli Mchugh

Collaborative Librarianship

Two academic librarians from The University of Scranton’s Weinberg Memorial Library partnered with a young adult librarian from the Scranton Public Library to help plan, organize, and implement, a sustainability themed summer series of events for a teen group. This paper discusses experiences of collaborating across traditional library boundaries from perspectives of a technical services librarian, an academic reference librarian, and a young adult librarian united to work together and educate teens about going green. Various resources and literature helped build a successful summer series on sustainability and demonstrated the important role librarians can play in promoting related environmental issues. …

The Library As An Academic Partner In Student Retention And Graduation: The Library’S Collaboration With The Freshman Year Seminar Initiative At The Bronx Community College, Jesus E. Sanabria

Collaborative Librarianship

In order for academic libraries to continue to demonstrate their value in an age of accountability, developing strong collaborations is essential. Collaborations provide a first rate opportunity for librarians not only to demonstrate their value to the institution and the research practices of the faculty but to facilitate teaching students how to navigate an increasingly diverse and at times confusing information environment driven by access to several technologies. For students entering college, learning early how to navigate the library and its resources can become an important element to their academic success. Inclusion of the library faculty into the development and …

Embracing Into: Library Plans And Campus Collaboration To Serve An Increased International Student Population, Shannon L. Farrell, Catherine L. Cranston, Jeffrey Bullington

Collaborative Librarianship

Universities are using private recruitment agencies to fast-track internationalization initiatives and realize tuition-based revenue increases. Colorado State University (CSU), with this dual aim of increasing the proportion of international students on campus and generating income via out-of-state tuition, signed a contract with INTO, a British organization that works to recruit international students to attend partner institutions from countries across five continents. International students, although not a homogenous population, as a whole do bring unique challenges. Our study examined how both campus and the library could prepare for the expected large influx of international students. Seeking to understand the INTO model …

Vendor Of The Month: A Marketing Collaboration, Lateka J. Grays, James Cory Tucker

Collaborative Librarianship

Marketing library resources remains an important issue despite library reductions in staff and collections budgets. In order to maintain or expand marketing programs, libraries could do well tapping into the expertise available through the vendors supplying resources to libraries. A case study of a library marketing program called, “Vendor of the Month,” at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas explains the collaboration between the library and its vendors to increase awareness and use of selected electronic resources.

Whose Job Is It Anyway?, Lori Ayre

Collaborative Librarianship

No abstract provided.

Review Of “Can Library Use Enhance Intercultural Education?”, Jimena Sagàs

Collaborative Librarianship

No abstract provided.

Whither Library Consortia?, Valerie Horton

Collaborative Librarianship

No abstract provided.

Assessment Of Library Instruction On Undergraduate Student Success In A Documents-Based Research Course: The Benefits Of Librarian, Archivist, And Faculty Collaboration, Paul Victor Jr., Justin Otto, Charles Mutschler

Collaborative Librarianship

This article discusses a successful collaboration between multiple subject specialist librarians, the University Archivist and a faculty member teaching an undergraduate course in documents-based social science research. This collaborative partnership allowed for each subject specialist to expose students to specific information literacy skills they needed to be successful in their class. The authors used pre- and postassessments to gauge student comfort level in conducting library research, as well as a rubric to assess the annotated bibliography of a student’s final research paper. The data from these assessment tools are analyzed and the results discussed. The data indicates that students benefited …

Library Faculty And Instructional Assessment: Creating A Culture Of Assessment Through The High Performance Programming Model Of Organizational Transformation, Meredith G. Farkas, Lisa Janicke Hinchliffe

Collaborative Librarianship

In an environment in which libraries increasingly need to demonstrate their value to faculty and administrators, providing evidence of the library’s contribution to student learning through its instruction program is critical. However, building a culture of assessment can be a challenge, even if librarians recognize its importance. In order to lead change, coordinators of library instruction at institutions where librarians are also tenure-track faculty must build trust and collaboration, lead through influence, and garner support from administration for assessment initiatives. The purpose of this paper is to explore what it takes to build a culture of assessment in academic libraries …