Maintaining Our Libraries’ Relevancy in the 21st Century
Information Literacy Trends in the Sciences
Andrew Wick Klein
May 8, 2006
The Situation
• Changing landscape of information
• Emerging delivery methods: wikis, blogs, RSS
• New tools: Google Scholar, competitors
• Online journals, open access
The Situation
• Generation Y / Millennial Generation
• Changing profile of “college student”
• Faculty and teaching
• Libraries
We Ask Ourselves…
• Keep up-to-date?
• Prepare for the future?
• Best way to reach our users?
• Support the educational mission?
• Stay relevant?
• Information Literacy
Information Literacy
• The set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information
• Learning how to learn
• Increasingly important in the Information Age
• Essential to producing life-long learners
IL versus BI
• BI: one-shot sessions, specific assignments, no followup
• Bigger and broader:– Information needs on a global level– Throughout the entire process– Outside the classroom– General and specific
Standards
• 2000: ACRL publishes Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education
• Supporting documents
• Draft: Standards for Science & Technology Libraries
Successes
• Wide acceptance, praise for standards
• Voluminous literature on IL strategies, programs and tips
• Professional support: Instruction Section, conferences, discussion lists
Problems
• Lack of support – financial, personnel, teaching venues
• Resistance and “inertia” from faculty
• Lack of understanding that IL is a mainstream educational issue rather than just library-centric
• Is it working? Lack of assessment
Implementation
EffectiveAssessment
EffectiveAssessment
CollaborationWith
Faculty
CollaborationWith
FacultyCurriculumIntegration
CurriculumIntegration
Outcome-specific
Outcome-specific
Discipline-specific
Discipline-specific
InformationLiteracy
InformationLiteracy
1. Discipline-specific
• Standards strike a balance between generality and discipline specificity
• IL in isolation loses relevance
• Context emphasizes importance
• User need is paramount
• User need is discipline-specific
2. Outcome-specific
• Emphasized in Standards
• Outcomes themselves can vary from general to specific
• Good educational theory: backward design
• Essential to assessment
3. Curriculum integration
• IL skills are science skills
• Necessary for standardization across department
• Important for faculty collaboration
• User needs vary with program
4. Collaboration with faculty
• Foster good relationships: listening, asking rather than telling, suggesting
• Work with representative group
• Partners working towards same educational goal – we’re here to help!
• User needs!
5. Effective Assessment
• Focused on desired outcomes
• Also learning environment and IL program components
• Formal and informal
• Ongoing and integrated into design of IL program
Questions?
I Am Preaching to the Choir or
IL at Cal State Northridge
• Mission, goals: “information competence” is clear priority
• Information Competence Initiative: grants, resources
• CSUN Assessment plan: IL is 1 of 3
• ICT Literacy Assessment Initiative with EST
Room for Improvement
• Trends that aren’t going away:
• Relevance of IL to science curricula
• Value of discipline-specific programs
• Need for faculty support
• Importance of effective assessment
Bibliography
ACRL website on Information Literacy. http://www.ala.org/ala/acrl/acrlissues/acrlinfolit/informationliteracy.htm (Accessed May 5, 2006).
Badke, William. “Can’t Get No Respect: Helping Faculty to Understand the Educational Power of Information Literacy.” The Reference Librarian, 89/90 (2005), pp. 63-80.
Galvin, Jeanne. “Alternative Strategies for Promoting Information Literacy.” The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 31 (2005), pp. 352-357.
Gardner, Susan. “What Students Want: Generation Y and the Changing Function of the Academic Library.” portal: Libraries and the Academy, 5 (2005), pp. 405-420.
Gilson, Caroline. Personal correspondence.
Hebb, Tiffany. Personal correspondence.
“Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education.” Chicago: Association of College & Research Libraries (2000).
Bibliography
Lindauer, Bonnie G. “The Three Arenas of Information Literacy Assessment.” Reference & User Services Quarterly, 44 (2004), pp. 122-129.
Manuel, Kate. “Generic and Discipline-Specific Information Literacy Competencies: The Case for the Sciences.” Science & Technology Libraries, 24 (2004), pp. 279-308.
Rockman, Ilene. “Integrating information literacy into the learning outcomes of academic disciplines.” College & Research Libraries News, 64 (2003), pp. 612-615.
Smith, Eleanor M. “Developing an Information Literacy Curriculum for the Sciences.” Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, 37 (Spring 2003).
Winterman, Brian. Personal correspondence.
Thank you!
