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!