Integrating Information Literacy into the Graduate Liberal Arts Curriculum: A Faculty-Librarian Collaborative Course Model

SUMMARY

The article presents a faculty-librarian collaborative course model for information literacy instruction for liberal arts students. Information literacy was integrated seamlessly into a master's thesis seminar, and the faculty member and librarian worked together to teach students effective research skills while helping them make personal connections to their theses. The learning experience was transformational. As students engaged themselves with problems of the real world and shared their learning, their voices articulated insights about themselves and the world. The authors conclude that integrating information literacy into the curriculum and teaching students holistically is the key to successful student learning.     

Internships in the College Library

Abstract

These brief remarks not only introduce the following two articles on internships, but also provide a list of questions that those in college libraries might consider before deciding to participate in an internship program.     

Succession Planning for Libraries

ABSTRACT

It is imperative for libraries of all types to be responsive to the forecasted changes in the demographics of the library workforce. Succession planning is a key strategy for ensuring that libraries are prepared to meet changing and emerging organizational needs. Succession planning is broadly defined as a range of activities focused on both internal and external talent development to fill anticipated needs for library leadership and other key personnel. The aim of this article is to offer a number of recommendations relevant for LIS education to help build an awareness of succession planning for future library managers. In particular, practical ideas for course-related activities and assignments that may help to incorporate succession planning more fully into the LIS curriculum are discussed.     

Global citizenship in intercultural communication: Spatial awareness of globalization through map your consumption*

Courses: This teaching unit is for intercultural communication but could be used for any course related to globalization, including public speaking, popular culture and communication, or environmental communication. Additionally, the teaching unit is well-suited for other disciplines, including geography, environmental studies, and global studies.

Objectives: Students trace the manufacturing origins of their belongings in order to analyze their connections with other countries through plotting them on a world map. Students research economic, cultural, and/or political globalization of one or two countries plotted on their map in order to consider how to practice ethical consumption.     

Community Connections: Advocating for Libraries through Effective Brand Advocacy

ABSTRACT

Information professionals strive to understand the needs of communities in order to discover ways to connect and engage them in library resources and services. Positive word-of-mouth communication remains one of the most powerful tools used to develop mutually rewarding connections with the community. This article argues that libraries can harness the power of brand advocacy to transform their patrons into the most enthusiastic sharers of information, or informal brand advocates. Moreover, it emphasizes how libraries can carefully build and maintain mutually rewarding community connections through effective brand advocacy by utilizing the STEPPS framework – Social Currency, Triggers, Emotion, Public, Practical Value, Stories. Each principle in this framework can help an organization to effectively spread important brand messages. While the social currency principle encourages people to talk about topics that make them appear more favorable to others, triggers provide everyday cues that remind people of the library brand. Emotion focuses on appealing to feelings and the public principle calls for initiatives that advertise the brand. Finally, practical value motivates people to spread useful information and the stories principle explains that people share their experiences through memorable narratives. The article calls for adopting a holistic approach toward brand advocacy in applying the STEPPS framework in libraries.     

Faculty

Abstract

Teaching faculty are a key resource for reference librarians. This paper includes a discussion of major forces affecting reference service as well as suggestions on ways for librarians to become better acquainted with teaching faculty. One benefit of making these connections is that when faculty know and have confidence in librarians, they are more likely to urge their students to get help at the desk, to schedule course-related instruction sessions, and to let librarians know if they have a particularly difficult or complex assignment. Another benefit is that such connections often lead to increased opportunities, from participation in campus-wide initiatives to the development of collaborative projects and other scholarly work. As a librarian relatively new to the profession, I know that such connections with teaching faculty have enriched my own career.     

He Asked Me What!?—Using Shared Online Accounts as Training Tools for Distance Learning Librarians

ABSTRACT

This study explores the idea of creating a knowledge base from shared online accounts to use in training librarians who perform distance reference services. Through a survey, follow-up interviews and a case study, the investigators explored current and potential use of shared online accounts as training tools. This study revealed that the participants viewed the concept positively, but many encountered barriers to effectively employing a local knowledge base as a training tool.     

Orientation to Reality

Abstract

Reference librarians who are new to an organization need to participate in a systematic orientation program as soon as possible regardless of whether they are experienced or not. A well-planned orientation program helps new librarians provide better and more efficient service for their patrons; and facilitates identification with the organization that they have joined. The need for such orientation programs has no significant relevance to the degree of the librarian's previous experience. Experienced librarians need orientation more than training, though they may also need some training specific to changes in their duties and work location.     

Stay woke: The Black Lives Matter movement as a practical tool to develop critical voice

Courses: This unit activity is suited for upper-level college courses on persuasion, intercultural communication, diversity, leadership, social justice, civil discourse, argumentation, debate, and political communication.

Objectives: After completing this unit, learners should be able to: improve their capacity to examine arguments; enhance their ability to self-reflect; improve their ability to engage in civil discourse; take a position on a social justice issue based on research and recursive communications; and make connections to learners and social activists who share their perspectives.     

Just another Brick in the Wall … or Not? A Paradigm Introduction Activity

Courses: Research Methods; Theory

Objectives: To begin the semester with an engaging activity that introduces students to basic metatheoretical assumptions and help them find themselves in the world of research     

Escaping the Zoo! Exploring Personal World Views and Other “Natural” Aspects of Culture

Courses: Intercultural Communication, Communication and Diversity

Objectives: This activity is designed to help students better understand the concept of world views in everyday life. It also provides an understanding of how world views may be connected to values, norms, and ethnocentrism in very personal and direct ways. Finally, it helps students to understand the cultural nature of what is often seen as simply a natural fact of life.     

Step by Step through the Scholarly Conversation: A Collaborative Library/Writing Faculty Project to Embed Information Literacy and Promote Critical Thinking in First Year Composition at Oregon State University

ABSTRACT

At Oregon State University, writing instructors and librarians collaboratively teach research writing and information literacy in first year composition courses. A four-week unit focuses on the connections between critical thinking, writing and learning, and information literacy. This article describes the process of developing, implementing, and refining this collaborative curriculum. By using assignments and texts that model a recursive critical research and writing process for students, librarians and writing instructors help students think more deeply and critically about their topics.     

Libraries of Today and Tomorrow: How Architecture Can Help Craft a Responsive New Language

ABSTRACT

Many of us remember the library from our childhood because it had one simple objective: to provide open and free access to information. This has largely been the case since Andrew Carnegie developed his formula to build libraries for communities across North America in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

Fast forward to the 21st century and our world has become increasingly interconnected and less predictable. Rapid change due to innovation and technology is the norm and as a result, we expect our buildings to adapt to these changes as seamlessly and immediately as possible. Across the built environment, we are finding ways to make buildings amenable to changing user groups. Schools absorb changes in pedagogy and enrollment. Commercial space adapts to changes in tenants and brand. Workplace environments evolve with technology, headcount and collaborative styles.

As libraries continue to evolve, architecture will be at the forefront of solving real, functional issues for clients, while honoring everything libraries are trying to accomplish. At the same time, the design expression reflects the truly unique expectations we are now asking our buildings to solve.

As architects, we can be your advocates in planning new facilities that are amenable to change, as well as existing facilities that require reimagining in order to meet new criteria. Through design, we meet these new challenges, while inspiring community connections in well built, well cared for and well loved spaces.     

Interconsortial Cooperation for Resource Sharing: MOBIUS and Prospector

ABSTRACT

Academic libraries are desirable work locations for undergraduate students and graduate library science interns alike. However, using undergraduate and graduate library science students only to perform task-oriented work within a traditional, hierarchical supervisory structure does not provide the maximum benefit to the student or the library, as it removes opportunities for students learning from each other. Our model proposes to create a team-based framework that engages students around a project and makes uses of myriad centers of expertise in the library. We employed this framework around the Douglass Alumnae Oral History Project, which provided opportunities for students to build their skills in digital projects, communication, teamwork, and community building.     

Digital Libraries and Librarians of the 21st Century

SUMMARY

New forms of scholarship and publishing are radically and rapidly changing the relationships among those who create, store, distribute, and use information. This paper will focus on the changes in library collections and library information technology organizations, the resulting advancements in scholarly research, and will discuss the attributes, attitudes, and skills needed by the librarians of tomorrow to develop the strong connections between the academic disciplines and research libraries that are essential for library development in the 21st century.     

Funding,Time, and Mentoring: A Study of Research and Publication Support Practices of ARL Member Libraries

ABSTRACT

This study is an exploration of how Association of Research Libraries (ARL) member institutions encourage and support their librarians engaged in research and publication. Using an online survey sent to members of the ARL library directors’ listserv, the authors gathered information about the role of research and publication in the respondents’ evaluation systems, the approaches used to support this activity, the respondents’ own records of research and publication, and their opinions about which approaches have the most impact. The results indicate that funding, time, and mentoring are the most frequently used approaches to promote research and publication productivity.     

Information Literacy,Personal Epistemology,and Knowledge Construction

ABSTRACT

Librarians working to develop information literacy skills in their students recognize a relationship between information literacy and the knowledge construction process. Educational psychologists define how an individual's understanding of knowledge impacts knowledge construction and learning through personal epistemology theory. This paper presents an overview of the personal epistemology literature and the move toward knowledge construction in information literacy. It also recognizes connections between library and information science theory and personal epistemology.     

COVID-19 Evidence Reviews website: a VA effort to catalog and curate COVID-19 evidence reviews

Background:The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked a wave of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 research that organizations around the world have been synthesizing in evidence reviews to provide high-quality evidence to support policymakers and clinicians. The urgency of these efforts opens these organizations to the risk of duplicated efforts, which could waste valuable time and resources.Case Presentation:The VA Evidence Synthesis Program (VA ESP) formed a COVID Response Team that launched an online catalog of COVID-19 evidence reviews in March 2020 (https://www.covid19reviews.org/). The goal of this website is to capture the work of evidence synthesis groups in the US and around the world to maximize their collective contributions to patients, frontline clinicians, researchers, and policymakers during the COVID-19 pandemic and avoid duplicating efforts.Conclusions:This ongoing and evolving project provides a helpful catalog of evidence reviews at various stages of production; in addition, the website provides further value with informational icons, review collections, and links to similar resources. The VA ESP will maintain this website to continue to support the needs of policymakers, clinicians, and researchers both within the VA and around the world throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.     

World History Internet Resources

Abstract

The following article provides an overview of Internet resources relevant to reference work in world history. It also provides URLs to select sites representing different uses of the world wide web in presenting information for the subject of World History.     

Taking the third‐person effect outside the laboratory: How an unplanned real world event failed to change the third‐person effect

This study took the form of a pretest posttest nonequivalent natural quasi‐experiment. Despite the fact that previous researchers have indicated that media events are formative in the third‐person effect hypothesis, it was hypothesized that a major media event acting as a secondary stimulus would have no effect on the level of third‐person effect measured in regard to the primary stimulus despite the fact that both pertained to the same topic. This hypothesis was confirmed. This study indicates real world interactions of the third‐person effect hypothesis are complex, and the third‐person effect may operate less in the real world than previous experiments indicate.