I’ve been thinking (sporadically, as it might be) about library instruction lately. I think this is coming up from the context of moving my lib100 class from a traditional one, to one that incorporates more internet research, to one that follows a completely nontraditional format. With each redesign, I’ve felt the class is more like a college class. And by that I mean one that focuses more on the theoretical underpinning of the subject, one that has personal implications, and one that will serve the student when they graduate. However, with each redesign it’s been less and less a traditional course.
The model has moved from a format based one, with a day on each format (you know, a day on reference resources, a day on finding books in the catalog, two days on article searching, etc), to a class where we have probably spent just two days specifically on finding resources and the rest of the time on information issues. (Though, in defense of this, finding sources comes up as part of the discussion of information issues.)
And I think that’s a good thing.
Professors recommend this class so that their students learn how to find good resources and can cite them appropriately. We want to make sure to continue meeting this expectation. However, research and information goes far beyond what we provide the students, and this class covers that. We talk about how markets influence what’s published, how the internet changes the information timeline, and other emerging information issues. We talk about websites and why people post phony ones and how people manipulate google search results. All of this is relevant–and hopefully helps the students understand if the information they’re looking at is good or not.
So, I wrestle with it. We’re teaching an important information mindset, but we’re not as focused on using library resources. I wish we could do justice to both information and library research, but there’s just not enough time. Are we helping our students, or doing a disservice? I like to think we’re helping them: when they graduate they won’t necessarily have access to the wonderful resources we provide, so they need to be able to use the wider world of information resources. They will have access to Google, and I’m guessing that will be their primary research tool. So, I think, as long as they can find information that is useful here as well as judge what they find elsewhere appropriately, they are learning the research skills they need. I think the librarian in me is the only part that even thinks there’s a real issue here.
What do you think? Information literacy as how to do library research, information literacy as how to navigate the larger information environment, or information literacy as both?
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If both, how do you find the time?
Update: I’m closing the survey as of 5pm on 10/1/2008. The results were:
13% Information literacy as doing library research
27% Information literacy as navigating the larger information environment
60% Information literacy as a combination of both
Lauren,
Great post. I’m way behind in my blog reading so missed the survey. But I would say it sounds like you’re on the right track. While we do have a duty to help students in the here and now to be able to use our resources and succeed in their academic career, the simple fact is that without a solid base of theoretical skills like critical evaluation, knowing the practical stuff like the where and how of searching library resources can be rendered useless.
The real challenge as I see it is making the theoretical stuff interesting and relevant, and making sure students have the chance to put those theories to practical use so they can see the real-life value of learning them. This is very hard when not given the benefit of a semester-long course (which I don’t have). As you point out – the time issue is always the one that forces us to sacrifice a lot of theoretical stuff…
Peace,
Dana
Lauren, I marked this post to read later, and finally just did.
This is exactly the conversation we’ve been having at my university regarding our semester-long class. The problem I’m having is that we have a unified curriculum, and while my inclinations are more towards your thinking, that is not necessarily the same for my colleagues. This semester we had students submit written assignments via individual blogs through WordPress. There was a bit of a learning curve early in the semester, but by the end of the semester, it seems they enjoyed it. But my colleagues want to do away with it the blog and have students submit assignments via Blackboard. Our class isn’t about blogging, but I feel they learn so much by having to do their homework via blogs.
I did have some success with this during our session on news sources. We talked about Google News, Lexis Nexis, and Library Press Display. They got the concept that they can use Google News most of the time (and it’s better than a regular Google search), but that Lexis Nexis is where they should go for comprehensive searches or when they aren’t allowed to use the internet for an assignment. Framing it in those terms seemed to help them get it.
A like-minded colleague and I are both teaching a winter session version of our class, one hour a day for about three weeks. It’s a time for us to experiment more with this newer approach. At the end of this semester, I was disappointed to realize our students still couldn’t differentiate between a website, a PDF, and a journal collection online. I like the idea of teaching life-long skills, even at the expense of library resources.
Joan! It sounds like we’re having a lot of similar discussions at our respective places of work! I’m interested in how your class goes. With a like-minded colleague you’re sure to be able to do some interesting work! If you want to trade ideas sometime, just let me know!
Dana, I think you’re right… the semester long course makes it much easier to approach some of these topics. With a one-shot library instruction session, you have to make the faculty member happy with what you’re teaching, and they might have different ideas about the research skills they want their students to have. For what it’s worth, I often work in things like RSS by comparing them to the Facebook news feed or talk about alerts using google news alerts for personal names to make journal/database alerts more interesting. The trick (for me) is finding out what’s interesting enough to the students to provide a hook for the research skills and theories.