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This is an opinion piece on the decision by the ACRL Board of Directors to rescind its “Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education” in June 2016.

The literature on the health of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersexual (LGBT) people appears in many types of resources and disciplines. To begin to address the need for relevant, easily accessible information for LGBT people and health care providers, this study identified popular and scholarly books published in the past 10 years and analyzed topics; number of books published per year; more prolific authors; and primary publishers. The results indicated that a relatively small number of books were published (521) by a wide range of publishers/self-publishers. Most were about mental health, relationships, or family and 24% were personal accounts.

This account reports that the National Forum on Information Literacy ceased to exist as a non-profit organization in October 2015.

Curriculum mapping is a process by which curricula are methodically examined to determine where information literacy (IL) capabilities are, or should be taught during formal coursework. Curriculum integration is the process of intentionally integrating IL capability at the points in coursework when students need to master those capabilities and competencies. During this session, librarians will develop an understanding of curriculum mapping and how to integrate IL in curricula. This knowledge prepares librarians for campus leadership, since the curriculum is the primary focus of teaching and learning and affects the entire campus. The curriculum in higher education can be viewed as: the intended curriculum (the institution's expectation of what is to be taught or learned), the offered curriculum (what teachers teach or plan to teach), and the received curriculum (the knowledge and skills that are actually learned by students via the courses). Curriculum mapping analyzes the offered curriculum and maps it against the intended curriculum. The purpose of curriculum mapping is to identify the gaps in IL capabilities in the curriculum and to fill those gaps by integrating IL into the curriculum. This presentation will demonstrate how to analyze the offered program curriculum; how to map it against the intended curriculum; and how to integrate IL into the curriculum. It will provide higher education faculty, librarians, and administrators with strategies for integration of information literacy into the curriculum. Finally, the presenters will discuss a project to assess the degree to which IL is integrated into curricula. This is a collaborative project that will involve US and New Zealand colleges and universities. This project will result in cross institutional comparison data that should strengthen justifications for engaging in curriculum mapping and integration projects. Participants will: Understand the meaning of "intended curriculum" and "offered curriculum" to ga

This paper describes a project designed to raise the awareness of policymakers about the importance of information literacy to achieve societal goals. Issues benefit from the governmental support, prioritization, mandates, and funding that can result when there is policy behind them. Studies indicate that many people lack the ability to draw on quality sources of information for a variety of purposes. Attention by policymakers would accelerate the inclusion of information literacy in settings such as education, workforce training, citizenship preparation, and lifelong learning. One way to raise awareness of policymakers is by recommending a proclamation to government executives.

There is an expectation that college students graduate with competency in information literacy. Ideally, institutions of higher education integrate these competencies throughout their curricula in a progressive manner. High-impact educational practices contribute to student success. The purpose of this article is to examine recent literature about five of the high-impact educational practices (capstone experiences, learning communities, service learning and community-based learning, undergraduate research, and writing-intensive courses) to understand the extent to which they include the integration of information literacy competencies. The article includes recommendations for practice and research in the areas of assessment, pedagogy, and program planning.

This study examined the perceptions of two groups of students to obtain different perspectives on the online information literacy tutorial, CORE (Comprehensive Online Research Education, to plan for its update. The CORE tutorial includes seven modules: “Planning Your Project,” “Topic Exploration,” “Types of Information,” “Search Tools,” “Search Strategies,” “Evaluating Sources,” and “Copyright, Plagiarism, and Citing Sources.” First-year students in biology and nursing courses responded to a survey after completing the CORE modules. Students indicated that they liked learning through an online tutorial. However, they thought that the tutorial could be improved with shorter modules and the addition of video and audio content. Few students reported learning important information from the “Copyright, Plagiarism, and Citing Sources,” “Evaluating Resources,” and “Types of Information” modules. They suggested topics for addi-tional tutorials: how to use library databases and Microsoft Excel; how to evaluate the quality of information, how to cite references, and how to find statistics.

The purpose of this paper was to identify existing criteria that may be considered in evaluating journals in the scholarship of teaching and learning in agriculture, natural resources, and the life sciences. This can assist faculty authors and evaluators of promotion and tenure cases to explain indicators of the quality of the publications. The commonly accepted criteria are: peer review; acceptance rate; longevity; open access availability; inclusion in indexing/abstracting services; citation analysis; and expert opinion. These data were collected for a representative set of journals which indicated that: acceptance rates for the journals varied widely; most of the journals existed for at least 10 years; most of the journals did not have an ISI impact factor or Eigenfactor TM Score; the ERIC database was the predominant indexing resource; and there were no published lists of journals in these subjects compiled from expert opinion.

Information literacy is recognized as an essential competency for educational success. It relates to all disciplines but is not a separate discipline, so it is not clear who takes responsibility for teaching this competency to undergraduates. This is a report of a survey conducted to better understand the extent to which teaching information literacy concepts by faculty occurred in a research university. The results indicated that faculty in the disciplines generally teach information literacy competencies to undergraduate students without collaborating with others on their campus. Many faculty also had the expectation that students know how to avoid plagiarism, find articles and books, and define topics for their projects before students take their courses. There were disciplinary differences in providing instruction in critical evaluation and avoiding plagiarism. Tenured faculty tended to provide instruction in defining a topic; finding articles and books; and synthesizing information. Non-tenured faculty tended to teach students to avoid plagiarism.

Although emphasis in veterinary education is increasingly being placed on the ability to find, use, and communicate information, studies on the information behaviors of veterinary students or professionals are few. Improved knowledge in this area will provide valuable information for course and curriculum planning and the design of information resources. This article describes a survey of the information-seeking behaviors of first-semester veterinary students at Purdue University. A survey was administered as the first phase of a progressive semester-long assignment for a first semester DVM course in systemic mammalian physiology. The survey probed for understanding of the scientific literature and its use for course assignments and continuing learning. The survey results showed that students beginning the program tended to use Google for coursework, although some also used the resources found through the Purdue libraries' Web sites. On entering veterinary school, they became aware of specific information resources in veterinary medicine. They used a small number of accepted criteria to evaluate the Web site quality. This study confirms the findings of studies of information-seeking behaviors of undergraduate students. Further studies are needed to examine whether those behaviors change as students learn about specialized veterinary resources that are designed to address clinical needs as they progress through their training.

This paper is a review of reports on information literacy and the workforce. There is a substantial body of literature on information literacy in K-16 educational settings, but there is much less literature on implications for the workplace and job-related lifelong learning. The topical categories of the reports are: the importance of information literacy for the workforce; how information literacy differs in work and educational settings; and barriers to information literacy in the workplace. The paper concludes with recommendations for practice and for further research.

Information literacy is recognized globally as essential for individual and community empowerment, workforce readiness, and global competitiveness. Recent international efforts related to information literacy have the goal of mainstreaming it in educational systems and in societies. However, there is a history of difficulty in integrating it with the educational process. This integration with the educational process may be referred to as institutionalization. Although the goal of colleges and universities is to graduate information literate critical thinkers, there is no established strategy for instilling this competency in students. This paper proposes that a lack of understanding of the organizational functioning of colleges and universities may contribute to the difficulty in institutionalizing information literacy. It explores possible reasons for the difficulty in institutionalizing information literacy. It will apply existing organizational theory to provide a new perspective. The paper describes Birnbaum’s four models of organizational functioning in colleges and universities: collegial, bureaucratic, political, and organized anarchy. This paper will propose strategies to integrate information literacy into organizations that have characteristics of the models that Birnbaum describes.

There is growing recognition that information literacy is a critical skill for educational and workplace success, engagement in lifelong learning, and civic participation. To be considered for allocations of financial and human resources, information literacy must become a policy priority for institutions and societies. There is no published examination of factors that may influence the adoption of information literacy as a policy priority. This article explores aspects of the policy process from a U.S. perspective that can favor or impede the inclusion of information literacy on political agendas. It examines these questions through the multiple streams framework of policy processes. It proposes recommendations to help those who advocate for information literacy to effect policy changes. It identifies areas for research that would help information literacy policy advocates demonstrate need.

This editorial questions why information literacy is not yet fully integrated in educational programs and issues a call to action. There is evidence that the way that things have been done in the past to accomplish this is not working. The article advocates for using results of studies such as Project Information Literacy to motivate new, non-traditional ways of thinking about the problem.

Many institutions of higher education are designing spaces to facilitate learning. Libraries have created information or learning commons to support this activity. This article draws from the literature and best practices to explore this new direction. Academic libraries have focused on student learning and the teaching of skills and strategies that develop information literacy competency. Although there is an assumption that learning commons facilitate student learning, there is a need to more closely connect this new environment with information literacy and pedagogy and to demonstrate its merits in enhancing learning. A basic premise is that each learning commons that is planned well will be unique. This is because a key component of the planning process is to understand the campus perspective, student learning styles and preferences, and the role of the campus library. The combination of those factors will result in a learning commons that supports its own institutional priorities and profile in a specialized manner. This article is in the form of a panel discussion that explores possible relationships between the learning commons and student learning, pedagogy, and information literacy. The “panel members” are the authors who represent three different perspectives that should be interrelated when planning learning commons. These perspectives are (1) the scholarly perspective that provides an empirical foundation for decision-making, (2) the perspective of a library administrator who builds the relationships needed for successful external collaboration, and (3) the perspective of a librarian who implements the vision for a learning commons. The panelists discuss a number of topics including (1) the scholarly basis for a learning commons as a focal point for enhancing student learning, pedagogy, and information literacy, (2) how a library administrator can create and communicate a vision that focuses on information literacy and student learning, (3) how a practic

Many institutions of higher education are designing spaces to facilitate learning. Libraries have created information or learning commons to support this activity. This article draws from the literature and best practices to explore this new direction. Academic libraries have focused on student learning and the teaching of skills and strategies that develop information literacy competency. Although there is an assumption that learning commons facilitate student learning, there is a need to more closely connect this new environment with information literacy and pedagogy and to demonstrate its merits in enhancing learning. A basic premise is that each learning commons that is planned well will be unique. That is because a key component of the planning process is to understand the campus perspective, student learning styles and preferences, and the role of the campus library. The combination of those factors will result in a learning commons that supports its own institutional priorities and profile in a specialized manner. The article is in the form of a panel discussion that explores possible relationships between the learning commons and student learning, pedagogy, and information literacy. The "panel members" are the authors who represent three different perspectives that should be inter-related when planning learning commons. Those perspectives are: the scholarly perspective that provides an empirical foundation for decision-making; the perspective of a library administrator who builds the relationships needed for successful external collaboration; and the perspective of a librarian who implements the vision for a learning commons.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1998., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 237-252)., by Sharon Kay Weiner., Ph.D.