Questioning the Answer

In this short video, Dr. Gail Bush from National Louis University talks about information and literacy. She states we’ve moved beyond information literacy toward information transliteracy, where the format becomes “literally irrelevant.” Dr. Bush says that in the 20th Century we were taught to “answer the question” but now we must “question the answer”

She speaks of the great challenge teachers face when trying to move the model from cognitive authority toward a more open model where the student model the learning habits of instructors and it makes me think about how that happens – or doesn’t – in a public library.

Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

[tweetmeme source=”librarianbyday” only_single=false]Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education from ACRL, (The Association of College and Research Libraries division of the American Library Association) includes a sections on the definition of information literacy, IL Technology, IL & higher education, IL & pedagogy, standards, assessments, performance indicators, and a practical guide for instruction librarians.  I’ve included the four standards & their performance indicators below but left out the included outcomes. You can read the document online or download a pdf.

Approved by the Board of Directors of the Association of College and Research Libraries on January 18, 2000, Endorsed by the American Association for Higher Education (October 1999) and the Council of Independent Colleges (February 2004)

Information literacy is a set of abilities requiring individuals to “recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information.”1

An information literate individual is able to:

• Determine the extent of information needed
• Access the needed information effectively and efficiently
• Evaluate information and its sources critically
• Incorporate selected information into one’s knowledge base
• Use information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose
• Understand the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information, and access and use information ethically and legally

Standard One – The information literate student determines the nature and extent of the information needed.

Performance Indicators:

• The information literate student defines and articulates the need for information.
• The information literate student identifies a variety of types and formats of potential sources for information.
• The information literate student considers the costs and benefits of acquiring the needed information.
• The information literate student reevaluates the nature and extent of the information need.

Standard Two – The information literate student accesses needed information effectively and efficiently.

Performance Indicators:

• The information literate student selects the most appropriate investigative methods or information retrieval systems for accessing the needed information.
• The information literate student constructs and implements effectively design search strategies.
• The information literate student retrieves information online or in person using a variety of methods.
• The information literate student refines the search strategy if necessary.
• The information literate student extracts, records, and manages the information and its sources.

Standard Three – The information literate student evaluates information and its sources critically and incorporates selected information into his or her knowledge base and value system.

Performance Indicators:

• The information literate student summarizes the main ideas to be extracted from the information gathered.
• The information literate student articulates and applies initial criteria for evaluating both the information and its sources.
• The information literate student synthesizes main ideas to construct new concepts.
• The information literate student compares new knowledge with prior knowledge to determine the value added, contradictions, or other unique characteristics of the information.
• The information literate student determines whether the new knowledge has an impact on the individual’s value system and takes steps to reconcile differences.
• The information literate student validates understanding and interpretation of the information through discourse with other individuals, subject-area experts, and/or practitioners.
• The information literate student determines whether the initial query should be revised.

Standard Four – The information literate student, individually or as a member of a group, uses information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose.

Performance Indicators:

• The information literate student applies new and prior information to the planning and creation of a particular product or performance.
• The information literate student revises the development process for the product or performance.
• The information literate student communicates the product or performance effectively to others.

Standard Five – The information literate student understands many of the economic, legal, and social issues surrounding the use of information and accesses and uses information ethically and legally.

Performance Indicators:

• The information literate student understands many of the ethical, legal and socio-economic issues surrounding information and information technology.
• The information literate student follows laws, regulations, institutional policies, and etiquette related to the access and use of information resources.
• The information literate student acknowledges the use of information

1. American Library Association. Presidential Committee on Information Literacy. Final Report. (Chicago: American Library Association, 1989.)

The list of organizations with standards and definitions of the “new” literacies is long, I will be doing my best to post as many of them as I can under the Standards category.

Practical Transliteracy Exercise

[tweetmeme source=”librarianbyday” only_single=false]Chad Boeninger, on his blog Library Voice, posts an exercise he uses for library instruction. Boeninger uses a variety of media (clip from TV news, blogs, discussion of video games) to teach basic concepts of information literacy. This exercise is an excellent example of utilizing the types of media students frequently encounter and are more comfortable with to teach information literacy. Although he does not use the term “transliteracy,” Boeninger is capitalizing on these students’ familiarity with a variety of popular media in the hopes that they can go forward and apply the concepts elsewhere. He writes:

The point of the exercise is to demonstrate to the students that evaluation of information goes beyond  telling the difference between popular and  scholarly articles.  This exercise shows them that they should look at things critically, regardless of whether they are doing academic research, watching the news, buying a new camera, or trying to decide which movie to go see.  Even in real life outside of academia, we are required to make choices about the information that we ingest and digest.  Even when information is fed to us via Fox News, CNN, the New York Times, our professors, or our mothers,  it’s important to understand and look for bias and misinformation.

Information literacy and the role of public libraries

[tweetmeme source=”librarianbyday” only_single=false]Information literacy and the role of public libraries” from Scandinavian Public Library Quarterly

‘Informationskompetence’, – the Danish term for information literacy was introduced in Denmark in 1998 by American-born Elisabeth Arkin, former Head of Library Services at Aalborg University Library, at a conference on the marketing and evaluation of library services.

Development of competencies was a buzzword in those days, and the term was immediately accepted by the library world as an appropriate term that covered a broad concept of user education and library instruction emphasising student learning and the pedagogical role of the librarian.