Information Literacy Showcase: Effective Practices from Public, Academic, and School Libraries

Information Literacy Showcase: Effective Practices from Public, Academic, and School Libraries

Looking for new ideas to build or enhance the information literacy program at your library? During this session, panelists will share examples of teaching and learning strategies and technologies that have been successful with key library audiences, such as young adults, college freshmen, and senior citizens. Stop by the Teaching and Learning Center afterwards to meet the panelists and learn more about their programs.

Moderator: Kelly Jo Woodside, Information Literacy Librarian, Simmons College. Panelists : Sara Marks of Fitchburg State, Julie Krass Westwood Schools, Daniel Barbour Shrewsbury Public Library, Matthew Jaquith Springfield Public Library.

Jaquith

Springfield Public Library Reference. Formerly @ Brown.

Information Literacy is the a competency find, decipher, manage and share information in our society. Adapted from ODLIS : Online dictionary for library and information science by Joan Reitz. See http://lu.com/odlis/about.cfm

Also from ODLIS: Media Literacy defined: The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a variety of forms (print, audio, film/video, Internet, etc.) based on an informed, critical understanding of the nature of mass media, the techniques used by producers of media, and the impact of those techniques on the individual and society. An interdisciplinary field, media literacy has evolved as a necessary response to the complex, pervasive, ever-changing electronic communication environment of the 21st century. Click here to connect to the homepage of the Center for Media Literacy. Compare with information literacy.

Classes @ SPL http://www.springfieldlibrary.org/hitech.html

Why should public libraries teach information literacy? Information is a society need. People have different levels of need. Spectrum of literacy topics: Information literacy - He does a readers' advisory class using novelist - using OPACs etc to find materials using relevancy, bibliographic instruction - database use, Many classes at Springfield focus on basic computer literacy- there's a typing class a word, excel, powerpoint classes usually 2 session, 90minutes each, folder management. typing class has been very popular. media literacy- browsing, searching in many areas to find actually useful information.

Barbour - Shrewsbury PL http://www.shrewsbury-ma.gov/department/division.php?fDD=17-53

Uses his communication and marketing background to attract YAs

Some of his fun programs for grades 5-12: scavenger hunts (treasure hunts, haunted house themes), races. Teens hate bookgroups, Kings and Queens Grant teaching how to write. Natalie Perkins lead groups. She's has written First Daughter serues. Filmed them reading what they have written, then kids vote on the library blog. Shrewsbury PL checks out games. After the games were in the library, book circulation actually increased 25%. They have an IMLS grant which provides a shuttle service from the Middle School. They have a SPLAT advisory team. They have a manga collection development group which recommends books for purchase. They use Tutor.com to offer online tutoring.

Krass - Information Literacy in the Elementary School Libary. Westwood Schools.

She recommends starting early. Kindergartners learn the difference between fiction and non-fiction through readalouds. They play a fiction came. Children make up something fictional. She uses rhythm and a little song: Numbers mean nonfiction. She recommends the Jenkins book Actual size (Jenkins, Steve. Actual Size. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. ) with a document camera.

First Grade children learn sections in the library- Easy, etc. ; Children collaborate to create a table of contents for nonfiction; learning about favorite authors. She uses picture Icons to create an easy bibliography.

Marks Fitchburg State College Library

See her bookmarks at http://delicious.com/librarygurl/mla09

Sara's opinion: College students don't spend their time using traditional research methods. They crave interactivity and online access. Collaborative knowledge is growing. Librarians should quit fighting Wikipedia because this is a battle that will ultimately not be won. Better to teach how to evaluate materials critically. Eventually, collaborative wiki types of information will be mainstream as the value of collective knowledge becomes the norm in many fields.

LibGuides http://www.springshare.com/libguides/

LibGuides concentrate on ACCESS, feature media, accessible

Statistics available from LibGuide, have just added Google Analytics, so there will be more.

Very good support from folks who know libraries, hosted by LibGuides. Library A la Carte. Free, but you have to have very good resident IT tech support.

Cost for LibGuides. At $900/year, nothing pays better.

Their cost for Academic Search Premier $.27/search, Credo $.40/search, Libguides $.04/search.

After implementing, there was a slight increase in database use and a notable increase in Academic OneFile.

Ask a Librarian makes a live Meebo chat connection on the right sidebar, there's a twitter aspect

They have the ability to use delicious and digg, but they don't use

They have embedded a quick opac search widget.

Most popular, blackboard Libguide - There is a tour of the library on YouTube which is embedded.

They add Libguides to Blackboard.

BROWSE http://fsc.libguides.com/browse.php

Outcomes and rubrics for information literacy are there. http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=6334

Crime on Television is a Libguide. http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=23758

Web 2.0 Brownbag series http://fsc.libguides.com/web20

Blackboard LibGuide http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=2346 includes a video college tour which is on Youtube.

Source citations http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=4896

Advanced Research methods. http://fsc.libguides.com/content.php?pid=37164

ALA Let's talk about it Discussion series is on a libguide http://fsc.libguides.com/LTAI involves the community as well as the college.

- Brenda

Encounters with History: Learning and Teaching from Primary Sources

This was a program of the Boston Regional Library System. I was only able to get to the end of this presentation, so I missed the--already-blogged!--segments from:

Earle Havens, Acting Curator
Rare Books and Manuscripts, BPL
http://www.bpl.org/research/rb/collections.htm

Beth Prindle
Manager, John Adams Library Project
http://www.johnadamslibrary.org/

I came in at the end of the presentation from:

Ron Grim, Curator and Roni Pick, Director
Norman B. Leventhal Map Center
http://maps.bpl.org/
This collection has many maps with birdseye views—users can zoom in on the maps to see buildings, ships, etc.

Marta Pardee-King, Curator of Social Sciences, BPL
http://www.bpl.org/research/socsci/index.htm

Many electronic resources are available from home:
http://www.bpl.org/electronic/index.htm
Using maps with students helps illuminate the events/locations (e.g., when the outline of Boston has changed)
Often the BPL has both scanned images and transcribed text from historic documents; helpful so students can understand the text, but also can see the original.
Marta showed examples and discussed ways to use these documents with students:
:
Textbooks from an older era
Images of people, both old and recent
Examples of changing vocabulary
Political commentary (e.g. cartoons)
Minorities are also represented
For genealogists/beyond the census: Ancestry and New England Ancestors (In library only), city directories, town histories

For a list of primary documents covered by the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework, see:
http://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/hss/final.pdf
Appendix A

An issue brought up during Q&A:
Availability of the online materials/indexes means the use of the physical materials is increasing as well, as users are more aware of what exists in these collections, raising preservation issues.