What is Information Literacy?

Image borrowed from our friends at University of Central Florida

Let's take a few moments to consider what Information Literacy really entails. Overall, I think the majority of librarians would consider IL to broadly mean finding, evaluating, and using information, but what if this isn't the case at all? What if creating life long learners means something even broader?

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Today my boss told me I needed to incorporate more information literacy into my library instruction sessions. Initially, I was taken back since my boss has never even attended one of my sessions. Naturally, I was surprised when confronted with such a statement.

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I thought I had been showing students how to find, evaluate, and use information all along. Of course the lesson has always been wrapped in a package in order to keep the students attention, nevertheless IL is there in a predominant way.

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So I was left scratching my head. I think the difficulty lies in having five standards and dozens and dozens of objectives and indicators. There's no way a librarian can incorporate everything in 50 minutes. Is there?

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Maybe my friends at UCF are onto something investigating Information Fluency, however, I think we should strive to fully understand IL before moving onto to IF.

Helping everyone

It's the job of all librarians to reach as many patrons as possible. We shouldn't limit ourselves to helping people who are only like ourselves. Rather we need to break away from our comfort zone. This means even helping a big yellow bird! Remember patrons, no matter what they look like, talk like, smell like are all just searching for some type of information. Let's do them and our profession a favor by serving everyone the same.

Information literacy is for old and young alike. Everyone wants to know how to find, how to evaluate, and how to use information. And it's our job to help them begin and complete the process.

Reaching Students Through Resident Assistants.

At the beginning of the 2006-2007 academic year the FSU Library Learning Services Department let 150 Resident advisers know we needed their help. This was done by giving every graduate student resident hall advisor a gift package, which included a wonderful white board.

Our department hoped this 8"x 11" whiteboard, absent the the information literacy statement, would help attract students to the library. It is our belief that the more places that provide library contact information the better.

Reaching Undergraduates with Alternative Instruction

During the 2006 Spring semester Florida State University Libraries kicked off its brand new Term Paper Clinics concept. This marked an innovative approach to promoting information literacy through individual instruction. The vision was to lessen student anxiety by providing an noninvasive atmosphere where students received personal assistance from professionals.

Advertising the clinics was an essential component to the Library's Learning Services Department's initiative to promote information literacy. In order to achieve the latter the former had to be successful.

The Learning Services Department realized the only way its librarians could enlighten students about information literacy was to get them to the clinics. This prompted a campus wide advertising campaign to get out the word on the Term Paper Clinics.

Overwhelmingly various University Support Services assisted with the promotion. The assistance provided by these units was truly remarkable. Our department received help from the campus television, radio, and newspaper, but these were only a few of the groups that stepped up to the plate. We worked in correspondence with student housing and union marketing to post our initial fliers and posters around campus.

The poster displayed is a modification of a poster that I and Chuck McCann of our Digital Media Center created. Another poster was created (seen beside posting area) by myself during the middle of the semester. This gave us the opportunity to switch out posters to keep things fresh. We now utilize both posters simultaneously.

Promoting Information Literacy

How can a library effectively promote information literacy? The answer to this question may be more complicated than it appears. The tough part of the question is "effectively promote." Of course most if not all libraries try to incorporate information literacy but are they promoting it effectively?