Information Literacy: Articles

In academe, information literacy is best integrated into student learning through meaningful collaboration between discipline faculty and librarians, and through strategic, curricular, and programmatic efforts that align it with an institution's mission and outcomes. The author describes a framework for collaboration and reviews exemplars for collaborations that lead to successful information literacy development and infusion.

Findings are reported from student focus groups and a large-scale survey about how and why students (enrolled at six different U.S. colleges) use Wikipedia during the course-related research process.

From the Chronicle of Higher Ed, this article gives concrete examples of how to integrate information literacy into your classes and how to go beyond focusing on the data sources and promote critical thinking and evaluation.

Two-part study that examines undergraduates and the impact of library instruction on the quality of sources cited and their use of scholarly materials.

Citation analysis of undergraduates' bibliographies reveals the types of print and electronic resources they use for their papers.

Study compares the scores of freshmen undergraduates on the Information Literacy Test (ILT) with the their perceptions of their information literacy skills.

Examines the influence of peers on information seeking behavior, the under-utilization of librarians, and importance of accessible rather than authoritative resources in undergraduates.

The article focuses on a problem-based approach for information literacy in athletic training. In order to engage athletic training graduates in evidence-based practice, they must be prepared by athletic training educators to incorporate knowledge and skills, including information literacy.

Biology professors and librarians at Indiana University collaborated to create an information literacy skills class to help undergraduates understand the research process.

This article looks at library-based assignments that enrich business communication courses are a valuable resource for teaching business communication. Teachers can their students with educational benefits by integrating sessions in the library with sessions in a traditional classroom. Students will learn how to find sources, test them for reliability, and develop confidence in their research skills.

An overview of a assignments created by St. Olaf college to for an analytical chemistry course. These assignments require that students demonstrate how to: locate and effectively use Internet-based science resources; create and manage electronic information; evaluate the content and source of the information; and gain proficiency with an array of professional software tools related to the above processes.

Teachers cannot prepare their students to be information literate unless they themselves understand how to find and use information. This Digest discusses the concept of information literacy (the ability to access, evaluate, and use information from a variety of sources) and its relevance for teachers.

This article details the process of implementing a sequenced information literacy program for two core English composition courses at Utah State University. An extensive needs assessment guided the project, leading to a curriculum design process with the goal of building a foundation for deeper critical thinking skills.

The interdisciplinary nature of the study of environmental issues and problems presents challenges to environmental researchers that are compounded by a largely subject-based library and information environment. This article reflects upon and addresses issues associated with delivering sustained library instruction to undergraduate students who have chosen to focus on the interdisciplinary study of the environment at the University of Vermont.

Its purpose is to provide an analytical policy review of a number of issues associated with studio art and design and research.

How do you foster the development of foundational research skills in first-year undergraduate music students? A solution to this problem was to implement a four-semester integrated music information-literacy program that emphasized library instruction for first-year students.

This paper details the collaborative efforts of a reference librarian and a political science professor to seamlessly meld the study of politics with the acquisition of information literacy skills using a problem-based learning approach.

This article describes a unique course-based collaboration involving an English professor, a Learning Strategies Counselor, and a Librarian. The potential benefits and barriers of collaborative teaching in literature are reviewed

The study of primary and secondary texts in philosophy allows students to develop the capacity to orient themselves in a more and more complex reality. With guiding help, critical readers are able to orient themselves and others by referring to relevant sources without blindly following opinions.

A survey of physics librarians reveals that undergraduate physics majors rarely receive formal bibliographic instruction, despite a perception that those students are using many kinds of library resources. Some institutions have been successful in creating library instruction programs in physics, however. The kinds of instruction given are described, and tips from respondents of how to maximize the chances of obtaining instruction opportunities from faculty are shared.

This paper examines an information literacy collaborative research project at the University of Otago between a sociology lecturer and a subject specialist librarian. The research project was undertaken to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of embedding information literacy skills into academic assessment requirements in a first and a third year sociology course.