Susan Waldon

 

Information literacy can be defined as the ability to find and use and create and evaluate the knowledge that you want. Information literacy can be a combination of many different literacies…the basic ability to read and write, digital literacy, media literacy, the ability to spot fake news, some basic coding, health information literacy and financial information literacy…Helping people find and use the best information for their purpose and instilling confidence that they can learn what they need to know for these literacies is at the heart of what librarians do.

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In LIS 600, Foundations of Library Science, I read an article (Dervin, 1986) on neutral questioning that would provide a foundation for the reference interview that I learned about in LIS 620 Information Sources and Services. These techniques are essential to clarifying what people are seeking, sometimes even in their own minds. Sometimes I just listen to people until they figure out what they want. In LIS 620 I also learned about various resources that people can use to answer various kinds of questions so that once people know what they want I can help them to find it. I made a curated list of resources, a LibGuide, on autism with a public library audience in mind. It was focused on information to help families understand and deal with this disorder. I really enjoyed working with the LibGuide platform which allowed me to include information about books that linked to their catalog entries, embedded video from YouTube, and links to helpful articles and websites. Unfortunately, the platform has changed since I made the guide and all that remains of it is screen shots.

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In LIS 635, I reviewed an article for a discussion post that talked about the importance of one non-traditional literacy, media literacy. Elizabeth Daly’s “Expanding the Concept of Literacy” in Educause Review (Daly, 2003) made a case for lifelong learning not only to remain relevant but also to remain simply literate in these times of rapid change. The class was focused on learning various web applications that we could use in our roles as teachers and teach people to use to create and share knowledge of their own, another information literacy. I used Pictochart to make a basic infographic (shown to the right), Google Sites to make a basic website, a collection of resources about storytime,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and Screencastomatic to make a screencast for a flipped instruction segment about using the Wake County Public Library website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Using these technologies will enrich the ways that I teach people to meet their information needs and make all my programming more exciting.

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Because anyone can now easily create and publish to the internet, traditional information literacy that focuses on reliability of information is more important than ever. For that reason, I elected to take LIS 665 Information Literacy. I expected a class on fact checking, but I soon found that there is a lot more to critical information literacy than that. Yes, we started with the definition of information literacy given in the 1988 ALA Presidential Committee on Information Literacy Final Report that the information literacy process involves:

• “Knowing when they have a need for information

• Identifying information needed to address a given problem or issue.

• Finding needed information and evaluating the information

• Organizing the information

• Using the information effectively to address the problem or issue at hand.” (ALA Presidential Commission, 1988 p. 6)

We spent the first 6 weeks of class delving into the details of the bullet points above and the rest of the class dealing with issues that affect them. We used the CRAAP method to evaluate information, spending a great deal of time on how inherent bias affects everything from subject headings and classification to the content of news and other information. We saw how diversity in publishing, academia, and content creation would ensure multiple points of view that could be taken together to counter bias. We looked at content that was created with the intention of deceiving, fake news, and talked about how browser algorithms and social media news feeds that show you what you like can result in a confirmation bias bubble that has little to do with reality. Throughout class we focused on students and it was apparent that the class was intended primarily for school and academic librarians. Because I plan to be a public librarian, I decided to compile my bibliography on critical information literacy programming in public libraries (see also summary presentation about information literary in public libraries linked below).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was very difficult to find the required number of sources. One of the first sources I found had a table with numbers of articles published on information literacy by library type and public libraries published very little. My conclusion was that public libraries must produce programming that people voluntarily make an effort to attend and that information literacy probably doesn’t have much draw. Creative marketing and skillful teaching would be required to make it exciting enough to succeed. It would certainly be worth a try, though, because there is so much false and misleading information.

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I have been reading Unspun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation by Brooks Jackson and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg public policy center. It shows clearly that spin is not a new phenomenon and shows some ways to recognize it, but it is not as good about techniques for fact checking as I had hoped. I hope to learn more about fact checking after graduation.

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I chose my last class involving information literacy because it had a public library emphasis. LIS 688 Community Informatics is a seminar that involves volunteering to help people gain the computer literacy that is so vital to being able to function in a digital world. Part of the class is to participate in an international research study about how people learn and teach digital skills. I welcome the opportunity to get some hands-on experience with helping people understand how to use the computer better and to see some gifted teachers introduce people to new technologies. Any skills I pick up will directly translate into my library job where there are often people who need help with new technology.

 

Information literacy is one the areas I expect to have to try the hardest to keep up with as technology and applications evolve over the years. I will be on the lookout for related professional development activities and tech news so that I will be able to continue to support various kinds of literacy, to help people cross their digital divides and to help them to tell whether information is credible.

 

 

References:

ALA. (1989). Presidential Committee on Information Literacy: Final Report.

http://www.ala.org/acrl/publications/whitepapers/presidential (Accessed October 27, 2019)

Document ID: 106e5565-9ab9-ad94-8d9f-64962ebcde46

 

Daly, Elizabeth. (2003). “Expanding the Concept of Literacy”. Educause  Review. March/April 2003. https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/erm0322.pdf

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Dervin, Brenda and Dewdney, Patricia. (1986). “Neutral Questioning: A New Approach to the Reference Interview”. RQ. 25(4). pp. 506-513.

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Jackson, Brooks and Jamieson, Kathleen Hall. (2007). Unspun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation. New York: Random House. Print.