Book Description

The report profiles the information literacy efforts of a broad range of North American colleges including: Syracuse University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Windsor, Ulster County Community College, the University of North Texas, the University of California Berkeley, the University of Southern California at Los Angeles, the University of North Carolina Wilmington, Southeastern Oklahoma University, Central Connecticut State University and Seattle Pacific University. Participants discuss how they promote information literacy at their institutions, how they win support of key faculty and administrators, and how they develop courses, guidelines, tutorials and standards. Other major issues include student assessment, instructor training, integration of info literacy into other curriculums, grants and institutional financial support, the impact of new educational technologies, and the role of learning and computer centers in supporting the info literacy effort, among other issues. Indiana University library officials discuss info literacy efforts for specialized populations, such as athletes, while librarians at the University of California, Berkeley explain their grant funded information literacy outreach program that reaches all corners of the University. University of North Texas librarians relate how they are developing special classrooms to ready themselves for the likely move towards more formal information literacy classes, while faculty at Ulster County Community College explain how the college developed a required information literacy course that is delivered through traditional means and through the college?s distance learning program. Instructional library faculty at North Carolina State Wilmington explain the political process of getting a required information literacy course approved at their university, while Seattle Pacific University librarians discuss the challenges of student assessment. As North American colleges move towards mandated information literacy courses, this study can help information literacy coordinators to reduce the time and effort involved in developing courses and tutorials, and assist them in dealing with in-house politics and in finding useful institutional models and best practices.