Information literacy instruction based on the ACRL "Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education" tends to focus on basic research skills. However, research is not just a skill but also a subject of study. The ACRL "Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education" opens the door to integrating the…

Librarians are tasked with helping students navigate content and discourse across disciplines as well as within their particular major. At times this requires a non-discipline-based form of teaching information seeking, gathering, and sharing that is often called information literacy. Digital storytelling provides a process for uncovering many of…

Information literacy, as a concept, has suffered from terminological confusion and has been burdened with untenable expectations. In addition, insufficient attention has been given to the place of information with the context of information behavior or information practices generally. Significant challenges remain to developing information…

The original concept of information literacy (IL) identifies it as an enabler for lifelong learning and learning-to-learn, adaptable and transferable in any learning environment and context. However, practices of IL in electronic information and learning environments (e-environments) tend to question the origins, and workability, of IL on the…

"Affective competence," managing the feelings and emotions that students encounter throughout the content creation/research process, is essential to academic success. Just as it is crucial for students to acquire core literacies, it is essential that they learn how to manage the anxieties and emotions that will emerge throughout all…

The idea that information is the building block for learning is not new. In fact, it has been a core tenet of learning theory since the study of human cognition began. What's new about learning in the twenty-first century is that various dimensions of information have changed--expanding in every conceivable way. Information is now a "24-7"…

Top Chef is one of America's top food television shows. In one episode, lead judge Tom Colicchio, chef and restaurant owner, chides a contestant for hurriedly slicing a piece of meat as soon as it had emerged from the oven. The meat was fully cooked, but the competitor had not "let it rest," or let it steep in its own juices outside the oven for…

EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) has been heavily used by UMUC students since its implementation in fall 2011, but experience has shown that it is not always the most appropriate source for satisfying students' information needs and that they often need assistance in understanding how the tool works and how to use it effectively. UMUC librarians have…

Higher education information literacy standards have readily addressed cognitive skills, although affective competencies--the emotional abilities that students must acquire in order to successfully navigate the research process--have not yet been incorporated into standards. This paper presents examples of current information literacy standards,…

Presents a simple four-step method bibliographic instruction librarians can use to teach students how to design an effective search strategy. Using the image of a clock face, students learn how to make explicit connections among the search statement, types of library materials, and access tools in formulating a research plan. (22 references)…

Teaching critical thinking is a relatively new dimension of bibliographic instruction (BI) in the academic environment. It marks a departure from the teaching of "user skills" in which the primary concern is enabling library patrons to determine the appropriateness of reference tools and to use those tools effectively. This report assembles a…

When helping undergraduates assess materials, academic librarians balance the reference interview with instruction in electronic databases. This article describes a method connecting these tasks with a search strategy dependent on the user's information needs. The connection is made by labeling the user's need with a diagnostic tool based on…

Discussion of how to teach college students the research process focuses on the importance of teaching the rhetorical dimensions of research and suggests several relevant approaches that librarians who teach bibliographic instruction can use when explaining access tools and research strategies. (Contains 18 references.) (LRW)

Describes the tutorial library instruction program at Berea College which is based entirely on tutorial procedures. (Author/RAA)

Summarizes Carol Kuhlthau's research on the information search process. Discusses how Kuhlthau's model of students' information search process (ISP) has been integrated into a course at Arizona State University and is being used experimentally as a training tool in the library's reference services. Selected student responses to research process…