Service-learning, a growing pedagogy in higher education, provides opportunities for students to contribute to communities and to reflect upon experiences ranging from direct service to advocacy. Librarians have an important but underutilized role in supporting service-learning as they contribute to institutional missions and the public purposes…

This study examines the current attitudes of librarians toward the practice of librarians teaching classes beyond the domain of library skills and information literacy. An electronic survey was sent to ILI-L (Information Literacy Instruction List), the Association of College and Research Libraries library instruction e-mail list. The author…

As part of the University of Rhode Island Libraries' "Comprehensive Plan for Information Literacy," a three-credit class in the skills and concepts of information literacy was first offered in the fall of 1999. More than 1,000 undergraduate students have taken the class since that time. A pre-test was given at the beginning of each semester,…

This paper criticizes the checklist model approach (authority, accuracy, objectivity, currency, coverage) to teaching undergraduates how to evaluate Web sites. The checklist model rests on faulty assumptions about the nature of information available through the Web, mistaken beliefs about student evaluation skills, and an exaggerated sense of…

Difficult to teach and learn, information literacy is a set of skills and knowledge that must be mastered through practice. Advances in the learning sciences reveal that students are not receptacles for wisdom deposits. They decide what they will learn. Problem-based learning exploits that insight. It calls for faculty/librarian collaborations.…