Davidson’s librarians often experience a tension in our information literacy instruction: we want to prepare students to do well on a particular assignment (for example, finding sources for a research paper), but we also want to teach them to think critically about their information use generally (for instance, considering the political, social, and ethical impacts of information). This tension is reflected in our Information Literacy Vision Statement: “We recognize the importance of … [Read more...]
Teaching Information Privilege
October 1, 2015 By
As the Assistant Director for Information Literacy at Davidson, I spend a lot of my time thinking about how to teach students information literacy. In my experience, our students and faculty often equate information literacy with the ability to write research papers, so our librarians frequently are asked to teach skills and concepts that will help students succeed on specific academic assignments. We value this important educational role, but we also know that an information literate person … [Read more...]
Welcome Sarah!
September 2, 2015 By
Please welcome Sarah Crissinger, our newest research librarian at Davidson. Sarah started working with the Information Literacy team in mid-July. Originally from Ohio, Sarah received her Bachelor of Arts in English and Women’s Studies from Wright State University in Dayton. She just graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with a Master’s of Science in Library and Information Science in May. While at Illinois, she held graduate assistantships in the reference and … [Read more...]
Librarian Bootcamp
August 27, 2014 By
Every summer, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) holds a week-long “bootcamp” for instruction and information literacy librarians called Immersion. It consists of two tracks: the Teacher Track and the Program Track. A number of librarians here at Davidson have attended the Teacher Track in past years. Four years ago, I had the opportunity to attend it in Burlington, Vermont. Teacher Track focuses on learning theories, innovative and inclusive pedagogies, and … [Read more...]
Welcome James
June 4, 2014 By
We are thrilled that a new librarian joined the Information Literacy team this week: James Sponsel. Originally from Minnesota, James majored in philosophy at St. Olaf College and just received his MLIS from the Simmons Graduate School of Library and Information Science. He spent this past spring at Carleton College as the Reference and Instruction Intern where he designed and delivered instruction sessions and developed online modules and tutorials. Last summer, he interned at the Mayo Clinic … [Read more...]
