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...]
Frozen Streets and Broken Links: Musing on a Snow Day
February 18, 2015 By
Last Monday night a swirl of ice and snow swept through Davidson, threatening to shut streets down, take down power-lines, and perhaps cancel classes. Luckily, through all of it, the doors to the library remained open, thanks much to our essential staff and our student workers. And of course, had the library been closed, one could always access much of our resources online. Despite the weather ravaging our daily routines, the world of information has remained preserved. Or has it? With our … [Read more...]
Students as Creators of Knowledge
January 21, 2015 By
Recently the Information Literacy team at Davidson submitted a proposal to lead a conversation at the upcoming Innovative Library Classroom about students as creators of knowledge-content. And, in December, we heard back from the conference leaders that our proposal had been approved. Our team is very excited about our proposal, because it both highlights what we view as an important component of student learning and addresses how we might satisfy that component with limited time and … [Read more...]
