Carnegie-Vincent Library

This summer’s Information Literacy Institute was a great success.  Held on August 3^rd-5^th, the main purpose of the institute was as follows: 

The Lincoln-Memorial Summer Information Literacy Institute is a collaborative educational opportunity that supports the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) in information literacy.  The goal of the institute is to develop the most creative and effective ways of integrating information literacy (IL) instruction into the curriculum.  Towards that end, Lincoln-Memorial invites an information literacy consultant to provide conceptual background, widely accepted best practices information, and workshop facilitation to us. 

During the institute, there will be times when information is simply imparted, but by far the most critical aspect of the institute is conducted as a sort of workshop: Classroom instructors and instructional librarians (with the help of key administrators and staff) will present their current syllabi and lesson plans as they work together to creatively enhance and extend that practice so that information literacy will be a fundamental, organic part of the LMU curriculum.  At the end of the institute, we should not only have a sharper concept of what we want our IL pedagogy to ideally be, but we should also have concrete tools we can put into actual, immediate practice. 

Often in teams comprised of primary instructors, librarians, and staff, the institute participants brainstormed ideas for integration of information literacy instruction into the James Frank White Academy and English 110 curricula.  As part of this process, we anticipated likely challenges and then proposed multiple solutions; connected existing coursework with national information literacy standards; and work-shopped innovative lesson plans.  If the outset of the workshop recognized a variety of concerns, by its close, focus seemed to have shifted to recognition of past work and innovative solutions.  One participant remarked, “Coming into the workshop, I was quite concerned as to how INFL could adequately be integrated into our courses in such a short time frame. I come away much relieved to find that some INFL is already present and more will (and can be!) easily worked with minimal effort.” 

Guest consultant, Michelle Millet — in her second year of working with San Antonio’s Trinity University QEP in information literacy – was a source of great insight and advice.  Among the topics she addressed were best practices in faculty-librarian collaboration, online instruction and support, and assessment. 

By the end of the institute, we had a number of important outcomes: