Presented at GaCOMO14 by Farley W. Jenkins, West Georgia Technical College

1. Evidence-Based
Practice in Information
Literacy Instruction
Farley W. Jenkins, MLIS
Librarian
West Georgia Technical College
farley.jenkins@westgatech.edu
(770) 537-6066

2. LITERATURE REVIEW
Or
Tales from Libraries Seeking their Student’s Attention

3. What is Information Literacy (IL)?
“To be information literate, a person must be
able to recognize when information is needed
and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use
effectively the needed information.”
—ALA, 1989

4. Information Literacy Instruction (ILI)
 Function of academic libraries since 1881
 60% of ILI literature has academic libraries focus
 Growing in importance

5. ACRL Standards
 Guide for academic ILI
 Broad set of student learning outcomes
 Focused on total student development

6. Standardized Assessment of Information
Literacy Skills (SAILS)
 Measures progress towards ACRL standards
 Allows apples-to-apples comparison

7. Challenges
 Undergraduate information-seeking behavior
 Budget and other resources are limited
 Political status of the library

8. Methods
 Course-integrated ILI
 Credit-bearing courses taught by librarians
 Series of guest lectures and drop-in sessions

9. National Library of Medicine
 Trained librarians to conduct their own research
 Gave librarians freedom to pursue their studies
 Results used to improve every function of library

10. University of New Mexico
 Numerous ILI sessions in multiple education
courses over the course of 2 years
 Focus on evidence-based practice
 ILI test scores improved by 20%
 Student-Teaching probation decreased from
20% to 0%

11. Purdue University
 Mentored undergraduate research
 Librarians serve on standing committees
 Numerous group and individual ILI sessions and
research consultations

12. Louisiana State University
After taking a credit course in library research:
 79% continued to use methods and sources
 93% felt more confident in research

13. National-Louis University
 Taught course on Digital Information Literacy
 Asked to teach courses on Critical and Ethical
Use of Digital Information and Social Science
Research

14. Analysis
 Multiple credit-bearing ILI courses is ideal
 Online laboratories are less resource-intensive
 As much ILI as politics and economics allow

15. CASE STUDY
Or
That’s all fine in theory, but…

16. The Institution
 West Georgia Technical College
 Enrollment of 7,331
 Most popular subjects are allied health
sciences, business, and information technology

17. The Directive
 To increase ILI sessions to 10 per semester
 Currently teaching about 5 sessions per year

18. Online Videos
 Produced a series of 5-minute videos
 Videos can be watched in order to provide a
virtual ILI session

19. Drop-in Information Sessions
 Presented apart from in-course sessions
 Given monthly at different dates and times

20. Outreach
 Flyers placed on bulletin boards in student
areas
 Email marketing to faculty

21. The Results
 Still too early to tell
 Methods will be adjusted according to
measurable outcomes

22. SUGGESTED READING
Or
You Gotta Start Somewhere

23. ILI Case Studies
Hollister, C. V. (2010). Best practices for credit-bearing
information literacy courses. Chicago:
American Library Association.

24. Instructional Design
Bell, S. J., & Shank, J. D. (2007). Academic
librarianship by design: A blended librarian's
guide to the tools and techniques. Chicago:
American Library Association.

25. Journal Articles
 Association of College and Research Libraries. (2000). Information literacy
competency standards for higher education. Chicago: American Library
Association. Retrieved April 1, 2012, from
http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency
 Chevillotte, S. (2010). Information literacy. In M. J. Bates (Ed.), Encyclopedia of
library and information sciences (3rd ed., pp. 2421-2428).
 Corrall, S. (2008). Information literacy strategy development in higher
education: An exploratory study. International Journal of Information
Management, 28(1), 26-37.
 Daugherty, A. L., & Russo, M. F. (2011). An assessment of the lasting effects of a
stand-alone information literacy course: The students' perspective. The Journal
of Academic Librarianship, 37(4), 319-326.
 Mery, Y., Newby, J., & Peng, K. (2012). Why one-shot information literacy
sessions are not the future of instruction: A case for online credit courses.
College & Research Libraries. Advance Online Publication. Retrieved March
29, 2012, from http://crl.acrl.org/content/early/2011/08/26/crl-271.full.pdf+html
 Walstrum, M., Garcia, L., & Morisson, R. (2011, March). From embedded to
integrated: Digital information literacy and new teaching models for
academic librarians. Paper presented at the ACRL 2011 Conference,
Philadelphia, PA. Retrieved March 30, 2012, from
http://www.ala.org/acrl/sites/ala.org.acrl/files/content/conferences/confsand
preconfs/national/2011/papers/from_embedded.pdf

26. Questions?

27. Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind
to think.
—Albert Einstein
Thank you!