Evolving Thought on Information Literacy

Howard Rheingold’s work is representative of the evolution of thinking around and approach to information and technology literacy.  Critical innovations in technology, characterized particularly by the convergence  of  digitally-based communications (e.g. mobile technologies, social networks, distributed processing systems, and ubiquitous computing) have given rise to consideration among a number of traditionally invested constituencies (e.g. educators, librarians, information technologists), of what it means, or what is required, to be literate in the digital age.

Rheingold takes a vigorous stance regarding the validity of approaching education in ways that extend beyond emphasis on skills and technologies to the consideration of essential social media literacies.  As a staunch advocate for the advancement of fundamental twenty-first century literacies, Rheingold’s thinking is grounded in the belief that neither having access to technology, nor possessing the necessary digital skills to use the technology, is sufficient to thrive in a digitally networked society.  Moreover, Rheingold cautions against what he considers the myth of the so-called digital native, whose access to and prevalent use of social media, he contends, does not automatically endow an individual with the rhetorical acumen necessary to be considered literate. Rather, Rheingold asserts, the critical aspect of “community” in the digital age, i.e. the prominence of social media, requires consideration of what he identifies as five interrelated literacies – attention, participation, collaboration, network awareness, and critical consumption (or “crap detection”)^[1] – that must be developed in concert with one another to achieve required fluency.   “Ultimately, the most important fluency is not in mastering a particular literacy but in being able to put all five of these literacies together into a way of being in the digital culture.”  His theories are broadly addressed in his forthcoming book, Net smart: How to thrive online. 

It generally is established that information literacy is central to the educational role of academic libraries. The assertion that its traditional model should be reconsidered was made by James W. Marcum in an article published in The Library Quarterly in January 2002, entitled Rethinking Information Literacy.  Marcum also presented on the topic at the 2001 Educause National Conference.  Interestingly, Howard Rheingold engaged in similar future-casting, at around the same time as Marcum wrote his piece on information literacy, in his book Smart Mobs: The next social revolution.  Both referred to Moore’s Law and Metcalfe’s Law to support their predictions of a communication revolution in the 21^st century in light of the rapid development of computing technology.

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[1] Rheingold adopted this terminology from an Ernest Hemingway (1954) quote, ““Every man should have a built-in automatic crap detector operating inside him.”

Faculty Partnerships for ICT Literacy – Diane Gozemba

Assistant Professor Diane Gozemba, Chair of the Early Childhood Education  program, championed ICT  (Information and Communication Technology) literacy on campus long before it was identified as one of the seven General Education Abilities within the College’s Ability Based Education model.  Diane has worked in partnership with Lisa Kenyon, Curriculum Support Librarian and LIS liaison to ECE, over the past five years to integrate library instruction into her courses. They have recently integrated ICT literacy throughout the ECE  curriculum, beginning in ED110: Introduction to Early Childhood Education, with the development of a subject-specific orientation for all entering ECE students. Through other specifically targeted courses across the curriculum increasingly sophisticated ICT literacy skills are addressed throughout a students program of study. 

A particularly successful venture was pursued during the fall of 2010, when Prof. Gozemba and Ms. Kenyon teamed on a co-curricular mini-grant for ED302: Social Studies in Early Childhood Education.  In this course, library instruction was delivered on the use of primary source materials in developing a social studies curriculum.  With an emphasis on the use of culturally responsible material in the classroom, students were directed to appropriate resources to gather information.   In addition to the library instruction that took place, students were taken by the instruction team to visit the Mashantucket Pequot Museum where they worked with the Museum’s librarian to learn more about investigating and identifying culturally responsible materials on Native American culture.

We highly value the enriching faculty partnerships, such as this one with Prof. Gozemba, that we are building for furthering ICT literacy within ABE and look forward to showcasing similar team efforts in the future.  We wish to thank Diane Gozemba for her commitment to ICT literacy and for supporting a terrific teaching and learning experience!

AskLIS – The New Knowledge Base at Mitchell College

Everyone has questions. How do I renew my library books? How can I request a title that the library does not own? Where are the academic journals in the library? There is now a new way to get your questions answered, perhaps quicker than you might have thought.

Library and Information Services (LIS) at Mitchell College now makes use of AskLIS, a knowledge management system—or “knowledge base”—used to generate ease of knowledge generation and retrieval. You can link to AskLIS from the library homepage. Simply type your question into AskLIS and you’ll see questions similar to yours cascade below the search box. Click on the question to see the answer. It’s that easy! If your question is new, we’ll e-mail you the answer once it has been added to the knowledge base.

AskLIS is essentially a database of frequently asked questions. It saves us time from answering the same questions over and over again, and saves you time from having to wait to get your questions answered. The more people who ask LIS questions, the larger the knowledge base becomes, and the quicker the community gets its questions answered. So if you have questions, ask LIS, and you can contribute to our growing knowledge base!

Getting So Old – Defense Against the Demise of the Academic Library Continues

The Chronicle never misses an opportunity to forecast the demise of the library, and the latest doom and gloom article published on January 2nd was a pip.  Academic Library Autopsy Report, 2050, by Brian T. Sullivan (himself an academic librarian and undoubtedly considered by some at this point to be the proverbial “traitor in our midst”) sparked a predictably heated debate.  Wesleyan University Librarian Patricia A. Tully offers a very different vision in her letter to the editor, The Library’s End? A Long Way Off, published by The Chronicle on January 23rd.  Kudos!

When I first arrived at Mitchell nearly ten years ago, it was The Deserted Library (subtitled As Students Work Online, Reading Rooms Empty Out — Leading Some Campuses to Add Starbucks), published in The Chronicle on November 16, 2001, a mere two months to the day into my tenure as Director of Library Services.  The Library, as it happens, was indeed deserted; and, naturally, I heard from both the President and the Dean about this article.  Long story short, however, Library and Information Services (LIS) today blends library and educational technology services and is far from deserted (despite, I might add, the absence of a cafe and its rather remote campus location …).    Interestingly, the author of this infamous article, Scott Carlson, now co-hosts The Chronicle’s monthly technology podcast Tech Therapy, and the conversations in consideration of libraries have taken a decidedly different turn.  Today, libraries are transforming into learning commons, and the developing trend is towards a blending of traditional academic technology and library services for the seamless support of teaching and learning. I see this significantly evidenced in the evolution of Educause, whose publications, resources, and regional and national conferences attract and provide important professional support and development opportunities to a growing community of hybrid information professionals.  Moreover, the concept of  blended librarianship was proposed by librarians Stephen J. Bell and John Shank in what now is considered a landmark article published in the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) C&RL News in 2004.  The Blended Librarian website is testimony to the viability of this new trend in librarianship.  I applaud Patricia Tully’s counter vision for a vibrant profession and see plenty of evidence for its continued exciting evolution.

Vital Importance of Information Literacy and Critical Thinking

Stanley Fish  opens his New York Times article Anonymity and the Dark Side of the Internet by challenging the basis for  Justice Paul Stevens’ majority opinion on the Supreme Court’s1995  decision to overrule a statute that required the assignment of authority in the promotion of a political candidate or issue.  Stevens based his opinion on an earlier case that essentially supported the idea that the identity of the information source is not germaine to, nor does it affect the interpretation of, the information.  Fish goes on to support his opinion, based largely on a new collection of essays published under the title The Offensive Internet:  Speech, Privacy, and Reputation, that Justice Stevens’ reasoning was flawed and that the protection of individuals’ anonymity has particularly negative implications in the internet age.  The authors of these essays, Fish points out, while legal scholars who are strong advocates for free speech, nonetheless take positions that qualify their advocacy in light of the disturbing realities of a free-for-all  internet environment.  The reader commentary associated with this article  is voluminous and fascinating.  As an information specialist, my first reaction after taking all of this in was that now, more than ever before, a commitment in education to information literacy and the development of critical thinking skills is essential to upholding  freedom of speech.

More on the implications of Google eBooks

Yesterday’s Chronicle article on Google eBooks sheds some additional light on the rapidly evolving ebook/ereader landscape.  Google’s well orchestrated announcement created the desired stir, and Amazon perhaps lost a bit of market ground.   However, I saw a Kindle ad on the CNN network this morning that touted the Amazon eReader’s ability to sync across devices through its own assortment of apps.  And as The Chronicle  article acknowledges, we’ll be seeing Kindle for the Web very soon.  The article also points up a significant flaw regarding Google eBooks, in that it is not possible, at least at present,  to do any kind of text mark-up. That is particularly disappointing for academics and a significant barrier to broader adoption of etextbook use.  On the other hand, the competition is heating up!

Google eBooks – A Breakthrough?

Google eBooks  has arrived!  Announced on Monday, this new Google service is built upon a solid, albeit controversial, foundation established in 2004 through a landmark partnership between Google and several major university libraries for the digitization of their collections.  What began as a project to scan only books falling within the public domain, expanded to include in-copyrighted works.  The waters muddied considerably, and hence ensued a four-year battle in the courts, culminating in an historic settlement with what also might have equally historic implications for the ebook format. 

Another fatal blow for libraries?  Let’s get over ourselves.  Whatever one might think about Google’s determined efforts to digitize every book that ever has been published, this latest development is rather groundbreaking, in my mind.  Throw in an enticing retail platform, and all of a sudden the proprietary issues surrounding the use of electronic books begin to dissipate, e.g. accessibility, device compatibility, booksellers’ ereader constraints.  And might this development pave the way for broader adoption of etextbook use, for ereader technology to begin its ascent out of Gartner’s trough of disillusionment to the slope of enlightenment?  Because Google eBooks exists, as it coins, “in the digital clouds,” seamless transition from one device to another is possible, as is unlimited storage. Moreover, centralized access to unprecedented numbers of titles is available through Google’s eBookstore (including its Free Classics Shelf) and through what Google expects will be a steadily increasing number of independent bookstore and retail partners.

So what’s the fine print?  Kindle users are on the outs at present, and there are other device limitations.  Some ebooks may not be enabled for download to ereaders because of publisher limitations.  Ebooks with original scanned pages will not adjust to different screen sizes.  And there are digital rights management (DRM) requirements that come into play.  Not a perfect world, for sure; nonetheless, barriers are being broken!

Growing Hype Over Textbooks

As I read the recent article in The Chronicle titled To Save Money, Colleges May Force a Switch to e-Textbooks , and particularly the many comments it generated from readers, I was struck by the aspect of sheer hype surrounding this issue, as characterized by the tagline: “The End of the Textbook As We Know It.”    The article itself is fairly brief, but to date it  has generated 70 comments, many quite lengthy.  Hype aside, we’re clearly in the midst of the proverbial paradgm shift.  In this economy, the high cost of textbooks is crippling for our students.  We’re hearing more frequently of students simply choosing not to buy their required texts from the college bookstore, which is threatened by potential loss of revenue due to this situation and other publishing and technology development trends.  The publishing industry itself is positioning, of course, to protect its profits while assuming a kind of partnering stance, a position of stepping up to be part of the solution.  And self-publishing, open content, and open source movements increasingly are factoring into the mix.  Meanwhile, eReader technology is well on its descent into what Gartner has coined as “the trough of disillusionment.”   So much hinges on the maturing of this technology, but it will happen; it is happening.  The Kindle is not anymore the only act in town.  While all of  this shifting is happening, we need to maintain our own institutional dialog among faculty, academic support professionals, and students; and to carefully consider our options for imlementing meaningful, rather than forced and/or unilateral, change.

Project Information Literacy Releases New Report

Today’s issue of Inside Higher Ed features an article by Barbara Fister entitled Undergraduates in the Library, Trying Not to Drown, in which she discusses the findings of a major study just conducted by Project Information Literacy.  A study of over 8,000 undergraduates from 25 colleges and universities across the country revealed both hopeful and disappointing results.  The good news, that undergraduates do look at critically and apply criteria for evaluating resouces, I have to admit was a little surprising to me.  Our experience is that students often are challenged in applying critical thinking skills to their consideration of appropriate information resources, and that they often are reluctant  to spend the time necessary to evaluate resources.   And this certainly ties into the bad, and to me unsurprising news, which is that students are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information available to them and, therefore, tend to limit themselves intentionally in their search strategies.  Confirmed by the study is that students experience the most challenge in conducting research at the very beginning phase of the process, which is choosing a topic.  Fister discusses the implications for both faculty and librarians in our intersecting efforts to further student learning.  Don’t miss the reference to a recent Educause Review article by Dana Boyd, Streams of Content, Limited Attention: The Flow of Information Through Social Media, which is an excellent complementary and reflective piece.

An entertaining summary of the Project Information Literacy study may be viewed on YouTube.

 

 

 

 

A NEW Chameleon

The Chameleon  was introduced a couple of years ago as a  quarterly web-based newsletter of Mitchell College’s Library and Information Services (LIS).  LIS supports teaching, learning, scholarship, and innovation at the College through a blending of library and educational technology services.  The chameleon, of course, as a living creature represents adaptability for the sake of compatibility with its environment and improved communication. Its eyes can rotate and focus independently to look in different directions simultaneously. Therefore, in keeping with its nature, The Chameleon is transforming itself from essentially a service-based information tool,  into a blog, initially at least, for the Director of Library and Information Services (LIS) to highlight information of potential interest to LIS information specialists and the Mitchell academic community at large, information relating specifically to the awesome and advancing blended profession of librarianship, to the support of teaching and learning in higher education, to information and communication technology (ICT) literacy, to learning environments, and to just anything that engages us as a community in promoting life-long learning for our students and for ourselves.

We’ll see where this takes us.  I know, at the very least, that the members of the LIS team will be grateful to me for the significant reduction of spam in their inboxes!  Perhaps they’ll join me from time to time in sharing their discoveries and insights as well.  I hope so!