Spring 2010 Meeting: Give a Man a Fish or Teach A Man To Fish?

Date: April 16, 2010
Time: 2:00pm - 4:00pm
Location: Mount Wachusett Community College

Topic:  The next generation of library guides has opened up a huge debate: how much information should we be giving our students vs. how much we should teach our students to find information for themselves?  Databases now provide us with search box widgets to add to pages giving students easier access to their searches.  They not provide us with RSS feeds that can be embedded into services like LibGuides to provide students with articles on searches we design.  Vendors like Credo Reference are creating topic pages that provide us with Reference collection summaries and then allow us to push students directly to databases of our choice for the scholarly and popular articles.
Where do we draw the line between giving them the content and teaching them how to find it themselves?  This meeting will be an open discussion on this very issue.  Bring your examples of how you are addressing this issue at your library and in your instruction sessions.

RSVP to Sara Marks by Friday, April 9, 2010

Directions and map to Mount Wachusett Community College

Parking:
Park anywhere in “North Parking Lot C” (very few classes on Fridays so there should be plenty of parking close by). No permit needed. Enter the building, then look for signs.   I’ll post signs pointing towards the library. We’ll be in the Library Instruction and Research Lab, Room 071 on the lower level of the library.

Rick Anderson's 5 Sacred Cows of Librarianship

Rick Anderson spoke to the Kentucky Library Association at their Spring Conference. His PowerPoint Presentation, Five Sacred Cows of Librarianship: Why They No Longer Matter, and Why Two of Them Never Did, was recently posted to their blog after many requests for it.
Why am I posting it here?
Good question!

This presentation may be of great interest to those who are very interested in the subjects of collection development, reference services and information literacy. He took on the topic of ownership vs. access when it comes to our collections, how we manage our collections and how reference is not a scalable service. By scalable, he means that we can not handle an real increase in demand for this service.

I don't know if I agree with Rick just yet, but he makes a strong case. Read over his powerpoint and feel free to make your comments about what you read and how you feel about this topic.

Bibliography for Engaged Teaching and Engaged Students

Michele recommends the following sources.

Bruce, C. (1997). The seven faces of information literacy. Auslib Press.

Bruner, J. (1960). The process of education. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bruner, J. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Cardiff University. (2007). Handbook for information literacy teaching. Available at:
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/insrv/educationandtraining/infolit/hilt/index.html

Cook, D. & Sittler, R.L. (Eds.). (2008). Practical pedagogy for library instructors: 17 innovative strategies to improve student learning. Association of College & Research Libraries.

Elmborg, James. (2006). Critical information literacy: Implications for instructional practice. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 32(2), pgs. 192-99.

Jackson, R. (2007). Cognitive development: The missing link in teaching information literacy skills. Reference & User Services Quarterly, Vol. 46, No. 4, pgs. 28-32.

Jacobson, T.E. & Xu, L. (2004). Motivating students in information literacy classes. Neal-Schuman Publishers.

Ragains, P. (2006). Information literacy instruction that works: A guide to teaching by discipline and student population. Neal-Schuman Publishers.

Rockman, I. (2004). Integrating information literacy into the higher education curriculum. Jossey-Bass.

Schwab, J. (1962). The Inglis Lecture. The teaching of science as enquiry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Schwab, J. (1978). Education and the structure of the disciplines. In J. Westbury & N. Wilkof (Eds.), Science, curriculum, and liberal education . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57 (1), 1-22.

Sparks, D. (1992). Merging content knowledge and pedagogy: An interview with Lee Shulman. Journal of Staff Development, 13(1), 14-17.

Smith, F. (2007). Games for teaching information literacy skills. Available at: http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/117/

Ward, Dane. (2006). Revisioning information literacy for lifelong meaning. The Journal of Academic Librarianship 32, 4, pgs. 396-402.