Is Information Literacy Worth the Effort?

(Note: For the rest of October 2011, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Armacost Library blog will showcase guest and regular writers. They were all asked to respond to the question "What does information literacy mean to me?")

Like my colleagues who have written already, I think of information literacy as a set of attitudes and skills. The premise of information literacy is that information influences our choices in every area of our lives. If we understand our priorities and recognize the information need within a given situation, then we can make good decisions and feel confident in our ability to get things done.

But why do we have to stop to consider our information needs? Is too much information really a problem? What’s the danger in deciding based on the “wrong” information? Certainly it makes a difference in some situations, such as a job seeker trying to negotiate her salary, or a society trying to decide whether to go to war. But surely there's much less at stake with a student paper. What's the harm in letting Google do the work and picking the first source that seems good enough?

Lately I've been thinking about cooking as a metaphor for developing information literacy. Faster and easier alternatives to home-cooked meals exist, but many people consider the extra time and effort worthwhile when compared against the health risks and environmental costs of mass-produced fast food. Subcultures such as the slow food movement have arisen to celebrate the creation of wholesome meals from local, trustworthy ingredients, savored deliberately in the company of friends. Cooking is a communal hobby, involving recipe-sharing and informal mentoring from those with more experience. I'd argue all these factors are also implicit in information literacy.

Ultimately, I would say that information literacy is worthwhile because the subjects we are studying, like the other choices we make in everyday life, are important enough to merit our full attention and our best thinking, informed by the most relevant sources we can bring to bear on the problem at hand. An idealistic notion, perhaps, but then ideals such a love of learning or a desire for personal empowerment are part of what drew many of us to higher education, and something our society needs to remain vital.

Sanjeet Mann
Electronic Resources Librarian

Information Literacy Empowers

(Note: For the rest of October 2011, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Armacost Library blog will showcase guest and regular writers. They were all asked to respond to the question "What does information literacy mean to me?")

Several months ago, my doctor informed me that I’d need surgery. Since I was in good health and circumstances weren’t dire, I was shocked to hear that it’d take six weeks for my body to heal and that I’d not be allowed to work during this time.

I was given a brochure explaining the procedure, but it left me with many unanswered questions ranging from the vain--How will the scar look?—to the dire—What are the risks?—to the practical—How will I lift myself out of bed? I soon learned to fire off a list of questions whenever my doctor would pause long enough to talk. In between these regularly-scheduled visits, I learned what I could in order to make the most of these rapid-fire exchanges.

I chose to use tools like Medline Plus which takes information from the largest medical library in the world, the National Library of Medicine, and explains medical terms and conditions in ways average people can understand. I also evaluated posts from online discussion forums and blogs for relevance and credibility so that I might learn from people’s personal experiences. When I wanted the latest medical research, I searched in PubMed since it has over 21 million citations taken from scholarly biomedical literature. And when full-text wasn’t freely available on the Web, I didn’t let that stop me. Knowing my options as a member of this University, I used Citation Finder to search the University’s collections, and have used interlibrary loan when I needed full-text from other libraries.

As an information literate, I empower myself by learning what I need to ask, where to find information, and how to leverage resources to get answers to my questions.

--Paige Mann, Visiting Assistant Librarian

Information Literacy = A Human Right, A Civic Duty, Something Like That

(Note: For the rest of October 2011, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Armacost Library blog will showcase guest and regular writers. They were all asked to respond to the question "What does information literacy mean to me?")

The concept of being information literate is at the center of my work as a librarian/educator in higher education, but it is also central to my life as a citizen, parent, consumer, scholar, patient, advocate, and fellow human being. The shorthand definition on which most information literacy instruction efforts in academic institutions are based is represented by the “information literate student” who knows how to find, evaluate, and use information and who understands the ways in which information is created, disseminated, and organized in our society.

I find that my own perspective in relation to definitions of “information literacy” is aligned with UNESCO’s conception of Media & Information Literacy (MIL)as empowering to the individual and the collective. MIL “lies at the core of freedom of expression and information - since it empowers citizens to understand the functions of media and other information providers, to critically evaluate their content, and to make informed decisions as users and producer of information and media content.” This definition resonates with those articulated by my colleagues. It means one knows how to discriminate, that one has choices, and that one has the knowledge and the tools to learn how to learn.

To be information literate in our information-saturated culture is to question how that information operates in our lives and others, to be critically aware of multiple and variant perspectives, to know where to search for and how to sift through all that richness of data/information/knowledge, and communicate, contribute, and produce your own understandings.

--Shana Higgins, Armacost Library Instructional Services/Reference Librarian

So much to learn, so little time

(Note: For the rest of October 2011, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Armacost Library blog will showcase guest and regular writers. They were all asked to respond to the question "What does information literacy mean to me?")

Information literacy is really not about libraries. It is not information management, library use, research – NO -- none of these.  It is about learning, it is about teaching yourself what you need to know. Information literacy means developing the ability to learn how to learn, and how to keep on learning.

It is about learning your options so that you know how to solve a problem or make a decision based on information. How to know what information is valid and which is best for the purposes you have in mind and how to present your thoughts based on this reliable information and the knowledge gained from it.

In a world that changes constantly and where so much information is everywhere, being information literate means you can find, judge, and analyze, critique, use information to know what you need to know, to feel secure that you have exhausted the possibilities and will make an informed decision, that you have the information to move towards a solution to a problem: buying a car, choosing a college, identifying a symptom, diagnosing an illness, investing money, starting a business, writing a report, planning a trip... Wherever your path takes you -- have what it takes to know!

Become information literate and continue to learn so that you will know!

-- Gabriela Sonntag, Armacost Library Director

Choose Your Own...

(Note: For the rest of October 2011, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Armacost Library blog will showcase guest and regular writers. They were all asked to respond to the question "What does information literacy mean to me?")

Agency. In a word, that's what information literacy means to me. Before information retrieval skills, before the ability to critically evaluate information sources, before the competence to use information accurately and ethically, an information seeker must be aware of herself as an actor, someone who has the ability to choose and the freedom to act.

The knowledge that one has the ability to choose and the free will to exercise that choice is a very basic, fundamental concept. It is so beyond obvious that many feel it's not worth examining or even mentioning. But without this hyper level of self-awareness, we can't take the step to examine our own positions and the reasons for our actions, much else the positions of others who make efforts to convince us to agree (or go along) with their points of view.

From this sense of self-awareness springs the knowledge and ability to choose. In a big way, the agency I write about here is more a disposition or habit of mind than a skill, strategy, or tool. I'm talking about the mental framework that enables a person to choose and understand her choices.

This hyper-awareness is, I believe, part of what makes information literacy so exhausting. Underneath the hounding down of facts using different tools and resources and developing the skills to discern which sources will work for which information problem, an information seeker needs to know that there's a need for information in the first place and that she can do something about it.

Research and information seeking, when done well, takes time, persistence, and care. In a way, information seeking is very much like embarking on a big adventure. And like most journeys worth the effort, preparation can mean the difference between success and failure, life and death. Exercising one's self-reflective capacities, one's inclination towards and discernment of varying courses of action, is very much like the equipment check before the trip.

Be sure to choose wisely.

-- Melissa Cardenas-Dow, Armacost Library Outreach/Reference Librarian

Discovering Reality

(Note: For the rest of October 2011, National Information Literacy Awareness Month, Armacost Library blog will showcase guest writers. They were asked to respond to the writing prompt, "What does information literacy mean to me?")

Information literacy is exhausting for someone who cares about reality.

But reality is worth it! I believe everything in the universe is knowable—and all knowledge is worth having. Everything we humans know, we know by gathering data, finding patterns, making predictions, and testing those predictions.

I love learning about what’s been discovered, proven, calculated, disproven, and what’s still unknown. And since human understanding and knowledge is always changing, it can all be difficult to keep track of. That’s where information literacy comes in.

“Information literacy” refers to the skills needed to discriminate between good information, bad information, and everything in between. Since I care about reality, I care about facts. If you’re like me, you know tracking down facts can be hard. It can also be expensive.

Opinions are easier to come by than facts. Opinions informed by facts are more useful, but you have to sort through a pile of opinions to find one. Then you have to go through those to find the opinions formed by a careful evaluation of a variety of facts. Luckily, once you find a trustworthy source such as a journalist, scientist, or publisher, you can safely rely on them—but even then you have to be careful of overreliance on authority.

You could evaluate the facts yourself. Again, finding a reliable source can be difficult and costly. If the source is free, can you figure out why it’s free and adjust your evaluation accordingly? If the source isn’t free, can you afford to access it? Perhaps more importantly: have you looked at your local library’s resources to see what’s already been paid for? News articles are always being published about the latest corporately-funded research; have you checked scientific and scholarly resources to compare findings?

Reality isn’t always easy to come by, but it is a joy. Luckily, libraries have the discovery tools ready for you.

-- Emily Croft, Armacost Library Acquisitions Assistant

Banned Books Week: hype or not?

With Banned Books Week 2011 over, that's it for censorship and book challenges, right? No. If anything, it's the time for us to think more deeply about the act of challenging information and excluding materials.

This is why Armacost Library decided to extend the conversation wall question till this Friday, October 15. And to ask the question we did--is Banned Books Week hype or not? 

Early in September 2011, columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote an opinion piece that stated that various reasons why he thinks Banned Books Week is hype. What's more, he politicizes the concern over book challenges, censorship and intellectual freedom as something championed by "the American left" and is therefore "propaganda." Goldberg does bring up some significant points, such as the differences between challenging books for age appropriateness and outright banning books from schools and libraries.

A response from Elaine Magliaro, school teacher and librarian, came not too long after. Then, Jonah Goldberg's rebuttal after that.

As we march on to October, and celebrate Information Literacy Awareness month, Armacost Library invites the University of Redlands community to continue to think, write and speak about the issues raised by Banned Books Week--limitations placed on access to information and our collective intellectual and academic freedoms.

Banned Books Week 2011: BBW Conversation Wall

Photo by Marc Wathieu via Flickr

From Saturday, September 24 to Saturday, October 15, Armacost Library will have a pin corkboard up in the Library lobby, asking the questions, "Is Banned Books Week exaggerated hype or not? Why/why not?"

Library visitors are welcome to post answers to the questions and responses to other posts.

Some posting guidelines:
1)  Posts should be on-topic.

2)  Posts that provide personal information (telephone numbers, email addresses, names and other identifying information) will be taken down.

3) Posts that advertise other events, whether on campus or not, will also be taken down.

Questions and comments? Please contact Melissa Cardenas-Dow at Melissa_Cardenasdow@redlands.edu or 909.748.8089.

Conversation wall design, organization and set-up led by Armacost Library Technical Services Supervisor, Trisha Aurelio.

Banned Books Week 2011: Suggest a Banned or Challenged Book Raffle!

Photo by Howard Lake via Flickr

Use the Armacost Library online catalog to suggest a banned or challenged book for inclusion to our collection. From now till October 15, 2011.

To get to the Armacost Library online catalog, go to: http://library.uor.edu/ . Click on the Suggest a Purchase link on the right-most column.

Suggestions can be made by current students, faculty and staff members of the University of Redlands community only. Single, individual suggestions will be considered single, individual entries to the raffle.

 

Submission rules: 

1) Suggestions must be for a book that has been challenged or banned and not already in Armacost Library’s collection. 

2) One unique title suggestion that meets rule #1 from one person will be considered as one eligible entry. No limits will be placed on the number of entries one person can submit.

3) Submissions can be made now until October 15, 2011. On Monday October 17, Armacost Library will randomly draw the winning submission and notify the individual who made the winning entry. The winner of the drawing will be announced on this blog. The winning submission will also be added to Armacost Library's collections.

Prize: $25 gift certificate to Barnes & Noble.

For questions and comments, please contact Melissa Cardenas-Dow at Melissa_Cardenasdow@redlands.edu or 909.748.8089.

Banned Books Week 2011: BBW Virtual Read-Out

 Banned Books Week Virtual Read-Out 2011 is the first global virtual read-out event sponsored by the American Library Association's Office of Intellectual Freedom (ALA-OIF).

From now until Saturday, October 1, 2011, readers from across the globe are invited to video-record themselves reading from a banned or challenged book.

To view what has been submitted by other readers, take a look at the BBW Virtual Read-Out YouTube channel.

Banned Books Week 2011: BBW Retrospective

BBW Retrospective celebrates the freedom to read and express by showcasing poster from past American Library Association Graphics Banned Books Week events. Armacost Library has been celebrating Banned Books Week since 1993, so we have a number of posters to show!

In addition, display areas will feature banned and challenged books that are part of Armacost Library's current collections.

The posters and displays will be up starting Saturday, September 24 till Saturday, October 1.

Bookmarks and buttons from the 2011 Banned Books Week ALA campaign will also be available as free giveaways.

Display organization, design, set-up and tear-down are led by Armacost Library's Technical Services Supervisor, Trisha Aurelio.

JSTOR's read-only period: Fri.-Sat. 9/9-9/10/11

Due to a scheduled site maintenance, some of JSTOR's MyJSTOR services will be offline for a little while. According to JSTOR support, "users will be able to search, browse, and access and download PDF files for content in JSTOR. They will not be able to save citations, reset passwords, create or update MyJSTOR accounts, or purchase articles."

Welcome to Fall 2011!

Our Southern California weather would have us believe we are still in the midst of summer, but Armacost Library is ready for fall. We start the new fall semester with a hearty greeting to all UofR students, new and returning!

Dorothy Inghram Honored

Dorothy Inghram, a 105-year-old pioneer in education received the University of Redlands Center for Educational Justice “Lifetime Achievement in Educational Justice Award.”

"Inghram became California’s first black school district superintendent in 1953 when she assumed leadership of the Mill Creek School District. She also was the first African-American teacher in San Bernardino County and its first black principal.

Inghram, an alumna of the classes of 1936 and 1958, studied music at the University on a scholarship and earned a master’s degree in education. She is the author of several books and has been widely recognized for her success in opening doors to area black educators. A public library branch in San Bernardino is named in her honor, as is an elementary school in the city."

Full text of article available at http://www.redlands.edu/10312.aspx.



Visit an exhibit dedicated to Dorothy Inghram in the Armacost Library lobby (designed by Denise Cline).

Au revoir, Lua!

Please join the faculty and staff of Armacost Library in wishing a fond farewell to Lua Gregory, Off-Campus Services Librarian. Lua is taking a leave of absence to explore the world of school librarianship at an independent school in the Boston, MA area. Over the past five years Lua has held several positions. First as an intern while finishing her MLIS at UCLA, then joining us as a visiting librarian when Les Canterbury stepped into the Interim Library Director position, and finally we were very fortunate to hire her as the Off-Campus Services Librarian. In addition to her core responsibilities to the Schools of Business and Education, Lua has brought wonderful programs to Armacost Library, such as the weeks of events related to Harry Potter’s World exhibit; taught a first-year seminar on Free Speech and Censorship in the United States; and served as Armacost Library’s resident copyright & fair use expert, plus so much more.

We will miss you, Lua! We’ll look forward to your return.

Nuclear awareness in Japan and beyond

Kamanaka Hitomi, a Japanese documentary filmmaker, will visit the University of Redlands campus on Tuesday, May 17th for the screening of her most recent film, Ashes to Honey: Toward a Sustainable Future (2010). As an active participant in Japan’s nuclear awareness movement, Kamanaka continues to record footage of anti-nuclear protesters in Japan that receive little media coverage. You can read more about her work here, here, and here. The screening begins at 6:00 p.m. in the Orton Center followed by a talk and Q&A with the director.

Armacost Library would like to share both current and historical resources on nuclear developments in Japan as well as some examples of pop-culture that feature the realities and anxieties of nuclear warfare and radiation. Please check out some items below to further your own awareness:

Books
Atomic bomb cinema : the apocalyptic imagination on film
Barefoot Gen : a cartoon story of Hiroshima
Black rain; a novel
Constructing civil society in Japan : voices of environmental movements
Filling the hole in the nuclear future : art and popular culture respond to the bomb
A world destroyed : Hiroshima and its legacies
Writing ground zero : Japanese literature and the atomic bomb

DVDs
The Atomic cafe
Barefoot Gen: the movies 1 & 2
Gojira/Godzilla
The Nuclear comeback
Radiation, a slow death: a new generation of Hibakusha

Online Coverage of the Fukushima Nuclear Accident
International Atomic Energy Agency
Nuclear Data Files from Citizens' Nuclear Information Center
Safecast A map of radiation levels in Japan aggregated from government, nonprofit, and other sources.

And the winner is...

The 3rd Annual Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award reception took place on Friday, April 1, 2011. A joint reception with Sigma Tau Delta, the English Honor Society, brought together librarians, disciplinary faculty, administrators and students to recognize outstanding student research and writing, and excellence in teaching writing.

This year our submissions more than doubled in number and the quality of the essays was truly impressive. Therefore we awarded three submissions with an honorable mention in addition to our ALURA winner.

2011 ALURA Recipient














(Danielle Wetmore with her faculty sponsor Dr. Kathleen Feeley)

This year’s Armacost Library Undergraduate Research Award goes to a paper that demonstrated impressive work with primary sources from Armacost and AK Smiley Libraries, as well as incorporated a broad variety of primary and secondary, popular and scholarly resources. Danielle Wetmore’s paper titled, “Making Makeup Respectable: Cosmetics Advertising During the Great Depression” synthesized all this material into an insightful essay on the gendered discourse of cosmetic advertisements during the 1930s. Congratulations!

Three additional papers made the Selection Committee's decision that much more difficult to make.














(Danielle Wetmore and Emily Harris)

Emily Harris for her paper titled, “Institutional Comparative Advantage in International Duopolies: A Game Theoretical Analysis of the Fuji-Kodak Dispute Settlement DS44.” One Selection Committee member described her paper as demonstrating “analytical and conceptual sophistication...deftly synthesiz[ing] her sources, [and] capturing her argument with concision.” Well done.












(Ashley Johnson and her faculty sponsor Dr. Bryce Ryan)

Ashley Johnson for her paper titled, “A Review of Mouse Models of Autistic-like Behavior.” The Selection Committee agreed that her research sources were “well integrated, interpreted and synthesized.” Excellent and valuable work.

Tavi Steinhardt for his essay, “Good Without God: Atheism as Affirmation.” Tavi’s essay was described as “brilliantly argued and beautifully written.”












(Professors Alisa Slaughter and Dr. Anne Shea)

Sigma Tau Delta honored two professors for their dedication to student learning in writing, literary analysis, and critical thinking/awareness: Alisa Slaughter, Creative Writing, and Anne Shea, Writing Across the Curriculum.

Many thanks for another successful ALURA.

Celebrate Cesar Chavez Day

"Cesar Chavez gave our nation and each of us a unique example to live our lives by. His selfless dedication for farm worker and worker rights, economic justice, civil rights, environmental justice, peace, nonviolence, empowerment of the poor and disenfranchised, is a monumental legacy that will inspire all and the generations to come. The winning of national recognition for Cesar Chavez with holidays, service, learning and community action events, is a fitting tribute and significant way to share his life’s work as the founder and leader of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW)." ~Cesar E. Chavez National Holiday

The Armacost Library has many resources on Cesar Chavez and the rights of agricultural laborers. Check out some of these books to ease your curiosity:
Beyond the fields : Cesar Chavez, the UFW, and the struggle for justice in the 21st century
Cesar Chavez : a brief biography with documents
César Chávez, the Catholic bishops, and the farmworkers' struggle for social justice
Delano : the story of the California Grape Strike
The Human cost of food : farmworkers' lives, labor, and advocacy
The Migrant project : contemporary California farm workers
Sal si puedes = (Escape if you can) : Cesar Chavez and the new American revolution
The Union of their dreams : power, hope, and struggle in Cesar Chavez's farm worker movement
Why David sometimes wins : leadership, organization, and strategy in the California farm worker movement
The Words of César Chávez

*The video clip above is from the documentary The Fight in the Fields, available for check out from the Armacost Library.

African American poetry at Armacost Library

Are you ready to take up Maya Angelou's challenge to learn more about the rich tradition of African American poetry? Stop by the new book table on the second floor in Armacost Library to browse works selected by library staff from poets such as Audre Lorde, Amiri Baraka, Robert Hayden and Nikki Giovanni.

Harry Potter's World Exhibit: Opening Week

The Harry Potter's World Opening Speaker and Reception was a great success. Over fifty people from the University of Redlands and greater Redlands community attended to eat cupcakes and listen to Heather King's brilliant lecture!Event attendees also had the opportunity to visit the Highland Sam J. Racadio Library and Environmental Learning Center for a tour of the garden, animals and critters. Our tour guide, Lauren Bergh, was kind enough to introduce us to a snake, but unfortunately none of us were fluent in parseltongue!