The subject librarians of Fogler's Research & Instruction department have developed information literacy guidelines for First Year students. We want to work with academic departments, faculty, and instructors to help all first year students achieve these goals, both to improve student's success in their university career and to develop lifelong skills.
The Guidelines
Apply critical thinking
Understand and locate types of information
Understand search strategies
Understand that information has value
Locating, accessing, evaluating, and using information resources is at the heart of academic librarianship. As subject librarians, we possess specialized knowledge in the information needs of particular disciplines, and have a crucial role in information literacy education. Subject librarians provide instruction and individual or group consultation services to students, faculty, and staff.
The Research and Instruction department uses ACRL guidelines in our work as subject librarians and educators. Our main professional association, the Association of College and Research Librarians (ACRL), first created standards for teaching information literacy in 2001. These standards were updated by the Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education in 2016.
We want to work with you to help incorporate this learning into your courses. Please contact your Subject Librarian to set up a consultation.
Correll, M. (2019). What do high school students know about information literacy? A case study of one university's feeder schools. Pennsylvania Libraries: Research & Practice, 7(1), 25-27. https://doi-org/10.5195/palrap.2019.202
Head, A.J., Fister, B. & McMillan, M. (2020). Information literacy in the age of algorithms: Student experience with news and information, and the need for change. Project Information Literacy. https://projectinfolit.org/pubs/algorithm-study/pil_algorithm-study_2020-01-15.pdf
Hinchliffe, L. J., Rand, A., & Collier, J. (2018). Predictable information literacy misconceptions of first-year college students. Communications in Information Literacy, 12(1), 4-18. https://doi.org/10.15760/comminfolit.2018.12.1.2
Latham, D., Gross, M., Julien, H., Warren, F., & Moses, L. (2022). Community college students' perceptions of their information literacy needs. College and Research Libraries, 83(4), 593-609.
LeMire, S., Zhihong, X., Balester, V., Dorsey, L.G., & Hahn, D., (2021). Assessing the information literacy skills of first-generation college students. College & Research Libraries, 82(5), 730-754. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.82.5.730
Shao, X., & Purpur, G. (2016). Effects of information literacy skills on student writing and course performance. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 42(6), 670-678. http://dx.doi.org/10/1016/j.acalib.2016.08.006
We have mapped our guidelines both to the AAC&U Information Literacy VALUE Rubric and to the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education.
Participation in the modern world requires all of us to be information literate. In the academic setting, we recognize the importance of educating our students to be information literate, equipping them for both academic success and life-long learning. This is underscored by the emphasis placed on information literacy by the New England Commission of Higher Education (NECHE), the University’s accrediting body, and the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U), of which the University of Maine is a member.
The University is using the VALUE rubrics from the AAC&U’s LEAP project as tools for campus-wide assessment and the VALUE approach includes a rubric for assessment of information literacy.