Information Literacy Program

Information literacy is "a set of abilities requiring individuals to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information." - American Library Association, Presidential Committee on Information Literacy

Think of information literacy as a particular kind of critical thinking regarding when to use information and how to determine what information is worthwhile. It combines the ideals of liberal education with the practices in evaluating, using and creating information that build life-long learning and decision-making abilities.

Information Literacy programs have come a long way from the early days of tours of the library, instruction about the card catalog, or 50-minute “one-shot” sessions attempting to teach students everything there is to know about research.

UCM’s Information Literacy Program is different in many ways:

• Faculty librarians collaborate with faculty to design assignments that are more effective in evaluating student learning than the traditional  research paper.
• Instruction can be developed for 24/7 access online.
• Faculty and students can meet with faculty librarians one-on-one or in small groups to learn how to locate and analyze information.
• Instruction is customized to the intent of the situation - is this for an academic, personal or professional development need? Librarians can teach different ways of using and evaluating information depending on the scenario.
• Faculty librarians’ curriculum map information discovery skills to programs to reduce repetitiveness and increase understanding of higher level critical thinking skills.

Library’s Teaching & Learning Partnerships

The James C. Kirkpatrick Library collaborates with many entities and programs across campus promoting student learning and supporting teaching and learning. Our partnerships include:

By engaging in our Information Literacy program faculty:

• Spend less time teaching research skills and more time teaching course content.
• Develop more effective research assignments (e.g., projects, research papers, etc.).
• Receive better, more developed research-related work from students.

By engaging in information literacy instruction students will:

• Conduct better research.
• Improve information discovery skills.
• Improve evaluation of information skills.
• Learn about plagiarism prevention.
• Develop critical thinking skills through deeper learning.