Office Hours: Can We Handle the Truth?
Jan 15, 2011
If you haven't read the 2010 Project Information Literacy Progress Report from Alison J. Head and Michael B. Eisenberg, you should. “Truth Be Told: How College Students Evaluate and Use Information in the Digital Age” is for anyone who plans for or serves the needs of students of higher education. Published by the iSchool at the University of Washington and funded by the MacArthur Foundation, the report is valuable for public and school librarians, too. The traits of the information consumers studied here are those of your users or potential users.
The authors note that research is daunting for college students. They turn for help first not to librarians but to instructors, classmates, and friends/family. (For more on the report, see also “Survey Finds Students Often Use Library Resources, but Not Services.” )
A wake-up call
Some of the specific findings should galvanize all of us.
On the research process: “Students relied on librarians infrequently, if ever, whether they were conducting research for coursework or for personal use. Moreover, students…[used] librarians less often than…in the 2009 survey....” (p. 8)
On evaluating resources: “Few students in the sample asked librarians (11%) or writing center staff (7%) for help...and even fewer turned to librarians for help evaluating information for personal use (5%).” (p. 13)
On information-seeking for personal needs: “70% of this year’s....students frequently turned to social networks, such as Facebook...in their daily lives.” (p. 40)
Ultimately, the authors of the report make a series of recommendations, including a few that librarians must heed.
“We believe library instruction could benefit from some serious rethinking and re-examination. We recommend modifying sessions (in-class and reference encounters) so they emphasize...framing a successful research process...over research-finding of sources.” (p. 39)
Librarians’ focus on sources over teaching the research process itself has probably contributed to these disheartening survey results. But they also make me wonder how most college students see librarians. Are they invisible within their libraries and academic departments? Ineffective in bibliographic instruction sessions? (Just typing “bibliographic instruction sessions” makes my eyes glaze over.)
These findings complement those reported by ITHAKA earlier in 2010 (bit.ly/dSwpv0), which state that university researchers are relying less and less on the services of libraries and librarians and more on specific online resources. What role will academic librarians play in the lives of students as well as these faculty who view the library as less and less of a partner?
University librarian Jeffrey G. Trzeciak at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., believes “librarians have lost their audience” already.... [T]hey will likely never come back....”
His gloomy words should be a rallying cry for all university and college librarians and to LIS education as well.
Change we can embrace
There may be an antidote to this grim news. Here are some proposals:
End the disconnect between some LIS schools and the libraries in their institutions. Instead, LIS schools should partner with their institutions’ libraries to form learning laboratories. Professors, librarians, and students must work together to create new models of service and outreach. These models are evaluated and tweaked, and effective practice is reported to the greater community.
Replace “bibliographic instruction” with multichannel delivery (in person, online, at the point of need) of the basics and advanced steps for research. LIS students should learn fewer “subject of the week” resources and focus more on process, critical thinking, and workflow. It’s not just “five databases for finding articles” but social networks and alternative information streams as well.
Increase the value of students’ own personal learning network—they probably have one and don’t even know it. Use Facebook and other info streams to match up similarly focused undergrads and grads to enhance their learning and sharing—and feed into the research process.
Expand liaison programs, where the librarian is housed in the discipline’s school—visible, vocal, and active with faculty. While much current LIS education can prepare people for this, these embedded librarians will also need other skills focused on communication, the specific discipline, and research methods/support.
The library building itself becomes the Commons—as per Georgia Tech and Loyola—where support, technology, and space inspire student creativity. LIS schools must offer coursework devoted to planning, implementing, and evaluating the commons both physically and virtually.
We need to handle these truths.
What will the next survey results show? The solutions above seem clear.Only then will libraries/librarians avoid fading into the background and increase visibility in ways that may surprise our students and our faculty.
| Author Information |
| Michael Stephens (mstephens7@mac.com) is Assistant Professor at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominican University, River Forest, IL |
