Friday, May 18, 2012

Information literacy and coming changes

The last few weeks have gone by pretty quickly. Summer started off with a bang with my conference in Columbus, then upon my return I jumped right into some big projects. Sadly, this may become a bit of a pattern this summer, so blog updates may become more sporadic until late August or early September. Some of my colleagues will write posts as well, but we’re all pretty busy!

So I thought I’d start off with the conference I went to. It’s called LOEX, which stands for something most people have forgotten, but which covers a pretty important aspect of life for academic librarians: Information literacy.

It’s important to us, and it’s important to you, too, even though “information literacy” is one of those terms that will probably put you to sleep. It basically covers how you interact with and use information, both in your daily life and in your schoolwork -- not just knowing where to find it, but also how to decide whether it’s appropriate for your purposes, and working with it.

Anyway, information literacy is tricky. It’s an essential skill to have in both research and daily life -- you may not need to think a whole lot about the weather report unless you’re having a picnic, but this year’s presidential campaigns may require plenty of brainpower, depending on your position on the issues and whether you think we’re doomed as a country if a particular guy parks himself in the Oval Office next January.

But the ubiquity of information -- it’s all around us these days, after all -- is a big part of why it’s tricky, because you’re so used to it that you just kind of figure you’ve got a good handle on it all, which is a justifiable attitude if you need to decide which umbrella to bring to campus or which sign to put on your front lawn. In school, though, the immediate, personal stakes are higher, and the information is much more complex and difficult to sort through.

Another part of why information literacy is tricky is that it’s so hard to teach. LOEX -- a 400-librarian conference that’s been meeting annually for 40 years now -- is proof of this. It’s pretty long-lived for something that seems so simple, because the world’s been changing constantly over those 40 years, and so has our relationship to information.

So I went and learned a lot of stuff that I’m sharing with my colleagues and which we plan to apply over the coming months and years. You’ll get to see some reports on this blog about how we’re putting some of it into practice. And, of course, the conference was just a lot of fun! Everyone who goes to LOEX is pretty committed to teaching students and faculty -- and anyone else who’s willing to listen -- how to play around with our stuff. They’re also a little goofy; my last workshop of the conference played off the popularity of zombies and even included a YouTube video called “Zombie Love Song,” which the interpreter pulled off incredibly well on the fly!

Now that that’s past, what’s next? Well, a lot. I already told you about a few of the projects we’re undertaking this summer, but there’s a lot more going on, specifically relating to the Web site and our catalog. Our site is undergoing a massive redesign and the catalog will be very, very different come Fall semester.

I’m not going into a whole lot of detail about what’s happening to the catalog right now, because that’s worthy of an entire post later on, but I can definitely say it’s a very interesting experience, and we’ll be keeping an eye out for feedback from users. Once it hits -- which should be around August or so -- don’t keep your thoughts to yourself!

Last but not least, I’d like to note that Dr. Cynthia King, the Chief Information Officer who oversees not only Library Public Services, but also Gallaudet Technology Services and the Archives and Deaf Collection, announced yesterday that she plans to step down and return to faculty status next November. She’s seen an awful lot of change happen here at the Library; we wish her well!

That wraps it up for this week. I’ll try to return to a weekly schedule, but who knows?