A Vision for I.I.L.

(formerly NILI)

Contents:
Background | ACRL's Role | Invitational Planning Day

REVISED: July 17, 1997
TO: Bill Miller, ACRL President
FROM: Cerise Oberman, Dean of Library & Information Services
RE: National Information Literacy Institute/Proposal for an Invitational Planning Day

DATE: June 16, 1997

Background

Last month, I had the privilege of serving as the keynote speaker at this year's LOEX Conference. In preparation for my talk, I spent some time at ALA Midwinter attending discussion groups and meetings about instruction, in hopes of getting a beat on current thinking and issues. I found myself at a discussion group jointly sponsored, by ALISE and ACRL IS, on "Reinventing the Information Profession: Preparing Librarians for their Teaching Role in the 21st Century." It was this session that solidified the ideas for my LOEX talk and which have now lead me to this proposal.

In brief, the discussion session directed questions to a library school educator and a library director. Above all else, what struck me was they were the same questions I had asked twenty years ago, when I entered this profession: "Whose responsibility is it to prepare librarians to teach if graduate schools don't?" "Given staff constraints how do we hope to educate a large number of students to the growing complexities of the information world?" "How can we hope to prepare librarians for teaching positions when many library schools continue to ignore or minimize its importance in the job market?" Most discouraging was the fact that the answers had not changed in the last twenty years!

This is particularly troubling since the world of higher education has significantly changed. In particular, there is now growing recognition in higher education of the importance of information literacy (in no small part due to efforts of librarians). For instance,

EDUCOM, the national consortium of colleges and universities and other organizations serving higher education noted in its recent `white paper,' The Need for a National Learning Infrastructure (1994) that "finding needed information" is a critical skill for college graduates along with critical thinking, quantitative reasoning and effective communication. (Twigg 1994)

The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools has incorporated information literacy into its accreditation guidelines stating that "Of paramount importance in assessing the effectiveness of library utilization is the ability in the self- study process to describe and document the strategies and activities used to provide an effective program of bibliographic instruction and information literacy." Middle States is actively working toward creating institutional programs that integrate information literacy into the curriculum: they have held regional meetings, bringing faculty, librarians, and administrators together to discuss this role. The recent Middle States Annual Conference in October 1996, included a panel on "The Transformed Academy: Technology & Information Literacy."

The American Association of Higher Education's Teaching, Learning & Technology Roundtable (TLTR) Project, which works to "encourage, guide, and assist individual campuses in developing their own campus wide planning and support systems" for the improvement of teaching and learning through technology, has identified librarians as critical players in developing local TLTRs.

The appearance of articles, written by non- librarians, addressing in part or in whole, issues of information literacy, such as "Information Technology as a Liberal Art: Enlightenment Proposals for a New Curriculum," in Educom Review (Shapiro and Hughes 1996) signals that the information literacy issue is attracting serious attention in higher education circles.

In spite of this level of awareness from outside of librarianship, academic librarianship as a profession remains reluctant to embrace information literacy as a core competency for academic librarians. A 1993 survey revealed that only ten library schools in the US & Canada offered a full course in library instruction. (Shonrock and Mulder 1993) This does not square with a 1996 survey which asked the question "Do Instruction Skills Impress Employers?" which was answered with a resounding yes (Avery and Ketchner 1996). Nor does it make sense when contrasted against the increasing demand for instruction that is obvious in most academic library jobs (as noted by reading position announcements).

The point in identifying these problems is not to place blame, but rather to isolate the issue and address it. The issue is that there is no coherent and on-going opportunity for academic librarians to be prepared for their roles as educators. While there are many continuing education opportunities for librarians, among the most notable, offered by ACRL IS, LOEX, LOEX of the West, the Canadian Instruction in the User of Libraries Conference, and any number of regional and state association conference programs, we lack a mechanism to "immerse" future or present academic librarians with the broad sweep of information for which they must be prepared.

National Information Literacy Institute We are at an important crossroads: higher education recognizes the value of information literacy and wants librarians to be partners in the educational process. The way we respond to that invitation will inevitably shape our future roles. Our response must be strong and positive, by taking action that ensures that academic librarians have the benefit of common experience and education. Therefore, I am proposing the establishment of a National Information Literacy Institute (NILI).

The National Information Literacy Institute will be dedicated to the training of instruction librarians, programming for library administrators on issues of information literacy, and supporting ACRL and the National Forum on Information Literacy (NFIL) in bringing together various higher education initiatives.

First and foremost, the NILI would focus on delivering a curriculum that would marry theory and practice together. It would offer an intensive training program targeted, not at continuing professional development, (at least not at first), but at equipping new librarians or librarians new to teaching. The Institute's curriculum would be the product of collaboration among practicing instruction librarians, library school faculty, library directors and appropriate faculty drawn from other disciplines like computer science, psychology and education. The Institute's curriculum would serve as the basic foundation for teaching librarians and might include in its curriculum

• an historical overview of bibliographic instruction/information literacy;
• an introduction to the basic concepts of information literacy;
• an examination of the role of information literacy in higher education;
• an introduction to different pedagogical techniques, including active learning, cooperative learning, lecturing, technology-enhanced, etc. and their appropriate use;
• a study of the role of evaluation and assessment; practice in the development of an appropriate curriculum or presentation;
• a review of trends and projects in higher education which are both supportive and critical of information literacy;
• the politics of information literacy;
• support structures for instruction librarians;
• practice teaching.

The Institute would specialize in an immersion program specifically targeted at preparing the librarian with the foundation tools needed to begin the process of becoming an effective teacher. Given practical limitations, I envision the Institute might not exceed 7-10 days, offered once or twice a year. There is no reason that the Institute need reside in a single location; in fact it may be desirable to move around the country.

Second, the Institute would move beyond a basic curriculum and provide such programs and services as seminars for library administrators who are interested in moving their institutions toward a teaching-library model; training support for individuals interested in working with other education agencies via the National Forum on Information Literacy; targeted immersion programs on "hot" topics, e.g. asynchronous learning modes, assessment training (distance learning might be explored for such topics);

An Institute of this type would provide several direct benefits to the profession:

1. for employers, like myself, it would guarantee a basic and reliable learning opportunity for a new librarian who chooses to pursue teaching. Employers, therefore, could look more readily at graduate library school students, with little or no instructional experience, but with an identified interest in instruction, as hiring possibilities;
2. for practicing librarians who have not taught before, but find themselves interested in jobs that require teaching, this Institute offers an opportunity to be immersed in the basic history, activities, pedagogies and the proficiencies that are needed to become an effective educator;
3. for library school students, it would provide an opportunity to be immersed in information literacy as part of their graduate education, if their home graduate library school did not provide that opportunity;
4. for library school faculty and practicing instruction librarians, this offers a synergistic opportunity to build an important coalition between each other and other disciplinary faculty; and finally,
5. for the profession it offers a framework in which to develop additional programs that have information literacy at their core.

The needs are significant and the possibilities endless.

As a post-script, I would like to add that the proposal for the NILI received strong and favorable response from the LOEX participants. (Attached are the comments of over 50 conference participants that took the time to answer a short questionnaire I gave them.) In addition, discussion with colleagues other than LOEX colleagues, including higher education administrators, have been extremely positive.

ACRL's Role

While it is possible for an individual to move this idea forward with no organizational assistance, I believe that ACRL, a recognized champion of library instruction and information literacy, should assume a major leadership role in the creation of the National Information Literacy Institute. By doing so, ACRL would dramatically call attention to the relationship of libraries and librarians to the education enterprise. Through the establishment of a comprehensive training program, the NILI would be fulfilling a long established objective of ACRL: preparing librarians for teaching roles. In addition, ACRL as lead organization, could build on its relationships with national educational organizations, such as AAHE, CNI, etc., and other divisions within ALA, to begin the process of identifying a national agenda for the Institute. ACRL, through the NILI, would be providing a mechanism that will allow for a myriad of interesting programming and seminar discussions crossing many different boundaries. The NILI could host a discussion on the interrelationship of information literacy among college, school, and public libraries, a seminar on information literacy and accreditation, a sharing of ideas among library school educators, their graduates, and employees of the graduates concerning information literacy.

Invitational Planning Day

The LOEX Conference gave me an opportunity to propose the establishment of the National Information Literacy Institute. The proposal was received with strong and favorable response. In addition, discussions with colleagues other than LOEX colleagues, including higher education administrators, have been extremely positive.

When Althea Jenkins asked me what ACRL could do to assist in this venture, I responded by asking for support for a NILI Invitational Planning Day to be held just prior to ALA Midwinter in New Orleans. This Invitational Planning Day would bring together 40-50 persons, representing many different perspectives of instruction, including, but not limited to representatives from the following organizations

• ACRL Executive Board
• ACRL Instruction Section
• Library Instruction Roundtable
• ALA User Instruction for Information Literacy
• National Forum on Information Literacy
• LOEX
• ALISE

In addition, a broad representation from the field would also include

• academic library directors
• practicing instruction librarians
• library school faculty
• accrediting agency personnel

The goal of the Invitational Planning Day would be to share this idea broadly with a variety of people and begin the process of fleshing out the Institute's mission and goals, short and long term objectives, administrative structure, content, and the next steps.

In order to ensure a meaningful and productive Planning Day, a NILI Steering Group (10-12 individuals who really want to work hard!) should be formed immediately to work on the format and content of the Planning Day. They, in consultation with a paid facilitator, who would facilitate the NILI Planning Day, would work to establish the objectives of the Planning Day and a methodology to be employed. The NILI Steering Group and facilitator would also gather for a debriefing meeting following the Planning Day. This post planning meeting will allow for the formalization of the Planning Day efforts and begin the work of implementing NILI offerings during 1998/99.

1. Avery, Christine, and Kevin Ketchner. 1996. Do Instruction Skills Impress Employers? College & Research Libraries 57 (May 1996):249-53+.
2. Shapiro, Jeremy J. , and Shelly K. Hughes. 1996. Information Technology as a Liberal Art: Enlightenment Proposals for a New Curriculum. Educom Review v. 31 (2):31-35.
3. Shonrock, Diana , and Craig Mulder. 1993. Instruction Librarians: Acquiring the Proficiencies Critical to their Work. College & Research Libraries 54 (2):137-149.
4. Twigg, Carol A. 1994. The Need for a National Learning Infrastructure. Educom Review 29 (4,5,6).

Send questions, comments and updates to Loanne Snavely.