A practical guide to ACRL’s Visual Literacy Competency Standards

CHICAGO— The importance of images and visual media in today’s culture is changing what it means to be literate in the 21st century. Digital technologies have made it possible for almost anyone to create and share visual media. Yet the pervasiveness of images and visual media does not necessarily mean that individuals are able to critically view, use, and produce visual content. The ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education were developed to address these distinct characteristics of images and visual media. ALA Editions’ “Visual Literacy for Libraries: A Practical, Standards-Based Guide,” by Nicole E. Brown, Kaila Bussert, Denise Hattwig, and Ann Medaille, provides librarians and instructors with the tools, strategies, and confidence to apply visual literacy in a library context. Readers will not only learn about ways to develop students’ visual literacy, but also how to use visual materials to make their instruction more engaging. Ideal for the busy librarian who needs ideas, activities, and teaching strategies that are ready to implement, this book

• shows how to challenge students to delve into finding images, using images in the research process, interpreting and analyzing images, creating visual communications, and using visual content ethically;
• provides ready-to-go learning activities for engaging critically with visual materials;
• offers tools and techniques for increasing one’s own visual literacy confidence; and
• gives strategies for integrating, engaging with and advocating for visual literacy in libraries.

Brown is the Multidisciplinary Instruction Librarian at New York University, where she teaches research workshops to a variety of user groups and works to expand and strengthen the teaching role of librarians. She has given presentations, workshops, and led professional development training on four continents and has written for Library Journal and Internet Reference Services Quarterly. Bussert is the Foundational Experiences Librarian at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo where she leads a foundational information literacy program. Hattwig is Curator of Digital Collections at the University of Washington Bothell Library. She is lead author of ACRL's Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education. Medaille is the Assessment Librarian at the University of Nevada in Reno. She has published articles relating to library instruction, visual and media literacies, information behavior, and reference services.

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Related Links

"Visual Literacy for Libraries: A Practical, Standards-Based Guide"

ACRL Visual Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education

"Metaliteracy in Practice"