Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Information literacy and future librarians

My colleague Lynda and I recently taught a session to our reference interns on information literacy. A bit of background: our library has an internship program where LIS students help to staff the reference desk. As part of this program, they also have weekly, one-hour training sessions on a variety of topics relating to using various reference tools (databases, reference books, etc.). All that being said, a session on information literacy seems a strange fit. After all, we're not teaching information literacy skills per se at the desk. But, most of these students hope to work in academic libraries after graduation, so learning the basics of information literacy is vital. Many different librarians in academic libraries teach, not just reference librarians. We felt that getting students thinking about information literacy would help them when they begin their careers, even if it doesn't improve their skills at the reference desk.

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