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Teaching is a core role for librarians in academic contexts, although most librarians are not formally prepared to teach and encounter significant challenges in the role, including complex relationships with campus colleagues. The purpose of this research was to explore how community college librarians, an understudied population, understand their teaching role. Online interviews lasting fifteen to seventy-four minutes were conducted with thirty community college librarians who provide information literacy (IL) instruction. Participants were recruited by direct email invitation and were asked questions relating to their instructional practices. Interview transcripts were analysed qualitatively, with a specific focus on participants' experiences of the teaching role. Participants reported positive relationships with students, and significant challenges in their relationships with disciplinary faculty and administrators. Their lack of formal preparation for the teaching role led to infrequent and informal assessment and evaluation practices. Pre-service education for the teaching role could be strengthened to provide librarians with the skill set and confidence to provide more effective instruction. Instructional quality is critical as the importance of IL is increasingly recognized as key to academic, workplace, and personal success.

An online survey in Florida and New York of community college librarians with responsibility for information literacy instruction provides a snapshot of instructional objectives and practices, including librarians' beliefs about students' information literacy needs, strengths, and weaknesses. Survey results point to the influence of the Association of College and Research Libraries "Framework" in the community college context, the challenges librarians face as they work to implement it, and their successes in doing so. These data reveal opportunities to support and improve instruction and to prepare future librarians to work successfully in community college contexts.

Semistructured interviews were conducted with community college students in Florida and New York, two diverse states with robust community college systems, to explore their self-perceptions of their information literacy (IL) needs. Findings indicate that students value IL in their personal lives, their academic work, and their careers, though it means somewhat different things to them in each of those areas. They think of IL in terms of skills rather than threshold concepts, and they feel that the most important skill is finding information, followed by evaluating information.

In an exploratory study, interviews were conducted with fifteen librarians to learn about their perceptions of and experiences with the "Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education." Participants reported that they are implementing the "Framework" implicitly rather than explicitly, and their instruction has become more interactive and hands-on. A key strategy to success has been getting buy-in from other librarians and faculty. The participants have encountered a number of challenges in implementing the "Framework," including time constraints within the one-shot model of instruction and resistance from some librarians and faculty who feel that the "Framework" is too highly conceptual to be practical for students, many of whom lack basic information literacy skills. Finally, participants indicated it is difficult to assess learning based on the "Framework."

This article discusses the results of an exploratory research project in which library and information studies (LIS) faculty and education faculty were asked about their views on teaching pre-service school librarians and teachers 21st Century Skills (as defined by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills) and librarian-teacher collaboration. Researchers used a case-study approach to investigate and compare the views and experiences of LIS faculty and education faculty at a research institution. Participants indicated their sense of which skills were taught in each discipline. In addition, they described their own experiences in collaborating with teachers and/or librarians, as well as their views on where collaboration was taught in their respective curricula, where it could be taught, and how it might be taught most effectively. Findings indicate that while education faculty members tend to have a broader view of LIS than do LIS faculty and see education and LIS as having largely overlapping concerns, collaboration is more likely to be a topic of discussion in LIS classes than in education classes. Faculty in both disciplines acknowledged that, while collaboration is desirable, it is often difficult to achieve in practice. (Contains 4 tables.)

An online survey sent to the community of professional librarians in the United States who provide information literacy instruction in academic libraries provided insights into their practices and the challenges they face. Data include current pedagogical methods, client groups of focus, assessment and evaluation, marketing, instructional objectives, incorporating the new Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education into instruction, the role of technology in instruction, the importance of relationships with faculty and administrators, and a range of common challenges faced by instructional librarians. The survey results can help to identify best practices, to improve current practice, to compare practices across different contexts, and to inform preprofessional preparation of librarians who will become providers of instruction.

In the past decade information literacy has received increasing emphasis in K-12 and postsecondary education, yet the information literacy skill levels of high school and college graduates continue to vary considerably. This report compares findings across a subset of data collected in three independent research studies focusing on students' conceptions and perceptions of how they have learned what they know about information literacy. Competency theory, which posits that low-skilled individuals in some knowledge domains are often unable to recognize their deficiencies and therefore tend to overestimate their abilities, is used as the theoretical framework in each study. Data on participants' previous experiences with information literacy instruction was collected through surveys or interviews. A majority of students reported that they were largely self-taught, but some also reported having received instruction from school library media specialists (SLMSs) and, to a lesser degree, public and academic librarians. Overall, low-performing students tended to identify peers as sources of knowledge while proficient students tended to identify SLMSs and teachers as sources of knowledge. These findings have important implications for researchers and practitioners in developing information literacy instruction for low-performing students. (Contains 3 tables and 3 notes.)

In the first tier of a multi-tier research project, U.S. faculty from the School of Teacher Education and the School of Library and Information Studies seek to create synergies between teacher education and library initiatives in order to understand the best ways to encourage collaboration between teachers and librarians. This article discusses the results of an exploratory research project in which secondary teacher education coursework and library and information studies coursework were mapped to 21st century skills to investigate the ways in which preservice teachers and librarians are being prepared to collaborate and teach 21st century skills. Findings indicate that while some 21st century skills are covered in various courses throughout each preparation program, there is not a systematic approach for the teaching of 21st century skills in the preparation of future teachers and librarians.

The Attaining Information Literacy Project has focused on identifying first-year college students with below-proficient information literacy skills, gaining an understanding of those students' self-views and perceptions of information literacy, gaining an understanding of their instructional experiences and preferences, and developing an intervention that will address their instructional needs. Focus groups were conducted with students with below-proficient skills to determine their instructional preferences. The findings from the focus groups indicate that students place a high value on personal relevance in the knowledge and skills they are learning, and they prefer a combination of demonstration and hands-on activities, interaction with the instructor and other students, and the availability of supplemental instructional materials in the form of handouts. In addition, they feel that incentives to participate in instruction are crucial and that a number of communication strategies are needed to advertise effectively the availability of instructional sessions.

This article describes the design and development of an educational intervention intended to improve information literacy skills based on research with first-year college students. The intervention was developed over the course of a three-year period, during which time grant funding was received from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), supporting the collection of research data on the learning needs of first-year college students who scored below proficient on a standardized information literacy test. A variety of empirical methods including tests, surveys, interviews, and focus groups were used to collect data. The resulting intervention is a modular session that can be used as a stand-alone presentation or incorporated into other information literacy interventions. The design of the intervention stresses three main research goals: orientation to information literacy as a skill set, improved ability to self assess skills, and the acquisition of at least one skill that demonstrates the utility of instruction. At the heart of the intervention is the three-step Analyze, Search, Evaluate (ASE) process model of information literacy, which is easy to remember, easy to adapt to multiple instructional situations, and can provide a foundation for building additional information literacy skills. (Contains 1 figure.)

This investigation examines experiences with and perceptions of information reported by first-year college students whose level of information literacy skill is known. Participants were identified as having either proficient or below-proficient information literacy skills based on an objective test of their abilities. Interviews were performed outside of a classroom or library context and were equally interested in imposed (school assignments) and self-generated (personal) information seeking. The study uses a phenomenographic approach to collect, categorize, and analyze transcripts from seventy-seven interviews. The resulting categories of description illustrate how conceptions of information mask and minimize the need for individuals to attain information literacy skills, the primacy of the Internet and people as information resources, limited interest in information quality, and differences in experience with and perceptions of information when imposed and self-generated contexts are compared. (Contains 1 figure, 2 tables, and 5 footnotes.)

The Association for College and Research Libraries (ACRL) and the American Association for School Libraries (AASL), two major divisions of the American Library Association (ALA), both recently released new guidelines. These documents form the basis for information literacy and library skills instruction for PK-20 education. In this study, we explored the alignment between these documents to identify the continuum of knowledge and skill expectations as well as the dispositional attributes toward information literacy that learners are presented. Our findings identified where the content of the ACRL Framework and AASL Standards Framework for Learners documents is strongly aligned as well as the gaps in the teaching and learning continuum. These findings suggest areas for ongoing development in practical application for both PK-12 school librarians and academic librarians who provide information literacy instruction in colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Findings from in-depth interviews with academic librarians reveal initial perceptions of the value of the new Association of College and Research Libraries ' Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and information about individual experiences in implementing the framework into information literacy skills instruction. Fifteen academic librarians, recruited through the ILI-L listserv, participated in Skype interviews that averaged 50 min in length. Participants shared that the Framework has had an impact on their teaching, helps them to better articulate the role of the librarian and the concept of information literacy, supports collaboration with faculty, and presents new empirical research opportunities for academic librarians. At the same time, acceptance of the Framework by librarians has not been universal, implementing the Framework into one-shot information literacy instruction is difficult, and full implementation of the Framework may require a restructuring of how information literacy education is approached. Highlights • Respondents to a survey feel that using the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy has improved their teaching. • Respondents feel that the framework has improved their ability to articulate their role as information professionals. • Respondents feel that the framework opens a door for new research in the area of information literacy. • In working with colleagues, respondents have encountered resistance to the framework. • Faculty attitudes about information literacy can be an impediment to implementing the framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]