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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.

The framework of visual grammar (Kress and van Leeuwen, 2006, via Serafini, 2014) is used to examine the artwork of Laurie Halse Anderson and Emily Carroll's "Speak: The Graphic Novel," which tells through words and pictures the story of Melinda Sordino, a girl who is raped just prior to beginning her freshman year in high school. Three key sets of images that depict the various dimensions of Melinda's silence are analyzed in order to demonstrate how Carroll's images, in conjunction with Anderson's text, work to convey Melinda's ongoing trauma and eventual recovery: Melinda's artwork, the various mirrors that appear in the book, and the abandoned janitor's closet that Melinda transforms into her private refuge. The overall purpose of the paper is not to compare the original novel with the graphic adaptation, but rather to interrogate how--and how effectively--Carroll is able to depict silence, and Melinda's eventual triumph over silence, through the visual grammar of pictures. The paper argues that the visual grammar instructs us in how to read the images, which ultimately work to show us what Melinda cannot tell us.

Purpose: The main objective of this study was to gain insight into school-based speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') perspectives on and experiences with telepractice as a service delivery model at the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. A better understanding of the facilitating and challenging factors that belie telepractice-based services will guide the creation of training and resource development to further support remote speech-language services in schools. Method: Four focus group sessions using a semistructured format were conducted with 22 school-based SLPs from 14 states in the United States. The focus groups provided an opportunity for SLPs to reflect on their telepractice experiences, including pros and cons, necessary knowledge and skills, factors impacting telepractice service delivery, and student and family participation. Inductive thematic analysis was used to describe the collective experiences and perspectives of the participants. Results: Three themes regarding telepractice emerged: technology use, locus of control for decision making, and student and family engagement. Participants reported experiencing a range of successes and challenges when attempting to meet students' needs and identified gaps in resources and school capacity for telepractice. Conclusions: The findings revealed how school SLPs experienced telepractice service delivery during the remote learning portion of the 2019-2020 school year due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study increases our understanding of factors that facilitated and challenged the effective delivery of speech-language services via telepractice. To assist SLPs in future telepractice efforts, implications for professional development and further research are provided.

This paper shares the results of semi-structured interviews with 30 community college librarians who have instruction duties. The interviews explored these librarians’ perceptions of students’ information literacy (IL) strengths and weaknesses as well as their views of students’ self-perceptions. Participants believe that students are confident in their ability to find information and are proficient in using technology to find information. Participants consider students’ overconfidence to be an IL weakness along with: not understanding the research process; being overwhelmed by information; and, in some cases, having poor reading comprehension skills. Views are mixed as to whether students’ IL skills vary based on their program of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An after-school book club, led by the school librarian, was held to test the efficacy of the peritextual literacy framework (PLF) in teaching skills related to critical thinking, problem solving, information literacy, and media literacy. The PLF is an extension of paratext theory developed by Gérard Genette, which provides a typology of the functions of peritext; this extension results in a framework that can be used for research or as a scaffold for teaching. Twelve middle school students met once a month for five months to apply the PLF to an analysis of science, technology, engineering, art, and math (STEAM) texts. The participants enjoyed the club and were able to demonstrate their ability to use peritextual elements to think critically about STEAM-related nonfiction books. Students were able to discuss how the functions of peritext affected their motivation to read a text and their ability to retrieve information from a text, and how peritext functions might affect their opinion of the credibility of information presented in a book.

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.)

Recent semi-structured interviews with 28 librarians and branch managers on the placement of social workers in public libraries revealed a need for library and information science (LIS) programs to better prepare students for their role as social service information providers and to provide models for working with and supervising social workers in the library. It is clear that libraries are experiencing increasing demands to respond to the social-service information needs that users bring to the library, and the importance of libraries to communities in times of uncertainty and crisis is clear. In response, some libraries are including social workers on staff, but this trend does not completely relieve librarians of the need to serve the public's social-service information needs. LIS students need to understand the professional boundaries of librarianship and social work and to develop the ability to feel confident in their interactions with users who have been traumatized, are in crisis, or are struggling with challenges such as the need for credible health information; home and food insecurity information; legal aid; access to the Internet for individuals and families from low-income situations; accessible adult education programs; and more. Interview participants offered a number of suggestions for how to incorporate social work concepts into LIS education and asked for several specific skills such as training in mental-health first aid, de-escalation techniques, and greater knowledge of social-service resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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., Introduction Information literacy instruction often begins in PK-12 classrooms. The need for information literacy skills, however, continues beyond high school graduation, following learners into the workplace and higher education. To [...]

This paper reports the results of a survey of heads of public library administrative units concerning their experiences with and perceptions of the employment of social workers. Among respondents, only six employed social workers. Among those who have not hired a social worker, fewer than half said that they were currently interested in hiring a social worker. Respondents revealed many issues that need to be considered, despite the many benefits that library administrators expect libraries to experience from adding a social worker to their staff. The top three reasons for not hiring a social worker are funding, licensure, and liability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.

Katniss Everdeen, the narrator and protagonist of Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games Trilogy, survives the grueling ordeal of forced participation in two games to the death through both physical prowess and mental agility. Both within and outside of the Games, she demonstrates information and media literacies. By becoming adept at interpreting and using information and the media, she not only survives, but also outwits the Gamemakers, undermines the power of the Capitol, and sparks a revolution. Collins' novels thus reflect, model, and critique the information and media practices of the society in which Katniss lives--and, by extension, those of our own society. In addition, the books suggest that information and media literacies can be powerful tools of resistance for people oppressed by totalitarian governments. For Katniss, surviving the Games requires these literacies; at the same time, the Games themselves, and more broadly speaking the oppressive government of the Capitol, facilitate their development.

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 study explores the impact of information and communications technology (ICT) use on rural child welfare practice using a technology‐in‐practice framework to derive the social structures that are instantiated by rural child welfare workers (CWWs) and to examine their agency as actors. ICT use was tracked, and interviews were conducted with rural CWWs who work with children and families to gain an understanding of and describe their day‐to‐day ICT use at the practice level. Findings demonstrate that CWWs enact social structures along four frames: bureaucratic structure, family centricity, ICT context and information–documentation culture. In terms of agency, CWWs not only are constrained by but also exert some influence on the social structures they enact through facilities (material resources), norms and interpretive schemes. These findings have implications for how ICT can be used to facilitate the CWW–client relationship and the need in rural areas for increased infrastructure to support CWWs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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.)

In "Skellig," "Kit's Wilderness," and "Clay", David Almond employs various types of intertextuality to enrich his narratives. Through the use of allusion, adaptation, collage, and mise-en-abyme, he encourages his adolescent readers to seek out precursor texts and to consider the interrelationships between these texts and his own. By so doing, he demonstrates the respect he has for his readers and empowers them to become active makers of meaning.

Magical realism as a literary mode is often subversive and transgressive, questioning the values and assumptions of the dominant society that it depicts. Young adult literature, by contrast, is typically thought to serve a socializing function, helping to integrate young readers into adult society. What then is the cultural work of magical realism when it appears within young adult novels? An examination of three young adult novels--by Francesca Lia Block, David Almond, and Isabel Allende--reveals that they employ magical realism to accomplish socialization through subversion.

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considers the evolution of information architectures as a field of professional education. Topics include the need for an interdisciplinary approach; balancing practical skills with theoretical concepts; and key content areas, including information organization, graphic design, computer science, user and usability studies, and communication. (Author/LRW)

Draws some conclusions about the significance of Donovan's book, generally acknowledged as the first young adult book to deal with the theme of homosexuality. Revisits the novel and considers the critical reaction it provoked at the time it was written. Examines subsequent critical commentary, and considers several recently published young adult novels with gay/lesbian content. (SG)

Examines five picture books by author/illustrator Peter Sis, and how they deal explicitly with people who through extraordinary journeys develop extraordinary ways of seeing the world. Discusses use of paratextual elements, multiple formats, multiple layers of narrative, and a merging of texts and pictures. Suggests ways these books might be used with younger and older readers. (SR)

A core value in social work is the importance of the worker-client relationship. Communication is a key factor in this relationship. The pandemic, marked by a dramatic, rapid increase in communication through information communication technology (ICT), has underscored both challenges and benefits for the worker-client relationship. Informed by communication theories, this paper provides a conceptual framework for examining ICT interactions between workers and clients at the generalist practice level. The review revealed four challenges (e.g., more permeable worker-client boundaries) and five benefits (e.g., increased opportunities for social presence). Factors to be considered in guiding tool selection are: (1) communication medium "bandwidth", (2) mutual directionality, (3) privacy and confidentiality, (4) message formality, and (5) complexity of message content. Implications for practice, education, and research emerged from this framework. For instance, increased methods of communication via technology can enhance social workers' social presence in relating to clients. However, social workers must know how and when to use which tools. Finally, evidence is needed regarding how ICT use affects the worker-client relationship. Moving forward, we recommend applying communication theories to guide research on the impact of ICT on the worker-client relationship with the goal of establishing best practices for ICT use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The main objective of this study was to gain insight into schoolbased speech-language pathologists' (SLPs') perspectives on and experiences with telepractice as a service delivery model at the onset of the COVID-19 global pandemic. A better understanding of the facilitating and challenging factors that belie telepractice-based services will guide the creation of training and resource development to further support remote speech-language services in schools. Method: Four focus group sessions using a semistructured format were conducted with 22 school-based SLPs from 14 states in the United States. The focus groups provided an opportunity for SLPs to reflect on their telepractice experiences, including pros and cons, necessary knowledge and skills, factors impacting telepractice service delivery, and student and family participation. Inductive thematic analysis was used to describe the collective experiences and perspectives of the participants. Results: Three themes regarding telepractice emerged: technology use, locus of control for decision making, and student and family engagement. Participants reported experiencing a range of successes and challenges when attempting to meet students' needs and identified gaps in resources and school capacity for telepractice. Conclusions: The findings revealed how school SLPs experienced telepractice service delivery during the remote learning portion of the 2019-2020 school year due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study increases our understanding of factors that facilitated and challenged the effective delivery of speech-language services via telepractice. To assist SLPs in future telepractice efforts, implications for professional development and further research are provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]