Purdue University announced that it will create the first endowed chair in information literacy in the nation, as a result of a generous $2.5 million gift. While I applaud this pioneering development, as it will certainly promote information literacy at Purdue and perhaps raise the profile of information literacy beyond their campus, I have to question it as well. In part, the holder of the chair will lead research projects into information literacy. Nice, but in the last 20 years perhaps 5,000 articles or more have been written about information literacy, not to mention loads of presentations, so why create a research position of this sort. I’d be far more impressed if Purdue announced that it was funding programs to allow faculty members to commit to collaborating with their librarians to take full responsibility for teaching students to become information literate. That’s what we need in higher education – real action to establish faculty-led and librarian supported information literacy – not more research by and for librarians. Perhaps they’ll use some of the funds for programs directed at faculty, which I would encourage and welcome. Who knows, it might result in some resources and techniques that could be replicated elsewhere.
Author: StevenB
Take A Look At The Online Discussions
Since we have a few posts about the Chronicle’s special report on academic libraries, I’ll just add that I’d encourage readers to go to the Chronicle site to take a look at the comments being added to the online discussions for the tenure debate articles and the one on left-wing echo chamber. I added my comments to both of the discussions if you want to see what I had to say about these issues. But I will say that Barbara and I don’t exactly disagree on the tenure for librarians issue, but she certainly feels more strongly that it is necessary than do I.
Intellectual Freedom And Academic Freedom
I’m at the Pennsylvania Library Association Conference the next few days. I just left Carrie Gardner’s (faculty at Catholic U.’s LIS) presentation on “Communicating Your Intellectual Freedom Message.” Although it was geared somewhat more to the public library sector I think Carrie gave some great advice for understanding what information is illegal (e.g., child pornography, libel, slander, dangerous speech and obscenity) versus what might be deemed offensive, disturbing or unethical. Her key point was that we all need to be effective communicators when it comes to sending out a strong message that there are critically important reasons why our libraries must have the freedom to collect and offer access to a wide variety of materials in all formats, even some that might offend – as long as they are not illegal. I asked Carrie about academic freedom versus intellectual freedom, and whether the latter does afford some protections to those who lack academic freedom. This is one of those “gray area” issues. At many of our institutions, and it can certainly depend where it falls within the conservative-liberal spectrum, non-tenured staff may have a wide berth in their rights to speak and write what they like because there is a fundamental belief in the importance of intellectual freedom and the contribution it makes to a spirtited academic environment. However, Carrie was clear that intellectual freedom, despite its conceptual benefits, would not provide the protections of academic freedom. This is a fairly complex issue that I’ll continue to explore, but I’m glad that Carrie is out there teaching our future students about and working with ALA on these issues. If you want to share your perspectives on or interpretation of how intellectual freedom relates to academic librarianship and would like to help us explore and understand it further, we invite your comments or will consider publishing a post from you.
ACRL Announces Immersion ’06
I’ve never The attended ?????????????????2830???????SIM?????????????????? one, but one y of the Valencia librarians I work with has and wholesale jerseys it was certainly beneficial to her development as cheap nba jerseys our Information Literacy cheap jerseys from China Coordinator. The information literacy Immersion Institute is where you definitely cheap jerseys want to ??????? go to Of improve your instruction Dog’s skills or develop an information literacy plan for your institution. You can get all the details from the ACRL web site.
The Ed.D. Still Makes Sense For Us
This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education features a story about Arthur Levine, President wordpress???????! of the Columbia University Teacher’s College, and a somewhat controversial report he wrote back in March 2005. The report focuses on the education of school leaders. Levine’s suggestion to eliminate the Ed.D. degree caused a particularly strong reaction from education schools. cheap MLB jerseys Many academic librarians, certainly those in administration, are themselves holders of the Ed.D. While I think Levine’s argument for some sort of M.B.A. in education curriculum for those who want to be K-12 administrators makes sense, I would argue that the Ed.D. should continue on as a valuable degree for wholesale mlb jerseys higher education administrators. For one thing, most Ed.D. programs will have a track in higher education administration that offer a good mix of theoretical (e.g., governance, history) and practical (strategic planning, statistics, law) cheap jerseys courses that will enable a library administrator to have a far better understanding of higher education institutions. But is writing a dissertation of much value? How does that help an academic librarian? The other good thing about the Ed.D cheap mlb jerseys (and perhaps as opposed to the Ph.D.) is that the dissertation project can focus on a practical administrative topic. The research could involve quantitative or qualitative methods, or both. That alone does a better job of preparing academic librarians to conduct research and write it up. I think anyone who perseveres through the dissertation process will be far more confident when tackling research for publication and presentation. While I doubt Levine’s report will bring an end to the Ed.D, for K-12 or academic administrators, I hope those who read the report or the Chronicle article Of will remember that the Ed.D isn’t just Eveniment for K-12 principals. It’s a degree with merit for academic librarians who want to pursue administrative opportunties – or who just wish to be better students Boilers of higher education.