Tag: critical information literacy

Musings on Reference Services as Instruction and Formation

Some thoughts on the reference desk as a space for teaching, student formation, and care

It has been a few weeks since commencement, and the switch that many of my colleagues said would happen at the start of the summer when I began my role almost a year ago has happened. The reading rooms and common spaces in my institution’s main library are near-empty, the only commotion coming from staff conversations, campus tour groups, and facilities workers going to and projects in the building. Traffic at the reference desk has also slowed considerably, creating the benefit of a much slower pace and offering the benefit of more time to get work done but also the challenge of staying vigilant of users who might approach with questions. As I’ve adjusted to this change in atmosphere and tempo, I’ve started to think more deeply about the past semester and how I can improve my own reference practice. One improvement I have been thinking about is how to better incorporate instruction into interactions I have with users, especially students.

Reference as Formation and Care

As I think about how I can connect my reference and instruction work more closely together, I am also trying to be realistic that most of the questions I will receive will likely be directional and about our policies, while fewer will concern the type of needs (namely research or citation support) that would make formal instruction necessary. Despite this, I want to make sure every interaction I have, no matter how brief or transactional, has instruction as part of a continuum of formation and care. Within the context of my Catholic Jesuit institution, this continuum looks like putting into practice the term cura personalis (“care for the whole person” in Latin) which is a Jesuit spiritual practice that emphasizes holistically paying attention to and caring for the mind, body, and spirit of ourselves and others (Otto, 2013). This continuum also looks like forming users into individuals concerned not just with acquiring knowledge but also better understanding their moral and ethical centers and how their bodies respond to social conditions around them

Who do I Serve?

In the eight months or so that I have staffed my library’s reference desk, I have encountered a range of different requests. Undergraduate and graduate students in search of help finding sources for an assignment or dissertation, course reserves, or a quiet spot to study. Prospective students and their families requesting building directions and the best place to get lunch on campus. Faculty searching for access to an award-winning film or an out-of-print novel. New staff from other departments wanting confirmation that, yes, their benefits do extend to library material access. Visiting scholars from other states or countries bearing a page full of call numbers. Alumni requesting copies of yearbooks or transcripts from the last century. Residents of communities surrounding the university who inquire about using WiFi or guidance on navigating municipal government services. 

These are just a few of the users who have stopped by the reference desk, usually short on time and having unsuccessfully looked for the thing they needed on their own, even if that thing might not be fully understood and require dialogue with someone else to define and find. I have found when dialoguing with users that I have had to practice engaging with and excavating the explicit and implicit elements of users’ needs with patience, empathy, care, and respect, making sure that interactions end with a path toward a thing (be that a physical or electronic material or a referral to another area of the library) they can hold. I am constantly trying to improve my use of dialogue to chart a path for users in their scholarly or information search. I am also recognizing more and more that reference is also not just about getting to users’ core needs but using those interactions as opportunities to provide instruction on library-use, research, and more.

Fostering Connections Between Reference and Instruction

Though it might seem easy to categorize reference work and library instruction as two different areas, I have noticed quite a bit of overlap between them. In the case of reference and one-shot instruction, both appear to have a transactional quality: users receive information they need or are referred to someone/place else with an answer, and the interaction ends without expectation that the user will come back in the future. Both require adherence to strictly marked out time slots and teach users directly or indirectly fundamental skills in searching for and evaluating information and navigating library systems. On the flip side of the transactional overlap I mentioned, both carry the opportunity, even if not guaranteed, of relationship-building. There is a name and face that a user gets for the help they received, making it possible that they will return with another need. 

Where do I hope to go?

Going forward, one other point of overlap between instruction and reference work I want to focus on is the potential of both to help form students into informed citizens and critical thinkers. There are a few ways I think I could make this happen. First, I might devote more time to providing attention and care in each reference interaction by not rushing a user to an answer but slowing down and working with them to discern from source/s of information: “what do I need?” “What am I curious about?” “What questions am I discovering?” Second, I might help patrons interrogate sources of information for power dynamics, privileged voices, biases, and harmful and oppressive ideas and systems of knowledge embedded in them. Third, I might model the habit of getting informed about the somatic and psychological condition of others and how they are searching for and processing information by asking how their semester has gone, what they have enjoyed, and what they are struggling with. While I know these three approaches won’t be possible in every interaction, I do want to keep them available as another tool in my reference kit that I can bring out when the moment is right.

References

Otto, A. (2013, August 15). Cura Personalis. Ignatian Spirituality. https://www.ignatianspirituality.com/cura-personalis/

Re-envisioning an Instruction Program with Critical Information Literacy in Mind

My name is Kevin Adams and I am one of the new First Year Academic Librarian (FYAL) bloggers! My pronouns are he/him/his. I am interested in critical information literacy, pedagogy, all things punk, and a bunch of other stuff. I am so happy to be writing for this blog and I hope that by sharing some of my experiences I can spark some fun conversations or just brighten somebody’s day.

I am the Information Literacy Librarian at Alfred University. Alfred University is a small private university in a little village in upstate New York. The closest city of note is Rochester. Because Alfred University is so small, I am one of eight librarians (including the dean and director). I don’t want to speak too much to other librarians’ workloads, but suffice to say we all have a lot of different responsibilities. One responsibility that we all share is instruction, and in my new position I find myself leading the instruction team. In this post I want to share my experience navigating reconstructing an information literacy program shaped by Critical Information Literacy. I hope to share what my goals are, what some of my strategies are, and the challenges I have faced.

Goals

The United States is a hell scape. Late stage capitalism is siphoning money from the working and middle class folks in this country to support billionaires’ and corporations’ hoarding habits; cops are continuing to murder innocent black and brown folks with no significant repercussions; climate change is driving natural disasters that are forcing people from their homes; innocent immigrants are being held in concentration camps where agents of the state are carrying out forced sterilizations; over 200,000 people have died in the United States from COVID-19; and the list goes on. I am aware of this, my colleagues are aware of this, other teaching faculty at my university are aware of this, and students are ABSOLUTELY aware of this. So, creating a standard information literacy program that doesn’t recognize what is going on in the world felt totally useless. For this reason, and others, I am trying to create an information literacy program that integrates Critical Information Literacy (CIL) throughout the instruction design and delivery process.

CIL is not the answer to all of the problems that I have listed above, but it is an approach that does not actively ignore the situation that we find ourselves in. CIL is an approach to information literacy that is informed by critical theory and critical pedagogy. It recognizes that information is not neutral or objective; rather, it reflects social, political, and economic power systems and privileges. CIL engages with learners as contributors in the classroom to investigate, understand, and use the contours of information structures and manifestations (Wong and Saunders, 2020). In many ways, this is an approach to information literacy that uses a social justice lens. 

This approach has two elements: 1) a deep understanding that information and libraries are not neutral, and 2) a centering of students in the classroom stemming from an understanding that students are important, active agents in the classroom. This agency allows students to contribute their ideas, experiences, and even expertise.

Strategies

When I applied and interviewed for this position, I centered my commitment to an inclusive information literacy program that, if possible, would implement CIL. Keeping this method front and center in my communications with potential new colleagues set the stage for me to have challenging conversations about neutrality and the role of instruction librarians as I began my new position.

Fast forward to my first month on the job. After getting acclimated to the new culture and climate of the position as best I could over Zoom, I started putting together a written Information Literacy Plan. I found myself in a unique position. Due to some shifts in the library prior to my joining, the previous instruction models were still primarily based on the ACRL Standards. This created a need for a new plan that centered the ACRL Framework. In filling this need, I saw an opportunity to incorporate CIL as a basic tenet of the Information Literacy Plan.

In order to tie the Information Literacy Plan into the values of my library and university, I consulted the strategic plans and mission and values statements for each. Alfred University strives to be “outside of ordinary” and uses language about inclusivity and diversity, affecting individual students, and changing the world for the better. While this type of branding sometimes leaves an unsavory taste in my mouth, it has allowed me to connect the CIL goals of social justice and inclusivity to the broader goals of the university. This has proven to be a failsafe as the White House has released statements that attack Critical Race Theory, an important theoretical foundation for CIL.

Implementing a plan for information literacy that negates that libraries and information are neutral from the very first page might not be possible at all institutions and might be highly controversial at others. In addition to creating a plan that ties in the values of the university, I worked closely with library administration. The Dean of Libraries at my institution is very sympathetic to social justice issues and information literacy. He has provided ample support for this idea from the outset. This has been extremely helpful in drumming up support for the idea amongst the other librarians, all of whom have been very receptive.

CIL does not exist in a vacuum. I was thrilled to find that AU libraries were actively working on a commitment to anti-racism and anti-oppression. In this commitment the librarians showed that they were already thinking about many of the concepts that inform a CIL approach, for example anti-racism, false neutrality in academic spaces, the history of white supremacy in libraries, etc. Finding ways to talk to fellow librarians about these topics created fertile ground for the seeds of CIL.

Challenges

A little over a month ago I introduced the librarians to the Information Literacy Plan. The plan is still a living document and will be adapted as necessary, but it lays out a shared groundwork that can inform each librarian’s instruction practice. The plan was so well received that I nearly cried after sharing. It can be difficult to find high points this semester, but that was certainly one of them.

In spite of how well received the plan was, explaining and implementing it is and will continue to be challenging. Most of the instruction practices at my institution have, up until recently, been primarily informed by the ACRL Standards. Updating the program to include both the ACRL Frameworks and CIL is a dramatic shift. While working with fellow librarians that are excited and curious, I continue to find myself asking and answering new questions about how to best connect with and platform students in the classroom.

These challenges are compounded by the fact that all our instruction sessions have been online this semester. Centering students in a meaningful way during a one shot can be challenging in any circumstance. Add to that Zoom fatigue, frequent technical difficulties, and all the social, political, and environmental challenges weighing on our minds in 2020. JEEZE. It is not easy, and feeling encouraged by or excited about a session is becoming a rare occurrence.

I am still figuring out new strategies to overcome these challenges. I am excited to continue to share about this and other new developments in my first year as an academic librarian! I would be thrilled to speak with anyone about what this process has looked like, share strategies, or just commiserate. You can reach me by email, or hit me up on twitter @a_rad_librarian.