A 2020 study from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Hussman School of Journalism and Media found that since 2004 over one-quarter of U.S. newspapers have disappeared. This reduction has left many people, especially those in poor rural areas, living in news deserts, where access to professionally vetted information is limited, if not…

School libraries are no longer solely repositories for the information that has traditionally been published in books. School library professionals are providing education and access to information in many different formats and technologies. The role of the school librarian is much more than just literacy; it is about visibility, culture, and…

Nothing is more fulfilling than a school library full of students hungry to learn--especially when they have all the tools and resources they need and, more importantly, a school librarian ready to help them gain the knowledge and understanding they need to apply technology to become fully digitally literate citizens. Therefore, it was very…

One of the main responsibilities of school librarians is to teach students to evaluate the credibility of information. There is little evidence to suggest that students are being explicitly taught how to evaluate news obtained through social media. As avenues for giving and getting information evolve, so must ways of teaching students so that they…

Just as fluency isn't knowing every word in a language, source literacy isn't knowing every source. It is, instead, the ability to interpret from context, to know what to ask, to read the clues, and to use the understanding brought from knowing about other sources. A person fluent in source literacy is able to do this automatically, the way you…

Important happenings related to the concept of intellectual freedom (IF) coincide with the annual back-to-school ramp up. This article discusses how to use the summer hiatus to develop learning opportunities related to events such as Banned Books Week (BBW) and Banned Websites Awareness Day (BWAD). The author provides resource information to aid…

In 2003 Paula Montgomery, founding editor of School Library Media Activities Monthly and former branch chief of school media services for the Maryland State Department of Education, published a guide to teaching information inquiry. Her staff also illustrated the elements of information inquiry as a recursive cycle with interaction among the…

Where do school librarians go to find out the latest on how the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC) system is being used (and will be used) in the 21st-century virtual-knowledge world? The answer is two great websites containing: (1) the most current information on both Dewey and linked data at <http://dewey.info>; (2) Dewey here-and-now…

It has been only a few years since the state of Montana adopted revised standards for Information Literacy/Library Media. In the years since their adoption, the district's curriculum review team, made up of K-12 school librarians, defined the local curriculum directly from these standards. As Montana's school librarians reflect on their past…

Being a solo librarian today is certainly challenging; however, because of technological interconnectedness, today's solo librarian is definitely not alone. Technology allows a school librarian to immediately and constantly connect and interact with other school librarians. This article discusses online resources and websites that will allow a…

The very nature of information seeking in today's world suggests that credibility is an important factor in how one goes about seeking and using information. The proliferation of Web-based resources and the ability for nearly anyone to publish on the Web force individuals to make judgments of quality and authority as they flow on- and offline in…

In the information-rich, rapidly changing 21st-century, educators are faced with unprecedented challenges. While new technologies have brought the people of the planet closer together, they have also brought them into contact with an overwhelming array of information sources. The Library of Congress is positioned to help educators respond to these…

Describes an exercise for helping students evaluate the veracity of primary documents, and considers two kinds of knowledge that documents can give about the past: information about events that occurred; and insight into the perceptions and thoughts of those who lived in the past, including those responsible for the document's creation. Discusses…

In the summer of 1998, education specialists at the National Archives received a grant from the Department of Education to hire nine outstanding classroom teachers to develop lessons and activities based on historical documents that had been digitized by the agency and were available online. Discussion includes exploring the National Archives web…

Discusses the Library of Congress's American Memory Historical Collections, primary sources, available at http://memory.loc.gov. Describes the American Memory Fellowship Program, a year-long professional development opportunity with two purposes: to have teachers, librarians and others create original teaching materials that draw upon American…