In this article, the authors explain how librarians can use positionality theory to understand how students produce value judgments around questions of bias, authority, and credibility. Librarians can help guide students to recognize the student's own positionality when approaching issues of bias. Students are often instructed to choose credible…

What is bias? A review of the library literature reveals no attempts to define the concept. Nor does it reveal systematic attempts to develop interventions that teach the identification and evaluation of bias. Current pedagogical approaches (checklists and bias charts) tend to assume a self-evident definition that categorises bias as…

This paper explores the connection between critical theory, information evaluation, and the instructional practice of critique for STEM students and librarian instructors. Using an emerging theory and instructional method, the authors examine how to more deeply include voices that have historically been excluded from STEM information critique. The…

With an awareness of growing issues in teaching source evaluation, the authors explored new methods to incorporate this skill into one-credit asynchronous information literacy courses. The authors discovered improvements in student performance when using SIFT and identified key strategies for its implementation to achieve best results.

Librarians play a key role in the understanding, retrieval, and assessment of gray literature (also spelled "grey literature") as it pertains to evidence-based clinical practice, particularly nursing. With the rise of evidence-based research and curriculum-specific requirements in advanced nursing programs, gray literature instruction…

To address the growing problem of misinformation, librarians often focus on approaches tied to the frame "Authority Is Constructed and Contextual" from the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. The Framework, however, encompasses a much wider range of skills,…

Every senior at Haverford College writes a thesis or its equivalent, conducting independent research with guidance from faculty and librarians. Students critically engage in investigative work in archives, field studies, and labs. In this article, librarians explore the way anthropology and history thesis writers do research to define paths toward…

The theory of information discernment discussed here is firmly based on models, research and scholarship of information literacy coupled with theory and research in information behaviour. This paper will explore original research conducted by Walton and Hepworth and how it has developed over the last 10 years -- the pilot study was reported in the…

The growing importance of the Internet in our society requires that university graduates be skilled in critical evaluation of the messages and sources present in the online world. Traditional efforts to teach these skills have relied on specific, checklist-like tools; recently, these approaches have rightly come under criticism for being…

We spend hours teaching students where to go to find resources, but how do students really use those scholarly resources--and other resources--in their papers? Inspired by the Citation Project, University of Richmond liaison librarians examined First-Year Seminar papers to see what types of sources students used in their writing, how they…

The purpose of this work is to examine Wikipedia's role as a tool for instruction in website evaluation. Wikipedia's purpose, structural elements and potential failings as an authoritative information source are examined. Also presented are rationales for using Wikipedia as an instructional tool, namely the overwhelming popularity of Wikipedia.…

I propose three "rethinks" to consider in recasting the ACRL Standards for information literacy for the coming decades. First, rethink the concept of information need. Second, rethink the notion that information literacy is composed of a set of abilities for "extracting information." Third, rethink the holistic process of…

Extensive engagement with current academic sources is expected of all psychology undergraduates. Thirty-eight undergraduate psychology students took part in a series of focus group discussions of their information-searching experiences and skills. The majority of students had not been required to engage with any form of information searching while…

The paper begins with an introduction defining the term "information literacy" and goes on to analyze the need for information literacy education in China. It also presents a detailed description with examples of how China's public libraries are cultivating citizens' information literacy. The experiences prove that the public library is…

Discusses two Electronic Library Education Centers (ELECs) created at the University of Arizona to improve library instruction in the use of online resources. Examines costs of developing ELECs; technical changes experienced; and benefits to users and librarians. A sidebar by Abbie J. Basile identifies Internet resources for planning and/or…