What is information literacy?
An information literate person is equipped with the critical thinking skills necessary to successfully find, retrieve, analyze, and use information. Oesterle Library's Information Literacy and Instruction Program seeks to help imbue students with the knowledge, skills and mindset that will encourage them to approach the world as lifelong information literate learners and thinkers.
Offerings of the Information Literacy and Instruction Program
Oesterle's librarians provide students a variety of Information Literacy and Instruction services, including, but not limited to:
- Orientations to the library as a part of the campus orientation programs for all groups of incoming students. In addition, walk-in orientations are offered every term.
- Freshman Sequence, a highly structured program designed to reach every freshman at either three or four points in their freshmen English classes.
- Instruction sessions, including anything from a brief coaching session on one library resource to an entire class period addressing the needs of a research assignment. For more information, please see our page on library instruction. If you'd like to schedule a library instruction session, please contact your library liaison.
- NCC 120: Information Research Strategies, a 1.5 credit hour course offered the last five weeks of winter term, focusing on the development of information literacy competencies.
Goals of the program
The North Central College Library Services Information Literacy and Instruction Program has adopted as its goals the Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education endorsed by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL). These standards define Information Literacy in terms of student performance in the discovery, evaluation and use of information.
Integrating information literacy into the curriculum
Information literacy cannot be isolated to a library instruction session. The concepts of information literacy must be integrated across the curriculum of an institution before students can become life-long learners. Close collaboration between faculty and librarians in design, delivery, and assessment of instruction will result in an effective institutional program.
The major distinction between information literacy and other forms of instruction is that information literacy focuses on overarching concepts and critical thinking processes rather than on information "tools."
The materials found at the following links may be helpful to you in developing information literacy-rich assignments:
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