How do I teach that?

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How do I teach that?

• Government Publications and Information Literacy
  in Academic Libraries
• Krista Godfrey
• OLA Super Conference 2006

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Outline

• Why dont we teach gov pubs in info lit sessions?
• Why should we teach gov pubs in info lit
  sessions?
• How can we teach gov pubs using info lit session?
• Discussion/Questions

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Why Dont We Teach It? Problems with the
Collection

• Students
• Professors
• Librarians

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The Challenging World of Gov Docs Students

• Difficult collection
• Students are afraid to use
• Too many unfamiliar formats
• Physically separate
• Lack of cataloguing, non-circulating items
• Completely different classification system
• Lack of knowledge about the collection and
  information available in it

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The Challenging World of Gov Docs Professors

• Simply dont think of them
• Problems of Electronic documents

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The Challenging World of Gov Docs Librarians

• Lack controlled vocabulary
• Need to know government structure and
  departments/agencies
• Specialized indexes
• Electronic documents more skills

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Information Literacy

• ACRL definition
• Determine the extent of information needed
• Access the needed information effectively and
  efficiently
• Evaluate information and its sources critically
• Incorporate selected information into ones
  knowledge base
• Use information effectively to accomplish a
  specific purpose
• Understand the economic, legal, and social
  issues surrounding the use of information, and
  access and use information ethically and legally

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Information Literacy

• Know
• Access
• Evaluate
• Use
• Ethical/Legal

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Why Dont We Teach It?

• Difficult Collection
• Lack of time
• Staff time
• Instruction time

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Why Should We Teach It?

• Increase in electronic does not mean we should
  ignore government publications
• Information Literacy standards apply to
  government publications
• They are an important resource

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There is a need

• Students rarely use government documents without
  provocation from profs and librarians
• Higher levels express desire to have known
  earlier
• More online documents mean more use and possibly
  more confusion
• Info lit sessions help promote the collection

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How Can We Teach It?

• Think of the users, their needs, their learning
  styles and habits

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Who are we teaching?

• The Millenials, Gen Y, Net Gen
• Grew up with computers and technology
• Used to multimedia environment
• Multitask
• Want things on their terms - when they want, how
  they want
• Social groups important - work in groups

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How to Reach them

• Incorporate computers
• Allow group work
• Hands-on activities

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Solutions

• One shot sessions
• Dont do it all
• Introduce portals, catalogue
• Tailor to assignments
• Bring in paper copies of important documents
• Target sessions
• Look at online syllabi and course calendars

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Solutions

• Network/Liaison
• Inform and teach professors
• Collaborate
• With professors and librarians
• Longer or Multiple Sessions
• Pathfinders, guides, finding aids

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Recap

• A difficult collection but gov pubs should not be
  excluded from info lit sessions
• Info lit tenets apply to gov pubs
• It can and should be done!

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Discussion/Questions