Libraries at University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Across the world, educators in primary, secondary, tertiary and professional education contexts have been developing strategies and policies for designing learning opportunities that will enable learners to take advantage of the information literacy available to them. Learning opportunities that enhance information literacy not only make use of information and communication infrastructures, but to bring the information practices, that are effective in professional, civic and personal life into curriculum. Such opportunities make it possible for learners of all ages to experience the power of effective information literacy practices. When reflection on learning to be information literate is added to the experience of information literacy, students are helped to recognize the transferability of the processes involved to everyday life, community and workplace context in later life. Thus, the information literacy education carried out by universities is mainly done by libraries. At present, major universities mainly carry out information literacy education for school learners in two ways. The first is to open a separate information literacy course by the library, which mainly teaches the use of various search tools, reference books and related databases of the library. This type of course is a non-professional general education course. The second is to conduct user lectures and training on how to use library resources to help learners master the basic methods and techniques needed for information retrieval. Common forms include freshmen entrance education and various series of lectures, both of which are traditional information literacy education models. Information Literacy is therefore the set of skills needed to find, retrieve, analyze, and use information.