Information Literacy and Instruction: Teaching and Learning Alternatives: A Global Overview

Abstract

Your communities need your help more than ever, in so many ways—job, healthcare, and college and occupational study applications, workplace research and problem solving, research paper and homework help, and many other community-related issues, like accessing laws and regulations. How do you address these needs when there are so many people needing your help, at any time of the day or night, almost anywhere in the world, but also right in front of you at a physical reference desk? Face-to-face personal help is still invaluable, but reference work has expanded in many ways. It includes, but goes beyond, fact finding. Reference librarians help people learn how to learn so they can participate fully in their societies as informed and knowledgeable citizens. This column takes a look at how librarians and others around the world are identifying what people need to learn for this purpose, and how to help them learn it. This column and the sites listed at the end of it provide ideas and approaches that could be used or adapted to help the people in your communities achieve this goal. Note: I gratefully acknowledge Susan Gardner Archambault (Loyola Marymount University), Dr. Jane Secker (London School of Economics), and Sarah LeMire (Texas A& M University), co-editor of this column, for their very helpful comments and suggestions.—Editor, Esther Grassian