Archives for information literacy

News Literacy Week Jan. 24-28

It’s News Literacy Week*, sponsored by the News Literacy Project**.

How could you honor News Literacy Week? In a nutshell, care before you share, that is, do your part to stop the flood of misinformation in our current media environment by thinking twice before you share questionable content. Also:

In particular, right now, misinformation on Covid-19 has deadly consequences. Take particular care with health information.

How good are you at distinguishing quality news?

Try the News Lit Quiz: Should you share it?

Lots more educational resources are collected by your library staff on a guide called News Literacy: Resources for Citizens, Students and Educators

Here’s a Public Service Announcement about News Literacy Week:

*”This annual event underscores the vital role of news literacy in a democracy and provides audiences with the knowledge, tools and abilities to become more news-literate. It also aims to inspire news consumers, educators and students to practice news literacy and to strengthen trust in news media by reinforcing the role of credible journalism. The week is presented by the News Literacy Project and The E.W. Scripps Company.”

**The News Literacy Project is “a nonpartisan national education nonprofit, provides programs and resources for educators and the public to teach, learn and share the abilities needed to be smart, active consumers of news and information and equal and engaged participants in a democracy.”

5 Things You Need to Know About the Calvin Coolidge Library

  1. We absolutely love information literacy!

Helping students with their academic research and teaching them how to find, critically evaluate, and effectively use a variety of information resources is our main objective.

2. We provide access to a variety of wonderful library resources.

We hold more than 147,000 volumes and over 100 print subscriptions, and provide online access to the full text of over 41,000 periodicals. We also offer Interlibrary Loan (ILL) services! This means we can borrow materials from other libraries for you to use.

3. We can help you with your research.

Contact us or make an individual appointment to discuss your research needs.

4. We offer course reserves.

Your professors can place course materials (library books, personal books, DVDs, and copies of articles or readings) on reserve for student use in the library. Check with your professor or at the Circulation Desk!

5. We want your suggestions about resources.

While we can’t purchase every resource, we want to hear from you about your needs.

Contact us!

Checking out books? Call (802) 468-1256 or contact Stephanie Traverse at (802) 468-6061 or stephanie.traverse@castleton.edu.

Interlibrary loan? Contact Kim Bailey at (802) 468-6062 or kimberly.bailey2@castleton.edu.

Help with research? Stop by the library or contact Miranda Axworthy at (802) 468-1359 or miranda.axworthy@castleton.edu.

Suggesting resources? Contact Billie Langlois at (802) 468-1471 or billie.langlois@castleton.edu.

Archives and special collections? Contact Michele Perry at (802) 468-1343 or michele.perry@castleton.edu.

Forget about Scholarly: An Information Literacy Brown Bag Discussion

Faculty and staff are invited to join us on Thursday, September 13 from 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM in the LMCVR for Forget about Scholarly: An Information Literacy Brown Bag Discussion.  Bring your lunch and join your librarian colleagues for a discussion about assigning and teaching scholarly sources.

For Faculty: Introducing more than 30 Info Lit Activities!

Over the past year, we have been busy designing various elements of our new approach to information literacy (see our Information Literacy & Library Instruction Guide for details), including developing and piloting 3 new scaffolded instruction sessions.  We will spend the summer refining the piloted sessions, and hope to be able to share lesson plans with faculty by Fall.

We are excited to offer faculty a key element of the Information Literacy Topic Instruction and Support component of our new program:

Information Literacy Activities

Thumbnail of Activities and Session Guide

Our new Integrative Model for Information Literacy guide provides more than 30 activities covering information literacy topics – activities have been curated or developed by Castleton librarians.  These activities are a supplement to our reference and instruction services and are meant to be incorporated into courses – they can be delivered by a librarian or by the instructor.  The guide and activities are organized around the 6 Threshold Concepts from the ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and the 13 topics we have mapped to the Framework.  We will add additional activities as they are developed.

We encourage faculty to contact one of our librarians about how our new approach can better support their courses and our students.

Information Literacy Events

Faculty and staff are invited to three upcoming Information Literacy events:

Information Literacy Forum

Thursday March 15th at 12:30 pm in the Library Media Viewing Room &

Thursday April 19th at 12:30 pm in the Library Media Viewing Room

Join us to discuss and learn more about the ACRL’s Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education and the 6 threshold concepts inspiring the Library’s new approach to information literacy instruction and support.

 Scaffolding for Successful Research Assignments Brown Bag

Thursday, April 26th at 12:30 pm in the Library Media Viewing Room

Professors Andy Alexander, Ana Alfaro-Alexander, and Adam Chill will share how they have used scaffolded research assignments to help students succeed.

Can’t wait to learn more?  Visit our Information Literacy and Library Instruction at http://libguides.castleton.edu/infolit