Date: 6 December 1996

To: Tad Jackson, Director for Academic Information Technology

From: Shaleen Barnes, Library, UMass Dartmouth

Re: Update on Information Technology Grant

This Fall, UMass Dartmouth Library was awarded $3,900.00 to collaborate with all five campus libraries to develop a set of information literacy standards for University of Massachusetts students. This grant is proceeding as planned.

In mid-October, ten people, with all five campuses represented, met at UMass Dartmouth to discuss a workable definition of information literacy. We differentiated among information literacy, computer literacy, knowledge, library literacy, and computer-supported literacy, and decided that our definition would be an extended definition, beyond that of the dictionary definition. The dictionary definition of computer literacy is "the ability to use a computer and its software to accomplish practical tasks." (Webster's II New College Dictionary) Information literacy is typically defined as a set of abilities or characteristics, such as knowing when there is aneed for information, indentifying the information needed, and finding, evaluating, organizing, and using that information to address the problem or issue. (American Library Association) Computers are one of many tools used to master those abilities.

At this meeting, we also reviewed the information literacy efforts that are going on on the UMass campuses. A number of related universal issues evolved from this discussion, among them:

* staffing for information literacy efforts,

* the campus infrastructure (Who is responsible for hardware and software support? Is this support adequate?);

* the relationship of the Library to Computing Services (what do librarians do in this area? What does Computing Services do? Are there collaborations?);

* a general lack of outcomes assessment;

* the need for ongoing staff and faculty development, because of the rapid changes in the field;

* vast differences in skills among students on all the campuses,

* sometimes inadequate time or opportunity to teach the cognitive in addition to the mechanical;

* how to know about and build on what is taught in K-12, or, in the case of grad students, K-16.

Late in November, Peg Spinner (UMass Worcester) and Shaleen Barnes developed an informal survey for the grant participants designed to inventory the activities of each of the campuses related to these issues. The results of this survey will give us a better understanding of what kinds of expectations we can have, where each campus is, what the Libraries are doing, and what kinds of support exists.

On November 7, Project Director Shaleen Barnes attended "Information Literacy: Restructuring learning in an electronic environment," a teleconference at Lesley College in Cambridge. This teleconference covered a number of different issues in this field, and described World Wide Web sites, including a couple that deal with the thorny issue of critical thinking as it applies to the Web (e.g., how to evaluate sites).

Shaleen Barnes and Elizabeth Winiarz (UMass Dartmouth) plan to have a Web site up and running by mid-December, 1996. This site will include a selected, partly annotated bibliography, the minutes of our meetings, the participants in the grant, and links to other WWW sites.

Joyce Merriam and Jill Ausel (UMass Amherst) will host the next meeting, which will be January 14 at Amherst. We plan to invite someone from the School Library Media Association to help us link our efforts in a meaningful way with K-12 efforts in Massachusetts. In 1988, Information Power: Guidelines for school library media programs was distributed to superintendents throughout Massachusetts. This books specifies objectives for K-12 libraries related to student use of information.

With some luck, a lot of work, and much cooperation, by June we will have Information Literacy Standards for University of Massachusetts students, complete with a Web site.

cc: Donald Sweet, Dean of Library Services, UMass Dartmouth

Committee members

Information Literacy Project Home Page | UMass Dartmouth Library Home Page | UMass Dartmouth Home Page

Comments? (Or send e-mail to sbarnes@umassd.edu)

Created: cmcneil, 12/17/96
Revised: 12/23/96