Information Literacy Internet Site

Through Alta Vista, I located two sites that dealt with information literacy in elementary schools.

The first site, www.school-libraries.org/resources/literacy.html, is a wonderful compilation of information literacy sites for school librarians divided into the following categories - general information, library instruction, web page evaluation, and web page evaluation instruction and tutorials. This site would be a wonderful resource to any school librarian and one that I will refer to many times in the future. I am glad that I found it.

The second site, http://www.cde.state.co.us/litstandards/index.htm, is the handbook "Colorado Students Achieve Power @ Your Library: Quality School Libraries Enhance Student Achievement" created by the Colorado State Library at the Colorado Department of Education in conjunction with the Colorado Association of Libraries. The handbook is a tool for school librarians that includes studies on information literacy, information literacy standards, program evaluation, and resources to help librarians collaborate with teachers. Thus, improving academic achievement through information literacy standards. This tool is a wonderful way to support information literacy in your school library. It provides documentation of increased student achievement due to quality school libraries and gives information on how to evaluate and improve your library. This site is a good starting point for beginning collaboration with teachers.

ERIC ~ successive fraction search

I performed a successive fraction search in the ERIC database.

• S1 ~ school librar* OR school media center ~ 7820 results.


• S2 ~ S1 + information literacy OR library skill* OR information skill* ~ 1011 results


• S3 ~ S2 + elementary school* OR primary school* ~ 137 results

Many of the records from the third search were from School Library Media Activities Monthly which the university library does not own. This was disappointing after becoming interested in the articles from reading the abstracts.

The hit from this search supposedly included many articles from Library Talk but only the first article listed appeared in the HTML and PDF full text. This was a collaboration unit about zoo animal research. It included preparation details and activities, a research planning sheet, a fact-gathering sheet, and presentation ideas while discussing how to incorporate copyright and plagiarism into the unit.

This is my preferred search method. As Heting Chu states, "this search strategy is highly recommended to users, especially to novice users" (2005, 84).

Chu, Heting. 2005. Information Representation and Retrieval in the Digital Age. Medford, NJ: Information Today, Inc.

Academic Search Complete ~ specific facet search

For this search I used the search terms from the citation pearl growing search. I began the search with "research" as my first term. This yielded 1,592,814 results. Most of the first few pages of results were not related to school libraries.



I narrowed my results by adding "AND school media center OR school librar*." The new result list contained 1375 records. Many of the articles were for middle school or high school libraries. I further narrowed the search by adding "AND elementary school*." This addition produced 65 results.



The hit is a collaboration unit involving the classroom teacher, librarian, and art teacher. It includes science standards, information literacy standards, technology standards, and art standards. The image purposefully includes an abstract of the article. I think this unit is one that the second grade teachers at my school might be interested in doing.

Library Lit ~ citation pearl growing search

For this search, I began with a great article on information literacy in the elementary school library I found in a previous search. The article, "A road map for the journey," was written by Peggy Milam in Library Media Connection.

I first searched for other articles by Milam. There were 15 records on flexible scheduling, mentoring, reflection in the research process, scientifically based reading research, and National Board Certification. I continued the search by using the subject terms from the article. "Bibliographic instruction/elementary and high school students" was the only term listed for the article. There were 1191 records from this term. Many of the first few pages of results were not available through the university library since the library did not own the journal. One of the related subjects from these pages was "research and the library." I searched using this term and received 461 records. I tried to narrow it down by adding "AND school media center OR school librar*" but received 2122 results. I was able to narrow the results using "AND elementary school." This produced 303 records. In these records I found many information literacy units that could be used in the elementary school library. The hit I chose was an article entitled "Planets Up Close". This is a collaboration unit I could adapt and use in my library with third or fifth grade students.

This search turned out much different than I had planned. I had previously used this article in a citation pearl search but received much different results from the number of articles by Peggy Milam to the subject terms. I did enjoy the challenge.

DIALOG database ~ building block search

I performed a building block search in Gale Group Magazines in the Dialog database. My first search term was "information literacy or library skill? or information skill?." This produced 31 results. My second search was "school librar? or school media center?." There were 718 results. My third search was "elementary school? or primary school? or intermediate school?." This produced 2163 results. When I combined the three search terms, I received O results. I was disappointed so I only combined the first two search terms and that produced 56 results. The display sets are in the first image.


I looked through the results and found "Information literacy in school libraries: it takes a community." This looked interesting and I plan on further looking for this article.

I enjoyed searching in Dialog. It was very different from all of the other searches that I have performed. It required a lot more preparation and the fact that has per minutes rates made me a little nervous.

Information Literacy Multimedia

I searched Google Images for information literacy. I uncovered many images, pictures, and photographs that represented information literacy. I chose this image because it best gives a visual representation of all that information literacy encompasses. Information literacy is not one skill but a combination of many. The image is from http://library.otis.edu/infocomp.htm.

Information Literacy Tags

(1) InfoLit(1) information literacy(1) library instruction(1) reading(1) specialisation(1) theory(1)

These tags were for the book The Seven Faces of Information Literacy by Christine Bruce found on librarything.com. This book offers a different perspective on information literacy. Bruce does not view information literacy as a list of skills or attributes but as ways that students use information literacy. More information about Christine Bruce and The Seven Faces of Information Literacy can be found at http://sky.fit.qut.edu.au/~bruce/inflit/faces/faces1.htm.

http://www.librarything.com/work/859149

Information Literacy RSS

When the competency of adding an RSS feed to the blog was assigned, I immediately thought of viewing the Big6.com website to see if it contained any feeds. Big6 is information literacy skills approach of choice in my district. After locating the Big6 latest news feed, I was unable to open it. There seemed to be trouble with the feed site.

I then thought of seeing if one of the library journals that my district library media center subscribes to had an RSS feed. On School Library Journal's website, I was able to find a substanstial list of feeds on a variety of topics and interests. The purpose of School Library Journal is to speak to the needs and issues of children's, young adult, and school librarians. It offers information on program ideas, author and illustrator interviews, articles on issues and trends ranging from early childhood to high school, and reviews of books, multimedia, and games. I felt was the right fit with my blog especially when the feed I chose was Information Literacy News. The URL for SLJ is http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/. The URL for the RSS feed is http://feeds.feedburner.com/SchoolLibraryJournal-InfoLiteracyNews.

Information Literacy Podcast

I searched the provided Podcast search engines and was unable to locate a podcast on information literacy in the elementary library. Most of the ones I found dealt more with teaching than with librarianship. Out of frustration I turned to Doug Johnson's blog, The Blue Skunk Blog, to find a podcast. The following description accompanied the podcast I chose, Doug Johnson Classrooms and Libraries for the Net Generation.

"Classrooms and libraries will be more effective if educators acknowledge the unique attributes and preferences of the Net Generation and adapt educational environments to suit students instead of trying to change their basic natures. This session looks at the unique attributes of today’s students and proposes a Net Gen learning environment. "

Listening to the podcast requires signing up or logging into an Apple Learning Interchange account. The podcast is lengthy at 57 minutes but it is from the NECC (National Educational Computing Conference) 2007 presented by ITSE (International Society for Technology in Education). More information including handouts, summary, an outline of the podcast as well as supporting research can be found at http://center.uoregon.edu/ISTE/NECC2007/program/search_results_details.php?sessionid=39127081

http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/item.php?itemID=11767

Other Blogs on Info Lit in Elementary Libraries

I discovered two blogs that I found interesting about elementary libraries through blogsearch.google.com. Both are about school librarianship and contain posts about information literacy along with other interesting and valuable information.

The first blog, The Blue Skunk Blog, is by Doug Johnson. Mr. Johnson is the director of media and technology in Mankato, Minnesota, an adjunct professor at Minnesota State University, an author of four books on librarianship, and a columnist in Library Media Connection. The following link leads to a post discussing the importance of information literacy in elementary schools and how it can be combined with reading and technology skills. The diagrams show how the three are connected and the results when one becomes the focus.
"Information literacy. Reading. Technology. Where should our primary teaching responsibilites lie if we are to both serve our students and make ourselves vital to our schools' programs? In the quotes above, two well-respected library gurus and one flake each offer different perspectives on the question." The two gurus are Sharon Grimes and Mike Eisenberg and the flake is Johnson himself.
http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2008/1/12/so-just-what-should-librarians-be-teaching.html

The second blog, Schu's Blog of Lit and More, is run by Mr. Schu. Mr. Schu is an elementary librarian who blogs about his personal experiences in the library, book reviews, games for students, notable restaurants, and more. This link leads to a post recounting the growth of a group of third grade students' research skills from the beginning of the year to now. The post also includes a School Library Journal article about a British study of the importance of professionals in the school library.
"This study further shows the importance of skilled professionals in school libraries. My third graders stare at the computer with blank faces in September. Within a few months they show significant improvement. Most of them begin with a plan and try suggested sites before turning to Google or Yahoo. (I follow the Big 6.) Teaching students to research effectively takes tons of patience, exploration, and TIME. It is worth every minute though!"
http://mrschu81.wordpress.com/2008/01/23/students-are-not-great-researchers/

Introduction

This blog was established for LS5013 Information Storage and Retrieval's competencies. I will present information on the topic of information literacy in the elementary school library during this semester.