ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 24 6 /C&RL News ■ April 2003 NEW REALITIES, NEW RELATIONSHIPS Who’s afraid of partnerships for information literacy initiatives? Working together to empower learners by Lynn D. Lampert A s librarians strive to infuse information literacy programs into university curricu- lums, an issue that dominates the landscape is w hether w e will listen to our faculty and col­ laborate to include both our and their visions. Clearly, in order to succeed, we must keep in mind Cerise Oberman’s admonition, “There are a variety of voices currently saying something extremely important: librarians d on’t own in­ formation literacy and information literacy is not always described in the terms that librar­ ians w ould use.”1 The current collaborative challenge offers us the opportunity to trans­ form interaction into new realities and new relationships, both in and beyond libraries, w hich will assist us in our work to prom ote information literacy initiatives across our col­ lege and university campuses. As the infonnation literacy coordinator and distance education librarian at California State University (CSU)-Northridge, I have many op­ portunities to support fellow faculty members working to incorporate information literacy goals into their curriculum. One particular in­ teraction with a u nique program outside of the traditional curriculum proves that the col­ laborative efforts of faculty and librarians can help every student, regardless of his or her lo­ cation, cross the seemingly insurmountable bridges of the information universe by creat­ ing communicative internal and external learn­ ing communities. This article focuses on how partnerships and programs that emerge out of collaborations with those working outside of libraries—and even universities—offer infinite potential for achieving the goal of empower­ ing all learners, both off campus and on, with the necessary information literacy skills for life­ long learning. New partnerships across campus comm unities Following a “teach-the-teacher” workshop that outlined our library’s information literacy pro­ gram for faculty, I was contacted by the Center for Management and Organization Develop­ ment (CMOD)—a nonprofit consulting prac­ tice in the College of Business Administration and Economics at CSU-Northridge that brings real-world experiences into the academic set­ ting while providing businesses and nonprofit agencies with access to the university’s busi­ ness faculty. I was asked to design a class promoting in­ formation literacy in the CMOD’s Los Angeles (LA) County Academy, a unique public-to-pub- lic partnership created in 1999 to m eet Los Angeles County’s workforce training and de- About the author Lynn D. Lampert is a senior assistant librarian and the coordinator o f information literacy at California State University- Northridge, e-mail: lynn.lampert@csun.edu mailto:lynn.lampert@csun.edu C&RL News • April 2003 / 247 velopment needs by developing job-related cer­ tificate programs for their employees. The Col­ lege of Extended Learning administers the pro­ gram, and classes are team-taught by university faculty (full-time and adjunct) and staff from the county and other agencies. The principal partners in the project are the LA County De­ partm ent of Human Resources and six Cali­ fo rn ia S tate U n iv ersities (B ak ersfield , Dominguez Hills, Los Angeles, Long Beach, Northridge, and Pomona). The LA County Academy offers a prepara­ tory course for future county managers, courses for current and future personnel managers, and problem-solving classes (as well as certifica­ tion training) for entry-level clerks. The pro­ gram focuses on the key skills needed by man­ agers to meet the increasing demands of a con­ tinuously changing environment. The certifi­ cate program was developed collaboratively by CMOD, the LA County D epartm ent of H u­ man Resources, and the CSU consortium of all CSU departments of extended learning in the Los Angeles basin. Clearly there are many stake­ holders impacted by new initiatives. The faculty of the LA County Academy Program wanted to have a class developed that would introduce adult learners to a set of in­ formation literacy skills deemed imperative for their success in both the program and work­ place. The curriculum for the course under­ goes joint review and approval by non-librar­ ians, teaching faculty members in several disci­ plines, and LA County program administrators. Students in the academy program include individuals who work in all of the LA County’s departments. The information literacy training component developed for this program offers an opportunity for these working adults to leam how to efficiently acquire know ledge in an online environm ent both in and out of the workplace. After an overview o f key information re­ trieval tools and services, students learn about the various services available, compare their ease of use and the quantity and quality of their results, and have a clearer knowledge of how to perform increasingly complex searches. Links to searching resources and informa­ tive Web sites are presented to the participants for use at work after the program ends. Upon completion of this session, students are better able to find information using a combination of search sites and resources; know a variety o f sites on the Internet that can be used to find references to information on specific top­ ics; are able to better evaluate which of these resources best meets their needs; and can com­ pose simple and advanced search queries from a combination of keywords and symbols that can expand or narrow a search. Reviewed re­ sources include recommendations made by li­ brarians, the program faculty, and LA County. This class has marked the first introduction to online research for m any of these adult learners who serve so many in the community. In a sample survey of students, 92 percent stated that they had never had instruction about using the Internet or online research techniques, while 67 percent stated that they spent 15 to 19 hours a w eek online at work. The survey results also show that 75 percent of the stu­ dents were more likely to use the Internet to find an answer to a work-related research ques­ tion than consulting resources available through their institutional intranet, advice from a col­ league, or consulting a librarian. From reading recent research on informa­ tion literacy and the workplace, I discovered the overlap of undergraduate student needs with those of the adult learner in this pro­ gram. In addition, by learning about the im­ portance o f information literacy from publi­ cations of the business and government com­ munities, I was able to transfer information literacy theories from the dom ain o f the li­ brary to the issues of the program and the dis­ ciplines and stakeholders it supported. This investigation outside the confines o f library literature strengthened my efforts to relate the importance of my proposed information lit­ eracy curriculum to the program faculty. The collaborative challenge presented by the LA Academy project began with a phone call from a faculty member asking for instructional services for students outside the library’s tradi­ tional target learning community. Today the project continues to grow and facilitate new relationships that strengthen the library’s vis­ ibility and credibility as a genuine partner with faculty in educating students about the impor­ tance of information literacy skills. This new relationship has highlighted the n eed for li­ brarians to allow the information literacy move­ ment to take us beyond the traditional course by course journey where only individual librar­ ians working with individual and classroom faculty or with a particular “traditional” pro- 248 / C&RL News • April 2003 By tra n sce n d in g the b o u n d arie s o f o u r tra d itio n a l in stru ctio n a l e n v iro n m e n ts w e w ill be a b le to ta ckle the vo ice s o f concern ab o u t in fo rm a tio n lite ra cy o u tsid e lib ra ria n sh ip and p erhaps beyon d h ig h e r e d u catio n . gram may successfully integrate the library into particular courses. Working with faculty mem­ bers, departments, colleges, and extended learn­ ing programs and their curricula will help us to reach a broader spectmm of students. By tran­ scending the boundaries of our traditional instruc­ tional environments we will be able to tackle the voices of concern about infoimation literacy out­ side librarianship and perhaps beyond higher educa­ tion. A philosophical shift tow ard partnerships fo r inform ation literacy In their essay “The Future of Collaboration be­ tween Librarians and Teaching Faculty,”2 Jean Caspers and Katy Lenn lament that the cost-cut­ ting trend of increasing reliance on adjunct faculty greatly impacts collaborative efforts in higher edu­ cation. “The norm will no longer be collaboration based on years of contacts and interactions. Li­ brarians will need to make an extra effort in work­ ing with adjunct faculty who teach on an irregular basis and do not spend a great deal of time on campus.” Arguing for an increase in collaborative efforts between librarians and teaching faculty to bridge these baniers, they urge librarians to market in- staictional roles to the entire campus and greater learning communities. Their recommendation calls for librarians to build a range of “coalitions for information literacy that utilize political skills, including negotiation, pereuasion, compromise and strategizing to achieve certain objectives.”3 Ideally, librarians will adopt such skills, as they are all necessary for our success in collaborating with faculty to enhance library instaictional out­ reach objectives. However, present reality shows that it is often commonplace to neglect the need for full partnerships and compromise when deal­ ing with the topic of information literacy—an area where both real and imaginary boundaries still impede potential partnerships. The growing number of online users drives the need for librarians to build and depend upon infonnation literacy community partnership mod­ els in order to “help prepare the public to utilize infonnation efficiently and effectively so they can folly participate in the workplace, education, com­ munity and family life.”1 With a reported 72 percent of the U.S. popu­ lation online, and indications that there is still a positive relationship between educational attain­ ment and Internet use, the need for programs that intersect the boundaries of university and com­ munity continues to heighten.’ The work of the ALA Special Presidential Committee on Informa­ tion Literacy Community Partnerships (2000- 2001) should continue to serve as a framework for the growth of infonnation literacy programs like the one developed for the LA County Acad­ emy. As stated in A Libraiy Advocate 's Guide to Building lnfonnation Literate Communities, “Every­ one has a stake in building information literate communities. Coiporate and nonprofit, govern­ ment, education, social service and other sectors are all potential partners in ensuring that all people have the resources and skills they need to fully participate in an information society.”6 Before I began working with the LA County program, I did not folly consider the positive im­ pact of collaborating with adjunct and fu l l- time faculty who teach our extension programs and courses. With our campus student population sur­ passing 32,000, the extension of instruction out­ reach efforts initially seemed beyond the produc­ tive scope of working to transition a traditional BI program to an active infonnation literacy pro­ gram. However, the work involved has shown that faculty-librarian collaboration in information literacy curriculum development and assessment is in fact die key to reaching learning communities within and outside of the expanding walls of today’s higher education institutions. Moreover, if the reality and perception of re­ luctant librarians’ attitudes toward collaboration on infonnation literacy instruction truly is as dire a situation as that painted by Rise L. Smith, much greater work along these lines lies ahead in forging new relationships. In expressing her concerns about the reluctance of librarians to relinquish or share information literacy instruction with fac­ ulty, Smith states, “Unfortunately, this atti­ tude prevents information literacy from pen­ etrating deeply into higher education and may partially account for the fact that the literature (continued' on page253) C&RL News ■ April 2003 / 253 which illustrated challenges far different from those faced in the United States and Canada. In a country of 100 million inhabitants, less than 1 percent are students in higher edu­ cation. Less than 1 percent of Mexico’s popu­ lation has Internet access. Eight colleges pro­ vide library education at the bachelor’s level; an MLS is not required to serve as a librarian. Of approximately 1,000 Mexican librarians, less than 100 hold an MLS and around ten have Ph.D.s. Only two schools in Mexico offer graduate programs in librarianship—one pub­ lic (MLS and Ph.D.) and one private (MLS only). Most library degrees are conferred in the United States, while some are from the U.K. and Spain. There is no national bibliography and no union catalog. The Internet is the first choice for research sources. Recruitment to the profession is a key challenge. Quijano observed that Mexico’s long-shared border with the United States offers opportuni­ ties for collaboration, technology, and informa­ tion exchange. Collaboration with the United States and Canada is now critical as Mexico seeks to develop standards for librarianship and to enhance the visibility and role of librarians and libraries in Mexico. “We need to share for our users,” con­ cluded Quijano. “We need to share with our part­ ners, we need to share materials, but mostly, we need to share knowledge.” The challenges of Canadian libraries John Teskey, director of libraries at the Uni­ versity of New Brunswick, described very dif­ ferent geographic, economic, legislative chal­ lenges. With 32 million citizens spread over 9 million square kilometers, Canada has been de­ scribed as having “too much geography and too little history.” Budget constraints and geo­ graphic distance have necessitated collabora­ tion. With the exchange rate near $1.52 Cana­ dian to U.S. dollars, Canadian libraries’ pur­ chasing power has dropped sharply. Eighty per­ cent of material purchased is either priced in U.S. dollars or originates in the United States. These limitations present challenges in collect­ ing a full range of material. Teskey described the legislative landscape and how Canadian academic and research li­ braries are joining to compete on a larger scale for limited federal funds. In Canada, education is a provincial responsibility, with funds com­ ing from the federal government. One new fed­ eral program, the Canada Foundation for In­ novation, funded $20 million for a collabora­ tive proposal signed by 64 university presidents across ten provinces with the goal of provid­ ing researchers across the country with unfet­ tered access to the research literature. Negoti­ ating as a national body has enhanced the four regional academic associations’ ability to ef­ fect change. Questions and comments from the audi­ ence focused on several themes, including diversity rates, language barriers, m ulticul­ tural com m unities, cross-border security, hiring and exchange program s across bor­ ders, and resource sharing. ■ ( “Who’sa fr a id . . continuedfrompage248) o f information literacy ‘remains confined within the LIS discipline.’ High-quality, course- integrated, curriculum-wide information lit­ eracy will not come from guarding the terri­ tory of library instruction. . . but rather from approaches that em power faculty, ‘teach the teacher,’ and cause librarians to ‘break out of the library building and socialize with the fac­ ulty’ wherever they teach.”7 The act o f “building coalitions for infor­ mation literacy” should mark the first step in developing successful information literacy pro­ grams. However, a coalition is by definition a temporary alliance initially brought together for joint actions or goals. A coalition for infor­ mation literacy is a partnership that needs to evolve beyond its founding objectives to meet expanding and sometimes permanent needs. The success of the collaboration will depend on whether or not all the voices involved in the col­ laborative process are heard and respected. Notes 1. Cerise Oberman, introduction to Infor­ mation L i t e r a c y Instruction Thoer y and Practice, by Esther Grassian and Jo an Ivaplowitz (New York: Neal Schuman Publishers, 2002): xxix. 2. Jean Caspers and Katy Lenn, “The Fu­ ture of Collaboration between Librarians and Teaching Faculty.” The Collaborative Imperative: Librarians at id Faculty Working Togetherin theln- form ation Universe (Chicago: ALA, 2000): 149. 3. Ibid., 151. 4. ALA. “Special Presidential Committee on Information Literacy Community Partnerships (continued on page 255) C&RL News ■ April 2003 / 255 The Executive Committee’s second m eet­ ing fo cu sed o n receiving rep o rts from the sectio n ’s com m ittee chairs. Sharon Bonk (Queens College), a member of the ULS 2004 Program Committee, reported that the program for the 2004 ALA Annual Conference will be centered o n recruitment and retention issues and will include a component on professional education. Pam Wonsek (Hunter College) reported for die Toronto 2003 Conference Program Planning Committee. The ULS conference program in Toronto will be a debate centered on the proposi­ tion that “by 2020, academic libraries will have outlived their need for physical space.” Two 2- member teams of Canadian and U.S. academic librarians will debate this timely topic. Lori G oetsch (University o f Maryland) re­ ported on the ongoing efforts of the Standards and Guidelines Committee in moving towards a u nified set o f academ ic library standards based on the College Library Guidelines. Hear­ ings on the standards will be held in Toronto. The standards will also be reviewed by the ap­ propriate ACRL sections. It appears that the branch libraries guidelines may be withdrawn, but that a distinct set of undergraduate library guidelines will continue. D iscussion groups ULS discussion groups were active at Midwinter and well attended, addressing a number of timely and sometimes provocative issues. The Current Topics Discussion Group contin­ ued its discussion of the library as “place.” Three speakers addressed the unique aspects of their respective institutions as places. Two of the li­ braries discussed represent academic and public library enterprises. One of these libraries, Cornell College in Mount Vemon, Iowa, is a long-standing historical example of a joint college/city library. The other, San Jose State University, is new joint public and university library that is about six months from opening. Lance Queiy, dean of libraries at Tulane Uni­ versity, described his institution’s need to substan­ tially expand the library and confront the issue of relocating a historic landmark building. The Public Services Directors of Large Re­ search Libraries Discussion Group covered an ambitious two-hour agenda ranging from dis­ cussions o f faculty outreach to electronic re­ serves to virtual reference. Paul Constantine (University of Washington) led the discussion o n virtual reference. He reported that his in­ stitution and Cornell University have partnered in providing electronic “chat” reference so that extended hours o f service could b e offered. The conversation led to a discussion o f p er­ mitting librarians to w ork at hom e while p ro­ viding virtual reference services. The last m eeting o f the Public Services D irectors gro u p at the ALA Annual Confer­ en ce to u ch ed on UCLA’s efforts to develop new measures for developing reference statis­ tics. The g ro u p ’s m eeting at the M idwinter Meeting e n d e d with Janice Koyama (UCLA) leading a discussion on the new approaches that have been developed at the UCLA Librar­ ies. The measures attempt to move away from a time-based approach to reference statistics to an ap p ro ach that is m ore focused on the natu re o f the service being p ro v id ed to the user. The categories that have been developed can be review ed at h ttp://stats.library.ucla. edu/reference/category_definitions .cfm. The new ly established U rban University Libraries Discussion G roup m et for the first time at the Midwinter Meeting. The group dis­ cussed issues such as homeless people in librar­ ies, computing security, and the growing pres­ sure to control access to university networks. —John Lehner, University o f Houston Libraries, jtehner@uh.edu ■ ( “Who’s a fra id . . continued fro m p a g e253) (2000-2001).” Retrieved March 1, 2003, from th e Web at h ttp ://w w w .a la .o rg /k ra n ic h / literacy.html. 5. University Continuing Education Associa­ tion. Lifelong Learning Trends: AProfúe ofContinu- ing Higber Edııcation(Seventh Edition).(Washing- ton D.C.: The University Continuing Education Association, 2002): 68. 6. ALA. “ALA Library Advocacy Now!: Ac­ tion Plan 2001A Library Advocate’s Guide to Building Information Literate Communities” (2001): 11. Retrieved March 1, 2003, from the Web at h ttp ://w w w .ala.o rg /p io /ad v o cacy / informationliteracy.pdf. 7. Rise L. Smith, “Philosophical Shift: Teach the Faculty to Teach Information Literacy. ” ACRL 8th National Conference Contributed and Fea­ tured Papers. Retrieved March 1, 2003, from the Web at h ttp://w w w .ala.org/acrl/paperhtm / d38.html. ■ http://stats.library.ucla mailto:jtehner@uh.edu http://www.ala.org/kranich/ http://www.ala.org/pio/advocacy/ http://www.ala.org/acrl/paperhtm/