As a new member of the Community of Practice, Christine invited me to share my reasons for joining the group and any IL activities I’m involved in.
I work at Scottish Borders Campus in Galahsiels which is a shared Campus between Heriot-Watt University and Borders College. Although I’m on the payroll of the University the main focus of my job is to act as a Suject Librarian for Borders College. In practice I spend most of my day helping students from both communities locate and use the information they need to complete their studies.
From my day to day dealings with HE and FE students I have developed a nagging concern that has only grown louder as the years have gone on. Here it is in a nutshell…
I have a concern that students can pass through College and University without any incentives for forming the habits that we would call information literacy.
The majority of students I see want to take the shortest route from A to B. The information hungry student will take the first thing that resembles what they need and say “that’ll do”. And do you know what? It works. Their work is accepted and they complete their studies successfully. A bit like a hungry Librarian with five minutes to grab a sandwich between meetings. Yes the edges were a bit crusty and the tuna a bit suspect but it did the job and we moved on.
But these students then go on to careers in social care, child care, health care, business management construction and more. These are walks of life where the “that’ll do” attitude to information searching is unacceptably risky.
Over the coming months I will be trying to engage Borders College in a more meaningful conversation about how information literacy could be embedded into the curriculum and into staff developmment.
I have my own ideas but all support and advice warmly received.
Originally added by Jamie McIntyre