Teaching Information Skills Theory and Practice

Citation

Andretta, S. (2005), "Teaching Information Skills Theory and Practice", Program: electronic library and information systems, Vol. 39 No. 2, pp. 179-180. https://doi.org/10.1108/00330330510595814

I found this book extremely easy to read because of its informal and very approachable style as well as its clear exposition of the case studies which fully illustrate the points explored. The overall aim of this book is to provide support for information professionals who are involved in teaching information skills within the academic environment, although the practices presented here could be relevant to a wider information professional context. The structure of the book reflects the three main stages of information skills provision. The first section explores the learning process from the learner's perspective and gives a wide‐ranging assessment of the various factors in play at this stage, such as the application of varying learning styles and the use of assessment to increase motivation. This is followed by the examination of the planning and delivery stages where the learning objectives are clearly stated to provide appropriate parameters for the learning process. The final part of the book concentrates on the evaluative techniques used to ascertain the impact of provision.

The case study method is particularly effective in the feedback and evaluation chapter as it offers clear scenarios of the problems an information professional encounters when using a quantitative approach to assess the impact of a session on the overall learning of participants. This is a topical issue for academic librarians who need to sell information literacy to reluctant faculty staff. The problems of finding the appropriate evaluation method explored in this chapter are certainly relevant to practitioners who provide information skills sessions in a range of contexts. One could also argue that the practical tips on questionnaire design covered in this chapter are of interest to a wider audience of information professionals who are engaged in evidence‐based evaluation of their practices.

The book defines information skills as synonymous with information literacy and this perspective is presented in both the foreword section and again in the introductory chapter where the authors themselves use the two concepts interchangeably. In my view this is problematic for the following reason: by replacing literacy with skills, the overall concept of information literacy cannot be used as the foundation of functional literacy and lifelong learning advocated by two main promoters of information literacy education, the Association of Colleges and Research Libraries (ACRL) and more recently the Australian and New Zealand Institute of Information Literacy (ANZIIL). The reluctance to use the term “literacy” has been attributed to the association that certain sections of higher education in the UK make between literacy and remedial work. Given the importance placed on the use of the term information literacy, one would have expected some justification by the authors for the preferred use of the term information skills. Moreover, what is missing is a rationale as to how these models are implemented and what impact they have on the practice presented in this book.

In conclusion, this book offers practical and detailed guidance for librarians who intend to adopt a more student‐centred approach to promote independent learning, and for this reason the authors should be commended for attempting to disseminate good practices of information literacy to the wider information community. Although the book does not explicitly promote the full integration of information literacy education and it does not advocate this as a pedagogical framework in its own right, it is certainly a step in the right direction towards the ultimate goal of embedding information literacy on a campus‐wide basis.