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In this chapter, the author examines Student2Scholar (S2S), an online e-learning resource for graduate students in the social sciences, as a case study that coalesces around effective learning design, innovation, and collaboration to meet and overcome the changes, challenges, and opportunities that have arisen in the twenty-first century. The author provides an overview of the S2S project, including an examination of the key design choices and pedagogy which were both strategic and critical in setting the foundation for effective learning in an online environment. This chapter also examines different elements of the project with a focus on the structure, purpose, and goals specific to a limited budget and a tight project timeline. A unique aspect of the project was the collaboration in and across three Canadian universities. The diverse project group of experts and important contributions by the team members played a significant role in creating a richer and more innovative product. These elements combined in such a way that led to the successful creation and launch of S2S, an award-winning e-learning resource.

This chapter argues that the near-universal exclusion from the academy of the Shakespeare Authorship Question (or SAQ) represents a significant but little-understood example of an internal threat to academic freedom. Using an epistemological lens, this chapter examines and critiques the invidious and marginalizing rhetoric used to suppress such research by demonstrating the extent to which it constitutes a pattern of epistemic vice: that, by calling skeptics “conspiracy theorists” and comparing them to Holocaust deniers rather than addressing the substance of their claims, orthodox Shakespeare academics risk committing acts of epistemic vice, injustice and oppression, as well as foreclosing potentially productive lines of inquiry in their discipline. To better understand this phenomenon and its implications, the chapter subjects selected statements to external criteria in the form of the Association of College and Research Libraries’ 2015 Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, which provides a set of robust normative dispositions and knowledge practices for understanding the nature of the scholarly enterprise. The analysis reveals that the proscription against the SAQ constitutes an unwarranted infringement on the academic freedom not only of those targeted by this rhetoric, but – by extension – of all Shakespeare scholars as well.

Information literacy instruction in higher education tends to focus on a relatively small slice of the information literacy landscape: academic research skills. Students often fail to see the relevance of these sessions beyond the direct application to their assignments. In addition, while this type of instruction helps students succeed academically, it does not necessarily prepare them for their future careers, which can lead to a lapse in student engagement. A prior exploratory survey study among alumni of four bachelor of nursing programs provided insight into current information practices of professional nurses and how librarians could have better prepared them for their eventual workplace. This chapter outlines how this evidence informed a change in information instruction, now preparing nursing students for professional as well as academic success. This evidence-based approach has the potential benefit of making instruction more relevant and engaging to students, while at the same time expanding their information literacy skills. Teaching nursing students professional information literacy skills, in addition to academic information literacy skills, leads to better-prepared nurses which ultimately benefits their patients. The chapter provides several implementation examples but also addresses the challenges that librarians face when pursuing evidence-based practice to increase student engagement.

The acceleration of Opioid deaths over the last decade has made it a serious national public health crisis. Alabama has not been immune to this epidemic, with dramatically increased age-adjusted drug overdose death rates. These increases have occurred in a state with limited resources for Opioid health prevention, treatment, and recovery services. This chapter introduces the term “o-CHIL” in order to better understand the multi-factorial layers of intertwining health injustices (in the plural) experienced in Alabama’s communities and their embedded public libraries. It highlights the complexities in Opioid consumer health information literacies, the culturally situated dimensions of the Opioid crisis in Alabama, and the uniquely relevant consumer health literacies in its public libraries. Findings are based on an empirical assessment of representative information support services identified in February 2020 on the websites of the 230 public libraries listed as members of the Alabama Public Library Service. The exploratory study applies website content analysis to identify seven examples of information offerings and to class offerings into three categories: (1) information sources (collections, resources); (2) information policy and planning (assigned Opioid-related role, strategic representation); and (3) connections (internal, external, news and events). The discussion potentially provides new directions, approaches, and opportunities to build collaborations of sharing within Alabama’s network of public libraries and beyond for them to better serve their local and regional communities impacted by the Opioid crisis.

While LIS scholarship emphasizes the need to be multi-literate by equipping people with critical information literacy, digital literacy, and media literacy skills to combat the phenomenon of fake news in the contemporary information society, the concept of political information literacy is still in its infancy. This chapter addresses this gap by developing an understanding of political information literacy and challenges the premise that information professionals and information organizations should remain neutral in the face of phenomena like censorship through noise and disinformation. In this endeavor, it reviews contemporary information environments vis-à-vis the growth of fake news and misinformation, and current information literacy approaches utilized by information organizations. Thereafter, it explores several cognitive barriers, such as the role of confirmation bias, information avoidance, information groupishness, and information overload, which affects people’s ability to process information. Finally, it encourages information professionals to hold regular information sessions on politically charged topics, tackle the cognitive factors increasing misinformation, and cultivate multidisciplinary approaches to confront fake news.

Research and writing can be challenging tasks for undergraduate students, and evaluating online sources for use in papers can be especially difficult to do well. This chapter discusses a partnership between a library and a writing center to teach writing consultants the basics of the Information Literacy Framework and online source evaluation. This included providing additional education for peer writing consultants. Consultants became more fluent in the aspects of evaluation and provided perspective on how and why undergraduate students struggle with this in the research and writing process, establishing the value of assembling networked pedagogical models for teaching information literacy.

Purpose – This chapter puts forth an approach for deeper understanding of the ways that information professionals learn, based on concepts and strategies that enable them to fulfill the varied roles they take on. It considers multiple facets in their experiences of using information to learn, the essence of informed learning (Bruce, 2008). The purpose of furthering this understanding is to develop approaches for designing enhanced curriculum to support transformative learning experiences.

Design & Methodology – To explore the learning experiences, roles, and strategies of information professionals, this chapter enlists two frameworks pertinent to transformative learning: first, the informed learning construct of Bruce (2008) and, second, the threshold concepts theoretical framework of Meyer and Land (2003). Both frameworks have been used to guide the design of curriculum, and this chapter discusses using them together to design higher education courses for information professionals. Learning activities from two courses in an online MLIS degree program – information retrieval system design and information architecture – are used as case illustrations for implementing a blended approach.

Findings & Discussion – The outcomes from implementing curriculum that has been designed based on informed learning principles and threshold concepts that were derived from learner experiences are discussed. A third construct, information experience (Bruce et al., 2014), which evolved in part out of informed learning, is brought into the discussion, providing an additional dimension for understanding the learner’s relationship with his/her information world.

Christine Bruce (2008, Preface) has written extensively about informed learning. Informed learning is “using information, creatively and reflectively, in order to learn.” Bruce writes about informed learning as it relates to information literacy. Librarians, working collaboratively with professors, often develop research guides to teach information literacy skills, and to organize and present program, course, assignment, or topic-specific resources. Research is essential to documentary filmmaking. This chapter is a case study that describes how the History of Non-fiction Film Research Guide that we created aligns with the three principles and seven faces of informed learning.

While the important role of information literacy instruction as a central service in academic libraries is well observed in scholarly literature, there has been little examination of the impact of the rapid increase of instructional duties on practicing librarians, whose traditional instruction duties have expanded or whose positions have not traditionally required leading a classroom. The study in this chapter explores librarians’ perceptions of the impact that increased instruction tasks have had on their day-to-day and long-term goals, perceptions of the support they receive in performing their instructional duties, and what types of instruction training they have received throughout their career. The ways in which the addition of instruction duties for librarians have been perceived by the librarians themselves as they strive to increase support for instructional services without impacting the library’s ability to continue to perform traditional public and technical services functions is discussed as a marker of the future needs of the field and the necessity of recognizing professional strain.