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Information Literacy College-wide

Library Services and the faculty of Austin Community College work together to develop a plan for the integration of information literacy skills across the curriculum.   A college-wide information literacy committee, the Austin Community College Ad Hoc Committee on Information Literacy, was formed to further this cooperation.  The committee produced a Final Report in 2001, which described their efforts and the direction of the College in this area.

Library Services assists in the development of information literacy skills

  • By promoting the use of library resources in all formats
  • By collaborating with faculty from all disciplines and workforce areas to integrate information literacy into their academic programs
  • By making information literacy an integral part of a college education rather than a simple one-hour library orientation
  • By using learner-centered teaching methods such as active, collaborative, and inquiry-based or problem-based learning
  • By providing instruction formally, in-person or across distances via technology
  • By evaluating the effectiveness of our approaches and constantly developing our own skills
At the request of faculty, reference librarians are available to conduct instruction sessions on locating and accessing information resources located in and beyond the library. The recent acquisition of wireless laptops for campus libraries gives students an opportunity for hands-on work in the library and creates a "learning lab."  Additionally, Library Services has developed a web-based tutorial, the Info Game, which provides a comprehensive introduction to web-based research and to the library's electronic resources.  All students in English Composition I and Introduction to Business complete this tutorial.  Additionally, several individual instructors employ it for a variety of courses.  A separate faculty module was added in 2002 that discusses the role of information literacy across the curriculum. The success of the Info Game has encouraged Library Services to develop a web-based tutorial for a course-integrated assignment for chemistry 1411.


Further information about libraries and information literacy can be found at the ACRL Institute for Information Literacy web site.

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red wassenich and teresa ashley, 05 May 2003