Monthly Archives: October 2013

The Library Association of the City University of New York (LACUNY) is pleased to announce:

The 2014 LACUNY Institute: Information Literacy to Empower: Theory and Practice
April 4, 2014
The Graduate Center, City University of New York

Keynote Speaker: Barbara Fister (Professor and Coordinator of Instruction, Folke Bernadotte Memorial Library, Gustavus Adolphus College, blogger and writer)

Information Literacy has long been a key concept for information studies and it occupies a central place in the mission of libraries and in librarians’ practice as educators. But there has never been a true consensus among information professionals and educators about what it means to be information literate. The recently developed concept of critical information literacy demands that information literacy instruction be recast much more ambitiously as a pedagogical program that encourages students and the public more generally to explore and understand how information is produced, disseminated and consumed. It also seeks to situate that mechanism as an integral and even constitutive part of contemporary society, so that students not only learn how to ‘use’ information productively, but also so that they are motivated and empowered to change or improve upon those information structures. Ultimately, critical information literacy seeks to be a central part of an education that empowers students not only to succeed in the world as it exists, but also to recast and reshape that world into something more just, peaceful and hopeful.

The 2014 LACUNY Institute committee welcomes proposals that suggest ways we can further develop the concept of critical information literacy, whether or not one wishes to use that term. We are interested in both proposals that think big about information literacy as well as those that are more concerned with specific practices and experiences. We are particularly interested in work that brings the two together to show how critical information literacy can be successfully achieved in the library classroom, reference interview, or other, non-conventional instruction spaces.

Here are few examples of subjects that would be considered appropriate:

�         Critical thinking and the research process

�         The intersections between quantitative and information literacies

�         Class and information-seeking

�         LGBTQ issues in information retrieval

�         Strategies of achieving critical information literacy goals in
library ‘one-shot’ classes

�         Assessing information literacy beyond the library

�         The status of critical information literacy within the library profession

We look forward to your participation in the spring of 2014!

Submission of proposals for papers should include:

*   name(s) of presenter(s)
*   title(s)
*   affiliation(s)
*   contact information
*   abstracts of 300-500 words.

Presentations will be 20 minutes with time allocated for questions and discussion.

Submit a 300 to 500 word abstract to: http://lacuny.org/institute-call-for-proposals/

Send any questions to ibeilin@citytech.cuny.edu

See also the conference website here: http://2014lacunyinst.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

For information about LACUNY, see lacuny.org

Deadline: January 7, 2014
Notification of acceptance: January 31, 2014 

Our present generation of skilled and accomplished digital natives has a universe of information at its fingertips. But, while millennials can search quickly and productively, they have trouble sifting, sorting, and ranking the results. They lack experience with print archives and the fundamental differences between encountering information digitally and in print. They need help with the research process: everything from presearch to evaluating sources’ arguments to integrating sources into their own projects. How can librarians and faculty best teach these higher-level skills in a world of information overload?

Join the ACRL Award-winning Thomas Tredway Library as we explore these provocative and challenging issues in our one-day conference.

The keynote speaker is Sandra Jamieson, Director of Writing Across the Curriculum at Drew University and a principal researcher on the Citation Project (http://site.citationproject.net/).

We welcome presentations on topics including:

• new pedagogical approaches to teaching . . .

• research as a process

• research writing

• rare books and archival materials as tools for critical thinking and analysis

• real-world research skills for life beyond the academy

• transformative assessments of information, visual, and primary source literacies

• creative collaborations between the library and other academic and academic support departments

• the place of information fluency among college- and university-wide learning outcomes

• and other innovative approaches to information fluency

Proposals are due February 15, 2014. To submit a proposal, register for the conference, or find additional information, please visit the conference website (http://www.augustana.edu/x11824.xml?eventid=10806).