Last week I took part in one of the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Online Discussions. While I’m not surprised, I’m often dismayed at the demographic makeup of the participants of information literacy discussions. This one was nearly all librarians, with the speaker and one guest being the exceptions. This trend stems from the placement of information literacy responsibilities solely on libraries should be put to an end by building successful collaborative relationships between librarians, faculty, administrators (as well as the many other ubiquitous academic service workers).
Information literacy efforts should not be “a librarian’s cause”; rather, they should be integrated, curriculum-based strategies hammered out between librarians, curriculum designers, teachers and administrators. These efforts should be customized in every way possible to a disciplines’ specific information literacy needs. While I and other peers of mine are beginning to realize this I think we may be the only ones. A more concerted effort needs to be made to educate the broader educational community about the importance of information literacy education.
