Information Literacy Survey



Information Literacy Survey

Conducted February 20, 2007

Responding Institutions

Eastern Illinois University

UI Urbana-Champaign

SIU Medical

SIU Carbondale

ISU Illinois State University

NIU Northern Illinois University

UI Springfield

WIU Western Illinois University

Does the library have library faculty senators?

EIU Yes we do, although librarians and departmental faculty compete equally open for general election.

UIUC has full participation in the faculty senate.

SIU Med has a faculty senate; we have not had a librarian from the School of Medicine elected to that since I've been here.  However, the School of Medicine has its own Faculty Council and we routinely have someone elected to one of those slots.  We share representation with several other departments.

SIU Carbondale Yes.

ISU Yes, we have one voting seat.  The library dean serves in the rotation for filling the dean's chair on the senate as well.

NIU Yes

UI Springfield Yes

WIU No (WIU Library faculty are part of the College of Arts & Sciences and may be elected from that College)

Do librarians have a seat on the college(s) curriculum committees?  If yes, name the committee(s)

EIU No, there are four of them.  We receive/review the minutes of all curricular groups.

UIUC Not pushing more for participation

through the formal committees/Senate where we are full participants and

fully eligible. In general, the integration of information literacy at

UIUC (like many other places) succeeds on the basis of an individual

librarian making a connection with a faculty/program leader. At UIUC,

these leaders are at the department/college level - not the campus

level. Our environmental scan has also shown us that there are other

campus groups who are key in undergraduate student experience and so we

have outreach initiatives for them as well (e.g., academic advisors -

particularly those working with students who have not yet declared a

major).

SIU Med At the School of Medicine, each of the four years has its own curriculum committee (named Year One Curriculum Committee, Year Two Curriculum Committee, and so forth).  During the last major curriculum revision (2000), we were able to get a librarian slot on each of those four committees.

SIUCarbondal e No. We are sometimes “called in” or asked questions regarding library support for new programs, etc., but we do not have official seats at the college Curric. Committee

ISU No, but a number of our faculty sit on the departmental curriculum committees, which is even more valuable because that is where course proposals originate here.  It gets our people at the table right from the beginning stages of course and program development.

NIU Yes.  We sometimes have a seat, and sometimes we can volunteer to be appointed.

UI Springfield No

Do librarians have a seat on the university curriculum committees?  If yes, name the committee(s)

EIU No, there are three of them.  We receive/review the minutes of all curricular groups.

SIU Carbondale   Sometimes one of the Library senators may be appointed to the senate curriculum committee.

ISU Yes.  We have a designated seat on the University Curriculum Committee.  We also have designated library seats on the General Education Coordinating Council, the General Education Review Committee, and another gen ed standing committee that I can't remember.  But we're represented on all of them.  Plus the directors of the English gen ed component and the Comm (Speech) gen ed component meet with our Instruction Services Librarian pretty much weekly and formally to be sure all is going well with syllabi, projects, assignments, instruction, and more.

NIU Yes

UI Springfield yes: General Education Committee: Undergraduate Curriculum Committee; Graduate Curriculum Committee

WIU No

What role does the library/librarians play in General Education or First Year Experience?

EIU We work with Foundations courses, work with Eastern Reads!, and see most freshmen and transfers students through their required courses in English and Speech or some majors.

SIU Carbondale Too little, I’m afraid. We do offer a one-credit class in Library skills kind of thing but it is not req’d and does not count as part of General Ed. There is discussion of that changing but nothing at this time. Also, a Learning Support kind of space is planned for the newly renovated library when it opens in 08. I’ve been working with the Provost on this but he and I have not really discussed the organizational aspect of the new unit that will be going in that space.

ISU Yes.  We have a designated seat on the University Curriculum Committee.  We also have designated library seats on the General Education Coordinating Council, the General Education Review Committee, and another gen ed standing committee that I can't remember.  But we're represented on all of them.  Plus the directors of the English gen ed component and the Comm (Speech) gen ed component meet with our Instruction Services Librarian pretty much weekly and formally to be sure all is going well with syllabi, projects, assignments, instruction, and more.

NIU Teach Univ101, do bibliographic instruction.

UI Springfield The library faculty have been involved for several years as teachers in the Capital Scholars honors program (100 freshmen per year).  As part of the team, they focus especially on information literacy.  (However, I wouldn't recommend going this route--personally rewarding but too time-consuming for the library faculty involved.  I would like to find a way to reach these students in a less time-intensive way.)   One of the library faculty also provided a series of "Research Studios" for students in the Capital Scholars composition classes.  This is the first semester for the new General Education curriculum at UIS (this is also the first year that UIS has admitted non-honors freshmen). 

Is Information Literacy recognized as a critical component in General Education?  If yes, how is it incorporated into the learning experience of students?

EIU It is included in the courses mentioned above, but we have not fought for a separate course for lack of librarian instructors to manage the load.  Although we would appreciate the exposure, I find we have a good rapport with faculty members who are paid to run with the rest of the course even though they invite librarians to offer guest presentations. (Of course, it is not the same because librarians do not control a grade.)  Most of my faculty librarians have multiple duties already; I hesitate to tie them too closely to the classroom.  I could not lose them for the week after only a few hours in the BI lab.

        

SIU Carbondale Too little, I’m afraid. We do offer a one-credit class in Library skills kind of thing but it is not req’d and does not count as part of General Ed. There is discussion of that changing but nothing at this time. Also, a Learning Support kind of space is planned for the newly renovated library when it opens in 08. I’ve been working with the Provost on this but he and I have not really discussed the organizational aspect of the new unit that will be going in that space.

ISU Yes.  We've based our learning objectives and course activities on benchmarks straight from our university definition of information literacy.  It's really quite a good program.

NIU No, but we are working on it.  I am sending some librarians to the immersion program and we have a new provost who wants to look at general education carefully.

 

UI Springfield Yes, but how to reach all students in Gen Ed is still a work in progress.   The Vice-Chancellor for Undergraduate Education is the co-sponsor, along with the Library, of a discussion forum designed to explore possibilities for "information literacy in a wired world."   

 

Note::: from UI Springfield special information literacy event is planned for next Thursday and Friday--UIS received an LSTA grant to bring in a consultant (Barbara Fister) to help take information literacy education to the next level.

WIU No

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