Critical Information Literacy

"Provides a snapshot of the current state of critical information literacy as it is enacted and understood by academic librarians"--

"A collection of articles about various ways of applying critical pedagogy and related educational theories to library instruction"--Provided by publisher.

Critical Approaches to Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Courses includes chapters that examine how both critical pedagogy and critical information literacy are applied throughout a credit-bearing course as well as in specific lesson plans. The ideas explored in this book can be adapted for a variety of class and course lengths and for a range of students, from first-year undergraduates to doctoral students. Chapters include case studies of how information literacy courses can respond to preconceptions and unexamined ideologies students may bring to the course; explorations of marginalized knowledge and racial bias and justice in the information literacy course; individual lessons or sets of lessons situated within the larger course context; and reflections on the process of developing a more critical approach. Critical Approaches to Credit-Bearing Information Literacy Courses can provide valuable strategies for those just starting to adopt a critical approach as well as new perspectives for those with more experience in this area.

"Discusses information literacy and its social justice aspects, through a selection of chapters addressing the values of intellectual freedom, social responsibility, and democracy in relation to the sociopolitical context of library work"--Provided by publisher.

"Offers academic librarians practical, and actionable, strategies for critical assessment of teaching and student learning"--Provided by publisher.

This edited collection explores critical literacy theory and provides practical guidance to how it can be taught and applied in libraries. Critical literacy asks fundamental questions about our understanding of knowledge. Unlike more conventional approaches to literacy and resource evaluation, with critical literacy there is no single ‘correct’ way to read and respond to a text or resource. A commitment to equity and social justice sets critical literacy apart from many other types of literacy and links it to wider societal debates, such as internationalization, community cohesion and responses to disability. The book provides a foundation of critical literacy theory, as applied to libraries; combines theory and practice to explore critical literacy in relation to different user groups, and offers practical ways to introduce critical literacy approaches in libraries. Contributed to by international experts from across library sectors, the book covers topics including: radical information literacy as an approach to critical literacy education critical literacy and mature students physical and digital disability access in libraries teaching critical literacy skills in a multicultural, multilingual school community teaching media literacy developing critical literacy skills in an online environment new media and critical literacy. Critical Literacy for Information Professionals also contains a series of practically-focussed case studies that describe tools or approaches that librarians have used to engage users in critical literacy. Drawing on examples from across library sectors including schools, public libraries, universities, workplaces and healthcare, these illustrate how critical literacy can be applied across a variety of library settings, including online and new media environments. Accessible to those with little knowledge of critical literacy, while also introducing debates and ideas to those with more experience of the field, this book will be essential reading for librarians, information professionals and managers in all sectors, students of library and information science, school and higher education teachers and researchers.

-A collection designed by instruction librarians to promote critical thinking and engaged learning, this volume provides teaching librarians detailed, ready-to-use, and easily adaptable lesson ideas to help students understand and be transformed by information literacy threshold concepts. The lessons in this book, created by teaching librarians across the country, are categorized according to the six information literacy frames identified in the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education---