Teaching Information Literacy for Everyday Life
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Title: Teaching Information Literacy for Everyday Life
Editors: Anne Diekema and Maralee Carlin (Southern Utah University)
Publisher: ACRL
Chapter Proposals due January 15, 2025 (https://forms.gle/wHs62xcd5oqGcqGU7)
We are excited to invite chapter proposals for Teaching Information Literacy for Everyday Life, an edited volume to be published by ACRL. Please email us at teachingILforeverydaylife@gmail.com with any questions.
About the book:
Information literacy instruction at the university level has largely been limited to teaching foundational academic library research skills, such as the research process - finding, evaluating, and using sources to support research-based writing and other assignments. While this instruction supports students in their educational endeavors, it doesn't have an immediate application beyond academia since the majority of college students will leave university and never write a research paper again. Teaching what some believe to be a universally applicable research process belies the differences in the ways people interact with information in different contexts, the diversity of practices and epistemic approaches, and the social-emotional aspects of information use.
How can we prepare our students for life in an increasingly complex and divisive information environment? How can we help students to transfer and expand their information literacy skills to novel situations and contexts? At a time when the spread of misinformation is prevalent and more powerfully disseminated than ever, students must be able to navigate and analyze information and its sources for other aspects of life ranging from health and hobbies to civic engagement and the workplace. In their literature review on the topic, Martzoukou & Sayyad (2016) define everyday information literacy as "Information literacy (IL) within an everyday life context is connected to searching for, critically evaluating and using information effectively" (p. 2).
Lloyd (2010) recognized the different manifestations of information literacy early on in her book Information Literacy Landscapes: Information Literacy in Education, Workplace and Everyday Contexts. This broader view of information literacy is captured by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's (UNESCO) Information for All Programme (2023) which states that "Information Literacy empowers people in all walks of life to seek, evaluate, use and create information effectively to achieve their personal, social, occupational and educational goal" (para. 1). Everyday life requires information literacy. It is widely recognized that information-literate citizens are essential to a functioning democratic society (e.g. Millar et al., 2019) and there is a positive connection between information literacy and a person's quality of life (Leung, 2010), as well as their health and well-being (Hicks, 2022).
What are some of the everyday information literacy skills and topics that academic librarians are teaching their students to prepare them for everyday life? What are librarians doing to ensure the transfer of students' academic information literacy skills to real-life situations? This edited volume will contain contributions from authors on everyday information literacy instruction.
Call for Chapter Proposals:
Proposals are invited from those who teach information literacy focused beyond the academic setting to the everyday life context. Chapters should be between 4,000-5,000 words in length.
The book is tentatively organized in four parts, each dealing with a different facet of everyday information literacy: 1) Information literacy in personal lives, 2) Information literacy in the social environment, 3) Information literacy in the workplace, and 4) information literacy in education.
Each chapter will include a lesson plan and/or learning activity to guide and inspire librarians to expand information literacy instruction into the realm of daily life. The tentative table of contents and suggested topics are not complete nor prescriptive so please do not feel limited in your creativity!
PART I. Information Literacy in Personal Lives
Chapters in this section will consider information literacy in the personal realm and how to prepare students to operate effectively in information environments that pertain to aspects of their personal lives such as health, recreation, consumption of goods and services, etc.
Sample topics could include:
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Using information to make critical life decisions
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Navigating medical information
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Applying consumer information in product and service selection
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Assessing information for financial decisions
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Researching political programs
PART II. Information Literacy in the Social Environment
Chapters in this section relate to the information used in the social realm and how to make students aware of the nuances of information creation, dissemination, consumption, and sharing in social environments, and how it impacts social interactions, relationships, and society at large.
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Trusting information on social media
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Information persuasion
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Information addiction
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Social construction of information
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User interaction in information seeking and sharing
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Information communities
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Information Literacy for Civic and Community Engagement
PART III. Information Literacy for the Workplace.
Chapters in this section will discuss teaching information practices essential to the information-driven professional environments students will find themselves in after graduation.
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Social information practices in the workplace
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Using legal and policy information
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Ethical information use
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Professional information practices
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Disciplinary information literacy
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Evidence-based practice
PART IV. Information Literacy in Education
Chapters in this section will focus on teaching and promoting information literacy in educational contexts beyond the narrow focus of academic information literacy in preparation for the information society beyond academia.
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Teaching information literacy for transfer
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Preparing our students for life in an increasingly complex and divisive information environment
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Information literacy beyond the academic stereotypes
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Life-long learning
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Information fluency
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Artificial Intelligence and other information technologies
Evaluation Criteria:
Proposed chapters will be evaluated using the following criteria, as listed in the rubric linked below:
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Quality of the descriptions of the chapter and lesson plan/learning activity
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Relevance to the topic and themes of the book
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Originality of the ideas presented
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Completeness of the proposal
Rubric: https://tinyurl.com/krrkcpj4
Proposal Instructions:
Please submit your proposals using the online form (https://forms.gle/wHs62xcd5oqGcqGU7) by January 15, 2025. The proposal should include all contributing authors, a contact email for the main author, a working title, what part you envision your chapter in, 3-5 keywords describing your proposed topic, a description of your proposed chapter that does not exceed 500 words, and a summary of your lesson plan or learning activity.
Authors will be notified of acceptance by March 15, 2025. Authors will also be expected to participate in a peer review process of other accepted chapters. See below for the full project timeline. Please email Anne Diekema and Maralee Carlin at teachingilforeverydaylife@gmail.com with any questions.
Project timeline:
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Chapter proposals due by January 15, 2025
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Authors notified of acceptance by March 15, 2025
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Full chapters to editors by July 31, 2025
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Authors notified of peer review assignments by August 15, 2025
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Peer reviews due by October 1, 2025
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Authors receive reviews by October 15, 2025
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Revised book chapters AND author biographies due to editors by November 15, 2025
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Manuscript goes to publisher January, 2026
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Publication anticipated Spring 2027
About the editors:
Anne R. Diekema is the Instruction Librarian at Southern Utah University, Cedar City, UT. Her teaching emphasis is on information literacy in academic and everyday contexts. Her research in human information behavior informs her instructional approach. Anne is the liaison librarian to the Department of Nursing, Department of Biology, and the Interdisciplinary Studies Program. In her free time, Anne can be found in the mountains with her dogs, or on the couch reading.
Maralee Carlin is the Learning Experience Librarian at Southern Utah University. She helps maintain a for-credit Information Literacy course, and her research passions include information literacy instruction for disciplines, such as Teaching English for Speakers of Other Languages or for language teaching. She also teaches the technology class in the School Librarian Endorsement Program. Maralee serves as the liaison for the Department of Languages and Philosophy and the Intensive English Program. Maralee is currently the Dungeon Master for her D&D group and an avid cozy gamer.
References:
Hicks, A. (2022). The missing link: Towards an integrated health and information literacy research agenda. Social Science & Medicine, 292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114592
Leung, L. (2010). Effects of Internet Connectedness and Information Literacy on Quality of Life. Social Indicators Research, 98(2), 273–290. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-009-9539-1.
Lloyd, A. (2010). Information Literacy Landscapes: Information Literacy in Education, Workplace and Everyday Contexts. Elsevier.
Martzoukou, K., & Sayyad, A. E. (2016). Everyday life information literacy: a review of literature. 4th European conference on information literacy (ECIL 2016). http://ecil2016.ilconf.org/wednesday-12th-morning-session/
Millar, L. (2019). A matter of facts : The value of evidence in an information age. ALA Neal-Schuman : Society of American Archivists.
UNESCO. (2023, April 20). Information Literacy. Information for All Programme. https://www.unesco.org/en/ifap/information-literacy.
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Anne Diekema
Associate Professor
Southern Utah University
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