strategic and holistic instruction (Junisbai et al., 2016). Feminist pedagogy, furthermore, suggests that as faculty-librarian partnerships develop over time, librarian time in the classroom (even as a one-shot) can be increasingly effective (Kingsland, 2020). Instruction at this level can create learners who have increased fluency in producing and consuming information that lasts beyond graduation and creates socially responsible and engaged citizens.
While collaborating may seem like a daunting and time-consuming undertaking, it does not have to be. In fact, a pragmatic implementation imparts valuable information literacy skills with only a moderate level of librarian input with assignment design and pedagogy. A couple of strategically placed, hands-on library sessions accrue the greatest gains in learner outcomes. Moreover, the addition of a librarian into the planning and implementation of a course can reduce the burden on faculty by supporting and implementing a share of the discipline-based research goals (Junisbai et al., 2016).
Effective information literacy instruction is ideally embedded within the context of a discipline, since each discipline has its own research paradigms and modes of thought (Grafstein, 2002). Disciplinary information literacy requires participation from the learners, the librarian, and the professor. Learners must critically engage with a variety of kinds of information in different formats. The librarian elevates classroom learning by incorporating fundamental ideas of information literacy, and the professor provides curricular assignments that deepen interaction with disciplinary scholarship. In our collaboration, we worked together to develop learning outcomes that incorporated specific information learning skills within the context of anthropology.
The Assignment
As a culminating assignment for Jessica’s upper-level anthropology course, Gender, Sex, and Sexuality: A Global Perspective, learners identified an information gap on a Wikipedia page dealing with gender, completed research to address the gap, composed text to add to their chosen article, and published their work. Learners were also asked to
