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Boatwright Memorial Library

Library Instruction & Research Support

This is a guide for faculty that provides resources and information related to information literacy in support of teaching.

Liaison Library Support: Research & Instruction

Liaison librarians provide instructional research support across the curriculum in courses from FYS to Senior Seminars. Please contact your liaison to schedule library instruction, request collection resources, or ask research/reference questions.

Liaisons - Contact Information

If you have questions about our library instruction program, or are unsure who to contact for research and/or instruction, contact Carol Wittig (cwittig@richmond.edu), Head of Research and Instruction, 804.289.8459.

Library Instruction Program Plan

The University of Richmond library faculty are committed to providing a comprehensive plan for integrating information literacy into the UR curriculum beginning in the First Year Seminars, advancing through General Education coursework, and culminating in upper division classes. The plan, described below, is based on the Information Literacy Framework for Higher Education and endorsed by the American Association for Higher Education.

The rapidly changing higher education environment, along with the dynamic and often uncertain information ecosystem in which all of us work and live, require new attention to be focused on foundational ideas about that ecosystem. As both consumers and creators of information, students have a greater role and responsibility in understanding the changing dynamics of the world of information, and in using information, data, and scholarship ethically. 

The Framework envisions information literacy as extending the arc of learning throughout students’ academic careers and as converging with other academic and social learning goals.

A definition of information literacy is offered here to emphasize dynamism, flexibility, individual growth, and community learning:

Information literacy is the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning.

Students should begin to develop these abilities in First Year Seminars and expand them further in research intensive courses across the curriculum. Ideally, capstone courses will provide students with opportunities to demonstrate mastery of research competencies and intellectual context within which knowledge in a subject area is created.

The Framework is organized into six frames, each consisting of a concept central to information literacy, a set of knowledge practices, and a set of dispositions. The six concepts that anchor the frames are presented alphabetically:

  1. Authority Is Constructed and Contextual
  2. Information Creation as a Process
  3. Information Has Value
  4. Research as Inquiry
  5. Scholarship as Conversation
  6. Searching as Strategic Exploration

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