This just came out : the latest “Tips and Trends” report from the Instructional Technologies Committee members of the American College and Research Libraries and the American Library Association.

Tips and Trends, written by Instructional Technologies Committee members, introduces and discusses new, emerging, or even familiar technology which can be applied in the library instruction setting. Issues are published 4 times a year.

Technology for Flipping the Classroom
Spring 2014

By Angela Colmenares

Two interesting posts zipped in front of my eyes during my regular update:
(1) this presentation deposited in e-lis about the information literacy tutorial developed at the University of Ottawa:

Library Research Basics: The Evolution of an Online Information Literacy Tutorial
Hemingway, Ann and Dekker, Jennifer and Bail, Cynthia and Pinet, Richard and Rockeby, Steve Library Research Basics: The Evolution of an Online Information Literacy Tutorial., 2007 . In Ontario Library Association. Super Conference, Toronto, Ontario, January 31 – February 3, 2007. (Unpublished) [Presentation]

And the second, this First Monday article :

How today’s college students use Wikipedia for course-related research
Alison J. Head, Michael B. Eisenberg
Volume 15, Number 3 – 1 March 2010

And, here is my YouTube tutorial on Wikipedia:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rl5bAttk56k?list=PLaqfn26UOsX-k3NLTFgGTJGUY6BLjj4D_&w=560&h=315]

I’ve been working hard on an information literacy program for undergraduate students in the marketing and management departments at Concordia University’s John Molson School of Business (more on that later) but, in recent email exchange with a colleague, I came up with the following themes for graduate students:

Off the cuff, this curriculum would obviously discuss important academic resources such as peer-reviewed articles and related databases, but I feel it should also cover best practices with regards to managing one’s information need at the graduate level, well beyond “just” searching for information. This should include: using social media for graduate studies, active information discovery, advanced text processing, bibliographic management software, coping with information overload, etc.

Will come back to that later…

Practionners have a love-hate relationship with Library and information science. Here is a recent article on the topic of whether it is a science or not:
Citation: Fredrick Kiwuwa Lugya, (2014) “What counts as a science and discipline in library and information science?”, Library Review, Vol. 63 Iss: 1/2
(Lugya says yes).

Also of interest, this recent book on theories of information:

Theories of Information, Communication and Knowledge: A Multidisciplinary Approach edited by Fidelia Ibekwe-SanJuan and Thomas M. Dousa (Eds.). London, UK: Springer, 2014. 380 pp. $179.00 (hardcover) (ISBN 978-94-007-6973-1)
DOI: 10.1007/978-94-007-6973-1
(Also reviewed in JASIST)

A colleague of mine highlighted a few articles which explain how university libraries are engaging faculty and providing assistance to switch to open textbooks. Here are the links:
– For more on open textbooks
– The Alt textbook from Temple’s Teaching and Learning Technology Roundtable
– CBC radio (Calgary) interview about open textbooks

Hat tip to Sheila Webber and her excellent blog for bringing this interesting talk by Google research scientist Dr. Daniel Russell to my attention:
[vimeo 89737037 w=500 h=281]

Talk by Google research scientist Dr. Daniel Russell from UNC SILS on Vimeo.

The Science Blog’s Confessions of a science librarian provides for a list of 18 recent studies and reports targetting discussing contemporary issues in librarianship.

According to the Information Literacy Blog, the Association of College and Research Libraries’ Information Literacy Best Practices Committee “is looking for information literacy programs that are exemplary in any of the categories outlined in Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices: A Guideline.”
More information here: http://www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl/directoryofleadership/sections/is/iswebsite/committees/bestpractices

The American Library Association just published a report by Canadian librarian Carmen Kazakoff-Lane called “Environmental Scan of OERs, MOOCs, and Libraries: What Effectiveness and Sustainability Means for Libraries’ Impact on Open Education” (pdf).

Of particular interest is the 6-page bibliography (which I will reproduce in the comments section of this post).

I just read this interesting article from C&R Libraries about a flipped infolit class.
The flipped classroom: Assessing an innovative teaching model for effective and engaging library instruction
Sara Arnold-Garza
January 2014
College & Research Libraries News
vol. 75 no. 1 10-13

Also of interest:
Four quick flips: Activities for the information literacy classroom
Ilka Datig and Claire Ruswick
May 2013
College & Research Libraries News
vol. 74 no. 5 249-257