Path of Inquiry/October 14th, 2010

Path of inquiry: How do we define scholarship, research, and information literacy? What is the value of creating a network to share ideas and collaborate on scholarly communication? How is scholarly writing different from other forms of writing and why?

I found a definition for information literacy that I found helpful: Information literacy is the ability to recognize when info is needed and have the ability to locate, evaluate, and use effectively the needed information (American Library Association 1998).

To define research and scholarship, this is what I reflected on and I’m looking forward to learning what you think! Researching is when we are investigating and exploring a topic and gathering knowledge from study and/or possibly conducting some type of inquiry ourselves. Scholarship then be the dedicated act or discipline of gathering what we have learned from our information literacy through our study and research and then analyzing and applying that academically to some kind of final thoughts, conclusions and outcome, like a paper.

Collaborating and networking with others seems more critical than ever in an era where there is so much information in so many forms. By working together and sharing ideas and information we can find out from one another more about sources of information, topics and new information that maybe we hadn't known about before.

Scholary writing to me seems different in the sense that you need to back up what you write about with citations from sources. Other types of writing may be our ideas or thoughts or feelings about a topic, but scholarly writing seems like it would need to have a basis of facts and sources as well as a question answered or topic identified as a framework for the writing.

I found a great website: Information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/acrl/standards/informationliteracycompetency.cfm#ildef

From the website: Information literacy forms the basis for lifelong learning. It is common to all disciplines, to all learning environments, and to all levels of education. It enables learners to master content and extend their investigations, become more self-directed, and assume greater control over their own learning.
From what we learned from Chris Cox and the article, the new technologies is leading libraries to look at creative ways to provide new services to keep up with the variety of ways and the vast amount of information available, especially in regards to electronic data. It’s interesting to think about the collections the library has and the different thoughts there are between faculty, students and staff about what should be kept on shelves, digitally and how those should be housed and accessed. It’s also interesting to me to think of libraries differently in the sense of space and what kinds of spaces do students need and desire to help with academic success and make them want to use libraries for more than checking out materials.
I guess I would include in defining scholarship, research and information literacy the importance of teaching students how to find the information they need. It sounds like from what Chris said, he mentioned for example Gabe being hooked up with phone, ear piece, computer, and available at times in person, our library is doing a great job of being available to students as a resource in a variety of ways.

Mentees/Update

I emailed my mentees at the beginning of the week and included the link to the Writing Center website. I heard back from two mentees. One mentee who responded via text later in an evening one night was kind of fun. We actually kept a text dialogue going for approximately 13 texts all together between the two of us. She was checking in and saying she was doing well. We then texted back and forth short texts about the week, and she told me she was doing research in another class. I offered to meet if she wanted to. Another mentee responded back via email and said she was doing fine and updated me on her latest step in the class. No one wanted or needed to meet this week.

In reflecting on my mentees, I do appreciate the two that have actively responded back and/or I have met with. It’s nice to know there is a response when you reach out to people. This is new for them and for me and like we have talked about in class, these are older students. I appreciate the value they have placed on at least staying engaged through this process in some manner. I also love what we are learning in class because it is very relevant and fun to pass the information on to our mentees. As a senior, and someone who took a research class, I have learned a lot of new things about the library and about services on campus that I didn’t know about before.

Have an awesome day everyone! Christina