Thursday 1 November 2007

Information Literacy – A menu of choices!

Today’s students are surrounded by extraordinary quantities of information and often have difficulty in locating the right information effectively and ethically. Allison Kavanagh, assistant librarian at Aungier Street Library, was seconded for three months over the summer to examine the current and potential role of Library Services in achieving DIT’s strategic aim of producing information literate graduates.
As part of her report, Allison produced a menu of course options, with learning outcomes and objectives, which allows library and academic staff to work together in constructing an information skills course relevant to the level and needs of the students in question. A number of advanced courses aimed at staff and post-grads is also included.
The menu includes:
  • Finding Books
  • Finding Journal Articles from a citation
  • Developing a Search Strategy and Using it in Library Databases
  • Specialised Library Databases
  • Effective Internet Searching and Evaluating Information
  • Plagiarism, Referencing and Citing
  • Endnote – introductory, intermediate and advanced courses
  • Current Awareness for Researchers
  • Citation Searching and using Journal Citation Reports.

If academic staff would like to organise a tailored session for their students please contact Allison at 3266, Israel at 7167 or Ciaran at 7166.