This competency embodies the heart of information services as it seeks to connect individuals or groups to information that is accurate, relevant,and appropriate. These principles are directly connected to ideal customer service skills while providing helpful reference to patrons. One way to demonstrate proficiency is series of slides I gave as a presentation to a class on the peer review process from a critical viewpoint. Another example that demonstrates mastery of this service concept is another presentation given to high school students in the library on how to conduct successful keyword searches.
Justification of the Evidence
Evidence #1: Peer Review Presentation Slides
As a final presentation for my course in information literacy, I gave a presentation of slides on the peer review process. The learning objectives for my presentation was to help students understand the basic process of peer review, to identify key players in the process, to distinguish between scholarly and popular sources, and lastly, to reflect on the effectiveness of our current traditional peer review system. In the presentation, I play a 3 minute video of the basic steps a published article must go through, including how it is peer-reviewed. After the video is played, students are given the opportunity to engage in discussion about their thoughts and critical questions about the process. The question of whether it is truly authoritative also comes into play as we reflect on what peer review means as we also evaluate systems of power. This presentation allows me as an information professional to present valuable concepts to students especially in higher education who may hear about “peer review” often but do not know what it is or how it works on a very basic level.
Evidence #2: Keyword Search Slides
Another important concept that I have taught in a k-12 setting about keyword searching has given me the opportunity to provide students with techniques and principles about the way they research. In this presentation, I give an overview of important concepts for students to learn, such as index, database, tags, and limiters, for example. Since this is done in live time, where teachers have reserved an hour to bring in their students into the school library, I begin the session at the front by asking some opening questions. Some of these questions might be about how a search engine might work or why word choice in keyword searching is important or what students know about pageranking on Google, for example. Another important concept I may sneak up on them is how they might evaluate strong or weak sources. And then we go over an web source evaluation worksheet that goes into more detail. By going over these questions, and giving directive as they engage in activities that I created, students are able to come out of the lesson with a deeper understanding of how search engines work optimally in their research process. To offer these techniques by teaching various groups demonstrates my ability to connect to students and challenge them to interpret and evaluate information responsibly.
Conclusion
To connect to patrons and students by teaching vital information literacy skills is crucial to the information profession. So that I can continue to stay updated with trends and important school library concepts, I plan to subscribe to the School Library Journal. While I was teaching students at the high school library, I was also invited to join CSLA’s CSI(Committee on Standards Integration), which gave me the opportunity to vote on regional changes for district level decisions. If I do decide to go down the high school teacher-librarian route, I know that this type of librarianship allows me to teach more often than other contexts. To join CSLA and proactively join more committees would be something I foresee as an asset to the school where I would work.