Program Learning Outcome 1

At the very heart of this learning objective is information and finding ways to help people access it. It is the starting point for everything that we do and it harkens back to Ranganthan's 5 Laws of Library Science that we learning in LIS 600. The information found in a library is for everyone and needs to be accessible to all. At the same time, we should do what we can to make finding information easier for our patrons and that we need to continue to evolve and change with the times. This is who we are as librarians.

Much of what we have done throughout our coursework fits into this PLO, but the LibGuide assignment from Information Sources & Services ties a number of our goals together into one neat package.

Given that I have always had the goal of working in a school library, the guide that I created took the hypothetical idea of an assignment about the Industrial Revolution and created a guide. I had yet to learn about inquiry based learning, but in many ways, my hypothetical idea was inquiry based in nature. The assignment had a class having a time period to research, but that each student had the ability to focus on an area that interested them the most. My LibGuide gave a variety of ways to narrow down a topic, find resources both online and off, and gave tools for evaluating and citing sources.

The reality is that today's students have so much information available to them that it can be overwhelming. A large part of our jobs as librarians is an essential part of "preparing students for a complex society where vast amounts of information must be understood and managed" (Montiel-Overall, 2005, p. 25). This is a big reason that we push for collaboration with teachers. Additionally, students today are digital natives and they make assumptions about their abilities doing online research. But they are accustomed to doing query searches, not inquiry (Lynch, 2016). They need the proper training to understand that doing research is not like putting a question into Google.

My LibGuide was created for a group of 7th grade students that I knew who had not yet had any chance to do research. Previously all of the information had been spoon fed to them. They needed to gain information literacy as well as digital literacy. The current AASL standards encourage arming students with 21st century skills and have librarians focus on a culture "centered on innovation, collaboration, exploration, deep thinking, and creativity" (AASL, 2018, p.43-44). In order for students to utilize that critical thinking on difficult topics, librarians must be actively part of the process.

Not all schools or school library programs are created equally. But I believe that the way to truly help students gain the information literacy tools that they need to achieve in this world, librarians must partner with teachers. Our jobs as curators and educators helps cut away some of the branches blocking students' view. Tools such as the LibGuide, websites, and informational videos are important ways for us to get the job done.