Collaboration Between Librarians and Sociologists Yields Standards for Library Literacy

What do sociology students need to know about doing research and constructing knowledge in their major? “Information literacy” is often one of the goals of general education or liberal education, helping our students to become lifelong learners. Librarians are key partners in working with sociology faculty to prepare sociology students to retrieve, evaluate, and use information.

The American Library Association (ALA) is an umbrella professional association including librarians in university settings. The Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) is the main home for librarians at the college and university level1. The ACRL has a special interest group for sociology and anthropology, with co-chairs Triveni Kuchi, Rutgers University, and Susan Macicak, University of Texas-Austin. This Anthropology and Sociology Section (ANSS) contacted Edward L. Kain, Southwestern University and ASA about collaborating on library literacy guidelines for sociology (and anthropology) students. The American Anthropological Association was also contacted.

Kain and ASA’s Carla Howery attended the ALA annual meeting in June 2006 in New Orleans to work with the ANSS group on finalizing these guidelines. The draft document was circulated thereafter via the ASA website for comment from sociologists and revised accordingly. The revised draft was included in the ASA Council’s agenda book. At the August 2006 meeting, where Kuchi made a presentation, the ASA Council approved the standards in principle and asked that they be disseminated to sociology departments.

The guidelines are on the ASA homepage, as part of that dissemination effort. In addition, ASA’s Academic and Professional Affairs Program will offer workshops on the guidelines at various regional meetings and at the 2007 ASA Annual Meeting. ASA’s Department Resources Group, a network of consultants on teaching and learning who undertake program reviews, will receive training on the guidelines as well.

Input and Examples Sought

The next step in enhancing the library literacy of sociology students is to gather existing materials from faculty. Many faculty have modules within their courses that involve library work (from the traditional term paper to data retrieval). Some libraries have orientation exercises that help students find social science relevant materials. ASA is collecting such examples to post on the website for other faculty to use. Please send your materials to apap@asanet.org for that purpose.

Even though the draft has been approved, there are still opportunities for input. The more faculty input we receive on the draft, the more pertinent and integral the document can become as a tool to:

• Provide ideas for infusing coursework, assignments, and websites with content that will both increase students’ anthropology or sociology knowledge and enhance their research skills
• Assist faculty and librarians in communicating with students about research and critical approaches to information
• Equip faculty and librarians with a discipline-specific understanding of “information literacy” which can be useful in discussions with administrators, curriculum committees, and accreditation teams
• Facilitate faculty-librarian communication about information literacy goals and provide opportunities for wider discussion of these issues
• Inform the teaching and consulting that librarians provide anthropology and sociology students
• Help students understand what is expected of them in specific terms for research and writing in these two disciplines

The sociologists-librarians team is very interested in your comments and whether or how these standards resonate with sociology faculty. Please consider any or all of the following questions:

Thinking of the kind of research you want your anthropology or sociology students to do, are important areas missing from this draft? If so, what are they? Do you have specific examples of research skills or situations to share that might enrich the document with elements you value? If students could perform the "key behaviors” identified in the document, do you think they would be doing better anthropology or sociology research and writing better papers? Are the standards overly ambitious? Realistic? Attainable (e.g., via collaboration with librarians and other faculty and via the curriculum)?

Standards for Library Literacy in Sociology

The four standards build from basic to more advanced, as do the key behaviors for success identified for each standard. Likewise, students will learn the necessary skills incrementally as each successive information-seeking and research experience provides opportunities for learning. Local institutions, academic departments, and curricular committees will decide how and when students are introduced to the concepts and skills that enable them to meet the standards, and at what point in the major or a graduate degree each standard should be partially or fully met.

The standards are written in such a way as to make it possible to assess whether students can accomplish the “key behaviors.” The standards can therefore be used in department assessments and department/program reviews. They can also be used in conjunction with the ASA recommendations on the undergraduate sociology major (McKinney, Howery, Strand, Kain, & Berheide, 2004. Liberal Learning and the Sociology Major), the ASA’s shared learning outcomes in anthropology and sociology (Kain, Wagenaar, & Howery, 2006. Models and Best Practices for Joint Sociology-Anthropology Programs), and similar statements on learning in or education for anthropology and sociology.

Standard One—Know what kind of information is needed
What the student needs to do:
1. Define and articulate the information needed.
2. Identify a variety of formats and sources in which anthropological and sociological information may appear.
3. Consider the costs and benefits of acquiring the needed information.

Standard Two—Access needed information effectively, efficiently, and ethically
What the student needs to do:
1. Select the most appropriate investigative methods and information retrieval systems for accessing the needed information.
2. Construct, implement, and refine well-designed search strategies that use a variety of methods to find information.
3. Keep track of the information and its sources.

Standard Three—Evaluate information and its sources critically; Incorporate selected information into knowledge base and value system
What the student needs to do:
1. Summarize the main ideas to be extracted from the information gathered and synthesize main ideas to construct new concepts.
2. Apply appropriate criteria for evaluating both the information and its source.
3. Compare new knowledge with prior knowledge to determine the value added, contradictions, or other unique characteristics of the information and take steps to reconcile differences.

Standard Four—Use information effectively and ethically to accomplish a specific purpose
What the student needs to do:
1. Apply new and prior information to the planning, creation, and revision of a particular product or performance.

In the full document, available on the ASA website, the standards have considerably more information. Each one includes “Key behaviors for success,” which provides criteria for assessment. Each has examples of library sources relevant to the standard, so faculty and librarians can map ways to expose students to the fullest range of sources. Finally and significantly, each standard addresses the ethical, sociocultural, and legal dimensions such that students will have clear guidance about proper professional practice.

Please read these guidelines in full on the website, give us your feedback, and send in the assignments and exercises you use in enhancing sociology students’ library literacy.

Susan Macicak macicak@mail.utexas.edu; Triveni Kuchi kuchi@rci.rutgers.edu; Edward L. Kain kaine@southwestern.edu; Carla B. Howery howery@asanet.org

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