October 2011 — October is Information Literacy Awareness Month!

In 2009, President Barack Obama designated October as Information Literacy Awareness Month.  The official proclamation notes the challenges of negotiating 21^st Century information overload and the significance of teaching information literacy to help students “be adept in the skills necessary to effectively navigate the Information Age.”

Information literacy integrates several key 21st century skills that provide students with the tools needed to access, evaluate and use information sources effectively and ethically – and to be successful in educational and workplace environments by empowering them as learners and workers to become informed decision makers.

Recent studies such as the ERIAL Project: Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries have highlighted some common roadblocks students experience during resource discovery, such as:

• uncertainty about effective research concepts and strategies,
• reliance on search engine authority,
• inability to effectively evaluate sources, and a
• lack of awareness of how or why to ask for help.

The UCF libraries provide many ways to integrate information literacy concepts and skills into your courses, including:

• Twelve information literacy modules (http://infolit.ucf.edu/faculty)
• Library instruction sessions (http://library.ucf.edu/Reference/Instruction/)
• Embedded librarians in your webcourses (contact Elizabeth Killingsworth)
• Research consultations (http://library.ucf.edu/Reference/ResearchConsultations/Default.asp)

We encourage you during Information Literacy Awareness Month to contact us about ways you can incorporate information literacy concepts and skills into your courses. You can consult the Information Literacy web site at  http://infolit.ucf.edu or contact us at infolit@mail.ucf.edu