Our Mission
The mission of the Stevens-German Library Information Literacy Program is to help members of the Hartwick Community develop skills that will support their learning and research needs while at Hartwick College and beyond. With this program, we hope to provide access to the enormous variety of print and digital resources available through our library gateway. We also encourage collaboration between faculty and library staff in order to integrate information literacy competencies into the curriculum. We understand that library instruction is less effective and less meaningful when it is not taught in conjunction with the curriculum.
Our Goal
Our goal is to insure that students graduating from Hartwick College are prepared to negotiate effectively and independently the world of information and to make sound judgments about its use and quality. The information literacy program at Hartwick is designed to help students to develop competencies and skills that have been identified by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools. According to the Middle States Association Information Literacy is:
| "an intellectual framework for identifying, finding, understanding, evaluating and using information. It includes determining the nature and extent of needed information; accessing information effectively and efficiently; evaluating critically information and its sources; incorporating selected information in the learner's knowledge base and value system; using information effectively to accomplish a specific purpose; understanding the economic, legal and social issues surrounding the use of information and information technology; and observing laws, regulations, and institutional policies related to the access and use of information." | |
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(Middle States Commission on Higher Education, Characteristics of Excellence in Higher Education: Eligibility Requirements and Standards for Accreditation Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Higher Education: Philadelphia 2002, pg. 32.) |
We plan to develop a program in which we have regular contacts with first year students in a brief course in information literacy for all incoming freshmen. A course will be designed to teach students basic library and research skills that would serve as a foundation for their academic careers at Hartwick, and as the basis for developing the competencies that will make our students information literate adults after they graduate. The freshman year course will then be followed by further contacts at other points in a student's career, including advanced library instruction for required classes in particular disciplines, like History Methods or Quantitative Analysis in Sociology; instruction in RefWorks; and a special consultation with a reference librarian for students who are doing senior thesis research.
The Program
Currently, the program includes four components.
ONE:
The library staff provides basic orientations to the library that cover the Library of Congress system, searching the Hartwick Library catalog, using the reference section of the library, the differences between keyword searching and subject searching, and an introduction to some of the larger, multidisciplinary periodical indices. These introductory sessions are designed for freshmen and sophomores.
TWO:
The library staff provides specialized, advanced library orientation sessions for upper division classes with primarily juniors and seniors. Often these classes are designed to support advanced work for particular majors, including either research methods classes or classes that provide a foundation for senior thesis research. These sessions are more advanced than the basic orientation, and they include specialized instruction for particular disciplines using particular research tools. The emphasis for these sessions is on group exercises and interactive learning, unless class size is prohibitive. We are eager to collaborate with faculty to design exercises and activities that support the research project that students are doing for the class.
THREE:
The library staff provides tutorials in RefWorks, a bibliographic manager that enables students to develop their own database of citations for research projects and papers that they are assigned. Students can also use RefWorks to format their papers and footnotes. Instruction in RefWorks is designed to support academic integrity, discourage plagiarism and encourage awareness of the legal and ethical use of information.
FOUR:
As a capstone of the Information Literacy program, the library staff offers a special consultation session with any student working on their senior thesis. The library has offered this specialized service for close to ten years. This fall, we surveyed students who availed themselves of this service and their response was very positive. The service is designed to support a required component of the curriculum, but it is tailored to the needs and interests of particular individuals.
To schedule a class you may either/or:
Use the Online Request Form
Email: reference@hartwick.edu
Call: x4440
Library Web Team
Updated 8/30/07
